by Håkan Nesser
He thought the darkness in there among all the trees and bushes felt almost like a sort of embrace, and the silence was striking. The park is listening, he thought as he proceeded slowly… Further into the heart of darkness — that was an image that seemed unusually apt. Mahler used to claim that nature is alive during the night. During the day she sleeps and allows herself to be observed: but during the night she comes to life, and invites you to go out there and really feel her presence.
Absolutely right, no doubt about it. Van Veeteren shook his head to break that chain of thought and get away from all that verbosity. Tossed up inside his head and turned right when he came to a fork, and after a minute found himself in front of the statue of Hugo Maertens. It was lit up not very brightly by a single spotlight in the flower bed that surrounded the heavy pedestal, and he wondered why. Tourists in the park at night? Hardly. He checked his watch.
Ten to four.
Action? The only effective antidote? Give me a bit of space in which to act then, Mother Nature! Release me from captivity!
He shrugged, and lit a cigarette.
I’m just wandering around in the night in order not to go mad, he thought. For no other reason. Then he heard a twig breaking somewhere out there in the darkness. So I’m not alone, he thought. Animals and lunatics wander about during the night.
By three o’clock he felt unable to wait any longer. He went out to the garage, slung the plastic carrier bag on the passenger seat and clambered into the car. Started the engine and began the drive to the town centre. He didn’t meet a single car all the way along the unlit road, and as he passed by the concrete culvert he thought no more about it than he would have done about any other familiar old landmark. There was nothing to think about it. What had happened seemed now to be so far in the past that it was beyond recall. He couldn’t remember it. Even if he’d wanted to.
He turned left after the Alexander Bridge, followed Zwille as far as the Pixner Brewery and came up to Randers Park on its southern side. Parked outside the entrance where the minigolf courses were situated — they were not open at this time of night, of course. Nor at this time of year. He remained sitting in the car for a while. It was just short of half past three. The park looked dark and brooding, lost in its own deep winter slumbers. Nature closes down at night, he thought, and he wondered why his opponent had chosen this particular place. Did he live nearby, or was it the very inaccessibility of the place that had been decisive? If so that indicated excessive caution: at this time of night there must be hundreds of empty rubbish bins that were easier to get to. Last time he had chosen to carry out the transaction in a restaurant, with an abundance of possible witnesses, so tonight’s venue may have been chosen to avoid that.
There would be no assistant to collect the bag tonight. It would be the blackmailer himself, and he would know that his victim was of a different calibre than he had thought from the start. A very different calibre.
The thought almost made him smile, and no doubt the fact that he could sit here in his car and wait in the darkness without feeling worried at all indicated stability and self-control. If the blackmailer didn’t accept his conditions, the result could be that the police would be knocking on his door as soon as tomorrow morning. In just a few hours from now. It was not impossible.
He felt the package. Wondered whether his opponent would be able to tell immediately that it didn’t contain all the money he was expecting, or would he only find out when he got home? The two old newspapers he had torn up and stuffed into the plastic carrier bag were not intended to create the illusion of money. They were merely to give it a certain amount of bulk.
Two old newspapers and an envelope.
Five grand and a request for a delay of three days — that is what his opponent would receive for his night’s work.
The amount was carefully considered. It was exactly half of what had been demanded the previous time, and he would never receive any more. He would believe that 200,000 would be waiting for him on Thursday night instead, and surely he would swallow the bait? Three extra days to wait plus a bonus of 5,000 — what the hell did he have in the way of choice? Go to the police and collect nothing at all? Hardly likely.
He checked his watch. A quarter to four. He picked up the carrier bag, got out of the car and entered the park.
He had checked up earlier on the precise location of the Hugo Maertens statue, and that proved to be a good move. The darkness inside the overgrown park made it feel like a black hole, and it was not until he glimpsed the faint beam from the spotlight aimed at the statue that he was sure he hadn’t gone astray. He paused briefly before stepping out into the little opening where paths converged from four or five different directions.
He stood there listening to the silence. Thought that his opponent was presumably somewhere in the vicinity: perhaps he was also standing on tenterhooks with his mobile phone out there in the darkness, waiting. Or perhaps in a nearby telephone box.
Billiard balls, he thought again. Balls rolling towards each other, but avoiding a collision by no more than a couple of millimetres. Their paths cross, but the clash is avoided by minutes. Or even seconds.
Ridiculously short fractions of time.
He walked over to the rubbish bin and pressed down the plastic carrier bag.
On the way back to Boorkhejm he wondered what would happen if his car broke down. It was not a particularly pleasant thought. Standing by the side of the road and trying to hail some early bird of a driver to ask for help. It would be difficult to explain what he’d been doing, out at that time, to a police officer, especially if they started investigating. Supposedly off work sick, but on his way back home at half past four in the morning. And the back seat covered in traces of blood, which would hardly escape a trained eye.
Not to mention the consequences if he wasn’t at home to answer the telephone. No, not a pleasant thought at all.
But his car didn’t break down. Of course it didn’t. His four-year-old Audi performed immaculately today as on every other day. It had just been an idea he’d played with. He had lots of ideas these days… Bizarre thoughts that had never troubled him before, and he sometimes wondered why they had suddenly turned up in his head. Just now.
He parked the car in the garage, took one-and-a-half tablets and crept down into bed to wait for the call. Wondered rather vaguely if the blackmailer was intending to say anything, or if he would simply hang up. The latter seemed more likely, of course. There was no reason to risk the slight possibility of being unmasked. One’s voice is always naked. It was more likely that he would ring back later — when he had checked the contents of the bag and read the message. Much more likely. When he realized that he hadn’t been paid as much as he’d expected for all his efforts. For all his evil machinations.
If his clock radio was accurate the call came at exactly five seconds past five. He let it ring three times before answering — if for no other reason, to demonstrate that he wasn’t sitting by the telephone, tense and nervous. It could be important to make that clear.
He picked up the receiver and said his name.
For a few seconds he could hear the presence of the caller, then the line went dead.
Okay, he thought. Let’s hear what you have to say for yourself next time.
He rolled over in bed, adjusted the pillows and tried to sleep.
He succeeded very well. When he was woken up by the telephone ringing again, it was a quarter past eleven.
During the brief moment that passed before he picked up the receiver he began to realize that something had gone wrong. That things had not proceeded as he had expected. What had happened? Why had his opponent waited for several hours? Why had…?
It was Smaage.
‘How are you, brother?’
‘Ill,’ he managed to say.
‘Yes, I’d heard. The priest curses and the doctor’s ill. What sort of an age are we living in?’
He laughed in a way that made a rasping noise in the
receiver.
‘Just a touch of flu. But it looks as though I’ll be off all week.’
‘Oh dear. We thought we’d have a little session on Friday evening, as I said. Will that be too much for you? At Canaille.’
He coughed and managed to produce a few heavy breaths. They sounded pretty convincing.
‘I think so,’ he said. ‘But I’ll be back at work by Monday.’
When he had said that, and when Smaage had expressed the hope that he’d soon be well again and hung up, it occurred to him that his prognosis had been one hundred per cent wrong.
Whatever happened — no matter how the balls rolled over the next few days — one thing was absolutely clear. Only one. He would not be going to the hospital on Monday.
He would never set foot inside the place again.
There was something extremely attractive about that thought.
24
‘Right then, let’s kick off this brainstorming session,’ said Reinhart, placing his pipe, tobacco pouch and lighter in a neat row on his desk in front of him. ‘I’ll be meeting The Chief Inspector this evening, and as you can well imagine he’s more than a little interested in how things are going for us. I intend to give him a tape recording of this run-through, so that I have at least something to deliver. So think about what you say.’
He pressed the button and started the recorder running. Immediately, Van Veeteren’s presence was felt in the room as something almost tangible, and a respectful silence ensued.
‘Hmm, okay,’ said Reinhart. ‘Tuesday, the eighth of December, fifteen hundred hours. Run-through of the cases Erich Van Veeteren and Vera Miller. We’ll take them both even though the connection is far from definite. Let’s hear your comments.’
‘Have we anything more than Meusse’s guess to suggest that the two cases are linked?’ wondered deBries.
‘Nothing,’ said Reinhart. ‘Apart from the fact that our esteemed pathologist’s guesses can usually be taken as dead-certs. But I suppose even he will have to get something wrong one of these days.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Moreno.
Reinhart opened the zip of his tobacco pouch and sniffed the contents before continuing.
‘Let’s start with Vera Miller,’ he suggested. ‘We have no new technical evidence relevant to her case. Unfortunately. Apart from the time being slightly more precise now. She evidently died some time between a quarter past two and half past three in the early hours of Sunday morning. It’s difficult to say when she was dumped out there at Korrim. If she’d been there long, you might think she ought to have been discovered sooner: but we must remember that the body was hidden and there’s hardly any traffic on those roads. Not at the weekend at this time of year, at least. Oh, we’ve spoken again to Andreas Wollger
… That is, Inspector Moreno and I have spoken to him. The gods should be aware that he didn’t have much to tell us — like everybody else we’ve talked to. But at least he’s begun to admit that their marriage wasn’t entirely idyllic. I think in fact that he’s only just beginning to realize that… He seems to be a bit handicapped when it comes to the labyrinth of love — something else the gods ought to be aware of.’
‘He was thirty-six when he got married,’ Moreno explained. ‘He doesn’t seem to have had many relationships earlier in his life. If any.’
‘A peculiar chap,’ said Rooth.
‘Yes, he gives the impression of being a bit of a wimp,’ said Reinhart, ‘and I don’t think he’s the type who would commit murder on grounds of jealousy. I suspect he’d prefer to cut off his testicles and give them away as a peace offering if a crisis arose. He has an alibi until one o’clock on Sunday morning, which was when he left a restaurant he’d been at with a good friend… And who the hell has an alibi for the small hours?’
‘I do,’ said Rooth. ‘My fish are my witnesses.’
‘So we can clear him of any suspicion — for the moment, at least,’ said Reinhart.
‘How many does that leave, then?’ asked deBries. ‘Assuming we can exclude Rooth as well.’
Reinhart looked as if he had a retort on the tip of his tongue, but he glanced at the tape recorder and suppressed it.
‘Perhaps Rooth can tell us what Vera Miller’s mother had to say for herself,’ he said instead.
Rooth sighed.
‘Not so much as the shadow of a chicken’s fart,’ he said. ‘To make things worse she was a domestic science teacher and hysterical about calories. I wasn’t even allowed to eat my Danish pastry in peace and quiet. Not my type.’
‘We all feel sorry for you,’ said deBries. ‘But I have to say I think we’re missing something in this connection.’
‘What?’ said Moreno.
‘Well, listen to this,’ said deBries, leaning forward over the table. ‘We know that Vera Miller was two-timing her wimp of a husband. We know there must be some other bloke involved. Why don’t we make an appeal via the media? Issue a Wanted notice for the bastard in the newspapers and on the telly — I mean, somebody must have seen them out together… If they’d been carrying on for four or five weekends in a row.’
‘That’s not certain,’ said Reinhart. ‘I can’t believe that they were prancing around in pubs and restaurants. Or canoodling in public. Besides… Besides, there are certain ethical aspects we must take into account.’
‘You don’t say?’ said deBries. ‘And what might they be?’
‘I know that this isn’t your strong point,’ said Reinhart, ‘but we haven’t had it confirmed yet. The infidelity, that is. Her mythical courses might have been a cover for something quite different — though I have to say I find it hard to understand what. But in any case, she’s been murdered, and I think we ought to be a bit careful about adding adultery to her obituary. In public, that is… Bearing in mind the feelings of her husband and other next of kin. I wouldn’t want to be held responsible if it turned out that we’d hung her out to dry in the press, but then discovered that she was innocent.’
‘All right,’ said deBries with a shrug, ‘I give in. Did you say it was a matter of ethics?’
‘Exactly,’ said Reinhart, pressing the pause button on the tape recorder. ‘I think it’s time for a coffee break now.’
‘We don’t have much that’s new regarding Erich Van Veeteren either, I’m afraid,’ said Reinhart when froken Katz had left the room. ‘A few interviews of course, mainly conducted by Detective-Sergeant Bollmert who’s been out and about. Anything of interest?’
‘Not as far as I can see,’ said Bollmert, fiddling nervously with a propelling pencil. ‘I’ve spoken to welfare officers and probation officers and old friends of Erich’s, but it was mainly people who haven’t had much to do with him in recent years. He’d been walking the straight and narrow, as you know. I mentioned Vera Miller to the ones I spoke to as well, but nobody took the bait there either.’
‘Yes, that seems to be the way things are,’ said Reinhart. ‘No winning tickets. You’d think that somebody — just one individual would do — would be acquainted with both our victims… from a purely statistical point of view. We’ve spoken to hundreds of people, for God’s sake. But no…’
‘Unless of course the murderer is acquainted with both of them,’ Rooth pointed out, ‘but is being crafty and not letting on.’
‘Not impossible,’ said Reinhart offhandedly. ‘Incidentally I’ve spent some time trying to find a plausible link between Erich Van Veeteren and fru Miller — how they might theoretically be connected — but I have to say it’s not easy. Mainly airy-fairy hypotheses… Cock and bull stories…’
He made eye contact with Moreno, who smiled and shook her head: he understood that she shared his opinion. He raised his hand to switch off the tape recorder, but paused. Jung was waving a pencil and looking thoughtful.
‘With regard to hypotheses,’ he said, ‘I’ve been looking into Rooth’s hypothesis.’
‘Rooth?’ said Reinhart, raising his eyebrows. ‘Hypothesis?’
‘Which one
do you mean?’ wondered Rooth.
‘The postage stamp gang,’ said deBries.
‘No, the stethoscope syndrome,’ said Jung.
Now Reinhart switched off the tape recorder.
‘What the devil are you on about?’ he said. ‘Wait while I wind the tape back.’
‘Sorry,’ said deBries.
‘I’m serious,’ said Jung. ‘It’s like this…’
He waited until Reinhart had pressed the record button again.
‘What Rooth suggested was that this bloke — always assuming that Vera Miller did have another bloke — would most probably be a doctor. You know what they say about nurses and men in white coats and all that…’
He paused and looked round to see if there was any reaction.
‘Go on,’ said Reinhart.
‘Well, I thought it might be worth looking into whether she might have been having an affair with one of the doctors at the Gemejnte. Nearly everybody who’s unfaithful does it with somebody at work, according to what I’ve read… So I went to hear what Liljana had to say this morning.’
‘Liljana?’ said Reinhart. ‘Who the hell is Liljana?’
He could have sworn that Jung blushed.
‘One of Vera Miller’s workmates,’ he said. ‘I spoke to her for the first time yesterday.’
‘I’ve seen her,’ said Rooth. ‘A veritable bombshell… From the Balkans as well, but not in that way…’
Reinhart glared at him and then at the tape recorder, but let it pass.
‘Go on,’ he said again, ‘What did she have to say?’
‘Not a lot, I’m afraid,’ said Jung. ‘But she reckons it’s not impossible that Vera Miller had something going with a doctor. She had the impression that another colleague had hinted at that, but she wasn’t absolutely sure.’
‘Another colleague?’ said Moreno. ‘And what did she have to say? I assume it’s a she.’