The Unlucky Lottery

‘Not at all,’ said Ulrike, stroking her hair away from her face. ‘Curiouser and curiouser. The first time you turn up in my life it’s because you are trying to find out who murdered my husband. Then you wait for over a year before getting in touch again, and now you sit here in the morning of New Year’s Day and want me to interpret your dreams. Thank you for last night, by the way. It wasn’t too bad.’

‘Thank you,’ said Van Veeteren, and realized that he was smiling again. It was evidently beginning to be a habit. ‘Anyway, women are better at dreams,’ he said. ‘Some women, at any rate.’

‘I think so,’ said Ulrike. ‘I agree with you in general, that is, but you have a gift making you just as intuitive as I am. I’d always imagined that an old detective inspector would be much more resolute, but perhaps that’s just a prejudice?’

‘Hmm, yes,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘We know so little.’

‘Really?’

He cut a slice of cheese and chewed it thoughtfully. Ulrike stuck out her naked foot under the table and stroked his calf with it.

‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren again. ‘Only a tiny bit of all there is to know. And if we don’t have a keen ear, it’s a damned minuscule bit.’

‘Go on,’ said Ulrike.

‘Well,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘This is one of my private hobby horses, of course, but since you seem to be too tired to contradict me, maybe I can enlarge a bit on it . . .’

She stretched out the other foot as well.

‘Quite a humble little theory in fact,’ he said. ‘It ought to suit a clever woman like you. A woman with humble feet . . . no, carry on, please do. Anyway, let’s assume that there are an infinite number of connections and correspondences and patterns in the world, and that the cleverest of us might be able – and dare! – to comprehend . . . let’s say a hundredth part of them. The thickest of us might comprehend a thousandth, or a ten-thousandth. Let’s not go into how much I can grasp. Most of it comes to us in ways different from what the so-called western way of thinking is prepared to accept. The deductive terror. Despite the fact that this in no way contradicts it. Or threatens it. Quite the reverse, actually, for it must surely be easier to comprehend things than to comprehend how we comprehend them. Our knowledge of the world must always be greater than our knowledge of knowledge . . . Well, er, something like that. As I said.’

Ulrike thought for a moment.

‘It sounds plausible,’ she said. ‘But I’m not properly awake.’

‘There are so many patterns,’ Van Veeteren continued. ‘We get so much information that we generally just let it flash over our heads. A thousand kilos of stimuli every second. We don’t have time to work on them. This is all obvious, but all I really understand is obvious, I have to admit.’

‘Dreams?’ said Ulrike.

‘For example. But hell’s bells! A dagger hovering over Intendent Münster! You’re not going to tell me that that’s a coincidence? He’s in danger, obviously, even a child can understand that.’

‘You thought it was Erich,’ Ulrike pointed out.

Van Veeteren sighed.

‘Erich has been in the danger zone for as long as I can remember,’ he said. ‘That wouldn’t be anything new.’

‘How old is he?’

Van Veeteren had to think that over.

‘Twenty-six,’ he said. ‘It’s about time I stopped worrying about him.’

Ulrike shook her head.

‘Why should you do that?’ she asked. ‘Once your child, always your child. Even if they’re aged a hundred.’

Van Veeteren observed her for a while in silence. Felt the warm soles of her feet against his legs. Good God, he thought. This woman . . .

It was only the fourth or fifth time they had spent a whole night together, and now, just as on all the previous occasions, he was forced to ask himself why it didn’t happen rather more often. As far as he could tell he didn’t seem to be causing her all that much suffering, so why be so damned cautious? Be as unabashed as a hermit. Not as doubtful as a donkey. As far as he was concerned . . . well, as far as he was concerned he wasn’t suffering in the least.

He looked out of the window at a New Year’s Day that seemed very uncertain. It had been raining during the night, and the sky and the earth seemed to be conjoined by a blue-grey light that certainly didn’t intend to keep darkness at bay for many hours. It struck him that there were grounds for thinking the sun had been extinguished at some point in November – he couldn’t recall seeing it since then, at least.

‘Lovely weather,’ he said. ‘Shall we go back to bed for a while?’

‘A good idea,’ said Ulrike Fremdli.

When they woke up the next time it was two o’clock.

‘When are your children due?’ he asked in horror.

‘This evening,’ she said. ‘They’re not dangerous.’

‘My solicitude concerns them and nothing else,’ said Van Veeteren, sitting up. ‘I don’t want to give them a shock, the first thing I do in the new year.’

Ulrike pulled him back down onto the bed.

‘You’re staying,’ she said. ‘They’re grown-up now and have flown the nest, both of them. And they’ve seen a thing or two.’

Van Veeteren pondered.