Hour of the Wolf (32 page)

He tried to conjure up the murderer. Noted that he hadn’t in fact been the motor driving the whole business. Rather, he seemed to have been dragged into a situation, an increasingly intense and infernal dilemma that he had tried to solve with every means available to him. He had killed and killed and killed with a sort of desperate, perverted logic.

And nevertheless, in the end, become the victim himself.

No, Reinhart was right. It was not a pleasant story.

That night he dreamt about two things.

Firstly about a visit he’d paid to Erich when he was in prison. It wasn’t an especially eventful dream: he simply sat in Erich’s cell, and Erich lay on the bed. A warder came in with a tray. They drank coffee and ate some kind of soft biscuit without speaking to each other – it was in fact a memory rather than a dream. A memory which perhaps had nothing more to say than what it portrayed: a father visiting his son in prison. An archetype.

He also dreamt about G. About the G file, the only case he had failed to solve over all his years as a police officer. Nothing actually happened in this dream either. G sat in the dock during his trial, wearing his black suit, and gazed at Van Veeteren from the depths of his dark eyes. There was a sardonic smile on his lips. The prosecuting counsel walked back and forth, firing questions at him, but G didn’t answer, simply sat there looking at Van Veeteren in the public gallery with that characteristic mixture of contempt and mockery.

He felt much greater distaste at this short dream sequence, but when he woke up he couldn’t even recall in which order he had dreamt them. Which one had come first. As he ate his breakfast he wondered if they could have somehow been merged into each other, as if in a film – Erich in prison and G in the courtroom – and in that case what the message of such a parallel dream might be.

He didn’t find an answer, perhaps because he didn’t want to. Perhaps because there wasn’t one.

When he had finished packing on the Thursday afternoon, and marked all the boxes, he took his own carrier bag of books to his car, drove to the swimming baths and spent a couple of hours there before returning home to Klagenburg at about six o’clock. There were two messages on the telephone answering machine he had been given as a present by Ulrike. One was from her: she intended visiting him on Friday with a bottle of wine and some morel pâté, she announced, and wondered if he could use his own initiative to buy a few small gherkins and whatever other accessories he felt would be appropriate.

The other message was from Mahler, who explained that he intended to set up the chess pieces down at the Society at about nine p.m.

At that moment
The Chief Inspector
was inclined to give the inventor of the telephone answering machine – whoever that might be – half an acknowledgement.

It was raining when he emerged into the street, but it was pleasantly warm and he took the route through the cemetery as he had planned. The first week after Erich’s funeral he had been there every day, preferably in the evening when darkness had wrapped its comforting blanket around the graves. Now it was three days since the last time. As he approached the spot he slowed down as a sort of sign of respect – it happened without his thinking about it: an automatic, instinctive bodily reaction, it seemed. The open area was deserted at this time of day, gravestones and memorials stood up like even blacker silhouettes in the surrounding darkness. All that could be heard were his own footsteps on the gravel, pigeons cooing, cars accelerating a long way away in another world. He came to the grave. Stood listening, as usual, his hands dug deep into his overcoat pockets. If there was any ever-so-faint message or sign to be perceived at this time of day, it would be a sound: he knew that.

The dead are older than the living, he thought. Irrespective of how old they were when they passed over to the other side, they have experienced something which makes them older than any living thing.

Even a child. Even a son.

In the darkness he was unable to read the little memorial placard that had been installed temporarily until the stone ordered by Renate was in place. He found himself wishing he could read it: he would have liked to see the name and the date, and he made up his mind to visit the grave in daylight the next time.

The rain stopped as he stood there, and after ten minutes he continued on his way.

Left his son for now with the words
Sleep well, Erich
on his lips.

If possible I’ll come to you in due course.

The Society’s premises in Styckargränd were packed. But Mahler had arrived early and secured one of their usual booths with Dürer prints and wrought-iron candelabra. He was sitting there, stroking his beard and writing in a black notebook when Van Veeteren turned up.

‘New poems,’ he explained, closing the book. ‘Or rather, old ones using new words. My language ceased to transcend my brain thirty years ago – besides, I don’t even know what transcend means any longer . . . And how are you keeping?’

‘KBO,’ said Van Veeteren, easing himself into the booth. ‘Keep buggering on. I sometimes have the impression that I’ll survive all this.’

Mahler nodded and took a cigar out of the breast pocket of his waistcoat.

‘That’s our lot,’ he said. ‘Those the gods hate are made to keep buggering on longest. Ready?’

Van Veeteren nodded, and Mahler started setting up the pieces.

The first game lasted fifty moves, sixty-five minutes and three beers. Van Veeteren accepted a draw, despite the fact that he had one extra pawn, because it was stranded on an outside file.

‘That son of yours,’ said Mahler after stroking his beard for a while. ‘Have they caught the bastard who did it?’

Van Veeteren emptied his glass before answering.

‘Apparently,’ he said. ‘Although it seems as if Nemesis has already put his oar in.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘He seems to be buried somewhere, according to what I’ve heard. It was a blackmailing lark. Erich was just a pawn in the game . . . No dirty hands in any case, not this time. Oddly enough that consoles me a bit. But I’d have liked to be able to look that doctor in the eye.’

‘Doctor?’ said Mahler.

‘Yes. Their function is to keep people alive, but this one chose a different line. Slaughtered them instead. I’ll tell you the whole story – but some other time, if you don’t mind. I need to put some distance between me and it first.’

Mahler sat and thought things over for a while, then excused himself and went to the loo. Van Veeteren took the opportunity of rolling five cigarettes while he was away. That corresponded to his prescribed daily consumption: but it had gone up a bit during the last month.

What the hell? Five cigarettes or ten? So what?

Mahler returned, carrying new beers.

‘I have a suggestion,’ he said. ‘Let’s do a Fischer.’

‘A Fischer?’ said Van Veeteren. ‘What are you on about?’

‘Come on, you know – the BIG genius’s final contribution to the game of chess: you set up the back line purely by chance . . . The same at both ends, of course. Then you avoid those bloody silly analyses right through to the twentieth move. The only must is that the king has to be between the rooks.’

‘I’ve heard about that,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I’ve read about it. I’ve even studied a game played on that basis – it seemed barmy. It never occurred to me that I’d have to play a game like that . . . Do you really analyse everything as far ahead as the twentieth move?’

‘Always,’ said Mahler. ‘Well?’

‘If you insist,’ said Van Veeteren.

‘I do insist,’ said Mahler. ‘Cheers.’

He closed his eyes and dug into the box.

‘File?’

‘C,’ said Van Veeteren.

Mahler placed his white rook on c1.

‘Good Lord,’ said Van Veeteren, staring at it.

They continued with the whole back line: only one of the bishops landed in its right place. The kings were on the e file, the queens on g.

‘Fascinating to see the knight in the corner,’ said Mahler. ‘Shall we begin?’

He skipped his usual long session of introductory concentration, and played e2 to e3.

Van Veeteren rested his head on his hands, and stared at the board. Sat there for two minutes without moving a muscle. Then he slammed his fist down on the table and stood up.

‘Bloody hell! I’ll be damned if . . . Excuse me a moment.’

He wriggled his way out of the booth.

‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ said Mahler, but he received no answer.
The Chief Inspector
had already elbowed his way to the telephone in the foyer.

The conversation with Reinhart took almost twenty minutes, and when he came back Mahler had already taken out his notebook again.

‘Sonnets,’ he explained, contemplating his cigar that had gone out. ‘Words and form! We have a totally clear view of the world when we’re fourteen years old, maybe sooner. But then we need another fifty years in order to create a language that can express those impressions. And in the mean time, of course, they’ve faded away . . . What the hell got into you?’

‘Please excuse me,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘You sometimes get a flash of inspiration even in the autumn of your life. It must have been this daft set-up that sparked it off.’

He gestured towards the board. Mahler peered at him over his half-empty glass.

‘You’re talking in riddles,’ he said.

But enlightenment had not yet dawned. Van Veeteren took a swig of beer, moved his knight out of the corner and lit a cigarette.

‘Your move, Mr Poet,’ he said.

SIX

36

Chief Inspector Reinhart landed at Kennedy airport at 14.30 on Friday, 18 December. He was met by Chief Lieutenant Bloomguard, with whom he had spoken on the telephone and exchanged half a dozen faxes over the last twenty-four hours.

Bloomguard was about thirty-five, a stocky, close-cropped and energetic man whose very handshake seemed to indicate the abundant generosity, open-heartedness and warmth of American culture. Reinhart had already declined his invitation to stay in his home in Queens during his New York visit, and had several opportunities to do so again in the car on the way to and through the increasingly dense traffic in Manhattan.

Reinhart checked into Trump Tower in Columbus Circle. Bloomguard gave him a pat on the back and three hours to wash away all the dust accrued during his travels: then he was required to be on parade outside the entrance in order to be conveyed out to Queens for a slap-up dinner with the family. Yes sir.

When Reinhart was alone he stood by the window of his room and looked out – the twenty-fourth floor with a view to the north and east of Manhattan. Especially Central Park, which was spread out like a frosty miniature landscape diagonally below him. Dusk was closing in, but as yet the skyline was grey and drab. As they waited for night to fall the skyscrapers seemed to be hiding away in an anonymity that could hardly be ascribed to Reinhart’s lack of knowledge about their names and functions. Not entirely, at least, he told himself. He could identify the Metropolitan and Guggenheim towers in Fifth Avenue on the other side of the park, but then he was uncertain. In any case, it didn’t seem particularly hospitable. Positively hostile, in fact. The temperature was a degree or so below freezing, Bloomguard had told him, and the forecast was that it would become colder during the night. No snow so far this year, but maybe they could hope for some soon.

It was fifteen years since Reinhart was last in New York. The only time he’d been there, in fact. It had been a holiday visit, in August. As hot as a baking oven: he recalled having drunk four litres of water a day, and that his feet had ached. Recalled also that what he’d liked best were walks along the river promenade, and the tumbledown state of Coney Island. And Barnes & Noble, of course, especially the premises on Eighth Street. The world’s best bookshop, open more or less all day and night long, where you could read as much as you liked for free in the cafeteria.

It had been a pleasure trip that time. He sighed, and left the window. Now he was on duty. He took a shower, slept for an hour, then had another shower.

Lieutenant Bloomguard was married to a woman called Veronique who did her best to look like Jacqueline Kennedy.

With a degree of success. They had a daughter two weeks older than Reinhart’s Joanna, and lived in a low hacienda-inspired house in north-west Queens which looked exactly like what he had always imagined an American middle-class home ought to look like. During the meal his host recounted selected tales from the family history (with occasional contributions by his hostess). His father, who had fought in both Africa and Korea and had half a dozen medals and a wooden leg for his troubles, had just undergone a triple heart bypass operation, and looked as if he was going to survive. Veronique had just celebrated her thirtieth birthday and came originally from Montana, where they used to spend long vacations enjoying the clear mountain air. Bloomguard’s younger sister had been raped in Far Rockaway just over two years ago, but had found a good therapist who seemed able to get her back on her feet again; and they had switched to decaffeinated coffee, but were thinking of going back to the normal stuff. Etcetera. Reinhart recounted a similar tenth or so of his own journey through the vale of tears, and by the time they came to the ice cream he realized that he knew more about Lieutenant Bloomguard and his family than he knew about any of his colleagues in the Maardam CID.

When Veronique withdrew with Quincey (which Reinhart had always thought was a boy’s name) after doing her duty most efficiently, the gentlemen detectives sat down in front of the fire, each with a brandy, and started serious discussions.

By half past ten Reinhart began to feel the effects of jet lag. Bloomguard laughed and slapped him on the back once again. Put him into a taxi and sent him back to Manhattan.

Apart from having been obliged to stand outside on the terrace to smoke his pipe, Reinhart thought it had been a pleasant enough evening.

He would probably have fallen asleep in the taxi had it not been for the fact that the driver was a gigantic, singing Puerto Rican (Reinhart had always thought that Puerto Ricans were small), who insisted on wearing sunglasses although it was the middle of the night. Reinhart remembered a line in a film he’d seen – ‘Are you blind or just stupid?’ – but although it was on the edge of his tongue all the way, he couldn’t summon up the courage to say it.