The Darkness Knows

54

Konrád returned to Bernhard’s scrapyard before dawn. He was feeling far too worked up to go home to bed. Although Bernhard’s body had been removed and Forensics had finished their examination, there was still a police guard on the building: two men sitting in a squad car in the yard outside. The older officer turned out to be an acquaintance of Konrád’s. They exchanged a few words and the officer let him in without comment after Konrád explained that he was working on the investigation with Marta.

‘I thought you’d retired ages ago,’ the man said.

‘No rest for the wicked,’ Konrád replied.

The lights were on in the workshop, providing Konrád with a better view of the place than when he had fumbled his way inside earlier, hesitant and fearful in the dark. He went round behind the reception desk and into the little kitchen with its grubby coffee machine, table and solitary chair, testimony to the fact that Bernhard had worked there alone. Konrád looked into the office, which proved to be even smaller, furnished with the same kind of basic table and chair. There were shelves of files, loose papers on the table, a phone and a card reader, and a monitor, mouse and keyboard that must once, long ago, have been white. Under the desk was the computer tower, a green light blinking on the front. Apart from that the office was drab, a wall calendar its only decoration. The same worn, filthy lino covered the floor of both kitchen and office.

Konrád sat down at the desk and started going through the mess of paperwork: printouts of invoices, clients’ phone numbers, comments on spare parts, bank statements. The papers were covered in Bernhard’s oily fingerprints. As far as Konrád could tell from a brief glance, the man’s bookkeeping had been in disarray.

He looked around him, at the groaning shelves of files, the out-of-date calendar, the shabby lino and ubiquitous dirt. It all bore eloquent witness to the scrapyard’s failure to earn money, but also to neglect and a sort of general apathy, as if there was no point in keeping things in order or reasonably clean or trying to create a good atmosphere. It was as if Bernhard had long ago lost interest in his business. Perhaps this had coincided with the point at which his life had taken a dramatic, unlooked-for turn for the worse, which had ended with him here, dangling from a cable.

There were two drawers in the desk, neither of them locked. They contained more junk. An old telephone directory. A folder of invoices. More bank statements. Nothing personal. Nothing from Bernhard’s private life.

Konrád switched on the monitor and pressed a button on the keyboard. The computer under the table began to whirr, and soon the desktop wallpaper appeared on the screen. It was different from the one he had seen when he looked into the room the previous day. Konrád stared at it, wondering if Bernhard had really wasted precious time during the last few minutes of his life on selecting a new background.

The photo had obviously been taken many years ago and appeared grainy when stretched across the screen like this, but its subject was nevertheless clear. It was a colour snapshot of three boys of around the same age, posing with an ancient tractor. One sat in the driver’s seat, another perched on the big rear wheel and the third was standing beside the tractor. The picture looked as if it had been taken in the countryside. The sky was a cloudless blue and the boys’ faces were radiant with happiness. All three were dressed in Scout shirts, long green socks and shorts, and beaming at the camera.

Bernhard had added each boy’s name.

He himself was sitting in the driving seat.

Sigurvin was standing beside the tractor.

Least familiar was the third boy, who was perched on the back tyre. But Konrád had met him once and liked him.

Konrád studied Bernhard’s face in the picture. He was sure there had been nothing coincidental about his decision to change his wallpaper to this particular photo, just before taking his own life.