‘Why would you be doing it in the half-dark?’
Carla let her frustration show. ‘I don’t know, Mother. If we’re asked, I’ll have to make something up. But the body can’t stay here.’
‘They’ll know he’s been murdered, when they find the body. They’ll examine the injuries.’
Carla, too, was worried about that. ‘Nothing we can do.’
‘They may try to investigate where he went today.’
‘He said he had not told anyone about his piano lessons. He wanted to astonish his friends with his skill. With luck, no one knows he came here.’
And without luck, Carla thought, we’re all dead. ‘What will they guess to be the motive for the murder?’
‘Will they find traces of semen in his underwear?’
Maud looked away, embarrassed. ‘Yes.’
‘Then they will imagine a sexual encounter, perhaps with another man, that ended in a quarrel.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
Carla was not at all sure, but she could not think of anything they could do about it. ‘The canal,’ she said. The body would float, and be found sooner or later; and there would be a murder investigation. They would just have to hope it did not lead to them.
Carla opened the front door.
She stood at the front of the wardrobe on its left, and Ada positioned herself at the back on the right. They bent down.
Ada, who undoubtedly had more experience of heavy lifting than her employers, said: ‘Tilt it sideways and get your hands under it.’
Carla did as she said.
‘Now lift your end a little.’
Carla did so.
Ada got her hands underneath her end and said: ‘Bend your knees. Take the weight. Straighten up.’
They raised the wardrobe to hip height. Ada bent down and got her shoulder underneath. Carla did the same.
The two women straightened up.
The weight tilted to Carla as they went down the steps from the front door, but she could bear it. When they reached the street, she turned towards the canal, a few blocks away.
It was now full dark, with no moon but a few stars shedding a faint light. With the blackout, there was a good chance no one would see them tip the wardrobe into the water. The disadvantage was that Carla could hardly see where she was going. She was terrified she would stumble and fall, and the wardrobe would smash to splinters, revealing the murdered man inside.
An ambulance drove by, its headlights covered by slit masks. It was probably hurrying to a road accident. There were many during the blackout. That meant there would be police cars in the vicinity.
Carla recalled a sensational murder case from the beginning of the blackout. A man had killed his wife, forced her body into a packing-case, and carried it across town on the seat of his bicycle in the dark before dropping it in the Havel river. Would the police remember the case and suspect anyone transporting a large object?
As she thought that, a police car drove by. A cop stared out at the two women with their wardrobe, but the car did not stop.
The burden seemed to get heavier. It was a warm night, and soon Carla was running with perspiration. The wood hurt her shoulder, and she wished she had thought of putting a folded handkerchief inside her blouse as a cushion.
They turned a corner and came upon the accident.
An eight-wheeler articulated truck carrying timber had collided head-on with a Mercedes saloon car which had been badly crushed. The police car and the ambulance were shining their headlights on to the wreckage. In a little pool of faint light, a group of men gathered around the car. The crash must have happened in the last few minutes, for there were still people inside the car. An ambulance man was leaning in at the back door, probably examining the injuries to see whether the passengers could be moved.
Carla was momentarily terrified. Guilt froze her and she stopped in her tracks. But no one had noticed her and Ada and the wardrobe, and after a moment she realized she just needed to steal away, double back, and take a different route to the canal.
She began to turn; but just then an alert policeman shone a flashlight her way.
She was tempted to drop the wardrobe and run, but she held her nerve.
The cop said: ‘What are you up to?’
‘Moving a wardrobe, officer,’ she said. Recovering her presence of mind, she faked a grisly curiosity to cover her guilty nervousness. ‘What happened here?’ she said. For good measure she added: ‘Is anyone dead?’
Professionals disliked this kind of vampire inquisitiveness, she knew – she was a professional herself. As she expected, the policeman reacted dismissively. ‘None of your
