Black Ice (5 page)

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!”

“Yes, okay. What's so bad about it if I go up there now and then? It's a beautiful place. Fresh air. The woods. It does me good.”

“Why don't you ever take me?” she said.

He carried the drawing things into the living room.

When they were sitting at the kitchen table, eating supper, she said: “Will you write to the children after supper?”

“Maybe. I'll see. Could be I'll do it tomorrow.”

“Helmut's letter came two weeks ago. And Angelika's has been lying around for nine days. I'm sure they're expecting a reply.”

“Oh, come on, you don't believe that yourself. That was the first letter from Angelika in three months. And it was even longer since Helmut last wrote.”

“That's not true. Helmut wrote after Christmas. At least they want to know how we are.”

“Yes, sure.”

“I'd do it myself if it wasn't such a strain on me.”

“Yes, yes, I'll do it tomorrow.” He wiped his mouth and went into the living room. Out in the passage he
belched discreetly. He switched on the TV set and sat down in the armchair. During the news he fell asleep.

He jumped when Hilde touched his shoulder. “There's no point sitting in front of the TV and then falling asleep,” she said. “You might as well save the power.”

He rubbed his hands over his face. He felt very thirsty.

She pointed to the TV set. “Well, there's your Federal Chancellor for you.”

“He's not just my Federal Chancellor, he's yours too.”

“I didn't vote for him.” She wrapped the rug round her legs and lay down on the sofa.

“Yes, I know. You vote for the capitalists. Like Herr Wallmann.”

“Well, at least Herr Wallmann has made something of himself.”

“You could put it that way.” He rose, went into the kitchen and took a bottle of beer out of the fridge. He looked for the glass. Hilde had washed it up along with the plates and cutlery and put it back in the cupboard. When he came back into the living room he said, “The fish was rather salty.” She gave the beer bottle a glance of silent reproof.

He fell asleep twice more in his armchair. When Hilde had nudged him for the second time he got to his feet. “I'm going to bed.”

The cat was already in its basket. It blinked at him when he switched on the bedside lamp, rolled over and stretched its legs. He tickled it a bit. “There we are. Now then, time for bye-byes.”

Hilde came in as he was getting undressed. She turned away from him. She sat down on her own bed before taking off her vest over her head. He saw her
pale, thin back. She reached for her nightdress, put it on as she sat there. She lay down, smoothed out her quilt with both hands, then tucked it firmly round her on both sides. When he had switched off the light she put out a hand, touched him on the shoulder and said: “Good night.” He replied: “Good night.”

He waited and then heard the faint whispering sound. She was saying her prayers.

A little light from the street fell into the room on both sides of the curtain drawn over the window. A car drove past.

Scholten listened. He heard footsteps on the stairs. Someone passed their door and climbed up to the topfloor apartment. It must be the boyfriend. One of the boyfriends. He had seen at least three different men climb the stairs since the woman on the top floor moved in. But the cooperative wasn't interested in that kind of thing. They were just keen to rake in the cash.

The ballcock. He would call the caretaker on Monday. Honrath the caretaker was bone-idle, that was his trouble. You had to light a fire under his arse. What else was he going to do on Monday? There was something else he'd meant to remember.

Scholten fell asleep.

6

He woke with a start, not knowing where he was, when Hilde patted his quilt. “Has that cat got into bed with you again?” she asked.

“The cat? What do you mean?” He rubbed his eyes, groped for the bedside light. He felt the cat on his feet. It was just curling up.

“I heard it, I'm sure. Take a look.”

He switched the light on. Hilde was lying flat on her back, the quilt up to her chin. She had raised her head and was looking at the bottom of his bed. “Put it in the basket,” she said. “You must get it out of that habit. It's not healthy. That cat moults.”

Scholten got out of bed, picked up the cat. “There now, Manny, back you go in your basket.” The cat purred loudly. He put it in the basket and tickled it under the chin a little. When he turned away the cat raised its head and looked at him. He wagged his finger. “You stay there like a good boy, or there'll be trouble.”

He got back into bed. “Bloody animal!”

“You shouldn't swear!”

“No, all right.” He switched the light out.

He lay on his side. After a few minutes he turned over on his back. He stared into the darkness. He was wide awake. It took him some time, but in the end he could make out the shape of the wardrobe. A faint reflection of light from the street lamp outside was shining in the mirror fitted to the middle door.
Scholten saw the chest of drawers too. The big mirror on top of it was in the dark, but its outlines too emerged more and more clearly.

It takes you some time to see things in the dark.

Perhaps Erika hadn't even switched on the light at the top of the steps. And then there was the frost. But if she'd simply slipped in the dark – then was it an accident after all? And Wallmann's alibi fitted that scenario. He couldn't possibly have pushed her off the steps.

But then why had Wallmann set that alibi up? You surely can't foresee an accident?

“Hold on a moment,” Scholten told himself. “This is no good, Jupp Scholten. You're going round in circles. With something like this you have to begin at the beginning and go through it all in the proper order.”

He settled himself in bed, pulled up the quilt, pushed the pillow under his head. He listened for a moment. He could hear the faint, regular sound of Hilde's breathing.

Very well. Wallmann drove out of town on Monday last week. And Fräulein Faust didn't come into the office at all. She was taking a week off for the christening. She said she was going to see her friend in Passau and stay till the weekend. Just the same time as Wallmann was allegedly going to be away on his own.

“I'm going to take the boat out of its winter quarters, then I'll spend a few days sailing on the lake. I need to relax and be on my own for once,” he had said. And that fool Büttgenbach had nodded earnestly, as if agreeing that Wallmann worked too hard and needed a rest.

Erika had known exactly what to think of this sailing trip. On Thursday, when she came into the office, she had asked Scholten: “Has my husband called?”

“No, not yet.”

“Didn't he say he was going to?”

“Yes, he said he'd ring the office now and then, to find out what was going on.”

“Oh well, he's probably very busy.” She had sat down at Wallmann's desk and looked through the papers Scholten had found for her.

Scholten had watched her for a while and then said: “Hasn't he called you either, then?”

“Me? What makes you think he'd call me?” She went on vigorously leafing through the papers. “He wouldn't do that. I might ask questions.”

Suddenly she had raised the papers in the air and slammed them back down on the desk. “That sh. . . that boat! It ought to be burned! Do you know what that thing cost, Herr Scholten? Twenty-four thousand nine hundred marks, and that's before the extras he had fitted. A ‘nifty little cruiser'! Oh yes. I'd like to see that nifty little cruiser go up in flames. It stinks. Do you know what it stinks of, Herr Scholten?”

Scholten had picked the papers up again. She'd said: “Pour me a schnapps, Herr Scholten. And one for yourself too. Come on, let's drink a toast. To life. And human beings. Aren't human beings just wonderful?”

She had tossed the schnapps down her throat and held her glass out to him. As he refilled it she had said: “But not for very much longer. I've just about reached the end of my tether. And then there'll be no more sailing, believe you me, Herr Scholten. Then he'll be in for a shock. And the nifty little cruiser will be sold, because I was the one who paid for it. Or perhaps I really will have it burned. That'd be quite something, don't you think, Herr Scholten? A bonfire in celebration!”

He had shaken his head. “I wouldn't do that. You'd
get a lot of money for it. The boat's in really good shape.” Scholten raised his feet under the quilt. He was getting hot. He tried another position, pushed the quilt a little way back, rearranged the pillow under his head. He listened for a moment. He couldn't hear Hilde's breathing. But then it came again, that faint, regular sound.

Scholten scratched his belly. That had been Thursday. And then on Friday he suddenly called at three in the afternoon. As if there was any point in that when the week was practically over. Scholten was in Wallmann's office; Erika was sitting at the desk when the phone rang. Scholten picked it up and heard Wallmann's voice.

Wallmann asks if anything particular has happened, and Scholten says no. But his wife's here, says Scholten, does he want to speak to her? Erika takes the receiver, and Scholten turns to go, but she gestures to him to stay.

Then she says, “What do you mean? Of course I'm coming over. I've packed my things already. I think I can leave in a couple of hours' time . . . yes, around five. But I'll stop off at Grandmontagne's for some meat. I should think I'll be with you at the house around seven. Why ask? . . . Oh, I see. And it could take some time? . . . Very well. Where are you now, anyway? . . . Ah. Right. Anything else? . . . No, not here either. Right, see you soon.”

She hangs up and looks at Scholten. “Do you know what a mainsheet is, Herr Scholten?”

“Mainsheet?”

“Yes, or something like that.”

“It's the rope you use to work the mainsail. What about it?”

“He says he has a problem with the mainsheet. He's
taken the boat into the yachting basin to get it seen to. He doesn't know just when he'll be at the house.”

“The mainsheet? What's wrong with it?”

She suddenly stands up. “How long will it take him to get from the yachting basin to the house?”

“That depends on the wind. He won't use the engine. A good hour, maybe two. I'm not sure.”

She reaches for her bag in haste and puts on her coat. She points to the desk. “Never mind all that stuff. I don't need it any more.”

“Yes, but – are you going to start now?”

Slowly, she comes back, sits down at the desk in her coat, puts her bag down. She looks at the desk for a long time. Then she says: “You're right. It won't be any good. He's too crafty.” She looks at him. “But if I knew for certain, Herr Scholten, if I knew that I could catch him, then I would. And one of these days I will too. I've been looking forward to that moment for a long time.”

“Would you like a schnapps?”

“Yes, come on, Herr Scholten, let's have a schnapps. Perhaps it will cheer us up.”

She rises and takes her coat off again.

They sat there for another two hours, talking of this and that. Of the old days. The sun had faded, the blue sky outside the window had turned a little darker. Just before five the phone rang again. She picked up the receiver, gave her name, said “Hello?” and “Hello?” again, and then she hung up.

“Who was it?”

“I don't know. Didn't answer.”

They had both, he was sure, been thinking the same thing: it was Wallmann. He wanted to find out if she was still in town. Why?

She had put her coat on, picked up her bag, and left. Scholten had seen her to her car. He had taken her
keys to open the car door for her. She had waved to him as she drove away. And that was the last time he ever saw her.

Scholten felt the tears come into his eyes. You bastard! He gritted his teeth. A small strained sound escaped him: half pain, half fury.

He jumped in alarm, raised his head slightly from the pillow and listened. Yes, he could hear Hilde's breathing. He let his head fall back and relaxed.

It was perfectly clear, and now he could see it all in the right order of events.

Wallmann had left the office on Monday morning. He had picked up Fräulein Faust and driven to the house with her. And then he got her to drive him to the yachting basin. No, wait, that would have been too risky. He had probably called the village to order a taxi to drive him to the yachting basin. He had got his boat out of winter quarters.