Woman with Birthmark (26 page)

He would finish off the mad bitch once and for all through this open window.

Pure luck, he would tell the police afterward. It could just as easily have been she who got me instead…. Good thing I was on my guard.

Self-defense. Of course it was self-defense, for God's sake—he didn't even need to lie.

But he would not reveal the real reason. The root of the evil. The reason he knew he was next on the list.

He had done all he could. Went back to the house and listened.

It's strange how quiet it is, he thought, and remembered that this was what he always felt here. The silence that came rolling in from the forest and obliterated every slight sound. Wiped out everything with its enormous, silent soughing.

The armies of silence, he thought. The Day of Judgment …

He checked his watch and decided to pay a visit to the inn. A short walk there and back, along the familiar road.

Just for a beer. And, maybe, the answer to a question.

Any strangers around lately?

Any new faces?

When he got back, the darkness lay thick over the house and its environs. The buildings and the scraggy fruit trees could just about be made out against the background of the forest—rather better here and there against the somewhat lighter sky over the treetops. He had drunk two beers and a whiskey. Spoken to Lippmann and Korhonen, who had charge of the bar nowadays. Not a lot of customers, of course: a normal weekday at the beginning of March. And not many strangers, not recently, either. The occasional one who had passed through and called in, but nobody who had been there more than once. Women? No, no, not as far as they could remember. Neither Lippmann nor Korhonen. Why was he asking? Oh, business reasons. Nudge, nudge. Did he really think they would swallow that? Pull the other one. Tee hee. And cheers! Good to see you back here in the village.

Homecoming.

He tiptoed over the wet grass. It hadn't rained at all this evening, but damp mists had drifted in from the coast and settled down over the open countryside bordering the forests like an unseen presence. He kept stopping and listening, but all he could hear was the same impenetrable silence as before. Nothing else. He withdrew behind the outbuilding in order to rid his body of the remnants of the beer. Carefully opened the door, which usually squeaked a bit but didn't on this occasion. He would oil it tomorrow, just in case.

Crouched down in order to negotiate the cramped staircase again, and crawled over to his bed. Fiddled around with the blankets. Wriggled in and snuggled down. Turned over on his side and peered out. The house was dark and inert down below. Not a sound. Not a movement. He slid the pistol under his pillow, and placed his hand over it. He would have to sleep lightly, of course—but then, he usually did.

Always woke up at the slightest sound or movement.

Would no doubt do that now as well.

Blankets wrapped around his body. Face close to the window-pane. Hand over the gun.

So. Bring her on.

“I don't know,” said the chief inspector. “It's just an opinion, but if these three were up to no good together, you'd think that at least some of the others ought to have known about it. So it's more likely that something of this sort would happen toward the end of the course. But then, that's only speculation, pure and simple.”

“Sounds reasonable, though,” said Münster.

“Anyway rapes in 1965. How many have you found?”

“Two,” said Münster.

“Two?”

“Yes. Two cases of rape reported, both of them in April. The first girl was attacked in a park, it seems. The other in an apartment in Pampas.”

Van Veeteren nodded.

“How many rapists?”

“One in the park. Two in the apartment. The pair in the apartment were sentenced, the one in the park got away with it. He was never found.”

Van Veeteren leafed through his papers.

“Do you know how many rapes have been reported so far this year?”

Münster shook his head.

“Fifty-six. Can you explain to me how the hell the number of rapes could shoot up so drastically?”

“Not rapes,” said Münster. “Reported rapes.”

“Precisely” said the chief inspector. “How do you rate the chances of tracking down a thirty-year-old unreported rape?”

“Poor,” said Münster. “How do we know it's a matter of rape anyway?”

The chief inspector sighed.

“We don't know,” he said. “But we can't just sit here twiddling our thumbs. You can have another job instead. If it gets us somewhere I'll invite you to dinner at Kraus.”

Mission Impossible, Münster thought, and so did the chief inspector, it seemed, as he cleared his throat somewhat apologetically.

“I want to know about all births registered by the mother with the father given as unknown. December ′65 to March ′66, or thereabouts. In Maardam and the surrounding district. The names of the mothers and the children.”

“Especially girls?” Münster asked.

“Only girls.”

That evening he went to the movies. Saw Tarkovsky's
Nostalgia
for the fourth, or possibly the fifth, time. With the same feelings of admiration and gratitude as usual. The masterpiece of masterpieces, he thought as he sat there in the half-empty cinema and allowed himself to be gobbled up by the pictures; and he suddenly thought of what the vicar had said at his confirmation service—a gentle preacher with a long white beard, and there
were doubtless many in the congregation who considered him a very close relation of God the Father himself.

There is evil in this world, he had declared, but never and nowhere so much that there is no room left over for good deeds.

Not a particularly remarkable claim in itself, but it had stuck in Van Veeteren's mind and occasionally rose up to the surface.

Such as now. Good deeds? Van Veeteren thought as he walked home after the showing. How many people are there living the sort of lives which don't even have room for nostalgia?

Is that why she's murdering these men? Because she never had a chance?

And room for good deeds? Was that really always available? Who exactly decided on the proportions? And who started off the relentless hunt for a meaning in everything? In every deed and every happening?

Things occur, Van Veeteren thought. Things happen, and perhaps they have to happen. But they don't need to be good or evil.

And they don't need to mean anything.

And his gloom deepened.

I'm an old sod, an old, tired detective who's seen too much and doesn't want to see much more, he thought.

I don't want to see the end of this case that's been occupying me for the past six weeks now. I want to get off the train before we get to the terminus.

What were all those vile thoughts about flushing out and hunting that were so noble and meaningful at the start?

I don't want to get to the point where I'm staring at the bleak and grubby causes of all this, he thought. I know the background is just as ugly as the crimes. Or suspect that, at least, and would like to be spared everything.

A futile prayer, he knew that—but isn't futility the home ground of prayer? What else could it be?

He turned into Klagenburg and wondered briefly if he ought to call in at the café. He failed to reach a conclusion, but his feet passed by the brightly lit doorway of their own accord, and he continued his walk home.

Things happen, he thought. I might just as well have gone in.

And as he lay in bed, there were two thoughts that overwhelmed him and kept him awake.

Something is going to happen in this case as well. Just happen. Soon.

I must think about whether I have the strength to last for much longer.

And then the image of Ulrike Fremdli—Karel Innings's wife—popped up in his mind's eye. Hovered there in the dark mist between dream and reality, between slumber and consciousness, and was gradually interleaved by and combined with Tarkovsky's ruined church and Gorchakov's wading through the water with a flaming torch.

Something's bound to happen.

“Hello?”

Jelena Walgens's hearing was not what it had once been. She found it especially difficult to understand what people said on the telephone—and needless to say, she would have preferred to discuss whatever the topic was over a cup of coffee. With something freshly baked on the side. A little chat about this and that. But the young man was persistent, sounded pleasant, and of course it would be possible to settle matters over the phone even so.

“How long did you say? A month only? I would prefer to have a tenant for a bit longer than that….”

“I could pay you a bit extra,” argued the young man. “I'm a writer. Alois Mühren, I don't know if you've heard of me?”

“I don't think so.”

“What I'm looking for is a nice, quiet hideaway where I can write the final chapter of my new book. I certainly don't need more than a month. All the people and the hustle and bustle of a city make things so difficult for a writer, if you see what I mean.”

“I certainly do,” said Jelena Walgens as she searched through her memory.

But she couldn't think of anybody by that name. She read quite a lot, and had always done so; but he was a young man, and
maybe she hadn't quite heard the name right. Alois Mühren? Was that what he'd said?

“One month,” she said. “Until the first of April, that is. Is that what you want?”

“If possible. But perhaps you have other prospective tenants?”

“A few,” she lied. “But nobody who's committed themselves yet.”

In fact this was the third week in succession that she'd placed the ad in the newspaper, and apart from an off-putting German who seemed to have misunderstood everything it was possible to misunderstand, and no doubt stank of sauerkraut and sausages, he was the only one who'd called. What was the point of hesitating? A month was a month, after all.

“Would you be happy with five hundred guilders?” she asked. “It's a bit of a nuisance having to advertise again when you move out.”

“Five hundred guilders would be fine,” he said without hesitation, and the deal was done.

After lunch she drew a map and wrote instructions. One kilometer after the church in Wahrhejm, take a left when you come to the hand-painted sign. Two hundred meters through the trees toward the lake, no more. Three cottages. The one nearest the lake on the right was hers.

Keys and an explanation of how to make the awkward water pump work. The stove and the electric mains. The boat and the oars.

She had only just finished when he arrived. Rather a pale young man. Not very tall, and with polished manners, she thought. She offered him coffee, of course—it was already
brewed. But he declined. He couldn't wait to get out there and start writing. She understood perfectly.

He wasn't the least bit impolite or cocky. On the contrary. He was courteous, as she would explain later to Beatrix Hoelder and Marcela Augenbach. Courteous and polite.

And a writer. When he'd left, she tasted the word several times. “Writer.” There was something sweet about it, that had to be admitted. She liked the idea of having somebody sitting and writing in her little cottage by the lake, and perhaps she even entertained the hope that at some point in the future he would remember her and send her a copy of the book. When it was finished, of course. That would take time, she imagined. What with publishers and all the rest of it. Perhaps he would dedicate the book to her, even? She made up her mind to go to the library before long and see if he was represented on the shelves.

Mühlen, was that his name? Yes, that's what it said on the contract they had both signed. Alfons Mühlen, if she had read it correctly. He seemed a bit effeminate, she had to say, and she wondered if he might be homosexual. A lot of writers were, even if they pretended not to be, according to what Beatrix had maintained once. But then again, she maintained all kinds of things.

She'd never heard of him, that was for sure. Neither had Beatrix nor Marcela, but he was a young man, after all.

Still, he'd paid in cash, without quibbling. Five hundred guilders. She would have been satisfied with three.

So, it was an excellent deal, all things considered.

Alfons Müller?

Ah, maybe she had heard the name after all.

He felt cold.

For the fifth morning in succession, he was woken up by feeling freezing cold.

For the fifth morning in succession, it took him less than one second to remember where he was.

For the fifth morning in succession, he felt for his pistol and looked out the window.

The house was still there in the hesitant light of dawn. Just as untouched, just as unvisited and unaware as when he had fallen asleep at some point during the night.

Unmolested. She wasn't coming. She hadn't come last night, either. The cold made his body ache all over. It was inconceivable how impossible it was to keep warm up here, despite the abundance of quilts and blankets. Every morning he had woken up in the early stages of dawn, frozen stiff. Checked the state of everything by looking out the window, then gone downstairs and into the house and the warmth created by the stove. He always made a big fire in the evenings when he came back from the inn. A really roaring fire in the iron stove in the kitchen, making sure that it would retain its heat until well into the following morning.

He followed the same routine this morning. Carefully scrutinized the whole area, outside in the raw morning air and inside the house. Gun in hand. With the safety catch off.

Then he sat down at the kitchen table for coffee. Took a couple of drams of whiskey as well, to drive the cold out of his body. Listened to the seven o'clock news on the radio while he made plans for the coming day. Pistol close at hand on the worn, fifty-year-old waxed tablecloth. Back against the wall. Invisible from the window.

Getting through the day was becoming harder and harder. He couldn't endure more than three or four hours at a time in the forest, and when he came back in the early afternoon, on the alert as ever, he generally sat down on the sofa again. Or lay down in the loft for an hour or two, waiting.