“The way what’s going to work?” she said with mock innocence. “Oh, this. No, I don’t imagine it will.”
“You split it?”
Lina said, “You’re awfully concerned with how I’m getting on. At tea today, wondering whether the flowers were enough, now my rent.”
“Sorry,” said Hoffner. “I won’t ask anymore.”
“No. It’s nice.”
“Good.” Hoffner finished off his cracker. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
She casually placed her glass back on the table. “Forty. Yes. We split it. Twenty each.”
Hoffner watched as her neck twisted with the movement. It was almost a perfect neck. “That’s not the question I meant.”
She turned back. “I know. I haven’t come up with an answer for that one, yet.” Without waiting for him, she reached over and took his glass. She set it on the table, then did the same with the plate. Hoffner knew exactly what was coming, yet he did nothing. He sat there as she moved closer, as she untied her dressing gown and let it drop off her shoulders. It spilled into a pool of silk by her thighs. She was wearing a nightgown beneath, pale white and thin, with two ribbon straps over her shoulders. Her small breasts were almost lost, save for the deep crimson of her nipples that puckered at the cloth.
Hoffner could smell the tangy sweetness of the rosewater in her hair. Her neck arced slightly, and he could see a thin ridge of powder that had gone unsmoothed by her chin. He felt a distant weakness in his arms and legs.
She slowly took his hand and placed it on her waist. “How many do I make, Nikolai?” she said. Hoffner felt a heat below the gown, the suppleness of her skin. “Girls like me,” she said. “The ones that mattered. How many?”
Hoffner followed the moisture of her lips. Without warning, he pulled her into him. He saw her eyes widen as she let out a sudden breath. She showed no vulnerability, no guile. He could taste the saltiness of her breath.
“How many?” she said.
“Six,” he answered without having to consider the number for even a moment.
Lina’s smile returned. The total was irrelevant. All she had wanted was an answer. She placed her hand on his cheek and brought him into her.
Twenty minutes later, Hoffner was asleep, his naked backside still glistening from the exertion. Lina pulled the blanket over him. She liked the weight of his arms and chest on her, the thick flesh of his back as his breathing grew heavier. He had taken her without reserve, and had left her spent. She had never felt such hunger in a partner. She could still feel him inside her, a deep vacancy where he had been. She imagined what it would be like to be loved by this man. She felt no less empty.
At one o’clock she woke him. Hoffner roused himself slowly. He had been dreaming, something to do with wild dogs and Georgi. He felt as if he had been running for hours. He dressed quietly and finished off his glass. Lina sat and watched him from the bed; she was relieved that there would be no need for a repeat performance. She held the blanket around her naked shoulders as she brought him to the door.
“You don’t ask any questions about Hans,” she said.
Hoffner half smiled and shook his head. “No.”
She ran her hand along his chest. “That’s good.” She kissed him.
An hour later, Hoffner dropped his pants and shirt at the foot of his bed and crawled in next to Martha; she hardly seemed to breathe. With the scent of Lina still fresh on him, Hoffner placed his arm around Martha’s back and was asleep within minutes. No dreams. Instead, for the first time in weeks, he slept through the night.
On his third time through the notes, Hoffner wrote: “No pleasure or purpose in it; no imperative; kills because he can.” Fichte was on his knees at the foot of the desk, busy with one more stack of papers that he had just pulled from his valise. He had come directly from the train and had been pleasantly surprised to find Hoffner in an almost buoyant mood. There was nothing to apologize for; van Acker had been right: best to get it all here as quickly as possible. Fichte had decided not to question his good fortune. For Hoffner, though, the clear evidence of van Acker’s hand in the choice of documents had been far more important than the speed. As far as he could tell, the Belgian had sent along everything they might need. Unfortunately, it would be another hour before Fichte would have the papers in any kind of presentable order, but at least they were here.
Unwilling to wait, Hoffner had started in on what looked to be the most self-contained and thus coherent of the packets. It was the transcript of van Acker’s first interview with Wouters, dated October 7, 1916, two days after Wouters had been taken into custody. Not surprisingly, it was making for some rather interesting, if disturbing, reading:
REPORT CASE #: 00935
SUSPECT: WOUTERS
INTERROGATOR: ACKERS
7 OCTOBER 1916
CI van Acker: So you killed your grandmother. Anne Wouters.
M. Wouters: Yes.
CI van Acker: Because of the way she treated you.
M. Wouters: Because I had the bristle.
CI van Acker: So you deserved the beatings?
M. Wouters: (Pause) I don’t know. I don’t think so.
CI van Acker: And you were pleased to kill her. As you said, to “watch the blood flow down her neck.”
M. Wouters: (Pause) I don’t think I understand.
CI van Acker: You liked watching her die.
M. Wouters: No. Why should I like watching her die?
CI van Acker: Because she had been beating you. Because of the scars on your back.
M. Wouters: I don’t think so. I don’t know. (Pause) Would it be better if that was why?
CI van Acker: If what was why, Mr. Wouters?
M. Wouters: Would it be better if it was because of the scars on my back? Would that be right?
CI van Acker: (Pause) Are you sorry your grandmother is dead?
M. Wouters: You’re asking the same question again.
CI van Acker: No, I haven’t asked that question.
M. Wouters: Yes. Yes, you did.
CI van Acker: I can assure you, I didn’t.
M. Wouters: Yes. You asked if I was pleased to kill her. “To watch the blood flow down her neck.” You see.
CI van Acker: (Pause) And you buried her outside the city.
M. Wouters: Yes.
CI van Acker: “In the soft earth near the Shripte factory.”
M. Wouters: Yes. The dirt smelled like coal, there.
CI van Acker: Like coal. I see. (Pause) So if there was nothing wrong with what you did, Mr. Wouters, why not tell the police when they asked you about her disappearance?
M. Wouters: Tell them? (Pause) They didn’t find the blood. I cleaned that. With a brush.
Hoffner reread the last line, then sat back and peered across at the map. He continued to think. “Kills because he can.” It was the same conclusion van Acker had drawn two years ago; Hoffner saw no reason to question it now. For Wouters, brutality carried no moral weight, no meaning beyond the act itself. His answers made that abundantly clear: there was no remorse, no pride, no delight in the killing. And yet, strangely enough, Wouters was neither cold nor detached in his responses. Van Acker’s notes said as much. It was as if Wouters had been genuinely confused by van Acker’s horror and disbelief.
