by Håkan Nesser
‘Alone with his conscience?’ said Moreno.
‘Presumably,’ said Reinhart. ‘He contacted his sister and told her he’d got problems — that was before I went to see her. She phoned him and warned him, but she probably didn’t realize who I was and he couldn’t stand being on his own any longer. He didn’t tell her what he’d done, just that he had problems. So he came to visit her when he thought the coast was clear — but of course it wasn’t. He must have felt really cut off. The more people who live in a city, the more space you have to feel isolated. I think he’d been taking quite a lot of medication as well — that’s presumably what enabled him to go through with it all… It’s only just beginning to sink in that he’s killed four people.’
‘So he’s on the edge of a breakdown, is he?’ wondered Moreno.
‘I suspect so,’ said Reinhart. ‘We can go into more detail when I get back. Can you inform The Chief Inspector, by the way? I’ll be arriving with Clausen tomorrow evening… It will be good if he can let us know how he wants to go about things. What do you think?’
‘All right,’ said Moreno. ‘I expect he’ll be wanting one last round.’
‘It looks like it,’ said Reinhart. ‘Anyway, over and out.’
‘See you soon,’ said Moreno.
It snowed again on Wednesday morning. There were four of them in the car out to JFK: Bloomguard and Reinhart in the front seats, Clausen and a gigantic black police constable by the name of Whitefoot in the back — the two latter were linked together by handcuffs for which Whitefoot had a key in his back pocket, and Reinhart had another in reserve in his wallet. It was obvious that Christmas was coming: the journey took only half an hour, but they managed to hear ‘White Christmas’ twice and ‘Jinglebells’ three times on the car radio. Reinhart was feeling homesick.
‘It was great to meet you,’ said Bloomguard as they stood outside the security check. ‘We plan to make a little trip to Europe in three or four years’ time, Veronique and I. And Quincey, of course. Perhaps we can meet over a cup of coffee? In Paris or Copenhagen or somewhere?’
‘Sure,’ said Reinhart. ‘Why not both? You’ve got my card.’
They shook hands and Bloomguard vanished into the departure hall. Clausen seemed to have become more lifeless with every hour that passed since they found him, and Whitefoot had to more or less drag him onto the plane. Reinhart was deeply grateful that he wasn’t the one who would have to sit handcuffed to the murderer for the seven hours of the flight. He had offered to take the doctor back home himself, but there had been no question of the offer being accepted. Whitefoot had been on this kind of mission before, and knew what it was all about. Without a word he dumped Clausen into the window seat, sat down next to him and left the aisle seat for Reinhart. He explained to Clausen that he would be allowed one toilet visit, no more, and that he should regard his right arm as having been amputated. Everything — eating, turning the pages of a book or newspaper, picking his nose, the lot — would have to be done with his left hand. It was no problem, said Whitefoot, they had more time than in fucking hell.
Reinhart was deeply grateful, as already said. Read some more of the Ellroy, slept, ate, listened to music, and at 22.30 local time they landed at Sechshafen in a foggy Europe. Whitefoot said his goodbyes. Checked in for one night at an airport hotel, handed Clausen over to Reinhart, Rooth, Moreno and Jung, and wished everybody a Merry Christmas.
‘Three of you?’ said Reinhart. ‘There was no need for all three of you to come, for Christ’s sake.’
‘DeBries and Bollmert are waiting in the cars,’ said Moreno.
There was one day left to Christmas Eve.
39
Reinhart had not issued orders for a run-through, and neither had anybody else.
Nevertheless, a quartet was assembled in his office at ten o’clock the next day, which was Thursday, 24 December. Christmas Eve. Moreno and Jung were each sitting on a window ledge, trying to avoid looking at the rain which had started falling in the early hours of the morning and rapidly washed away any vain dreams of a white Christmas. Grey, wet and windy: Maardam had resumed normal service.
A little further away from the rain, Reinhart was half-lying behind his desk. deBries and Jung had flopped down on the visitor’s chairs on each side of the impressive array of Christmas flowers that somebody (presumably froken Katz, as instructed by the chief of police himself) had brought in to decorate the room.
‘So, that’s that, then,’ said deBries. ‘Pretty good timing, one has to say.’
Reinhart lit his pipe and enveloped both the flowers and deBries in a cloud of smoke.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you’re right there.’
‘What time’s he coming?’ asked Jung.
Moreno looked at the clock.
‘During the morning,’ she said. ‘He didn’t want to be more precise than that. But perhaps we ought to allow him a bit of leeway in view of… Well, in view of everything.’
Reinhart nodded and sat up a bit more on his chair.
‘We have very little to preen ourselves on for once,’ he said, looking round at his colleagues. ‘But as we are all sitting here, perhaps we might as well sum up… Before it’s time, that is.’
‘Before it’s time,’ repeated Rooth. ‘Huh.’
‘The starting point of this case was the murder of The Chief Inspector ’s son,’ said Reinhart, ‘and it was The Chief Inspector who made the biggest contribution towards solving it. There’s no denying that. He was the one who dug up the blackmail motive, he gave us the name Keller, and he suspected that it was in fact Clausen who had gone off to New York. Don’t ask me how the hell he did it. The last bit came to him while he was playing chess, he maintains…’
‘Have they found Keller?’ asked deBries.
Reinhart nodded.
‘Le Houde was out with his team and dug him up this morning. Clausen didn’t need to accompany them, it was enough with a map and the description. Mourners are going to be pretty thin on the ground when it comes to burying him properly. Nobody seems to lament the passing of Aron Keller, that’s for sure.’
‘Hardly surprising,’ said Moreno.
‘What about the doctor? How’s the murderer himself?’ asked Rooth. ‘Full of Christmas cheer, is he?’
Reinhart smoked for a while without speaking.
‘It’s hard to say,’ he said eventually. ‘I don’t think he’ll be able to hold himself together for much longer. And what will happen when he meets… No, I’ve no idea. I just hope it isn’t a bloody disaster.’
The telephone rang. It was Joensuu ringing from the front desk.
‘He’s here now,’ he declared solemnly. ‘ The Chief Inspector is here.’
You could hear that he was standing to attention as he spoke.
‘All right,’ said Reinhart. ‘Ask Krause to take him down to the cells. I’ll be there in a minute.’
He hung up and looked round.
‘Well, here goes,’ he said, standing up. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren has just arrived to interrogate his son’s murderer. What the hell are you all hanging around here for?”
The room was pale grey and rectangular. The furnishings were simple: a table with two tubular steel chairs, two more chairs along one of the walls. No windows. A fluorescent tube on the ceiling spreading a clinical, democratic light over every square centimetre.
No ashtray on the table. Only a carafe of water and a pile of plastic cups.
Clausen was already there when Van Veeteren came in. Sitting at the table with his hands clasped in front of him, looking down. Simple white shirt, dark trousers. He had been sitting motionless for several minutes: The Chief Inspector had watched him for a while through the peephole before gesturing to Reinhart and Krause to let him in.
He pulled out the chair and sat down at the table. Clausen didn’t look up, but Van Veeteren could see the muscles tightening in his neck and cheeks. He waited. Clenched his hands in the same way as his son’s murderer, leaning forward slightly
over the table. Half a minute passed.
‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked.
Dr Clausen swallowed, but didn’t answer. Van Veeteren could see his knuckles turning white and his head trembling. Small oscillating shakes, like the fluttering of leaves before a storm. He still didn’t raise his gaze.
‘Have you anything to say to me?’
No reply. He noticed that Clausen was holding his breath.
‘I have a meeting with Elizabeth Felders in an hour,’ Van Veeteren said. ‘The mother of Wim, the boy you also killed. Have you any message you’d like me to pass on to her?’
He waited. Thank God I don’t have a gun, he thought.
Eventually Clausen took a deep breath and looked up. Looked The Chief Inspector in the eye, and seemed as if he wanted to disappear into his head.
‘I’d like you to know…’ he began, but his voice wouldn’t function. He coughed a few times and looked here and there. Then tried again.
‘I’d like you to know that I was a normal human being two months ago… Perfectly normal, I’d just like to say that. I shall take my own life as soon as I get a chance. As soon as I get… a chance.’
He fell silent. Van Veeteren looked into his lifeless eyes for five seconds. Felt something suddenly beginning to happen inside himself. How his awareness of the room round about him seemed to shrink, and how he was slowly but surely being drawn into something dark and swirling, something sucking him in, something irrevocable. He closed his eyes tightly and leaned back.
‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Don’t wait too long. If you do I’ll come back and remind you of what you said.’
He stayed there for a few more minutes. Clausen was staring at his hands again, the trembling continued. The air conditioning hummed. The fluorescent tube flickered once or twice. Nothing else happened.
Then Van Veeteren stood up. Signalled that he wanted to be let out, and left the room.
He didn’t say a word. Not to Reinhart or to anybody else. Walked straight through the foyer, opened up his umbrella and wandered out into the town.
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