Bernhard Aichner - Woman of the Dead - A Thriller

Blum is alone now. There is no snow on the windscreen. The seat beside her is empty. It is summer, and what happened then is only a lovely, painful memory. Blum waits for Jaunig to come up the slope. She knows he will soon be running this way, it won’t be long now. He’s done that for the last four days, always at the same time. She has waited for him outside the presbytery. Every evening he has arrived in the forecourt of the cathedral in his grey jogging suit and begun to run. Out of the Old Town just before darkness falls. Over the bridge of the River Inn, along Höttingergasse and up to the forest.

Blum waits. She keeps looking in the rear-view mirror, where she sees her face, her eyes. She thinks how Mark always told her that she had an unhappy mouth; it showed when she was sad or tired. She thinks of all the good things that Mark brought. How he had replaced her past.

Blum firmly believes he will come. She knows he will come. She has planned it all. She needed two days on her own, she said, two days at the seaside. Please, Karl, look after everything. I’m so grateful to you, Karl. She promised to bring the children something back, seashells and sand. She hugged Karl. Then she drank a glass of wine in the kitchen. The children were playing with modelling clay, and she decided on the next step, on what will happen when Herbert Jaunig appears at the end of the path. She remembers, with all her might, everything that isn’t here now, everything beautiful. She remembers Mark. It helps her to justify what is about to happen.

The man of God comes, running towards Blum, who is ready to turn the key in the ignition. He can see the little car beside the path. He thinks nothing of it, he runs on. Until he reaches her, until she turns the key, about to step on the gas. Another twenty seconds. She must do it. Now, go!

She feels the car striking his body as the future bishop falls to the ground. She has only a brief glimpse of his horrified face; she doesn’t hesitate for a second, she runs him over, breaking bones. Pitilessly, Blum brakes and reverses. She must work fast, she must drag him into the car, force him into the boot, wrestle with his legs, his arms, his torso. She jumps out of the car, and uses all her strength to push, haul and lift the priest into the small boot. He is only a mass of flesh and bones. She ignores the pain he must be feeling. She ties him up with duct tape, gags and binds him. An accident, she thinks. Just an unfortunate accident. Breathlessly, she slams down the boot, gets back into the car and drives away. In six hours’ time she will be in Trieste. In six hours’ time she will talk to him. If he’s still alive then.

There are no traffic checks along the autobahn. She takes care not to attract attention; she has a full tank and doesn’t need to stop. She feels no pity for the priest. She doesn’t hear him groaning, doesn’t hear any noises coming from the car boot. The sound of the engine drowns them out. The road runs through the Italian countryside, all of it familiar, every service station that she passes, the road signs at the exits. Blum and Jaunig are on their way to the sea. There is plenty of time to think, plenty of time to get accustomed to the situation, to the fact that she has killed before, and may kill again. She remembers that TV series.

Dexter. Mark loved it. He would sit in his study watching it for evenings on end, watching a forensic scientist administering his own ideas of justice after hours. Taking villains out of circulation, liberating the world from scum. Mark loved all seven series; he kept trying to persuade Blum to join him in the world of the serial murderer. Blum always laughed at him. She didn’t understand how Mark could think reality was remotely like that series. Nonsense, she said, lying down beside him on the sofa. It’s all so far-fetched, a man striking out on his own against the villains who had fallen through the net. A man of the law making sure that justice is done because no one else will. It was a fable of revenge, unrealistic, and pointless. All the same, Blum lay there beside him, watching the man on the screen pinning his victims down on a table with clingfilm. Plunging a knife into their hearts, then chopping them up and throwing the parts into the sea. It made Blum laugh. At Mark, and at Dexter. Dexter was nothing more than a murderer. She tried to get Mark to see that, but he defended Dexter to the hilt, even though he was a police officer himself.

Just before reaching Verona, Blum smiles. She has abducted a man, just like Mark’s hero, she has chopped him into pieces and put them in coffins. She thinks of the hearse, the Funerary Institute, the cold room, the preparation room. Perfect conditions. Blum’s screenplay is better.

Blum drives on. She is composed, almost indifferent. She knows the peace that comes from within, even when your world has been turned upside down. She drives straight on. Just as she steered the boat so long ago. In the sunlight, eight years before. There’s nothing to stop her now. It’s the middle of the night, and Trieste lies just ahead. Herbert Jaunig is still alive. If she drives really slowly she can hear his groans, and the wheels passing over the asphalt. The sound of the wind, the car engine, and that muffled bellowing, distorted by the gag. Pain, despair, fear. Blum drives on without pity. He is still breathing, he can speak and he will speak. They’re nearly there. Just down the winding roads to the harbour. The familiar pier, the Laterna di Trieste, the old yacht, the sea.

She slams the boot down on his head, hitting Jaunig for the second time. He tries to sit up and shout for help, but Blum strikes again. She isn’t going to waste a second; she has parked the car close to the boat. Jaunig doesn’t have a chance, there’s no one there to help him, no one to prevent Blum from dragging him out of the car boot and on to the yacht. Never mind how heavy he is, never mind how difficult the task is and how quickly it has to be done, Blum just gets on with it, because someone could come along at any moment. Jaunig has wet himself. He is just a piece of meat that she tips straight down into the mess area of the cabin, where they ate; he falls directly on the table. Unconscious in the bowels of the boat, defenceless as a baby.

Blum parks the car, unfastens the rope and is ready to cast off in less than ten minutes. She wants to leave the harbour as quickly as she can, and be alone with him when he comes round. She ties him down to the table and pours petrol over him. Then she starts the engine and steers the large boat carefully away from the pier. How good and familiar the world smells. Down below, Jaunig is coming to his senses. Overhead, the night sky is moving slowly towards day. Wonderful, she thinks, taking a long, deep breath. Italy. She is out on the water now, far away from everyone. She feels free, even now, never mind what happens next. There is nothing but blue water, the waves, the salt on her skin. Maybe the sun will shine today, maybe it will rain. Never mind how the day turns out, Jaunig will be silenced. The whimpering and groaning will soon die away. She stays on deck a little while longer, steering the boat past the breakwaters, until she is thirteen miles out in the open sea. Then she turns the engine off and goes down below. She tells him to stop kicking up such a fuss or she’ll set him on fire. Then she tears the sticky tape off his mouth. He is in great pain, she can see, but he says nothing. He is trembling all over, but he tries to keep himself under control. He looks at Blum. He can’t move so much as a centimetre. Blum stands beside him, with a lighter in her hand.

‘If you lie to me I shall set you on fire.’

‘My legs. I can’t move them. You must help me.’