He breathed a vast sigh of relief on discovering that the girl had abandoned her stool for a long sofa, and lying on it had dozed off. That made his job far easier.
The deceased master of the house had owned a large wardrobe. He had been taller than Hans and rather fatter, but providentially took the same size in shoes. Warm in musty thick winter garments, Hans was able to trudge outside with those few articles he did not want to leave lying around for Anneliese to inquire about, yet dared not send to the incinerators for fear they would survive the flames and be recognized as antique. Most of these were luxury items, chiefly molded cosmetic jars and perfume bottles.
He could have smashed them, but the noise might have awakened Anneliese.
The ground was frozen far too hard for him to dig a hole; for the time being he’d have to be content with hiding them in the snow.
Returning, bitterly cold, he found bedding and made up the child’s bed for her; she was short enough to find it tolerable, he judged. Then he carried her from the living-zone and tucked her in, removing only her shoes. She barely stirred, being deeply asleep by now.
His mind was full to the brim with two competing emotions: a sort of frustrated tenderness, as though this were his own child he was putting to bed, and a cold and calculating plan for the future, a tangled skein of deceit climaxing in arson to explain why eventually they would be unable to come back here …
At the edge of hearing: trickle, splash … What in the world? Oh, of course. A pipe frost-fractured in the main bathroom. The toilet pan, he found, had been frozen, predictably enough; now a wedge of ice bobbed in it as water dribbled down from the flushing valve behind.
But the Erikssons had been careful people. It took only minutes to locate a tool-kit in a kitchen drawer, which included a roll of siliconized tape. After making the repair, crudely but effectively, he inspected all the other piping he could find and concluded that there was no risk of further leaks.
Now, before leaving: what else? Obviously, light for Anneliese if she woke while he was gone and the short sub-arctic day was over. Festeburg had never accepted electricity, so she would be used to candles, and here were several, wicks damp and fizzing, all colors of the rainbow, meant for
tête-à-tête
dinner parties, not real illumination – but never mind. He set one by the bed, and matches which (he tried one) still struck well after all these years.
That, and a quick note telling her not to worry, he’d be back soon, would have to be that. He dared not delay too long before reporting Dany’s death, even though the Maori attack on Aleuker’s home would make it extremely improbable that anybody had noted the exact time of his departure from New Zealand. He had a good cover story,
too; he would say that even if he fled he realized he didn’t want to confront Dany after their disagreement, so he made for the Gozo outlet instead and spent a while debating with himself as to whether he should ask Karl Bonetti to examine her and pronounce on her sanity. Then decided against the idea, and finally made for home, to discover …
Yes, the claim would carry conviction, but only if he hurried now.
He propped up his note beside the candle, and on impulse kissed Anneliese’s forehead. She half-smiled in her sleep. As he turned away his heart ached with yearning and delight.
INTERFACE L
It Was laid down
That making the
hajj
to Mecca
Earned much merit for a man
Someone I know
Now makes the
hajj
twice a day
It takes about one minute thirty seconds
– M
USTAPHA
S
HARIF
He walked straight past the disgusting ruin of Dany, heading for the phone. He dialed the police emergency code, and waited. Sometimes the phones in Valletta worked, and sometimes they didn’t.
This time they worked. A voice said grumpily, ‘Yes, police.’
‘Please send somebody here right away,’ Hans said, his voice shaking just a little. ‘It’s my wife. She’s dead.’
‘What?’
‘She must have killed herself while I was out. Here, make a note of my skelter code. I’ll disconnect the privateer.’
Less than two minutes later a uniformed sergeant appeared in the skelter, holding up a portable recorder. He said, ‘Repeat after me, please: I Hans Dykstra – do of my own free will – consent to the use of my skelter code – by law-enforcement officers – and understand – that on completion of these inquiries – I may require another code – confidential from the authorities … Thank you.’
He stepped into the hallway, his eyes fixed in dismay on Dany. A moment later another policeman appeared, and then after a slightly longer delay a harassed-looking man
carrying a medical kit, immediately followed by a photographer.
The second policeman to arrive identified himself as Chief Inspector Vanzetti; he was a portly man with tired eyes, his summerweight uniform patched with sweat although it was locally winter.
‘Tell me exactly what happened,’ he invited.
Hans licked his lips. ‘I – uh – I guess I found her about two or three minutes before I was able to call up. I had to go in the bathroom and vomit. The shock, you understand. And … Well, I wasn’t feeling too good in any case. You may have heard Chaim Aleuker held a treasure-hunt party?’
Vanzetti’s eyes widened. ‘You were at it? Hmm! How come you got away with a whole skin?’
‘Did it turn out to be bad?’
‘Twelve deaths that we’ve heard about, most of his house destroyed … How
did
you get away?’
Hans felt his cheeks start to burn. He wasn’t sorry. A little visible embarrassment would support his story well.
‘I hate to admit it, but … Well, you see, I’d been there three hours, maybe four, and I’d drunk a lot, and – and when the shooting started I just plain ran like hell. I’m not sure, but I think I was probably the first person to think of making for the skelter.’
‘That’s interesting,’ Vanzetti muttered. He consulted the watch on his wrist: no ordinary watch, as Hans’s expert eyes informed him, but a classic Seiko Worldtime, the like of which had not been built since the Blowup. ‘That means you must have left New Zealand at least an hour and a half ago, doesn’t it?’
‘I didn’t come straight here.’
‘Why not? And where did you go?’
‘I didn’t come here because Dany and I had had a row. I’m a photographer in my spare time. She was going to this treasure-hunt party – she didn’t tell me who the host was, and I’d assumed it was one of her abominable friends and preferred to stay at home and develop some film I was specially proud of. She barged into my darkroom and ruined the film, and I decided … ’ He hesitated. ‘I decided I’d take the clue-card and go to the party myself, to even things up.
Now I’m terribly ashamed of myself. But I swear I never dreamed she might do this!’
He gestured at the corpse, around which the doctor and the photographer were prowling like carrion-crows, poised to dart in and dash back again.
‘You had no idea at all?’ Vanzetti probed.
‘She had threatened to kill herself,’ Hans muttered. ‘But never tried it. I consulted Karl Bonetti about her, and he said – Oh, that’s where I went. That’s why I didn’t come straight home. My wife’s mental condition had been on my mind during the party, and like I say I was rather drunk when I left, and – well, for no real conscious reason it struck me as a good idea to go to Gozo. I know the code for the public outlet there nearly as well as I know my own; Dr Bonetti is an old friend of mine.’
‘Did you actually see him?’
‘No, I wandered around brooding for a while and eventually decided it was worth making one more try to patch up the row. So I came home and – and I found her.’
‘Chief,’ the sergeant said, ‘it’s suicide. Not a shred of doubt. She used this.’ He held up a bright oblong partly smeared with dry blood. ‘An old-fashioned double-edged razor-blade. She cut her thumb and finger with it while she was slashing her wrists.’
Vanzetti nodded. ‘Doc, do you agree?’
The doctor grunted what might have been an affirmative, and went on studying the corpse with instruments from his kit.
‘How long since she died, would you say?’ Vanzetti probed.
‘Oh … Not less than three hours, not more than five. I’m just checking to see what she took beforehand: a stimulant pill or two, I imagine, and possibly some liquor too … Ah, here we are.’ He straightened, holding up a little glass tube with a trace of blood on the lower end, containing a thread of some whitish chemical mixture that had turned color at two levels, blue and green respectively.
‘Yes, she was both drunk and doped. A mix that could have done awful things to her head.’
‘You said,’ Vanzetti went on, turning to Hans again, ‘you’d consulted Dr Bonetti about your wife?’
‘Ah … Yes, more than once. He said her suicide threats were so much noise, an attempt to make me pay more attention to her.’ Hans hesitated. ‘It’s – uh – it’s not much of a secret among our friends that there’d been friction between us this past year. I’d better make a clean breast of that. You’re bound to be told sooner or later.’
‘Oh, I don’t believe our inquiries need be very extensive, given what you just heard. Naturally there must be an inquest, but there’s no call to worry overmuch about that. It’ll be largely a formal matter.’ Vanzetti shook his head dolefully. ‘A terrible thing, this. Terrible! Now, about Aleuker’s party: who can confirm you were there at the relevant time?’
‘Well, Aleuker himself –’
‘No, I’m afraid not. He’s dead.’
‘What?’
‘He was shot. The first of the dead to be identified. The news had just come in by satellite when I left headquarters. A terrible loss for us all!’
Hans folded his hands into fists and stood shaking for a moment, until Vanzetti prompted him: ‘Anybody else?’
‘Uh … ’ Hans forced his hands open again and rubbed his forehead giddily. ‘Well, Dr Satamori, and Dr Pech, and I also had a few words with Dr Ingrid Castelnuovo, and – ’
‘That’ll do very well. I shall have to ask for a word of confirmation, just for the record, but nothing more.’
‘All done,’ the doctor said, putting away his gear. ‘We can finish the job at the morgue.’
‘Good, thank you.’ Vanzetti hesitated. ‘Mr Dykstra, would you rather come with us now and make a statement, or wait until you’ve recovered a bit from the shock?’
‘Oh, I’d rather get it out of the way,’ Hans sighed. ‘I wouldn’t want to try and catch some sleep, the state I’m in. I’d have nightmares, I’m sure of it.’
It went smoothly, click-click as designed. Make the statement; agree to attend the inquest tomorrow morning; call in to his headquarters office, saying he wouldn’t be available for work; hear that Boris Pech had been among the lucky ones who survived the bloodbath at Aleuker’s, and was in
hospital but conscious and willing to confirm that Hans had been present …
No least hint from anybody of anything but genuine sympathy for a man who had tragically lost that ultra-precious commodity, a legally-married wife.
‘And will you go back home now?’ Vanzetti asked solicitously. ‘Or would you rather spend some time elsewhere, with friends perhaps?’
Hans shook his head. ‘I’d rather be alone. I guess maybe I shall go call on one or two people who knew Dany particularly well, break the news to them personally … If you can’t reach me at home, that’s what I’ll be doing, but I shan’t stay away for more than a few hours at a time.’
‘Oh, it’s most unlikely we shall want to contact you,’ Vanzetti said with a casual wave. ‘Just so long as you’re on time at the inquest … Goodbye for the moment, then.’
Hans forced a mechanical smile and headed for the skelter. At its threshold he stopped dead.
‘Is something wrong?’ Vanzetti called.
‘I – I … Yes, I just realized something is horribly wrong. It’s getting through to me. I felt all numb at first – I guess maybe I threw up my emotions, in a weird kind of way … But I shall have to move house. I mean, if next month, or next year, I suddenly think: I punched this code and there was – was Dany … ’ He swallowed loudly. ‘Do you know anything about what turns people into stucks? Because I just got this flash about becoming one myself, if I don’t move away from Valletta.’
‘Hmm! Yes, I can well believe it,’ Vanzetti said. ‘You ought to talk to your friend Dr Bonetti about that, don’t you think?’
‘Yes. Yes, you’re quite right, and I shall.’
But not right now. Not today. Today was for being at Anneliese’s side when she awoke, symbol of the stability and reassurance she craved and had not received from Chaim Aleuker.
Also it would be for figuring out where to make his new home, out of all the thousands of places the skelter could take him to.
With his new wife.
INTERFACE M
It was no cynical creator who forbade us
to water the deserts and feed the hungry mouths.
You stood with a loaf and a bomb in either hand
and kept the loaf and gave the bomb away.
You chose to have more and even drier deserts
and many mouths will not again taste hunger.
– M
USTAPHA
S
HARIF
Drowsing at last after thinking long and hard about what he had said concerning Aleuker’s plan, Mustapha woke to the frantic shout of Ali at his bedroom door.
‘Effendi! It is Dr Satamori who came back! His head is cut and he is bleeding!’
On the instant Mustapha was wide awake, wondering whether it was time for him to admit that he believed in premonitions. He shouted orders for Satamori to receive medical attention, and minutes later joined him in the Room of Flowers where he lay stretched on a hand-carved couch, eyes closed, face a mask of pain, clothes ragged and smeared with dirt and blood.
‘Fred!’ Mustapha cried. ‘What happened to you?’
Wincing now and then as a boy armed with a box bearing the sign of the Red Crescent attended to his injuries, Satamori forced out a brief account of the disaster which had overtaken Aleuker’s party. Mustapha hissed in dismay.
‘You think Chaim himself is among the dead?’