Black Ice (14 page)

Yes, it was perfectly simple. He had the answer.

15

That was how it had been. That was how it must have been. Wallmann had come back to the house earlier. Indeed, on Thursday night. He had moored the boat near the fisherman's hut on Thursday evening to spend the night there. Laudenberg had seen him: that was evidence. Wallmann had gone into the fisherman's hut in the evening, maybe had something to eat, had something to drink anyway. And he hadn't taken anyone there, no, not that evening. He'd been alone on his boat, apparently to sleep the night in it.

But during the night he had secretly left the boat. He had gone to the house on foot, through the woods. He could do it in just under an hour.

He had taken out the five planks and fitted five of the old ones instead. He had taken the planks he'd removed into the garage, along with their bolts. He had cut the strips to size.

And then he had stuck the thick insulating tape on the edges of the planks. And he had nailed the boards over it. He'd nailed them so that they came about an inch and a half above the top surface of the planks. And yes, he had plenty of material available: he had cut the strips for the narrow sides a little longer, making them overlap on both sides so that the structure would hold and the frame he had made around the plank was firmly closed.

The result would be a set of small basins, rectangular wooden bowls. Each plank had a frame round it,
waterproofed with insulating tape and coming about an inch and a half above the plank itself. He had filled those wooden bowls with water to a depth of an inch or so. And he had put them in the freezer. Yes, and he'd left the bolts in the planks, or he wouldn't have been able to screw them in again later when the water on top of the planks had frozen to ice.

He also needed the bolts to block up the holes bored in the planks. He had screwed the nuts on so tightly that the heads of the bolts closed the holes.

The shanks of the bolts stood out underneath the planks, but that was no problem. He had stood the first plank – the first bowl he placed in the freezer – on two blocks of wood, or maybe a shallow box. And then he had put the next bowls on top of the first one, each crossing the one below at an angle to leave room for the shanks of the bolts.

Perhaps a little water had trickled through the places where two strips of insulating tape met or through the holes made for the bolts, but if he had turned the freezer to fast-freeze the water would be frozen before it ran out.

In the end each plank was covered with a sheet of ice. The sheet had to be smooth as glass.

Black ice

Black ice made in the freezer.

Scholten ran one hand through his hair and pinched his cheeks with the other.

And Wallmann could even have made his sheets of black ice slope. If he tilted the bowls slightly in the freezer, with a piece of wood placed under them, they would have stood at a slight angle. And the water would have come a little higher one side of the plank than the other. So when the water froze to ice it would have sloped.

He could have fixed it, with those bowls, so that the black ice on the landing and the two steps above it sloped down. How could Erika have kept her footing then? She had no chance when she started down the steps, suspecting nothing.

Scholten gritted his teeth and clenched his fists.

Slowly. Take it easy. One thing after another. Think it out right to the end.

That bloody bastard. He'd put his bowls, his little rectangular basins of water in the freezer, and then he'd set it to fast-freeze. It would take a lot of electricity, but that didn't matter. He'd cleared everything away, and then he'd gone back through the wood to the fisherman's hut. He had gone to sleep in his bunk in the boat. Everything was ready, in perfect order.

And next day he had probably damaged the tackle of the mainsheet himself. A couple of blows with a hammer would make it stick. He had gone into the yachting basin and then played his little game with the phone at three o'clock and five o'clock on Friday afternoon. He wanted Erika to think something was up. Something wrong. And at five he was back at the house, he'd just wanted to make sure Erika was still in town and he had enough time in hand.

He had waited until the sun set and it was getting cold again. He had lit a fire on the hearth. Erika liked a fire on the hearth.

And then he had gone down to the steps and removed the old planks again. He had put them away in the garage and taken his black ice planks out of the freezer. He'd knocked away the wooden strips, torn off the insulating tape, that wouldn't take long. He had carried the icy planks down and fitted them on the steps.

And then he had gone up to the garage and put the
bolts of the substitute planks away in the tin, and he had taken the wooden strips and the remains of the insulating tape into the house and thrown them on the fire. He had looked around once more, yes, nothing forgotten, everything in order, and then he had got into his car and driven to Grandmontagne's. Erika was sitting there with her grog, he'd said he had to drive back to town for those files, and then he'd gone off and fixed his alibi.

That bloody bastard. It really was a perfect alibi. Because next morning the sun would have shone full on the steps as soon as it rose over the eastern bank of the lake. And probably the last of the ice would have melted by midday. The planks might still be slightly dark from the moisture, but even that last trace would have faded by the afternoon.

And if the plan hadn't worked, if Erika hadn't gone down the steps, even then he had nothing to fear. Because in that case too the ice would have melted, and the trap would probably never have been discovered.

The bastard! An idea just waiting to be thought up. Black ice. Melting and leaving no trace.

But he'd miscalculated. Jupp Scholten had found him out. Jupp Scholten had used his brain-box and found him out.

Scholten abruptly reached for the bottle, put it to his lips, drank the entire contents, belched loudly. He stood up, stretched his arms. Then he took aim and flung the bottle far into the wood. He called, “You watch out, Wallmann! The game's up!”

He pushed up the garage door, put his bucket away and took down the shutters over the windows.

He finished at six-thirty. He had washed and sandpapered the shutters, had filled in a few notches here
and there. He could be finished by tomorrow afternoon. He'd even have time to do something about the weeds.

He went into the house and took the chips out of the frozen food compartment of the fridge. Then he went into the garage.

He put one of the old planks on the workbench and stuck the thick insulating tape around its edges. He took one of the wooden strips and cut four pieces off it with the circular saw, two of them measuring twenty-eight inches and the others measuring twelve.

He nailed the strips to the edges of the plank. He let the shorter strips overlap on both sides, and he used four nails for each of the longer strips and two for each of the shorter ones. He made sure the nails went through the insulating tape.

He nailed the strips in place so that they were about an inch above the upper surface of the plank, setting only one of the shorter strips rather lower. He bent down, so that his eyes were level with the workbench, and examined the basin he had made from the plank. It stood at a slight angle.

He put the bolts in the holes in the plank and tightened the nuts. He placed the contents of the freezer in the two coolbags. Then he filled his little basin with water to a level of about three-quarters of an inch. He put it carefully in the freezer and closed the lid, setting it to fast-freeze.

He closed the garage door, went to the bathroom and washed. Then he went into the kitchen. He washed the lettuce, dressed it, put the chips on to fry. He put the rump steak in the pan at seven-thirty.

After his meal he took his beer bottle outside. Darkness was coming up from the woods. The birds had fallen silent. He walked round the house, gravel
crunching under his shoes. The windows were bright, sharply outlined like the yellowish-red slits in a large black Chinese lantern. He went to the steps leading down to the steep bank and sat on the top step.

The lake was calm. Now and then a ripple lapped against the boat, and the landing stage creaked slightly.

Scholten said: “Just wait, Erika. He's overplayed his hand! I promised you.” After a while he took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. He put the handkerchief away and stared at the landing on the steps, which could hardly be made out in the twilight.

Scholten shivered. He rose and went indoors. He switched on the TV and sat in an armchair for a while, watching in silence, drinking his beer. Suddenly he picked up the phone book and looked for the name of the Widow Abels. Lisbeth. He ran his finger over the pages. Abels, Lisbeth, that must be her.

He rubbed his chin. Then he dialled the number.

No one answered.

He hung up, went into the kitchen and took his bottle of wine out of the fridge.

16

Scholten spent all weekend wondering how best to inform the police about the murder. It wasn't as simple as he had thought at first.

He was absolutely sure that Wallmann had murdered Erika. His experiment had provided the final proof. For it had worked. When he had taken his rectangular basin out of the freezer early on Friday morning there was a smooth solid layer of ice on the plank. He had knocked away the strips, torn off the insulating tape, and burned it all in the fire on the hearth. He had placed the ice-covered plank out behind the garage in the morning sun. In the afternoon the layer of ice had disappeared from the plank, the water had trickled away into the gravel, the wood was beginning to dry out.

There was no doubt about the method Wallmann had used to murder Erika.

But how could he convince the police of it?

At first he intended to go to the police station on Saturday morning, ask to see the head of the murder squad and tell him the whole story. But he very soon had misgivings about this idea.

He didn't know whether the head of the murder squad would be at work on Saturday. He tried to think whether he'd ever seen a crime film on TV where the superintendent or the featured detective had been in the office on a Saturday, but he really couldn't remember. Of course, if a body was found somewhere
they went out to the crime scene even on a Saturday or Sunday. This often happened to Felmy in the TV detective series, because he'd be with his ex-wife at weekends, trying to get together with her again.

But Scholten did not think the head of the murder squad would be sitting in his office on a Saturday just in case he had visitors. High-ranking police officers wanted their weekends off too. And there was no point talking to just any stupid police constable. In fact it could be a big mistake. Because the police constable would at the very least want to know his name, and then they might call Hilde on Monday. Or they might call the works and ask for information. And then he'd be in trouble.

No. He must go to the police station on a normal working day. Preferably in the morning when he'd be able to speak to the boss. At eight or nine, maybe. Not too early. They always have conferences first thing, he'd often seen them do that on TV.

But even so it wasn't easy. He'd have to find some kind of excuse to leave the works.

Or to arrive late. It would take him at least an hour to explain everything to the superintendent. Call it two hours with the drive there and back. And if he went straight to the police station from home and was there by nine, he couldn't be at the works before ten-thirty. So he'd be arriving a whole four hours late at the office.

He couldn't really say he had diarrhoea again.

He put off the decision all week. On Friday morning he decided to think it over thoroughly again at the weekend. For by now he had realized that even a conversation with the head of the murder squad could be horribly risky.

What evidence could he offer the police? Damned little. The nail-marks. The grease on the bolts. That
was about it. And the new bolts that hadn't been in the tin before. But how was he to prove how many bolts had been there in the first place? And how many strips of wood, and how much insulating tape?

The wood had disappeared, gone up the chimney in smoke. So had the insulating tape. And as for the black ice, well, that was the point: the main piece of evidence had melted away the day after the murder, leaving no trace.

And what would happen if they really did investigate: followed up his information and interrogated Wallmann? Wallmann would simply claim: “Scholten is crazy. He's afraid I'll sack him. And he's right too, he's useless. He wants to save his own bacon by pinning something on me. What he says is pure nonsense. No such thing happened. Prove it.”

And suppose the proof wasn't strong enough? Or the police were too stupid to prosecute Wallmann? Then what?

He could answer that question at once. Then he'd be out of his job in the office of Ferd. Köttgen, Civil Engineering Contractors. He'd be on the dole until he reached retirement age.

And Wallmann would be finally off the hook. A dreadful prospect. It simply must not happen. Jupp Scholten wasn't resigning himself to that. There had to be a way.

He thought and thought, but he kept going round in circles.

At some point in the following week, on his way home, he became engrossed in the idea of proving it to the police himself. He could show them how you made a rectangular basin like that, and how easy it was to cover the planks of the steps with black ice. Then they'd have to believe him.

But as he was sitting in front of the TV screen he suddenly shook his head vigorously. You must have had too much to drink, Jupp Scholten! You'd only find yourself deeper in the shit.