“What?”
“I don’t know. There was something hidden. She didn’t bother to pretend-that there wasn’t anything, I mean. Perhaps it wasn’t possible to hide it. There was something she didn’t tell me about, and she was quite open about that fact.
Are you with me? It’s not easy to explain this over the telephone.”
“She had a secret?”
“To put it simply, yes.”
“A man?”
“I have no idea, Inspector. No idea at all.”
“Give me a clue!”
“There’s nothing else I can say. I promise you!”
“What the hell did you talk about?”
“Willie. Her son. Yes, we talked almost exclusively about him. She used me as a means of remembering him. I have a son myself, about the same age as hers, and she liked to compare. . We often pretended that Willie was still alive; we talked about our sons and discussed their futures. That kind of thing.”
“I see. . And she got better?”
“Yes, she did. Those meetings in Maardam were not justified at all from a therapeutic point of view, but she was insistent. I liked her, and she paid my fee. Why should I turn her away?”
“Why indeed, Mr. Caen? What was your impression of her husband, Andreas Berger?”
“Not much at all. We never met, and she didn’t say much about him. She was the one who wanted a divorce. . It was due to the accident, no doubt about that; but don’t ask me how. I think he wanted to keep her, even when she was at her worst.”
Van Veeteren pondered that.
“I thought you had arrested a suspect?” Caen said.
“He’s been tried and sentenced,” said Van Veeteren.
“Sentenced? Has he admitted it? Then why are you still-”
“Because he didn’t do it,” interrupted Van Veeteren. “Can I ask you to do something for me?”
“Of course.”
“If anything occurs to you, no matter how insignificant it might seem, would you please get in touch with me and tell me? You have my number, I take it?”
“No, I don’t think I have.”
“Didn’t you receive our fax?”
“Your fax? I’m afraid I haven’t checked the fax machine for a week or more. I’m on holiday, you see.”
“On holiday in November?”
“Yes, it’s early summer here. Seventy-five degrees, the lemon trees are in bloom. . ”
“I’ll bet they are,” said Van Veeteren.
21
When Lotte Kretschmer woke up on Sunday, November 15, she decided almost immediately to put an end to her affair with her boyfriend, a twenty-one-year-old electrician from Susslingen by the name of Weigand. The decision had been maturing inside her for several weeks, but now the time had come. As usual, Weigand was lying asleep beside her, his mouth wide open, and as she didn’t want him to stagger through the next few days in ignorance of such an important decision, she gave him a good shaking, woke him up, and explained the facts.
They had been together for eight months, it’s true; but even so, she hadn’t reckoned with the argument, the tears, and the accusations taking up the whole day.
When she eventually set off for work at about seven o’clock that evening, she felt that what she needed more than anything else was twelve hours of sound sleep. Instead, she was faced with twelve hours of night duty.
This is mentioned as an explanation, not as an excuse.
However, when the evening round of medication took place at nine o’clock, Janek Mitter-along with several other patients-was not given the usual mild sedative antidepres-sants, but instead was required to swallow two multivitamin tablets enhanced with ten vital minerals plus selenium.
Both types of pill were pale yellow in color, round in shape and coated with sugar, and were stored in the same cupboard.
This is not mentioned as an excuse either.
There was no lack of repercussions. Instead of falling into a deep and dreamless sleep, Mitter was surprised to find himself lying wide awake in his tubular-steel bed, gazing out through the window at a starry sky almost as dense as the one that night in Levkes. He remembered that November was the ideal month for astronomers, and that his birthday must have come and gone-because it was on the occasion of his fourteenth birthday that he had been given the telescope by his father.
Where was it now?
It took a while to work that one out. But he managed it. It was with Jurg, of course. Jurg had kept it in his room when he was staying with Mitter, but he’d taken it with him when he moved to Chadow.
So, he could still remember some things.
Various other details cropped up then faded away again as he lay there; some from long ago. . memories of his childhood, and his youth; some more recent. . Irene and the children, goings-on at school and trips with Bendiksen; but it was well into the early hours before that night cropped up in his mind’s eye. .
He was sitting on the corner sofa. He had got dressed and there were candles burning here and there. Eva was wander-ing around in her kimono and singing something; he had some difficulty in keeping his eyes on her. He had a glass in his hand, and remembered that it was absolutely essential. . absolutely vital that he not drink another single drop. He turned his head, the room was swaying to and fro. . Not another single drop.
He took a swig. It was a good wine, he could taste that despite all the cigarettes: dry and full-bodied. And the doorbell rang. Who the hell. .?
Eva shouted something and disappeared. He realized that she had gone to open the door for the visitor, but he couldn’t see the hall from where he was sitting. He grinned.
Yes, he remembered grinning at the fact that he was so drunk, he daren’t even try to look back over his shoulder.
Then Eva came back into the room with the visitor, the visitor first. He couldn’t see the man’s face, it was too high up; a move like the one required to see it was impossible. The visitor remained standing for quite some time before sitting down, and Eva was somewhere else, she’d shouted something, but now the man was sitting there in any case; Mitter could see his torso and his arms, only the lower part of his arms, his rolled-up shirtsleeves. . He was smoking, and Mitter also took a cigarette and the nicotine made him feel dizzy.
The smoke was hot and nauseating in his throat, and it wasn’t long before they started talking. And then the visitor leaned forward and flicked the ash off his cigarette, and Mitter saw who it was.
He opened his eyes and myriad stars came meandering into his consciousness, making him feel dizzy.
I shall forget this again, he thought. It came to me for just a moment, but tomorrow it will have gone.
He fumbled for the pencil lying on the bedside table.
Heard it fall on the floor. Leaned tentatively over the side of the bed and groped around in the dark over the cold flag-stones, and eventually found it.
Where? he thought. Where?
Then he took the Bible out of the drawer in the bedside table. Thumbed through as far as Mark or thereabouts, and wrote down the visitor’s name.
Closed the Bible. Put it back in its place and closed the drawer. Fell back exhausted on his pillows, and felt. . felt something starting to tremble inside him.
It was a flame. A pitifully small candle flame that somebody had lit, and that was no doubt well worth looking after.
Keeping alight.
He was mad, but at least he understood the implications of this memory.
And thanks to the power of that pale candlelight, he gave himself the task of coming to terms with it all when dawn came.
Writing a letter to the visitor.
Just a line.
He fell asleep. But woke up again.
Perhaps he should also make a phone call.
To that unpleasant person. . whose name escaped him for the moment.
As long as the flame doesn’t go out.
22
The telephone call was put through from the switchboard to the duty officer only minutes before he was due to be relieved.