• • •
For hours she has been lying there with the naked body of an old woman on the preparation table beside her. She must see to the old woman first. As she pushes cotton wool into the woman’s nostrils, as she washes and blow-dries her hair, as she cleans the dirt from under her fingernails, Blum considers how she will dispatch Massimo. She doesn’t want him to die painlessly; she wants to punish and execute him. In her mind she searches for a place where she can dispose of him, because she doesn’t want him to set foot in her house again. There must be an alternative. As she stitches up the old woman’s mouth she plans Massimo’s death. She will discuss it with Reza over breakfast; together they will find a way. They will put the old woman in her casket and wait for her family, and then they will wait for evening. Blum will read the girls a bedtime story and kiss them good night. She will make sure that they are safe. She’ll do anything for that. And that is why she calls Massimo’s number once it is morning. She breathes deeply in and out three times. Then she hears his voice. Friendly, eager.
• • •
“Blum, how good to hear from you.”
“And you.”
“I didn’t expect you to call so soon.”
“I said I’d like to see you.”
“When?”
“Well, I’d like to see you straightaway, but I have work to do. And then there are the children. Shall we meet this evening? Are you free?”
“For you, always.”
“I’d like to be alone with you.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Blum.”
“But where? I wouldn’t want the children to find you in my bed.”
“Come round to mine.”
“But what about Ute?”
“She’s not here.”
“Where is she?”
“Away.”
“What do you mean? Away where?”
“My wife drank two bottles of schnapps, then tried to kill herself.”
“Oh! When?”
“A week ago.”
“Why didn’t you say?”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“What happened?”
“She cut her wrists in the bath.”
“Where is she now?”
“In a psychiatric hospital.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“There’s no need.”
“And when is she coming home?”
“No one knows.”
“We can put it off, Massimo. I understand if you’d rather be alone now.”
“No, come and see me this evening.”
“About nine?”
“You’re making me very happy, Blum.”
“Kisses to you, and see you later.”
• • •
She had to grit her teeth to say those things; she hates herself for every word she said to lead him on. She throws her phone at the wall with all her might and it crashes to the floor. Then she suppresses a scream. She doesn’t want anyone to hear her; she just wants this to stop, for Massimo’s heart to stop. Good old Massimo.
• • •
She wants him to be as lively as the woman on the table in front of her. Blum has dressed her brightly, in the traditional Austrian way: a white blouse, an apron, a pearl necklace, her hair braided into a wreath. Blum has manipulated her lips into a smile. She remembers how close Mark and Massimo were. She doesn’t want him suspecting, not for a moment, that anything is wrong, that nothing more is on the agenda than a little bit of fucking in the marital bed. On the dining table, in the bathtub where Ute almost bled to death, never mind where. All he wants is to get his prick into silly little Blum. She is the ultimate conquest, his best friend’s wife. She senses how much he wants her. You’re making me very happy. The bastard.
There is no going back. She considers the chances of being seen, of dying, of spending the rest of her life behind bars. She can’t rule out any of those possibilities, but still, they won’t deter her. They are doing the right thing; Blum is convinced, and so is Reza. He will do whatever it takes, for Mark and for Blum. He is lying under a rug in the back, waiting for the vehicle to stop. Blum is driving straight to Massimo’s house in the hearse. Not the Cadillac, the minibus. They don’t want to attract attention. There is a casket in the back, the cheapest they have.
• • •
She drives slowly to the quiet, upscale suburb on the outskirts of the city. Ute and Massimo had a new house built in this residential community just a little less than seven years ago, back when everything seemed all right. Ute hadn’t taken to the bottle, they believed the trampoline in their backyard would be used, that they had a future together. Mark and Blum had been here so often for barbecues, she remembers the cheerful summer evenings they spent at their friends’ home. Ute had insisted on green paint, so it stands out from the others. The garage is open. Blum has called him again and asked him to leave the gate unlocked. She said she didn’t want to be seen visiting, not after what happened to Ute. She doesn’t want people to talk.
• • •
She turns off the engine and closes the gate from inside. Reza will stay in the vehicle until Blum is in the house and Massimo is in her arms. Then he will get out, go quietly up to the house, and hit him over the head with an iron bar. Once he is unconscious on the floor, they will tie him up with sticky tape, gag him, and put him in the casket. Then they will wind blankets around him, and more tape around the casket, to make sure there is no chance of escape.
• • •
Her doubts and fears surge back. Massimo is a police officer, it is his job to be suspicious. Perhaps he has suspected that she won’t come alone, that Reza might be with her. What if he meets her with a gun in his hand? What if he hears Reza approach? What if he pulls away from Blum and avoids Reza’s blow? Blum pictures it all: the iron bar flying through the air, Massimo fighting back, overpowering Reza.
• • •
Blum opens the door. She mustn’t think like this. Down a small corridor she goes, and straight into the house. She calls his name; she is afraid, she can hear her heart thudding. She hears her heart and then his voice, coming from the kitchen. Come on in. I’ve got us a nice bottle of red. He stands in front of her, looking innocent, just a man with a bottle in his hand and the corkscrew he has used to open it. He fills two glasses while Blum stands in the doorway, smiling. She forces herself to walk over and embrace him, to kiss him on the neck. She is giving herself time; he mustn’t suspect a thing. Tenderly, she puts her lips to his filthy skin. It’s lovely to be alone, just the two of us, she whispers, turning her head. She doesn’t want this intimacy to last a second longer, but she must run no risks. She scans the room for any sign of danger, anything that looks out of place. She examines his face too, looks into his eyes and does not turn her own away. There is still time for her to run. But the face that looks back at her is the face of Mark’s best friend, not that of a crazed man in a mask. Everything is all right for now.
• • •
Massimo goes ahead into the living room and Blum follows. She must get him to put some music on, otherwise he’ll hear the door open and Reza come into the room. She says it would put her in the mood, music and candlelight. Then she takes off her jacket and throws it aside. Massimo presses a button. Louder, Blum says, drawing him away from the door into the middle of the room, leading him by the hand, making him turn. Not for a moment does he seem to suspect anything untoward. Massimo is just looking at her, wanting her, touching her. He puts out a hand to caress her cheek, and steps back for a moment; he wants to see her face. You’re so beautiful, he says. Then he draws her close again. His head is very near hers; she is putting off the moment when she will have to kiss him, she will not kiss him until she sees Reza stealing into the room. She must delay Massimo until she is sure that Reza is there to get his tongue out of her mouth. Not much longer. They dance around the room, drinking each other in. See how he nuzzles her, see how he wants her. See Blum counting the seconds and thinking t
hat they mustn’t leave any traces behind, no blood, nothing to tell Massimo’s colleagues that this is a crime scene. They will not suspect that a policeman has been knocked out and abducted; Massimo will simply collapse on the floor. Now.
• • •
Reza strikes him. At the very moment when her lips touch Massimo’s for the last time. Reza is suddenly there; she sees his face, his anger, and the iron bar that takes away her fear. There is just the dull, heavy sound of Massimo falling as though Reza had flicked a switch. The clown loses consciousness and they set to work; they have no time to think, they mustn’t linger here. Everything goes according to plan: they carry him to the garage and put him in the casket. Reza ties him up with the tape. There is no lid on the casket, so he can see where he is when he comes round. Blum goes back into the kitchen, empties the wine down the sink and washes the glasses. She meticulously wipes everything she has touched. She switches off the music and the light and leaves the house.
This time, they drive only five kilometers. No one stops them; there’s nothing unusual about a hearse coming to a halt at a set of traffic lights; no one knows that a defenseless police officer is lying in a casket in the back, tightly bound with sticky tape. Everything is as it should be. Reza is driving, observing all the rules of the road. They steal through the city with their cargo: Massimo Dollinger, husband of Ute Dollinger, father to no one, police officer, criminal investigation department. Only they know that he is going to die, and within the next hour. Reza and Blum don’t exchange a word. They ignore the fact that he has come round and is kicking the walls of the casket. That doesn’t trouble them; nor does the fact that he is groaning now. However loudly he shouts, however afraid he is, she remembers that Dunya’s fear was greater, and so was the fear felt by Ilena and Youn. It was much greater, wider, deeper, and it lasted so much longer than the time it takes to drive through the city. In the five minutes before Reza switches off the engine, Blum remembers everything she has seen, everything Dunya told Mark. The things Massimo did are beyond her comprehension.
• • •
They reach the parking lot just before midnight. There is no one there to take any notice; they park close to the gate, as they usually do. Corpses can be delivered outside opening hours; the undertakers have keys. Tonight the hearse will stay in the parking lot longer than usual, but no one will think anything of it, because no one comes here in the middle of the night. They feel calm here, on familiar terrain. For a long time Reza used to earn extra money doing shifts here, and he knows that the only CCTV cameras are trained on the main entrance. He also knows that they will be alone here all night. It is Friday, and the building has emptied for the weekend. No one will disturb them, no one will hear Massimo kicking up a fuss: good old Massimo. He hasn’t figured out where they have brought him. He is bellowing furiously, but only groaning can be heard. He struggles in vain as they put him on a gurney and wheel him down a corridor into the main room. Slowly the truth is dawning. He desperately tries to sit up, his eyes cartoonishly wide when he sees the furnace, when he hears Blum say This is the end of the line, you bastard.
• • •
They are in Innsbruck crematorium. It is on the edge of the industrial park, a freestanding building where the dead turn to ash. It takes two and a half hours to cremate a body. Then the remains are taken out of the furnace; the nails, screws, pacemakers, and artificial joints are removed by magnet and thrown away; everything else goes in a grinder. Bits of bone that haven’t burned right down, for instance, producing a sound like a coffee mill, but after a few minutes only fine ash is left. All in all, about two kilos of ash will remain, depending on the body’s size and weight. The process is clean and effective, and it doesn’t leave a trace of blood. Reza knows every process: he knows which button to press to open the furnace door and which to press to close it. He sits down at the computer for a moment and enters a number. The cremations are numbered consecutively, so he just reuses the number of the last one. No one will notice that Number 19,654 has been used twice. He smiles, because he knows that on Monday the head of the crematorium will open up, drink his coffee, read his newspaper, and remain completely oblivious. He will fetch the body from the cool room, enter 19,655 into the program, get the casket onto the hydraulic ramp, and press the button. He won’t suspect a thing because nothing will remain of Massimo Dollinger.
• • •
They take the casket off the gurney and over to the hydraulic ramp. Blum observes his desperation, his rage and fear. He tries to break free, he flings his body back and forth, and the casket wobbles as it rises in the air. It stops at chest height. Massimo turns his scarlet face to Blum, a defenseless, panic-stricken monster with eyes ablaze. All he can move is his head, ninety degrees to the left, ninety degrees to the right. However much he wants to leap up and attack her, he can’t. All he can do is talk: tell the truth, humiliate himself, beg for forgiveness. Blum comes very close and whispers that he is about to die. In five minutes’ time you’ll be burning. You can keep shouting or you can talk to me. The decision is yours. She withdraws her face from his and stands there, watching him compose himself. How quickly he transforms. He calms his body and waits for her to tear off the sticky tape. Massimo knows he must do as she says, he knows he mustn’t make a false move, mustn’t provoke her. His eyes wander back and forth, he is feverishly thinking. Blum knows him well. He’d do anything to save his skin, he will talk for his life.
• • •
“Why, Massimo?”
“I’m so sorry, Blum.”
“That’s not what I want to hear.”
“If I could turn the clock back—”
“Stop it.”
“You must believe me. Mark was my friend.”
“For the last time, this is not what I want to hear.”
“What do you want to hear, then?”
“Why the cellar?”
“It just happened, Blum.”
“Happened?”
“It happened by chance. The neighbors called the police. I was in Kitzbühel on a surveillance mission. I thought I’d give my uniformed colleagues a hand, and I followed up the call.”
“When was this?”
“Four and a half years ago.”
“Were you on your own?”
“It was the middle of the night, I was awake anyway, so I thought I’d go and see what was up for myself.”
“And what was up?”
“The neighbors had heard screams.”
“Yes?”
“I rang the bell, I knocked on the door, then I climbed in. The cellar window was open.”
“Go on.”
“They were raping her, four of them. Men with their trousers down wearing masks. They’d left the window open by mistake, and the girl was screaming so loudly that she could be heard from the street. She wouldn’t stop screaming. I didn’t know what to do. I had to keep the men in my sights; I shouldn’t have answered the call alone. I was in extreme circumstances, Blum.”
“So what did you do?”
“I hit her on the head with my gun.”
“Why?”
“I had no option.”
“So instead of helping her, you hit her?”
“I wanted to shut her up. I had to get the situation under control, and I was afraid the four men might attack me. They were wearing masks. I was afraid, Blum.”
“You had a gun.”
“I panicked.”
“Which of them was it? Dunya or Ilena?”
“Ilena.”
“And you didn’t help her.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
• • •
Blum listens to what he has to say. He is trying to justify his decision to stay, not to call for reinforcements but to talk to the men. He talked to them upstairs in the deserted restaurant while Ilena was lying unconscious and anesthetized below. When they removed their masks, Massimo simply closed the doors and
windows and went back to the outside world. He turned a blind eye, then he let temptation lead him. He’d seen the land of Cockaigne, a secret place where everything was permitted and he answered to no one. In this place, he couldn’t hear Ute wailing that God had overlooked them, that her life was pointless without a child. He talks about Ute, about how she rejected him and wouldn’t let him touch her, how she made him feel it was all his fault. Her husband wasn’t a real man, he was a failure who couldn’t even give her a child. She told him so every day, and the humiliation made his life unbearable. It only happened because of the trouble with Ute, he said. That was what caused his false move that night in the cellar.
• • •
Massimo is lying in his spruce casket on the verge of tears. His mouth opens and closes, and Blum watches Mark’s eternally kind, helpful friend. His voice is calm, he sounds almost meek, you would never imagine that he is capable of what he did. That he bought himself a brightly colored mask and returned to the captives’ tormentors. He had them in the palm of his hand: it was easy to come to an agreement with the priest and the cook, the huntsman and the photographer. They did as he asked; they accepted this new member of their club. Four became five and all because they had forgotten to close a window.
• • •
Woman of the Dead Page 20