Sascha Arango - The Truth and Other Lies

They had nothing.

The merest shimmer of a hunch or the tiniest scrap of evidence would have made that pathetic intimidation ritual in the cemetery unnecessary. They had nothing, knew nothing, were nothing. They were just doing their jobs and they wanted results. Solving crimes is as difficult and laborious as committing them, with the difference that the lunch breaks are paid.

“When’s your new novel coming out?” Jenssen asked as they drove along.

“In time for the Frankfurt Book Fair.”

“May one ask what it’s about?”

“Yes, you may.” Henry watched the symmetrical gray façades go past. It would be a long, tough battle. They had come four strong in order to register every movement, every word, and every contradiction right from the start. During the ten-mile drive not another word was exchanged.

The redbrick wall with its topping of barbed wire ran for a whole block around police headquarters. The compound had served as a military barracks before the outbreak of the First World War, and the ensemble of buildings, walls, and razor-wire fences still had something of the charm of a doomed siege. “Saint Renata,” Henry said softly, as the barrier went up.

The “meeting room,” as they called it, was a gas chamber with vents. Henry saw coffee stains like mold cultures on the linoleum floor. In the middle of the room was a large collapsible whiteboard covered with a mouse-gray cloth. Henry sat down in an upholstered swivel chair and eyed the concealed item. Jenssen brought him coffee. This no doubt was phase one of the inquisition — being left alone in front of the shrouded board. There is documentary evidence going back to the Middle Ages suggesting that just showing an offender the instrument of torture will be enough to break down his resistance.

“We have many answers for which we are yet to find the right questions,” said Awner Blum by way of introduction. Pretty slick, thought Henry, sipping his coffee, which was hot, but extremely weak. “You must be wondering why we’ve asked you here to headquarters, Mr. Hayden.”

“That doesn’t surprise me, Mr. Blum, but it hurts me that you’re keeping the truth from me like this. What happened to my wife?”

Blum and Jenssen exchanged brief glances. “The fact is we’ve come up against a mystery such as I have never before encountered in my career. We need your help. You knew your wife better than anyone else.”

“So it was a crime.”

“Why do you think that, Mr. Hayden?”

“Well, here we are in police headquarters and you’re from the homicide squad — or am I mistaken?”

“Not altogether. What is certain is that your wife didn’t die of natural causes. But it could have been suicide.”

Henry looked across at Jenssen, who gave a friendly smile and, like Henry, sipped his weak coffee. Had he woken up next to a woman this morning? Had he read the paper, taken the wet laundry out of the washing machine, and made himself a hard-boiled egg for breakfast? Or did he prefer his eggs runny? What distinguishes policemen from criminals or civilized people from barbarians apart from the brutality of their instincts and the consistency of their breakfast eggs?

“I’ve already told Mr. Jenssen that suicide was not an option for my wife. She was happy. We were happy. She’d never have left me on my own.”

Again silence descended.

“Is this going to be a quiz?” Henry asked. “Am I supposed to guess what my wife died of?”

Jenssen put down his cup. “You found her bicycle and swimming things on the beach.”

“We’ve already had that. My memory of it is beginning to fade, but yes, that’s where I found them.”

“Your wife didn’t drown on the beach. She drowned twenty miles further east,” Jenssen continued. The men watched Henry process this information. Henry pictured the camper van on the cliffs and the naked British children throwing pinecones at each other.

“How is that possible?”

“We’re wondering that too. Your wife was sitting in a car. She was still strapped in. She crashed off a sheer cliff in the car into the sea.”

Henry jumped up. “That’s not possible!”

“Why not?”

“Her car’s still in the barn.”

“It wasn’t her car.” Blum went over to the board and pulled down the cover with a jerk. “This car belonged to Ms. Bettina Hansen, your editor.”

The photos were in color and terrifyingly precise. The Subaru in profile and face-on. Eaten away by fish, Martha’s body sat in the driver’s seat, held only by a seat belt. Her exposed skull was barely covered by shreds of skin, the fleshless mouth was wide open, the teeth perfectly preserved. Henry closed his eyes. Once again the pictures returned. He saw her screaming soundlessly as she hit the windshield, saw her trying to open the door and the horribly cold water entering her lungs. He saw Martha die.

The men let him take his time. He contemplated the pictures in silence, then he turned his back on the men and looked out the window onto the bleak yard.

Eventually Jenssen cleared his throat. “A landslide on the cliffs produced a shock wave which washed the car up to the surface between the rocks, in case you’re interested.”

“Who did you say the car belonged to?”

“It belonged to Ms. Bettina Hansen, your editor.”

Henry turned around and looked into the men’s faces. They looked like deaf and dumb men hearing the Queen of the Night’s aria for the first time. “That’s the answer,” Henry said quietly, “and what’s the question?”

“The question is: Can you, Mr. Hayden, explain why your dead wife is sitting in the car of your missing editor?”

“I don’t see how it’s possible, no. Would you be so kind as to cover the pictures up again? It’s very painful.” Blum cast a glance at Jenssen, who pulled the cloth over the pictures again.

“Did your wife and your editor know one another?”

“They’d met. At a cocktail party in the garden of my publisher — now also deceased.” Out of the corner of his eye, Henry saw one of the police officers put his hand in his jacket pocket without taking it out again. He was presumably switching on a hidden recording device.

“They sometimes went swimming together.” Henry could feel the atmosphere in the room gradually becoming charged. “I never went with them. Martha told me that Betty was not a good swimmer. You must know that Martha’s passions were swimming and hiking.” Jenssen whipped out a ballpoint pen.

“Do you mind if I take notes?”

“Not at all. We led a very — how shall I put it — regular life. I write at night. That’s when the best ideas come to me. In the mornings I sleep in. My wife would go swimming or hiking.”

“Where? Did she have favorite hiking paths?”

“That wasn’t her style. She always made quite spontaneous decisions. She liked to take out-of-the-way paths where you don’t meet a soul. She loved nature, solitude… Do you have a map?”

The men looked at each other, then Jenssen shot out of the room and returned shortly afterward with the dart-riddled map. Henry watched as the officers struggled to spread the map out on the floor. He could see all the lines and dots on it. “Just ignore the holes in the map, Mr. Hayden. Do you know where your wife liked to go hiking?”

“But of course,” replied Henry, crouching down. “She told me a lot about it.” He pointed to various regions. “Here, for example — this forest here where all the dots are, she often went walking there. It’s supposed to be quite beautiful.”

The detectives were getting into a holiday mood. “And here?” Blum pointed to the area by the cliffs.

“Martha loved the sea and had an excellent head for heights. She loved walking high up above the sea, right by the edge as it were — you couldn’t look at her. I always wanted to give her a phone so she could reach me in an emergency, but she didn’t want one. She hated mobile phones.”