when he left home. The idea that eventually he would have to adopt a different strategy, would have to work out practical new tactics and courses of action, was as yet merely a thought dormant in the back of his mind; or at least was not something hanging over him, demanding that he should do something. Even so, these days were filled with the complicated actions and routines necessary to enable him to enjoy the blessing of sleeping in a state of unconscious intoxication.
Dreamless sleep for eight hours. Dead to the world. Beyond reach of everything and everyone. In the morning he would wake up sweating profusely, and with a headache strong enough to keep all other sensations miles away. Then, simply by taking a couple of tablets and preparing himself yet again for the afternoon hours spent on the streets and in cafes, he had set the warped wheels of time turning once more. Gained another day.
By the seventh night it was over, this purifying, cauterizing alcohol bath. The desired distance had been achieved, his fear was in check, and he needed to apply himself to the strategies once more.
Scrutinized and filtered through a week of turbid, soothing whiskey, the proportions of his opponent had become possible to assess accurately. He could envisage her again. His faux pas and the fiasco in Berkinshaam, followed by the shocking murder of Innings, had elevated her out of the real world-the murderer was a phantom that couldn't be stopped, a superwoman; the only thing he could possibly do was go into hiding and wait. Vanish. Go underground, and hope.
That is why he had run away. Made himself invisible. Not just stuck his head in the sand, but dug down and concealed all of him. Away from everything and everyone. Away from her.
But on the tenth day he weighed his gun in his hand and began to look ahead again.
First of all, it was necessary to reject two possibilities.
The first was the police. To abandon his self-defense. Give himself up and tell them the whole story. Allow the bitch to win.
It took him two drams of whiskey to dismiss that thought.
The other was to remain in hiding. For as long as was necessary.
That took him a bit longer. Four drams, maybe six. But he managed it.
So what should he do?
He drank more. A lot more.
Days. All the rest of the days he stayed at the Pawlewski Hotel, to be precise. Needless to say this had been his original thought, the one that had been lying dormant in the back of his mind-to find a place like this, and to stay there. To stay in this damned, filthy, bad-smelling hotel until he was ready and knew what he was going to do next.
Stay here and wait for the strength, the determination, and the ideas.
There must be a way.
A way of killing this damned bitch. And the more he thought about it, the clearer it became that this wasn't just about himself. Not just his own skin. That strengthened his resolve. All the others… the friends she had murdered, the widows and children, and the lives she had destroyed in the course of her blood-stained campaign, just in order to…
All the people who had suffered. Just in order to…
His duty. His duty for God's sake, was to kill her. Challenge her on her own terms, then outwit her and obliterate her from the surface of the earth once and for all.
Eliminate this accursed bitch.
The anger inside him grew into hatred. Powerful, incandescent hatred coupled with the feeling of having a mission to accomplish, a duty to perform-he was filled with the strength he needed to carry it out.
Courage. Strength. Determination.
And the method?
Was there more than one?
Two drams. Let it circulate in the mouth, as if it were cognac. The same question over and over again. One evening after the other. More whiskey? The method? Was there more than one?
No. Only one.
Lower his guard. Leave himself open.
Give her the chance to strike first.
Then parry and kill her.
That was the way.
Yes, the Pawlewski Hotel had seen better guests.
How and where?
Where? That was the most important thing. Where the hell could he find a corner into which he could entice her without giving her too much of an advantage? He still didn't know what she really looked like-naturally, he had studied the pictures of her printed in the newspapers, but the only sure thing was that she was never going to approach him with an expression like the remarkably peaceful one she had there.
Another woman this time. No matter what she looked like. Unexpected and completely unknown. But where? Where the hell would he be able to set the trap?
And how?
It took a whole night to sketch out the plan, and when he eventually fell asleep in the gray light of dawn, he didn't believe it would still hold water in the cold light of day.
But it did. On Tuesday, he had lunch in the restaurant for the first time, and when he checked through the plan with the aid of two cups of extra-strong black coffee, he found the occasional crack, but nothing that couldn't be papered over, and nothing wide enough for him to fall through.
It was watertight.
Biedersen left the Pawlewski Hotel at about two in the afternoon on Wednesday, February 28. His gaze met that of Mr. Pawlewski behind the reception desk for only a fraction of a second, but that was enough for him to be sure that those remarkably all-seeing yet nothing-seeing eyes would never recall a certain Jurg Kummerle who had spent twelve nights in Room 313.
In view of this, for the twelve days and nights that had never existed, he gave Mr. Pawlewski an extra hundred-guilder note.
If she had found him during this dreadful period, she would have won-he knew that. But she hadn't, and now he was ready again.
34
“The first of March today,” announced the chief of police, snapping off a withered leaf from a hibiscus. “Take a seat. As I said, I'd like to hear some kind of summary, at the very least. This case is gobbling up a lot of resources.”
Van Veeteren muttered and flopped down into the shiny leather armchair.
“Well?”
“What do you want to know? If I had anything significant to tell you, I'd have done so without your needing to ask me.”
“Is that something I can rely on?”
The chief inspector made no reply.
“We've been guarding and protecting twenty people for two weeks now. Would you like me to tell you how much that costs?”
“No thank you,” said Van Veeteren. “You can call them off if you like.”
“Call them off!” exclaimed Hiller, sitting down at his desk. “Can you imagine the headlines if we cancel the protection and she then clobbers another one? We're in a big enough mess as it is.”
“The headlines won't be any better if we leave things as they are and she picks one off even so.”
