The Stranglers Honeymoon

by Håkan Nesser

But surely it must be the fourth, she thought. The top floor, that must be it. In any case, he had windows both looking out over the street and into the courtyard, she was sure of that.

  But which ones were they? Which windows? The building extended along the whole length of the alley, from the university at one end and the cemetery wall at the other, and she counted up to eighteen windows on the top floor, under the overhanging roof. Unless she was completely mistaken, the ones she was looking for should be slightly to the left of the centrally placed entrance door, from where she was standing.

  But how many to the left?

  At least four, she thought; and with the aid of some kind of obscure, intuitive sense of direction she picked out the four most likely ones. It was dark in two of them, light in the other two – a warm, yellow, slightly subdued light. No cold blue light from the television through lace curtains in this block. There were also lights in the windows to the right of the ones she had picked out, while on the other side everything was dark all the way to the cemetery. The shortcomings and uncertainties in these observations and calculations struck her at about the same time as she realized that the whole business of light and dark windows was nothing much to go by in any case.

  If Benjamin Kerran was alive and at home, then of course he was likely to have lights on at this time in the evening.

  But if he was at home and lying dead in the bathroom, it was at least as likely that he wouldn’t have had the strength to heave himself to his feet in order to switch off the lights that she must have left burning nine days ago. There had only been a candle burning in the living room, she remembered that: but all the lights had been on in the bathroom and the hall.

  She congratulated herself on reaching those brilliant conclusions, then plucked up courage, crossed over the street and tried the entrance door.

  It was not locked. She hesitated for a moment, then opened it and went into the courtyard. Paused and looked around.

  A dark-haired young woman appeared, carrying a basket of newly washed clothes. There was a smell of cooking coming from an open window on the ground floor on the right. The old wrought-iron lantern in the corner by the bicycle stands was switched on, as were the small yellow lamps over the various staircases. The woman went in through one of them, but that wasn’t Benjamin Kerran’s door. Monica took a deep breath and established that there was no stench of rotting flesh lurking in the air in the courtyard, only that cooking smell. Something with mushrooms and garlic, no doubt, and she suddenly felt hungry. She hadn’t had a cooked meal for over a week now, so that was hardly surprising. Not surprising at all.

  She scanned the façade of the building from this side as well, from the inside as it were, but didn’t bother to try to work out which windows were relevant. It looked as if people were at home in most flats, in about two-thirds of them in fact, she estimated. Some of the windows were even open – it was such a warm evening, so why not? She could hear noises from televisions and radios here and there, and the occasional conversation, muted somewhat by the thick walls and the dense atmosphere of . . . well, of middle-class civilization. She noted that the overall impression was of unambiguous homeliness – a feeling of homeliness impervious to pressures from the outside – and she could feel a lump forming in her throat.

  I mustn’t start crying now, she thought – and at that same moment she realized that she couldn’t remember the name on the door of the flat.

  It had been something different: not Kerran . . . But the name of a lodger who had since moved out, and she hadn’t a clue as to what that name was. How come she had overlooked this state of affairs? Until now?

  In other words, was she sure that she would be able to find the right door? And come to think of it, how about the entrance doors out here in the courtyard, leading up to the various staircases? Surely they wouldn’t be unlocked as late as this in the evening, allowing any old riff-raff to gain entry?

  Hell’s bells, she thought. I must have forgotten that I’m just an idiot. What am I doing here? What the hell was that for a daft impulse, sending me back to the scene of the crime? Standing here in the courtyard like a halfwit, totally unable to take any steps likely to throw light on the fate of the dead body!

  She shook her head, walked forward and tried the door in question – the one she thought she remembered, at least.

  Locked. Just as anybody with a brain more functional than a walnut could have worked out. I might just as well give up, she thought. Just as well go home and continue to stare up at the ceiling, waiting for my collapse, the arrival of the social services and the Day of Judgement . . . Bloody fucking hell!

  She was just about to turn on her heel and turn this decision into reality when a light was switched on, visible through the small, frosted glass panes in the upper part of the door.

  She had no time to consider. To make a decision. A balding, middle-aged man in tracksuit and trainers came out. Nodded to her, ran out into the courtyard and vanished into the street within three seconds.

  She managed to catch the door before it closed and automatically locked itself, and before she knew where she was, she found herself inside. Paused for a moment and felt a sort of whirlpool welling up inside her. Gritted her teeth and clasped her hands. Looked around.

  Now, she thought. Please, God, give me a chance.

  On the wall to the left, before the stairs up to the lift, was a noticeboard inside a glass case, with the names of the tenants, floor by floor: and when she read it, she suddenly remembered – she recognized the name of the student. On the fourth floor, just as she had thought. At the top of the building.

  If the circumstances had been different and her head clearer, she might have wondered why his name wasn’t here either, just that of the student lodger who had moved out some time ago – wondered for a moment about whether there was something odd about the correct name not being displayed in such obvious places.

  But she didn’t. She didn’t question anything at all. The whirlpool inside her was too strong. Having come this far, Monica didn’t give herself time to reflect about anything. Even forgot to check the state of the mailboxes, which were lined up on the wall opposite the list of names.

  Simply stepped into the lift – it was a well-lit and inviting old-fashioned wooden lift with folding seats covered in red velvet. She remembered it. Closed the noisy barred door and pressed the button.

  The lift cage, which presumably dated back to . . . did he say 1905? . . . started moving and slowly, rattling and squeaking, raised her up inside the building – and as she stood there, swaying from side to side and watching floor after floor pass by, she remembered to start sniffing, wondering if she would be able to recognize the smell.

  The sweetish smell of her lover’s rotting body.

  But she didn’t smell it at all. Not even when she stepped out of the lift and stood in front of his door was there any trace of a suspicious stench.

  Nor was there any sign of a chink of light under the door to his flat. But then, that would have been impossible in any circumstances, she realized, because there wasn’t so much as a millimetre’s gap under the bottom of the door. On the contrary, the door was just as dark and well-fitting and solid as everything else in the building, and the keyhole was certainly not of the type that you could peer through. Definitely not.

  Monica swallowed, and stood there with her arms dangling by her sides. She felt that the whirlpool was fading away, and that she was once more close to crying – but at that very moment she heard footsteps on the staircase below.

  She hadn’t heard a door opening and closing again, but perhaps somebody had come in through the door while she was still in the noisy lift.

  Somebody was on the way up the stairs. She looked around, and wondered what to do. There was one more door on the landing where she was standing, a bit further down a short corridor. And four steps up was a solid-looking door made of iron or steel. Presumably leading into the attic space. It looked as securely locked as a safe in Switze
rland.

  She listened. The footsteps continued to approach.

  Getting closer.

  You are standing at the door of the flat in which you murdered your lover, an inner voice informed her. Somebody is on his way up the stairs, and he’ll discover you within the next ten seconds . . .

  Unless that Somebody isn’t on his way up to the top floor.

  She pressed herself close to the wall next to the door and held her breath.

  The footsteps paused on the landing below, and she heard the sound of a man coughing – then the jingling sound of keys being taken out of a jacket pocket.

  Then the footsteps continued upwards.

  She didn’t make a decision now either – there was no time.

  She simply acted.

  Took hold of the door handle. Pressed it down.

  It was unlocked. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

  10

  On Sunday, 8 October, a stray swallow flew in through Van Veeteren’s bedroom window.

  It had just turned half past five in the morning, and the unfortunate bird was probably one of the very few phenomena in the whole world that could have woken him up. The flight from Rome had been over four hours late, and they hadn’t got to bed until about three o’clock.

  Two-and-a-half hours’ sleep, then, and how Ulrike managed to stay asleep despite all the persistent fluttering of wings was beyond him . . . A mystery that on reflection he assigned to the inherent feeling of security in her warm, feminine being.

  Or something biological along those lines.

  But someone definitely not affected by symptoms of weariness in connection with the unexpected visitor was Stravinsky.

  Stravinsky was a cat, and in a way Ulrike Femdli’s most noticeable contribution to their shared home. This state of affairs had been in existence for no more than five months: it ought to have happened much sooner, but Van Veeteren’s idiotic dithering had delayed the project and, indeed, almost wrecked it altogether – but thank goodness her persistence had eventually won him over. Thank God, he frequently thought.

  They had known each other for five years. Van Veeteren knew that for the rest of his life he would not want any other woman. The weeks in Rome had brought him much satisfaction, including an awareness of this fact.

  For his part, Stravinsky was eight years old, almost nine. He had been given his name because of a partiality unusual in cats for The Rite of Spring: he couldn’t care less about any other music, classical or modern, but whenever he heard this work he would always lie there as if petrified, on tenterhooks from the first note to the last, brooding over some esoteric mystery that presumably existed only in his own (and perhaps the composer’s?) imagination.

  In outward appearance Stravinsky was black and white, in a pattern rather similar to that on a Gruyderfelder cow. He had been neutered at the age of two, and was normally quite gentle and quiet. On the whole. But as he lay on the window ledge as usual this early morning in autumn – and to his surprise saw a meal fluttering into the room – it mattered little that he was both sterile and fairly full already.

  With all due deference to Whiskas and Kitteners, a living booty was not to be sniffed at. It took him no more than three or four leaps, no more than five or six seconds, before he was able to get his teeth into it.

  By the time Van Veeteren heaved himself up onto his feet, his heart pounding like a piston in his chest, it was too late. Stravinsky had already dropped the swallow, which was slithering around on the floor, flapping away with its two broken wings. The cat sat there, watching intently as the bird tried in vain to escape, while Van Veeteren wondered for one confused second (a) what the hell had happened, and (b) what the hell he could do about it.

  When that second was over, he hissed at the cat – with the immediate result that he hyperventilated and almost collapsed in a heap. Stravinsky grabbed his prey in his mouth once again, rushed off into the living room with it and took cover under the sofa.

  Van Veeteren closed his eyes, recovered and rushed after it. Swore loudly and pointlessly, and hammered several times on the cushions, but the only response was a muted growl and a few heartbreaking peeps. He staggered into the kitchen, took a carpet-beater out of the broom cupboard and tried in vain to poke it under the sofa. Stravinsky stayed put for a while, then sprinted out with the bird in his mouth and sprang up onto the top of a bookcase.

  Van Veeteren stood up, and paused to think. Contemplated the cat up there just under the ceiling. It had dropped its prey once again, and was examining it with what seemed to be almost scientific interest. Studied it in all seriousness, with the same neutral expression on its triangular cat-face as usual. Van Veeteren couldn’t help but wonder what on earth was going on inside the animal’s head. In Stravinsky’s head, that is: nothing at all was going on any more in the swallow’s head, it seemed.

  He stood there, carpet-beater in hand, wondering what to do, and allowed his train of thought to continue.

  Just what was it in the cat’s programmed instincts that made it drop its booty and study it in this way?

  It was impossible not to reflect and be surprised by it. To keep letting its victim go free like this – a highly illusory freedom, of course – simply so that he could sit in peace and quiet at a convenient distance and observe its death throes. What was the point when the fate of the bird was already sealed? What forces lay behind this wicked game? Why did he do it? The beast of prey and its victim.

  Were they biological or culinary? Perhaps it didn’t matter, although he recalled that human beings prefer to eat meat that has been killed in conditions as unstressful as possible. He had read somewhere that pork and ham tasted best if the slaughterer was able to lull the pig into a false sense of security before its death. A shot through the back of the head while it was asleep, perhaps?

  Did cats – cat-like creatures in general – prefer meat that was filled with the bitter fluids caused by the fear of death? Could that be the explanation?

  Yes, probably. So infernally banal. And from the point of view of the victim, what pointless cruelty! A long-drawn-out death struggle simply to please the executioner’s taste-buds?

  My God, he thought. You must be a wicked devil.

  He shook his head at all these questionable speculations, raised the carpet-beater and hammered away at the bookcase. Stravinsky picked the swallow up again in his mouth and jumped down. Dashed out into the hall with Van Veeteren on his heels, then paused for a moment in front of the shoe shelf. He seemed to be wondering where next to retreat to, in order to escape being hounded by this madman with the carpet-beater – he had been living with him for quite a while now, and he’d seemed to be a reasonable and balanced person. Well, not all that barmy: but you could never tell with humans.

  Van Veeteren made use of the brief pause for thought to open the door out onto the landing, and Stravinsky took advantage of this opportunity to escape. He raced down the stairs like a flash, with the swallow – now no doubt as dead as a doornail – looking like a bushy but well-trimmed moustache.

  Van Veeteren had no doubt that the confounded little beast must go out into the courtyard, and chased after him – stark naked, hoping that none of the neighbours were up and about at this unholy hour (especially old fru Grambowska: a naked confrontation on the stairs would have ruined their good relationship once and for all, that was obvious, and she had looked after both Stravinsky and the potted plants while he and Ulrike were away in Rome). With a little difficulty he eventually managed to shoo the cat out through the back door, and left it ajar with the aid of the sweeping brush that was usually kept there. When he went back to the flat he felt as wide awake as if he had just taken a plunge into eight-degree seawater and survived.

  He checked the clock in the kitchen: seventeen minutes to six in the morning. He pinched his arm. It hurt, so he hadn’t been dreaming.

  Expecting some kind of tiredness to kick in after his surreal morning exertions, he went first to check if Ulrik
e had really managed to sleep through all the hullabaloo.

  She certainly had. She lay there on her side, sniffling peacefully, the obligatory pillow between her knees and a faint, slightly mysterious smile on her lips. He stood by the bed for a few moments, watching her. It had been an exceptional morning, but even now he simply couldn’t understand what benevolent higher power had brought her into contact with him. Or him with her. If there was anything for which he had to thank the God in whom he didn’t believe, it was Ulrike Fremdli. No doubt at all about that.

  Which had not just brought them into contact with each other, but had guided her here. To share his home and his bed and his life. Nothing – he was quite certain of it – nothing he had achieved during his erratic journey on this earth had made him worthy of her; but he had slowly begun to accept it as a fact, and just as slowly to adopt a sort of humility, which no doubt did not always reveal itself in his day-to-day activities but was present nevertheless, rooted ever more deeply inside him, like . . . like a slowly growing benign tumour of gratitude and peace of mind.

  Or how the hell could he describe it on a morning like this one? In his darkest moments – when he succumbed to his old weakness of regarding life as an equation and not much more – he sometimes saw Ulrike as a sort of substitute for Erich, his son, who had passed away two years ago, and naturally left a wound inside him which would continue to bleed for the rest of his life.

  But such equivalences did not exist. A dead son could never be compensated for, he knew that now – had always known it of course – just as little as good deeds, no matter what they were, could balance out evil ones. It was no coincidence that Schopenhauer had been his household god for a while in his youth, and over thirty years in the police force had hardly served to contradict those basic pessimistic maxims about the facts of life. On the contrary.

  And in recent years he had begun to think that Good also has a right to exist on its own account in this world. A much greater right than what he used to regard as a mere pawn in the struggle with Evil. The powers of darkness. How else could one allocate the true value of a child’s laughter or the eyes of a woman who loves you?