by Jo Nesbo
‘I’m the one who should say thanks.’
‘For what? The hook held the rope, so it would have worked out all right anyway. And you banged your knee.’
‘But you did the right thing.’
I shrugged. ‘We’ll let that be our consolation, right?’
She gave a crooked smile and blew on her coffee. ‘So you’re a climber?’
‘Was,’ I said. ‘Haven’t touched stone in almost forty years.’
‘Forty years is a long time. What happened?’
‘Yeah, what happened? What happened here, by the way? I read there was a fatal accident.’
As unpleasant as the subject was, Victoria Hässel grabbed the chance to talk about something she knew wasn’t what I had come to talk to her about.
‘It was a classic mistake. They forgot to check the length of the route against the length of the rope, and not even put a knot in the end of the rope. On the way down the safety man didn’t notice there was no more rope left until it was too late. With no knot in the end of the rope it ran out through the belay device, leaving the climber in free fall. Eight metres, you might think you would survive that. But he landed head first on the stone and in that case even two metres can be enough.’
‘Human error,’ I said.
‘Isn’t it always? When was the last time you heard it was the rope that broke or the bolts that came loose from the rock?’
‘True enough.’
‘It’s just too fucking awful.’ She shook her head. ‘But all the same. I read somewhere that in places where there’s been a climbing fatality, you often see a marked increase in the number of climbers there.’
‘Really?’
‘Not many people say it out loud. But if there wasn’t a certain amount of risk involved, you wouldn’t get many people climbing.’
‘Adrenaline junkies?’
‘Yes and no. I don’t think it’s fear we become addicted to but control. The feeling of mastering danger, mastering our own fate. Of exerting a control we don’t have over the rest of our lives. We are slightly heroic because we don’t make mistakes in critical situations.’
‘Right up until the day we lose control and make that mistake,’ I said and took a sip of coffee. It was good. ‘If, that is, it is a mistake.’
‘Yes,’ she said quietly.
‘Franz rang you eight times that night after he and Julian had quarrelled. The next day Julian was missing. What did he want?’
‘I don’t know. Arrange a climb maybe. Maybe he didn’t have a partner after the quarrel.’
‘According to his call log you never rang back. But you rang Julian’s phone. Why?’
She pulled on a fleece jumper and warmed her hands around the coffee cup. She nodded slowly. ‘They are similar, Franz and Julian. And yet different. Julian is easier to talk to. But I called just to make sure people hadn’t forgotten the most obvious possibility, that Julian might be somewhere and have his phone with him.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Sure, they’re similar and yet different. They obviously have different tastes in music. Led Zeppelin and…’ I had already forgotten that crooner’s name. ‘But they like the same girl.’
‘Guess they do.’
I looked at her. My jealousy radar wasn’t picking up anything. So this wasn’t about romance, she wasn’t in love with Julian, or having a relationship with him. Franz had not been trying to get in touch with Victoria to ask for help in trying to spoil things for Julian and Helena. So what was it then?
‘What do you think has happened?’ she asked. ‘Did Julian go for a swim and get into difficulties? Maybe on account of the concussion he suffered in the bar?’
I realised she was testing me. That my reply would determine the nature of her next move.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I think Franz killed him.’
I looked at her. And as I half expected, she looked less shocked than she should have done if she knew nothing. She took a large mouthful of coffee, as though to hide the fact that, nevertheless, she still had to swallow.
‘Well?’ I said.
She looked around. The four members of the other rope team were well out of earshot in the wind. ‘I saw Franz come home that evening.’
Here it was.
‘I couldn’t sleep and was sitting out on the balcony of my room on the other side of the road. I saw Franz park and get out of the car alone. Julian wasn’t with him. Franz was carrying something, it looked like clothes. When he unlocked the door he looked round and I think he spotted me. I think he knew that I saw him. I think that’s why he rang. He wanted to explain.’
‘You didn’t want to hear the explanation?’
‘I didn’t want to get involved. Not until we knew more, not until Julian had been found.’
‘And then?’
She sighed. ‘I thought that if Julian wasn’t found, or he was found dead, then I’d come and tell you. Before would only complicate things. It would look as if I was accusing Franz of something criminal. We’re a group of climbers who are friends, we trust one another, every day we trust each other with our lives. I might have ruined all that if I’d acted impulsively. Understand?’
‘I understand.’
‘Fuck.’
I followed her gaze down the mountainside. A person was on his way up the track from the road down there.
‘It’s Franz,’ she said, standing up and waving.
I peered down. ‘Sure?’
‘You can tell by the Gay Rights hat.’
I peered again. Gay rights. The rainbow flag, not the Rastafarian.
‘I thought he was hetero,’ I said.
‘You know you can support other people’s rights besides your own?’
‘And Franz Schmid does?’
‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘But at least he follows St Pauli and the Bundesliga.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Football. His grandparents come from my city, Hamburg, and we’ve got two rival clubs. You’ve got HSV, which is the big, friendly, straight rich club that Julian and I support. Then you’ve got the angry little lefty punk club St Pauli, with skull and crossbones as their badge, who openly support gay rights and everything else that irritates the Hamburg bourgeoisie. That seems to attract Franz.’
The figure down below had stopped and was looking up at us. I stood up, as though to make it clear this wasn’t an ambush. He remained where he was and appeared to be studying us. I guessed that he had seen that the person waving was his climbing companion Victoria and was wondering who the other person was. Maybe he recognised the suit. He was probably expecting me to pop up again after I had read the text message that said straight out he had killed Julian. He had had enough time to find an explanation. I was anticipating something along the lines of that he had intended to arouse Helena’s curiosity before telling her that it was a slight exaggeration, that in fact all he’d done was hit his brother on the head with a billiard ball. But now, seeing me with Victoria, it perhaps dawned on him that that wouldn’t be enough.
The figure was in motion again, heading downwards.
‘He probably thinks it’s too windy,’ said Victoria.
‘Yes,’ I said.
I saw him get into the hire car, saw the dust swirl up from the gravel track as the car disappeared. I sat down again and looked out over the sea. The white looked like frost roses on the windows in Oxford. Even up here you could taste the salt in the gusts of wind. Let him run, he wasn’t going anywhere.
* * *
—
I was still at the station when Franz Schmid rang just before midnight.
‘Where are you?’ I asked, crossed to the partition and signalled to George that I had him on the line. ‘You haven’t answered my calls.’
‘Signal’s weak,’ said Franz.
‘So I hear,�
�� I said.
I had called the public prosecutor in Athens who had issued an arrest warrant for Franz Schmid, but we hadn’t found Franz in his rented room, or on the beach, or in any of the restaurants, and no one knew where he was. George had only two patrol cars and four policemen at his disposal, and until the weather improved we wouldn’t be getting any reinforcements from the police on Kos, so I suggested we use base stations to locate Franz’s mobile phone. But as George explained, there were so few base stations on Kalymnos they wouldn’t do much to narrow down the search area.
‘I paid a visit to Helena’s restaurant,’ said Franz. ‘But her father was there and said I couldn’t see her. Does that have anything to do with you?’
‘Yes. I’ve told Helena and the family to keep away from you until this is over.’
‘I told her father that my intentions were honourable, that I want to marry Helena.’
‘We know that. He called us after you’d been there.’
‘Did he tell you he gave me a letter from Helena?’
‘He mentioned that too, yes.’
‘You want to hear what she says?’ Franz started to read without waiting for a reply: ‘ “Dear Franz. Maybe for everyone there is one person in this life who is meant just for us, and who we only meet just the one time. You and I were never meant for each other, Franz, but I pray to God that you haven’t killed Julian. Now that I know that he’s the one for me I ask you on bended knees: if it is within your power, save Julian. Helena.” You seem to have persuaded her that I am behind his disappearance, Balli. That I might have killed him. Do you realise that what you are doing is ruining my life? I love Helena more than I have ever loved anything, more than my own self. I just can’t imagine a life without her.’
I listened. Though the wind was crackling in his phone I could hear waves. Could be anywhere on the island, of course.
‘The best thing now would be for you to hand yourself in to us in Pothia, Franz. If you are innocent it would be in your own best interests.’
‘And if I’m guilty?’
‘Then it will still be in your own best interests to hand yourself in. No matter what, you can’t get away, you’re on an island.’
In the silence that followed I listened to the waves. They sounded different to the waves below my hotel room – but different in what way?
‘Julian isn’t innocent either,’ said Franz.
I exchanged a look with George. We had both heard it. Is, not was. But a clue like that isn’t reliable. I have heard several killers refer to their victims as though they were still alive, and perhaps they still are for them. Or more accurately: I know that a dead man can be the constant companion of his killer.
‘Julian lied. He claimed he’d been in touch with Helena earlier that evening using his own phone, told her everything, and that the two of them were now in love. He wanted me to give her up without a fight. I know, of course, that Julian is a liar and a womaniser, that he’ll stab you in the back to get what he wants, but this time he made me so angry. So angry, you have no idea how it feels…’
I didn’t respond.
‘Julian robbed me of the best thing I ever had,’ said Franz. ‘Because I haven’t had that, Mr Balli. He was always the one who got them. Don’t ask me why, we were born identical, but all the same he had something I didn’t. Something he picked up along the way, a crossroads where he was given light and I got darkness, and then we went our separate ways. And he had to have even her…’
The waves were breaking in the same brutal way as they did against the rocks outside my hotel. The sound was more long-drawn-out, that was the difference. The waves rolled. Franz Schmid was on a beach.
‘So I condemned him,’ he said. ‘But I’m a Californian, so I didn’t condemn him to death, but to life imprisonment. Isn’t that a suitable punishment for ruining a life? Isn’t that the punishment you would have handed out yourself, Balli? Yes? No? Or aren’t you an opponent of the death penalty?’
I didn’t reply. Noticed George was looking at me.
‘I’m letting Julian rot in his own little love-prison,’ said Franz. ‘And I’ve thrown the key away. Although life sentence…The kind of life he has now, that won’t last long.’
‘Where is he?’
‘What you said about me not being able to get away…’
‘Where is he, Franz?’
‘…that isn’t quite accurate. I’m about to fly out of here on flight nine nineteen, so farewell, Nikos Balli.’
‘Franz, tell us where – Franz? Franz!’
‘Did he hang up?’ asked George, who was on his feet.
I shook my head. Listened. Nothing but wind and waves now.
‘The airport is still closed?’ I asked.
‘Of course.’
‘Have you heard of flight nine nineteen?’
George Kostopoulos shook his head.
‘He’s alone on a beach,’ I said.
‘Kalymnos is full of beaches. And at night when it’s stormy you won’t find a single person on any of them.’
‘A long, shallow beach. It sounds as though the waves are breaking far out and rolling in for some distance.’
‘I’ll call Christine and ask her, she’s a surfer.’
* * *
—
The car that had been rented in Franz Schmid’s name was found next morning.
It was parked in a turning circle by a sandy beach midway between Pothia and Massouri. A trail of footprints, still visible despite the wind, led from the driver’s side directly into the sea. George and I stood in the gusting wind and watched the divers struggling against the breakers. At the southern end of the beach the waves washed up against sloping, slippery rocks which, further inland, reared up in a vertical wall, a yellow-brown limestone wall that reached all the way to the top where the airport was. Further along the beach, Christine with her golden retriever was trying to pick up a trail. The dog had been born with only one working eye, she had told me during a coffee break at the station, that’s why she named him Odin. And when I asked her why she had chosen Odin instead of something one-eyed from our own mythology, such as Polyphemus, she looked at me and said: ‘Odin is shorter.’
According to George, Odin was a good tracker. Christine had taken him into Franz and Julian’s room so he would know which scent to follow, and when we reached the beach he ran straight over to the car and stood there barking until George managed to get the door open. Inside the car we found Franz Schmid’s clothes: shoes, trousers, underwear, the rainbow-patterned St Pauli cap and a jacket with his phone and wallet.
‘So he was right,’ said George. ‘He did manage to get away.’
‘Yes,’ I said as my gaze glided over the foaming breakers. George had got hold of two divers from the local club. One of them was signalling with his hand to the other and trying to say something, but the sound of the waves drowned him out.
‘You think this is where he dumped Julian’s body?’ asked George.
‘Maybe. If he killed him.’
‘You’re thinking about what he said about imprisoning his brother for life instead?’
‘Maybe he did. Or maybe not. Maybe he exposed Julian to a situation in which he knew that Julian would not just die but suffer first.’
‘For example?’
‘I don’t know. The rage of jealousy is like love. It’s a madness that can make people do things they would normally never dream of doing.’
My gaze switched to the rocks, sloping and polished smooth by the waves. Franz could have waded over there, come ashore again someplace that left no footprints and got away. On flight nine nineteen? What did that mean? To get up to the airport he would have had to either return to the road or climb straight up.
Without a rope.
Free solo.
I couldn’t help it; I closed my eyes and saw Tre
vor fall.
Opened them again quickly so as not to see him hit the ground.
Concentrated.
Franz Schmid had perhaps stood here too, seen and thought the same as me. That the airport is closed. That every exit route is blocked. Apart from this one. The last one. But it’s difficult to just swim out to sea and drown yourself. It takes time, it takes willpower not to submit to the survival instinct and turn.
‘We found this in the shallows.’
George and I turned. It was one of the divers. He was holding up a gun.
George took it, turned it over a couple of times. ‘Looks old,’ he said, prodding at the underside where the magazine was.
‘Luger, Second World War,’ I said and took the gun from him. There was no rust on it, and the way the water pearled on it showed that it was still well oiled, so it couldn’t have been lying long in the sea. I pressed the release catch on the side of the trigger guard, removed the magazine and handed it to George. ‘Eight if it’s full.’
George squeezed out the bullets. ‘Seven,’ he said.
I nodded. Felt an infinite sadness come over me. The wind was forecast to ease by tomorrow evening, and the sun to go on shining, but inside me it had clouded over. I could usually tell whether it was just passing, or a new period of darkness was on its way. But right at that moment I didn’t know.
‘Flight nine nineteen,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘That’s the calibre of those bullets you’re holding in your hand.’
* * *
—
When I rang my chief in the Homicide Department with my report, he told me that the press in Athens were on the case, a number of journalists and photographers were in Kos and just waiting for the weather to fair up enough for a boat to take them over.
I headed back to my hotel in Massouri and ordered a bottle of ouzo for my room. I drink any brand apart from the now unfortunately commercialised and watered-down Ouzo 12, but I was pleased when I saw they actually had my favourite Pitsiladi.
As I drank I reflected over how strange it had all been. A murder case with two dead, but no bodies. No invasive press, no harassed chief and no stressed investigating groups. No vague lab technicians and pathologists, no hysterical next of kin. Only a storm and silence. I hoped that storm could last forever.
