He switched off the light and went back into the hall. Paused for a moment, checking that the letter basket on the inside of the door was empty. That had to suggest that he’d left not very long ago. Abandoned this gloomy but well-looked-after apartment about an hour ago, most likely.
It seemed impossible that he had just slipped out for a few minutes. Everything suggested that he had gone away. For a few days at the very least.
Forever? Perhaps that was a good sign, when all was said and done. A glimmer of hope twinkled once more. Why should he do it inside his home?
No reason at all, as far as Van Veeteren could see.
He left the apartment and closed the door behind him.
Why had he left it open?
So that Van Veeteren would be able to examine the apartment? If so, what was the point?
Or had he simply forgotten to lock it?
“Mr. Van Veeteren?”
He gave a start. He hadn’t noticed that one of the neighboring doors had been cautiously opened. A woman with red frizzy hair peeked out.
“You are Mr. Van Veeteren, aren’t you? He said you’d come at about this time.”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“He asked me to tell you that he couldn’t meet you here, unfortunately, because he’d gone to the seaside.”
“To the seaside?”
“Yes. He left you a message as well. Here you are.”
She held out an envelope.
“Thank you very much,” said Van Veeteren. “Did he say anything else?”
She shook her head.
“No, what else was there for him to say? Excuse me, but I’ve got a cake in the oven.”
She closed the door.
Ah well, thought Van Veeteren, staring at the envelope.
He didn’t open it until he’d found a table at the outdoor café a bit farther down the same street. As he sat with it in his hand, waiting for the waitress, he thought back to what Mahler had said the previous evening.
Doing something at the right time is more important than what you actually do.
A bit exaggerated, of course, but perhaps it was true that timing was the most important part of all patterns? Of all actions, of every life. In any case, it wasn’t an idea to be sneered at, that was clear.
The beer arrived. He drank deeply then opened the envelope. Took out a sheet of paper folded twice and read:
Florian’s Guesthouse
Behrensee.
He took another swig.
The sea? he thought. Yes, that was a possibility, of course.
XI
November 25, 1981
41
Night once more.
Awake once more. Judgment was passed yesterday, and her last hope was blown out like a candle flame in a storm.
Guilty.
Verhaven guilty again. She fumbles for her glass. Sips at the lukewarm soda water and closes her eyes. Turns her thoughts inside and out. What is it behind this unbelievable turn of events? What is it forcing her to hang on despite everything? Instead of just letting everything go, dropping all her resistance?
Breaking this lunatic silence and sinking down into the darkness. What?
Andrea, of course.
Last time she was two years old; now she’s of marriageable age. A mature woman. The woman her mother never became; there is a progression in everything, an inexorable, black logic against which she has no defenses. A destiny, it seems to her.
Please, God, let her relationship with Juhanis come to something.
Please, God, make them make their minds up soon so that he can take her away from here.
Please, God.
When?
When did the first crystal-clear suspicion enter her mind this time?
The same day? That same rainy afternoon in September when the body was discovered by Mr. Nimmerlet? As early as that?
Perhaps. Perhaps she knew right away. Suppressed it and slammed the door shut on it. Immediately hit upon her twisted excuse to escape and swallowed it hook, line and sinker; he hadn’t been in town that day. He’d driven to Ulming with the broken chain saw; she checked that herself in her diary. It must have been that very day…. He stopped by at the Morrisons on the way as well, even if they weren’t at home, it seems. He said that himself, and there had been nothing unusual about what he’d done or the way he’d acted. Nothing unusual.
They couldn’t do anything with the saw, but of course he had been there, and as it’s a long way between Ulming and Maardam, it can’t have been him. Not this time; this time it really is Verhaven; it must be Verhaven.
Guilty!
But she knows even so.
She’s lying here in her big bed in the refurbished bedroom, and knows. Is more and more convinced of this black certainty. Chained to him and to her silence, that’s how it feels; more and more bitter, more and more strong, and clearer than ever during these ecstatic, sleepless hours in the early morning.
Him and her. Man and wife.
But never man and woman. Not since Andrea was born. All these years they have never come together. She has closed her legs to him and left him outside; that’s what has happened. Transformed this strong and healthy man into somebody who runs after whores. A married man who every month takes his car to town in order to satisfy his tortured urges with bought love.
That’s what I have turned him into.
And into a murderer.
Him and her. This unavoidable certainty. And the choice, has she ever had a choice?
No, she thinks, and swallows that as well. I have never had a choice.
She sits upright. Dries the cold sweat off her brow with the back of her hand. Tries to relax her shoulders and take slow, deep breaths while she looks out the window. The sky in the east is defined by the dark outline of the coniferous forest.
Oh God, she thinks. Can anybody understand?
Even You?
She clasps her hands, but the words of her prayer are locked inside her.
I will take the punishment, she thinks. Punish me for my silence!
Let me remain in my bed forever! Let me…let me do just that. Let me cease once and for all staggering through this house, which is my home and my prison. Let me stay here.
May my wrecked pelvis split open forever!
She sinks back against the pillows and it dawns on her that this is how it must be. Exactly like this.
But may there be some kind of meaning, despite everything. At last the words find their way over her lips. May…may my unfathomable darkness be my daughter’s light! she whispered out into the night. I do not beg for forgiveness! I do not beg for understanding! I ask for nothing! Punish me, oh God!
Then she closes her eyes, and almost as if she has been given an answer, she can feel the shaft of pain shooting up through her body.
XII
May 29–31, 1994
42
The rain had been with him for most of the journey, but it started to ease off as he approached the coast. The setting sun broke through the clouds on the horizon, shooting jagged shafts of light over the choppy sea. The air smelled salt-laden and fresh when he got out of the car, and he paused for a few seconds to savor deep breaths of it. Seagulls were gliding over the water, filling the bay with their self-assured, drawn-out screams.
The sea, he thought once again.
People had ventured out onto the beach between the two piers after the rain—it was not a long beach, not much more than half a mile. Some dogs were chasing one another; a group of young people were playing volleyball; a fisherman was sorting out his nets. Van Veeteren couldn’t remember when he had last visited this rather old-fashioned seaside resort with its olde-worlde charm; its heyday, when the Casino and Spa Hotel flourished, came to an end at some point in the twenties, unless he was much mistaken—but he had been there several times even so. With Renate and with the children as well; perhaps it was only a couple of occasions, now that he came to think about it…. A few days each time, but Behrensee was small enough for him to remember where Florian’s was located.