Black Ice

by Hans Werner Kettenbach

  She looked at her plate. She said: “No, because you had to stay down a year.”

  He looked at her, eyes still watering. Then he abruptly put a forkful of sauerkraut in his mouth and chewed it in silence.

  She took a piece of pork and masticated, keeping her eyes fixed on her plate. She said: “That was it, wasn’t it? If you’d worked harder you could have got a scholarship. I got a scholarship. So did my brother. But you had no ambition.” He looked at her. She chewed and said nothing. Two tears welled out of his eyes. He wiped them away.

  She didn’t look at him. She took another piece of pork and said: “You’ve never in your life had any ambition. That’s why you have to let Herr Wallmann order you about at the age of fifty-eight.”

  He scraped his plate clean, put the fork in his mouth, replaced it on the plate. He rose and went out. He went to the bathroom, where he bolted the door, took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. He looked in the mirror and wiped his eyes, but more tears kept coming.

  He sat down on the lavatory and wept. He pressed his handkerchief to his mouth to muffle the sound of his sobs. After a while, amidst tears, he said into his handkerchief: “One of these days I’ll murder you yet.”

  13

  The weather was still warm and sunny. When Scholten got out of his car outside Wallmann’s weekend house on Wednesday evening he stretched, reached his arms out, took a deep breath. The first hint of twilight was descending over the trees, but the birds were still awake. Scholten drank in the smell of the conifers, bushes and grasses. He imitated a bird’s voice and then called into the woods, “Go on, you can sing a little more! I like to hear you, birds!”

  He cleared the boot of the car, took the cans of paint into the garage. After making up the guestroom bed with clean sheets he stood in the hall for a moment, undecided. He would have liked to begin his investigations straight away. He looked in at the living room, opened a drawer.

  “Nonsense. We have two whole days, Jupp Scholten.”

  He got into his car and drove down to the village.

  Grandmontagne was sitting at the regulars’ table with the corner seat, in the company of the Widow Abels, Palm the grocer and his son Karl-Heinz who worked on the railway, the farmers Quademichels and Laudenberg, and Käthchen Hückelhoven, the baker’s wife. Grandmontagne’s wife was behind the bar.

  When Scholten came in Grandmontagne cried: “Hey, look at this, then. Old Jupp’s back!” Scholten shook hands, sat down between Palm and the Widow Abels, and ordered a plate of sliced cold meat and sauerkraut from Frau Grandmontagne. “With plenty of onion!”

  “It’s all right for him, he sleeps alone!” Käthchen Hückelhoven commented.

  Grandmontagne said: “That’s what you think. Well, we don’t none of us know what goes on in that house. Old Jupp knows his way around.”

  Scholten bought a round to celebrate being back in the village. They wanted to know what Herr Wallmann was doing these days and how the business was going without Frau Wallmann and what the funeral had been like. Karl-Heinz Palm and Laudenberg, who were both in the volunteer fire brigade, told him about the search for the body and how they found it.

  Grandmontagne examined the stem of his beer glass, smiled, moved the glass back and forth. “You got no idea what really happened.”

  Laudenberg became heated. “What d’you mean? You wasn’t there. You was watching Alemannia play that Sunday. We was freezing our arses off down by the lake while you was sitting in the stands with your hipflask.”

  Grandmontagne leaned over the table. “So who did the cops come to see? The CID? You or me?” He leaned back again. “There you are.”

  Scholten put a piece of sausage in his mouth and said: “You don’t say. You mean the CID came to see you?”

  “On the Tuesday, that was. But it really began Saturday, with Kreutzer.”

  Scholten masticated. “Kreutzer, that’s the village copper?”

  Hückelhoven the baker, who had come in and sat down in the meantime, said: “Call Kreutzer a copper, and he’ll smash your face in. Officer Kreutzer, that’s him.”

  Quademichels puffed his pipe. “Officer Kreutzer? He’s too dopey for a cop.”

  Grandmontagne said: “Look, do you want to hear how it was or don’t you?”

  “Ssh,” said the Widow Abels. “Let’s hear it. How about another little round, Marlene?”

  Grandmontagne lowered his voice. “Well, Wallmann must have been real pissed off with Kreutzer.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Kreutzer didn’t raise the alarm at once. Didn’t fancy looking for the body.”

  Karl-Heinz Palm reached over the table and clapped Laudenberg on the shoulder. “See? I told you it were Kreutzer’s fault, I did. Seeing as the woman was drunk Friday, they could have gone looking for her Saturday.”

  Laudenberg rubbed his shoulder in annoyance. “Rubbish! He never noticed his wife was missing till Saturday evening. We wouldn’t never have found her in the night.”

  “Oh no? So how about that bloke we fished out two years back? That were two in the morning, that were.”

  “He were pissed as a newt, that bloke. You didn’t have to do nowt but take a look from the fisherman’s hut by the moorings, you could bring him in straight off.”

  Grandmontagne raised his voice. “That’s not the point!”

  “How come?”

  “That bloke near the fisherman’s hut was paralytic, there had to be a search right away. Seeing as anyone could guess he wouldn’t’ve made it round the curve when he come up to the moorings.”

  “So how about the woman, then?”

  “Well, she weren’t drunk, let’s get that clear. I seen her here half an hour before she died, sitting at this very table she was, right where Quademichels is sitting this very minute.”

  Quademichels felt uncomfortable. All eyes were turned to him. He didn’t know where to look.

  Karl-Heinz Palm said: “Look, I done that meself, getting tight in half an hour ain’t no problem.”

  His father dug him in the ribs. “You shut your gob. Stop talking so daft.”

  Grandmontagne raised his forefinger. “If a kid goes missing then the cops got to be told at once. Or a nutcase, or a drunk. They got to look for that sort straight away. But with a woman like her, well, that’s different, innit?”

  “Why’s it different?”

  “The police don’t have no clear guidelines. It’s called ‘missing adults’. And if a missing adult disappears there ain’t no call to go looking for them straight off.”

  Frau Grandmontagne came in with the tray and handed round the glasses. She took one herself and said “Thanks,” raising her glass to the Widow Abels. Then Hückelhoven wiped the froth from his moustache and said to Grandmontagne: “I don’t believe that. How come you know all this?”

  “Got it from Kreutzer.”

  Quademichels saw a chance to make his point again. He said: “He’s too dopey for a cop.”

  Grandmontagne raised his voice a little. “That ain’t got nothing to do with it! Do you know all the laws? And the decrees and all that stuff?”

  Quademichels blinked uncertainly and puffed at his pipe.

  Grandmontagne said: “Right, so Kreutzer come up here yesterday. He told me all about it. In this here country adults can go where they like, see? The law says so. Even a married woman can. She don’t even need to tell her husband.”

  The Widow Abels laughed, leaned forward and said: “Hear that, Käthchen?”

  Hückelhoven said: “That’s what the SPD does for you. Didn’t never used to be like that.”

  Scholten moved slightly away from the warm thigh of the Widow Abels and looked at Grandmontagne. “What do you mean, Sheng?”

  “Clear as day, innit? Could be Frau Wallmann was planning to run off. Could be she had a boyfriend somewhere, she was going to see him. And there ain’t a thing the police can do about that. The law says so.”

  “Don’t talk such nonsense! That’s insultin
g the memory of the dead!” Scholten pointed his forefinger at Grandmontagne. “I’ll tell you something: I’ve known that woman since she was fifteen. She was quality. No question. She wouldn’t run off, not her!”

  Käthchen Hückelhoven said: “What do you mean, quality? That don’t mean she had to put up with everything. Her old man gets around, right? Anyone can see that. And if he do what he likes, why shouldn’t she have a bit on the side too?”

  Scholten slammed his hand down on the table. “Because she didn’t! I know that for certain! And I won’t have you call her names!”

  Grandmontagne said: “Hey, don’t get so worked up, Jupp. I never said Frau Wallmann had any boyfriend.”

  “Well, she didn’t.”

  “I only said Kreutzer didn’t have to go looking straight off. On account of it says not in the guidelines. He didn’t know nothing about the lady, he didn’t know her from Eve. And he says so to Wallmann when Wallmann calls on Saturday evening, and that’s when Wallmann gets so worked up.”

  “I’d’ve felt the same,” said Palm.

  “Me too,” said Quademichels. “If my wife was to run off . . .” He nodded, sought for words. He drew on his pipe. Then he said: “Well, there’d be trouble.”

  Karl-Heinz Palm nudged him in the ribs. “You wasn’t listening proper again.”

  Quademichels blinked. “What?”

  Grandmontagne said: “Another round here, Marlene.”

  Käthchen Hückelhoven was not at all happy. She said: “That man’s a real goer, he is. Him and his yacht.”

  “What’s that s’posed to mean?” Hückelhoven leaned forward and looked sharply at his wife. “Why’s he a goer just because he got a yacht?”

  “Go on with you, Fritz,” said Laudenberg and laughed. “He knows his way around, he do. I seen that boat of ’is by the fisherman’s hut that Thursday evening. Probably taking summat aboard for the night. Must be good on a boat, I bet. You don’t need to do nothing, it go up and down by itself.”

  The widow said: “Ooh, you’re so crude, Hubert.”

  “Which Thursday?” asked Scholten.

  “Day before his wife breaks her neck, that were.”

  “He was at the fisherman’s hut then?”

  “Yeah, his boat were tied up near the bridge. I didn’t see him, though. I didn’t go in.”

  “You don’t half surprise me,” said Käthchen Hückelhoven.

  Scholten, who had been staring at the table, looked at Grandmontagne and said: “So how about the CID? The cops?”

  “Oh, yeah, I can tell you all about that.”

  “And we all heard it already too,” said Hückelhoven. “You told it at least three times.”

  “But Jupp here ain’t heard it.”

  The Widow Abels said: “Let Sheng tell it again, then. You don’t get summat like this happen every day.” She settled herself comfortably on the corner seat, and Scholten felt the warm pressure of her thigh again. He hesitated for a moment and then returned it. The widow smiled and stayed put.

  Grandmontagne said: “Well, so the cops was here the Tuesday after the accident. Two of ’em. And I gets the impression they don’t think that were an accident at all.”

  Käthchen Hückelhoven nodded portentously. “They thought she done herself in.”

  Scholten said: “What nonsense.”

  Grandmontagne said: “So you say. But they’re bound to do it. If there’s an accident, they got to think it could be different.”

  Quademichels stopped puffing his pipe. “Different like how?”

  The Widow Abels waxed indignant. “Oh, shut your gob, Quademichels!”

  Grandmontagne looked round. Then he said: “They got to think of murder, see? That’s obvious, innit? And it’s obvious who they suspect too. You can count the suspects on the fingers of one hand, Jupp.”

  “I can?” Scholten shook his head. “How would I know anything about it?”

  Laudenberg said: “Well, take Wallmann. Who else?” He laughed. “He done well enough out of it, not half!”

  Palm said: “You’re a real pig, you are, Hubert.”

  “I’m what?”

  “The man were shattered. S’pose your wife broke her neck, how’d you feel?”

  Grandmontagne raised his voice. “It can’t have been Wallmann. The cops say so. On account of my witness statement, understand? He got an alibi.”

  “You see?” said Palm.

  Grandmontagne said: “He come in here while his wife’s sitting at that table. And then he says he left something in the office, he’s going back to fetch it. He were in a hurry. So he goes straight off and drives away. It couldn’t’ve been him. He were on the road while Frau Wallmann was still sitting here alive and well.”

  Scholten said: “Yes, and then what?”

  “Well, then she goes off too. She didn’t stay around much longer. Yes, that were a bit odd, you ask Marlene. Am I right, Marlene?”

  Frau Grandmontagne handed out the glasses and said: “Yes, that were odd.” She wiped her hands on her apron and sat down on the edge of the corner seat. “She didn’t say another word when Wallmann was gone. She suddenly jumps up like she’s thought of something and off she goes. Nearly left the meat she’d bought behind.”

  Hückelhoven said: “Could’ve been going anywhere.”

  Käthchen Hückelhoven said: “We know where she were going. Up to the house and then she falls off the steps. Or maybe she don’t.”

  Karl-Heinz Palm raised his glass and drank to Grandmontagne, who had bought this round.

  Grandmontagne said: “And to poor Frau Wallmann. God rest her soul.”

  They drank, and for a moment there was silence. Then Quademichels said: “So what did the cops want with you, Granmontansch?”

  The women screeched with laughter, Laudenberg kept slapping his thigh, Karl-Heinz Palm clapped the startled Quademichels on the shoulder. Hückelhoven ordered another round and an extra schnapps for Quademichels to get him over the shock. Scholten bought a round of schnapps for everyone after that, Palm was not to be outdone, and after the round of schnapps Palm had bought, Laudenberg bought a round of beer. “Can’t get that stuff down without a chaser.” Karl-Heinz Palm asked his father if he could lend him ten marks till tomorrow morning and bought the next round.

  At eleven Scholten was dancing with Käthchen Hückelhoven, the others were watching, Grandmontagne was beating time, clapping his hands and exclaiming: “Hey, Jupp’s a real goer.” Hückelhoven stood up and said “Time to be off”, and when Laudenberg asked what the hurry was he said he had to get up again and be in the bakery in three hours’ time. He said “Come on, Käthchen, let’s go,” but Käthchen Hückelhoven said “You go alone, you don’t need me to help you snore”, and Hückelhoven went without saying goodnight.

  At eleven-thirty Grandmontagne had laid a bet with Quademichels to decide who bought the next round; the bet was that Quademichels couldn’t pick up his, Grandmontagne’s, wife and sit her down on the bar. “She’s a hundred and eighty pounds live weight, you’ll never do it!” “What d’you bet?” Quademichels cried, “What d’you bet?” and then he stood up and seized hold of Marlene Grandmontagne, who twisted in his arms, shrieking, as he put one arm around her behind and the other around her shoulders and picked her up, the veins swelling on his forehead. As he took the first tottering step towards the bar he farted loudly, Marlene struggled like a wild thing, and Quademichels fell to the floor with her. They picked him up, and Quademichels shouted, “What d’you bet? What d’you bet?” and reached for Marlene again, but she was cross by now and was holding her backside defensively.

  They put Quademichels back in his seat, and there was an argument because he said he had won the bet, but he was shouted down. Palm said if Quademichels let out another fart like that he’d buy another round, no need for Quademichels to pick Marlene up again, and Quademichels shouted “You lost that one, then!” and was raising his bottom from the seat already, hands clutching the table top, but Marlene Grandmon
tagne pushed him in the chest and said: “Behave yourself, you old pig!” The Widow Abels wiped her eyes and asked to be let out of the corner seat, she said she’d laughed so much she’d wet her knickers.

  At twelve Grandmontagne shouted, “Time, everyone, please!” They made their way noisily out of the door. The village street echoed to the sound. Scholten was trying to get hold of the Widow Abels, but the Palms, father and son, who were going the same way as the widow, took her arms and staggered away with her. Grandmontagne stuffed the rump steak Scholten had asked for in his jacket pocket and said: “Drive carefully, Jupp, mind you don’t jump no lights.”

  Scholten set off, engine roaring. He hooted as he drove past Käthchen Hückelhoven. Laudenberg was supporting her. She waved to Scholten. He avoided Quademichels, who was swaying about in the middle of the road. When Scholten turned off along the woodland track he went a little too far to the right on the soft ground, but it was all right, he didn’t even touch the tree. He was in bed at twelve-thirty. The house was perfectly still. He fell asleep.

  14

  Scholten woke at a quarter past six. He had left the window open overnight, and now he smelled the fresh morning air. The sky was pale blue above the dark trees. Scholten lay in bed a little longer. He stretched, yawned, listened to the birds. Then he said: “Come on, get up, Jupp Scholten. This is crunch time.”

  He put bacon in the frying pan, broke three of the eggs he had brought with him over it, made coffee. When he had eaten his breakfast he went into the living room. He opened a cupboard, pulled out a couple of drawers. The temptation was strong. But he must make sure he got the mainsail on the line. Wallmann would ask about that first.

  He climbed down to the landing stage. Morning sunlight lay warm on the steps. He went to the boat, opened the chest in the fo’c’sle, took out the sail sack, heaved it over his shoulder and carried it up the steps to the garage.

  He began by clearing the garage. He cleared everything stacked in the corners and along the walls, everything round the workbench at the back and in front of the shelves, and put it outside the garage. When the concrete floor was bare he cleaned it. He connected up the garden hose, sprayed the floor and scrubbed it clean, going right into the corners. Then he hosed it down once again.