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.