Hour of the Wolf

21

He slept until eight o’clock on Sunday evening.

When he woke up his first reaction was that something had broken inside his head. That the way he perceived the world had burst. He had dreamt about billiard balls rolling about non-stop on an enormous table without pockets or holes. Unfathomable patterns; collisions and changes of direction, a game in which everything seemed to be just as uncertain and yet as predetermined as life itself. The speed and direction of every ball as it scudded over the moss-green table was the secret code which contained within itself all future events and collisions. Together with all the other balls’ directions and codes of course; but in some mysterious way each individual ball also contained within itself the future of all the others in its own private Mobius curve — at least the ball that was himself did… An infinity of programmed future, he thought as he lay in bed, still trying to find a starting point and something to hold on to… This enclosed infinity. Some time ago he had read some articles on chaos research in one of the journals he subscribed to, and he knew that what was regulated by laws and what was incapable of being calculated could both very well be contained within the same theory. Compatible opposites. The same life.

The same marionette, dangling from those millions of strings. The same sloping plane. This accursed life. The images were legion.

The explosion itself, for that is what had produced the new direction, had happened when he hit Vera Miller on the head with the pipe. As he did so, he could see with absolute clarity that it had been inevitable from the beginning, but also that he couldn’t possibly have known about it.

Not until he was standing there, having done it. A consequence, quite simply; a development which with hindsight was predictable and completely logical… Just as natural as night following day, or sorrow following happiness, and just as unaware as dawn must be about dusk. An effect of causes that had been outside his control all the time, but which were there nevertheless.

A necessity.

Another infernal necessity, then, and when he aimed those desperate blows at her temples and the back of her head, that desperation was no more than a vain confrontation with necessity itself. Nothing more. They were both victims in this accursed, predetermined dance of death known as life, both he and Vera; but in addition, he was the one who had been forced to act as the executioner. In addition: a sort of extra, thank you very much… Stage-managed and ordered, and carried out in accordance with all these hopeless codes and tracks. The big picture. With the key in his hand, he could see that it was required of him, and now he had done it.

Shortly before he woke up he had also dreamt about his mother’s hand on his forehead, on that occasion when he had sicked up yellow bile… And images of the course taken by all the balls of various colours… And the bucket with a drop of water in the bottom… And his mother’s constant tenderness… And the collisions… Over and over again until the moment when everything was finally drenched by a flood of red blood flowing out of Vera Miller’s temples where the first blow had hit her with horrific force, everything in accordance with what was ordained by fate, over and over again, that macabre melodrama, that hyper-intense whirlwind of madness… And it was when all this had transmogrified into repugnance that he woke up and knew that something had broken. Something else.

That membrane. It had finally split.

When he got up he saw that there was plenty of real blood everywhere. In the bed. On the carpet on the floor, on the clothes lying around here and there. On his own hands and on the piece of pipe that had rolled under the bed and that he couldn’t find at first.

In the car in the garage as well. The back seat. Full of Vera Miller’s blood.

He took two tablets. Washed them down with a glass of water and a thumb’s breadth of whisky. Lay down on the sofa, on his back, and waited until he could feel the first blessed effects of the alcohol.

Then he began to get to grips with it all.

The follow-up work. Calmly and methodically, as far as possible. Washing away what it was possible to wash away. Rubbing and scraping and trying various concoctions. He didn’t feel any agitation, no regret, no fear any more. Nothing but ice-cold calm and clarity: he knew that the game was still continuing according to the rules and patterns over which he had no control. Over which nobody had any control, and which one should always be wary of opposing.

The inevitable direction. The code.

When he had done what he could, he drove into town. Sat for two hours in Lon Pejs restaurant down at Zwille, had a Thai meal, and wondered what the next move in this unavoidable game would be. Wondered how much room for manoeuvre he would have in whatever came next.

He reached no conclusions. Drove back home the same way as he’d come. Noticed to his surprise that he felt calm. Took another pill to see him through the night, and flopped down into bed.

The sun never rose on Monday. He rang work in the morning and advised them that he was unfit for work. Read in the Neuwe Blatt about the woman who had been found murdered in the village of Korrim, and found it difficult to accept that it was her. And that it was him. His memories of the car drive on Saturday night through the seemingly endless fields were dim: he had no idea which route he had taken or where he eventually stopped and dragged her out of the car. He had never heard the name Korrim before.

There were no witnesses. Despite the open countryside he had been able to dispose of the body under cover of darkness, and assisted by the late hour. The police had very little to say about it. The reporter assumed they had no significant clues.

So there we are, he thought. No need to worry. The game is still on, and the balls are still rolling.

The postman arrived shortly before eleven. He waited until he had left in the direction of the day nursery before going out to empty the letter box by his gate.

It was there all right. The same blue envelope as always. The same neat handwriting. He sat at the kitchen table with it in his hands for a while before opening it.

The letter was a little longer this time, but not much. Half a page in all. He read it slowly and methodically. As if he were not much good at reading — or afraid of missing something hidden or merely implied.

It’s time to get down to the details of our little transaction.

If you do not follow the instructions to the letter this time I shall have no hesitation in informing the police. I think you realize that you have tried my patience rather too much.

Do as follows:

1) Place 200,000 in a white plastic carrier bag and tie it securely.

2) At exactly four o’clock in the morning on Tuesday, the first of December put the carrier bag in the rubbish bin beside the statue of Hugo Maertens in Randers Park.

3) Go straight home and wait for a telephone call. When it comes, answer with your name and follow the instructions you receive.

You will have no further opportunity of avoiding justice. This is the last one. I have deposited an account of all your doings in a safe place. If anything happens to me that account will arrive in the hands of the police.

Let us get this business out of the way with no more faux pas.

A friend.

Well thought-out.

He had to acknowledge that. It somehow felt satisfying to be up against a worthy opponent.

And yet he felt that in the end, he would be able to outmanoeuvre him and win. But doing so would doubtless require a considerable effort.

For the moment — sitting here at the kitchen table with the letter in his hand — it was not possible to see what form that solution would take. A game of chess, he thought: a game of chess in which the pieces had a clear profile, but the required moves were nevertheless difficult to analyse. He didn’t know why this metaphor occurred to him. He had never been more than a very average chess player: he’d played quite a lot but had never been able to summon up the necessary patience.

However, his skilful opponent had now stage-managed an attack whose consequences he was unable to discern. Not yet. While he waited for the penny to drop, all he had to do was to make one move at a time and wait for an opening. A weak spot.

A sort of delaying tactic. Were there any other possible solutions? He didn’t think so, not for the moment. But time was short. He looked at the clock and saw that there were fewer than seventeen hours left before he was required to put a small fortune in a rubbish bin in Randers Park.

His opponent seemed to have a predilection for rubbish bins. And plastic carrier bags. Didn’t this suggest a certain lack of imagination? A certain simplicity and predictability that he ought to be able to exploit?

Seventeen hours? Less than a full day. Who? he thought.

Who?

For a while the identity of his opponent pushed to one side the question of what he was going to do. Now that he came to think of it, he realized that so far he had devoted surprisingly little time to that problem. Who? Who the hell was it who had seen him that evening? Was it possible to read anything into the way he was going about things? From the letters? Shouldn’t he be able to get some idea of who it might be by examining the premises he was in possession of?

And it suddenly struck him.

Somebody he knew.

He stored this insight away in his consciousness as if it were made of glass. Afraid of shattering it, afraid of placing too much reliance on it.

Somebody he knew. Somebody who knew him.

The latter above all. His opponent had known who he was even when he saw him with the dead boy that evening. As he stood there holding the boy in his arms in the rain. That must surely be the case.

Yes, he convinced himself. That must be right.

It wasn’t a matter of having registered and memorized the number of his car. The blackmailer had known straight away. He had driven past without stopping, and then when he had read in the newspapers about what had happened, he had put two and two together and made his move. He or she. He, presumably, he decided without really understanding why.

Yes, that’s how it happened. When he thought about it now he realized how implausible his earlier explanation had been. How far-fetched. Who the hell notices and memorizes a car registration number when they are merely driving past a parked vehicle? In the dark, and the rain? Impossible. Out of the question.

So: somebody who knew him. Somebody who knew who he was.

He noticed that he was smiling.

He was sitting there with a pale-blue letter that could ruin his life in less than a day. He had killed three people within a month. But even so, he was smiling.

But who was it?

It didn’t take him long to run through his sparse circle of friends and exclude it.

Or rather, them: all those who, with a modicum of goodwill, he might consider inviting to his wedding or his fiftieth birthday party. Or his funeral. No, none of those: he couldn’t believe that was possible. Of course there were perhaps one or two whom he couldn’t exclude quite as straightforwardly as the others, but there was nothing that made him stop and think. Nobody he suspected.

And there was another thing. To be sure, he wasn’t exactly a well-known name in Maardam, not a local celebrity; but nevertheless there were a few people who knew who he was and recognized him in the street. That was sufficient, of course. Every day he came into contact with people in town without being able to remember later whether he’d seen them or not; but obviously, they knew who he was. Some of them even said ‘hello’ — and were often somewhat embarrassed when they realized that he had no idea who they were.

One of those. It must be one of those, somebody like that, who was his opponent. He found himself smiling again.

Then he cursed out loud when he realized that the elimination process and conclusions were not much help, given the shortage of time.

No help at all. If he allowed himself to assume that the blackmailer lived somewhere in Maardam, that meant he had reduced the candidates from about 300,000 to 300. Perhaps.

Excluding old dodderers and children: from 200,000 to 200.

A considerable reduction, certainly, but futile even so. The plain fact was that there were still too many left.

Two hundred possible blackmailers? Seventeen hours to play with. Sixteen and a half, to be precise. He sighed and eased himself out of his armchair. Went to check the medicine chest and established that there was enough there to keep him going for another ten to twelve days at least.

In ten to twelve days’ time the situation would be quite different. No matter what.

Game over. A draw out of the question.

Then he phoned the bank. The loan he had applied for on Thursday was still not granted. It would take a few more days — but he needn’t worry, he was assured. It was a mere formality. He was a valued customer, and the bank looked after their valued customers.

He said thank you and hung up. Remained standing for a while, looking out of the window at the gloomy suburban street and the rain. So he wouldn’t have the cash by that evening. In no circumstances.

So something else was needed.

A strategy was called for.

He read the letter one more time, and tried to think of one.