Hakan Nesser - Hour of the wolf

So he lives here… Or lived here. Almost in the centre of the old town, in this run-down nineteenth-century block of flats whose dirty facade Van Veeteren was now staring at. On the second floor, almost at the top of the building. There was a faint light in the window overlooking the tiny balcony with its rusty iron railings. He knew that she was at home, and that she was expecting him: his dead son’s fiancee whom he had never met, and he also knew — suddenly but with overwhelming certainty — that he wouldn’t be able to go through with it. That he wouldn’t be able to summon up the strength to ring the bell on that shabby front door with the paint flaking off. Not today.

Instead he looked at his watch. It was almost six. The darkness that had begun to envelop the town seemed to him to be freezing cold and hostile. There was a strange smell of sulphur or phosphorus in the air. He didn’t recognize it, it somehow didn’t belong here. There was a temporary breathing space in the otherwise constant downpour, but of course rain was never far away at this time of year. He lit a cigarette. Lowered his gaze, preferring not to ask himself if it was due to shame or to something else… and having done so he noticed a cafe on the opposite corner of the square, and when he had finished his cigarette, that is where he headed. Sat down with a glass of dark beer at a table by one of the windows where it was impossible for anybody to see out or in. Rested his head on his hands and thought back over the day.

Today. The third day he had woken up in the knowledge that his son was dead.

First of all an hour at the antiquarian bookshop, where he explained the situation to Krantze and they rearranged their working hours. He didn’t dislike old Krantze, but they would never be more than business partners. Certainly not, but that’s just the way it was.

Then he paid another visit to the Forensic Laboratories, this time together with Renate and Jess. He had stayed outside the door when they went into the refrigerated room. You only need to look at a dead son once, he had told himself. And he still thought that, as he sat in the cafe and tasted the beer. Only once: there were images that time and forgetfulness would never retouch. Which never needed to be reawoken because they never slept. Jess had been in control of herself when they came out again — with a crumpled handkerchief in each hand, but controlled all the same.

Renate was just as numb and apathetic as she had been when she went in. He wondered what tablets she was on, and how many.

A few minutes’ conversation with Meusse as well. Neither of them had performed especially well. Meusse had looked as if he were about to burst into tears, and he didn’t usually behave like that.

Soon afterwards he had introduced Jess to Ulrike. It was a bright spot in all the darkness, a meeting that went exceptionally well. Only half an hour in the living room at Klagenburg with a glass of wine and a salad, but that was enough. What mattered was not the words themselves, as had been said before… But there was something between women that he would never understand. Between certain women. When they said their goodbyes out in the hall, he had felt almost like a stranger: he was able to smile in the midst of all the grief.

Then he had rung Marlene Frey and arranged a meeting. She had sounded pretty much in control of herself, and said he was welcome to call round any time after five o’clock. She would be at home, and was looking forward to speaking to him. There was something she wanted to say, she said.

Looking forward? Something she wanted to say?

And now he was sitting here with feet colder than his beer. Why?

He didn’t know. Knew only that it wouldn’t work today, and after he had finished his beer he asked if he could use the telephone. Stood there between the ladies and gents toilets surrounded by a faint smell of urine, and rang his dead son’s living fiancee to tell her that something had cropped up.

Would it be okay if he came tomorrow instead? Or the day after?

Yes, that was okay. But she had difficulty in hiding her disappointment.

So did he as he left Ockfener Plejn and started walking back home. Disappointment and shame.

I don’t understand myself any more, he thought. It’s not me that it’s all about. What am I scared of, what the hell is happening to me?

But he went straight home.

Reinhart was woken up by Winnifred whispering his name. And placing a cold hand on his stomach.

‘You’re supposed to be putting your daughter to bed, not yourself.’

He yawned, and tried to do some stretches for a couple of minutes. Then he eased himself cautiously out of Joanna’s narrow bed and out of the nursery. Flopped down on the sofa in the living room instead, where his wife was half-lying under a blanket at the other end.

‘Let’s hear it,’ she said.

He thought for a while.

‘Triple-headed and Satanic,’ he said. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what it is. Would you like a glass of wine?’

‘I think so,’ said Winnifred. ‘As we know, the Devil is triple-headed in Dante already, so all is in order.’

‘In Dante’s time women who knew too much were burnt at the stake. Red or white?’

‘Red. No, it was later than Dante. Well?’

Reinhart got up and went into the kitchen. Poured out two glasses and came back. Lay down on the sofa again and started his narration. It took quite a while, and she didn’t interrupt him a single time.

‘And the three heads?’ she said when he’d finished.

Reinhart took a drink before answering.

‘In the first place,’ he said, ‘we haven’t the faintest idea who did it. That’s bad enough in routine cases.’

‘I’m familiar with that,’ said Winnifred.

‘In the second place it’s The Chief Inspector ’s son who’s the victim.’

‘Nasty,’ said Winnifred. ‘And the third?’

Reinhart paused once more to think.

‘In the third place, he was presumably mixed up in something. If we find a killer, we shall presumably also find that Erich Van Veeteren was mixed up in something illegal. Yet again. Despite what his girlfriend says… That’s unlikely to be something to warm the cockles of his father’s heart, don’t you think?’

‘I understand,’ said Winnifred, swirling her wine round in its glass. ‘Yes, it’s three-headed all right. But how certain is it that he was involved in something illegal? That doesn’t necessarily have to be the case, surely?’

‘Certain and certain,’ said Reinhart, tapping his forehead with his middle finger. ‘There are signals in here that can’t be ignored. Besides… besides, he’s asked to be left alone face to face with the murderer when we eventually find him. The Chief Inspector, that is. Hell’s bells… But I think I understand him.’

Winnifred thought for a moment.

‘It’s not a nice story,’ she said. ‘Could it be much worse, in fact? It sounds almost as if it’s been stage-managed in some way.’

‘That’s what he always says,’ said Reinhart.

The police’s appeal for help in the Dikken case was plastered all over the main newspapers in Maardam on Tuesday, exactly a week after the murder, and by five o’clock in the afternoon ten people had rung to say they had been at the Trattoria Commedia on the day in question. Jung and Rooth were delegated to look into the tip-offs, and eliminated six of them as ‘of secondary interest’ (Rooth’s term), as the timing didn’t fit in. The remaining four had evidently been in the restaurant during the period 17.00–18.30, and all four were kind enough to turn up at the police station during the evening to be interrogated.

The first was Rupert Pilzen, a fifty-eight-year-old bank manager who lived in Weimaar Alle in Dikken, and had slipped into the Commedia and sat in the bar for a while. A little whisky and a beer, that’s all. A quarter past five until a quarter to six, roughly speaking. While he waited for his wife to prepare the evening meal — he sometimes indulged in that pleasure after a hard day’s work, he explained. When he had time.