Woman of the Dead (18 page)

The laptop isn’t password protected. It is on the coffee table, flanked by crisps and two empty beer cans. Everything is untidy, there are smears of grease on the computer screen. Blum turns it on. How stupid he is, how very careless. In spite of the chaos of his apartment, Bertl Puch’s computer is tidy, the files are neatly arranged. Blum spots what she is looking for at once, the letters cry out to her. Pig-breeding, they say. Pig-breeding.

Blum in someone else’s apartment, doing things that would have been unimaginable a couple of months ago. She doesn’t stop to think. She’ll do whatever it takes to find out whether this man really was connected to Mark’s death, to Dunya’s death. Blum crossed a line when she handed Schönborn the bottle, when she put him in those coffins. The line has been crossed, the border is open, there is no barbed wire there now. Blum has burnt Jaunig to death and cut his head off. She thought of Dunya as she did it. She saw those empty eyes in Edwin Schönborn’s photographs. They were monsters: Schönborn and Jaunig and Puch, the chef.

He had filmed the pig-breeding videos on his mobile, then saved them to his laptop. Anyone could have found them, could have watched what went on in that cellar. There was no attempt at concealment; it hadn’t occurred to Bertl Puch that someone might steal his laptop and investigate his pig-breeding. He feels safe. He sees no reason to delete those seventeen horror films. They document feeding time, training sessions, punishments. They feature Dunya, Ilena and Youn. Dunya was as Blum knew her, but more ravaged, more wounded. She was in the middle of hell and could see no way out. Their faces were devoid of despair, betraying only resignation, a silent cry for release. Silent because they had no strength left, nothing but the wish to die. Dunya said they had longed for death, thought of release all the time, but couldn’t think how to kill themselves. So they had borne the violence and humiliations. Blum endured these brief glimpses into a sick, sick world. The room had been specially prepared. The cages were tiled so the captives could be washed. The dirty zone, the fucking zone, was kept strictly separate. The videos showed feeding time, the kicks and blows they endured while they ate, the lust and rage, the punishment. It was the cook’s project and it amused him. He recorded a voiceover while he filmed the ungrateful little pigs who despised the delicacies from his famous bijou restaurant. She sees Bertl Puch beating them until they bleed, his belt in one hand, his mobile in the other. Punishment was meted out in the dirty zone. Pregnant Ilena lay on the floor, no longer moving. Youn had to eat everything out of the buckets, every last scrap.

Blum sits in Bertl Puch’s apartment and clicks through the videos. In some of them you can see the priest hosing Youn down, washing and tending to him before assaulting him again. She recognises his stature, his voice. And Schönborn is there too, holding his camera. Blum is one hundred per cent sure that’s him, in spite of the mask. She has seen him naked, seen his disassembled parts, she knows it’s him. The cellar is a land outside the law, an orgy where everything is allowed and nothing is forbidden. Not even the anaesthetising darts fired from the hunting rifle. The video shows exactly what Dunya described. She was right, there was nowhere to run.

She doesn’t recognise the fourth man. He wears a larger mask than the others and has an ordinary body. The only thing Blum can say for certain is that he isn’t Schönborn’s father. Johannes Schönborn is stronger and weighs about twenty kilos more than the man in the video. He shrieks with glee as he presses the trigger, he yodels, he sings. What Blum sees disturbs her. It is the performance of a madman. A half-naked man doing a victory dance round the fucking area, which is padded and plush velvet. The huntsman is happy to be shooting, he exudes
joie de vivre
. At the top of his voice, he sings one of the best-known songs in the world,
O sole mio. There is no lovelier sun
. Youn lies on the floor. The huntsman bawls out the song.
Ma n’atu sole cchiù bello, oi né.
He sings ardently, with passion, almost well. If Blum had only heard his voice, she would have liked him.
O sole mio
, while he rapes Youn.

The huntsman is singing to the camera. He poses, it is a private performance for the cook. This little video is telling Blum everything she needs to know because his face is shown, just for a moment. She hadn’t expected him to reveal the mystery himself, to remove his mask for two seconds, just as the video is coming to an end. She makes out his eyes, his nose; he is grinning into the camera, basking in the scene. After two seconds, he puts the mask back on. In those two seconds, she sees the rapist, the murderer, the evidence of his guilt. Blum rewinds the tape, watches it again and again, then presses Stop.

She has seen that face before. She is one hundred per cent sure that she knows him but she has no idea where from. A name goes with that face. He is an actor, the hero of a television series. Blum has seen him while channel-hopping. Something about the wonderful world of the mountains, beautiful landscapes and love. No one would ever have thought he led a double life. He is the huntsman.

Blum rejoices. She was expecting to have to turn the apartment upside down. She was expecting to spend the whole day here, rummaging. But after an hour she is back out on the street. She has found what she was looking for. She has transferred the videos to a USB stick and deleted the originals from his hard disk. She has left no trace. No one will guess the reason for what is going to happen next. Bertl Puch will disappear into thin air, just like that. He won’t be going back to the studio, he won’t be recording any more programmes, he’ll never go back to Kitzbühel, never cook for Kordula Heidmann again. Blum passed sentence the minute she pressed Play. She will take the chef out of circulation. The huntsman too. And quickly.

In Vienna no one stops her, no one persuades her not to do it, no one tells her to abandon her plan, tells her not to phone and meet Puch, not to kill him, not to anaesthetise him, stab him, chop off his head with an axe. She feels intoxicated as she lays plans to get him into her car unseen, take him to Innsbruck and snuff him out like a candle. Press the switch and off goes the light. The light will go out and he will be just another body on her table, skin and fat as she draws her needle through his flesh.

‘Bertl Puch here.’

‘Listen carefully.’

‘Who is this?’

‘If you don’t want your story to be on television, then listen hard. I know everything. I know about the cellar, about Schönborn and the actor. I know what you and the others did, I know you killed the police officer. And the girl as well. There’s evidence, and it is deposited with a notary. If he doesn’t hear from me he is going to hand over the files to the press. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now, don’t put a foot wrong. Go to the end of the street. There’s an underground car park on the right. Go down to the second floor, bay two hundred and four. Wait for me there.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Right behind you.’

‘Where?’

‘In the white car.’

‘What the hell is this about?’

‘I repeat, if you don’t do as I say, your life will become a nightmare.’

‘What do you want from me? Where did you get this phone number?’

‘How do I know that you breed pigs?’

‘I want to know what this is about.’

‘Turn round and continue. Bay two hundred and four. When I park, you will open the boot and get into the coffin.’

‘Do what?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Are you crazy?’

‘The choice is yours: either you get into that coffin or in an hour’s time the world will be watching your delightful home videos.’

‘You’ve been in my apartment?’

‘And your restaurant.’

‘I want to know what you’re after.’

‘I don’t care what you want.’

‘That’s a hearse you’re driving. Are you out of your mind?’

‘It’s a Cadillac Superior, built in 1972. You’ll have a very comfortable ride.’

‘Leave me alone.’

‘I can stay here or I can drive away. The decision is yours.’

‘Who are you? What’s all this shit about? This can’t be happening.’

‘I repeat, if you don’t go into the car park right now, I am off.’

‘You want me to get into a coffin?’

‘That’s right. Bay two hundred and four. You will put your phone on the roof of the car and open the boot. If you try opening the driver’s door or attacking me your life is over. So just get into the coffin and lie down. I’ll get out and close the lid.’

‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘If you don’t obey me, you’re finished.’

In bay two hundred and four, Blum switches the engine off. There are no CCTV cameras trained on this bay. It’s a blind spot. The ideal place to invite the pig-breeder to seal his own fate by entering her trap. Bertl Puch now stands behind the car looking doubtful. Blum can hear him breathing into his phone. The disgusting, oyster-slurping bastard is trying to think of a way out. For ten seconds nothing happens, there’s only the sound of his breathing. Bertl Puch is standing behind the car, wondering whether to run or attack. Blum can see and hear his desperation and fury. She doesn’t want her plan to fail, she doesn’t want him to run for it, so she decides not to wait a second longer. Blum turns the key and puts the car into reverse.
You asked for it
, she says, disconnecting the call.

The cook leaps aside, then tries to stop her. He doesn’t want her to drive away. He bangs on the windows with the palm of his hand. When he shouts
stay
, Blum engages the brake. She turns her head to look at him, a smile playing on her lips.
Don’t be afraid. Just climb in. Trust me
. It is a gracious smile, and he puts his phone on the roof of the car and raises his hands in the air.
I’ll do what you want for now
, those hands say.
I want to know what happens next, what you’re planning. I want another chance. I’ll get an opportunity to kill you. That’s why I’m getting into your fucking coffin, you sick slut.
That’s what his raised hands say, and his eyes and the twist of his mouth. She sees him stare through the window, put his phone on the roof of the Cadillac and open the boot. Like a lamb to the slaughter, Bertl Puch lies down in the coffin. Blum puts her forefinger to her lips just before she closes the lid.
Not a word
, she says as she screws it into place. There is no way he could get out of the coffin unaided. It is Blum’s best model, a massive walnut-wood box, a thing of beauty with a 2,500 euro price tag.

Blum drives away, leaving nothing behind. Bertl Puch has disappeared and no one but Blum will ever set eyes on him again. They’ll look for him, they’ll go through his apartment with a fine-tooth comb, but they won’t find him. No one has any idea that she knows him, no one will suspect Blum because no one knows the truth. No one knows the truth because no one wants to know that the death of the woman in the forensics lab wasn’t accidental. Only Blum knows what happened, she and the cook, the actor and the clown. Blum is on her own.
My life insurance is in a safe-deposit box. A marksman has you in his sights
. There is no police squad to back her up so she gave these words emphasis; she has seen this kind of thing on television, she has read it in books. It worked so well. She has intimidated him with what she knows. The reality scared him and he has cut off every escape route. Bertl Puch got into a coffin of his own free will. Bertl Puch is going to die.

It is afternoon and they are on the autobahn just outside Linz. For over an hour he has been hammering on the lid of the coffin with his fists. Blum listens to music; Freddie Mercury competes with the screams of Bertl Puch. ‘The Show Must Go On’. After a while, the TV chef realises that nothing he can do will make the car stop, that his shouting is pointless. By St Pölten only Freddie can be heard and Blum drives fast. She passes Linz. It’s only a hearse speeding along the autobahn, three and a half hours away from the Tyrol. Three and a half hours breathing in the stench of urine coming from the coffin. Enough time to remember Hagen and that woman.

Blum was ten years old. Hagen made her watch an old lady being prepared for her funeral. It was high summer and hot, and Blum was much too young. Hagen wouldn’t stop tormenting her.
Brünhilde, you stay here. You’re going to watch what I do now. This is your vocation, Brünhilde. But I’m a child
, she had pleaded. He began cutting the old woman’s clothes from her body. She was grossly fat, the most horrible thing Blum had ever seen. Hagen wouldn’t let her leave the room and so Blum cried. It had taken four people to haul the old woman out of the car and lower her by crane onto the preparation table. She was huge; an oversize mountain of flesh, her skin struggling to contain her fat. Blum was disgusted and wanted to run away from the smell. But Hagen took hold of Blum’s arm and held it firmly.
Stay here, Brünhilde. Now you are going to learn how we deal with excrement.
Blum stayed, and Hagen showed her what to do when a corpse’s intestines are still full.

The smell of urine overwhelmed Blum. The old woman had wet herself. Her skin stank, everything about her stank of piss and shit. It came flowing out of her anus, refusing to stop, the tampon Hagen had tried inserting was no match for the torrent. There was shit everywhere, on his white gloves, on the preparation table, on the old woman’s thighs. Hagen’s assistants held her legs in the air, while Hagen stitched the anus up.
This is the only thing to do in a situation like this, Brünhilde. There’s no alternative. We have to stitch up her anus, Brünhilde.
Shit, brown, stinking shit, kept flowing from the fat woman’s body. Blum wasn’t there to help, only to watch, and that made it even worse. On other days, when she had to lend a hand, she didn’t have time to think or feel revulsion. She had to concentrate on pushing the needle through skin and fat. Watching was worse, much worse. She remembers Hagen’s brown fingers swiftly stitching the anus of that fat, dead woman who had covered everything in shit. Those are the images that return every time she smells piss and shit.