Hakan Nesser - Hour of the wolf

Strength to see her through life. Yes, he could see that she had that.

It’s disgraceful, he thought. Disgraceful that I haven’t met her until now. In circumstances like these. Obviously, I ought…

But then the Erich-is-dead constellation took possession of him with such force that he almost fainted. He gulped down his wine and took out his cigarette-rolling machine.

‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

She smiled briefly again.

‘Erich smoked.’

They sat in silence while he rolled, then lit up.

‘I ought to give it up,’ he said. ‘Using this thing helps to cut down at least.’

Why the hell am I sitting here, he thought, going on about smoking? What difference does it make if the father of a dead son smokes too much?

She suddenly placed her hand on his arm. His heart missed a beat and he almost choked on his cigarette. She observed his reaction, no doubt, but did nothing to pretend it was an accident. Nothing to gloss over it. Simply left her hand where it was while looking hard at him with probing, slightly quivering eyes.

‘I think I could get to like you,’ she said. ‘It’s a pity things turned out as they did.’

Turned out as they did? he thought. A pity? Talk about understatement…

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t have more contact with Erich. Naturally, it ought to-’

‘It’s not your fault,’ she said, interrupting him. ‘He was a bit.. Well, how should one describe it?’ She shrugged. ‘But I loved him. We had good times together, it was as if being together made us grow up, as it were. And then of course there was that special thing.’

He had forgotten all about that.

‘Er, yes,’ he said. ‘What special thing?’

She let go of his arm and gazed down at her cup for a few seconds. Stirred it slowly with her spoon.

‘I don’t know how you’re going to take this, but the fact is that I’m expecting a child. I’m pregnant, in the third month. Well, that’s how things stand.’

‘Good God!’ he exclaimed, and now the smoke really did spark off a coughing fit.

Early on Tuesday morning he drove Jess out to Sechshafen. He had told both her and Renate about the conversation with Marlene Frey: Jess had phoned her on the Monday evening and arranged to meet her the next time she came to Maardam. With a bit of luck around New Year.

The intention had been that Renate should also accompany them to the airport, but apparently she had woken up with a temperature and what seemed to be tonsillitis. Van Veeteren thanked God for the bacilli, and suspected that Jess didn’t have anything against them either.

She held his hand that morning as well as they crawled through the fog enveloping Landsmoor and Weill: it was a warm hand, and occasionally gave his a hard squeeze. He was aware that the squeezes were indications of daughterly love, and the familiar old anxiety that goes with parting. Stronger than ever on a day like this, of course. Separation from her roots in this flat, north European landscape. From Erich. Perhaps also from him.

‘It’s hard to say goodbye,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s hard.’

‘You never get used to it. But I suppose there’s a point to that as well.’

Parting is a little death, he almost added, but he managed to keep that thought to himself.

‘I don’t like airports,’ she said. ‘I’m always a bit frightened when I’m going to travel somewhere. Erich was the same.’

He nodded. He hadn’t known that, in fact. He wondered how much there was he didn’t know about his children. How much he had missed over the years, and how much could still be repaired or discovered.

‘But I didn’t know him all that well,’ she said after a while. ‘I hope I’ll grow to like Marlene — it feels as if through her he’s left traces of himself behind. I hope to goodness all goes well. It would be awful if…’

She didn’t complete the sentence. After a while he noticed that she had started crying, and he gave her hand a long squeeze.

‘It feels better now, at least,’ she said when it had passed. ‘Better than when I came. I’ll never get used to it, but I occasionally feel almost calm now. Or maybe one just feels numb after all the crying. What do you think?’

He muttered something in response. No, he thought. Nothing goes away, it all just gets worse as time passes. Worse every day as you grow older.

As they began to approach the airport she let go of his hand. Took out a paper handkerchief and dried her eyes.

‘Why did you really pack up being a police officer?’

The question came out of the blue, and for a moment he felt on the spot.

‘I don’t really know,’ he said. ‘I’d just had enough… I suppose that’s the simplest explanation. I felt that quite clearly, I didn’t have to think deeply about it.’

‘I understand,’ she said. ‘I suppose there’s quite a lot one doesn’t need to think deeply about.’

She paused, but he could hear that she had more on her mind. Had a good idea of what it was as well — and after a minute she started again.

‘It’s odd, but I’ve started to think about something I didn’t think at first would worry me at all… In the beginning, when I first heard that Erich was dead.’

‘What exactly?’ he asked.

‘The murderer,’ she said. ‘The one who did it. I want to know who it was, and why he did it. I want to know that more and more. Do you think that’s odd? I mean, Erich’s gone, no matter what…’

He turned his head to look at her.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it’s odd at all. I think it’s one of the most natural reactions you could possibly imagine. There’s a reason why I packed up being a police officer, but there was a reason why I started as well.’

She looked at him and nodded slowly.

‘I think I understand. And you still think that?’

‘Yes, I still think that.’

She paused before her next question.

‘How’s it going? For the police, I mean. Do you know anything? Are they in touch with you?’

He shrugged.

‘I don’t know much. I’ve asked about it, but I don’t want to poke my nose in too far. When they get anywhere they’ll let me know, of course. Perhaps I’ll give Reinhart a ring and ask how they’re getting on.’

They arrived. He turned into the multi-storey car park, up the narrow ramp, and pulled up in front of a grey concrete wall.

‘Do that,’ she said. ‘Find out how far they’ve got. I want to know who killed my brother.’

He nodded, and they got out of the car. Twenty minutes later he watched her walk off between two uniformed airline staff and disappear into the security-check area.

Yes indeed, he thought. When all’s said and done, that’s the big question that still needs to be answered.

Who?

He found it incomprehensible to start with.

His first reaction — the first attempt to explain it — was that he had survived.

That the man in the car park had somehow or other come back to life after being struck down. Crawled out of the bushes and into the restaurant, and been taken to hospital. Pulled through.

With a broken parietal bone and smashed cervical vertebrae?

Then he remembered the facts. That there had been articles in all the newspapers. That there had been reports on the radio and television. There was no doubt about it, of course. That lanky young man he had killed at the golf course was dead. Finally and irrevocably dead.

Ergo? he thought. Ergo I’ve killed the wrong person. That had to be the explanation. Was there any alternative?

Not as far as he could see. It must be the case that… that yet again he had killed somebody by mistake.

That didn’t make it any less incomprehensible.