Mind's Eye

by Håkan Nesser

“No…” Caen said hesitantly. “No, I don’t think I can. To tell you the truth—can I rely on you, Inspector?”

  “Of course.”

  “To tell you the truth, I didn’t get anywhere with her. But she got better even so. The reason I was brought in was the problems caused by the death of her son…. But there was something…”

  It sounds as if he’s weighing every single word, Van Veeteren thought. Does he have any idea of what it costs to phone halfway across the world?

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. There was something hidden. She didn’t bother to pretend—that there wasn’t anything, I mean. Perhaps it wasn’t possible to hide it. There was something she didn’t tell me about, and she was quite open about that fact. Are you with me? It’s not easy to explain this over the telephone.”

  “She had a secret?”

  “To put it simply, yes.”

  “A man?”

  “I have no idea, Inspector. No idea at all.”

  “Give me a clue!”

  “There’s nothing else I can say. I promise you!”

  “What the hell did you talk about?”

  “Willie. Her son. Yes, we talked almost exclusively about him. She used me as a means of remembering him. I have a son myself, about the same age as hers, and she liked to compare…. We often pretended that Willie was still alive; we talked about our sons and discussed their futures. That kind of thing.”

  “I see…. And she got better?”

  “Yes, she did. Those meetings in Maardam were not justified at all from a therapeutic point of view, but she was insistent. I liked her, and she paid my fee. Why should I turn her away?”

  “Why indeed, Mr. Caen? What was your impression of her husband, Andreas Berger?”

  “Not much at all. We never met, and she didn’t say much about him. She was the one who wanted a divorce…. It was due to the accident, no doubt about that; but don’t ask me how. I think he wanted to keep her, even when she was at her worst.”

  Van Veeteren pondered that.

  “I thought you had arrested a suspect?” Caen said.

  “He’s been tried and sentenced,” said Van Veeteren.

  “Sentenced? Has he admitted it? Then why are you still—”

  “Because he didn’t do it,” interrupted Van Veeteren. “Can I ask you to do something for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “If anything occurs to you, no matter how insignificant it might seem, would you please get in touch with me and tell me? You have my number, I take it?”

  “No, I don’t think I have.”

  “Didn’t you receive our fax?”

  “Your fax? I’m afraid I haven’t checked the fax machine for a week or more. I’m on holiday, you see.”

  “On holiday in November?”

  “Yes, it’s early summer here. Seventy-five degrees, the lemon trees are in bloom….”

  “I’ll bet they are,” said Van Veeteren.

  21

  When Lotte Kretschmer woke up on Sunday, November 15, she decided almost immediately to put an end to her affair with her boyfriend, a twenty-one-year-old electrician from Süsslingen by the name of Weigand. The decision had been maturing inside her for several weeks, but now the time had come. As usual, Weigand was lying asleep beside her, his mouth wide open, and as she didn’t want him to stagger through the next few days in ignorance of such an important decision, she gave him a good shaking, woke him up, and explained the facts.

  They had been together for eight months, it’s true; but even so, she hadn’t reckoned with the argument, the tears, and the accusations taking up the whole day.

  When she eventually set off for work at about seven o’clock that evening, she felt that what she needed more than anything else was twelve hours of sound sleep. Instead, she was faced with twelve hours of night duty.

  This is mentioned as an explanation, not as an excuse.

  However, when the evening round of medication took place at nine o’clock, Janek Mitter—along with several other patients—was not given the usual mild sedative antidepressants, but instead was required to swallow two multivitamin tablets enhanced with ten vital minerals plus selenium.

  Both types of pill were pale yellow in color, round in shape and coated with sugar, and were stored in the same cupboard.

  This is not mentioned as an excuse either.

  There was no lack of repercussions. Instead of falling into a deep and dreamless sleep, Mitter was surprised to find himself lying wide awake in his tubular-steel bed, gazing out through the window at a starry sky almost as dense as the one that night in Levkes. He remembered that November was the ideal month for astronomers, and that his birthday must have come and gone—because it was on the occasion of his fourteenth birthday that he had been given the telescope by his father.

  Where was it now?

  It took a while to work that one out. But he managed it. It was with Jürg, of course. Jürg had kept it in his room when he was staying with Mitter, but he’d taken it with him when he moved to Chadow.

  So, he could still remember some things.

  Various other details cropped up then faded away again as he lay there; some from long ago…memories of his childhood, and his youth; some more recent…Irene and the children, goings-on at school and trips with Bendiksen; but it was well into the early hours before that night cropped up in his mind’s eye….

  He was sitting on the corner sofa. He had got dressed and there were candles burning here and there. Eva was wandering around in her kimono and singing something; he had some difficulty in keeping his eyes on her. He had a glass in his hand, and remembered that it was absolutely essential…absolutely vital that he not drink another single drop. He turned his head, the room was swaying to and fro…. Not another single drop.

  He took a swig. It was a good wine, he could taste that despite all the cigarettes: dry and full-bodied. And the doorbell rang. Who the hell…?

  Eva shouted something and disappeared. He realized that she had gone to open the door for the visitor, but he couldn’t see the hall from where he was sitting. He grinned.

  Yes, he remembered grinning at the fact that he was so drunk, he daren’t even try to look back over his shoulder. Then Eva came back into the room with the visitor, the visitor first. He couldn’t see the man’s face, it was too high up; a move like the one required to see it was impossible. The visitor remained standing for quite some time before sitting down, and Eva was somewhere else, she’d shouted something, but now the man was sitting there in any case; Mitter could see his torso and his arms, only the lower part of his arms, his rolled-up shirtsleeves…. He was smoking, and Mitter also took a cigarette and the nicotine made him feel dizzy. The smoke was hot and nauseating in his throat, and it wasn’t long before they started talking. And then the visitor leaned forward and flicked the ash off his cigarette, and Mitter saw who it was.

  He opened his eyes and myriad stars came meandering into his consciousness, making him feel dizzy.

  I shall forget this again, he thought. It came to me for just a moment, but tomorrow it will have gone.

  He fumbled for the pencil lying on the bedside table. Heard it fall on the floor. Leaned tentatively over the side of the bed and groped around in the dark over the cold flagstones, and eventually found it.

  Where? he thought. Where?

  Then he took the Bible out of the drawer in the bedside table. Thumbed through as far as Mark or thereabouts, and wrote down the visitor’s name.

  Closed the Bible. Put it back in its place and closed the drawer. Fell back exhausted on his pillows, and felt…felt something starting to tremble inside him.

  It was a flame. A pitifully small candle flame that somebody had lit, and that was no doubt well worth looking after. Keeping alight.

  He was mad, but at least he understood the implications of this memory.

  And thanks to the power of that pale candlelight, he gave himself the task of coming to terms with it all when dawn came.
/>
  Writing a letter to the visitor.

  Just a line.

  He fell asleep. But woke up again.

  Perhaps he should also make a phone call.

  To that unpleasant person…whose name escaped him for the moment.

  As long as the flame doesn’t go out.

  22

  The telephone call was put through from the switchboard to the duty officer only minutes before he was due to be relieved.

  In fact, he ought to have been relieved several hours previously, but Widmar Krause’s young wife had started to feel labor pains in the early hours of the morning, and it was her first pregnancy. Erich Klempje had no alternative but to stay on duty. He’d started his shift as early as nine p.m. the previous night, but isn’t that what colleagues are for?

  He was only staying on until the emergency was over.

  There was no question of her giving birth already, but getting to the hospital and waiting and then the examination followed by getting back home again all took time.

  He noted it down automatically in the black folder.

  11:56 Incoming call from Majorna.

  “Police. Sergeant Klempje. How can I help you?”

  At that very moment the doors were flung open and in marched two constables, Joensuu and Kellerman, dragging with them a whore from V-Square high on drugs.

  “You can only have me one at a time!” she yelled. “And it’s double price for bleeding police bastards!”

  Although the whore was small, and the combined weight of Joensuu and Kellerman must have been upwards of 450 pounds, they were obviously having trouble in propelling her to the cells. Blood was pouring from scratches on one of Kellerman’s cheeks, and Klempje suspected that the whore would not be totally unmarked if they could get her into a dark corner.

  “Kiss my ass! But brush your teeth first!” she screeched, landing a well-directed knee between Joensuu’s legs.

  Joensuu cursed and bent double. Klempje sighed and put his hand over the receiver.

  Two probationers who had been writing reports came to assist, and before long the whole group was out of earshot.

  For Christ’s sake, Klempje thought. If I don’t get some sleep soon I shall start crying.

  He returned to the telephone call.

  “Yes, what do you want?”

  “This is J.M. from Majorna. This is J.M. from Majorna.”

  Oh no! Klempje thought.

  “Yes, I’ve made a note of that. What’s it about?”

  “I’d like to speak to…I’d like to speak to…”

  Silence. Klempje shook his head. The voice was monotonous, but tense. It sounded as if he was reading out something he’d learned by heart.

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to speak to…”

  “Who do you want to speak to? This is the police here.”

  “I know that,” said the voice. “I want to talk to the unpleasant one.”

  “The unpleasant one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is the unpleasant one? This place is teeming with unpleasant police officers,” said Klempje, suffering from an attack of disloyalty to his colleagues.

  “The worst of them all…He’s big and his face is purple and he swears. I want to speak to him.”

  “Okay, I’ll make a note of that.”

  “Is he there now?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you.”

  The caller hung up. Klempje sat for a few seconds with the receiver in his hand. Then he also hung up and went back to his crossword.

  Two minutes later Krause appeared.

  “Thank God for that,” groaned Klempje. “Well?”

  “Nothing,” said Krause. “False alarm.”

  “If it hurts, it hurts, I suppose.”

  “Klempje, when it comes to pregnant women you are a greenhorn.”

  “You can call me a buffalo if you like, as long as I can get some sleep now.”

  “Anything special?”

  Klempje thought for a moment.

  “No. Some madman or other rang from Majorna just a couple of minutes ago and wanted to talk to what he called the unpleasant one. Funny, eh? Who do you think he could have meant?”

  “V.V.?”

  “Who else?”

  “What was it about?”

  “No idea. He hung up. And Joensuu and Kellerman are down in the cells wrestling with a whore on cloud nine. Holy shit, but what a glamorous life we lead!”

  Klempje staggered out and Krause took his place in the glass booth.

  The unpleasant one? he thought. Majorna?

  He thought for a moment, then called the fourth floor.

  No answer.

  He tried Münster.

  No answer there either.

  Oh, what the hell? he thought and took a paperback out of his inside pocket. Parenting.

  23

  The letter arrived in the afternoon mail.

  Without giving it a second thought he put it in his pocket; he had a number of things to do that couldn’t wait, and he might just as well read it when he got home. He might have wondered in passing what it could be: he didn’t often receive mail at work, and this letter seemed to be private.

  He then forgot all about it, of course, and it wasn’t until he was feeling around in his jacket pockets for laundry tokens that he discovered it. He used a mechanical pencil to split it open and took out a sheet of paper folded twice.

  It was only one single line. But it was clear enough.

  The first few seconds, his mind was a complete blank. He stood there motionless, leaning over the desk, his eyes nailed to the words.

  Then his brain started working. Slowly and methodically. Yet again he was surprised by how he could be so worked up and yet so calm at the same time. How he could simultaneously feel his blood seething and also let his thoughts coldly and objectively glean the reality behind this letter.

  He examined the postmark. Yesterday’s date.

  Looked more closely. A few letters were illegible, but it must be Willemsburg.

  That fitted. That’s where he was incarcerated. Everybody knew that. A few had even been to visit him.

  He stretched out on the bed and switched off the light. Felt the prickling sensation in his gut, but was able to keep it under control without difficulty. The question was…?

  The question was so easy to formulate that it was almost embarrassing.

  Were there any more letters?

  Were there any more letters?

  He went to the kitchen and opened a beer. Sat by the window. Drank a few long swigs and blinked away the tears that beer always gave him.

  With the certainty of a sleepwalker he produced the answer.

  No, there were no more letters.

  He had been at home for three hours. Nobody had phoned. A delay of that length would have been inconceivable. No, there were no other letters.

  He drummed his fingers on the bottle.

  There was just one other possibility…. His brain was working lightning-fast now…. The possibility that it took longer for letters to be delivered to police headquarters. They might receive a letter tomorrow. That was a possibility. It had to be faced up to.

  He took another swig. Jackdaws were cawing outside the window. His mind wandered to Hitchcock and The Birds, and there was something attractive about that memory, something that appealed to him—but perhaps now wasn’t the right time to be thinking about that.

  But if…if there was another letter, already written and posted…irrevocably…it must arrive by tomorrow. Tomorrow at the latest.

  Tomorrow. If he hadn’t heard anything by noon tomorrow, he was safe.

  That was the answer. He raised the bottle to his mouth and emptied it. Looked up at the sky over the rooftops. Darkness was falling fast; no doubt there would be another star-filled sky tonight. He wondered vaguely if that would be an advantage or a disadvantage.

  But the final answer was still in the offing even so. He had waited and be
en patient. Bided his time.

  He took a deep breath. The prickling sensation in his gut was strong and pleasant now. Almost erotic.

  It was time.

  24

  He woke up and couldn’t remember his name.

  That had happened before, he was sure. He had a memory of another morning.

  But now it was night. A shaft of pale moonlight enveloped the foot end of his bed, and draped a figure standing there.

  It was a woman, no doubt about it. Her silhouette was outlined clearly against the window, but her face was in darkness.

  “Diotima?” he whispered out of the blue, he didn’t know why. It was just a name that floated up to the surface of the well of forgetfulness. Somebody he missed.

  But no, surely it wasn’t her?

  She came closer. Walked slowly around the head of the bed, came around to his right side. Raised her arm, and something glinted in her hand….

  Mitter…Janek Mattias Mitter…He remembered just as the pain cut him in two.

  And before the scream had time to leave his mouth, a pillow had been pressed down over his face. He groped around with his hands, tried in vain to grasp his visitor’s wrists…. But he lacked the strength, and pain pumped white-hot glowing waves out of his chest and stomach.

  I am nobody, he thought. Nothing but a colossal pain.

  The last thing to come to him was an image.

  An old picture, something he might have drawn himself once. Or taken from a book.

  It was an image of death, and it was a very personal truth.

  An ox.

  And a swamp.

  This was his life. An ox that had fallen into a swamp.

  Sinking slowly down into the mud. Sinking slowly into death.

  When night came, a calm and starry night, only his head was still above ground, and the last thing…the very last thing to disappear, was the ox’s surprised eye, staring up at the myriad stars.

  That was the final image.

  And when night closed in over the eye, everything became nothing.

  II

  Friday, November 20–Sunday, November 29