by Håkan Nesser
‘Let me think about it,’ she promised, and hung up.
Herbert Knoll, however, was not going to be dismissed out of hand.
‘Think twice, Mrs Bendler,’ he recommended shortly afterwards, when she rang to explain the situation. ‘Your adversary is not someone to be trifled with. If you’re going to meet him again, we need to take some security measures.’
Security measures, Judith thought. Maria Rosenberg had talked about precautionary measures. Sometimes the difference between a detective and a therapist was less than you might imagine.
‘And what measures would they be?’ she asked. ‘Specifically?’
‘We should have a man present in the cafe.’
She didn’t really understand. ‘Why?’
‘To listen, for example,’ he explained patiently. ‘Maybe record the conversation as well. It might be useful with regard to . . .’
‘With regard to what?’
‘With regard to the future.’
She hastily considered. ‘I don’t see what purpose that would serve. Besides, I could record it myself. No, I don’t want a spy around when I meet him. You’ll have to forgive me.’
‘It’s your decision,’ the detective said in a measured voice. ‘Can I therefore expect that our services will not be required henceforth?’
‘I’d like to know what happened when you . . . confronted him.’
‘Of course. Not very much happened. One of my colleagues stopped him when he left his apartment yesterday evening. Told him he had a blue belt in karate and was a good friend of yours. Asked him to stop harassing you. Standard procedure, as they say on the other side of the Atlantic.’
Good God, she thought. I’m playing a role in a gangster film. ‘And how did he react?’
‘According to my colleague, he raised an eyebrow, that was all. That’s why in my judgement you need to be careful. He might not be someone to mess around.’
‘I never imagined he was,’ Judith declared. ‘I’ll get in touch after the meeting on Friday. I don’t want you to take any . . . any measures, until further notice.’
‘As you wish,’ Private Detective Knoll answered. ‘I’ll prepare your invoice in the meantime.’
After the call ended she wondered about the new-found strength she had gained in both the conversation with the imposter and with the detective. In any event, it didn’t hang around, it abandoned her like . . . like a rat deserting a sinking ship.
Infernal mental images again, she thought, as she went up to the bedroom to see if her dying husband had woken.
He hadn’t. But after coming home from the Ruby the previous evening, he had settled down with a bottle of brandy and a number of film cassettes, so she wasn’t surprised that he was still snoring. She went back downstairs, put Django’s lead on and set out on a long walk.
At last it was Friday, and eventually Friday afternoon.
But it had been a long haul. Work on Erasmus was slow; she didn’t have the extra concentration, vital in the weeks before the submission date of the first complete version of the book, and after a series of vain attempts to make some progress on the text, she decided to take a break from it for a few days. After the meeting with the imposter she would still have almost a month, that would have to suffice.
The fact that Robert was at home all day – sitting in front of the television looking at old films, to be more precise, films he had directed and produced, in total about fifty – constituted a disruption. If Django had been in his prime, she could have spent half the day outside with him, but when all was said and done the poor dog was probably as moribund as his master, and the weather was as to be expected for this time of year: rainy, windy, gloomy.
They hardly spoke to one another, she and Robert, and of course Tom was the elephant in the room. It ought to have vexed her, the lack of words and interaction, but for some reason it didn’t. His unexpected revelation about paternity and his worthless sperm had changed something essential; it had shifted a central pillar in their relationship. But she didn’t want to discuss the matter with him, not now, in this period of waiting. Maybe afterwards, after she had actually looked into the face of the man who claimed to be Tom Bendler. Though even of this she wasn’t sure; maybe the silence had come to stay.
She contemplated telephoning Maria Rosenberg and asking for an appointment on Thursday, but decided against it. Better to defer this as well. Having discovered a couple of unread crime novels on the bookshelf, by a writer called Henry Moll Jr, she spent a number of hours lying under a blanket on the sofa in her study endeavouring to take an interest in storylines that seemed to grow more obscure the further she read.
Unless she could no longer understand people’s motives and intentions. In that case, she thought, it was entirely consistent with the world in which she was currently living.
Nonetheless, Friday arrived.
Cafe Intrigo was considerably more crowded than it had been on the previous occasion. Two large parties, one Japanese, the other of uncertain origin, filled most of the cafe, but at the far end in a corner, alone at a table, sat the fictitious Tom Bendler. She had had difficulty in remembering exactly what he looked like, having focused too much on the other three men during her last visit, but when she caught sight of him, she was in no doubt.
He rose to his feet and walked towards her. They shook hands without a word and sat down opposite each other at the table.
He was quite slim and of above average height. Longish, dark-brown hair, greyish green eyes, regular features. Wearing a white shirt under a V-necked blue pullover. Slightly drawn, perhaps, posture a little poor, but he looked quite good; she noted this despite herself, unable to dismiss the thought that Tom might look rather like this.
Might have looked. If he hadn’t died twenty-two years previously. Twenty-two years and four months.
‘A pleasure to see you, Judith Bendler,’ he began.
‘I wish I could say the same,’ she replied.
He smiled. ‘Would you like anything?’
She shook her head. There were two glasses and a jug of water on the table. Without asking again, he poured some water, while at the same time saying hello to a waiter passing with a pile of plates for the Japanese party. Yes, of course, she thought, he was a colleague of everyone working here. Home ground, as she had said.
‘You look younger than I thought you would.’
A compliment. Which she ignored. Instead she gave a disdainful sigh and stared at him with a look of what she hoped was neutral indifference. She folded her hands on the table in front of her.
‘I haven’t come here for polite conversation. I don’t know who you are, but I do know one thing. You’re not who you say you are. I’ve known that from the start, right from the time you rang me in the middle of the night.’
He gave no reply, just drank some water and smiled again.
‘I’ve considered calling the police several times, but didn’t. I hope you have the sense to stop what you’re doing all the same. Neither my husband nor I are amused by your behaviour and frankly we don’t understand what you’re playing at. You haven’t been particularly forthcoming on the telephone, so now I want an honest explanation. And a promise that you’ll stop this foolishness. And if not, well, you’ll have to face the consequences.’
She leant back. That was it. That was all she had to say to him, and she had done it in more or less one single breath.
He gazed at her without moving. The smile had faded somewhat, but he still looked amused. Or at least unperturbed.
‘Why are you so negative?’ he said. ‘I don’t remember you being like that.’
‘You don’t remember me, full stop.’
‘Of course I do. In the same way you remember me.’
‘Don’t you realize how simple it would be for me to prove you’re lying?’
‘Go ahead. Be my guest.’
How can he be so confident? she thought. As if he held some kind of trump card he could play whenever it suited
him.
‘I could ask some questions that you can’t answer. But the real Tom would be able to. Do you truly not grasp that?’
‘Go ahead,’ he said again. ‘I’m not stopping you. By the way, do you remember the last time we saw each other?’
‘The last time . . .?’
But words failed her.
‘That evening in the kitchen. I was a bit high, but you were irresistible. You were standing there with a drink in your hand and you were wearing that terribly sexy short dress. Black with little red dots. Do you still have it?’
FOUR
Queenstown, New Zealand, 1994–95
The farm was called Promised Land and Daniel Freemont had ended up there by pure chance.
Or perhaps it was fate. He really wanted to believe in fate, but there was little in his life up to now which suggested the existence of anything on such a grand scale. At least nothing on such a grand scale that was benevolent. Most of it had been a complete mess, especially the last twenty-five years. And since he had not yet reached forty, there were grounds for assuming it had been shit from the outset.
But what had happened at the beginning of September up in Auckland was the absolute nadir. Operating with an idiot from Tonga, Daniel had robbed a security van. They got hold of a small bag of notes that were worthless the moment they opened the bag, as the action triggered an ink tag, and the Tongan idiot shot the van driver. Daniel didn’t even know he was armed, and when the driver, a forty-year-old father of five, died a few hours later in hospital, both of them were wanted for murder. To the best of Daniel’s knowledge, the Tongan had managed to board a bloody cargo boat and sailed home to his bloody island, where he had holed up in his family of 180 people, all of whom looked the same and none of whom had any identity papers. And the police had no idea which of the two robbers had been holding the murder weapon.
Daniel had gone underground, as they say, though not on Tonga. By various means, often under cover of darkness, he had made his way south. Down to Wellington and eventually over to the South Island. He let his hair grow, stole some spectacles and stopped shaving. When he reached Queenstown in the middle of November, he didn’t look in the least like the photograph in his passport, which he had set fire to anyway on the edge of a campsite one night, the week after the infamous heist in Auckland.
He stayed in Queenstown for two months, into the new year, and actually earned some money, working in bars, backpacker hostels and a launderette. But one evening he got into a fight with a German tourist who accused him of stealing his wallet, which was a complete fabrication, and Daniel decided it was time to leave town. Early one morning a sheep farmer from up in Glenorchy gave him a lift and after a few hours on the winding road snaking north along the side of Lake Wakatipu, they got a puncture. While the driver, with seasoned though rather slow-moving hands, changed the wheel, Daniel took advantage of the break to have a look around; and there he discovered his new abode.
He bade farewell to the sheep farmer, hoisted his rucksack onto his back and started up the narrow track in the direction shown on the disintegrating sign.
PROMISED LAND
NEW TRUTH SEEKERS WELCOME
The first impression was a sorry one, even for someone like Daniel, and if he hadn’t been climbing uphill from the main road for nearly two kilometres, he might have turned round.
The main building appeared to be a large, barn-like shack, painted in half a dozen different colours, most of them peeling off. On the surrounding expanse of rather swampy grassland a motley collection of around thirty caravans and tents stretched out. A few huts, cobbled together from various pieces of board and corrugated metal, nestled close to a thinly wooded area, and in and around these rudimentary dwellings were a number of mucky cows, a few scrawny horses, a large flock of rather fatter Merino sheep and a smaller flock of children. The latter looked as though they were between five and ten in age and were just about as dirty as the cows, possibly as a consequence of trying to play football on ground that would have been better suited to speedway or potatoes. Sitting in a rocking chair on the sagging veranda of the multi-coloured barn was a huge person, presumably a man, sporting a straw hat, kaftan and flip-flops, taking a draw on something that appeared to be an uncommonly large joint.
Maybe I’ve come to the right place after all, Daniel thought.
Two hours later he was installed in a small caravan without wheels, but with a roof over his head, reasonably intact walls and a floor that didn’t give way beneath his feet. There were three bunks; one was free, one was occupied by soiled clothes, bottles and rubbish, and on the third lay a creature under a pile of blankets, snoring. At about three in the afternoon this creature woke, coughed up phlegm for a few moments and then asked if he could have a cup of coffee and a litre of water.
Just as Daniel was thinking it was a long time since he had seen a person in worse shape than this roommate, he was struck by another thought: this bugger looks like I’m going to look in a few years. If I’m not careful, I’ll end up the same.
He managed to fulfil the order and five minutes later they were each sitting with a mug of coffee, looking at one another.
‘If you’re going to stay here, you’d better tell me your name,’ the creature said. ‘If not, it doesn’t matter.’
‘Daniel Lipkens.’
It was a surname he had borrowed from a pretty teacher he had had in seventh grade and he had been using since the fiasco in Auckland.
‘Tom Bendler.’
They shook hands.
‘You don’t happen to have anything in your pocket fit for smoking?’
It was Tom Bendler who asked. Daniel shook his head.
‘Not at the moment. I’m trying to keep off it.’
‘You’ve come to the wrong place.’
‘I’m not fanatical about it.’
‘Then you’ve come to the right place. Where are you from? I have a feeling I recognize the accent, if you don’t mind me saying.’
‘Born in Maardam. Not been home for ten years.’
Tom Bendler erupted into laughter, which rapidly turned into a protracted fit of coughing. ‘What do you know!’ he said, when the cough subsided. ‘I came into the world in Aarlach. We’re fellow countrymen, for fuck’s sake.’
‘So it appears,’ Daniel said.
‘And now we’re both sitting in the same swanky caravan on the other side of the world. Someone up there must like us.’
‘How long have you been round here?’ Daniel asked.
Tom Bendler pondered this with wrinkled brow. ‘Over twenty years, I’d say. I’ve smoked away most of my little grey cells, but I think that’s a fair estimate. Yeah, at least twenty years. But now you’ll have to excuse me, I need to go out for a piss.’
‘By all means,’ Daniel said. ‘Just tell me if you need any help.’
His reply was met with another burst of laughter and subsequent fit of coughing. Poor bugger, Daniel thought. But I’ll stay a few nights and see how things shape up.
They shaped up tolerably well. Promised Land didn’t deliver quite what the name suggested, but it was good enough. About sixty people were living there, fifty adults and ten children, roughly. The commune – that was what they called it – had been set up on a small scale at the end of the seventies by a moonstruck pastor and his two wives. The pastor and one of the wives were dead, but wife number two, a mysterious woman in her fifties who bore the name Madam Holy, was still there. She was happily remarried to the present leader of Promised Land, Dr Brutus Hotchkiss, the very same character Daniel had observed in the rocking chair on the veranda when he arrived. The doctor was a former chemist and in a special room in the large barn he and some assistants cooked up drugs; these were sold at a handsome profit in Queenstown, where demand was great, particularly in the summer season. There were other possible lines of vocational activity at Promised Land. Some people helped with looking after the horses at a couple of ranches nearby, further up towards Glenorchy, but most p
eople had different kinds of jobs within the commune itself. Cooking, tending the sheep, growing potatoes, vegetables and marijuana, renovating dwellings in danger of collapse and so on. On certain mornings children of school age were sent on the bus to the school in Glenorchy; when Daniel arrived it was the school holidays, however, and in any case it was a moot point whether they actually learnt anything of value out there in the so-called civilized world.
A general meeting was held each week, or a few times a month at least, in the Rainbow, as the barn was called, led by Dr Hotchkiss and Madam Holy. First, ‘We Shall Overcome’ was sung in unison, then the doctor gave a sermon, after which matters of common interest were discussed; it culminated in the pleasant partaking of an enormous meal accompanied by a constant flow of home-made wine. These meetings often lasted until dawn and the following day was the Sabbath, with strict prohibition on work.
Not everyone participated in the general meetings, however. About a third usually stayed away – not necessarily the same third and not necessarily for the same reasons, but normally illness- and drug-related. Non-attendance was accepted unreservedly. Promised Land was a republic of freedom, where each and every one may not quite pull their weight, but where enough did to enable it to function satisfactorily. It had been in existence nearly fifteen years and as far as Daniel could see, the authorities had stopped interfering. If indeed they ever had, here in the outback. They bothered no one and were left in peace.
He carried on living with Tom Bendler in the little caravan. It soon transpired that not only were they from the same country, they were the same age, with only seven months between them. Neither of them was particularly inclined to be sociable and they could go for days with scarcely a word exchanged, an arrangement that suited them both perfectly. Broadly speaking, there was far too much bullshitting in the world already.
All the same, one evening as the sun was setting and they were sitting with their backs against the wall of the caravan, each with a beer in his hand, Daniel did ask a question: