The Living and the Dead in Winsford

58

There is a man in his sixties standing there. Slightly hunched, slightly overweight.

‘Yes?. .’

‘Fru Holinek?’

‘Yes. . Yes, of course. What’s it all about?’

He produces something from his inside pocket and holds it up. I don’t understand what it is.

‘Chief Inspector Simonsson. May I come in?’

I see that there is a dark blue car parked outside the gate. The engine is running, and another man behind the wheel is talking into a mobile phone.

‘Yes, of course. This way. . Forgive me, but I’m busy making dinner.’

He steps into the hall and sniffs the air. ‘Yes, I can smell that.’

He hangs up his jacket. ‘Is there somewhere where we can sit and talk? I have a few questions.’

‘Is it about. .?’

‘Yes, it’s about your husband, fru Holinek.’

I show him into the living room and we each sit down in an armchair.

‘Would you like anything?’

‘No thank you.’

He takes out a small notebook and leafs through it for a moment.

‘So your husband, Martin Holinek, disappeared from the ferry between Puttgarden and Rødby on the evening of the thirtieth of January, is that correct?’

‘Yes. . Yes, that’s true. Why are you asking about that? I’ve already spoken several times to both the Danish and the Swedish police-’

He holds up his hand and I break off.

‘The fact is that we might have found his body, fru Holinek.’

‘You might have. .?’

For a brief moment my brain blows a fuse. I stare at him and try to remember what he said his name was.

‘It’s a possibility at least,’ he adds. ‘There are quite a lot of bewildering circumstances.’

‘I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?’

‘Simonsson. Chief Inspector Simonsson.’

‘Thank you. I don’t really understand. . Bewildering circumstances?’

He clears his throat and looks at his notebook.

‘I can’t think of a better way of putting it. But maybe you can put us on the right track. Your husband is supposed to have jumped overboard from the ferry more or less halfway between Puttgarden and Rødby about. . well, just over two weeks ago. And now a body has been found that might possibly be his.’

‘What do you mean by “possibly”?’

He nods a few times and looks around the room before saying anything more. As if he were looking for an answer in the bookcase or up near the ceiling.

‘In the first place we are wondering about the spot where he was found. It’s quite a long way from where he is supposed to have jumped overboard.’

‘I. . I’ve been told that there are strong sea currents down there. That’s what the Danish police said, at least.’

He nodded. ‘That’s true. But this body was found rather a long way to the east of Fehmarn. . In Poland, in fact.’

‘Poland?’

‘Yes. That’s one of the circumstances. The other one is the time aspect. The human body they’ve found has evidently been dead for several months. . It’s been very badly mauled, and to complicate matters further was discovered inside a bunker.’

‘A bunker?’

‘Yes. An old abandoned remnant from the last war. .’

‘But then it can’t possibly be my husband. How. . how on earth could he have ended up inside a bunker?’

I don’t know where I got my neutral, almost slightly irritated tone of voice from.

Chief Inspector Simonsson sits up a little straighter in the armchair and leans towards me. ‘That’s a question we are also asking ourselves, fru Holinek. This body has been with the Polish police for quite some time, but they haven’t managed to identify it because it is so badly mauled. As far as they can see the man must have died inside that bunker, but before he did so he might possibly have written something on the wall.’

‘Written something. . Now you said “possibly” again.’

‘Yes. There are quite a lot of scribbles on those walls, it seems. Names and suchlike. But when the Polish police failed to get anywhere with identifying the body they sent out a list to police forces in other countries. That was about a month ago. . Eleven names in all, and one of them might have been scratched in by this man before he died — that’s what they are suggesting in any case.’

‘Really? I don’t think I. .’

‘Anyway, one of the names is Holinek. One of my younger colleagues happened to notice it and recognized it from that Rødby report. He’s the one sitting out there in the car, incidentally. Stensson — a promising young detective officer.’

I swallow and try to think of something to say, but I can’t find any words. Instead I look at the police officer with a calm and tolerant television smile.

‘It’s a pretty long shot, of course,’ he says, closing his notebook. ‘But we need to turn over every stone — that’s the way we work. .’

‘I still don’t understand. Of course it’s not him. How could it possibly be?’

He raises his hand again. ‘I agree that it sounds out of the question. But we thought we ought to look into it even so. After all, there are not many people around called Holinek. So we thought we’d investigate so that we could exclude the possibility — can I assume that’s all right with you?’

‘Of course. Naturally there’s nothing I’d like more than Martin’s body being found, so that. . well, so that we know for certain. Are you intending. .?’

‘Intending what?’

‘Are you intending to test DNA and that kind of thing?’

He puts his notebook back in his jacket pocket and nods. ‘That would be one method, of course. But maybe there’s a shortcut in this case.’

‘A shortcut?’

He stands up. Looks thoughtfully around the room again. ‘Apparently there’s not much left of that corpse in the bunker. Neither the body itself nor the clothes he was wearing. But there’s one little thing that has survived intact. I had it delivered to my desk a couple of hours ago.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A car key. He had a car key with him, and it seems the rats didn’t find it edible. Forgive me. . That’s probably what he used to scratch things on the wall with. I take it that’s your Audi parked out there on the drive?’

He has walked over to the window and I can see that he is giving some sort of signal to his colleague. Stensson.

‘Come here, let’s see what happens.’

I walk to the window and stand beside him. I watch as Stensson — a tall, well-built young man of about thirty — has got out of the car he’s been sitting in while Chief Inspector Simonsson and I have been talking.

It strikes me. . Yes, it suddenly strikes me that I am standing exactly where I stood that winter evening so long ago. Just as cold or even colder than this one: I’m standing here beside Martin and watching as his sister comes walking up to the house with her secret lover. Our children are small and we have all our lives ahead of us: there are so many wonderful opportunities open to us, so many days, but we don’t think about that; we just stand here, in exactly the same place as Chief Inspector Simonsson and I are standing twenty-seven years later, Martin and I, trying to imagine who that man in the ordinary shoes and with his jumper pulled up over his head might be — and it occurs to me that life passes so quickly that one can remain standing there in the same spot and not notice that it’s already too late. You can sail without any wind for years, and believe all the time that you are on the way to somewhere.

And then I come back down to earth and watch the young police officer open the front door of my car — as usual I haven’t locked it — and see how he settles down behind the steering wheel and waves to us — possibly slightly embarrassed, it seems to me — before leaning forward and inserting the key in the ignition.

The ponies, I think. The pheasants. The Protection. .

The headlights come on, and it starts at the first attempt.

‘How about that?’ says Chief Inspector Simonsson. ‘It started. How do you explain that?’

I don’t answer.

‘Ah well, I think I must ask you to come with us, fru Holinek, so that we can continue our conversation in another place.’

I say nothing. Stand still and watch my car with its engine still running out there in the cold. Castor comes and sits down next to me. My mobile phone rings, I know who it is and don’t need to check.

‘I must just switch off the oven first,’ I say.