Borkmann's point

25

She swooped down on him just outside the entrance, and he realized she must have been standing there, waiting. Hidden by the privet hedge that ran all the way along the front of the hotel, presumably. Or behind one of the poplars.

A tall and rather wiry woman in her fifties. Her dark flower patterned shawl was tied loosely around her hair and fell down over her high shoulders. For a brief moment he thought she might be one of his teachers from high school, but that was no more than a fleeting impression; he could never remember names and, in any case, it wouldn’t have been possible.

“Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren?”

“Yes.”

She put her hand on his arm and looked straight at him from very close quarters. Stared him in the eye, as if she were very nearsighted or was trying to establish an unusual level of intimacy.

“Could I speak to you for a few minutes, please?”

“Of course,” said Van Veeteren. “What’s it about? Shall we go inside?”

Is she mad? he wondered.

“If you could just walk around the block with me. I prefer to talk out of doors. It’ll only take five minutes.”

Her voice was deep and melancholy. Van Veeteren agreed and they started walking down toward the harbor. They turned right into Dooms Alley, in among the topsy-turvy gables, and it was only when they had entered the deep shadow that she started to present her problem.

“It’s about my husband,” she explained. “His name’s Lau rids and he’s always had a bit of a problem with his nerves… nothing he couldn’t get over; he’s never been put away or any thing like that. Just a bit worried. But now he no longer dares to leave home…”

She paused, but Van Veeteren said nothing.

“Ever since last Friday-that’s almost a week now-he’s stayed home because he’s frightened of the Axman. He doesn’t go to work, and now they’ve told him he’ll be fired if he goes on like this-”

Van Veeteren stopped in his tracks.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

She let go of his arm. Stared down at the ground as if she were ashamed.

“Well, I thought I’d track you down and ask how it’s going… I told him about it, and I do think that he would dare to go out again if I could go back home with some kind of reassuring or soothing comment from you.”

Van Veeteren nodded. Good God! he thought.

“Tell your husband… what’s your name, by the way?”

“Christine Reisin. My husband’s called Laurids Reisin.”

“Tell him he has no need to be afraid,” said Van Veeteren.

“He can go back to work. We’re very hopeful we can nail this murderer in… six to eight days at most.”

She looked up and eyed him from close quarters again.

“Thank you, Mr. Van Veeteren,” she said eventually. “Very many thanks. I feel I can rely on you.”

Then she turned on her heel and vanished into one of the

Hakan Nesser

Borkmann's Point narrow alleys. Van Veeteren stood there watching her.

How easy it is to fool a woman, he thought. A woman you’ve only known for five minutes.

The episode stuck in his mind, and as he stood in the shower, trying to scrub her out of his memory, it became clear to him that Laurids Reisin would hang over him like a bad conscience for as long as this investigation lasted.

The man who daren’t leave home.

Somebody was on the way to losing his job-and his dig nity, no doubt-simply because Van Veeteren and the others Munster, Bausen, Kropke and Moerk-couldn’t track down this damn murderer.

Were there more like that, perhaps? Why not?

How much collective fear-terror and dread-was in exis tence at this moment in Kaalbringen? Assuming it was possible to measure such things…

He stretched out on his bed and stared up at the ceiling.

Counted.

Six days since the murder of Maurice Ruhme.

Fifteen since Simmel.

Eggers? Two and a half months.

And what did they have?

Well, what? A mass of information. An absolute abundance of details about this and that-and no pattern.

Not the slightest trace of a suspicion, and no leads at all.

Three men who had recently moved into Kaalbringen.

From Selstadt, from Aarlach, from Spain.

Two were drug abusers; one of those had given it up sev 1 6 1 eral years ago. The weapon was under lock and key. The mur derer had handed it over to them himself.

Melnik’s report? Hadn’t arrived yet, but was that anything to count on? The material they had on Eggers and Simmel, and what little they had on Ruhme, had so far turned up no similarities at all, apart from the way they’d died, the way he’d gone about it. No name in the background to link them together-nothing. Would anything turn up in Aarlach? He doubted it.

Damnation!

He didn’t even have a hunch, and he usually did. Not a single little idea, nothing nagging away inside his brain, trying to draw attention to itself-nothing odd, no improbable coin cidences, nothing.

Not a damned thing, as they’d said.

It was as if the whole of this case had never really hap pened. Or had taken place on the other side of a wall-an impenetrable, bulletproof glass pane through which he could only vaguely make out a mass of incomprehensible people and events, dancing slowly in accordance with some choreography that made no sense to him. All the different, pointless and meaningless connections…

A course of events with one single, totally blind, observer.

DCI Van Veeteren.

As if it didn’t affect him.

And then Laurids Reisin.

There again, wasn’t it always like this? he asked himself as he fumbled around in his pockets for his pack of cigarettes.

Wasn’t this just the usual familiar feeling of alienation that occasionally used to creep up on him? Wasn’t it…?

The hell it was! He cut his train of thought short. Produced a cigarette. Lit it and went to stand by the window. Looked out over the square.

Darkness was closing in over the town. The shops had closed for the day, and people were few and far between; the stall holders outside the covered market were busy packing up their wares, he noted. Over there in the arcade a few musicians were playing for deaf ears, or for nobody at all. He raised his gaze and eyed the churchyard and the path up to the steep hill on the edge of his field of vision; he looked farther left: the tower blocks in Dunningen. To the right: the municipal woods, Rikken and whatever it was called, that other district. Some where or other…

… somewhere or other out there was a murderer, feeling more and more secure.

We have to make a breakthrough now, thought Van

Veeteren. It’s high time.

So that people dare to go out-if for no other reason.

Bausen had already set up the board.

“Your turn for white,” said Van Veeteren.

“The winner gets black,” said Bausen. “Klimke rules.”

“All right by me,” said Van Veeteren, moving his king’s pawn.

“I brought up a bottle,” said Bausen. “Do you think a Per gault ’81 might help us to get out of the shit?”

“I couldn’t possibly think of any better assistance,” said Van Veeteren.

“At last!” he exclaimed an hour and a half later. “Dammit all, I thought you were going to wriggle your way out, despite everything.”

“Impressive stuff,” said Bausen. “A peculiar opening… I don’t think I’ve come across it before.”

“Thought it up myself,” said Van Veeteren. “You have to be on your toes, and you can never use it more than once against the same opponent.”

Bausen drank to his health. Sat quietly for a while, gazing down into his empty glass.

“Damn,” he said. “This business is starting to get on my nerves, to be honest. Do you reckon we’re going to crack it?”

Van Veeteren shrugged.

“Well…”

“Keysenholt phoned half an hour before you showed up,” said Bausen. “You know, the regional boss. Wanted to know if I was prepared to go on. Until we’d cracked the case, that is…”

Van Veeteren nodded.

“The snag is that he didn’t actually ask me to keep going.

Just asked what I thought about it. Wanted me to make the decision. Damn brilliant way to bow out, don’t you think?

Condemn yourself as incompetent, then retire!”

“Well, I don’t know-” said Van Veeteren.

“The trouble is, I don’t really know myself. It wouldn’t be very flattering to give yourself a few extra months and then mess it up all the same. What do you think?”

“Hmm,” said Van Veeteren. “A bit awkward, no doubt about it. It might be best to nail the bastard first, perhaps?”

“My view exactly,” said Bausen. “But I have to give this blasted Keysenholt some kind of answer. He’s going to phone again tomorrow-”

“Will it be Kropke who takes over?”

“Until the end of the year, at least. They’ll no doubt adver tise the post in January.”

Van Veeteren nodded. Lit a cigarette and pondered for a moment.

“Tell Keysenholt you don’t understand what he’s babbling about,” he said. “The Axman will be behind bars within six to eight days, give or take.”

“How the hell can I claim that?” said Bausen, looking doubtful.

“I’ve promised to solve it before then.”

“Three cheers for that,” said Bausen. “That makes me feel much better, of course. How do you intend going about it?”

“I’m not sure,” said Van Veeteren. “But if you were to bring up a decent-let me see-a decent Merlot, I’d set up the pieces while you’re away. No doubt we’ll hit on an opening.”

Bausen smiled.

“A homemade one?” he asked, rising to his feet.

“They’re usually the best.”

Bausen disappeared in the direction of his wine cellar.

So that’s how easy it is to fool an honest old chief of police, thought Van Veeteren. What on earth am I doing here?