A tiny bead of sweat drips down her temple. This heat in her head. This ice in her belly. She doesn’t want to hear it. The same lies, again and again.
“Papa didn’t kill Mama!”
“Yes, little one. You loved your papa very much.”
She doesn’t have to open the door. If she keeps quiet, he’ll ring two or three times and then go away.
She rubs her cold, sweating hands over her thighs. Her jeans absorb the moisture. Gietmann was murdered. Why else would the police be interested? She leans her feverish head against the cool glass of the window. There won’t be anything about it on the television. A newspaper! But how can she get hold of one? She pushes herself away from the windowsill. What a fool she is.
She switches her computer on. She finds the Cleves Tagesblatt online. She looks up the local news.
The headline leaps out at her.
She jumps up and runs into the kitchen. No, it’s impossible! She sits on the kitchen chair and starts rocking back and forth.
“Lüders, Gietmann, and Jansen: these are the names you must never forget.”
She goes over to the sink and turns on the tap. She collects cold water in both hands and throws it over her face. It can’t be true.
An hour goes by before she returns to her computer. She reads the headline again, and then the first paragraph of the report.
Second Murder in Merklen in Three Days
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the body of Ludwig Lüders was found in Merklen. After the murder three days ago of Werner Gietmann, whose body was found a few hundred yards away from Tuesday’s discovery, the police face a puzzle.
Tuesday? Today? But how . . . ?
And then she sees it.
Local news: Wednesday, March 14, 2001.
Wednesday? She has slept for thirty-eight hours. The policeman hasn’t come.
Chapter 43
By seven thirty he is back at his desk. He calls to check on Frau Lüders’s condition, then talks to the man who is keeping watch over Gerhard Lüders.
Last night, Van Oss transferred the chain of events on the flipchart into an Excel spreadsheet. Böhm creates an identical overview of the Behrens case. He puts question marks next to the Anonymous call and Anna Behrens fields, and highlights them in red. Why was the child never questioned? Why did no one ever investigate who made the call?
Van Oss tosses his car keys onto the table. “Hi, Peter. Hagemann called. He has to go to the dentist. Shall I take care of the regulars at the bar?”
“Yes. Where’s Achim?”
“At the newspaper offices, with the new inspector. He hopes to be here by nine. What’s with Gerhard Lüders?”
“Nothing. He went from here straight to the hospital yesterday, and then home at about ten. Frau Lüders is doing a bit better.” Böhm stands up and puts on his jacket. “Horst Winkler, Karl Holter, and Klaus Söller aren’t mentioned in Hagemann’s interviews. We’ll start with Günther Mahler. Maybe he knows what’s become of the other three.”
The workshop is at the entrance to the village. A long, gray outbuilding with a corrugated-iron roof extends behind an elegant brick house. There is a plain wooden sign in the front garden, above a bed of yellow and lilac crocuses: “Mahler Carpentry Workshop: Furniture and Interiors, Windows, Doors, Staircases, and More.”
Nobody inside the house hears their ringing. As they go around it to the workshop, they hear the shrill whine of a circular saw. The workshop door is wide open. There is a smell of paint and fresh-cut wood. A fine mist of sawdust fills the air inside, the particles dancing in the light.
A young man with a ponytail, a thick sweater, and overalls is standing at the saw.
“Good morning.”
He turns around, startled. He is barely seventeen years old. “Morning.” He looks skeptically at Van Oss and Böhm. “Are you from the papers or the police?”
Böhm laughs. “Couldn’t we just as easily be customers?”
The young man considers them thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think so. And if you’re from the papers, you can leave. The boss isn’t keen on the press.”
Böhm shows his ID. “We’d like to speak to Günther Mahler.”
The young man looks carefully at the ID. “Old Mahler’s in the paint shop. All the way back through there.” He makes a broad, dismissive gesture with his arm, indicating the way across the room.
The rear exit opens onto a paved yard. On the left there is a big shed; the entrance is sealed with thick sheets of plastic. Here there is a smell of turpentine and varnish. A hissing sound, regular, is audible inside.
“Herr Mahler!” Van Oss is expecting a huge cloud of paint dust, and takes a few steps back just in case.
Mahler shoves the sheets of plastic aside and steps out into the open. His overalls show a wide variety of paint colors. His face mask hangs around his neck on thin strips of rubber. The goggles pushed onto his forehead make him look like an insect. He nods cautiously. “Police?”
Böhm shows his ID for the second time. The circular saw starts whining again in the workshop. Böhm has to shout. “Is there somewhere quiet we can talk?”
Mahler waits for the saw to reach the end of a cut. “Sven! Take a break for some breakfast.”
The saw buzzes one more time, then falls silent.
“He shouldn’t work with the doors open. But he’ll probably never learn.” Mahler reaches into his breast pocket and takes out a pack of unfiltered cigarettes. He taps the base of the pack with his stubby fingers and pulls the protruding cigarette out between his lips. With his back to the wind, he hunches over his lighter and lights it. “I already spoke with your colleagues yesterday. I guess the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, in the police. But all bureaucracies are the same.” He takes another drag on his cigarette and blows the smoke into the wind through pursed lips.
Böhm smiles at him in a friendly manner. “We wanted to talk to you again, alone. You’re one of the regulars at the Dorfkrug, aren’t you, and you already were thirty-four years ago, right?”
Mahler puts his free hand into the pocket of his overalls, tosses his cigarette to the ground, and crushes it out thoroughly. “Yes, I was. So what?”
“Some of the members from back then don’t live here anymore. Do you know what became of Horst Winkler, Karl Holter, and Klaus Söller?”
Mahler breathes hard. His lungs make a noise that closely resembles the sound of the circular saw as it slows down. “Karl Holter’s dead. He died of lung cancer twenty years ago. Horst Winkler lives in an old people’s home in Cleves, and Klaus Söller still lives here. His daughter took him in. He’s been in a wheelchair for a few years now—some kind of muscle disease.” He looks from Böhm to Van Oss. “Can I go back to work now?”
“Herr Mahler, can you tell us how it was with Johann Behrens back then? I mean, what happened in the bar before he drove home?”
Mahler shakes his head. “That was more than thirty years ago. And we all gave a statement at the time. Read that.” His insect head turns to one side and looks over the vegetable garden, which stretches a good sixty feet next to the shed and ends in a tall hedge.
“We’d very much like to hear it from you. What was the argument about, before Johann Behrens drove home in a rage?”
“I don’t remember. We had all been drinking. Something trivial, probably. Behrens had a short fuse; he used to fly into a rage for nothing.”
Böhm looks at Mahler, trying to look him in the eye. “I don’t believe you, Herr Mahler. I don’t believe everyone who was there was blind drunk.”
Mahler holds Böhm’s gaze defiantly.
“I think the deaths of Gietmann and Lüders are connected with Frau Behrens’s death. And you know what? We have every reason to believe the murderer isn’t finished yet.”
Mahler gasps. “In that case,” he says tightly, “you’d be better off looking for the killer than poking around in yesterday’s snow, as they say.”
“We think we’ll f
ind our killer in yesterday’s snow, Herr Mahler. And you know the strange thing about this story? The people we think might be the next victims are the ones shielding and protecting the killer.”
Mahler folds his arms across his chest. His overalls are tight over his still-muscular arms. “You’re crazy.”
Böhm pushes his glasses up and walks over to the workshop door. He turns back one more time and calls out, “Very interesting, Herr Mahler. Lüders said the same thing on Sunday.”
Van Oss raises his hand briefly. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again. I hope you see me too.”
Mahler turns pale. He stares at Van Oss in disbelief. “You’re crazy.” His voice loses its force and goes quiet.
Böhm’s cell phone notifies him of a text message when he gets back to the car. It is from Brigitte.
Don’t do anything silly. Back this afternoon.
Van Oss is sitting in the passenger seat.
Böhm tosses the phone onto the dashboard and leans back. “She’ll be back this afternoon.” He covers his face with his hands and pushes his glasses back onto his bald head with his fingertips. “She’s coming back.” He sighs with relief.
Then he shakes his head and starts the car. “Before we go to Jansen’s, I’d like to go by the cemetery. I want to see the Behrens tomb.”
Van Oss is fastening his seat belt. “Can we get a sandwich first? I forgot to feed myself this morning.” He grimaces, widening his eyes innocently.
“There’s a bakery across from the parish office. What do you make of Mahler?”
“He smokes very strong cigarettes, and when he’s finished one he doesn’t just stub it out, he kills it. And he’s lying.”
Van Oss looks out at the houses as they go by, with their well-tended front gardens and snow-white, all-concealing blinds in the windows. “Maybe he can’t do otherwise anymore. Once it’s been the truth for thirty years, maybe a lie is the truth.”
Böhm stops the car in front of the bakery. “But somebody knows it’s a lie.” He feels for his phone on the dashboard.
As Van Oss disappears into the bakery, Böhm dials Anna Behrens’s number again. He hears the busy signal.
Chapter 44
The wrought iron gate is ajar. On this side, the wall of the cemetery is hidden under ivy. A few yards farther on, it emerges from the thick green tunnel and extends, a pale reddish brown, as far as the bend in the road. Memorial candles paint fleeting red watercolors in the misty gray of the morning.
There is an old part, with large family tombs. Impressive gravestones with Bible quotations or sculptures of the Madonna are placed along narrow gravel paths. Here lie the remains of old families steeped in tradition. Small, less elaborate tablets to the left and right recall wives and children. Willow, birch, and elm trees, of substantial size after decades of growth, stand like open umbrellas. A broad asphalt path divides the whole area in two. The new cemetery stretches out flat on the far side: ornamental shrubs, perennials for ground cover, bright bouquets in narrow vases. No trees.
Böhm finds the Behrens family tomb beneath an elm tree: a weathered stone panel, nearly five feet tall by three feet wide, with columns on each side and a roof over the inscriptions. The long list of names begins in 1878. The most recent entries are for Johann Behrens and his mother, Johanna. His wife, Magdalena Behrens, is not mentioned. One gravel path beyond, in front of a Madonna and child on a plinth, new grave has been dug. The earth and sand have been carefully covered with a black tarpaulin.
Van Oss goes over to check. “Gietmann! Have we released him already?”
“Yesterday morning.” Böhm walks on. “Johann Behrens killed himself. Catholics used to bury suicides under the hedge of the cemetery. It was a sin to take one’s own life. That was still true in the sixties, in devout Catholic communities. Why is he in the family tomb, but not Magdalena Behrens?”
The solitary tomb is a good hundred yards away. A small, plain stone plate gives the essentials:
Magdalena Behrens
Born February 3, 1940
Died April 13, 1967
A fresh bunch of flowers and newly planted borders decorate the grave.
“Who tends this grave?” Böhm looks for a gardener. He sees two women and an old man with a hoe and a watering can. “There’s no way you could do anything here and not be seen.”
Van Oss crouches down and tidies up the daffodils in the vase. “Something isn’t right.” He stands up again. The angular modern chapel, with its pitched roof, catches his eye. Its terra-cotta walls, beside the pale-brown stones of the three-hundred-year-old church, make it look as if it is blushing with shame.
Böhm, hands clasped behind his back, is looking at the little gravestone. Maybe he’s been distracted by this old story. Maybe he’s seeing ghosts, and the Behrens case has nothing to do with Gietmann and Lüders. Maybe he’s trying to establish a connection because the file suggests sloppy police work and he hates seeing that.
Then he notices it. He shuts his eyes as he tries to call up the cover of the Behrens file. “The date!”
Van Oss is lost in thought and jumps, startled. “The date?”
“Yes. Magdalena Behrens didn’t die on the thirteenth of April; she died on the fourteenth.”
Van Oss is freezing, and he pulls his jacket together. “But why would anyone deliberately alter that? I mean, maybe the stonemason made a mistake and no one noticed.”
“I don’t believe it.” Böhm is suddenly alive. “You go find out who’s looking after this grave. There must be a caretaker here. Maybe he saw somebody. I’m going to the Dorfkrug to talk to Frau Holter.”
Chapter 45
She is working on a translation of a Russian novel. Here, in this fictional world, she can function. The search for words and paraphrases, for images and metaphors that are quite clear in one language but almost impossible to render in another. Speechless moments, closed mouths.
Translate. She has always liked the word. Trans-late, or carry across. It used to make her think of ships. Of people being brought to a destination. Softening God’s punishment for the Tower of Babel: making it so that people understand one another.
She used to translate scientific texts, but now she works exclusively for a company that publishes Russian fiction. She smiles as she thinks about the Russian expression “to salt away money.” An image of miserliness. It’s beautiful.
Despite all her episodes, she had never become a case for the state, had always been able to work, sometimes even in the clinic.
So why now? Why did the past have to catch up with her and snap at her like a rabid dog, at a time when she was alone and vulnerable?
The coffee has been cold for hours. It leaves a bitter, raw taste on her tongue. She must be more careful with the cigarettes. When she is writing, they go up in smoke in the ashtray. Margret won’t be coming again until Tuesday, and she only has one carton.
Maybe it had to happen like this. Maybe this was her punishment for her enduring cowardice. A year ago, when she came into her inheritance, she was doing well. She should have summoned up the courage to tell those smug villagers to their faces.
“Yes, yes, little one. You loved your papa very much.”
She goes into the kitchen and runs herself a glass of water.
She hadn’t been so sure of herself any more. For all those years, when people didn’t believe her, she had found it impossible to differentiate. Her memories had slipped away, and she had begun every sentence with “I think.” Sometimes she had thought all her childhood memories came from a picture book that someone had read to her.
When she found her mother’s letters last year, it was frightening and, at the same time, a relief. For the first few evenings, laughter and tears had blended into each other, like light and shadow on a forest path.
She could remember so many conversations with Margret.
“Mama wrote you quite a lot of letters. I used to take them out to the postman.”
“You’re wrong there, darl
ing. Your mother never wrote to me.”
At some point, Margret’s words were the truth, and she was imagining things. Mama didn’t write any letters. She didn’t used to run down the path, and she didn’t give any letters to Uncle Claus. She didn’t see any strange men in the covered yard that night. When she was about to tell Margret about her pony, she stopped and fell silent. Margret asked her to go on, but she just shook her head. She wanted to keep the pony. The pony couldn’t be a mistake.
Only with her daughter had she ever talked about her childhood and the Behrens farm. Later on, about that night too.
Maybe that’s why she can’t give Margret the letters. Maybe that’s why she has to keep reading them. Because they are her witnesses. Because they confirm her memories. Because she has a childhood again, a childhood that belongs to her and hasn’t been taken from a picture book.
She goes over to the bedroom and opens the drawer in the bedside table. There they are. She reaches in and takes one out at random.
January 4, 1967
My dear sister,
Thank you for your letter. I’m glad Karl has been formally appointed and you can think about buying a house.
I don’t want to be complaining all the time, but Johann is drinking more and more, and his rages are getting worse. I have bruises all over my body, and last Thursday he knocked out a tooth. If I didn’t have Anna, I’d just run away.
The worst thing is that he couldn’t be more sorry the next day—when he’s sober again. On Friday he wept when he saw my battered face. “I’ll never drink again,” he swears to me. “It’ll never happen again.”
On Saturday he went into town and bought me an amber bracelet.
My mother-in-law has moved into the cottage for good now. She says our marital disagreements rob her of her sleep.
Lüders came by this morning. I was in the vegetable garden, tying up some beans. Anna was with me. He rubbed his private parts in front of the child and called out, “I like it when you bend over like that.”
To Clear the Air Page 13
