Woman of the Dead (25 page)

Reza strikes him. At the very moment when her lips touch Massimo’s for the last time. Reza is suddenly there; she sees his face, his anger and the iron bar that takes away her fear. There is just the dull, heavy sound of Massimo falling as though Reza had flicked a switch. The clown loses consciousness and they set to work; they have no time to think, they mustn’t linger here. Everything goes to plan: they carry him to the garage and put him in the coffin. Reza ties him up with the tape. There is no lid on the coffin, so he can see where he is when he comes round. Blum goes back into the kitchen, empties the wine down the sink and washes the glasses. She meticulously wipes everything she has touched, she switches off the music and the light and leaves the house.

This time, they drive only five kilometres. No one stops them; there’s nothing unusual about a hearse coming to a halt at a set of traffic lights; no one knows that a defenceless police officer is lying in a coffin in the back, tightly bound with sticky tape. Everything is as it should be. Reza is driving, observing all the rules of the road. They steal through the city with their cargo: Massimo Dollinger, husband of Ute Dollinger, father to no one, police officer, criminal investigation department. Only they know that he is going to die, and within the next hour. Reza and Blum don’t exchange a word. They ignore the fact that he has come round and is kicking the walls of the coffin. That doesn’t trouble them; nor does the fact he is groaning now. However loudly he shouts, however afraid he is, she remembers that Dunya’s fear was greater, and so was the fear felt by Ilena and Youn. It was much greater, wider, deeper, and lasted so much longer than the time it takes to drive through the city. In the five minutes before Reza switches off the engine, Blum remembers everything she has seen, everything Dunya told Mark. The things he did are beyond her comprehension.

They reach the car park just before midnight. There is no one there to take any notice; they park close to the gate, as they usually do. Corpses can be delivered outside opening hours; the undertakers have keys. Tonight the hearse will stay in the car park longer than usual but no one will think anything of it, because no one comes here in the middle of the night. They feel calm here, on familiar terrain. For a long time Reza used to earn extra money doing shifts here, and he knows that the only CCTV cameras are trained on the main entrance. He also knows that they will be alone here all night. It is Friday, and the building has emptied for the weekend. No one will disturb them, no one will hear Massimo kicking up a fuss: good old Massimo. He hasn’t figured out where they have brought him. He is bellowing furiously, but only groaning can be heard. He struggles in vain as they put him on a trolley and wheel him down a corridor into the main room. Slowly the truth is dawning. He desperately tries to sit up, his eyes enormous when he sees the furnace, when he hears Blum say
This is the end of the line, you bastard
.

They are in Innsbruck crematorium. It is on the edge of the industrial estate, a free-standing building where the dead turn to ash. It takes two and a half hours to cremate a body. Then the remains are taken out of the furnace; the nails, screws, pacemakers and artificial joints are removed by magnet and thrown away; everything else goes in a grinder. Bits of bone that haven’t burned right down, for instance, producing a sound like a coffee mill, but after a few minutes only fine ash is left. All in all, about two kilos of ash will remain, depending on the body’s size and weight. The process is clean and effective, and it doesn’t leave a trace of blood. Reza knows every process: he knows which button to press to open the furnace door and which to press to close it. He sits down at the computer for a moment and enters a number. The cremations are numbered consecutively, so he just reuses the number of the last one. No one will notice that Number 19,654 has been used twice. He smiles, because he knows that on Monday the head of the crematorium will open up, drink his coffee, read his newspaper and remain completely oblivious. He will fetch the body from the cool room, enter 19,655 into the programme, get the coffin on to the hydraulic ramp and press the button. He won’t suspect a thing because nothing will remain of Massimo Dollinger.

They take the coffin off the trolley and over to the hydraulic ramp. Blum observes his desperation, his rage and fear. He tries to break free, he flings his body back and forth, and the coffin wobbles as it rises in the air. It stops at chest height. Massimo turns his scarlet face to Blum, a defenceless, panic-stricken monster with eyes ablaze. All he can move is his head, ninety degrees to the left, ninety degrees to the right. However much he wants to leap up and attack her, he can’t. All he can do is talk: tell the truth, humiliate himself, beg for forgiveness. Blum comes very close and whispers that he is about to die.
In five minutes’ time you’ll be burning. You can keep shouting or you can talk to me. The decision is yours
. She withdraws her face from his and stands there watching him compose himself. How quickly he changes. He calms his body and waits for her to tear off the sticky tape. Massimo knows he must do as she says, he knows he mustn’t make a false move, mustn’t provoke her. His eyes wander back and forth, he is feverishly thinking. Blum knows him well. He’d do anything to save his skin, he will talk for his life.

‘Why, Massimo?’

‘I’m so sorry, Blum.’

‘That’s not what I want to hear.’

‘If I could turn the clock back—’

‘Stop it.’

‘You must believe me. Mark was my friend.’

‘For the last time, this is not what I want to hear.’

‘What do you want to hear, then?’

‘Why the cellar?’

‘It just happened, Blum.’

‘Happened?’

‘It happened by chance. The neighbours called the police. I was in Kitzbühel on a surveillance mission. I thought I’d give my uniformed colleagues a hand, and I followed up the call.’

‘When was this?’

‘Four and a half years ago.’

‘Were you on your own?’

‘It was the middle of the night, I was awake anyway, so I thought I’d go and see what was up for myself.’

‘And what was up?’

‘The neighbours had heard screams.’

‘Yes?’

‘I rang the bell, I knocked on the door, then I climbed in. The cellar window was open.’

‘Go on.’

‘They were raping her, four of them. Men with their trousers down wearing masks. They’d left the window open by mistake, and the girl was screaming so loudly that she could be heard from the street. She wouldn’t stop screaming. I didn’t know what to do. I had to keep the men in my sights; I shouldn’t have answered the call alone. I was in extreme circumstances, Blum.’

‘So what
did
you do?’

‘I hit her on the head with my gun.’

‘Why?’

‘I had no option.’

‘So instead of helping her, you hit her?’

‘I wanted to shut her up. I had to get the situation under control, and I was afraid the four men might attack me. They were wearing masks. I was afraid, Blum.’

‘You had a gun.’

‘I panicked.’

‘Which of them was it? Dunya or Ilena?’

‘Ilena.’

‘And you didn’t help her.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know.’

Blum listens to what he has to say. He is trying to justify his decision to stay, not to call for reinforcements but to talk to the men. He talked to them upstairs in the deserted restaurant while Ilena was lying unconscious and anaesthetised below. When they removed their masks, Massimo simply closed the doors and windows and went back to the outside world. He turned a blind eye, then he let temptation lead him. He’d seen the land of Cockaigne, a secret place where everything was permitted and he answered to no one. In this place, he couldn’t hear Ute wailing that God had overlooked her, that her life was pointless without a child. He talks about Ute, about how she rejected him and wouldn’t let him touch her, how she made him feel it was all his fault. Her husband wasn’t a real man, he was a failure who couldn’t even give her a child. She told him so every day and the humiliation made his life unbearable. It only happened because of the trouble with Ute, he said. That was what caused his false move, that night in the cellar.

Massimo is lying in his spruce coffin on the verge of tears. His mouth opens and closes, and Blum watches Mark’s eternally kind, helpful friend. His voice is calm, he sounds almost meek, you would never imagine that he is capable of what he did. That he bought himself a brightly coloured mask and returned to the girls’ tormentors. He had them in the palm of his hand: it was easy to come to an agreement with the priest and the cook, the huntsman and the photographer. They did as he asked; they accepted this new member of their club. Four became five, and all because they had forgotten to close a window.

His eyes lock with hers, as though somehow he can latch on to her and haul himself up that way. They are small, sad eyes, as unimpressive as everything else about him. Briefly, the monster is calm, briefly the kindliness is back, for a moment she even pities him for being who he is. But only for a moment. She tries to remind herself of the old times, when the world was still intact. There is a wild beast slumbering behind those eyes, prowling up and down, scraping its hooves in the sand, ready to bite. It would pounce and rip into her throat without hesitation.

But he knows the beast cannot attack; he sees in her face that it makes no difference what he says. It’s over. He hears the resolution in every word she speaks. Blum wants him to die. In her cold, hard stare, he sees there is no way out. So the wind changes again and the storm inside him rises. The wild beast of his fury returns.

‘What happened to the others?’

‘They’re dead.’

‘I don’t believe you’re capable of that, Blum.’

‘That was exactly your mistake.’

‘You killed them?’

‘I got them ready for their funerals.’

‘No.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘And you think you’re better than me?’

‘I do.’

‘Well, you’re wrong.’

‘You hit and kicked the girl until she lost her baby. She bled to death. And then you just threw her away.’

‘And you decapitated a priest.’

‘Yes, and now I’m going to burn you.’

‘You won’t go through with this.’

‘I will, for Mark.’

‘Blum, this is ridiculous.’

‘You were the worst of them all.’

‘That’s what your little friend told you, did she?’

‘Yes.’

‘If she’d only kept her mouth shut she’d still be alive. I wouldn’t have had to hold her head under water. She wouldn’t have ended up in the River Inn like the boy.’

‘You bastard.’

‘It’s a shame we had to close our little club. Your husband and that little cunt insisted on trying to save the day.’

‘Stop.’

‘I had a lot of fun with Dunya, the little slut. We were very fond of her. It was silly of her to run away.’

‘I told you to stop.’

‘I was very surprised to see her in the girls’ bedroom after I’d fucked you. There was no keeping that little tart down.’

‘I said—’

‘She was really good in the sack, believe me. I’m sure Mark would have told you the same.’

‘Stop!’

‘That’s not all—’

‘Yes it is.’

She doesn’t want to hear another word, she doesn’t want to know a thing more, she wants rid of him. Her finger depresses the button and he begins to scream. The furnace door opens and the coffin slides in, feet first. Massimo roars but no one can hear his curses, no one can come to his aid. Blum and Reza stand side by side, fingers intertwined, watching the spectacle unfold. They don’t move; they do nothing to stop what is coming next, they just stand hand in hand watching the furnace door. How Massimo screams, but only for a moment. Then everything is still and, suddenly, it’s just the two of them.

It is the middle of the night and they are getting used to the feeling that everything will be all right. He burns for two hours. They sit on the floor in front of the furnace, waiting. They don’t talk but they are still holding hands. From time to time Blum gets up and looks through the window to get a glimpse of Massimo’s disintegrating body. As she watches the fire rage at seven hundred and fifty degrees, she gets the sense that life will become easier. They re-emerge into the night and drive along the autobahn. Nothing is left of Massimo but ashes in a plastic bag. By the time they stop at the service station, she is convinced that she will survive. She drops him into the dirty toilet and flushes him away.

‘Blum?’

‘Yes.’

‘May I ask you something?’

‘Anything you like.’

‘And afterwards we don’t ever have to talk about it again.’

‘About what?’

‘You know I’m on your side. Always have been, always will be. But you’ve got to tell me the truth.’

‘You’re scaring me, Mark.’

‘Everything’s all right, Blum.’

‘Is it? You sound odd. What is it?’

‘I want to know if you had a reason.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Whether they deserved it.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Your parents.’

‘What about them?’

‘Did they deserve to drown?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I just want you to tell me that it had to happen.’

‘Tell you what?’

‘That they deserved it. Tell me. That’s all I want to know.’

‘Please stop this, Mark.’

‘I love you, Blum. You know that. But you must answer my question.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t want to feel afraid.’

‘Of me?’

‘Yes, of you. And if you tell me there was a reason then I can understand. Understand you. And that you did it. Please tell me, Blum.’

‘How long have you known?’

‘I’ve known all along. I could read it in your eyes.’

‘You’re a police officer.’

‘I’m your husband. And that’s why I have to know. I promise, I’ll never mention it again. But just this once tell me why.’

‘They drowned.’

‘I want to live with you, Blum, and some day I want us to have children.’