Ю Несбё - The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

Franz Schmid’s only hope was to disappear, to cease to exist. So he staged his own suicide. Called me from the beach and announced it in such a way as to leave no doubt about it. Planted the idea that maybe Julian wasn’t dead, that he might yet be found in his ‘prison of love’. He had to express it like that to give himself time to get up to Palechora before we solved his riddle, but he probably hadn’t reckoned on my taking several days to do it. After his phone conversation with me he left his clothes and mobile phone in the car, walked barefoot out into the waves and threw away the Luger so that if we found it that would strengthen the likelihood of suicide. Climbed ashore again on the rocks and from there made his way to Palechora, it can’t have taken him much more than an hour. It was night, there was a storm, so he knew the chances of encountering anyone or at least anyone who would recognise him were minimal.

‘You had a woollen blanket with you but you must have had clothing and shoes to get up to Palechora,’ I said. ‘Where did you get rid of them?’

I could see Franz loosening his hold, saw the yellow-taped end slide up towards his hand.

‘In Chora,’ he said. ‘In a rubbish bin below the fortress walls. Along with the packaging for the emetic and the laxatives I took so that it would look as though I had been chained there for a long time before you found me. I made it up to the cellar, and then I shat and puked like a pig. I really thought it wouldn’t take you long to find me.’

‘You stayed in the cellar the whole time?’

‘During daylight hours yes, otherwise I risked being seen from Chora, or by tourists. But I went out at night to get some fresh air.’

‘And of course, you didn’t chain yourself to the wall until you knew that “rescue” wasn’t far away. The key to the handcuffs, where did you hide that?’

‘I swallowed it.’

‘And that was all you ate while you were there? No wonder you looked a good deal thinner.’

Franz Schmid laughed. ‘Four kilos. It shows, when you’re already thin to begin with. I got a bit desperate when I realised you weren’t taking the hint. I started shouting for help. And when I finally heard people walking out there, I had shouted myself hoarse and almost lost my voice.’

‘That’s why your voice was different,’ I said. ‘You had just shouted until you were hoarse.’

‘No one heard me,’ said Franz.

‘No one heard you,’ I repeated.

I took a deep breath. The climbing harness tightened, constricting the circulation, and my feet were already beginning to contract. I knew, of course, that he might have two reasons for confessing. One was that, come what may, he intended to let me drop into the abyss. The other, that it feels good to confess. To shift the burden over onto someone else. It’s the reason that confession is one of the church’s most popular attractions.

‘So you assumed the life of your own brother,’ I said.

Franz Schmid shrugged. ‘Julian and I knew each other’s lives inside out, so it was easier than you might think. I promised Helena I would soon be back, then I travelled home. I kept away from people who knew us too well, like family and friends, and Julian’s work colleagues. The isolation and a couple of other strange situations were excused as loss of memory as a result of the trauma I had been through. The hardest thing was the funeral, when my mother said she was convinced that I was Franz, and that grief must have driven her mad. And the speeches, when I realised how many people loved me. After the burial I left my job, meaning Julian’s job, and came back here to Kalymnos. Helena and I had a small wedding — only Mother was invited from my side. But she wouldn’t come. She thinks I stole Helena from Franz, and that Helena has betrayed Franz. We had almost no contact until the birth of Ferdinand. But since I sent a few pictures of Ferdinand we’ve spoken on the phone. So we’ll see how it works out.’

‘And Helena... does she know anything?’

Franz Schmid shook his head. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked. ‘You give me a rope and tie yourself to the other end and tell me that if I kill you no one will know anything.’

‘Let me ask you instead, Franz, isn’t it terrible to have to bear the weight of this alone?’

He didn’t reply.

‘If you kill me now, you’ll still be alone. With not just a murder committed in blind rage but a cold-blooded murder. Is that what you want?’

‘You leave me with no choice, Nikos.’

‘A man always has a choice.’

‘When it comes to his own life maybe. But now I have a family to consider. I love them, they love me, and I am willing to make any sacrifice for them. Peace in my soul. Your life. Do you really think that’s so strange?’

I fell. I caught a glimpse of the end of the rope as it disappeared into Franz’s hand and knew it was all over. But then the harness tightened around my thighs and back again and I swayed lightly on the elasticated rope.

‘Not strange in any way,’ I said. My pulse dropped, the worst was over, I was no longer so afraid to die. ‘Because that’s what I’ve come here to offer you. Peace in your soul.’

‘Not possible.’

‘I know I can’t give you perfect peace. After all, you killed your brother. But I can offer you peace from the fear of being exposed, of having to look over your shoulder the whole time.’

He gave a quick laugh. ‘Because now it’s all over, and I’m about to be arrested?’

‘You’re not going to be arrested. At least not by me.’

Franz Schmid leaned backwards. With the end of the rope now in his hand it was just a question of how long he could hold on. That was OK. I was prepared for it to end this way. It was one of the only two ways out that were acceptable to me.

‘And why aren’t you going to arrest me?’ asked Franz.

‘Because I want the same thing in return.’

‘The same thing?’

‘Peace in my soul. It means I can’t arrest you without doing the same thing to myself.’

I saw the sinews and the veins move beneath the skin of the back of his hand. His neck muscles tensed, and he breathed more heavily. I understood I only had seconds left. Seconds, a sentence or two to tell the story of the day that had shaped the rest of my life.

‘So what plans have you got for the summer?’ I asked Trevor as I raised the Thermos cup to my mouth.

Trevor, Monique and I were sitting on separate stones and facing each other. Behind us was a wall some twenty metres high, and before us a softly undulating landscape of meadows. Most of it was uncultivated, here and there we saw cows. On clear days like today, from the top of the wall, you could see the smoke from the factory chimneys hovering over Sheffield. We had finished climbing, the sun was already low in the sky, and we were just taking a short break for food before heading back. The hot cup scorched my raw fingertips, and the cup felt slippery because I had just rubbed Elizabeth Arden’s Eight Hour Cream into my fingers — that’s a ladies’ cosmetic first produced in the 1930s, but as I and hundreds of other climbers had discovered, it was much better for rebuilding new skin than any patented climbers’ cream.

‘Don’t know,’ Trevor answered.

It was difficult to get him talking today. Same with Monique. On the drive from Oxford, and also while we were climbing it was me — the one with the broken heart — who did the talking. Joked. Kept the spirits up. Of course I saw them exchanging looks that said who’s going to tell him, you or me? But I adroitly avoided giving them a suitable opening. I had filled any silences in the car with meaningless chitchat that would almost certainly have sounded frenetic had it not been on the subject of climbing, where all talk sounds frenetic. This was to be a one-day trip, since Monique needed the rest of the weekend to prepare for her finals, so perhaps they intended to wait until we were almost home so that they wouldn’t have to spend hours in the car with me after dropping the bombshell. On the other hand, they were probably desperate to get it over with, confess their sins, swear it would never happen again, accept my disappointment, even, perhaps, my tears. But after that my forgiveness too, my magnanimous promise that yes, we could pretend it had never happened and continue as before. Yes, and perhaps grow even closer now that we had a foretaste of what it was we risked losing: each other.