She gathered her handbag and started to stand, and then startled him by sitting again and saying, ‘Would it be possible to see the photographs. From the accident.’
‘No. And even if I could permit—’
She looked at him directly: ‘Paul, please.’
He felt her then, when she had been warm against him, her back curving under his hands, the dizzying scent of her. He felt hot with embarrassment and lust. He longed for her, for hours, days of her. Instead, he got up and left the room. He paused in the corridor. How could it be that he would never kiss her again?
Ten minutes later he came back with a plastic evidence bag. He shut the door behind him. ‘This is completely irregular,’ he said, and felt immediately churlish. He wanted her, he could not have her.
For a long moment she held the bag. ‘Can I open it?’
‘Yes,’ he said and watched her long, delicate fingers press open the seams of the bag. She’d touched him with those fingers, she’d caressed him.
She took out a red dress with white and yellow flowers on it. ‘This was Sophie’s?’
Strebel nodded.
‘Will it be returned to her father?’
‘Now that the inquest is over, yes.’
‘Will it help him?’
‘I doubt it.’
Pilgrim put the dress back in the bag. He took the bag. And then he reached out for her, surprising himself. His hand on her shoulder, along her collarbone. She didn’t look at him but he felt her, the warmth of her through the gray sweater.
There was a crack in the possibility of things. An opening.
But he said, ‘Take care of yourself.’
* * *
A few weeks later he checked up on her. She’d gone. Of course. The system told him she’d left for Tanzania, a flight out of Zurich. He wondered, why Tanzania? And then he leaned back in his chair and covered his face with his hands. Not because he was crying. He felt he might find her somehow. In the dark curtain of his hands some residue of her might remain.
May’s green organza draped the fields and the air hummed with bees. Boats were out on the lake.
Sergeant Caspary knocked on his door, ‘I thought you would want to know, sir. The neighbors reported a bad smell and uncollected mail in the letter box at Ernst Koppler’s residence.’
She drove with him to Arnau. The smell, it turned out, was just rubbish. But Mr Koppler was missing.
‘The neighbors?’
‘The woman next door — Elizabeth Schmidt — she phoned it in; she says she can’t remember when she last saw him. Maybe not for a week?’
Strebel and Caspary walked next door.
‘I feel so bad,’ Mrs Schmidt said, welcoming them in. ‘I should have been looking out for him. Bringing him meals, I don’t know. And now—’
‘And now?’ Strebel pressed.
‘He must be dead,’ she whispered. ‘What could he have to live for?’
Caspary sat her down.
‘Am I in trouble?’ she said.
‘No,’ Strebel assured her. ‘But anything you might recall about Mr Koppler — even if it seems unimportant, might help us find him.’
‘Someone told me she’d been a teacher back in her country. His wife. Hamida. She died, too. Last year. You know that of course.’
Strebel nodded.
‘One of those “Stans.” Kurdistan. Uzbekistan. There are so many. I wondered if I should talk to her about it. What she’d taught. Being a teacher myself. But standards are so different there. And there just wasn’t the opportunity, you know, we weren’t drinking tea together over the fence. Even when she had cancer, we didn’t know until she started wearing a scarf. And even that — we thought she was Muslim. So it wasn’t really until she died.’
‘And that was difficult for Mr Koppler.’
She nodded. ‘It wasn’t so much that he was alone with Sophie, but Hamida’s family kicked up a fuss. They had moved away to be with other family in Germany. Stuttgart, I think. They wanted to take Sophie with them. That was the only argument I ever heard. The grandmother — Hamida’s mother — came one day. But Mr Koppler wouldn’t let Sophie go, and the law was on his side. And anyway she didn’t want to go. She loved her father.’
‘How was Mr Koppler after Sophie’s death?’ Caspary asked.
‘He didn’t go to the shop, I know because I went to get some school supplies and it was all closed up. But he did go out on foot, sometimes at odd hours. I don’t know where.’
‘What day was that, when you went by the shop?’
‘Last Tuesday.’
‘Twenty-first of May?’
‘I had lunch with my sister.’
‘When was the last time you definitely saw him, Mr Koppler?’
‘I just can’t be certain. Please understand. He’d been such a regular person. Even after Hamida. Well, he had Sophie, and children need routine. But since the accident. How could anyone be the same?’ She gazed out the window for a moment. ‘He was standing in the road. Only a few days ago. Three days ago. Looking around him. He was there for quite a long time. I thought to go out to him. But you know. What can you do?’
Outside, Caspary offered, ‘Suicide seems likely, sir.’
If only he’d taken her to the office, Strebel was thinking. She’d have been no trouble, no trouble at all.
‘We’re also looking for the car,’ Caspary said.
They walked next door to Koppler’s. Inside it looked exactly as it had when he’d been there — the quiet, patient mess of toys and books. In the garage, flies were eagerly breeding in half a steak. He knew enough about flies: the steak, the rubbish had been there for weeks. The house was filthy.
‘And we found this,’ a patrol officer said, holding up an empty box of rat poison.
‘Is there any evidence of rats?’ Caspary wanted to know.
‘Not that we can see.’
Was that how he’d killed himself, then?
Strebel wandered through the house. Beyond the bathroom, Mr Koppler had a small office where he’d done his accounts. He’d been a meticulous man, but chaos smothered earlier order: unpaid bills, junk mail, sympathy cards.
Yet, placed to the side, a letter: the lower left corner of the envelope carefully aligned with the corner of the desk. Strebel picked it up. Inside he found a small note paper-clipped to another envelope. This second envelope, folded in thirds to fit the first, was addressed to Mrs Gassner. The stamp had been circled in pen: a bright, pretty picture of a giraffe. The postal imprint was smeared but he could make out the letters T-A-N-G-A. Or was the ‘G’ a ‘Z’ and he was reading part of the whole? ‘Tanzania.’
He opened it.
May 21
Dear Mrs Gassner,
As you know I left the phone bill unpaid. Please find enclosed my check for fifty-six francs to cover the outstanding charge plus the reconnection fee for your next tenant. I apologize for this inconvenience.
Yours,
Pilgrim Jones.
The name, the actuality of her, was like a punch in the gut. He shut his eyes, the better to see the glow of her skin, the curve of her breast. He lifted the paper to his nose, imagining the almond smell. He heard Caspary coming up the hall, and shoved it in his pocket.
‘As strong as it gets.’ She held up a bottle of children’s aspirin.
‘I have to make a phone call,’ he said, and went outside, far enough away that he could not be heard. He turned his back to the house, and pressed the phone to his ear. He stood like this for a long time. He thought about the moment Mr Koppler said goodbye to Sophie. Had he kissed her? Something eerily like a prayer formed in Strebel’s mind: please, please let him have kissed her.