Hakan Nesser - Hour of the wolf

‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing I can think of.’

‘Had he met any new acquaintances lately?’

‘No. Erich knew an awful lot of people… Of all kinds, you might say.’

‘I understand,’ said Reinhart. ‘This Elmer Kodowsky, for instance, whose car he borrowed?’

‘For instance, yes,’ said Frey.

‘Have either of you had any contact with him lately?’

She shook her head.

‘He’s inside. I don’t know where. He was an old friend of Erich’s, I’ve never met him. I’ve only seen him once or twice.’

‘And you yourself haven’t felt threatened in any way?’ Moreno asked.

‘Me?’ said Frey, looking genuinely surprised. ‘No, definitely not.’

There followed a brief silence. Frey leaned forward, closer to the stove, and rubbed the palms of her hands together in the waves of heat floating upwards.

‘You waited for rather a long time before contacting the police,’ said Reinhart.

‘I know.’

‘Why?’

She shrugged.

‘Perhaps it’s the way it is in cases of this sort. Or what do you think?’

Reinhart said nothing.

‘Had either of you any contact with Erich’s mother?’ asked Moreno.

‘No,’ said Frey. ‘None at all. But I would like to speak to his father — please tell him that if you happen to see him.’

‘Really?’ said Reinhart. ‘What do you want to say to him?’

‘I’ll tell him that when I see him,’ said Frey.

Afterwards they spent some time in Cafe Gambrinus, trying to sum up their impressions.

‘Not much in the way of lines to follow up yet,’ said Reinhart. ‘Or what do you think? Damn and blast.’

‘No, not a lot,’ said Moreno. ‘Although it does seem as if he had a date with his murderer out at Dikken. Even if he didn’t really know what was going to happen. The odd thing is that he sat in the restaurant by himself, waiting. Assuming we can trust what Jung and Rooth say, that is. That could suggest that the person he was waiting for didn’t turn up according to plan.’

‘Possibly,’ said Reinhart ‘But it could have happened much more straightforwardly, we mustn’t forget that.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Moreno, taking a sip of her mulled wine.

‘A no-frills robbery,’ said Reinhart. ‘A junkie with a hammer who thought he could do with a bit of cash. The victim’s pockets were emptied, even his fags and keys were nicked — that ought to tell us something.’

Moreno nodded.

‘Do you think that’s what happened?’ she asked.

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ said Reinhart. ‘Besides, it doesn’t need to have been the same person — the one who killed him and the one who went through his pockets, that is. The character who rang to report finding the body didn’t exactly give the impression of being a blue-eyed innocent, did he?’

‘Hardly,’ said Moreno. ‘But in any case, I’m inclined to think it wasn’t just a case of a mugging that went wrong. I reckon there’s more to it than that — but whether or not I think that because of who the victim was, I don’t know… I suppose it’s a bit warped to think along those lines.’

‘A lot of thinking is warped when you look closely at it,’ said Reinhart. ‘Intuition and prejudice smell pretty much alike in fact. But we can start off with this, no matter what.’

He took out the well-thumbed address book Marlene Frey had lent them — on condition they returned it as soon as they had copied it.

‘This must mean that they really were on the straight and narrow path nowadays,’ said Moreno. ‘Who hands a whole address book over to the police of their own accord if they have something on their conscience?’

Reinhart leafed through the book and looked worried.

‘There’s a hell of a lot of people in here,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I think we’d better talk to her again and get her to narrow it down a bit.’

‘I’ll do that tomorrow,’ Moreno promised. ‘Anyway, I think I ought to be moving on. I don’t think we’re going to lay any golden eggs this evening.’

Reinhart looked at the clock.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said. ‘But one thing is crystal clear in any case.’

‘What’s that?’ wondered Moreno.

‘We must solve this. If we don’t solve another single bloody case between now and the next century, we must make absolutely certain that we sort out this one. That’s the least we can do for him.’

Moreno leaned her head on her hands and thought.

‘If it were anybody else, I’d think you were nattering on in the spirit of romanticized boy scout mentality,’ she said. ‘But I must admit that I agree with you. It’s bad enough as it is, but it’ll be even worse if we let the murderer get away with it. Will you be contacting him tomorrow? I suppose he’ll want to know how things are going.’

‘I’ve promised to keep him informed,’ said Reinhart. ‘And I shall do just that. Whether I want to or not.’

Moreno nodded sombrely. Then they emptied their glasses, and left the cafe and the town and the world to their fate.

For a few hours, at least.

He woke up and looked at the clock.

A quarter to five. He had slept for twenty minutes.

Erich is dead, he thought. It’s not a dream. He’s dead, that’s reality.

He could feel his eyes burning in their sockets. As if they wanted to force their way out of his head. Oedipus, it occurred to him. Oedipus Rex… Wandering around blind for the rest of my life, seeking God’s grace. Perhaps that would be an idea. It might give things a meaning. Erich is dead. My son.

It was remarkable how the same thought could fill up the whole of his consciousness, hour after hour. The same three words — not even a thought, strictly speaking: just this constellation of words, as impenetrable as a mantra in a foreign language: Erich is dead, Erich is dead. Minute after minute, second after second; every fraction of every moment of every second. Erich is dead.

Or perhaps it wasn’t remarkable at all. Presumably this was exactly as it had to be. As it would always be from now on. This was the keystone for the rest of his life. Erich was dead. His son had finally taken possession of him: thanks to his death he had finally captured the whole of his father’s attention and love. Erich. That’s how it was. Quite simply.

I shall fall short, Van Veeteren thought. I shall fall to pieces and sink to the bottom, but I don’t care. I ought to have made sure I died at the right time.

The woman by his side stirred and woke up. Ulrike. Ulrike Fremdli. The one who had become his woman despite all the uncertainties and convulsions of the mind. His convulsions, not hers.

‘Have you slept all right?’

He shook his head.

‘Not at all?’

‘Half an hour.’

She stroked his chest and stomach with her warm hand.

‘Would you like a cup of tea? I can go and make you one.’

‘No thank you.’

‘Do you want to talk?’

‘No.’

She turned over. Crept up closer to him, and after a while he could hear from her breathing that she had fallen asleep again. He waited for a few more minutes, then got up cautiously, tucked the covers round her, and went out into the kitchen.

The red digital numbers on the transistor radio in the window said 04.56. It was still pitch black outside: only a few faint streaks of light from a street lamp fell onto the corner of the building on the opposite side of the street. Guijdermann’s, the bakery that had closed down. The objects he could make out in the kitchen were wreathed in this same pale, shadowy half-light. The table, the chairs. The cooker, the sink, the shelf over the larder, the pile of copies of the Allgemejne in the basket in the corner. He opened the refrigerator door, then closed it again. Took a glass from a cupboard and drank some ordinary tap water instead. Erich is dead, he thought. Dead.