He closed the book and slid it to one side. Drained the beer bottle one more time, in the hope that there might be a few drops left.
God only knows, he thought again. But surely the evidence is building up?
That evening he went to the cinema with Ulrike, and watched the old Russian film The Commissar, a forgotten masterpiece from the 1960s. Afterwards they sat at Kraus cafe for an hour, discussing how it was possible to produce such a perfect work of art in the conditions that held sway in the Soviet Union a mere ten years after the death of Stalin.
Talking about the sublime scene in which the Jewish cobbler washes his wife’s feet.
About the role played by salt and bitter things in life. And about both Karel Innings, Ulrike’s husband, who was murdered by a vengeful woman exactly five years ago, and about Van Veeteren’s son Erich who had been dead for more than two years by this time.
They didn’t often discuss such matters, but they did now.
Was it the case that their respective sorrow had brought them closer together? Intensified their relationship, and in some respects made it stronger than it would have been in more normal circumstances?
Difficult questions, perhaps not ideally defined, and of course they did not reach any conclusions. Not this evening. But as they strolled home through the drizzle, he had the feeling that he loved her like a shipwrecked sailor must love a raft that comes floating towards him just when all his strength has been used up.
Yes indeed, that was the very image that haunted his mind’s eye.
It was almost half past eleven by the time they got home to Klagenburg, and he decided to postpone the conversation until the following morning. People’s guard was always lower shortly after they had woken up, and if he could ask his somewhat indiscreet question in those circumstances, it had to be a good thing.
He set the alarm clock for seven o’clock, and crept closer to Ulrike with a sardonic smile on his lips.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ she wondered. ‘You seem somehow brimming over with energy, Mister Yang.’
He had to admit that she was right.
‘It’s the old hunter inside me that has woken up,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve picked up a scent.’
‘Me?’ asked Ulrike, and couldn’t help giggling.
He closed his eyes and tried to work out how much a fifty-eight-year-old woman who could still giggle like a child was worth.
Quite a lot, he decided.
‘Of course it’s you,’ he said. ‘But there’s something else as well.’
‘A prey?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Switch the light off and hug me more tightly.’
He did as he was bidden.
‘DeFraan.’
‘Van Veeteren here. Good morning.’
‘Who?’
‘Van Veeteren, the antiquarian bookseller. We met briefly after your lecture yesterday.’
‘What can I do for you?’
‘It’s about that book by Henry Moll.’
‘Oh yes, I remember you now. But why are you ringing so early? It’s not even half past seven yet.’
‘I’m sorry. I wanted to catch you before you went to work.’
‘You’ve done that all right.’
‘There’s something I’ve been wondering about.’
‘Really? I’m all ears — but I’d be grateful if you were quick about it.’
‘Of course. I didn’t mean to wake you up. But I have a question. Do you still claim that you’ve never heard of Henry Moll and that book I showed you?’
‘Claim and claim. I don’t understand. .’
Two seconds of silence.
‘What was it called?’
‘Strangler’s Honeymoon. Published by Thornton amp; Radice in 1932.’
‘Ah, yes. . No, I don’t remember anything about that book. And I don’t understand why you are harassing me like this. I think we ought to close this call now, I don’t think. .’
‘I’ve been reading your thesis.’
‘Eh?’
‘Your dissertation. Narrative Structures in Popular Fiction. . — that’s what it’s called, isn’t it?’
No answer.
‘There’s something I’ve been thinking about.’
‘What, exactly?’
Was there for the first time a trace of fear in his voice? Or was it just his own imagination and expectations that were playing games?’
‘The fact that you wrote about Moll and that book in your thesis, but nevertheless you maintain that you’ve never heard of them.’
‘Moll?’ said deFraan thoughtfully. ‘Hmm, I suppose it’s possible that I’ve come across him. . But you must realize that it’s more than fifteen years since I completed my dissertation. If I remember rightly I referred to over two hundred authors and three times as many books — you can’t expect-’
‘And Benjamin Kerran?’
‘Kerran? I don’t know what you’re talking about. What the hell are you getting at? I certainly have no intention-’
‘So you don’t remember the name Benjamin Kerran either? I think I mentioned the name to you yesterday. He’s the murderer in the book I mentioned. A strangler.’
Silence again for five seconds, then deFraan hung up.
Van Veeteren did the same. And leaned back against the pillows in his bed.
End of round one, he thought. Honours even.
But if — if I’m on the scent of the right prey, he knows now that I know. No doubt about that. He’s not an idiot. That’s a fact that has altered the odds for all the coming rounds. Changed them fundamentally.
But nevertheless, he thought as he stood in the shower a quarter of an hour later. There’s something missing.
The murderer’s shame, for instance — that look, or that noticeably husky voice: he hadn’t exhibited an ounce of that. Van Veeteren had played quite a high trump card and earned as a result. . well, what?
Nothing, was the obvious answer to that. Damn and blast! He could feel the doubt and desperation beginning to nag away inside him, as familiar as the chronic pains he had been feeling as age crept up on him: but instead of scrutinizing everything in more detail he left the shower. Dried himself meticulously, switched on the coffee machine and devoted his attention to the chess problem in Allgemejne.
Mate in three moves with several unidentified snags. It seemed familiar.
45
Reinhart was dreaming.
Two different dreams simultaneously, it seemed, each one worse than the other. In the first one his daughter Joanna and her red-haired friend Ruth were busy baking his left leg inside some kind of dough — that was why it felt so heavy. . They intended to bake the whole of him in order to present him as an unusually impressive exhibit at a birthday party at their nursery school, they had informed him. The resultant pastry would be decorated with all kinds of pretty little embellishments such as starfish, flags and various sparkling stones — and would win the first prize in a competition: a trip to Disneyland in Paris. The very thought sent spasms of disgust through Reinhart’s whole being, but he was unable to protest because they had first given him a hefty dose of morphine. His tongue lay half-dead in his mouth like a beached jellyfish. The whole thing was disgustingly awful.
In the second one he was wandering through a noisy town on the way towards an accident. His own accident. Something was going to happen — it wasn’t yet clear what, but he continued heading towards his fate just as inevitably as if it had been a repeat performance of an old film that he was watching for the seventh time. He lay there helplessly, with his baked-in and incredibly heavy leg, and watched as he was nudged and elbowed on the menacing pavements of the menacing town. His own Maardam and his own Zuyderstraat, if he was not much mistaken: but there were also odd and unfamiliar aspects that he didn’t recognize at alclass="underline" shattered bridges and ruined houses, as if from a country devastated by war. He tried desperately to attract the attention of Joanna and Red Ruth and his wife, and to beg them to stop the film before it was too late. But it was in vain. The jellyfish in his mouth was now no more than an insignificant single-cell organism that had died and was drying out completely, and adhering to the palate in the most hopeless way. It was clear to him that all his efforts were in vain and pointless.