“All right,” said Berger. “There was another man. Yes, that’s the way it looked.”
“You’re not certain?”
“It was never confirmed. Not a hundred percent.”
“You mean that she didn’t confess?”
Berger gave a laugh.
“Confess? No, she certainly didn’t. She denied his existence as if her life depended on it.”
Perhaps it did, Van Veeteren thought.
“Can you tell me about it?”
Berger leaned back and lit a cigarette. Inhaled deeply a few times before answering. It was obvious that he needed a few seconds to plan what he was going to say, before starting to speak. Van Veeteren acceded to his wish.
“I saw them,” Berger said eventually. “It was the spring of 1986, March or April or thereabouts. I saw them together twice, and I have reason to believe that they carried on meeting occasionally until the middle of May, at least. There was something. . Well, I could see it in her, of course. She wasn’t the kind of woman who could keep a secret, you might say. It was sort of written in her face that something was wrong.
Anyway, I suppose you understand what I mean, Inspector?”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“Can you say exactly when it all started?”
“Easter. It was the Thursday before Easter in 1986. I don’t know the date. It was one of those cases of sheer coincidence-
I’ve thought a lot about that afterward. I saw them in a car, during the lunch break. I had to drive through the center of town in order to meet a researcher in Irgenau, and they were diagonally in front of me, in another car. . ”
“You’re sure it was your wife?”
“One hundred percent.”
“And the man?”
“Do you mean what did he look like?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. He was driving. Eva was sitting next to him; I could see her in profile when she turned her head to talk to him, but all I could see of him were his shoulders and the back of his neck. They were in the right-hand lane, ready to turn off; I was going straight on. When the lights changed to green, they turned right. I had no chance of following them, even if I’d wanted to. I think. . I think I was a bit shocked as well.”
“Shocked? How could you know that she was being. .
unfaithful? Wasn’t it possible for your wife to be sitting in somebody else’s car for some perfectly innocent reason?”
“Of course. That’s what I tried to tell myself as well. But her reaction when I asked her about it was quite. . well, it left no room for doubt.”
“Meaning what?”
“She was extremely upset. Claimed that she had been at home all day, and I was either mistaken or lying and was trying to destroy our relationship. And lots of other things along similar lines.”
“And it’s not possible that she might have been right?”
“No. I started to query what I’d seen, naturally. . But after a few weeks, we were back there again. A colleague of mine saw them together in a cafe. It was most distressing.
He mentioned it in passing, as a sort of joke, but I’m afraid I lost my cool.”
“What did Eva have to say this time?”
“The same as before. That was what was so odd. She
denied everything, and was just as upset as the previous time, said that my colleague was a liar, claimed she’d never set foot in that cafe. It was so flagrant, the whole thing; I thought it was beneath her dignity to lie, as you might say. And to lie over and over again. I told her it was much more difficult to cope with the lies than with her infidelity. The odd thing was that she seemed to agree with me.”
“What happened next?”
Berger shrugged.
“Our relationship hit the rocks, of course. She became a stranger, you might say. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and asking myself questions. Asking her as well, but she refused to discuss it. As soon as I tried to start talking about something, she shut up like a clam. It was sheer hell for a few months. And it got worse. I’d never expected anything of the sort. We’d been married for five years, had known each other for ten, and we’d never had any problems like that before. Are you married, Chief Inspector?”
“Sort of.”
“Hmm. . Ah, well. . Before long I suppose I started to think that maybe I’d got hold of the wrong end of the stick after all. It started to feel as if everything was beginning to move in her favor, somehow or other. . As if I was to blame for everything, because it was me who’d accused her. I recall thinking that the whole business was beginning to look like a real folie a deux, if you understand. .”
“Don’t underestimate me.”
“I’m sorry. .”
“You said you caught her out several more times?”
“Yes, but never in quite the same way. I caught a glimpse. .
I overheard a few telephone calls. .”
“Did you hear what they were talking about?”
“No. But it was pretty clear even so.”
“I’m with you.”
“I caught her out telling lies several times as well. She claimed she’d been at home, despite the fact that I’d gone home during the lunch break and found the house empty. .
Said she’d been at the cinema with a woman friend of hers. To see a film that had finished its run the week before.”
“What did she have to say about all these things?”
“I never confronted her with them. I didn’t know what to do. I suppose I was just waiting for something crucial to happen. The whole situation seemed so unreal, I simply didn’t know what to do.”
“Did you speak to anybody about it?”
“No. . No, unfortunately not. I thought it was something that would blow over, that we’d sort it out between ourselves eventually, somehow.”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“Is that a Vrejsman?” He pointed at the big watercolor over the fireplace.
“Yes, you’re right,” said Berger in surprise. “Don’t tell me you’re an art expert as well as a detective chief inspector?”
“Of course,” said Van Veeteren. “I’m familiar with Rem-brandt and Vrejsman. Vrejsman is my uncle. Are you absolutely certain, Mr. Berger?”
“Excuse me? I don’t really understand. .”
“Certain that she was unfaithful. Could it possibly have been something else?”
“Such as?”
Van Veeteren flung out his arms.
“Don’t ask me. But what you discovered wasn’t especially compromising. You never found them in bed together, as it were.”
“I didn’t think that was necessary.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about this last time? When you spoke to Inspector Munster?”
Berger hesitated.
“It. . it never cropped up. I suppose I didn’t think it was important. I still don’t, come to that.”
Van Veeteren didn’t respond. Berger was rather annoyed now. Van Veeteren almost wished he’d been in a position to have him locked up in a police cell overnight and been able to continue questioning him first thing next morning. That would have made his next move easier. But while he was wondering what to do next, Mrs. Berger appeared and informed her husband that he was wanted on the telephone.
The Devil looks after his own, Van Veeteren thought.
Berger went to answer the call, and Van Veeteren was able to spend the next ten minutes staring at the embers and the fading blue flames while thinking over his own infidelities.
They were two in number; the most recent one was eighteen years ago, and had been just as catastrophic as the first one. His marriage had been catastrophic as well, but at least it had the advantage of not affecting any innocent party.
Perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea to let the same thing apply to the marriage of Andreas Berger and Eva Ringmar as well? He decided to accept another whiskey and water while waiting for the next round to commence. He would have to make sure it took up rather less time than the last one. The clock on the mantelpiece was showing half past nine, and even if he generally paid no attention to the requirements of common decency and decorum, there were limits.
He lit a cigarette, and put another four in his breast pocket.