Borkmann's Point (27 page)

Münster could see of her were the chains, her mass of tousled
hair and the hands she was holding over her eyes.

Before doing as she’d asked, Van Veeteren shone the beam
around the walls for a few seconds.
Then he muttered something unintelligible and switched
off.
Münster fumbled his way over to her. Raised her to her
feet...she leaned heavily on him, and it was clear that he
would have to carry her. He carefully lifted her up, and noticed
that he was still crying.
“How are you?” he managed to blurt out as she laid her
head on his shoulder, and his voice sounded surprisingly
steady.
“Not too good,” she whispered. “Thank you for coming.”
“No problem,” said Van Veeteren. “I ought to have realized
sooner, though...I’m afraid you’ll have to keep the chains on
for a bit longer. We don’t have the right equipment with us.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Beate Moerk. “But when you’ve got
them off, I want a bathroom for three hours.”
“Of course,” said Van Veeteren. “You’ve built up plenty of
overtime.”
Then he started to lead them back.

Kropke and Mooser were already waiting for them on the
patio.
“He’s not at home,” said Kropke.
“Oh, shit,” said Van Veeteren.
“You can put me down if you like,” said Beate Moerk. “I
might be able to walk...”
“Out of the question,” said Münster.
“Where the hell is he?” grunted Van Veeteren. “It’s half
past five in the morning... shouldn’t he be in his goddamn
bed?”
Beate Moerk had opened her eyes, but was shading them
with her hand from the faint light of dawn.
“He was with me not long ago,” she said.
“Not long ago?” said Kropke.
“I have a bit of a problem with judging time,” she
explained. “An hour...maybe two.”
“He didn’t say where he was going?” asked Van Veeteren.
Beate Moerk searched her mind.
“No,” she said. “But he wanted a sign, he said—”
“A sign?” said Mooser.
“Yes.”
Van Veeteren thought that over for a while. He lit a cigarette and started pacing up and down over the paving stones.
“Hmm,” he said eventually and came to a halt. “Yes, that’s
possible, of course...why not? Münster!”
“Yes.”
“See to it that the chains are removed and get Inspector
Moerk to the hospital.”
“Home,” said Beate Moerk.
Van Veeteren muttered.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll send a doctor instead.”
She nodded.
“Kropke and Mooser, come with me!”

“Where do you think he is?” asked Kropke when Münster and
Moerk had left.

“With his family,” said Van Veeteren. “Where he belongs.”
“I’ll be all right,” said Beate Moerk.
“Sure?”
“Of course. A spell in the bath and I’ll be a rose again.”
“The doctor will be here in half an hour. I’d prefer to stay

until then.”
“No, thank you,” she said with a faint smile. “Get back to
your family now.”
He paused, his hand on the door handle.
“That report ...” he said. “How much of it did you read, in
fact?”
She laughed.
“All right, I’ll come clean. Nothing. It was the pagination
that intrigued me. When I handed over the original, I looked at
the last page and saw that it numbered thirty-five, at the bottom...I think I said something about it at the time.”
“True,” said Münster, remembering the moment.
“There were no numbers on the copy... that’s all. I didn’t
know a thing about his daughter when I drove to the station.
I’ve only been working here for four years; she was dead when
I started. I just wanted to check if I could find anything in the
copying room. I suppose he must have seen me when I arrived,
or as I was leaving... that’s all. Maybe it was pure coincidence; I don’t know if he thought I knew something. Anything
else you’re wondering about?”
Münster shook his head.
“Well, quite a bit in fact,” he said. “But it can wait.”
“Go now,” she said. “But give me a hug first, if you can
stand the stink.”
“Come on, I’ve been carrying you around all morning,”
said Münster, throwing his arms around her.
“Ouch,” said Beate Moerk.
“So long, then,” said Münster. “Look after yourself.”
“You too.”

He saw him from some considerable distance away.
In the faint light of dawn, he was standing in the same place
as he’d been that evening, right at the beginning.
Back then, when he’d chosen not to approach him. Not to
disturb his sorrow.
Like then, he had his hands thrust deep into his pockets.
Head bowed. He was standing perfectly still, legs wide apart,
as if he’d been waiting for a long time and wanted to make
sure that he didn’t lose his balance.
Concentrating hard. Deep in what might have been prayer,
Van Veeteren thought, but perhaps he was simply waiting.
Waiting for something to happen.
Or perhaps it was just sorrow. His back made it so clear he
didn’t want to be disturbed that Van Veeteren hesitated to
approach. He gestured to Kropke and Mooser to keep their distance...so that he would have him to himself for at least a
short while.
borkmann ’ s point

“Good morning,” he said when there were only a couple of
yards left, and Bausen must have heard his footsteps in the
gravel. “I’m coming now.”

“Good morning,” said Bausen, without moving.
Van Veeteren put his hand on Bausen’s shoulder. Stood still
for a while, reading what it said on the headstone.
Brigitte Bausen
6 ⁄18 ⁄ 1961
^–
9 ⁄30 ⁄ 1988
Helena Bausen
2 ⁄3 ⁄1932
^–
9 ⁄ 27⁄ 1991

“Yesterday?” said Van Veeteren.
Bausen nodded.
“Five years ago. As you can see, her mother didn’t quite

make it in the end...but
she was only three days short.”
They stood in silence for a while. Van Veeteren could hear
Kropke coughing in the background, and held up a warning
hand without looking around.
“I ought to have realized sooner,” he said. “You’ve given me
a few signs.”
Bausen didn’t answer at first. Shrugged his shoulders, and
shook his head.
“Signs,” he said eventually. “I don’t receive any signs...I’ve
been standing here, waiting, for quite a long time, not just
right now...”
“I know,” said Van Veeteren. “Perhaps... perhaps the
absence of any is a sign in itself.”
Bausen raised his eyes.
“God’s silence?” He shuddered, and looked Van Veeteren in
the eye. “I’m sorry about Moerk...have you released her?”
“Yes.”
“I needed somebody to explain everything to. Didn’t realize
that before I took her, but that’s how it was. I never thought of
killing her.”
“Of course not,” said Van Veeteren. “When did you gather
that I’d caught on?”
Bausen hesitated.
“That last game of chess, perhaps. But I wasn’t sure—”
“Nor was I,” said Van Veeteren. “I had trouble finding a
motive.”
“But you know now?”
“I think so. Kropke did a bit of research yesterday...what
a disgusting mess.”
“Moerk knows all about it. You can ask her. I haven’t the
strength to go through it all again. I’m so tired.”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“That telephone call yesterday . . .” said Bausen. “I wasn’t
fooled; it was more a question of being polite, if you’ll excuse me?”
“No problem,” said Van Veeteren. “It was an opening gambit I’d made up myself.”
“More of an endgame,” said Bausen. “I thought it took you
a bit long, even so...”
“My car broke down,” said Van Veeteren. “Shall we go?”
“Yes,” said Bausen. “Let’s.”

October
2
The beach was endless.

Van Veeteren paused and gazed out to sea. There were big
waves, for once. A fresh wind was gathering strength, and on
the horizon a dark cloud bank was growing more ominous. No
doubt it would be raining by evening.

“I think we should go back now,” he said.

Münster nodded. They’d been walking for more than half
an hour. Synn had promised a meal by three o’clock, and the
children would no doubt need some cleaning up before they
would be allowed at the table.

“Bart!” yelled Münster, waving. “We’re going back now!”

“All right!” shouted the six-year-old, completing his final
attack on the enemy buried in the sand.
“I’m tired,” said Münster’s daughter. “Carry me!”
He lifted her onto his shoulders, and they started walking
slowly back along the beach.
“How is he?” asked Münster when he felt that Marieke had
fallen asleep and Bart was sufficiently far ahead.
“Not too bad,” said Van Veeteren. “He’s not that concerned
about the future. The main thing is that he’s done what he had
to do.”
“Did he want to be caught?”
“No, but it didn’t matter very much either. He was in an
impossible position once Moerk started on his trail, of course.”
Münster thought for a moment.
“How many lines were there about Brigitte Bausen in the
Melnik report, in fact?” he said. “There can’t have been all that
much—”
“Exactly one page. About that year they were living together, that is. Her name was mentioned twice. Melnik had no
idea, of course; not even he can know the names of every chief
of police in the country. If he’d had a bit more time—Bausen,
that is—he could have substituted another name instead of
removing a whole page. If he had, he might have gotten away
with it. But we were standing waiting for him, more or less,
and for Christ’s sake, we were bound to have noticed that
something funny was going on.”
Münster nodded.
“I find it hard to see that what he did was so dreadful,” he
said. “Morally speaking, I mean—”
“Yes,” said Van Veeteren. “You might say that he had every
right—maybe not to cut the heads off three people—but to do
something about his enormous sorrow.”
He fumbled around in his pockets and produced a pack of
cigarettes. Was forced to stop and cup his hand around the
lighter before he could produce a flame.
“Enormous sorrow and enormous determination,” he said,
“those are the main ingredients in this dish. Those are Moerk’s
words, not mine, but they’re pretty good as a summary. Sorrow and determination—and necessity. The world we live in is
not a nice place—but we’ve been aware of that for quite some
time, haven’t we?”
They walked in silence for a while. Münster remembered
something else Beate Moerk had said about her conversations
with Bausen in the cellar.
Life imposes certain conditions upon us, she reported that
he said. If we don’t accept the challenge, we become petrified.
We don’t have any real choice.
Petrified? Was that right? Was that really what it looked
like—this vain battle against evil? Where the result, no matter
how puny and unsuccessful it might turn out to be, was nevertheless the important thing; where only the deed itself, the
principle, had any significance?
And the only reward was to avoid petrification. Only?
Perhaps that was enough.
But the lives of three people—?
“What do you think?” Van Veeteren interrupted his train of
thought. “What punishment would you give him if it were up
to you?”
“In the best of all worlds?”
“In the best of all worlds.”
“I don’t know,” said Münster. “What do you think?”
Van Veeteren considered for a while.
“Not easy,” he said. “Lock him up in the cellar, perhaps, like
he did with Moerk. But in rather more humane conditions, of
course—a lamp, some books... and a corkscrew.”
They fell silent again. Walked side by side down to the
water’s edge and let their summaries sink in. The wind was
growing stronger. It came in gusts, which you could almost
lean into at times, Münster felt. Bart came running up with
some new finds for his collection of stones. He off-loaded
them into his father’s pockets and raced ahead again. When
the low whitewashed cottage came into view once more, Van
Veeteren cleared his throat.
“In any case,” he said, “he’s the most likable murderer I’ve
ever come across. It’s not often you have an opportunity of
mixing so much with them either—before you put them
behind bars, that is.”
Münster looked up. There was a new tone in Van
Veeteren’s voice, a totally surprising hint of self-irony. Something he’d never detected before, and could barely imagine. It
was suddenly hard to hold back a smile.
“How did the chess go?” he asked.
“I won, of course,” said Van Veeteren. “What the hell do
you think? It took some time, that’s all.”

A few hours later he went to the water’s edge one last time. He
lit his last cigarette as well, and stood there all alone until it was
finished, contemplating the agitated breakers rolling in toward
the shore.

Things were breathing again. Both sky and sea—the same
threatening gray-violet combination, the same irresistible force;
and when he felt the first drop of rain in his hand, he turned his
back on it all and made his way up toward his car.

Time to get away from here, he thought.
The curtain has fallen. The tragedy is over.
Exit Oedipus. Exit Van Veeteren.
He started the car. Switched on the headlights as darkness

fell rapidly, and set off inland.
And yet, it might not be for good. Perhaps Kaalbringen would
have the pleasure of entertaining his presence again...

For even retired Axmen must eventually be allowed time
out on parole. And even the narrowest of leads at chess must
allow a challenge.

What wouldn’t one do for a decent glass of wine?
Thought Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren as he
started groping in the glove compartment for Penderecki.
a note about the author

Håkan Nesser was awarded the
1993 Swedish Crime Writers’
Academy Prize for new authors for his novel
The Wide-Meshed
Net;
he received the best novel award in 1994 for
Borkmann’s
Point
and in 1996 for
Woman with a Birthmark.
In 1999, he was
awarded the Glass Key Award by the Crime Writers of Scandinavia for the best crime novel of the year,
Carambole.
His novels
have been published to acclaim in nine countries. Nesser was
born in 1950 in Sweden, where he still lives.

a note about the tr anslator

Laurie Thompson taught Swedish at the University of Wales
and was editor of
Swedish Book Review
from its launch in 1983
until 2002. He has been a full-time literary translator for several
years and has translated nearly forty books from Swedish. He
was born in York, but now lives in rural west Wales with several
cats and a Swedish wife.