Borkmann's Point: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery

by Håkan Nesser

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Just let me have a look at the material I came here to see... it’s a rather delicate matter.”

  “Like hell it is!” He opened a desk drawer and took out a brown folder.

  “Here you are. You’re welcome to the damn thing!”

  Van Veeteren took the folder and wondered for a moment if he ought to read it there and then, on the visitor’s chair, but when he looked at the man in black he knew that the matter was over and done with. Finished! He remembered also that his host had never been one to indulge in superfluous details—conversation and that sort of thing. He stood up, shook hands and left the office.

  The whole visit had taken less than two minutes.

  People who claim I’m bad tempered ought to meet this happy guy, thought Van Veeteren as he hurried down the stairs.

  He crossed the street and opened his car, then took the briefcase from the backseat and put the folder inside it. He looked around. Some fifty yards away, on the corner of the street, was what appeared to be a café sign.

  Just the thing, he thought, and set off for it.

  He waited until the waitress had left before opening the folder on the table in front of him. He leafed through a few pages and nodded. Leafed some pages backward and nodded again.

  Lit a cigarette and started reading from page one.

  He didn’t need to keep going for long. Confirmation came as early as page five; maybe it wasn’t quite what he’d expected, but dammit, it was confirmation even so. He put the papers back in the folder and closed it.

  Well, I’ll be damned, he thought.

  But the motive was far from being clear, of course. What the hell did the other two have to do with all this? How the hell... ?

  Ah, well, it would become clear eventually, no doubt.

  He checked his watch. Just turned one.

  Thursday, September 30. Chief of Police Bausen’s last day but one in office. And all of a sudden, the case was on its way to being solved.

  Just as he’d suspected from the start, it was hardly the result of laborious routine investigations. Just as he’d thought, the solution had come to him more or less out of the blue. It felt a little odd, he had to concede; unfair almost, although there again, it was hardly the first time this kind of thing had happened. He’d seen it all before, and had realized long ago that if there was any profession in which virtue never got its due reward, it was that of police officer.

  Justice has a certain preference for cops who lounge around and think, instead of working their butts off, as Reinhart had once put it.

  But what struck him above all else was how reluctantly he would want to look back on this case in the future. His own contribution was certainly nothing to be proud of. Quite the opposite. Something to draw a line under and then forget immediately, for Christ’s sake.

  Not quite as usual, in other words.

  47

  Something gnawing away from inside? Or a creeping numb-ness? A movement going nowhere?

  Something like that. That’s roughly what it felt like. Insofar as she could feel anything at all.

  The time that still existed was for the fading rhythms and needs in her own body. In this deadening darkness day and night no longer existed; time was split into fragments: She slept and woke up, stayed awake and fell asleep. It wasn’t possible to judge how long anything took; it might be day outside, or it might be night... perhaps she had slept for eight hours, or was it only twenty minutes? Hunger and thirst cropped up merely as faint signals from something that didn’t concern her, but she ate nevertheless from the bowl of bread and fruit that he replenished now and again. Drank from the bottle of water.

  With her hands chained together, her feet too, her mobility was greatly restricted, and not just by the room; she lay curled up under the blankets, almost in the fetal position. The only times she stood up were when she needed to use the bucket...crouching down and groping her way forward. The smell from the bucket had troubled her at first, but soon she no longer noticed it. The overwhelming smell of soil was the only thing she was constantly aware of, the thing that struck her the moment she woke up, that stayed in her consciousness all the time... soil.

  Interrupted only by the pleasant smell of tobacco when he sat in the chair and told her his story.

  The enormous fear she had felt at first had also ebbed away.

  It had vanished and been replaced by something else: a heavy feeling of lethargy and tedium; not hopelessness, perhaps, but an increasingly strong impression that she was some kind of vegetable, a being that was gradually fading away and becoming an apathetic, numb body... a body that was increasingly indifferent to all inner pressures, thoughts and memories. The all-enveloping darkness was eating its way into her, it seemed, slowly and relentlessly penetrating her skin... and yet she realized that this might be her only chance of surviving, her only chance of not going mad. Simply lying there under the blankets, maintaining her bodily warmth as much as possible.

  Letting the dreams and fantasies come and go as they wished, without paying too much attention to them... both when awake and when asleep.

  And not hoping for anything. Not trying to imagine or think about what might be the final outcome. Just lying there.

  Just waiting for him to come back and continue his story.

  About Heinz Eggers and Ernst Simmel.

  “No,” he said, and she could hear him tearing the cellophane off his new pack of cigarettes. “I don’t know if it was already over when she came back from Aarlach. Or if there was still a chance. Of course, it doesn’t make any difference now, afterward, there’s no point in speculating... things turned out the way they did, and that’s that.”

  He lit his cigarette, and the flame from his lighter almost blinded her.

  “She came back, and we didn’t know whether to hope or have doubts. We did both, of course; you can’t carry on living in a state of constant despair, not until you’ve achieved that final insight; but it’s probably still not possible, not even then.

  In any case, she refused to live at home with us. We found an apartment for her in Dünningen. She moved in at the beginning of March; it was only one room and a kitchen, but quite big, even so. Light and clean, on the fifth floor with a view over the sea from the balcony. She was still on the sick list and could only work part-time. Detoxified and attending therapy, so it should have been OK... she worked afternoons at Henkers.

  We discovered later that she couldn’t handle it, but we knew nothing at the time. We didn’t interfere; didn’t want to give the impression that we were checking up on her. It had to be on her terms, not ours, some bloody self-important, know-it-all social worker had insisted. So we kept in the background, stayed out of the way... damn pointless, all that. Anyway, she lived there that spring, and she managed, we thought, but her income, the money she had to have for the things we thought she didn’t need anymore, well, that came from guys like Ernst Simmel. Ernst Simmel . . .”

  He paused and took a deep drag on his cigarette. She watched the glowing point moving around and suddenly felt an urge to smoke herself. Perhaps he would have given her one if she’d asked, but she didn’t dare.

  “One evening at the end of April, I drove out to visit her for some reason or other. I’d hardly been there at all since she’d moved in. I can’t remember why I went; it can’t have been anything especially important, in any case, and it disappeared from my head the moment I got there . . .”

  Another pause, and the cigarette glowed again. He coughed a few times. She leaned her head against the wall and waited. Waited, and knew.

  “I rang the doorbell. It was evidently broken, so I tried the handle... it wasn’t locked, and I went in. Entered the hall and looked around. The bedroom door was half open... I heard noises and couldn’t help looking in. Well, I was able to see him getting full value for his money . . .”

  “Simmel?” she whispered.

  “Yes.”

 
More silence. He cleared his throat and inhaled again.

  Stabbed out the cigarette on the ground, and stamped on the glowing ash with his foot.

  “As I stood in the doorway, our eyes met. She looked straight at me over the shoulder of that shit... they were standing pressed up against the wall. I think that if I’d had a weapon with me at that moment, an ax or a knife or whatever, I’d have killed him there and then. Or maybe I’d have been too paralyzed... those eyes of hers, Brigitte’s eyes as she allowed that man to have his way with her, it was the same look I’d seen once before. I recognized it immediately; she was seven or eight then, and it must have been the first time she’d seen starving, dying children and understood what was involved...some television report from Africa. It was the same eyes that had looked at me all those years ago. The same desperation.

  The same feeling of helplessness when confronted with the evil of the world... I went back home and don’t think I slept a wink for a whole month.”

  He paused and lit another cigarette.

  “Was it the same year that Simmel moved to Spain?” she asked, and was surprised to discover how strong her curiosity was despite everything. To find that she was listening carefully to his story and that she was affected by it as if the wounds were her own... that her own predicament and despair were perhaps no more than a reflection and an example of something far, far greater.

  The totality of suffering in the world down the ages?

  The overall power of evil?

  Or it might just be that damn obstinacy everybody talks about. My obstinacy and peculiar strength... and the fact that I always keep putting off having that baby...

  Or maybe a bit of both? The same thing?

  If that was the case, what the hell did it matter? Her thoughts wandered off and she could no longer find the thread. She clenched her fists, but after a few seconds could no longer feel them. They turned numb and evaporated; in the same inevitable way as her vain efforts to follow a line of thought.

  “Yes,” he said eventually. “It was that same year. He vanished that same summer... came back last spring, as did the other two. Surely it has to be a sign when all three suddenly turn up in Kaalbringen within a few weeks of each other.

  Don’t try to tell me that it’s just a coincidence. It was a sign from Bitte. From Bitte and from Helena, it’s so damn obvious that you can’t possibly ignore it... Will anybody be able to understand that?”

  There was a sudden sharp edge to his voice. Indignation at having been wronged. As if it wasn’t in fact he himself who was behind it all. As if he was not responsible for these murders.

  As if...

  Merely an instrument.

  Something that Wundermaas had said came back to her—possibly not word for word, but the gist—something about there being a necessity behind most murders, a compulsion that was stronger than anything behind other actions; if that was not the case, they would never take place, never need to be carried out.

  If there was an alternative.

  Necessity. Sorrow, determination and necessity... yes, she understood that this was the way it was.

  Sorrow. Determination. Necessity.

  She waited for the continuation, but there was none. Only his heavy breathing that cut through the darkness, and it struck her that it was this very moment, at this second, when time had stood still, that he was making up his mind about her own fate.

  “What are you going to do with me?” she whispered.

  Maybe it was too early. Maybe she didn’t want to give him time to think it through.

  He didn’t answer. He stood up and backed out through the door.

  Closed it and locked it. Shot the bolts.

  Once again she was alone. She listened to his footsteps fading away and huddled up against the wall. Pulled the blankets over her.

  One left, she thought. He has one more to tell me about.

  And then?

  And then?

  48

  If he’d had the ability to see into the future, if only for a few hours, it is possible that he’d have given lunch a miss without more ado. And set off for Kaalbringen as quickly as possible.

  As it was—with the solution of this long drawn-out case clearly within reach—he decided instead to indulge himself with a Canaille aux Prunes at Arno’s Cellar, a little sea-food restaurant he remembered from the occasion more than twenty years earlier when he’d spent a week here on a course.

  In any case, he probably needed a few hours to think things over in peace and quiet; how he directed the final act of this drama was of some significance—of considerable significance, in fact. The Axman needed to be arrested as painlessly as possible, and also as far as possible, the question of motives investigated and clarified. And then there was the problem concerning Inspector Moerk, of course. There were probably plenty of opportunities to put a foot wrong and, to quote Bausen, it was a long time since anything had gone well with this case.

  However, he could think of no better companion than a good meal.

  . . .

  After the pear in brandy and the coffee, he had made up his mind about the various problems—a strategy that seemed to him to have good odds of working and involved as good a chance of avoiding injury to Inspector Moerk as could be hoped.

  Assuming she was still alive, that is. He wanted to believe it, of course, but probabilities didn’t seem to play much of a role in this case.

  Probabilities? he thought. I ought to have known by now.

  It was half past three. He paid his bill, left his corner table and occupied the phone booth in the vestibule.

  Three calls. First to Bausen at home in his nest; then Münster—no answer at the cottage—no doubt he was still on the beach with Synn and the kids. Then Kropke at the police station. This call cost Van Veeteren half an hour; the inspector evidently found it a little difficult to catch on to what was happening, but when they eventually finished the conversation, Van Veeteren had the feeling that everything would work out well, notwithstanding.

  He set off shortly after four o’clock, and he had barely reached Ulming, after a mere seven or eight miles, when he noticed his generator warning light blinking. Before long it was emitting a constant and ominous glow, and matters were not helped by the driver cursing and beating the dashboard with both fists.

  On the contrary, the bastard of a car started coughing and losing speed, and when he came to a service station, he was forced to admit that he had no choice.

  He uttered a few more choice oaths, put on his right-hand blinker and left the highway.

  “A new generator,” said the young mechanic after a cursory look under the hood. “Probably not possible to do anything about it today.” He put his hands in his pockets and looked apologetic. Van Veeteren cursed.

  “Well, okay, if it’s so urgent and if you’re prepared for what it’ll cost.”

  Hmm. It might well take four or five hours... he’d have to drive to town, of course, to buy a new one, but if the customer was in a hurry, he could hire a car, naturally. There were one or two available.

  “And leave my stereo system here?” roared the detective chief inspector, with a broad gesture encompassing the depressing sight of the workshop interior. “What the hell do you take me for?”

  “All right,” said the mechanic. “Might I suggest that you wait in the café? You can buy books and magazines at the newsstand.”

  Damnation! thought Van Veeteren. Bloody car! I won’t be back in Kaalbringen until one or two in the morning.

  “Phone!” yelled Bart.

  Münster and his family had stayed on the beach until the sun had started to sink behind the line of trees in the west.

  They had only just walked through the door after a day filled with games, relaxation and reunion. Münster carefully placed the sleeping four-year-old in bed while Synn went to answer the phone.

  “It’s DCI Van Veeteren,” she whispered, with her hand over the earp
iece. “He sounds like a barrel of gunpowder about to go off. Something to do with the car.”

  Münster took the receiver.

  “Hello?” he said.

  That was more or less the only word he spoke for the next ten minutes or more. He just stood there in the window recess, listening and nodding while his wife and his son prowled around and around him in ever-decreasing circles. A single look was enough for Synn to understand, and she passed on her knowledge to her six-year-old, who had been through this many times before.

  No doubt about it. The car was not what this call was really about. She could hear that in the voice of her husband’s boss at the other end of the line: a muffled but unstoppable tornado.

  She saw it in her husband’s face as well—in his body language, the profile of his jaw. Tense, resolute. A slight touch of white under his ears...

  It was time.

  And slowly that feeling of worry surged toward and over her. The feeling she couldn’t speak about, not even to him, but which she knew she shared with every other policeman’s wife all over the world.

  The possibility that... The possibility of something happening that...

  She grasped her son’s hand firmly, and refused to let go.

  Grateful despite everything that she’d had the opportunity of coming here.

  “About two o’clock?” asked Münster in the end. “Yep, I’m with you. We’ll assemble here, yes... OK, I can fix that.”

  Then he replaced the receiver and stared fixedly ahead, looking at nothing.

  “That was the damnedest . . .” he said. “But he’s right, of course . . .”

  He shook his head, then became aware of his wife and son, staring at him with the same unspoken question on their faces.