To Clear the Air

by Mechtild Borrmann

  “You just have to sign your statement, then you can go.”

  He seems to understand only gradually. When he stands up, he is momentarily unsteady and grips the desk for support.

  Back in his office, Böhm gets the Behrens file out of his drawer.

  Johann Behrens had been at the regulars’ table. They had all had a lot to drink. There were two birthdays to celebrate, and toward the end of the evening there had been an argument. No one could say what it was about anymore. According to the owner of the pub, he had run up a tab for fifteen beers and eight schnapps by the time he set off home. When he was drunk, Behrens soon became violent, and everyone was glad when he left without a big drama.

  Böhm moves forward a few pages and looks at the list of regulars at that time.

  Ludwig Lüders, Egon Jansen, Günther Mahler, Horst Winkler, Karl Holter, Werner Gietmann, and Klaus Söller. They were the last customers that night; Ruth Holter was present too. Everyone knew Behrens beat his wife when he had had too much to drink.

  Böhm goes to the window. The sky lies over the town like a gray blanket.

  He had had a long conversation with Brigitte a few weeks ago. She had brought a woman and two children into the women’s shelter. The children had told her about daily beatings, and Brigitte had asked why their mother didn’t ask her neighbors for help. The six-year-old had answered: They tell us we should go home and not come back again. Brigitte’s view was that indifference was a symptom of our self-centered modern society, and that the anonymity of big cities fostered a culture of looking away. People are cowardly, he had said, comfortable and cowardly. Of course it’s much easier to take no responsibility in an anonymous satellite town, but I think it has always been like this.

  Seven grown men know that Behrens goes home and beats his wife. And they all say in their statements, I was glad he went without any drama.

  He finds the transcript of the anonymous phone call.

  Friday, April 14, 1967; 5:15 a.m.

  Male caller: There’s a seriously injured woman at the Behrens farm in Merklen.

  Sergeant Nolte: Okay, take it easy. First of all, tell me your name.

  Male caller: Behrens farm, Sommerweg, in Merklen. Send an ambulance.

  Magdalena Behrens is found at 5:35 a.m., lying in a pool of blood in the covered yard. She has fallen backward onto a plank of wood, and a protruding nail has gone into her back. Her seven-year-old daughter, Anna, is sitting next to her. The child will not speak. Magdalena Behrens dies as they arrive at the hospital.

  He looks at the crime-scene photos. Black-and-white images of the pool of blood on the cement floor. A blood-smeared plank, about five feet long. A torn dress with a flowery print, and some panties.

  According to the autopsy, Magdalena Behrens bled to death from a wound in her back. She had fallen backward onto a plank of wood. A protruding nail had gone two and a half inches into her back and punctured her lung. In addition, there was a ragged wound on the back of the victim’s head. And she had been brutally raped. Bruising and scratches on the inner thighs, trauma to the vagina, bruises on the hips.

  Johann Behrens is arrested in a bar in town at about noon. He confesses to having struck his wife. She fell down and didn’t get up again. He left. He denies the rape.

  On April 21, 1967, Ludwig Lüders turns up at the police station and makes a supplementary statement. He remembers that he heard an unfamiliar car that night. It had definitely driven to the Behrens farm.

  One day later, at two o’clock in the morning on April 22, 1967, Johann Behrens strangles himself with his shirt in a cell.

  The police close the file a month later. They consider Johann Behrens’s suicide an admission of guilt.

  Böhm tries, again in vain, to reach Anna Behrens.

  Chapter 40

  They meet in the conference room. Liefers held his press conference here an hour ago. The air in the room has been inhaled and exhaled a hundred times. Böhm throws all the windows open.

  Steeg and Lembach sit opposite each other at the U-shaped table. Van Oss has said he is willing to take notes. He has brought a laptop and enters the date, time, and those present. Böhm has ordered coffee. There is a tray with thermos flasks and cups on the table.

  “Shut the windows, Peter, or we’ll all be sick in the morning.” Steeg makes a show of clutching the lapels of his sports jacket together.

  “We’ll be dead tomorrow if we have to get through the next few hours without any oxygen. A few minutes more.”

  Böhm looks at the tired faces. Unshaven cheeks beneath eyes hollow with fatigue. Steeg, Lembach, and Van Oss have been on their feet, like him, since three o’clock in the morning. But there is no evident sense of exhaustion.

  Van Oss starts with the results from the officers called in to assist. According to them, the village didn’t wake up until the police cars arrived at the crime scene. One or two people had heard a car here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary. The owner of the Dorfkrug pub had gone out looking for Ludwig Lüders at midnight, but she hadn’t noticed anything either. No strange cars, no strange people. Gerhard Lüders’s car was seen in the new development at about half past ten. It was going toward Altrhein.

  Böhm notes down the most important items on a flipchart. Gerhard Lüders, 10:30 p.m.

  At the time Gerhard Lüders was seen, Ludwig Lüders was already dead.

  Van Oss clears his throat. “The owner had closed the bar, but there were two customers inside anyway. At first they wouldn’t let our guy in. But then he spoke to the three of them together. In retrospect, he thinks that wasn’t wise.”

  “Who were the other two?” Böhm feels uneasy. The uneasiness that comes over him when he sees connections. When clues advance toward his theory.

  Van Oss leafs through his notes. “Egon Jansen and Günther Mahler.” He looks at Böhm. “All three took plenty of time answering. And they maintained eye contact throughout. Our man thinks it would be a good idea to talk to each of them alone again.”

  Böhm goes through the names of the regulars in his head. “You can do that tomorrow morning. And then find out what’s become of Karl Holter, Klaus Söller, and Horst Winkler.” He picks up the Behrens file and hands it to Van Oss. “All these men and Ruth Holter. Ask them all about this story.” He writes the names down in a list. “If they’re stubborn, or make a fuss, bring them in. They can stew here for a couple of hours.”

  For a moment, the only sound is Van Oss’s quiet typing.

  Böhm is known for his patience. He goes back to the same witnesses again and again, asking them the same questions with stoical equanimity. Van Oss once asked him, “Don’t you ever worry that someone might confess one day, only for you to come back at him with the same question?”

  Böhm looks around at everyone. “The killer is quick, damned quick, and I don’t think he’s finished yet. There’s no time to lose.”

  A murmur of agreement spreads around the room. Böhm gives Steeg the floor.

  “One of our men has gone through every supplier of gaffer tape, except for one company that rents out sound systems. There are only five places around Cleves where you can buy the stuff. As a rule, it’s bought by theaters and music promoters, usually in bulk. Single rolls are not much in demand. In the last two weeks, only two stores have sold any standard gaffer tape. Ten rolls went to the open-air theater ten days ago and, on one occasion, two rolls to a private individual. The saleswoman remembered him. He wanted to cover some bare walls in a hall with decorative fabric for a wedding party. She had recommended gaffer tape to hold it up. The saleswoman even knew where the party was being held. We were able to trace the man.” Steeg takes out another sheet of paper. “His name is René Bauer. He has a bunch of the stuff left over. Young family man from Cleves. His wife helped him decorate the hall on Saturday. Until the press reports about Gietmann, neither of them had heard of Gietmann or Lüders. Besides, both of them were at a parents’ evening at the school on Monday evening. Twelve people can co
nfirm it. The parents’ evening ended at about nine thirty.” He pushes his notes aside. “There are about two hundred results if you search the web for where to buy gaffer tape around here. In any case, it would be closer for someone who lives in the village to buy the stuff in Nijmegen. Joop checked. There are twenty-five stores that carry it there.”

  Van Oss stops typing. “We’d have to ask our Dutch colleagues for help, officially. I think this is taking us a long way away from the village, don’t you?”

  Böhm circles in black the headings to do with gaffer tape. “Yes, I think so too. We won’t lose sight of it, but we won’t concentrate on it either. What else do you have, Achim?”

  The left-hand corner of Steeg’s mouth twitches. “I’ve heard some stupid things in my time, but today I was really knocked sideways.” He exhales loudly. “The woman in the announcements office accepted the text on Saturday, March 10.” He lets his words hang in the air for a moment.

  Lembach slides forward on his chair. “I don’t believe it!” He slaps his forehead with his open hand. “Didn’t she ask herself, for one second, how anyone could know, two days in advance . . . ?”

  “No. She said she was only paid to accept the text. It wasn’t her job to check the content of the announcements.”

  “Who placed the announcement?” Böhm has listed the events in chronological order on the flipchart. He draws a line under Body found: Gietmann and writes Death notice: Lüders.

  “Tonsmann Funeral Directors. They often place death notices, of course, but they didn’t order this one. The woman in the announcements department thinks it was a female voice, but she doesn’t remember for sure. What she does remember is that the voice said ‘same invoice address as usual.’”

  Böhm puts the marker away and sits down. “Have you checked whether another announcement has been placed in the last few days, perhaps for this Friday or Saturday?”

  “Yes. No joy.”

  “Does that mean we have a bit more time?” Van Oss leans back in his chair.

  “No idea. From tomorrow on, one of us will be sitting there, and we can trace the call immediately.”

  There is a silence. They are all following their own trains of thought. Steeg looks at the notes on the flipchart. Van Oss holds his head in his hands. He has closed his eyes.

  Böhm looks around and meets Lembach’s tired eyes. “A female voice. Do you think it’s possible a woman could have done this?”

  Lembach considers this. “The killer only had to use any real strength once, and that was to drag Lüders, unconscious, along the ground to the place that had been prepared.” At first with small movements, and then more and more clearly, he nods at Böhm. “Not a small, delicate person, no. But a strong, fit woman, yes.”

  Chapter 41

  They call it a day at ten thirty, having gone through all the facts one more time. The timings and the tracks they had found—on this they were all in agreement—indicated a single killer. The idea that it might be a woman had given new life to the discussion, briefly breaking through the mixture of fatigue and frustration that had come to the fore late in the evening. Lembach summed it up at the end: An ocean of clues, he said, but nowhere a motive you can hold on to. Even if there was a connection between the events of thirty years ago and the murders of the last few days, the question remained: What happened back then, and who knew about it? It would be hard to reconstruct after such a long time.

  Böhm unlocks the front door and enters the empty house. No news from Brigitte for three days. When she was in the clinic, he could visit her, talk to her on the phone.

  He finds a spinach pizza in the freezer.

  Three days with no contact. That has never happened before, in nearly twenty-five years of marriage.

  As if squeezed by an alien hand, his shoulder blades move toward each other. His jaw is clenched. He tries to open the perforated end of the pizza packaging, but his hands are shaking. A moment later he has crushed the package, along with the pizza, and hurled it against the wall. He strides across the living room and out into the garden. Air, he needs cool air. It is a dark, starless night. He sits at the top of the stairs leading down from the terrace and stares into the blackness. Gradually, his jaw relaxes.

  What if she doesn’t come back?

  The last twenty hours have worn him out. He doesn’t want to ponder anything, doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to think, doesn’t want to feel. They’ve been happy, after all. After all the pain and despair that overcame them when Andreas died, they made a new start here. Tobias moved to Münster and began studying law, and she started this job. What has he not seen? He’ll admit that they’ve both been too busy with their respective jobs, but they’ve spent some lovely days and evenings together. They seldom argue and really can talk about anything. What does she have to think about?

  The nighttime clouds leave a gap in the sky. For a few seconds, a half-moon shows itself. Böhm feels the cold seeping into his joints.

  He sees her in front of him. Laughing, wagging her finger at him teasingly. On a jetty, sad, wearing a yellow dress. Relaxed on the sofa, listening to Vivaldi. He hears her saying, We have every reason to be contented, Peter. We are among the privileged of the earth.

  It takes him several seconds to realize that the rattling sound he can hear is coming from his chattering teeth.

  He stands up wearily and goes into the house. The red light on the answering machine is on. Brigitte! He presses Play.

  “Hi, Brigitte, it’s Simone. Can you please bring Alessa’s file in on Thursday? Her hearing has been scheduled for Friday, and we should go through the main points again. See you then.”

  The chill departs instantly. Heat and acid rise into his throat. He presses Stop and runs upstairs. He rummages through Brigitte’s desk. Simone! She must have Simone’s number somewhere. He yanks the drawers open, leafs through files, tears the closet apart. He powers up her computer. File names stream past meaninglessly. Just as he is about to give up, the pin board just over the screen catches his eye. A slip of paper says Emergency numbers. The third from the top is Simone’s.

  He sits on the sofa, phone in hand, and tries to breathe evenly. It is just before midnight. She might not even come to the phone.

  She answers after the second ring: “Simone Barth.”

  It pours out of him. “This is Peter Böhm. I haven’t . . . I haven’t heard a word from Brigitte for three days. She called me on Saturday evening, or rather, she left a message on the answering machine. She was going to stay on a couple more days . . .” His voice falters.

  There is silence at the other end of the line.

  Böhm chokes back his rising panic. “Where did this conference take place, Frau Barth? When did it end?”

  He hears a throat clearing at the other end. “Don’t worry, everything’s all right. Brigitte will be back tomorrow at noon. She’s okay.” She clears her throat again.

  He grips the receiver tightly. She knows something. She isn’t going to tell him. She knows the other man. “Her phone’s turned off. I can’t reach her. She’s never done that before.” He tries to breathe evenly, tries not to ask the decisive question.

  “Her battery’s probably dead, and maybe she forgot to take a charger. Don’t worry.”

  He becomes angry. “What kind of idiot do you think I am? My wife has been out of contact for three days. And you obviously have nothing to tell me about this conference.” His voice is getting louder with each sentence. “I’m going to report her missing. If you don’t tell me the truth, you’ll have to explain it to my colleagues at the station.”

  He hears her sniff angrily. “Go ahead. You do that. The only thing I’ll be able to tell your colleagues is that your wife is fine and isn’t missing.”

  He hears an abrupt click. The persistent monotone that follows drills its way into his ear, spreads throughout his body, and leaves him crippled. His rage dies out, like a flame beneath a wet blanket.

  Brigitte isn’t missing, she said.
<
br />   How could she say such a thing? She’s missing as far as he’s concerned. He’s missing her so much it causes him physical pain.

  Chapter 42

  Wednesday, March 14, 2001

  For days on end she doesn’t sleep, and then she sleeps twenty-four hours and more. Yesterday, after the call, she crept under the bedcovers in her room, trembling, unable to bring any order to her thoughts.

  Go back into the clinic? Take all the sleeping pills she could gather together? Shut the kitchen door tight, seal everything up, and turn on the gas?

  Regina, who had been in the clinic with her, had managed to hang herself on the door handle in her room. This thought had a somewhat calming effect. The tightness in her throat died down, and she was able to breathe again.

  Then she fell asleep.

  Now she is on the threshold of a new day. She has slept for fourteen hours and still feels worn out. Her back hurts, and the muscles in her legs are aching. Aching from sleep.

  It had been the same on Friday. At lunchtime she had gone to bed, unable to do anything but weep. She had fallen asleep and hadn’t woken up again until late on Saturday evening.

  The first light is creeping into the tops of the trees, exposing the bare branches. As bare as her shivering, freezing bones beneath her thin skin. She takes a hungry drag of her cigarette and blows the smoke at the pane of glass. It spreads out and blurs the outside world for a moment. Everything just varying shades of gray.

  “Grandma, how do flowers get their color? Did the good Lord do it?”

  “The good Lord doesn’t put color into flowers. The good Lord takes your sons away and makes everything gray.”

  In five hours, that policeman will be here. She turns and looks at the clock again. Four and a half hours. The glowing tip of the cigarette has reached the filter. The smell of burning fiber bites her nostrils.

  She could call Margret and ask her to be there. Margret would enjoy talking to the policeman. She would say, Johann Behrens was a monster. He killed my sister.