Hour of the Wolf Read Online Free Page A

registration number; but that they might have seen a vehicle parked there. Two cars had passed by while he was down in the ditch . . . or was it while he was still standing on the road? He couldn’t remember that any more. But in any case he recalled quite clearly seeing two cars and a scooter. The driver of the car coming from the opposite direction to where he was heading – from Boorkhejm or Linzhuisen – might even had taken his Audi for an oncoming vehicle, he reckoned; but the other two surely must have registered that the car was parked on the edge of the road with its lights on.
    Or was that the kind of thing that people forget all about? Bits of memory dust that only remain in the brain for a few seconds or half a minute at most, then vanish without trace for ever? Hard to say, hard to know, but definitely a question that kept him awake at night. These presumptive, latent pieces of evidence.
    On Thursday, after a few days of silence in the media and a week after the accident, an appeal was made by the boy’s family: his mother, father and a younger sister. They spoke on the television and the radio, and their pictures appeared in various newspapers. All they wanted was quite simply for the perpetrator to listen to his own conscience and make himself known.
    Confess to what he had done, and take his punishment.
    It seemed obvious that this move was yet another indication that the police were at a loss and had nothing to work on. No leads, no clues. When he watched the mother – a dark-haired, unexpectedly self-controlled woman of about forty-five – sitting on her sofa and looking him in the eye from his television screen, he felt distinctly uneasy; but the moment she disappeared from the screen, he immediately regained his composure. Acknowledged that from time to time he was bound to be subjected to such attacks of anxiety, but that he would always have the strength to pick himself up again. To find a way out of his weakness. As long as he kept his head.
    It was good to know that he had it, that he possessed this essential quality. Strength of mind
    Nevertheless he would have liked to talk to her.
    Why? he had asked himself.
    What would be the point of putting me in jail for five years?
    I have killed your son, I regret it with all my heart – but it was an accident, and what would be gained by my contacting the police?
    He wondered what her answer would have been. Would she have had anything to reproach him for? The whole business was an accident, and accidents don’t have any culprits. No active participants at all, just factors and objects beyond control.
    Later that evening he also toyed with the idea of sending an anonymous message to the family. Or just ringing them up and explaining his point of view. But he realized it was too risky, and he dismissed any such thoughts.
    He also dismissed the alternative of trying to arrange for a wreath to be delivered for Wim Felders’ funeral, which took place in a packed Keymer Church on the Saturday ten days after the accident.
    For the same reason. The risks.
    Apart from relatives and friends, the congregation comprised most of the pupils and teachers from Weger Grammar School plus representatives of various traffic organizations. He read about this in great detail in the Sunday issue of the Neuwe Blatt , but that was also the final large-scale news coverage of the case.
    To his surprise he found that on Monday he felt strangely empty.
    As if he had lost something.
    Like when I lost Marianne, he thought later on, similarly surprised; it was an odd comparison, but then, he needed to relate it to something. Something important in his life. For ten days the horrific happenings had been dominating his whole existence. Seeping into every nook and cranny of his consciousness. Even if he had managed to take control of his panic relatively quickly, it had been present all the time. Lurking, ready to break out. His thoughts had been centred on that hellish car journey