Hour of the Wolf

14

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.

It had been asking too much, far too much, for him to sleep that Monday night, and after a few fruitless hours he got up. It was two a.m. He drank a cup of tea with a drop of rum in the kitchen, then took the car and drove out to the sea. Sat for an hour and a half by himself with the windows open in a lay-by between Behrensee and Lejnice and tried to think things through while listening to the mighty waves breaking on the shore. The wind was blowing hard from the south-west, and he could hear that the rollers must be several metres high.

The wrong person? He had killed the wrong man. It wasn’t the blackmailer who had emerged from the Trattoria Commedia that evening with the Boodwick carrier bag dangling from his hand. It was somebody else.

Somebody who had gone to the gents and happened to discover the bag in the rubbish bin? Could it be as simple as that?

A coincidence? Somebody who had found it by sheer bad luck before the blackmailer? Could that be what happened?

He excluded that possibility more or less straight away. It was too improbable. Too far-fetched. No, the truth was different, quite different. It didn’t take him long to find the solution.

There was an assistant. Had been. That was who he’d killed. The anonymous letter-writer had chosen to send an assistant to collect the spoils, instead of doing it himself. So as not to run any unnecessary risks. Good thinking, no doubt about it, and not really surprising in the circumstances. He ought to have anticipated that. Ought to have made allowances for that.

In fact it was an inexcusable blunder: the more he thought about it, the more obvious it was. A terrible blunder. While he had been thinking sarcastically about the amateurish conduct of his opponent out there at Dikken, in fact he was up against an exceptionally prudent person. Somebody who had acted with much more caution and precision than he had.

And who had now made his next move. Two hundred thousand, he was demanding. Two hundred grand!

Oh, hell! He swore out loud and hammered his hands on the steering wheel. Fucking hell!

In the wake of his anger came fear. Fear with regard to what he had done, and for the future. The future? he thought. What future? In so far as his life hadn’t already been compromised by what had happened in the last few weeks, it would be in the next few. The next one. It was blindingly obvious. A matter of days, there was no other way of assessing the situation.

Another crucial encounter was in store.

He opened the door and got out of the car. Offered himself up to the mercy of the wind, and started walking along the road. Waves crashed on the beach.

Am I still me? he suddenly asked himself. Am I still the same person as I was before? Am I still a person, in fact?

A billiard ball rolling towards an inevitable fate? Two cannons, two changes of direction… And then what?

Images of the boy in the ditch and of the young man as he raised his eyebrows in surprise a second before the first blow kept recurring increasingly rapidly in his mind’s eye. Intertwining, merging, over and over again, leaving no room for anything else. He tried to think about Vera Miller instead, the laughing, lively, red-haired Vera: but without success.

As he walked, leaning forward into the darkness — and in the hour of the wolf, he reminded himself with feelings of weary resignation — hunched up to protect himself from the cold and the salt-laden wind, he felt over and over again the urge to simply give up. Powerful urges to deliver himself into the lap of the sea or the hands of the police, and put an end to it all.

To follow the faint whispering of what must of course be the voice of his conscience — which in some remarkable way seemed to both harmonize with and drown out the thunder of the waves. Very impressive, he thought. They blend in together like the soundtrack of a film. Extremely impressive. The thundering and the whispering.

But in the end it was Vera Miller who won. In the end it was her laughing face with those glittering green eyes, and her warm, wet pussy welcoming his stiff penis, that brushed aside the fear and hopelessness, and choked the whispering. The inexorable power of her love. Of their love.

And the future.

I can’t give up, he thought. Not now. I must take Vera into consideration as well.

It was five minutes to five in the morning by the time he came home. He had calmed down to some extent during the return journey — although it could simply be that he was tired out. What’s done is over and done with, he thought. No point crying over spilt milk. It was the future that was important. The immediate future to start with, and then the next stage — life with Vera.

Mind you, if he didn’t manage to sort out ‘A friend’, there wouldn’t be any future with Vera, of course. The future would be a week at most, no more, that was beyond all doubt. He would have to devise a strategy. A defence, a counter-move. What should he do?

Yes indeed, what? If he simply decided to pay the 200,000 requested, that would mean that all his resources had been used up. His savings and his house — and it still wouldn’t be enough. He would have to negotiate a loan for another 50,000 at least. And what then?

And then? Even if he bankrupted himself in this way, what guarantees would he have? The blackmailer would still have the knowledge, and would doubtless not forget it. And anyway, was there anything to suggest that he’d be satisfied with what he’d been paid?

No, nothing, was the answer to his rhetorical question. Nothing at all.

And how would he be able to explain it away to Vera, if he was suddenly bankrupt? How?

Ergo?

There was only one possibility.

Kill him.

Kill the right person this time. Although for a few moments, as he wound his way through the narrow suburban streets of Boorkhejm, it occurred to him that perhaps he had killed the right person after all. Despite everything

The right one in a way, at least. Because there could have been two of them. Could have been. There was virtually no doubt that the letters he’d received so far must have been written by the same person; but of course it was just possible that it could be… could be the handwriting of a wife, for instance. He couldn’t exclude that possibility, he told himself. The wife of a dead blackmailer who had now taken over on her own account.

Taken over and raised the stakes.

No, this was a possibility that couldn’t be ignored. He decided to find out the name of the man he’d killed outside the Trattoria Commedia, and use that as the starting point of further investigations. In any case there had to be a link — some kind of a link — between him and the other one.

The other one? he thought.

His opponent.

I’d give my right hand for his identity.

Time seemed to be both for and against him.

Naturally he needed time to prepare himself and plan ahead. Even if he had no intention of raising the money that ‘A friend’ had demanded. No, a different sort of time. Time in which to act. Time to find things out, and to prepare himself.

But it wasn’t long before the respite designated (‘Exactly seven days’ — a phrase used in both the latest letters, one might wonder why) seemed to have the opposite implications from those at first thought. It seemed a long time. Exactly what ought he to do? What? Sort out what plans? Make what preparations?

The only thing he eventually managed to find out was the name of his second victim. Erich Van Veeteren. He memorized the name — placed him in the same box as Wim Felders. The dead persons’ box. But actually taking the next step — starting to investigate and poke around into this unknown person’s private life: that was too much. He didn’t have the strength. He found his home address in the telephone directory, of course, and on the Wednesday evening he stood for a while in Ockfener Plejn staring up at the grimy facade, wondering which of the flats it could be. Stood there shivering in the wind, but without being able to summon up the will to cross over the tramlines, walk up six steps and read the list of names beside the doorbell.

Having killed him is enough, he thought. That’s bad enough, I don’t need to invade his home as well.

That same evening he gave up all thought of playing the detective. He’d begun to realize that doing so could be dangerous: he might attract the attention of the police — they must be working all out to try to find the murderer of the young man. No, it would be better to wait, he decided. Wait for the further instructions that were a hundred per cent certain to arrive with Monday’s post.

Wait for that pale-blue letter, and then work out how to solve the problem on the basis of how the handover was supposed to take place this time.

Because that would have to take place, he reasoned. At a certain place and at a certain time there would have to be physical contact between himself and the blackmailer.

Or rather, between himself, the money and the blackmailer — there were three links in the chain, and of course it was probable that this time his opponent would be even more careful about his own safety than he had been on the previous occasion. Highly probable: he wasn’t dealing with an amateur, that was now crystal clear. But that opponent would have to acquire the money somehow or other, and in some way or other he would have to be outfoxed.

Only time would tell how this was to be done. Time and the next letter.

After visiting Ockfener Plejn he spent the whole evening in front of the television in the company of a new bottle of whisky, and when he retired shortly before midnight, both the bed and the bedroom were spinning round.

But that was the intention. He really must sleep through the hour of the wolf tonight at least. Thursday was his day off.

Thursday was the day when Vera Miller was due to phone him.

Three days without contact, that was what they had agreed. A short time that she would use to discuss matters with her husband. Tell him about their affair. Liberate herself.

It was seven p.m. when the call came, and he could still feel the effects of his excessive drinking the night before.

She sounded sad. That was unusual.

‘It’s so hard,’ she said.

She didn’t usually say that. He didn’t respond.

‘He’s going to take this very badly, I can see that.’

‘Haven’t you told him yet?’

She said nothing for a couple of seconds.

‘I’ve started,’ she said. ‘I’ve hinted at it… He knows what’s coming. He’s keeping out of the way. He’s gone out tonight, I’m sure he’s only done that because of this business… He’s running away from it.’

‘Come round to me.’

‘That’s not on,’ she said. ‘Andreas will be back home in a couple of hours. I have to treat him above board from now on. I’ll see you on Saturday, as we agreed.’

‘I love you,’ he said.

‘And I love you,’ she said.

‘You’re not changing your mind, I hope?’ he said.

‘You must give me time,’ she said. ‘No, I’m not changing my mind. But you can’t rush something like this.’

Time? he thought. Three days. Then it would be Monday. Just think if she knew…

‘I understand,’ he said. ‘The main thing is that things turn out as we’ve planned. And that I can see you on Saturday.’

‘I shall be attending my course on Saturday.’

‘Eh?’

She laughed.

‘My course. Come on, you know about that. It’s the fourth weekend in a row. I love that course.’

He thought about what she’d said with regard to treating Andreas above board, but he didn’t follow it up.

‘I love it as well,’ he mumbled instead. ‘I need you.’

‘You’ve got me,’ she said.

When they’d hung up he started crying. He remained seated in the armchair for quite some time, until it had passed over and he’d had a chance to think about when he had last wept.

He couldn’t remember.

He took two Sobran tablets instead.