Black Ice (2 page)

Wallmann said: “No, no. By all means stay put.”

One of the tarted-up women took the chair on Scholten's left. Scholten half rose and adjusted it for her. She smiled at him, a sad little smile as befitted the occasion, but her expression was very friendly. Scholten rose again, bowed and said: “May I introduce myself? Jupp Scholten.”

“How nice to meet you, Herr Scholten,” she said. “I'm Frau Sauerborn.”

Scholten said, “Pleased to meet you too,” and sat down. He smoothed the tablecloth, pushed his schnapps glass slightly to one side, drew it towards him again.

The woman wasn't bad looking. Dolled up a bit too much in her black costume, but there was real flesh and blood under it. Scholten smelled her perfume and unobtrusively took a deep breath. Pretending to be looking at the door, he let his eyes dwell briefly on her
throat. She was no older than her mid-thirties. Sauerborn, Sauerborn. Wasn't that the bowling club member who owned the brewery?

She settled on her chair. Scholten cast a quick glance down and got a glimpse of her rounded knee encased in black nylon.

He started, as if caught in some guilty act, when she said, “Do you work in Herr Wallmann's company?”

“Herr Wallmann's company? Oh, yes. Yes, I work there.”

“I mean, I suppose it
is
Herr Wallmann's company now?” She glanced briefly at Wallmann, who was talking to the Government Surveyor, and moved a little closer to Scholten. “Or wasn't it all left to him?”

“Yes, yes, of course it was.” Scholten felt this was awkward. Wallmann was sitting too close for comfort. But the woman's perfume won the day. Scholten smiled, moved his mouth closer to his neighbour's ear and said: “There's no one else to inherit.”

“That's what I mean.” She sat upright, pushed her plate back and forth a little. Then she smiled at Scholten. “Have you worked for the company long?”

“Oh yes!”

“How long?”

“Good heavens. I'd have to think.” Scholten acted as if he was indeed thinking. He nodded. “Yes, you could call it a long time.” He looked at her. “Thirty-one years.”

“That's amazing! Well, now you must tell me how old you are.”

Scholten rested one arm on the back of his chair and smiled. “Guess.”

She looked at him, put two fingers to her cheek, then shook her head. “It's really hard to say.”

Scholten kept smiling. “I'm fifty-eight.”

“I don't believe it! No one would think so to look at you.”

The waitress leaned over Scholten's shoulder, serving turtle soup. Scholten said: “Could we have a beer too?”

“Coming, sir.”

Between two spoonfuls of soup, Frau Sauerborn said: “And what do you do in the firm?”

“Oh, just about everything.” He glanced across the table. Wallmann was drinking his soup and nodding as his friend from the bowling club talked to him. Scholten said, “Bookkeeping. Looking after the filing room, that's very important in a firm like ours. Business with the bank. Instructions to the workmen. Organizing the trucks. And checking up on the building sites. You have to keep an eye on everything.”

“Just like in our own business. Then you must have been with the company already when Herr Wallmann started there?”

“Yes, indeed. I'd been in old Köttgen's office for four years before Herr Wallmann joined us.”

“And he began in the office too?”

Scholten picked up his napkin and dabbed his lips. He spoke into the napkin. “No, you've been misinformed there. Herr Wallmann drove an excavator.”

“You don't say! And didn't old Köttgen mind when he married his daughter?”

Scholten laughed and dabbed his lips again. “Old Köttgen — ah, well, you should have known him.”

The beer came, and then the main course. Fillet Steak Special, served on toast. After the first mouthful, Frau Sauerborn lowered her fork and leaned towards Scholten. She spoke from slightly behind his back. “Is it true that Frau Wallmann was pregnant – Erika Köttgen, I mean – when she married Wallmann?”

Scholten, his mouth full, nodded heavily. He leaned back and picked up his napkin. “A miscarriage. After the wedding. She couldn't have any more children after that.”

Frau Sauerborn nodded and cut a piece off her fillet steak. She was about to lean towards Scholten again when the bowling club member sitting opposite on Wallmann's left pointed his fork at her. “Ria, you noticed the time, didn't you? When did Kurt leave us on Saturday afternoon?”

“It was exactly four-thirty,” said Frau Sauerborn.

“And how long does it take to reach your weekend retreat?”

Wallmann shrugged. “Just under an hour and a half. An hour and a quarter if there's not too much traffic on the road to the lake.”

The Government Surveyor nodded. “But then it would have been too late anyway. I mean, it wouldn't have been any use even if you
had
arrived earlier.”

Wallmann shook his head in silence.

Von der Heydt, knife and fork poised in mid-air, leaned forward and said: “Forgive me, Herr Wallmann, I didn't quite catch that. So the police really did check your alibi, or shouldn't I call it that?”

The bowling club member took a forkful of mushrooms and said: “You can certainly call it that. It was harassment, no less. They questioned us at the bowling club, they even went to see my wife, isn't that right, Ria?”

Frau Sauerborn nodded. “They wanted to know exactly how long Herr Wallmann spent at our place.”

“And they even got Büttgenbach to go to the police station,” said Herr Sauerborn.

The Government Surveyor shook his head. “Outrageous, if you ask me. Imagine them coming along after
such a tragic accident and suspecting someone of murder!”

Sauerborn gestured vigorously, chewed and swallowed. He took a large gulp of beer and said: “They have to. It's the rules. If someone's fished out of the water they have no option but to investigate.”

Frau Sauerborn looked at the Government Surveyor. “They can't be sure there may not be something in it.”

Wallmann, who had been brooding gloomily, said suddenly: “But there wasn't.”

“Exactly,” said Sauerborn. “There wasn't. The alibi was absolutely watertight.”

Von der Heydt, head still thrust forward, shifted in his chair. “But how could you prove that? I mean, sometimes proof is difficult. Who expects a thing like this to happen?”

Sauerborn propped his elbows on the table. “Well, listen.” He began checking points off on his fingers. “Herr Wallmann came back from his sailing trip on Friday evening. He saw to the boat and went up to his weekend house. Then he realized he'd forgotten the files.”

Scholten abruptly clutched his ear and then acted as if he were just scratching it.

“What files?” asked von der Heydt.

Wallmann, red-rimmed eyes fixed on the beer glass he was slowly pushing back and forth, said: “Files I needed for a tender I was putting in. I wanted to get the details finalized at the weekend. I thought I'd brought the files from town with me. While I was out on the boat I hadn't realized they were missing.”

“You see?” Sauerborn said, nodding. “He didn't notice he'd left the files in town till he got back to the house. But by then his wife was already on her way. She
was going to spend the weekend with him out by the lake. So he couldn't phone and ask her to bring the files with her.”

“Yes, I see,” said the Government Surveyor. “What a tragic chain of circumstances.”

“Yes,” said von der Heydt, “but I don't understand what that has to do with the alibi business – I mean, what does it prove? To the police, I mean?”

“Just a moment.” Sauerborn raised both hands. “I hadn't finished. So he drove off to fetch the files. Just under three hours to get there and back, no problem. And then he saw Erika's car up by the lake, in the village. She'd arrived already. There's a bar with a butcher's shop attached in the village, you see, and when she went to the lake she always stopped off there to buy meat for the weekend. And to drink a little glass of grog. That's right, Kurt?”

Wallmann nodded.

“Grog was her favourite,” said Frau Sauerborn.

Scholten crossed his arms over his chest.

“So then what?” asked von der Heydt avidly.

“Well, pay attention,” said Sauerborn, “because here comes the alibi.” He paused for the waiter to take the plates away and pointed to the empty beer glasses. “Bring us a couple more, will you?”

“And some spirits,” said Wallmann. “Not the schnapps you were serving before.”

“Cognac, sir?” asked the waiter.

“Yes, cognac,” said Wallmann.

Sauerborn settled comfortably in his chair, leaned his elbows on the table, pointed his forefinger at von der Heydt and said: “He went into the bar and told his wife what had happened. And then he set off for town from there, at ten to seven. The butcher, sorry, I mean the barkeep, he confirmed it. Erika was sitting there
drinking her grog at the time. And he reached us in the bowling club at eight exactly.”

“You must have driven pretty fast,” said von der Heydt, “if it usually takes an hour and a half.”

Sauerborn laughed. “He's never needed that long. Speedy Kurt, we call him in the club. He always drives that way, don't you, Kurt?”

Wallmann said: “And they call you Randy Günther.”

Sauerborn laughed. “So they do.”

Frau Sauerborn shifted in her chair and said: “But what's that got to do with Kurt's alibi?”

“Now, now, take it easy,” said Sauerborn. “I was only joking!”

Von der Heydt raised his beer glass, noticed that it was empty, put it down again and said to Wallmann: “Hang on a minute, I don't quite understand. So you went to the bowling club before you fetched the files?”

Wallmann nodded. “On impulse.”

Sauerborn took a deep breath and let it out again. Then he said: “So there you are. We were living it up a bit that evening. It was our fault.”

Wallmann said: “No, mine. I'll never forgive myself.”

“Nonsense, Kurt. It could have happened to anyone. And you'd have been back too late in any case. So we got rather merry, and by the end of the evening he wasn't fit to drive. I took him home with me. Better safe than sorry – I know Kurt. And he didn't leave our place until four-thirty on Saturday afternoon. Fetched those files from the office and drove back to the lake. He arrived at the house there just after six.”

Von der Heydt leaned back in his chair. “Yes, now I see. So he has what amounts to a twenty-four-hour alibi.”

Wallmann was playing with a beer mat. “Just a little over twenty-three hours,” he said.

“Well, put it however you like, but it was during that time your wife fell off the steps and into the lake.”

“On the Friday evening,” said Wallmann.

Sauerborn said: “She didn't go into the house at all. Her car was still outside the door, with the meat she'd bought in it and her weekend things.”

“You don't say.” Von der Heydt rubbed his chin. “So why did she go down the steps? I mean, they lead to the landing stage, if I've understood the situation correctly. Does anyone know what she did that for?”

The Government Surveyor said: “Herr von der Heydt, I think that's enough in the way of questions. This is a wake, you know.”

Wallmann put the beer mat down and clasped his hands on the table-top. “I don't know why she did it. I'd give a lot to know. But I really have no idea.”

Scholten folded his napkin and then unfolded it. The waitress served ice cream. After her second spoonful Frau Sauerborn said: “It's really odd, her going down those steps. Particularly as she didn't like boats or going sailing, did she, Kurt?”

“No, she didn't.” Wallmann pushed his ice away, picked up his empty cognac glass and signalled to the waiter.

“Oh, Ria, really!” Sauerborn's voice had risen slightly. “Sometimes you talk pure nonsense! What's so odd about it? She probably heard a noise and went to see if there was anyone prowling around the boat. After all, it's valuable. Four bunks, heating, toilet. Built-in kitchen. Right, Kurt? Must have cost you a packet, after all.”

Von der Heydt's spoon remained in mid-air. “How much, then?”

The Government Surveyor noisily cleared his throat and then asked: “Are you having any trouble with the
Buildings Inspectorate, Herr Wallmann? Over that flight of steps, I mean? Because if I can help you in any way . . . ?”

“No, the steps are fine. Solid timber, with handrails. And made of good stout planks. You only have to ask Scholten here. He replaced half a dozen steps last autumn because they'd developed some cracks. When was it exactly, Scholten? When you went over to paint the fence?”

Scholten felt Frau Sauerborn looking at him. He said: “Yes, it'll have been around then.”

The bastard. Wallmann was just trying to belittle him in company. As if anyone would be interested in the fact that he'd painted the fence. Scholten finished his cognac.

The waiter came and refilled the glasses. “Coffee will be served in a minute.”

Wallmann said, “Where's your wife, Scholten? I didn't see her at the cemetery.”

Scholten swallowed. “She couldn't come. She's feeling unwell again. She asked me to give you her regards and say how very sorry she is.”

“Thank you. My regards to her, and I hope she'll soon be better.”

Frau Sauerborn asked, “What's the matter with her?”