Alphabet House

by Adler-Olsen, Jussi

  Then he took several deep breaths, holding the last one. This was the reward that followed every round. Total concentration and serenity. All his pores open. At moments like this he became aware of his surroundings.

  Afterwards he closed his eyes and went through the whole routine backwards, movement by movement. When he got back to the start he heard clearly how the steps of the visitors behind him had sounded. He recalled all the movements in the room.

  The stranger’s shoes had had hard soles. The taps on the floor had been short, the steps many and light. The person had stood still while the director was on the intercom. And then they had exchanged words again.

  The man in the big armchair quickly struck his knees together and let his eyes glide out of focus. He exhaled slowly between his teeth, then suddenly took another deep breath. They’d been talking together. Both of them had uttered sounds that felt obtrusive and jarring, now that he recalled them. He focused his eyes again and saw a new set of runners psyching themselves up for the next race. Five of them had shoes with three stripes, two with only one stripe. Next he counted the officials at the barrier. This time there were only four. After the third re-count he began breathing more rapidly and looked upwards.

  Some of the words refused to let go of him.

  He looked at the screen again and began from the beginning by wriggling his feet. This time he left out half his routine, got off the chair and took hold of his ankles. When he heard the steps in the corridor he let go again and straightened up with a jerk. No one had ever caught him carrying out these rituals.

  Not until the pock-faced man sat down beside him did he move his head. He allowed his visitor to stroke the back of his hand and counted how many times he did so, as he’d done so often before. This time his visitor was more subdued than usual. ‘Come, my friend,’ was all he said. ‘We’re going to see Hermann Müller.’ Then he gave the hand a squeeze. ‘Come along, Gerhart, we’re going to have our Saturday coffee.’

  It was the first time in many years that the name seemed wrong to James.

  Chapter 40

  Not until he set foot on the path in Stadtgarten did it dawn on Bryan that the flowers he’d intended for James’ grave were now standing in Frau Rehmann’s office. After her conversation on the intercom she’d become remarkably more reserved as she showed Bryan around.

  A few minutes afterwards they’d bidden each other farewell.

  The entire venture had been in vain. His wish to learn more about Kröner, or Hans Schmidt, as he now called himself, had not been fulfilled. There had been no opportunity to ask the right questions. Any attempt to couple EEC subsidies with questions of a semi-private nature would have been running a risk. Frau Rehmann would instantly have been puzzled and known something was wrong. Soon it would reach Kröner’s ears. Bryan had no need of such a confrontation.

  He would seek out Pock-Face when the time was ripe.

  All in all, the visit had been a shot in the dark. A waste of time.

  As soon as he entered the park Bryan bent down and picked his flower – a crummy, half-withered, nettle-like purple object he’d been able to pull up by its roots without incurring the park attendant’s disapproval. He straightened the petals a little. This insignificant growth symbolized his feelings and loneliness better than any store-bought bouquet.

  The trip up in the aerial tram seemed endless. The swaying of the gondola made him feel nauseous. A queasiness that still hadn’t passed when, according to Petra’s instructions, he began following the moss-covered, cobbled path leading up to the colonnade. The artificial Greek columns hugged the slope like some kind of anachronism. They were ringed by low walls topped by iron railings.

  War memorials in Germany are not normally distinguishable by their anonymity. The gigantic angular column at the bottom of Schlossberg was excellent proof of this.

  Memorials like this were to be found all over the country, and common to them all was a clear indication as to why they had been erected. Therefore, after having examined every surface of the edifice several times, Bryan wondered why he hadn’t found so much as a small brass plate or the tiniest other sign to indicate the purpose for which the structure had been built, or indeed that it was even a burial ground.

  He squatted down, resting his arms on his thighs. Then he tipped over onto his knees and scooped up a handful of earth.

  It was damp and dark.

  Chapter 41

  Precisely forty-five minutes before, a broad and heavy figure had trodden the same path up the slope.

  The last steps through the thicket had made him breathe more heavily. It was at least five years since Horst Lankau had been there, and before that, much longer. These columns had witnessed many stolen moments of love. Had Lankau grown up in the town he would doubtlessly have had a different attitude towards the place.

  At the moment he hated it.

  Throughout three summers his eldest daughter, Patricia, had been crazy about a kid whose family unfortunately had the habit of spending a couple of weeks of their impoverished vacation at a campground south of Schlossberg. From these fluttering tents it was all too easy for the infatuated couple to run up the steps at Schwabentor and along the path to the Grecian-like monument where Lankau now found himself.

  The youngster’s third summer with his daughter was to be his last summer in Freiburg and Patricia had never mentioned him since.

  Lankau had caught the lovers in the act – with their trousers down, as it were – and ever since then the boy hadn’t been capable of similar activities. Lankau had been forced to pay dearly, but the kid’s parents had been satisfied with the compensation.

  Then the fool could at least get himself an education.

  Now Patricia was well married and the other two daughters were too smart to try the same stunt.

  His son could do what he liked.

  Climbing to the platform that constituted the roof of the colonnade, Lankau could clearly see that others still sought out their little adventures here, judging by all the limp, elongated condoms lying vulgarly up against the walls.

  A strong contrast to their orgiastic purpose.

  It would soon be half-past three. Horst Lankau didn’t mind waiting. He’d been thirsting for revenge for years.

  Arno von der Leyen had suddenly been swallowed up by nothingness that fateful night on the Rhine. Despite Lankau’s persistent attempts and excellent connections, his efforts to find the merest trace of the man’s subsequent fate had proven futile.

  Day in and day out he’d had to live with the physical scars he’d acquired in that crucial clash. He was no longer a handsome man. His closed-up eye made his face look crooked. Women didn’t care for him and looked away when he tried to allure them. Every single month his compressed neck vertebrae gave him headaches that made life miserable for both himself and his family. The shot in his chest had ripped away muscles, making it difficult for him to raise his left arm higher than his waist and upsetting his stroke up the fairway.

  Finally, and worst of all, he was plagued by the wound in his soul, known as hatred. It was a source of eternal demoralization and torment.

  For the sake of finally avenging all these atrocities, he could easily wait a bit longer.

  Lankau had already localized his victim as he’d bent down to pick the flower at the foot of the pedestrian bridge. He sat down heavily on the roof of the colonnade and laid his binoculars beside his pistol.

  The weapon before him was one of the worst ever put into mass production. It was said to have the lives of more friends than foes on its conscience. The 94-Type, or the 94 Shiki Kenju as it correctly was called, was a rare example of how even the Japanese could err when it came to precision mechanics.

  The pistol was unreliable. When fully loaded, the weapon was liable to go off with a slight nudge to the safety catch, which was placed in a handy but extremely exposed position, just above the stock.

  On the other hand, this was the only pistol in Lankau’s collection that was
equipped with a silencer.

  The first time he had seen it was at the home of one of his oldest business connections, a Japanese man for whom time stood still in order to perpetually honour traditional rituals. One summer day in Toyohashi, Lankau’s host had proudly unwrapped it from an old rag and told him how well it had protected him throughout his life, despite its bad reputation.

  As the result of Lankau’s obvious envy, he had received it as a gift only a month later in a shipment of mixed cargo.

  Japanese hospitality had dictated that his host make this gesture to maintain his honour.

  But afterwards they never did business together again.

  Perhaps the Japanese businessman had expected Lankau to return it with a polite protest.

  But he hadn’t done so.

  The weapon had been oiled and tested regularly. The sound of the silenced shots bore no resemblance to the plops usually heard in films. They simply sounded like shots, short and very quiet, but shots nevertheless. Lankau looked around. There was nothing to be seen within a fifty foot radius. The activity over at Dattler’s – the town’s proud landmark and one of the best restaurants in the region – was quite normal. It was seldom that anyone felt the urge to wander about the rough outskirts of Schlossberg at this time of year.

  Lankau had to grant Peter Stich that.

  The broad-faced man looked down the incline and adjusted his defective eye socket. The aerial cableway seemed incredibly slow that day.

  Once the gondola finally moved out of view behind the trees, he seized the pistol and lay down flat on the roof. In his experience, the target had to be very close in order to ensure that the Shiki Kenju fired both accurately and lethally. He had tried it out on animals. Since he’d grown overweight through the years, he could no longer run after his prey.

  The prey had to come to him, and now it was getting close.

  The man was visible for a second before disappearing beneath the treetops. Arno von der Leyen still had the suppleness of youth about him. Naturally he was different from how Lankau remembered, but it was him. Lankau sensed the sweetness on his breath, as though his bloodlust had already found its release. He’d long wanted to meet this man again under circumstances like these.

  Unsuspecting, and within firing range.

  The footsteps in the building beneath Lankau were slow and hesitant. Apparently Arno von der Leyen was looking for Gerhart Peuckert’s grave. Lankau breathed quietly. You could never tell with a man like Leyen. This would be their final confrontation, one way or another, and Lankau was taking no chances. If he could simply get this demon into close range, the matter would be settled. He would shoot without hesitation.

  The shouts from the paths above him came from different directions. The voices were young, but not those of children. Lankau cursed inwardly. Young people were good at creating sudden disturbances. They had no respect for natural obstacles and could come crashing out of the undergrowth before you knew it.

  The crunching steps below him came to a halt.

  Chapter 42

  The damp patches on his knees had been spreading gradually. Sighing plaintively, Bryan leaned back into a squatting position as he tried to take in the landscape below him. The rooftops and green oases in the flat, low-lying countryside merged into one. He hadn’t wept like this for years. In the end he had fallen to his knees.

  The carefree laughter of the youths further up the slope, the pungent smell of resin and the neat landscape before him provoked the most intense loneliness he’d ever felt, for there was no trace of the grave inscription that was supposed to memorialise his best friend.

  Bryan bit his upper lip and raised his eyes, cursing himself for not having taken Petra’s address. Maybe he had misunderstood her instructions. Maybe she had expressed herself imprecisely or misled him on purpose.

  He stood up, letting his shoulders fall. In this lucid landscape with the town’s hectic activity below, he lost his desire to make sense of it all.

  This was James’ resting place. He was sure of it.

  He bowed his head silently in memory of his friend. Then he carefully smoothed out the petals of the wilting flower and looked around for a suitable place to place it. He would have laid it on top of a gravestone, had there been one.

  He stood for a moment at the end of the colonnade and looked beyond the small closed building in the centre of the memorial area. A small path disappeared into the foliage a little way up the slope before him as it wound its way upwards and around the back of the memorial. The brown soil and the naked, worn roots indicated it was still in use.

  Here was an area where he had yet to look.

  A few steps up the path he heard the unexpected sound. An insignificant click, almost inaudible. It was a sound that had no business being there.

  Suspicion seldom meets resistance. Unlike positive feelings, a suspicion can easily present itself unconditionally and without warning, and even without basis. But in this case there was basis enough.

  Petra Wagner, Mariann Devers and Frau Rehmann: At one time or another they’d all had contact with Kröner – a man who had once sought to take his life and certainly had no wish to be jerked back into the past.

  And then there was this sound. This tiny click. Everything could be made to fit with the encouragement of tangible, conclusive suspicion.

  So Bryan stopped, squatted down cautiously in the vegetation bordering the path, and waited.

  Like a devil that will not be confined to hell, the shape appeared in Bryan’s field of vision, less than five yards away. The figure stood for a moment on the narrow platform leading from the roof of the building and scrutinized the path beside which Bryan was crouching. And then Bryan recognised the man.

  He had never imagined he would see this repulsive broad face again. Nothing on this earth could have surprised him more. The cold current of the Rhine should have been his grave for nearly thirty years. Bryan recalled the sight of him disappearing into the waves, wounded and drained of stamina.

  His presence was the materialization of a nightmare that had never been dreamt.

  Even though the man was more corpulent than ever, the years had treated him kindly. People with weathered skin and colour in their cheeks can look youthful even in old age. This would have also applied to the broad-faced man, if it hadn’t been for his almost empty eye socket and the white knuckles tightening their grip on a lethal weapon.

  The likelihood of this colossus walking past Bryan without noticing him was negligible. He carefully withdrew his foot into the shelter of the undergrowth and put his face to the ground, at the same time placing his hands under his chest, ready to spring up like a jack-in-the-box.

  He didn’t see Lankau’s shoe until it was in reach of his arm. Despite Bryan’s precisely aimed blow, he didn’t succeed in knocking the heavy man’s leg out from under him. Almost instantaneously Lankau whirled around violently to confront him, but the impulsive movement made him step back off the flat bit of path and slide awkwardly downwards, still standing upright.

  But he fired nevertheless.

  The impact of the projectile took Bryan by surprise, as did the noise of the shot. He felt no pain at all, nor could he tell where he’d been hit. The echo of the muffled shot had scarcely subsided before Bryan hurled himself at the tottering figure, now almost doing the splits with one leg up on the path and the other hugging the side of the slope. Then came the second shot. The tree behind Bryan received it hollowly, its bark opening in a yellowish gape. Bryan grabbed instantly for Lankau’s face, kicking him savagely in the chest at the same time.

  The cumbersome figure stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment. Not a sound escaped him, in spite of the pain the kick must have caused. Then he collapsed and fell backwards down the slope, clinging to Bryan. Only the soft undergrowth prevented Bryan from losing consciousness. After the heavy man had tumbled over him several times, the entangled bodies finally came to a halt in the vegetation bordering on the path at the end of the colo
nnade. Unable to move, they lay side by side in the middle of the thicket, gasping and staring each other in the face. Thin streams of blood trickled down from the scratches in Lankau’s head and flowed into the eyelashes of his sound eye. In falling, he had clutched the pistol so frantically to his face that the notch of the sight on the barrel had ripped his flesh. He kept on blinking, but no matter how much he jerked his head he was almost blinded by his own blood. Now the weapon lay less than ten inches away in the churned-up earth.

  Bryan reared back his head and began butting the broad-faced man until his own brain exploded in a series of electric flashes.

  Then his pursuer uttered a sound for the first time. Bryan tumbled over the huge body and grabbed for the gun, but his head was suddenly and unexpectedly wrenched backwards by a firm grip on the hair at the back of his neck.

  Lankau’s rescue had come from behind. Several youths were standing around, screaming unintelligible abuse, the girls looking on in rapture behind the boys. They’d come in search of excitement and, as usual, the hiding places in the colonnade hadn’t disappointed them.

  Two of the young men took hold of Lankau, hauled him to his feet and started brushing him down. With blood trickling down his face he put his hand to his bruised head and began looking around distractedly for his weapon, talking non-stop to the youngsters. They let go of Bryan’s hair. Without a word, Bryan edged clumsily backwards up the slope in a cross-legged position. No one saw the weapon slide under him.

  Bryan had no idea what Lankau said to the young people, but he disappeared in a matter of seconds.