Woman of the Dead (15 page)

The man of God comes, running towards Blum, who is ready to turn the key in the ignition. He can see the little car beside the path. He thinks nothing of it, he runs on. Until he reaches her, until she turns the key, about to step on the gas. Another twenty seconds. She must do it. Now, go!

She feels the car striking his body as the future bishop falls to the ground. She has only a brief glimpse of his horrified face; she doesn’t hesitate for a second, she runs him over, breaking bones. Pitilessly, Blum brakes and reverses. She must work fast, she must drag him into the car, force him into the boot, wrestle with his legs, his arms, his torso. She jumps out of the car, and uses all her strength to push, haul and lift the priest into the small boot. He is only a mass of flesh and bones. She ignores the pain he must be feeling. She ties him up with duct tape, gags and binds him. An accident, she thinks. Just an unfortunate accident. Breathlessly, she slams down the boot, gets back into the car and drives away. In six hours’ time she will be in Trieste. In six hours’ time she will talk to him. If he’s still alive then.

There are no traffic checks along the autobahn. She takes care not to attract attention; she has a full tank and doesn’t need to stop. She feels no pity for the priest. She doesn’t hear him groaning, doesn’t hear any noises coming from the car boot. The sound of the engine drowns them out. The road runs through the Italian countryside, all of it familiar, every service station that she passes, the road signs at the exits. Blum and Jaunig are on their way to the sea. There is plenty of time to think, plenty of time to get accustomed to the situation, to the fact that she has killed before, and may kill again. She remembers that TV series.

Dexter.
Mark loved it. He would sit in his study watching it for evenings on end, watching a forensic scientist administering his own ideas of justice after hours. Taking villains out of circulation, liberating the world from scum. Mark loved all seven series; he kept trying to persuade Blum to join him in the world of the serial murderer. Blum always laughed at him. She didn’t understand how Mark could think reality was remotely like that series. Nonsense, she said, lying down beside him on the sofa. It’s all so far-fetched, a man striking out on his own against the villains who had fallen through the net. A man of the law making sure that justice is done because no one else will. It was a fable of revenge, unrealistic, and pointless. All the same, Blum lay there beside him, watching the man on the screen pinning his victims down on a table with clingfilm. Plunging a knife into their hearts, then chopping them up and throwing the parts into the sea. It made Blum laugh. At Mark, and at Dexter. Dexter was nothing more than a murderer. She tried to get Mark to see that, but he defended Dexter to the hilt, even though he was a police officer himself.

Just before reaching Verona, Blum smiles. She has abducted a man, just like Mark’s hero, she has chopped him into pieces and put them in coffins. She thinks of the hearse, the Funerary Institute, the cold room, the preparation room. Perfect conditions. Blum’s screenplay is better.

Blum drives on. She is composed, almost indifferent. She knows the peace that comes from within, even when your world has been turned upside down. She drives straight on. Just as she steered the boat so long ago. In the sunlight, eight years before. There’s nothing to stop her now. It’s the middle of the night, and Trieste lies just ahead. Herbert Jaunig is still alive. If she drives really slowly she can hear his groans, and the wheels passing over the asphalt. The sound of the wind, the car engine, and that muffled bellowing, distorted by the gag. Pain, despair, fear. Blum drives on without pity. He is still breathing, he can speak and he will speak. They’re nearly there. Just down the winding roads to the harbour. The familiar pier, the Laterna di Trieste, the old yacht, the sea.

She slams the boot down on his head, hitting Jaunig for the second time. He tries to sit up and shout for help, but Blum strikes again. She isn’t going to waste a second; she has parked the car close to the boat. Jaunig doesn’t have a chance, there’s no one there to help him, no one to prevent Blum from dragging him out of the car boot and on to the yacht. Never mind how heavy he is, never mind how difficult the task is and how quickly it has to be done, Blum just gets on with it, because someone could come along at any moment. Jaunig has wet himself. He is just a piece of meat that she tips straight down into the mess area of the cabin, where they ate; he falls directly on the table. Unconscious in the bowels of the boat, defenceless as a baby.

Blum parks the car, unfastens the rope and is ready to cast off in less than ten minutes. She wants to leave the harbour as quickly as she can, and be alone with him when he comes round. She ties him down to the table and pours petrol over him. Then she starts the engine and steers the large boat carefully away from the pier. How good and familiar the world smells. Down below, Jaunig is coming to his senses. Overhead, the night sky is moving slowly towards day. Wonderful, she thinks, taking a long, deep breath. Italy. She is out on the water now, far away from everyone. She feels free, even now, never mind what happens next. There is nothing but blue water, the waves, the salt on her skin. Maybe the sun will shine today, maybe it will rain. Never mind how the day turns out, Jaunig will be silenced. The whimpering and groaning will soon die away. She stays on deck a little while longer, steering the boat past the breakwaters, until she is thirteen miles out in the open sea. Then she turns the engine off and goes down below. She tells him to stop kicking up such a fuss or she’ll set him on fire. Then she tears the sticky tape off his mouth. He is in great pain, she can see, but he says nothing. He is trembling all over, but he tries to keep himself under control. He looks at Blum. He can’t move so much as a centimetre. Blum stands beside him, with a lighter in her hand.

‘If you lie to me I shall set you on fire.’

‘My legs. I can’t move them. You must help me.’

‘Did you understand what I said?’

‘You must get me to a hospital.’

‘You are going to tell me everything.’

‘What do you want from me? This is madness. Let me go. Please.’

‘I want to know who the other three men are. Where I can find them, their names.’

‘I need painkillers.’

‘Your pain is of no importance now.’

‘For God’s sake put that lighter away.’

‘There were five of you. After Edwin Schönborn, that leaves three other men.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Don’t say the wrong thing, because you aren’t going to get a second chance.’

‘I am a priest.’

‘That didn’t help the girls and the boy.’

‘We can talk about that later. It’s not what you think.’

‘No, it’s worse, much worse, and you know it.’

‘I don’t know who those men are. They wore masks. I have no idea who the others are. You must believe me.’

‘Why are you lying?’

‘I’m not lying.’

‘None of them will help you now.’

‘Do you want money? The diocese will set it all up. I can get you as much money as you want.’

‘You think you can go back to your cathedral and do good works, just as if nothing had happened?’

‘I never did anything else. You must believe me.’

‘Dunya. Ilena. Youn.’

‘They were lost souls. I was caring for their souls, don’t you understand? You must put that lighter away now and untie me.’

‘What about the boy? What did you and the others do to him?’

‘I can help you. You can still go back. It doesn’t all have to end like this. God will forgive you, believe me. His mercy is infinite.’

‘Hold your bloody tongue.’

‘I can see that you’re unhappy, you have strayed, you can’t find your way back to the path of righteousness. You are helpless and desperate, let me stand by you. Please. Untie me.’

‘I was very happy once.’

‘You will be happy again. But only if you put that lighter down. What you’re doing won’t help anyone.’

‘My happiness is dead.’

‘I suggest we pray together. Whatever has happened to you, you can leave it behind you. Look at me. You have run me over, my bones are broken. You’ve put me in the boot of a car, hit me and poured petrol over me. And yet I am ready to see the goodness in you. God’s help enables us to bear any pain.’

‘The police officer you and your friends knocked down was my husband.’

‘I’m really sorry. But every loss can be overcome. You must look forward again, let life in once more.’

‘Yes, you’re right about that.’

The things he says. The things he doesn’t say. Asking anything else is pointless; he’d rather die than talk. Blum knows that. So she sets him on fire. Slowly and calmly she leans forward and holds the lighter to his clothes. As if she were lighting a candle, she sets the priest on fire, even if her reason tells her what she is doing is madness. She sees flames. The priest’s wide, staring eyes. The way he roars, abuses her. The wolf is trying to savage her with words. Jaunig begins to burn.

Slowly, Blum gets to her feet and climbs up on deck. She doesn’t turn to look back, she no longer hears his screams. She watches the sky grow gradually lighter. She doesn’t see Jaunig trying to tear himself free, tossing desperately back and forth, screaming for his life, trying to protect his face. She doesn’t see his burning clothes, his hair, his skin, she just stands there looking at the morning sky. For two long minutes, there is nothing but Blum and daybreak. Everything in her is still. She inhales the sea air, breathing deeply in and out. Then she goes below once more.

The foam from the fire extinguishers has preserved the boat from major damage. She protected everything round him, distributing the contents of three fire extinguishers on the floor and seats of the cabin. She tied Jaunig so tightly to the table that the flames remained under control, consuming only him. Blum has done it all exactly right. She acts very fast now. She throws blankets over Jaunig to put out the flames. There is smoke and soot everywhere, the mess looks like purgatory. Jaunig lies on the table before her. Jaunig is no longer breathing. The good Lord failed to come to his aid.

Blum surveys the scene. The boat has suffered damage to the cabin floor, upholstery and ceiling, and the mast. All the same, she smiles. She’ll have the cabin renovated. For years she’s been wanting to drive the spirit of Herta and Hagen out of the boat, restore it to her taste, not Hagen’s. Now is the time and Jaunig has given her a reason. She will have it entirely refurbished in the spring and throw away the old fixtures and fittings. She will fulfil a dream, go sailing with the children in May. Everything she can see will be gone. There’ll be nothing to remind her of Jaunig.

Blum is keeping watch. She has been sitting on the bench in front of the cathedral for over two hours, waiting. It is early morning, and she has driven all through the night, from Trieste to Innsbruck in four hours, twenty-four minutes. She wanted to get back to her children, to her family, to be rid of Jaunig at long last. So far no one has seen the plastic bag from the supermarket. The bag doesn’t look right here, it ought to attract attention. It cries out to be taken down from the cathedral door where Blum hung it. For two hours, she has been waiting for something to happen; for someone to find it.

Yesterday Blum was still at sea. It was a sunny day, a wonderful day. Exhausted and happy she let the boat drift on the water. She had done the right thing. Jaunig was dead. Blum hasn’t often had burnt bodies on her preparation table, only a few times in her life. She went down to the cabin and stared at him, fascinated to see what damage the fire had done in just two minutes. The fire had taken hold everywhere his body was exposed, disfiguring his face, his hands.

Blum cut the dead priest’s head off. It had all gone to plan; she put a bucket under the table and hacked at his neck with an axe until the head came away. She caught his blood in a bucket. Then she got rid of the body and cleaned up the blood. It was only a small cabin fire, an accident in the mess area, a candle she had forgotten to blow out. Blum scrubbed and scoured the soot on the cabin ceiling, the charred table. It almost looked as if nothing had happened. Then she put Jaunig’s head in a plastic bag, and threw his body to the sharks.

It was Mark who had told her about them. Had told her there really were sharks off the coast of Trieste, and they came in from the open sea to land with the freighters. These sharks were a threat to tourists, and were kept away from the beaches by gratings. But they swam directly under the point where Blum was letting her boat drift; the sea was twenty-four metres deep here. It was a good resting place for Jaunig’s body, though not his head.

Blum doesn’t want him to disappear and be forgotten. She wants people to know that this man has done something so terrible he had to die for it. Blum wants to flush the toads out of the undergrowth, scare them out of cover, give them a fright. Something would happen, she thought, a sign of what she should do next. Jaunig is dead. He refused to confess and that was a sin. Blum has learned nothing except that Jaunig was one of them, and had known about Mark’s death. Had been amused by it.
Every loss can be overcome. You must look to the future, let life in once more.
Blum can still hear his words, and then the click of her lighter.

Twelve hours ago, she was still at sea. Now she is staring at the bag. She is sitting under a tree, fifty metres from Jaunig’s head. You wouldn’t notice her at first glance; she is at home in this peaceful scene: the cathedral, the fountain and a woman reading a book in the morning air. A woman waiting for someone to take the head out of the plastic bag.

A man of eighty-four has hanged himself. Reza and Blum have cut him down from the roof rafter, and now he is lying in the cool room. Nela is painting a picture, Uma has an upset tummy. Now it is mid-September and everyday life has taken over. Massimo has phoned several times. Some teenagers, drunk, have found Herbert Jaunig’s head, and the papers are full of it. At first the teenagers thought the thing in the plastic bag was a football. Blum watched as they tipped it out of the bag and kicked the priest’s head. She saw them freeze; one of them threw up. Now she is reading all about it in the paper. Father Herbert Jaunig has been brutally murdered and beheaded. And the world doesn’t know what to make of it.