pictures appeared in various newspapers. All they wanted was quite simply for the perpetrator to listen to his own conscience and make himself known.
Confess to what he had done, and take his punishment.
It seemed obvious that this move was yet another indication that the police were at a loss and had nothing to work on. No leads, no clues. When he watched the mother — a dark-haired, unexpectedly self-controlled woman of about forty-five — sitting on her sofa and looking him in the eye from his television screen, he felt distinctly uneasy; but the moment she disappeared from the screen, he immediately regained his composure. Acknowledged that from time to time he was bound to be subjected to such attacks of anxiety, but that he would always have the strength to pick himself up again. To find a way out of his weakness. As long as he kept his head.
It was good to know that he had it, that he possessed this essential quality. Strength of mind
Nevertheless he would have liked to talk to her.
Why? he had asked himself.
What would be the point of putting me in jail for five years?
I have killed your son, I regret it with all my heart — but it was an accident, and what would be gained by my contacting the police?
He wondered what her answer would have been. Would she have had anything to reproach him for? The whole business was an accident, and accidents don’t have any culprits. No active participants at all, just factors and objects beyond control.
Later that evening he also toyed with the idea of sending an anonymous message to the family. Or just ringing them up and explaining his point of view. But he realized it was too risky, and he dismissed any such thoughts.
He also dismissed the alternative of trying to arrange for a wreath to be delivered for Wim Felders’ funeral, which took place in a packed Keymer Church on the Saturday ten days after the accident.
For the same reason. The risks.
Apart from relatives and friends, the congregation comprised most of the pupils and teachers from Weger Grammar School plus representatives of various traffic organizations. He read about this in great detail in the Sunday issue of the Neuwe Blatt, but that was also the final large-scale news coverage of the case.
To his surprise he found that on Monday he felt strangely empty.
As if he had lost something.
Like when I lost Marianne, he thought later on, similarly surprised; it was an odd comparison, but then, he needed to relate it to something. Something important in his life. For ten days the horrific happenings had been dominating his whole existence. Seeping into every nook and cranny of his consciousness. Even if he had managed to take control of his panic relatively quickly, it had been present all the time. Lurking, ready to break out. His thoughts had been centred on that hellish car journey almost every second. That slight thud and the jerk of the steering wheel; the rain, the lifeless body of the boy and the slippery ditch… Always present in the background, day and night: and now at last when he was starting to have periods when he didn’t think about it, it felt in a way as if something was missing.
A sort of emptiness.
Like after an eleven-year-long childless marriage… Yes, there were definitely similarities.
During this period it occurred to him that he must be some kind of hermit. Since Marianne left me, nobody has really meant anything to me. Nobody at all. Things happen to me, but I don’t make anything happen. I exist, but I don’t live.
Why haven’t I found myself a new woman? Why have I hardly ever asked myself that question? And now, suddenly, I’m somebody else.
Who? Who am I?
The fact that such thoughts should start occurring to him after he’d run over a young boy was remarkable in itself, of course, but something prevented him from digging too deeply into the situation. He decided instead to take things as they came, and to do something about it for once, and break new ground. And before he knew where he was — before he’d had time to think about it and perhaps have second thoughts — he had invited a woman round for dinner. He happened to meet her in the canteen: she had come to sit at his table — there was a shortage of space, as usual. He didn’t even know if he’d seen her before. Probably not.
But she’d accepted his invitation.
Her name was Vera Miller. She was cheerful and red-haired, and on the Saturday night — just over three weeks since he had killed another human being for the first time in his life — he made love to another woman for the first time in almost four years.
The next morning they made love again, and afterwards she told him that she was married. They discussed it for a while, and he realized that the fact worried her much more than it worried him.
The letter arrived on Monday.
Some time has passed since you murdered the boy. I have been waiting for your conscience to wake up, but I now realize that you are a weak person who doesn’t have the courage to own up to what you have done.
I have irrefutable evidence which will put you in jail the moment I hand it over to the police. My silence will cost you ten thousand — a piffling amount for a man of your stature, but nevertheless I shall give you a week (exactly seven days) to produce the money. — Do the necessary.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
A friend
Handwritten. With neat, sloping letters. Black ink.
He read it over and over again, five times.
4
‘Is something bothering you?’ Vera Miller asked as they were eating their evening meal. ‘You seem a bit subdued.’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘It’s nothing,’ he assured her. ‘I just feel a bit out of sorts. I think I have a temperature.’
‘I hope it’s nothing to do with me? With us, I mean.’
She swirled the wine in her glass and eyed him solemnly.
‘No, of course not…’
He tried to laugh, but could hear that he produced a rasping sound. He took a swig of wine instead.
‘I think it’s all started so well, you and me I mean,’ she said. ‘I so much want there to be a second chapter, and a third as well.’
‘Of course. Forgive me, I’m a bit on the tired side — but it’s nothing to do with you. I think the same as you… I promise you that.’
She smiled and caressed his arm.
‘Good. I’d almost forgotten that making love could be as enjoyable as this. It’s incredible that you’ve been lying fallow for four years. How could that happen?’
‘I was waiting for you,’ he said. ‘Shall we go to bed?’
When she left him on Sunday, he found himself longing for her almost immediately. They had made love until well into the early hours, and it was just as she had said: it was almost incredible that it could be as satisfying as this. He crept back into bed and burrowed his head into the pillow. Breathed in her scent and tried to go back to sleep, but in vain. The vacuum was too vast. This really was amazing, bloody amazing.
The biggest difference in the world, he thought. That between a woman still in your bed, and a woman who has just left. A woman you love. A new woman?
He gave up after a while. Went to collect the newspaper, had breakfast and then took out the letter again.
It wasn’t necessary, of course. He knew it off by heart. Every single formulation, every single word, every single letter. Nevertheless, he read it through again twice. Felt the paper — high-quality stuff, no doubt about it;
