Mind's eye

27

He took the route over the moors. It would doubtless add an hour to his journey, but that was what he wanted today.

Alone behind the wheel with Julian Bream and Tarrega echoing in his ears, and the barren landscape acting as a barrier and a filter between himself and all too importunate reality; that was more or less what he had reckoned on. He also chose a car from the police pool with considerable care: an almost new red Toyota with tinted windows and some decent loudspeakers at front and back.

He was on his way by eight or so; a dark, foggy morning which improved as time wore on, but the damp, gray clouds never really went away. When he stopped for lunch at an inn in Moines, the whole village was still shrouded in a heavy mist that seemed to come rolling in from the moors. He realized that it was one of those days when the light would never really break through. Darkness would never be totally conquered.

He ate a fish stew with a lot of onion and wine in it, and allowed his thoughts to wander over the previous day and the paltry results it had produced. He had spent more than eight hours interviewing the staff of various wig boutiques, a thankless and monotonous exercise that he could have delegated to somebody else in view of his rank, but which he had undertaken nevertheless. When it was all finished and he was installed at his desk, summing up, he was at least able to confirm that during the past week, none of the eleven boutiques had sold, rented out, or been robbed of a wig similar to the one worn by the killer on the night of the murder at Majorna.

He had expected no other outcome. Why should such an intelligent and cold-blooded person-which is what they seemed to be dealing with, no matter what-have done something so stupid? But everything had to be checked, and now that was done.

The work carried out by the pathologist and the forensic team had failed to produce a breakthrough, either. Meusse’s observations had been confirmed down to the smallest detail, and what the forensic boys liked to call their Hoovering opera-tion produced as little in the way of results as if the crime scene had been an operating theater instead of a ward in a psychiatric hospital.

Nevertheless, the evening brought with it a faint ray of light, even if it had nothing to do with the case. Just as he was about to go to bed, Renate had called and announced that she didn’t think it was such a good idea for them to move back together after all. In any case, there was certainly no hurry.

There’s a time for everything, she had said; and for once he was in full agreement with her. They had concluded their telephone conversation on the best of terms, and she had even persuaded him to promise to pay a visit to their lost son in state prison as soon as he had time.

He drove on through the afternoon, along the narrow, winding roads over the moors and beside the river, as the darkness and the fog grew, and now came the illusory opening he had been hoping for. The very essence of motion. . where moving through space and time seemed to stimulate an impression of movement in other spheres as well. Thoughts and patterns and deductions flowed through his consciousness, effortlessly and without resistance, accompanied by the unfilled space created by the classical guitar.

But the direction taken by these expanding movements kept pace with the oncoming darkness. There was something about this case, about both these murders, that was constantly forcing everything onto a downward path, and leaving a nasty taste in his mouth. A feeling of disgust and impotence, similar to what he used to experience every time he was confronted by a violent murder; when he’d still been a young police officer who believed he could bring about change; before the daily confrontation with a certain kind of behavior blunted him sufficiently for him to be able to carry out his job properly.

Hand in hand with these suspicions was the fear that he knew more than he understood. That there was a question, a clue, that he ought to be able to pin down and examine in more detail, or some connection that he had overlooked, which, when exposed to the light of day, would prove to be the key to the case as a whole.

But this was no more than a vague feeling, perhaps no more than a false hope given the lack of anything else; and whatever the truth was, it had not become one jot clearer this afternoon. It had been, and continued to be, a journey into the unknown. What was growing inside him was worry-the worry that everything would take too long, that he would get it all wrong again, that evil would turn out to be much more powerful than he had wanted to acknowledge.

Evil?

That was not a concept he liked to be confronted with.

The woman who opened the door had long red hair and looked as if she might give birth at any moment.

“Van Veeteren,” he said. “I phoned yesterday. You must be Mrs. Berger?”

“Welcome,” she said with a smile; and as if she had been able to read his thoughts, she added, “Don’t worry about me; there’s a whole month to go yet. I always get to look like this.”

She took his coat and ushered him into the house. Introduced two children, a boy aged four to five, and a girl aged two to three; it was a long time since he’d been any good at making more precise estimates in that age group.

She shouted upstairs, and a voice announced that he was on his way. Mrs. Berger invited Van Veeteren to sit down in a cane armchair, part of a small group in front of an open fire, and excused herself, saying her presence was needed in the kitchen. The boy and girl peered furtively at Van Veeteren, then decided to accompany their mother.

He was left alone for about a minute. It was clear that the Berger household was not exactly suffering from a shortage of money. The house was located securely and well away from the nearest neighbors at the edge of the little town, with unin-terrupted views of the countryside. He had not had enough time to form an opinion about the exterior of the house, but the interior and fittings demonstrated good taste and the means to satisfy it.

For a brief moment, he may have regretted accepting the invitation he had been given. Interrogating one’s host over dinner was hardly an ideal situation. Not easy to bite the hand that feeds you, he thought; much easier to stare somebody down across a rickety hardboard table in a dirty prison cell.

But no doubt all would be well. It was not his intention to cross-question Andreas Berger, even if it might be difficult to resist the pleasure of doing so. Van Veeteren had come here simply to establish an impression-surely there was no more to it than that? For even if he had every confidence in Munster’s judgment, much more so than Munster could ever have imagined, there was always a little chance, a possibility that Van Veeteren might notice something. Something that might require a special sixth sense to pick up, an advanced sort of intuition or a particular kind of perverted imagination. .

And if nothing else, four eyes had to be able to see better than two.

That boy, for instance. Was it possible that he was a little bit on the old side for the circumstances? No doubt it would be an idea to check the dates when he had an opportunity. For if it really was the case that the new Mrs. Berger had been pregnant before the old Mrs. Berger had made her final exit, well. . That would surely be of some sort of significance?

Andreas Berger looked more or less as Van Veeteren had imagined him. Trim, easygoing, about forty; polo shirt, jacket, corduroy trousers. A somewhat intellectual air.

The prototype of success, Van Veeteren thought. Would fit into any TV ad you cared to name. Anything from aftershave and deodorant to dog food and retirement insurance. Very pleasant.

Dinner took an hour and a half. Conversation was easy and unexceptional, and after the dessert, the wife and children withdrew. The gentlemen returned to their cane armchairs.

Berger offered his guest a range of drinks, but Van Veeteren was content with a whiskey and water, and a cigarette.

“I need to be able to find my way back to the hotel,” he said by way of explanation.

“Why not stay the night with us? We’ve got bags of room.”

“I don’t doubt that for a second,” said Van Veeteren. “But I’ve already checked in, and I prefer to sleep where my tooth-brush is.”

Berger shrugged.

“I have to get up rather early tomorrow morning as well,”

said Van Veeteren. “Would you have any objection to our coming to the point now, Mr. Berger?”

“Of course not. Don’t be afraid to ask, Chief Inspector. If I can help in any way to throw light on this terrible tragedy, I’d be only too pleased to do so.”

No, Van Veeteren thought. I’m not normally accused of being afraid to ask questions. Let’s see if you are afraid of answering them.

“How did you discover that Eva was being unfaithful?” he asked to start with.

It was a shot in the dark, but he saw immediately that he had scored a bull’s-eye. Berger reacted so violently that the ice cube he was in the process of dropping into his glass landed on the floor.

“Oh, bugger,” he said, groping around in the shaggy carpet.

Van Veeteren waited calmly.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

It was so amateurish that Van Veeteren couldn’t help smiling.

“Did you find out yourself, or did she tell you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Inspector.”

“Or did somebody else tip you off?”

Berger hesitated.

“Who has told you about this, Inspector?”

“I’m afraid we shall have to stick to the rules, Mr. Berger, even if you have served me a delicious dinner.”

“What rules?”

“I ask the questions, you answer them.”

Berger said nothing. Sipped his drink.

“You really have been most hospitable,” said Van Veeteren, making a vague gesture that incorporated the food, the wine, the whiskey, the open fire, and all the other things Berger had provided: but your thinking time is now over!

“All right,” said Berger. “There was another man. Yes, that’s the way it looked.”

“You’re not certain?”

“It was never confirmed. Not a hundred percent.”

“You mean that she didn’t confess?”

Berger gave a laugh.

“Confess? No, she certainly didn’t. She denied his existence as if her life depended on it.”

Perhaps it did, Van Veeteren thought.

“Can you tell me about it?”

Berger leaned back and lit a cigarette. Inhaled deeply a few times before answering. It was obvious that he needed a few seconds to plan what he was going to say, before starting to speak. Van Veeteren acceded to his wish.

“I saw them,” Berger said eventually. “It was the spring of 1986, March or April or thereabouts. I saw them together twice, and I have reason to believe that they carried on meeting occasionally until the middle of May, at least. There was something. . Well, I could see it in her, of course. She wasn’t the kind of woman who could keep a secret, you might say. It was sort of written in her face that something was wrong.

Anyway, I suppose you understand what I mean, Inspector?”

Van Veeteren nodded.

“Can you say exactly when it all started?”

“Easter. It was the Thursday before Easter in 1986. I don’t know the date. It was one of those cases of sheer coincidence-

I’ve thought a lot about that afterward. I saw them in a car, during the lunch break. I had to drive through the center of town in order to meet a researcher in Irgenau, and they were diagonally in front of me, in another car. . ”

“You’re sure it was your wife?”

“One hundred percent.”

“And the man?”

“Do you mean what did he look like?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. He was driving. Eva was sitting next to him; I could see her in profile when she turned her head to talk to him, but all I could see of him were his shoulders and the back of his neck. They were in the right-hand lane, ready to turn off; I was going straight on. When the lights changed to green, they turned right. I had no chance of following them, even if I’d wanted to. I think. . I think I was a bit shocked as well.”

“Shocked? How could you know that she was being. .

unfaithful? Wasn’t it possible for your wife to be sitting in somebody else’s car for some perfectly innocent reason?”

“Of course. That’s what I tried to tell myself as well. But her reaction when I asked her about it was quite. . well, it left no room for doubt.”

“Meaning what?”

“She was extremely upset. Claimed that she had been at home all day, and I was either mistaken or lying and was trying to destroy our relationship. And lots of other things along similar lines.”

“And it’s not possible that she might have been right?”

“No. I started to query what I’d seen, naturally. . But after a few weeks, we were back there again. A colleague of mine saw them together in a cafe. It was most distressing.

He mentioned it in passing, as a sort of joke, but I’m afraid I lost my cool.”

“What did Eva have to say this time?”

“The same as before. That was what was so odd. She

denied everything, and was just as upset as the previous time, said that my colleague was a liar, claimed she’d never set foot in that cafe. It was so flagrant, the whole thing; I thought it was beneath her dignity to lie, as you might say. And to lie over and over again. I told her it was much more difficult to cope with the lies than with her infidelity. The odd thing was that she seemed to agree with me.”

“What happened next?”

Berger shrugged.

“Our relationship hit the rocks, of course. She became a stranger, you might say. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and asking myself questions. Asking her as well, but she refused to discuss it. As soon as I tried to start talking about something, she shut up like a clam. It was sheer hell for a few months. And it got worse. I’d never expected anything of the sort. We’d been married for five years, had known each other for ten, and we’d never had any problems like that before. Are you married, Chief Inspector?”

“Sort of.”

“Hmm. . Ah, well. . Before long I suppose I started to think that maybe I’d got hold of the wrong end of the stick after all. It started to feel as if everything was beginning to move in her favor, somehow or other. . As if I was to blame for everything, because it was me who’d accused her. I recall thinking that the whole business was beginning to look like a real folie a deux, if you understand. .”

“Don’t underestimate me.”

“I’m sorry. .”

“You said you caught her out several more times?”

“Yes, but never in quite the same way. I caught a glimpse. .

I overheard a few telephone calls. .”

“Did you hear what they were talking about?”

“No. But it was pretty clear even so.”

“I’m with you.”

“I caught her out telling lies several times as well. She claimed she’d been at home, despite the fact that I’d gone home during the lunch break and found the house empty. .

Said she’d been at the cinema with a woman friend of hers. To see a film that had finished its run the week before.”

“What did she have to say about all these things?”

“I never confronted her with them. I didn’t know what to do. I suppose I was just waiting for something crucial to happen. The whole situation seemed so unreal, I simply didn’t know what to do.”

“Did you speak to anybody about it?”

“No. . No, unfortunately not. I thought it was something that would blow over, that we’d sort it out between ourselves eventually, somehow.”

Van Veeteren nodded.

“Is that a Vrejsman?” He pointed at the big watercolor over the fireplace.

“Yes, you’re right,” said Berger in surprise. “Don’t tell me you’re an art expert as well as a detective chief inspector?”

“Of course,” said Van Veeteren. “I’m familiar with Rem-brandt and Vrejsman. Vrejsman is my uncle. Are you absolutely certain, Mr. Berger?”

“Excuse me? I don’t really understand. .”

“Certain that she was unfaithful. Could it possibly have been something else?”

“Such as?”

Van Veeteren flung out his arms.

“Don’t ask me. But what you discovered wasn’t especially compromising. You never found them in bed together, as it were.”

“I didn’t think that was necessary.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about this last time? When you spoke to Inspector Munster?”

Berger hesitated.

“It. . it never cropped up. I suppose I didn’t think it was important. I still don’t, come to that.”

Van Veeteren didn’t respond. Berger was rather annoyed now. Van Veeteren almost wished he’d been in a position to have him locked up in a police cell overnight and been able to continue questioning him first thing next morning. That would have made his next move easier. But while he was wondering what to do next, Mrs. Berger appeared and informed her husband that he was wanted on the telephone.

The Devil looks after his own, Van Veeteren thought.

Berger went to answer the call, and Van Veeteren was able to spend the next ten minutes staring at the embers and the fading blue flames while thinking over his own infidelities.

They were two in number; the most recent one was eighteen years ago, and had been just as catastrophic as the first one. His marriage had been catastrophic as well, but at least it had the advantage of not affecting any innocent party.

Perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea to let the same thing apply to the marriage of Andreas Berger and Eva Ringmar as well? He decided to accept another whiskey and water while waiting for the next round to commence. He would have to make sure it took up rather less time than the last one. The clock on the mantelpiece was showing half past nine, and even if he generally paid no attention to the requirements of common decency and decorum, there were limits.

He lit a cigarette, and put another four in his breast pocket.