Hour of the Wolf

28

It was twenty minutes to three when he left the Spaarkasse branch in Keymer Plejn with almost a quarter of a million in his pockets. They’d looked a bit doubtful when he’d said that he wanted the whole amount in cash. It was a deal to buy a boat, he’d explained… An eccentric seller who insisted on having ready cash. Otherwise there would be no deal.

He wondered if they’d swallowed it. Maybe, maybe not. But it didn’t matter either way. The main thing was that he had the money. When it was time to pay off the loan, he would be nowhere near Maardam. Not even on the extreme edge of nearness. Exactly where in the world he would be, he didn’t know yet. There were only twelve hours to go before the money was due to be handed over, and he still didn’t have a strategy.

I’m too calm, he thought as he clambered into his car. I’ve taken too many pills, they’re making me dozy.

He took the usual route to Boorkhejm. The mild weather from yesterday was holding its own, and he drove unusually slowly since it had struck him that this might be the last time he would ever make this trip. Which he had made thousands of times… Yes, it must be thousands. It was nearly fifteen years since he’d moved into the modern terraced house with Marianne, and now he was going to leave it. It was high time, too.

It really was high time.

Perhaps it was the low speed and the feeling of making this journey for the last time that made him notice the scooter.

An ordinary, red scooter parked outside one of the doors to the block of flats just before the row of terraced houses where he lived. No more than twenty-five metres from his own house, in fact.

A red scooter.

The realization came to him in a flash. The scooter.

The scooter.

He parked on the drive to his garage as usual. Got out of the car and started walking slowly back along the street. Thoughts were exploding like fireworks inside his head, and he had to apply all his strength to prevent himself from stopping and staring at the vehicle, which was glittering in the pale sunshine.

He walked past it. Continued to the kiosk and bought a newspaper. Passed by the magical two-wheeler again and returned to his house. Glanced over his shoulder and discovered that he could in fact see it from where he was standing. On the drive, next to his car. He thought for a moment, then tried to see if he could see it just as well from inside the car.

He couldn’t, not really: but after backing out into the street, turning round and reversing up the drive, he found he had a perfectly good view from the driver’s seat. He remembered that he possessed a pair of binoculars, went in and fetched them.

Sat down in the car again, but before starting his surveillance in earnest he got out and made another trip to the kiosk. Bought two beers that he knew he would never drink, paused briefly outside the block of flats and memorized the registration number.

Then he sat down in the car with the binoculars. Sat there on guard for forty-five minutes and tried to think if there could be any doubt. To examine the conclusions he’d drawn in the space of only a few seconds, and which felt as definite as an axiom.

Everything fitted. A scooter had passed by that evening. It had been on the way to Boorkhejm. He had already worked out that the blackmailer must be somebody who recognized him, who knew who he was.. The answer was quite simply that it must be a neighbour. Not somebody he spoke to every day — in any case, the only people in that category were his neighbours on both sides: herr Landtberg and the Kluumes.

But somebody in the block of flats.

There were only three floors. There couldn’t be more than ten or a dozen flats. Three entrances. And a red scooter outside the door nearest to his own house.

It was as clear as day. Boorkhejm was not a large housing estate, and people knew one another. Or recognized one another, at least. He doubted if there were any other scooters around here. The fact that he’d never seen this one before — or at any rate not noticed it — must be due to the fact that the owner normally parked it at the rear of the building. He realized that his opponent must not be aware that his vehicle could give him away: if he was, it seemed implausible that he would be so careless today of all days, and leave it out in full view.

Today of all days. When there were only a few hours left.

He checked his watch. Just turned four. Eleven hours left.

He felt he had goose pimples on his arms.

Felt that a strategy was beginning to take form.

Three-quarters of an hour. That is how long he sat in the car, waiting and planning. Then the owner emerged. The owner of the red scooter. In the binoculars his face seemed to be only a few metres from his own. A cheerless, very ordinary face. About his own age. He recognized him.

A member of staff in the prosthesis workshops at the hospital. He seemed to recall having spoken to him once, but they never used to greet each other.

He couldn’t remember the man’s name. But that was irrelevant. His strategy evolved at record speed. The goose pimples were still there.

The dinner with Marlene Frey was quite a tense occasion to begin with. Van Veeteren noticed that she was on edge when he opened the door for her, and his clumsy attempts to make her feel welcome didn’t exactly improve matters.

Ulrike was perhaps a little more successful in this respect, but it was only when Marlene burst into tears halfway through the soup that the ice was well and truly broken.

‘Damn,’ she snivelled. ‘I thought I’d be able to cope, but I can’t. Please forgive me.’

While she was in the bathroom Van Veeteren drank two glasses of wine, and Ulrike observed him with a worried expression on her face.

‘I miss him so much,’ said Marlene when she came back. ‘I realize that you do as well, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I miss him so much, I’m scared I’m going out of my mind.’

She stared at Van Veeteren with her inadequately spruced-up eyes. Unable to think up anything better, he stared back at her — then walked round the table and gave her a big hug. It wasn’t easy as she was sitting down, but as he did so he felt something inside himself loosening its grip.

A clenched fist letting go. Releasing him. Remarkable, he thought.

‘Jesus,’ said Ulrike. ‘Just think how far it can be between people’s hearts at times.’

Marlene burst out crying again, but it was sufficient to blow her nose into her paper napkin this time.

‘I’ve felt so lonely,’ she said. ‘And I’ve been quite scared of meeting you.’

‘He’s not all that dangerous,’ Ulrike assured her. ‘I’ve begun to realize that more and more.’

‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren, who had sat down on his chair again. ‘Cheers.’

‘I’m going to bear his child,’ said Marlene. ‘It feels so horrendously unreal, and I don’t know how things are going to turn out. It had never occurred to us that only one of us would be around to look after it.’

She sighed deeply and tried to smile.

‘Forgive me. It’s just that it’s so hard. Thank you for giving me a hug.’

‘Good Lord,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Dammit all. Cheers! I promise to look after you. You and the child, of course. Hmm.’

‘I should jolly well think so,’ said Ulrike Fremdli. ‘Let’s finish off the soup now — there’s a bite of meat to follow.’

‘What about your parents?’ he asked cautiously an hour later. ‘Do you get any support from them?’

Marlene shook her head.

‘I was a druggie. My mum does her best, but it’s not exactly what you could call support. I hope you believe me when I say I’ve put all that behind me now… Because it’s true: I really have. We both did it together, Erich and I. Mind you, it sometimes feels as if you manage to lift yourself up and the reward is to get knocked down again

…’

‘Life is much overrated,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘But it’s better if you don’t discover that too soon.’

Marlene looked at him with eyebrows slightly raised.

‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Perhaps it is. Erich said you’d never been much of an optimist — but I like you even so. I hope you’ll allow me to carry on doing so.’

‘Of course,’ said Ulrike. ‘He has a certain grumpy charm, you’re absolutely right there. More coffee?’

Marlene shook her head.

‘No, thank you. I must go now. I’d love to invite you round, but you know what it’s like at my place… Although the heating is much better now.’

‘We expect to see you here for Christmas,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘And New Year. Them as can do it, does it… And all that.’

Ulrike laughed and Marlene smiled. He wondered how long it had been since he last put two women in such a good mood at the same time. And concluded that it had never happened before. As they stood in the hall Marlene remembered something.

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘There was that note…’

‘What note?’ said Ulrike, helping her on with her duffel coat.

‘I found a note,’ said Marlene. ‘When I was doing the cleaning the other day. Erich always used to leave notes all over the place… With times and names and addresses and suchlike.’

‘Really?’ said Van Veeteren, and realized that he had just become a CID officer again for a second.

‘The police went through all the bits of paper Erich had left lying around these last few weeks, but they didn’t find this one. It was under a table mat in the kitchen. I know he wrote it recently, because there was also a note about a job he did one of the last days as well.’

‘What else did it say?’ asked Van Veeteren.

‘Just a name,’ said Marlene. ‘Keller.’

‘Keller?’

‘Yes, Keller. It’s not exactly an unusual name, but I don’t know anybody called that. And it’s not in the address book. Anyway, that was all. Do you think I should phone the police and tell them about it?’

Van Veeteren thought for a moment.

‘Yes, do that,’ he said. ‘Keller? Keller? No, I don’t know anybody of that name either. But phone them, as I said. Give Reinhart a buzz — they need all the help they can get. Have you got his number?’

Marlene nodded. Then she hugged them both, and after she’d gone it felt as if she’d left a vacuum behind her.

It was remarkable. A big vacuum.

‘You’re going to be a granddad,’ said Ulrike, sitting down on his knee.

‘Ouch,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I know. Was it three days you said?’

‘Nights,’ said Ulrike. ‘I’m working during the day. Tomorrow, at least.’

Aron Keller saw the red Audi drive past in the street outside. Then he watched it park on the drive up to number seventeen. He was able to do that because his living room had a bay window on the front of the building. That was where he was standing. It was where he often stood. On the second floor, half-hidden by the two magnificent hibiscus bushes. It provided him with a first-class view of what was going on outside.

Which was not normally very much. Nevertheless, he often stood there. It had become a habit as the years passed. Standing in the bay window for a while, now and then.

A bit later he thanked his lucky stars that he had done so. That he had stayed there for a minute or so after he’d watched the murderer-doctor pass by in his shiny-clean car.

He came back. The doctor came walking back again. Went to the kiosk and bought a newspaper. He didn’t usually do that. Not normally.

Aron Keller remained standing in the bay window, waiting. Just as motionless as the hibiscus bushes. Watched the Audi back out into the street, then reverse back up the drive. Then the doctor got out of the car, and disappeared into his house to fetch something — Keller couldn’t see what it was. Came back and sat behind the wheel again. Sat there in the car in front of his house. Keller felt the sweat in the palms of his hands. After only another minute or so the doctor got out of the car and started walking to the kiosk again. Just outside the entrance door, Keller’s own entrance door, he slowed down and stared at the scooter. Then continued to the kiosk. Bought something he put into a brown paper carrier bag and came back once more. Keller took two paces backwards into the room until the doctor had gone past. Then returned to his position in the bay window, and watched the doctor sit down behind the wheel of his car again.

Sit there and stay there. The minutes passed. Still he sat there in the front seat, doing nothing.

Bugger, Keller thought. He knows. The bastard knows.

When he walked past number seventeen quite a long time later, the doctor was still sitting in the car. That was the final proof he needed. Keller went round the back of the row of terraced houses and returned to his flat from the rear. Took a beer from the refrigerator when he was back inside, and emptied it in three swigs. Stood in the bay window. The Audi outside number seventeen was empty. The sun had set.

But he doesn’t know, he thought. The murderer-doctor doesn’t know that I know that he knows. I’m one step ahead. I’m still in control.