Black Ice

by Hans Werner Kettenbach

  He still didn’t start the car. He stared through the windscreen. It began to dawn on him that von der Heydt’s idea hadn’t been so bad. And probably the police had thought of it too by now.

  Frost on the steps.

  Erika had driven up to their weekend house from the village. That was around seven. The sun had already set. Erika had gone down the steps at once. He knew why, and Wallmann knew why, and Wallmann’s bit of fluff knew why too.

  Perhaps she hadn’t even switched on the light at the top of the steps, so as not to be seen too soon. And then she’d slipped and failed to catch hold of the handrail, found nothing to break her fall, and plunged from the steps to the steep bank and from the steep bank into the lake. Broken bones, head injuries. She was probably unconscious by the time she went into the water.

  Scholten cursed. He started the engine and drove away. He rejoined the urban motorway and left it again at the next exit.

  There were not as many cars outside the brothel as he’d feared. He hurried into the contact area where you viewed the girls, slowed his pace, looked around.

  A girl approached him and took his arm. “Hi, darling! How about it, then?” She was wearing red boots and flesh-coloured tights.

  Scholten smiled and shook off her hand, went on.

  One of the girls sitting on a sofa in the dim, reddish light said, “Leave the man in peace. He’s just buried his old lady, he’s still in mourning.”

  The women laughed. Scholten smiled.

  He went on again, rather faster. In the final corner before the exit he found what he was looking for. Even the basque was right, tightly laced. A foreigner was standing beside her, black hair, black moustache, a small, stocky man in pullover and jacket. She was talking to him.

  Scholten stopped three paces behind the couple. He half turned, pretended to be inspecting the other women again. He straightened his tie, cleared his throat. It felt tight. He looked at the couple again. The foreigner took a step towards the exit. The girl held him back by his arm. The foreigner smiled.

  Scholten stepped up to the woman and tapped her on the shoulder. “How much?”

  The foreigner took a step forward and looked at Scholten. “You get out.”

  Scholten said: “What’s the matter with you? I can stand here as long as I like.”

  The foreigner said: “When I speak to woman, you no business here. You get out.”

  “Hey, what’s with the pair of you?” said the woman. “Let’s cool it here. Well, what about it, Mustafa? Coming?”

  “I not Mustafa.”

  “Makes no difference. How about it?”

  “Him get out first.”

  Scholten said: “Him not want to.”

  “You not know nothing. When I with woman go, it not your business.”

  The woman looked at Scholten. “Can’t you wait ten minutes? I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  Scholten cleared his throat and said: “Now or never.”

  She looked at him. “Trying to make trouble? Push off, Grandpa.”

  The foreigner gestured with his thumb. “You hear that? Push off, Grandpa.”

  Scholten left. When he was out of the contact area he said: “Lousy bastard. Stupid cow.” A large old car was standing beside his: battered, covered with dust, brightly coloured cushions on the back seat. Scholten looked around and then kicked the door hard with the toe of his shoe. “Garlic-eater.”

  4

  Scholten couldn’t find anywhere to park outside the front door of his building. He had to go three buildings further on. Before getting out of the car he cupped his hand in front of his mouth again, breathed into it, sniffed. He wondered whether to eat another peppermint. No, ridiculous. They didn’t help anyway.

  When he had got out of the car he stood there for a moment. He took a deep breath. The air was cooler again; it did him good. The many little windowpanes of the long, three-storey apartment buildings reflected a rosy glow. The sun was low in the sky. It cast its reddish light on the windows, the curtains, the pot plants standing on the windowsills. The rooms behind the windows lay in twilight.

  Scholten looked in his letterbox. It was empty. He climbed the stairs. There was a smell of pickled beans on the first floor again. Old Mrs Kannegiesser must be preserving tons of them. And you could buy the stuff for a few pfennigs in the supermarket.

  He suddenly stopped on the second-floor landing. He rubbed his forehead. His hand froze. He looked at the floor, then up again when he heard a sound behind one of the front doors of the two apartments on that storey. He climbed a few steps further, far enough not to be seen through the peepholes in the doors. He stopped again, hand on the banisters, eyes lowered, thinking hard.

  That nonsense about suicide. He’d been sure from the first that it couldn’t be right. What a slander! And now he had something like evidence that she hadn’t jumped off the steps, she’d fallen.

  Slippery frosty steps. But could Wallmann plan that in advance?

  And can you slip on frosty steps anyway? It’s possible, yes. But she wasn’t an old woman, she wasn’t unsteady on her legs. If there’d been actual black ice, yes, that could make the steps really dangerous. But not frost. Of course, if someone had pushed her . . . And he had thought of that too, he’d thought Wallmann had lured her out on the steps and pushed her down.

  But it was impossible. That damned alibi. Wallmann would never have been in town as early as eight if he’d driven back up to the house and pushed Erika off the steps first. It simply couldn’t be done. Scholten narrowed his eyes as a new idea came to him. Perhaps the members of the bowling club were lying? Perhaps Wallmann hadn’t arrived until after eight, maybe half an hour later? That would have been time enough.

  Scholten shook his head. Surely not a whole bowling club. And the landlord and the waitress. And in a case like this too. You couldn’t get a bowling club to do it. He knew that from the days when he used to go bowling himself. You couldn’t even drop into the brothel without someone telling tales afterwards.

  No, it wouldn’t have worked.

  Yet there was something wrong about the alibi. He knew there was.

  The files. Exactly. Wallmann had looked in at the office on the Monday before driving out of town to take the boat out of its winter quarters and set off on his sailing trip. He’d come into the office, done some phoning, and then he said Scholten was to deal with the mail and look out the files for the tender, he wanted to take them with him. Fräulein Faust wasn’t there. She’d taken a week’s holiday. To go and see her friend, apparently. For a baby’s christening. What a laugh.

  He had found the files for Wallmann and put them in a folder on his desk. And when Wallmann had gone, the files had gone too. And Wallmann couldn’t have put them on one side by mistake and forgotten about them, because they were nowhere around the place.

  As always when Wallmann and Fräulein Faust were not there, Scholten had poked around Wallmann’s office a bit. But he hadn’t seen those files. He’d have noticed them.

  There was only one explanation: Wallmann had locked the files in his desk before leaving. No one was to find them. He didn’t want Erika bringing them with her on Friday.

  Why?

  To give him a reason to drive back into town on Friday evening.

  Or perhaps he had taken the files with him, but even then he was lying, because he claimed to have fetched them from his office on Saturday.

  Maybe it really was a watertight alibi. But if so, then Wallmann had prepared it carefully in advance.

  Why would he do that?

  Scholten whispered: “You bastard, you bloody bastard. How am I going to find out your tricks?” He stared at the wall of the stairwell, which was painted yellow. When he heard a sound above him he jumped.

  Hilde said: “Joseph? What are you doing out there on the stairs?”

  He said: “Just coming up.”

  She stood there on the landing, one hand on the banisters, holding her cardigan together with the other. He went past
her into the apartment.

  She closed the door. “You’re not going to tell me the funeral lasted all this time, are you?”

  He took off his coat and jacket, hung them up on the coat-rack, removed his tie. “What do you mean, funeral? I told you there was going to be lunch at the Forest Café afterwards.”

  “It must have been a very good lunch. I can smell it from here.”

  “It was a very good lunch. Turtle soup, fillet steak, an iced dessert. You could have gone too.”

  “You know perfectly well I couldn’t.”

  Scholten went into the bathroom. Behind him, she said: “Dr Küppers told you about my blood pressure.”

  He stood in front of the lavatory. He heard her say: “It won’t flush properly again.”

  His urine made a loud noise splashing into the bowl. Scholten broke wind.

  “You might close the door!” she complained. “So vulgar!”

  He kicked the door shut behind him. When he’d finished he took the lid off the cistern. The ballcock was stuck again. The hell with these cooperative apartments! He’d told the caretaker twice already that they needed a new ballcock. He let the cistern fill up, then flushed. The ballcock worked this time.

  When he came out of the bathroom she was standing in the kitchen doorway. She followed him into the bedroom. He took off his shoes, put shoetrees in them. He put on his slippers.

  She stood there at the door, hand still clutching her cardigan. “Surely you’re not keeping your good trousers on?” He took his slippers off again and opened the wardrobe.

  She said: “You can put your old blue trousers on. I don’t suppose you’re going out again, are you?”

  He put on his old blue trousers and his slippers, hung the black suit up on its hanger and put it in the wardrobe.

  She watched him. She said: “So that lunch is supposed to have lasted all this time?”

  “My God, I had to talk to the guests! The Government Surveyor was there, and some of the project managers from the Civil Engineering Inspectorate. And other customers of ours too. That man from the Cooperative House-building Association, the ringleader – you know how they all stick like burrs.”

  The cat rubbed round his legs. He bent down to tickle it. It began purring. “Has the cat been fed?” he asked.

  “Of course, what do you think? Are you suggesting I’d let the poor creature go hungry?”

  “I don’t know what time you got up. You told me you had to rest in bed.”

  He went into the kitchen. Hilde followed him. He took a bottle of beer out of the fridge.

  “Haven’t you had enough of that?” she said.

  “Oh, good Lord.” He looked at the ceiling. “Can’t a man even drink a beer?” He went over to the kitchen table, took the bottle opener out of the drawer. “I’m sure I don’t know what else life has to offer.”

  She said, her voice sounding a little thinner: “I got up at twelve. And I didn’t go back to bed after that.”

  “Why not?” He raised the bottle to his lips.

  “Because I was worried about you.” She began to weep.

  Oh, for God’s sake, this was all he needed. He almost swallowed the wrong way, wiped his mouth. “All right, all right. Come on, stop crying.” He went over to her, patted her on the back. He couldn’t bear to see her face, so miserably distorted, it was a pitiful sight, there was no bearing it. “Come on, stop crying. I’m sorry. But I really couldn’t get away.”

  She took a handkerchief out of her cardigan pocket, wiped her eyes, blew her nose loudly.

  He patted her on the back again. “I did think you might be worrying. I’m sorry.”

  Her voice still miserably thin, she said: “You shouldn’t drink out of the bottle. Why not get a glass? It tastes much better from a glass.”

  “Yes, yes, I’ll get myself a glass. Look, you go and lie down again now. Can I bring you anything?”

  “No, I just want to lie down. I’ll get up and make supper at six.”

  “Yes, fine.”

  “Would you like fish fillets?”

  “Yes, yes, very nice.”

  He watched her walk away. In the doorway she turned. “Would you rather have fried potatoes or boiled potatoes?”

  “Fried potatoes. I could really fancy fried potatoes.”

  “I have some potatoes left over from yesterday. And a lettuce. Will that do?”

  “Yes, of course it will do.”

  “Then I’ll go and lie down now,” she said.

  “Yes, you do that.”

  The bedroom door closed.

  Scholten went back to the kitchen table and raised the beer bottle to his lips. Yet again he almost swallowed the wrong way. He went to the kitchen cupboard, fetched a glass and poured some beer into it. He drank the rest from the bottle.

  5

  Scholten had finished his drawing just after five-thirty. He had fetched a pencil, an eraser, a ruler and a few sheets of paper from the living room. Out in the hall he stood still, listening. No sound from the bedroom. He had taken another bottle of beer out of the fridge, carefully and quietly closing the door.

  When he went out on the balcony to put the empty bottle back in the crate and take two full bottles out, the cat had followed him, mewing. “Yes, all right, I know – you want to go for a walk.”

  He had put the cat in its basket and lowered the basket to the garden with the reel of cord he had mounted on the balcony rail two years ago. He tied the cord in place and watched the cat. It jumped out of the basket and disappeared into the bushes.

  He quietly closed the door to the balcony, put the two full beer bottles in the fridge and sat down at the kitchen table.

  He looked at his drawing. He had been up and down those steps a hundred times, most recently last autumn when he was taking the cooker and the bottled gas and the heater out of Wallmann’s boat for the winter. But it was odd how few details lingered in his memory. He had had to think hard about the number of steps, and he still wasn’t entirely sure.

  Anyway, first there were five steps leading straight down from the open space behind the garage. Then came the landing, three planks side by side on the same level. The joints didn’t fit very tightly. Then the steps turned at a right angle and went on down, twelve or thirteen of them, maybe even fourteen, adjoining the left-hand side of the landing and going down to the lake.

  Getting the correct perspective for the right angle had given Scholten some trouble, but the result was not bad. The steps had been built like that in order to bypass the steep slope of the bank. You could see the slope in Scholten’s drawing, and the little sandy bay to which the steps led, and the landing stage on its floats projecting out into the lake from the bay.

  You could also see where the bank came up to the steps on the left-hand side of the sandy bay, and on the right-hand side you could see the narrow path along the bank where he had once walked with Erika. They had strolled through the wood and come down to that path. And then they had followed the path to the bay and climbed up the steep bank to the house again by way of the steps.

  Scholten studied every detail of his drawing and suddenly nodded. If Erika had really slipped on the flight of steps it could only have been on the landing, where they turned at an angle, or on one of the treads just above it. If it had happened lower down, beneath the landing, she would probably have fallen into the sand of the bay. But if she had slipped on the landing or the steps above it, she could perhaps have fallen right off the landing to come down on the steep bank and then fall from there into the lake.

  Was that really possible?

  The landing was a good twenty-eight inches deep. She could surely have found something to hold on to. Perhaps not the handrails at this point, but one of the vertical posts supporting the steps and the handrails. Frost, yes, all right. But does someone so steady on her feet just fall flat if she happens to slip?

  Scholten raised the beer bottle to his lips.

  Hilde said: “Why are you drinking out of the bott
le again, Joseph? You’ve got a perfectly good glass in front of you!” She was standing in the kitchen doorway.

  Scholten slammed the bottle down. “Good heavens, what a fright you gave me! Why do you always creep around like that?”

  “I’m not creeping around. The cat’s mewing down in the garden. It wants to come up again. Didn’t you hear it?”

  “No, I didn’t.” He stood up. The cat was indeed mewing.

  She came over. “What are you doing?”

  He gathered the sheets of paper together. “It’s for a construction drawing.” He wanted to take the sheets with him but didn’t dare; he left them lying on the kitchen table. He went out on the balcony.

  The cat was already sitting in its basket, looking up and mewing. “Yes, all right, come on up.” He hauled the basket up and over the balcony rail. The cat let him lift it out; he stroked it, and it immediately began to purr. When he wound the cord up it put its head on one side, reached out a paw and patted the cord. “Now then, stop that. We’ll be needing it again. Go and find your ball.”

  When he returned to the kitchen Hilde was standing by the table looking at the sheets of paper. “What does it show?”

  “Those are the steps outside Wallmann’s weekend house.”

  “What are you drawing them for?”

  “I’ll have to go out there again some time. There’s probably another couple of planks need replacing.”

  “When are you going to stop doing all this extra stuff? You’re not Herr Wallmann’s odd-job man!”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake! He pays me well for it. We can do with the money.”

  She went to the fridge and took the fish fillets out of the freezer compartment. She said: “I think you just do it to be alone. And so you can leave me on my own here.”

  “Bloody hell! Are we starting in on that again?” He put his drawing things together. The pencil fell on the floor.

  Raising her voice, she said: “You shouldn’t swear!”