Felix had sat by the window for a half-hour. He had left it half open. The night air had turned cold, colder than he had expected. Every now and then he heard some fussing among the pigs, which soon returned to quiet.
It was nearly midnight now. He still felt wired. He moved around in the chair, and felt the gentle sway and then the tap on his chest as his opa’s ancient binoculars settled again. He was careful not to make a racket moving the maps off his lap. Before he laid them down on the bed, he took another look over the one he had kept open.
He had seen that old Freytag amp; Berndt logo, the official map publisher, before. With the lousy colour and such a lame cover, he guessed it was 1950s. It qualified as an heirloom, he supposed, maybe even worth something in one of the stalls at the Saturday market off Herrengasse. It had a stale smell that reminded him of sour milk.
His eyes were itchy, prickly now. He rubbed at them before lifting the bedside lamp to hold over the map. Sure enough, the marks were still there. What had he expected, that the marks would have disappeared, or something? He followed the lines up around the contours of the hills behind the Himmelfarbs’ place. These trails must have changed over the years, he thought again. Thirty, 40 years was enough to grow one of the farmed trees they had put in back then. But there was no doubt about it, no matter how many times he looked at it. He had known it right away when he had first taken this map from the bag and opened it, releasing the tart, stale smell of storage and mouldering paper into the room, his heart beating in his ears almost: the line that had been drawn there ran along where the bodies had been.
He was getting stiff now. He should get up and move around.
He looked down into the farmyard below bathed in the harsh light of the quartz floodlight he’d persuaded Opa to leave on. A damned fine piece of acting to get to that point, he was sure. There had to be some award for pretending to be casual about it. He went along with his grandfather’s mutterings about local teens not having enough to do. He smiled when he remembered his grandfather’s expressions: a detschen, a cuff on the ear if he got hold of one of the little bastards. There’d be swat on the head, a watschen, on the way back too. And a solid kick in the arse, of course, to help them remember longer.
Felix stretched, and let his aching eyes out of focus. He should lie down and get some sleep. He was overreacting. He was overtired.
He was paranoid: time spent with Speckbauer would do that though, wouldn’t it? He stopped in mid-stretch and opened his eyes. No amount of talking to himself in his head would douse that feeling that something was moving around him, or by him, like the slow, almost imperceptible stirring when a landslide begins, before it gathers speed, sweeping away everything in its path He opened his phone and checked for a signal. A quarter-strength would do. He tiptoed over to the bed and pulled the duvet over his head. He already had Speckbauer’s card ready. He hesitated, and he thought about just stretching out and falling asleep. A night’s sleep would clear his head, and let him think straight. Speckbauer wouldn’t thank him for a call at this hour of the night.
Screw Speckbauer.
Felix dialed, and pulled the duvet back up. His mind raced through the farmhouse as he heard to the first ring, and he tried to remember where Opa kept his shotgun. Maybe Oma hadn’t hidden it as she had said she would even years ago, leaving him with only a pellet gun for the crows.
He almost hung up after the second ring. Then it was a low voice, Speckbauer’s, flat and terse.
“Oberstleutnant?”
“Kimmel?”
“I am sorry to phone you at this hour.”
“Don’t be. What is it?”
“I’m not sure, but things are going a bit, weird.”
Speckbauer waited. Felix heard music played faintly in the background, a piano.
“I’m up at, well, you know well I think maybe something strange is going on.”
“Strange?”
“Maybe I’m just jittery. I might have a visitor up here. Not invited.”
“You need to be specific here and where are you, in I mean, are you in your car or something? You sound like a dirty telephone call.”
“I don’t want to wake my grand I don’t want to scare them.
But someone was snooping around here earlier tonight, I think.”
“Serious? Not a farmer who lost his way home from the gasthaus, maybe?”
“Herr Oberstleutnant”
“Give me something to go on.”
“The dog heard something, it was after eleven-”
“You had something going on at eleven? Eleven was the time to call me then, gell?
“I don’t want to overreact.”
Speckbauer swore softly.
“You know,” Felix began to say.
“Okay,” said Speckbauer, with little conviction in his voice.
“You’re right. Everything counts. I’m on my way.”
“But maybe it is unnecessary?”
“Shut up, will you? Be quiet a moment. I need to get info off you.”
Felix heard creaking, a whispered curse, rustling.
“You’re in your relatives’ house up there?”
“Yes — it’s the far side of”
“You drove there, right? Your car is there?”
“That’s what I wanted to mention. I think someone was looking around the inside of the car.”
“Eleven, you say?”
“Just after Zeit im Bild.”
“The late news on the TV?”
“Right. The dog was yowling. Berndt. He’s an old fart but game enough. We thought maybe a loose dog got a bite out of it.”
Felix paused when he heard Speckbauer’s laboured breathing.
There were footsteps, then the sound of a door opening. Someone made a low whistle, and called out “raus.” The phone was muffled then, but Felix heard some intonations. The hand was removed after a few moments.
“I’m listening, keep talking.”
“Anyway, it looks like someone or something hit the dog, or bit it, or something.”
“‘Hit?’ ‘Bit?’ ‘Something?’”
“He came back to us yowling. I looked around and the light was on in my car.”
“Farmers don’t lock their cars?”
“No.”
“Any other car there?”
“My grandparents’.”
“Their car too?”
“I couldn’t tell. I don’t think so.”
He heard a man’s voice, not Speckbauer’s.
“That’s it?” Speckbauer asked.
“Yes. That’s why I didn’t want to call.”
“I’ll be there, maybe forty minutes. It’ll give me time to think.”
“Is it really necessary for you to drive up here? Maybe… ”
There were sounds of more doors, heavier ones, closing now.
“Yeah, bring it all,” Speckbauer called out in an exasperated tone.
“Oberstleutnant,” said Felix. “I don’t want police crashing in the door here.”
“I see,” said Speckbauer, with a leaden tone. “We do not specialize in kicking down doors. But that’s what could have happened if you had phoned the local posten, and roped in some of the Gendarmerie from there, let me tell you. So it’s good: keep this to yourself, for now.”
The ‘for now’ echoed in Felix’s mind several times. He thought of Gebhart again. It only made sense to phone him in the morning, no matter what Speckbauer said.
“You need directions?”
“No. I’ll find you, don’t worry.”
Felix scratched the top of his phone with his nail. Why had Speckbauer wanted him to drive all over the damned countryside earlier on, then?
“Here’s how it’s going to work,” said Speckbauer. “I’m going to phone you as soon as I get there, as soon as a few minutes from your place okay? Do you have a good charge on your mobile there?”
“I do, yes.”
Felix stared at the pattern on the duvet cover. The colours on the flowers were muted to dim greys in the weak light coming in from the lamp. He realized that it was Gebhart he should have phoned.
“Look,” he said. “Maybe I’m not thinking straight here?”
“Straight, what?”
“It’s just that, well after all, there are kids here. Maybe one of them saw my car and knows I’m a Gendarme.”
“We can talk about that when we get there,” said Speckbauer.
“If you’d like?”
The sarcasm was plain enough.
“But right now the plan is this,” Speckbauer went on. “We won’t call to the house. We just keep an eye on it, and see. When it gets light, we’ll show up at the house, say hello, do a little acting job if that would suit you. Nobody freaks then. Verstehst?”
“If you say so.”
“You won’t see us until daylight, but we’ll be there. And don’t go telling anyone we’re about. Really. Got all that?”
“I just don’t want a false alarm, or to waste people’s time.”
“Okay,” was Speckbauer’s parting advice. “So if it turns out to be nothing, we’ll take it out of your pay.”