Black Ice

by Hans Werner Kettenbach

  “Thursday?” Scholten felt hot under the collar. “Yes, I was.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “I was asked to take Hülsenbusch that note from Herr Kurowski. Saying there was something wrong with the drawing.”

  “Yes, you were asked to. But you didn’t.”

  Scholten swallowed and then said: “What makes you think that?”

  “Don’t answer back.” Wallmann leaned both forearms on the desk. His head was slightly lowered, and his red-rimmed eyes looked up at Scholten from beneath his brows.

  He looked quite threatening. “You went from here to the Cooperative House-building Association excavations and collected the stuff for Rothgerber. Then you met Wielpütz and simply gave him the note for the Jagdweg site. And Wielpütz, the lazy bastard, forgot about the note and left it in his vehicle.”

  Scholten wondered frantically what he could say.

  “You know what we’ll have to do now, Herr Scholten? We’re going to have to take out the Jagdweg pavement and put it back again properly. I’ve just been to the site, looking at the mess they made of it.”

  Scholten shook his head, expelled air through his lips. “Can I help it if Wielpütz forgot the note?”

  “I don’t think you understand me. This is not about Wielpütz, I’ll be talking to him too. This is about you. If you’re told to drive to the Jagdweg then you drive to the Jagdweg, by the quickest route there is. You can’t be so stupid that you didn’t know it mattered. You probably went into a bar for a quick drink. When were you back here?”

  “I can’t remember now. I’m going all over the place the whole time.” Scholten cleared his throat. “And you have no right to call me stupid.”

  “Scholten, I think you still don’t get the idea. Next time I shall make a deduction from your salary. You’re getting too expensive. This is not a charity organization. Oh yes, and something else occurs to me. Would you give me the cigar box, Fräulein Faust?”

  Inge Faust handed him the cigar box from the occasional table. She went out.

  Wallmann lifted the lid of the box, looked inside it. He called: “Fräulein Faust?”

  She came back. “Yes?”

  He gave her the box. “Please lock the cigars up at once.”

  Scholten took a deep breath. “Are you suspecting me of stealing?”

  “What do you mean, suspecting you? You’re the only one here who smokes cigars.”

  “Oh, come on, Herr Büttgenbach smokes cigars the whole time.”

  “Going to brazen it out too? Scholten, you really do not get the idea.” Wallmann leaned heavily on his forearms and looked at him. “You are definitely becoming too expensive for me, Herr Scholten. Now go back to your work.” Without taking his eyes off Scholten, he picked up his empty coffee cup and held it out to Inge Faust.

  Scholten turned away. In the doorway he said: “This is outrageous. I don’t have to put up with this sort of thing. It’s scandalous.”

  He was going into the filing room but turned and went to the toilet. In the corridor he said: “Shit-head! Bloody bastard! Arsehole!” He sat on the lavatory in his overall and bolted the door.

  The bastard wouldn’t have dared do that when Erika was alive. But no sooner was she buried than he got going. They were all in for a nasty shock. Kurowski for sure. Büttgenbach too. He couldn’t cope with his work any more. He was always getting Scholten to find him stuff that he needed. What was the betting that Büttgenbach really had helped himself from the cigar box now and then?

  Talk about a shabby trick!

  Oh no, Herr Wallmann, you don’t mess about with me. Not with Jupp Scholten. You’ve picked the wrong man there.

  But Scholten felt fear rise in him. It rose from the pit of his stomach up to his throat.

  Erika wasn’t here any more. Everything belonged to that bastard now. He could do as he liked.

  He felt the sweat break out. He put his hands under his arms, took hold of his pullover through the overall and pulled it back from his armpits. He unbuttoned the overall, took out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead and temples.

  He’d call the police this evening. The fellow had made a mistake. He’d get a shock. Someone had to put a stop to his goings-on.

  When the coffee break came he was feeling a little better. He went over to the project managers’ office. Rosa Thelen had taken Rothgerber his coffee, and Kurowski was out with Wallmann inspecting the building sites.

  Rothgerber unpacked his sandwiches. He opened the desk drawer and took a bottle out. “Would you like one?”

  Scholten sat down at Kurowski’s desk. “I won’t say no.”

  Rothgerber carefully handed him the schnapps, looked at him. “How could you give Wielpütz that note? It was bound to mean trouble.”

  “Cheers!” Scholten tossed the schnapps back. “Why does he have to get so worked up? He’s made mistakes often enough himself.”

  “Yes, I know, Herr Scholten.” Rothgerber chewed, picked a few crumbs up from the paper wrapping his sandwiches. “There’s just one little difference: he’s the boss now. The boss in person.”

  “Yes. I’d noticed.”

  Rothgerber leaned forward. “If you’ll allow me . . .” He broke off and looked over his shoulder.

  Inge Faust came in. “I’ve got something to show you all. Just a moment, let’s ask Herr Büttgenbach in too.” She called: “Herr Büttgenbach! Do come in here, would you?”

  Büttgenbach came out of his little room with Rosa Thelen behind him. Inge Faust opened an envelope, took out a folder of photographs, handed the first one to Büttgenbach.

  “Oh, how sweet!”

  Rothgerber stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and stood up. Rosa Thelen looked over Büttgenbach’s shoulder.

  Scholten pushed back his chair. “What is it?”

  “Photos of the christening,” said Inge Faust. “When I was on holiday. My friend sent them.”

  Rothgerber said: “You look good like that, holding a baby.” He passed the photo on to Scholten.

  “I should hope so!” said Inge Faust. “I was godmother.”

  Scholten took the photograph. He stared at it. Then he dropped back into his chair.

  The photograph showed Inge Faust carrying a baby in a christening robe. She was bending her head down to the child and smiling.

  Scholten took the next photograph without looking at it. “When was the baby’s christening, then?” he asked.

  “A week ago last Friday.” Inge Faust sighed. She bit her lower lip and shook her head in silence. Then she said: “Yes. The day Frau Wallmann had her accident.”

  “Oh, shit,” said Rothgerber. “That’s life.”

  9

  It took Scholten several hours to get over the shock. He didn’t want to admit that his theory had been wrong.

  For a while he clung to the idea that Wallmann’s bit of fluff was lying. Who was to say her girlfriend really lived in Passau? Maybe she lived in Düsseldorf or even closer. She could easily have left Düsseldorf to drive out to the lake on the Friday afternoon and hidden in the garage.

  But then he remembered that in some of the photos the christening party was standing outside a large church, and someone had said it was Passau Cathedral; yes, it was Büttgenbach. Büttgenbach was an idiot, and Scholten didn’t believe a word he said. But Inge Faust couldn’t hand round photos of such an unusual church and say it was in Passau if it wasn’t in Passau at all.

  Anyone could have recognized the church. No, Wallmann’s bit of fluff wasn’t that stupid. Not her.

  Ah, but then who was to say that the christening had really been on the Friday? Why not the previous Monday? Or even the Sunday? Christenings are usually on Sundays, right? Then Inge could have driven back on Sunday afternoon or evening, she could easily have met Wallmann at the lakeside house on Monday, and there’d have been nothing to stop the sailing trip. Or the murder.

  Scholten clung to this explanation for some time. He relinquished it only
when suddenly, in a fit of rage that afternoon, he found himself inadvertently saying out loud: “And I’ll make that phone call this evening, you bet your life!”

  Rosa had looked at him in alarm. “Would you like another coffee?” she asked.

  “No, no, thanks all the same. Just thinking aloud. One has to do that sometimes, you know.”

  “Or shall I get you a beer?”

  “Yes, a beer, please.” He had found the money for the beer and given it to her. “Here, I only have eighty pfennigs in small change, you’ll get a groschen back.”

  While she fetched the beer from the crate in the storeroom he realized that he might wreck everything if he called the police. Because if they checked Fräulein Inge Faust’s alibi, and the alibi stood up, Wallmann was out of the woods once and for all. It couldn’t have been Fräulein Faust. And it couldn’t have been Herr Wallmann either, they’d think, because he had a watertight alibi too. And after that no one would be able to persuade them that it wasn’t an accident. Or suicide.

  Although it hadn’t been an accident, and certainly not suicide.

  Scholten raised the bottle to his lips, drank, wiped his mouth, belched. Rosa Thelen looked down at her paperwork.

  Erika had been murdered. No matter what they said. Perhaps Wallmann’s bit of fluff really had been away all week at that christening. Perhaps she really did have an alibi. And Wallmann had one too, a watertight alibi.

  But why had Wallmann set his alibi up? Because he had set it up, that was one hundred per cent for sure. So why?

  And why had he fixed everything so that Erika would think he was off sailing with his bit of fluff? Because he’d done that too, also one hundred per cent for sure.

  Why go to all that trouble? Why any of it?

  In front of the TV that evening, Scholten brooded. Hilde had said she wanted to see that evening’s episode of A Convent in Lower Bavaria. She was lying on the sofa, a rug around her knees, watching the screen.

  Suddenly, without moving her eyes from the TV, she said: “I wish I knew why you can’t ever look cheerful at home. I’m always hearing people say how cheerful and polite you are. How you’re always cracking jokes. But once you come home no one would ever guess.”

  “Oh, good Lord. I’ve had a bad day.”

  She looked at him. “What’s the matter, then?”

  “You think I can put Frau Wallmann’s death behind me just like that? I’ve known her since she was fifteen, after all. A wonderful woman. You don’t meet many like her.”

  She looked back at the screen. After a while she said, in a thread of a voice: “Sometimes I think you’d rather I’d had an accident and Frau Wallmann was still alive.”

  He glanced at her. “What do you mean? Don’t talk nonsense.”

  “Oh no, it isn’t nonsense. Then you’d still have her to talk to. And you wouldn’t have to bother about me any more. And you’d get my fifty thousand marks life insurance too.”

  Scholten lost his temper. “No, it would be a hundred thousand! You get twice the money when it’s accidental death. That’s what you’ll get yourself if I break my neck.”

  “Don’t say such things, Joseph! What a way to speak to me!”

  “What do you mean, what a way to speak to you? You began it.”

  “I only mentioned poor Frau Wallmann.”

  “Yes, poor Frau Wallmann! Shall I tell you something? You’ve been jealous of poor Frau Wallmann from the first, and now she’s in her grave you’re still jealous of her.” To his dismay, Scholten had to suppress a sob. There were tears in his eyes.

  “I don’t know how you can say a thing like that,” said Hilde. “Those are filthy ideas. Why should I have been jealous of poor Frau Wallmann?” She started weeping. “How can you say such things of a dead woman?”

  “Oh, bloody hell!” said Scholten in strangulated tones. He got to his feet and went into the kitchen.

  “You shouldn’t swear!” Hilde called after him. He heard her sobbing.

  He went over to the fridge, leaned heavily against it, raised a hand and wiped the tears from his eyes. He shook his head, then opened the fridge and took out a bottle of beer. He raised the bottle to his lips and drank.

  Hilde called, “What are you doing out there, Joseph?”

  Scholten emptied the bottle before calling back, “I was getting myself a beer.” He belched, shook the bottle, held it up close to his eyes.

  “What did you say?” she called.

  “Nothing.”

  “Why don’t you bring your beer in here and sit down with me?” she called.

  He took a second beer from the fridge, went out into the corridor, turned, took a glass out of the kitchen cupboard, went back to the living room. The Bavarian convent was on the TV screen again.

  Scholten stared at the television without taking anything in.

  If no one had pushed Erika off the steps then they must have been slippery. Slippery with frost, yes. But Wallmann couldn’t have known they would be, not for sure. You don’t set up an alibi so carefully for a possibility like that. He had lured her out on the steps, that was obvious, he had made her think she’d be able to catch him down there with his bit of fluff. But the prospect of Erika’s falling down the steps just because there was frost on a couple of them was far too unlikely. In fact it was really out of the question. Unless Wallmann had lent a helping hand one way or another.

  Scholten gave a start. He sat up very straight, both hands clutching the arms of his chair. Hilde looked at him. He cleared his throat, adjusted the cushion behind his back. Hilde looked back at the screen.

  He let himself slowly lean back, suppressing his triumph with difficulty. He’d found the solution, he’d bloody well found the solution! Yes, that’s what must have happened: Wallmann had made the steps slippery. He had made them so dangerously slippery that Erika was bound to lose her footing, find nothing to clutch at and fall. And then he’d driven off to set up his alibi.

  That was it: that was exactly what he did.

  The only question was just how. How do you make wooden steps slippery, very slippery?

  With soft soap, like in It’s A Knockout? No. No, that would have been too dangerous. Wallmann couldn’t have taken a risk like that. Soft soap would have stayed on the steps for days, all sticky. Anyone taking a look around up there would have noticed. The police, for instance. The local copper was bound to come up to the house after Wallmann called to say his wife was missing. No, soft soap would have been far too risky for Wallmann.

  Unless he had scrubbed the soft soap off again before anyone arrived.

  Scholten rubbed his forehead.

  It was possible. He’d called the police, reported Erika missing and then gone straight up the steps to scrub the soft soap off. He could easily do it before the local cop arrived. It would probably take the officer a good half hour to get to the house from the village police station.

  Scholten put a hand to his ear, rubbed it. All the same, it would still have been quite risky. When had Wallmann returned to the house? Frau Sauerborn had said he left their place at four-thirty exactly. He had driven to the office to fetch his files. He’d have reached the house at around six.

  And the steps would have been covered with soft soap from Friday evening until Saturday evening. Anyone could have found it there. Of course, there was a notice in the sandy bay at the bottom of the steps saying Private Property. Please do not use these steps! But sometimes people out for a walk did climb them. Scholten himself had once sent two old biddies packing when they suddenly appeared in front of the garage exclaiming: “Oh, isn’t it just lovely here!” What a nerve.

  The risk would have been damned high.

  Scholten poured the rest of the beer into his glass, was about to drink it, then sat there transfixed.

  Suddenly he stood up. He went to the living-room cupboard and opened its glass door.

  Hilde asked: “What are you looking for?”

  He took out a volume of the old encyclopaedia he’d
inherited from his Uncle Franz. He said: “There’s something I have to look up.”

  “What do you have to look up?”

  He went out of the room. “Back in a moment.”

  “Why don’t you watch the film? It’s really good.”

  He sat down at the kitchen table, opened the volume and leafed hastily through it. Ice, there he was.

  Ice, water (q.v.) in its solid aggregate state. The change of water from its liquid to its solid state is described as freezing (q.v.). This occurs as a rule at a temperature of 0 °Celsius (C) or Réamur (R) or +32 °Fahrenheit (F).

  “Oh, bloody hell, get to the point,” muttered Scholten. He read impatiently on.

  He had to read four columns before he found it. I. is also of great importance in brewing beer (see Ice Cellar). He looked up “Ice Cellar”, but it got him no further. He returned to “Ice”, exclaiming “Aha!” when he found the sentence: Instead of natural ice, however, artificial ice made in ice machines (q.v.) is often used . . .

  He looked up “Ice Machines” and read: Ice machines, cooling machines, cold machines, machines or devices for producing cold air and cold liquids (for purposes of cooling) and for the artificial manufacturing of ice.

  He sensed that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with this either. He made his way through another six columns, glanced at the illustrations, showing an ice machine made in the style of the firm of Vaass & Littmann, Halle. When he came to the section on carbonic acid compressors Hilde said: “What’s that you’re reading?”

  She was standing in the kitchen doorway. He slammed the book shut. “Can’t you leave me in peace for five minutes on end?”

  “I was leaving you in peace. You’ve been in here for twenty-five minutes. The film’s over. Are you coming to bed?”

  Driving home from work on Tuesday, he went to a bookshop. He had been there now and then fetching a book for the project managers, and it was where he had bought Rosie’s special anniversary present: Angélique and the Minister. He went straight to the technology section and stood around for some time before a longhaired young man approached him.