‘Deer, eh?’
‘Shot it this morning. Back there.’ And Mazey angled his thumb over his shoulder, back along the road.
He paid for the petrol.
‘Interesting music,’ the man said.
‘Yeah,’ said Mazey.
Then he drove away.
It was late afternoon when he reached the village. She remembered that she was taking the washing in when he came round the corner of the building. She remembered watching him as he walked towards her. There was nothing nervous or hesitant about him, nothing to suggest that something might be wrong. There never was.
But then he took her by the arm and though his touch was gentle there was a pressure in it.
‘What is it, Mazey?’
‘The van,’ he said.
‘What van?’
He led her to the car-park at the side of the hotel and showed her the van. It was pale-blue, with rust around the headlights and the wheel-arches.
‘Where did you get it?’ she asked him.
‘I took it.’ He told her the name of the service station. Then he opened the back doors and lifted the tarpaulin.
She reached in quickly, drew the tarpaulin over the body, then glanced behind her. The windows of the inn were black, empty. At that time of day the residents would be sitting in the drawing-room and listening to the news on the radio. Martha would be preparing supper in the kitchen. No one could have seen anything. She bent down, felt for a pulse. Not that there was much chance of that: the injuries were too severe. But she had to make quite certain.
The girl was dead, and had been dead for hours. She wasn’t sure whether or not she should feel relieved.
‘When did this happen?’ she asked.
Mazey stood beside her with his hands in his pockets. He was also looking at the inn, not furtively, though, as she had done, not guiltily at all, but with the complacency of somebody who called it home.
She had to repeat the question.
‘Last night,’ he said.
‘Did anyone see you?’
He shook his head.
She took him by the arm. ‘You have to get rid of the van. I don’t care how you do it. Just get rid of it. Do you understand?’
‘Maybe tomorrow.’
‘Now, Mazey. You do it now.’
Only then did he look down at her, a look that stopped just behind her eyes, at the entrance to her brain. It angered her, to think that he might challenge her.
‘Right now,’ she said.
He stood there for a while longer, frowning. At last he moved past her and opened the door on the driver’s side. He ducked sideways for a moment. His music started up — the tape she’d made for him.
‘Quieter, Mazey,’ she said. ‘Quieter.’
He grinned at her and pushed the hair out of his eyes.
She watched him reverse into the road and drive away. That night there was a storm. A month’s rain fell in less than twelve hours. Even the church flooded; hymn-books were found in the meadow, swollen to twice their normal size. Mazey did not return.
He was gone for three days.
I heard a car in the distance. Thinking it might be Loots, I swung my legs on to the floor. But the sound didn’t grow any louder; instead, it seemed to pass at a tangent to the village.
‘Three days it took him,’ Edith Hekmann said, ‘and when he came back he was on foot.’
I asked her what had happened to the body. She didn’t know.
‘You’ve no idea?’
‘That’s right. I’ve no idea.’ She seemed to relish the fact. She’d tortured me with what she knew, but that wasn’t enough. Now she wanted to torture me with what she didn’t know as well.
‘You’re lying,’ I said. ‘He would’ve told you.’
‘He didn’t tell me.’ She paused. ‘I didn’t ask.’
‘You’re lying.’
She laughed. It was only air, almost inaudible, but utterly contemptuous at the same time. I reached out and my hand closed round a lamp. I pulled it hard, snapping the wire, and threw it at her. It hit the wall and shattered.
‘You’re in a bad way.’ Her voice came from the corner of the room.
I didn’t say anything.
‘You’ll never make it in the police,’ she said. ‘You’re not cut out for it. If I was you, I’d start looking for some other kind of work.’
‘How many times —’ I began, but she talked over me.
‘Those castles in the mountains,’ she was saying, ‘those battlements. They don’t exist.’
I stared at her.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘you’re blind. You won’t see a thing.’
‘What do you mean?’
There was a click made up of two quick sounds, but I didn’t have time to identify it because it was followed, almost immediately, by a deafening explosion. I felt bits of something land on me. At first I couldn’t imagine what it was. It felt like mud thrown up by the wheels of a passing car. It was solid, and strangely warm. It went cold fast, though. Then I knew.
I couldn’t move.
‘Mrs Hekmann?’
My voice sounded far away, as if there was a wall between me and what I’d said.
‘Mrs Hekmann?’
I listened for a whisper, breathing, anything — but all I could hear was people coming up the stairs. Two people. Both men, by the sound of it. I listened carefully. Yes, two men.
The brothers from the village.
I sat on the steps of the hotel, my suitcase on the porch behind me. I remembered my call to Loots. He’d told me he would drive through the night. He would be with me by dawn, he said, or shortly after — I’d made him promise — but it was after dawn and he hadn’t appeared yet. I was sitting on the steps waiting for the sound of his car in the distance. I hoped it wouldn’t be much longer.
The police had already been, tyres slurring on the gravel as they braked. I didn’t understand what the hurry was. There was nobody to arrest or apprehend. There was hardly even anyone to question. All the crimes had been committed and all the criminals were gone.
‘Are you the blind man, sir?’
The policeman was too alert. There was something farcical about it. He was like someone who thought it was the beginning of the story when really it was the end.
‘Well?’ His voice moved closer, officious now and slightly nasal. ‘Are you?’
Don’t ever ignore policemen. If there’s one thing they can’t stand.
I nodded wearily. ‘I’m the blind man.’
‘We’re going to need some kind of statement.’
‘It’s no good asking me,’ I said.
‘Oh? Why’s that?’
‘I didn’t see a thing.’
‘You were there, though,’ the policeman said.
No sense of humour. No sense of humour whatsoever.
I dictated a few sentences for him. I said that I had fallen into the pool and that Mazey Hekmann had drowned while trying to rescue me. When Edith Hekmann learned of her son’s death, she had shot herself. The real crimes were hidden between the lines. I was keeping them for Munck. I thought Munck should get the credit. I wanted him to have that street named after him.
I reached for my suitcase, pulled it closer. The old people would be sitting at their tables in the dining-room, waiting for their breakfast to be served. If only Loots would come. I already knew what I was going to say to him. I’m blind. I realise that now. But still. Don’t ever tell me what you look like. I’ve got my own ideas. You’re thin, just as Nina’s beautiful. I don’t want to hear any different. I don’t want to know. You’re thin, with red hair. You’ve got shoulderblades that stick out. Cheekbones, too. You do extraordinary things on bicycles. No, don’t laugh. It’s what I think. It’s true. Somehow I felt that he would understand. I couldn’t wait for him to arrive. I wanted to throw my arms around him, embrace him.