The last day of Waldemar Leverkuhn’s life could hardly have begun any better.
After a windy night of non-stop rain, mild autumn sunshine was now creeping in through the kitchen window. From the balcony overlooking the courtyard he could hear the characteristic soft cooing of love-lorn pigeons, and the fading echo of his wife’s footsteps on the stairs as she set off for the market. The Neuwe Blatt was spread out on the table in front of him, and he had just laced his morning coffee with a couple of drops of gin when Wauters rang.
‘We won,’ Wauters said.
‘Won?’ said Leverkuhn.
‘By Christ, yes, we won!’ said Wauters. ‘They said so on the radio.’
‘On the radio?’
‘Bugger me if we haven’t won twenty thousand! Five each – and not a day too soon!’
‘The lottery?’
‘The lottery, yes. What else? What did I tell you? There was something special in the air when I bought the ticket. My God, yes! She sort of coaxed it out! As if she really was picking out the right one – Mrs Milkerson in the corner shop. Two, five, five. One, six, five, five! It was the fives that won it for us, of course. I’ve had the feeling this was going to happen all week!’
‘How much did you say?’
‘Twenty thousand, for God’s sake! Five each! I’ll have to ring the others. Let’s have a party at Freddy’s this evening – dammit all, a knees-up in Capernaum is called for!’
‘Five thousand…?’ said Leverkuhn, but Wauters had already hung up.
He remained standing for a while with the receiver in his hand, feeling rather dizzy. Five thousand euros? He blinked carefully a few times, and when his eyes started to focus again they turned automatically to look at the wedding photograph on the bureau. The one in the gold frame. Settled gradually on Marie-Louise’s round and milk-fresh face. Her dimples and corkscrew curls. A warm wind in her hair. Glitter in her eyes.
That was then, he thought. She was a stunner in those days. 1948.
As tasty as a cream cake! He took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. Scratched himself a little tentatively in the crotch. It was different nowadays… but that’s the way it is with women… early blossoming, childbirth, breastfeeding, putting on weight… reluctant. It was sort of in the nature of things. Different with men, so very different.
He sighed and went out of the bedroom. Continued his train of thought, even though he didn’t really want to – that seemed to happen so often nowadays… Men, oh yes: they were still up for it much longer, that was the big difference… that damned big difference. Mind you, it evened itself out towards the end… now, well into the autumn of his life, he rarely got the urge any more, it had to be admitted. That applied to both of them.
But what else could you expect? Seventy-two and sixty-nine. He’d heard about people who could still keep going for longer than that, but as far as he was concerned it was probably all over and done with; he’d just have to make the best of it.
Apart from the odd little twitch now and then, though, which he’d have preferred to do without. A vague reminder of days long past; no more than a memory, a sad recollection.
But that’s the way it was. A little twitch. That he could have done without. He flopped down over the kitchen table again.
Five thousand!
Hell’s bells! He tried to think. Five thousand euros!
But it was hard to pin down those butterflies fluttering in his stomach. What the hell would he do with such a lot of money?
A car? Hardly. It would probably be enough for a pretty decent second-hand model, that was true, and he had a driving licence, but it was ten years since he’d sat at the wheel, and he hadn’t had any pressing desire to get out and see the world for a long time now.
Nor did he fancy an expensive holiday. It was like Palinski used to say: he’d seen most things and more besides.
A better television set?
No point. The one they had was only a couple of years old, and in any case, he only used it as something to sit in front of and fall asleep.
A new suit?
For his own funeral, or what?
No, the first thing to stick its head over the parapet inside his mind was that there was nothing he really needed. Which no doubt said a lot about what a miserable old git he’d become. Couldn’t even work out how to spend his own money any longer. Couldn’t be bothered. What a berk!
Leverkuhn slid the newspaper to one side and poured himself another cup of coffee with a dash of gin.
That was surely something he could allow himself? Another cup? He listened to the pigeons as he sipped his coffee. Maybe that was how he should deal with the situation? Allow himself a few things? Buy an extra round or two at Freddy’s. Rather more expensive wines. A decent bite to eat at Keefer’s or Kraus.
Why not? Live a bit of the good life for a year or two.
Now the phone rang again.
Palinski, of course.
‘Dammit all, a knees-up in Capernaum is called for tonight!’
The very same words as Wauters. How odd that he wasn’t even capable of thinking up his own swearwords. After his opening remark he roared with laughter down the phone for half a minute, then finished off by yelling something about how the wine would be flowing at Freddy’s.
‘… half past six! White shirt and new tie, you old devil!’
And he hung up. Leverkuhn observed his newly wed wife again for a while, then returned to the kitchen. Drank up the rest of the coffee and belched. Then smiled.
He smiled at last. After all, five thousand was five thousand.
Bonger, Wauters, Leverkuhn and Palinski.
It has to be said they were a long-standing, ancient quartet. He had known Bonger and Palinski since he was a boy. Since they were at school together at the Magdeburgska, and the war-time winters in the cellars on Zuiderslaan and Merdwick. They had drifted apart for a few decades in the middle of their lives, naturally enough, but their paths had crossed once again in their late middle age.
Wauters had joined them later, much later. One of the lone gents who hung out at Freddy’s, herr Wauters. Moved there from Hamburg and Frigge and God only knows where else; had never been married (the only one of the quartet who had managed to avoid that, he liked to point out – although he now shared the bachelor state with both Bonger and Palinski) – and he was probably the loneliest old bugger you could possibly imagine. Or at least, that’s what Bonger used to confide in them, strictly between friends of course. It was Bonger who had got to know him first, and introduced him into their circle. A bit of a gambler as well, this Wauters – if you could believe the rumours he spread somewhat discriminately about himself, that is. But now he restricted himself to the football pools and the lottery. The gee-gees nowadays were nothing but drugged-up donkeys, he used to maintain with a sigh, and the jockeys were all on the make. And as for cards?… Well, if you’d lost nearly twelve hundred on a full house, huh, let’s face it – it was about bloody time you took things easy in your old age!
According to Benjamin Wauters.
Bonger, Wauters, Leverkuhn and Palinski.
The other evening Palinski had worked out that their combined age came to 292, and so if they could hang on for another couple of years, they could look forward to celebrating their 300th anniversary at the turn of the century. Christ Almighty, that wasn’t something to be sneered at!
Palinski had patted fröken Gautiers’s generously proportioned bum and informed her of that fact as well, but fröken Gautiers had merely snorted and stated that she would have guessed 400.
But in reality these round figures had no significance at all, because this Saturday was the last day of Waldemar Leverkuhn’s life. As already said.
Marie-Louise arrived with the carrier bags of groceries just as he was on his way out.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Out.’
‘Why?’
‘To buy a tie.’
There was a clicking noise from her false teeth, twice, as always happened when she was irritated by something. Tick, tock.
‘A tie?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why are you going to buy a tie? You already have fifty.’
‘I’ve grown tired of them.’
She shook her head and pushed her way past him with the bags. A smell of kidney floated into his nostrils.
‘You don’t need to cook a meal tonight.’
‘Eh? What do you mean by that?’
‘I’m eating out.’
She put the carrier bags on the table.
‘I’ve bought some kidney.’
‘So I’d noticed.’
‘Why have you suddenly decided to eat out? I thought we were going to have an early meal – I’m going round to Emmeline’s this evening, and you’re supposed to be going-’
‘-to Freddy’s, yes. But I’m going out to have a bite to eat as well. You can put it in the freezer. The kidney, that is.’
She screwed up her eyes and stared at him.
‘Has something happened?’
He buttoned up his overcoat.
‘Not that I know of. Such as what?’
‘Have you taken your medicine?’
He didn’t reply.
‘Put a scarf on. It’s windy out there.’
He shrugged and went out.
Five thousand, he thought. I could spend a few nights in a hotel.
Wauters and Palinski were also wearing new ties, but not Bonger.
Bonger never wore a tie, had probably never owned one in his life, but at least his shirt was fairly clean. His wife had died eight years ago, and nowadays it was a matter of getting by as best he could. With regard to shirts and everything else.
Wauters had reserved a table in the restaurant area, and they started with champagne and caviar as recommended by Palinski – apart from Bonger who declined the caviar and ordered lobster tails. In a Sauterne sauce.
‘What’s got into you old devils this evening?’ fröken Gautiers wondered incredulously. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve sold your prostates to some research institute.’
But she took their orders without more ado, and when Palinski patted her bottom as usual she almost forgot to fend off his rheumatic hand.
‘Your very good health, my friends!’ proposed Wauters at regular intervals.
‘Let the knees-up in Capernaum commence!’ Palinski urged at even more regular intervals.
For Christ’s sake, I’m sick and fed up of these idiots, Leverkuhn thought.
By about eleven Wauters had told them eight or nine times how he had bought the lottery ticket. Palinski had begun to sing ‘Oh, those sinful days of youth’ about as frequently, breaking off after a line and a half because he couldn’t remember the words; and Bonger’s stomach had started playing up. For his part, Waldemar Leverkuhn established that he was probably even more drunk than he’d been at the Oktoberfest in Grünwald fifteen years ago. Or was it sixteen?
Whatever, it was about time to head for home.
If only he could find his shoes, that is. He’d been sitting in his stockinged feet for the last half-hour or so. He had realized this, somewhat to his surprise, when he had made his way to the loo for a pee; but no matter how much he fished around for them under the table with his feet, he didn’t get a bite.
This was a damned nuisance. He could smell that Bonger’s stomach had spoken once more, and when Polinski started singing yet again, he realized that his search needed to be more systematic.
He coughed by way of creating a diversion, then ducked down discreetly – but unfortunately caught the edge of the tablecloth as he collapsed onto the floor, and the chaos that ensued made him reluctant to leave his temporary exile under the table. Especially as he could see no sign of any shoes.
‘Leave me alone, damn you!’ he growled threateningly. ‘Fuck off and leave me in peace!’
He rolled over onto his back and pulled down the rest of the tablecloth and all the glasses and crockery. From the surrounding tables came a mixed chorus of roars of masculine laughter and horrified feminine shrieks. Wauters and Palinski offered well-meaning advice, and Bonger weighed in with another stinkbomb.
Then fröken Gautiers and herr Van der Valk and Freddy himself put in an appearance, and ten minutes later Waldemar Leverkuhn was standing on the pavement outside, in the rain, complete with both overcoat and shoes. Palinski and Wauters went off in a taxi, and Bonger asked right away if Leverkuhn might like to share one with him.
Most certainly not, you bloody skunk! Leverkuhn thought; and he must have said so as well because Bonger’s fist hovered threateningly under his nose for a worrying second: but then both the hand and its owner set off along Langgracht.
Touchy as usual, Leverkuhn thought as he started walking in more or less the same direction. The rain was getting heavier. But that didn’t worry him, not in the least. Despite being drunk, he felt on top of the world and could walk in a more or less straight line. It was only when he turned into the slippery slope leading to the Wagner Bridge that he slipped and fell over. Two women who happened to be passing, probably whores from the Zwille, helped him to his feet and made sure he was on steadier ground in Zuyderstraat.
The rest of the walk home was a doddle, and he reached his flat just as the clock in the Keymer church struck a quarter to twelve.
But his wife wasn’t at home yet. Waldemar Leverkuhn closed the door without locking it, left his shoes, overcoat and jacket in the hall, and crept down into bed without more ado.
Two minutes later he was asleep. On his back and with his mouth wide open; and when a little later his rasping snores were silenced by a carving knife slicing twenty-eight times through his neck and torso, it is not clear if he knew anything about it.
The woman was as grey as dawn.
With her shoulders hunched up in her shabby coat, she sat opposite Intendent Münster, looking down at the floor. Showed no sign of touching either the mug of tea or the sandwiches fröken Katz had been in with. There was an aura of weary resignation surrounding her, and Münster wondered for a moment if it might not be best to summon the doctor and give her an injection. Put her to bed for a rest instead of sitting here being tortured. Krause had already conducted a preliminary interrogation after all.
But as Van Veeteren used to say, the first few hours are the most important ones. And the first quarter of an hour weighs as much as the whole of the third week.
Assuming it was going to be a long-drawn-out business, of course. But you never knew.
He glanced at the clock. Six forty-five. All right, he thought. Just a quarter of an hour.
‘I’ll have to take the details one more time,’ he said. ‘Then you can get some sleep.’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t need to sleep.’
Münster read quickly through Krause’s notes.
‘So you got home at about two o’clock, is that right?’
‘Yes, about five past. There had been a power cut, and we’d been stuck in the train for over an hour. Just outside Voigtshuuis.’
‘Where had you been?’
‘Bossingen. Visiting a friend. We generally meet on a Saturday… not every week, but now and then. I’ve already told an officer this.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Münster. ‘What time was it when you set off from Bossingen?’
‘I took the twelve o’clock train. It leaves at 23.59, and is supposed to arrive at a quarter to one. But it was nearly two.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then I went home and found him.’
She shrugged, and fell silent. She still hadn’t raised her eyes. For a brief second Münster recalled a kitten that had been run over, which he’d found when he was ten or eleven. It was lying there, stuck to the asphalt in a pool of blood as he came cycling past, and it hadn’t raised its eyes either. It simply lay there, staring into the tall grass at the side of the road, waiting to die.
He wondered why that particular image had come back to him on this gloomy morning. It wasn’t fru Leverkuhn who was dying after all, it was her husband who was dead.
Murdered. Seventy-two years of age and he had met his killer, a killer who had found it safest to stab his knife into him between twenty and thirty times, making sure he would never again be able to get out of bed.
At some time between half past twelve and half past two, according to the preliminary forensic report which had been delivered shortly before Münster arrived at the police station.
A bit over the top, to be sure. One or two stabs would presumably have been enough. The loss of blood had been so great that for once it was justified to talk about bathing in his own blood. Apparently there was much more in the bed and on the floor than in the man’s body.
He eyed Marie-Louise Leverkuhn and waited for a few seconds.
‘And so you phoned the police straight away?’
‘Yes… er, no: I went outside for a bit first.’
‘Went outside? What on earth for?’
She shrugged once again.
‘I don’t know. I must have been in some sort of shock, I suppose… I think I was intending to walk to Entwick Plejn.’
‘Why did you want to go to Entwick Plejn?’
‘The police station. I was going to report it there… but then it dawned on me that it would be better to phone. I mean, it was late, and I supposed they would only be open there during office hours. Is that the case?’
‘I think so,’ said Münster. ‘What time did you get back?’
She thought for a moment.
‘Just after half past two, I suppose.’
Münster thumbed through his papers. That seemed to be right. The call had been recorded at 02.43.
‘I see here it says that the door wasn’t locked when you got home.’
‘No.’
‘Had somebody broken in?’
‘No. He sometimes forgot to lock it… or just didn’t bother.’
‘He seems to have been drinking quite heavily.’
She made no reply. Münster hesitated for a few moments.
‘Fru Leverkuhn,’ he said eventually, leaning forward over the desk and trying to fish her gaze up from the floor. ‘There is no doubt at all that your husband was murdered. Have you any idea who might have done it?’
‘No.’
‘Not the slightest little suspicion?… Somebody he might have fallen out with, or something of the sort?’
She shook her head ever so slightly.
‘Was anything missing from the flat? Apart from the knife, that is.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘No trace of the killer?’
‘No.’
‘Was there anything at all that you noticed, that you think might be of significance?’
A shudder ran through her body, and she raised her eyes at last.
‘No, everything was the same as usual, everything… Oh, what am I saying? I mean…’
‘It’s okay, I understand,’ said Münster. ‘It’s as you said, you’ve had a nasty shock. We’ll have a break now. I think it would be best if you have a lie-down for a while. I’ll send for a lady officer to look after you.’
He closed his notebook and stood up. Beckoned fru Leverkuhn to accompany him and opened the door for her. As she passed by close to him, he noticed her smell for the first time.
Moth balls, unless he was much mistaken.
Rooth looked very much like how Münster felt.
‘Have you been at it for long?’
Rooth stirred his coffee with a pencil.
‘You can say that again,’ he said. ‘When I was a kid we used to have something called Sunday mornings. Where have they gone to?’
‘No idea,’ said Münster. ‘You’ve been there, I take it?’
‘For three hours,’ said Rooth. ‘I got there shortly after Krause. Spent an hour looking at the bloodbath, two hours interviewing the neighbours. Krause looked after the wife.’
‘So I heard,’ said Münster. ‘What did the neighbours have to say?’
‘Unanimous information,’ Rooth explained as he dug a sandwich out of a plastic bag on his desk. ‘Would you like one?’
Münster shook his head.
‘Unanimous information? What the hell does that mean?’
Rooth blew his nose.
‘There are only six flats in the house. One is empty. Three – including the Leverkuhns’ – are occupied by pensioners. Sixty-five upwards. A fat woman in her forties lives in the fourth, and a young couple in the last one. They were all at home last night and they all heard the same thing.’
‘You don’t say. What?’
‘The young couple screwing away. The sound insulation seems to be bad, and they don’t have the best bed in the world, apparently.’
‘Three hours?’ said Münster.
Rooth took a bite at his sandwich and frowned.
‘Yes, and they admit it. The stallion isn’t exactly a bloody athlete either, by the looks of him. But then, he’s black, of course. It sometimes makes you wonder…’
‘Are you telling me that these old folk were lying awake listening to sexual gymnastics all the time between eleven and two?’
‘Not all the time, they dozed off now and again. There’s only one couple, by the way. Van Ecks on the ground floor. He’s the caretaker. The others are on their own… Herr Engel and fröken Mathisen.’
‘I see,’ said Münster, thinking that information over. ‘But nobody heard anything from the Leverkuhns’ flat?’
‘Not even a fly’s fart,’ said Rooth, taking another bite. ‘Nobody noticed any visitors entering the premises, and nobody heard any suspicious sounds, apart from the screwing. But it seems that getting into the building is no problem. According to Van Eck you can open the outside door with a toothpick.’
Münster said nothing while Rooth finished off his sandwich.
‘What do you think?’ he asked in the end.
Rooth yawned.
‘Not a bloody thing,’ he said. ‘I’m a bit too tired to think. I assume somebody got in, stabbed the poor bastard to death, then left again. Or was sitting waiting for him when he came home. Take your pick.’
‘Twenty to thirty cuts?’ said Münster.
‘Two would have been enough,’ said Rooth. ‘A bloody madman, I assume.’
Münster stood up and walked over to the window. Forced apart a couple of slats in the Venetian blinds and peered out over the mist-covered town. It was nearly half past eight, but it was obvious that it was going to be one of those grey, rainy Sundays when it never became really light. One of those damp waiting rooms.
He let go of the blinds and turned round.
‘Why?’ he said. ‘Who the hell would want to stab to death a seventy-year-old man like this?’
Rooth said nothing.
‘What about the weapon?’
Rooth looked up from his coffee cup.
‘The only thing missing from the flat – according to the wife, at least – is a carving knife. Meusse says it could well have been that he used. The length seems to be about right, so that’s the assumption he’s making.’
‘Hm,’ said Münster. ‘What are you thinking of doing now, then?’
Rooth scratched his chin.
‘Going home and lying down for a bit. You are taking over as I understand it. I’ll be back on duty tomorrow if I’m still alive. There are a few people that need to be informed, by the way. I saved that for you. I hope you’ll forgive me, but you’re better at that kind of thing than I am. Besides, you can’t make phone calls like that at any old time in the morning.’
‘Thank you,’ said Münster. ‘Who needs to be informed?’
Rooth took a scrap of paper from his inside pocket.
‘A son and a daughter,’ he replied. ‘Neither of them lives here in Maardam. There is another daughter, but she’s in a psychiatric hospital somewhere or other, so I suppose that can wait.’
‘All right,’ said Münster, accepting the addresses. ‘Go home and go to bed, I’ll solve this little problem.’
‘Good,’ said Rooth. ‘If you’ve cracked it by tomorrow morning you’ll get a bar of chocolate.’
‘What a stingy old bastard you are,’ said Münster, lifting the receiver.
There was no reply from either of the numbers, and he wondered if he ought to hand the job over to Krause or one of the others. In any case, it was obvious that old fru Leverkuhn did not feel she was in a fit state to ring her children. To ring and tell them that somebody had just killed their father, that is, by stabbing him twenty to thirty times with the knife they had given him as a Christmas present fifteen years ago.
He could appreciate her point of view. He folded the scrap of paper and decided that this was one of those tasks he couldn’t simply delegate to somebody else. Duties, as they used to be called.
Instead he rang Synn. Explained that he would probably have to work all day, and could hear the disappointment in her silence and the words she didn’t speak. His own disappointment was no less heartfelt, and they hung up after less than a minute.
There were few things Intendent Münster liked better than spending a day in a damp waiting room with Synn. And their children. An unplanned, rainy Sunday.
He closed his eyes and leaned back in his desk chair.
Why, he thought listlessly.
Why did somebody have to go and kill an old man in this bestial fashion?
And why did he have to have a job which so often required him to spend rainy Sundays digging out answers to questions like this one, instead of being with his beloved family?
Why?
He sighed and looked at the clock. The morning had barely started.
He walked to Freddy’s. A grey mist hung over the canals and the deserted Sunday streets, but at least it had stopped raining for the moment. The little restaurant was in Weiskerstraat, on the corner of Langgraacht, and the entrance doors were not yet open. Sundays 12-24, it said on a yellowed piece of paper taped to the door, but he knocked on the wet glass and, after a long pause, he was allowed in. The door was opened by a powerfully built woman in her forties. She was almost as tall as he was, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, with a slightly grubby red shawl over her head. She was evidently busy transforming the premises into a reasonably presentable state.
Doing the cleaning, you could say.
‘Elizabeth Gautiers?’
She nodded and put a pile of plastic-laminated menus down on the bar counter. Münster looked around. The lighting was very low-key – he assumed this was connected with the level of cleanliness aimed at. Otherwise it looked much the same as any other similar establishment. Dark wooden panels, drab furnishings in brown, green and red. A cigarette machine and a television set. Another room at the back had tables with white cloths and was slightly more generously lit: evidently a somewhat posher dining area. Voices and the clattering of pots and pans could be heard from the kitchen: it was half past ten and they were starting to prepare for lunch.
‘Was it you who rang?’
Münster produced his ID and looked for a convenient place to sit down.
‘We can sit through there. Would you like anything?’
She pointed towards the white tablecloths and led the way through the saloon doors.
‘Coffee, please,’ said Münster, ignoring the fact that he had promised Synn to reduce his intake to four cups per day. This would be his third. ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’
It wasn’t. They sat down under the branches of a weeping fig made of cloth and plastic, and he took out his notebook.
‘As I said, it’s about that group of diners you had here last night…’ He checked the names. ‘Palinski, Bonger, Wauters and Leverkuhn. All of them regulars, I believe? It looks as if Leverkuhn has been murdered.’
This was evidently news to her, her jaw dropped so far that he could hear a slight clicking noise. Münster wondered if she could possibly have false teeth – she couldn’t be more than forty-five, surely? His own age, more or less.
‘Murdered?’
‘No doubt about it,’ said Münster, and paused.
‘Er… but why?’
‘We don’t know yet.’
She sat absolutely still for a few seconds. Then she removed the shawl and revealed a head of hair almost exactly the same shade of red. But not quite as grubby. A rather beautiful woman, Münster decided, somewhat to his surprise. Large, but beautiful. A good catch for the right man. She lit a cigarette.
‘Robbery, I expect?’
Münster made no reply.
‘Was he attacked on the way home?’
‘Not really. Can you tell me what time he left here?’
Elizabeth Gautiers thought for a moment.
‘Eleven, maybe a few minutes past,’ she said. ‘It had been a bit special,’ she added after a while.
‘Special?’
‘They got drunk. Leverkuhn fell under the table.’
‘Under the table?’
She laughed.
‘Yes, he really did. He dragged the tablecloth down with him, and there was a bit of a palaver. Still, we managed to stand them up and set them on their way… You mean he was killed on the way home?’
‘No,’ said Münster. ‘In his bed. Did they have an argument, these gentlemen, or anything of the sort?’
‘No more than usual.’
‘Did you see how they set off for home? Did you phone for a taxi, perhaps?’
‘That’s never necessary,’ said Gautiers, ‘there are always plenty of taxis just round the corner, in Megsje Plejn. Let me see, I think two of them took a taxi – I was watching through the window. But Leverkuhn and Bonger started walking.’
Münster nodded and made a note.
‘You know them pretty well, I take it?’
‘I certainly do. They sit here two evenings a week, at least. Bonger and Wauters more than that – four or five times. But they’re usually in the bar…’
‘How long have they been coming here?’
‘Ever since I’ve been working here, that’s eight years now.’
‘But yesterday they were in the restaurant?’
She stubbed out her cigarette and thought about that.
‘Yes, there was something special on last night, as I said. They seemed to be celebrating something. I think they had won some money.’
Münster wrote that down.
‘What makes you think that? How would they have won some money?’
‘I don’t know. Football pools or the lottery, I expect – they usually sit here filling in coupons on Wednesday nights. They try to keep it secret for some silly reason, they don’t speak aloud about it, but you catch on even so.’
‘Are you certain about this?’
She thought it over again.
‘No, not certain,’ she said. ‘But it can hardly have been anything else. They were dressed up as well. They ordered expensive wines and cognac. And they ate à la carte… But for God’s sake, why would they want to kill Leverkuhn? Poor old chap. Was he robbed?’
Münster shook his head.
‘No. Murdered. Somebody stabbed him to death with a knife.’
She stared at him in astonishment.
‘But who? I mean… why?’
The worst interrogations, Münster thought as he went out into the street, are the ones when the person being interviewed has nothing to say apart from repeating and confirming the questions you ask. As in this case.
‘But who?’
‘Why?’
Ah well, the concept of money had cropped up, and even if it was several years since Intendent Münster had flirted with Marxism, he still had the feeling that there was a crass financial side to practically everything. Especially when it was to do with his own speciality, of course. The shadowy side.
Cui bono, then? Nothing about sudden winnings had emerged from the conversation with the wife. Maybe this was a lead to be followed up, although on reflection he realized that these gentlemen – or Leverkuhn at least – might well have preferred to keep quiet about such a stroke of luck. To make sure the money didn’t disappear into the housekeeping kitty or some other bottomless pit.
If they had in fact been lucky enough to pull off a win, and of course it wasn’t out of the question. People did win money now and again – it had never happened to him, but no doubt that was not entirely unconnected with the fact that he very rarely gambled.
He checked his watch and decided to walk back to the police station as well. The clouds of mist had begun to let through some spots of rain, but it felt mild and pleasant, and after all he was wearing an overcoat and gloves.
What he would actually do when he got back to the station he wasn’t at all sure – apart from trying to get hold of the son and daughter, of course. With a bit of luck, reports ought to have come in by now from the pathologist Meusse, and the scene-of-crime boys, which would no doubt provide other things that needed doing.
Moreover it was possible that Jung and Moreno had managed to get their claws into the other old codgers, although it was probably best not to invest too much hope in that. Both of them had looked more than acceptably weary when he had sent them out.
The best-case scenario, needless to say, would be a note on his desk to the effect that one of the oldies had broken down and confessed. Or that somebody else had, anybody. And then – in that case there would be nothing to stop him going home to Synn and the kids and spending the rest of the day with the family.
A lovely, grey Sunday, just right for sitting indoors. There was certainly something to be said for postponing a key interrogation until Monday morning. A softening-up day in the cells was usually enough to make most criminals confess to more or less anything you wanted them to.
He’d had plenty of experience of that in the past.
As for the chances of such a confession having been made… well, Intendent Münster thought it best not to think in any detail about that. It was better to allow himself to hope for a while. You never know. And if there was one thing about this damned job that you could be certain about, this was it.
That you can never know.
He turned up his collar to keep the rain out, put his hands into his pockets and allowed himself to feel some cautious optimism.
Jung had a headache.
There were reasons for that, but without saying a word about it to his colleagues he took the tram to Armastenplejn, where Palinski lived. Today was one of those days when there was no point in hurrying, he told himself, stressing that fact with pedagogical insistence.
The tram was practically empty at this ungodly time on a Sunday morning, and as he sat swaying from side to side on the vandalized seat he took the opportunity of slipping two effervescent tablets into the can of Coca-Cola he had bought in the canteen. The result was an astounding amount of froth, and he found himself needing to slurp down the foaming drink as quickly as he could. Even so his jacket and trousers were covered in a mass of stains, and he realized that his goings-on found little in the way of tolerant understanding in the four prudish female eyes staring at him from a few rows further back. On their way to church, no doubt, to receive well-earned tolerant understanding of their own foibles. These doughty ladies.
So what, Jung thought. Stared back at them and wiped away the mess as best he could with his scarf.
His head was still aching when he got off. He found the right building, and noticed a cafe next door that was open. After a few seconds’ hesitation, he went into the cafe and ordered a cup of black coffee.
Keep off the booze when you’re on standby! That was a sensible rule, tried and tested; but it had been Maureen’s birthday, and you sometimes need to choose your priorities.
Besides, they had had the flat to themselves for once – in fact it was the first time since they had moved in together at the end of August. Sophie was sleeping over in the home of one of her girlfriends. Or possibly boyfriends – she would soon be seventeen, after all.
They had spent a few hours eating and drinking. Shared a rather expensive Rioja in front of the television for a couple more hours. Then made love for an hour and a half. At least. He remembered looking at the clock and noting that it was twenty-five minutes to four.
The duty officer had rung at a quarter to six.
I’m a wreck today, Jung thought. But a quite young and happy wreck.
He emptied his cup of coffee and ordered another.
Palinski also looked like a wreck, but forty years older. His white shirt might possibly have been clean the previous evening, but after being exposed to a night of sweaty alcoholic fumes it was no longer particularly impressive. A pair of disconsolate, thin legs stuck out from underneath it, criss-crossed with varicose veins and wearing a pair of sagging socks. His head was balanced precariously on a fragile stick insect of a neck, and seemed to be on the point of cracking at any moment. His hands were trembling like the wings of a skylark, and his lower jaw was apparently disconnected from its anchorage.
Oh my God, Jung thought as he waved his ID in front of Palinski’s nose. I’m standing here face to face with my own future.
‘Police,’ he said. ‘Let me in.’
Palinski started coughing. Then closed his eyes.
Headache, was Jung’s diagnosis. He gritted his teeth and forced his way in.
‘What do you want? I’m not well.’
‘You’re hung over,’ said Jung. ‘Stop putting it on.’
‘No… er,’ said Palinski. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Are you saying you don’t know what is meant by a hangover?’
Palinski did not reply, but coughed up some more phlegm and swallowed it. Jung looked around for a spittoon, and took a deep breath. The air in the flat was heavy with the reek of old man. Tobacco. Unwashed clothes. Unscrubbed floors. He found his way into the kitchen and managed to open a window. Sat down at the rickety table and gestured to his host to follow suit.
‘I must take a pill first,’ croaked Palinski, and staggered into what must presumably be the bathroom.
It took five minutes. Then Palinski reappeared in a frayed dressing gown and with a newly scrubbed face. He was evidently a little more cocksure.
‘What the devil do you want, then?’ he said, sitting down opposite Jung.
‘Leverkuhn is dead,’ said Jung. ‘What can you tell me about that?’
Palinski lost control of his jaw and his cockiness simultaneously.
‘What?’
‘Murdered,’ said Jung. ‘Well?’
Palinski stared at him, his mouth half open, and began trembling again.
‘What… what the devil are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that somebody murdered Waldemar Leverkuhn in his home last night. You are one of the last people to see him alive, and I want to hear what you have to say for yourself.’
It looked as if Palinski was about to faint. Oh my God, Jung thought: I’m probably coming down too heavily on him.
‘You and he were out together last night,’ he said, trying to calm things down. ‘Is that right?’
‘Yes… yes, we were.’
‘At Freddy’s in Weiskerstraat?’
‘Yes.’
‘Together with two other gents?’
‘Yes.’
Palinski closed his mouth and clung on to the table top.
‘Are you all right?’ Jung asked tentatively.
‘Ill,’ said Palinski. ‘I’m ill. Are you saying he’s dead?’
‘As dead as a doornail,’ said Jung. ‘Somebody stabbed him at least twenty times.’
‘Stabbed him?’ Palinski squeaked. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Neither do we,’ said Jung. ‘Maybe you could make us a cup of tea or coffee, so that we can talk it through in peace and quiet?’
‘Yes… Of course,’ said Palinski. ‘Fucking hell! Who could have done a thing like that?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Jung.
Palinski stood up with considerable difficulty.
‘The way of all flesh,’ he said out of the blue. ‘I think I need a few drops of something strong. Fucking hell!’
‘Give me a couple as well,’ said Jung.
He left Palinski an hour later with a fairly clear head and fairly clear information. Yes, they had been at Freddy’s – as always on a Saturday night. From about half past six until eleven o’clock, or thereabouts. They’d eaten and drunk and chatted. About politics, and women, and everything under the sun.
As usual. Maybe they’d been a bit merry. Leverkuhn had fallen under the table, but it was nothing serious.
Then Palinski and Wauters had shared a taxi. He’d got home at about twenty past eleven and gone straight to bed. Bonger and Leverkuhn had walked home, he thought, but he wasn’t sure. They’d been standing outside Freddy’s, arguing about something or other, he thought, when he and Wauters went off in their taxi.
Had the gentlemen been quarrelling? Good Lord no! They were the best of friends. That’s why they kept meeting at Freddy’s every Wednesday and Saturday. And sometimes more often than that.
Any other enemies? Of Leverkuhn, that is.
No… Palinski shook his aching head cautiously. Enemies? How the devil could he have had any enemies? You didn’t have enemies when you were their age, for Christ’s sake. People with enemies only lived to be half their age.
And Leverkuhn didn’t show any signs of behaving oddly as the evening wore on?
Palinski frowned and thought that over.
No, none at all.
It was raining when Jung came out into the street again, but nevertheless he decided to walk to the canals, where he had his next port of call.
Bonger.
Apparently he had a houseboat on the Bertrandgraacht, and as Jung walked slowly along Palitzerlaan and Keymerstraat, he thought about how often he himself had considered that way of living. In the old days, that is. Before Maureen. There was something especially attractive about living on a boat. The gentle rocking of the dark canal waters. The independence. The freedom – or the illusion of freedom in any case – yes, it had its appeal.
When he came to the address he had been given, he realized that it had its negative sides as well.
Bonger’s home was an old, flat-bottomed, wooden tub barely ten metres long; it was lying suspiciously deeply in the water, and in obvious need of a lick of paint and some maintenance. The deck was full of cans and drums, hawsers and old rubbish, and the living area in the cabin seemed to be mainly below water level.
Ugh! Jung thought and shuddered involuntarily in the rain. What a bloody shit-hole!
There was a narrow, slippery gang-plank between the quay and the rail, but Jung didn’t use it. Instead he pulled at the end of a rope running from the canal railing, over a tree root and to a bell fixed to the chimney. It rang twice, not very loudly, but aroused no reaction. He had the distinct impression that there was nobody at home. He tugged at the rope once again.
‘He’s not in!’
Jung turned round. The hoarse voice came from a heavily muffled-up woman who was just chaining a bicycle to a tree some ten metres further down the canal.
‘No smoke, no lanterns on,’ she explained. ‘That means he’s not at home. He’s very careful about always having a lantern on.’
‘I see,’ said Jung. ‘I take it you’re his neighbour.’
The woman picked up her two plastic carrier bags and heaved them over the railings onto another houseboat that seemed to be in rather better condition than Bonger’s – with red-striped curtains in the windows and plants growing in a little greenhouse on the cabin roof. Tomatoes, by the look of them.
‘Yes, I am,’ she said, climbing on board with surprising agility. ‘Assuming it’s Felix Bonger you’re looking for, that is.’
‘Exactly,’ said Jung. ‘You don’t happen to know where he is, do you?’
She shook her head.
‘He ought to be at home, but I rang shortly before I left to go shopping. I usually get a few items for him from the Kleinmarckt on Sundays… But he wasn’t in.’
‘Are you absolutely certain?’ Jung asked.
‘Climb aboard and take a look for yourself!’ snorted the woman. ‘Nobody locks doors around here.’
Jung did just that, walked down a few steps and peered in through the door. It was a rectangular room with a sofa-bed, a table with two chairs, an electric cooker, a refrigerator and a television set. Clothes were hanging from coat-hangers along the walls, and books and magazines were strewn about haphazardly. Hanging from the ceiling were an electric bulb without a shade and a stuffed parrot on a perch. A broken concertina was lying on top of a low cupboard.
The strongest impression, however, was the smell of dirt and ingrained damp. And of old man.
No, Jung thought. This looks even worse than it did from the canal bank.
When he came back up on deck the woman had disappeared into her own cabin. Jung hesitated; there were probably a question or two he ought to ask her, but as he felt his way cautiously across the gang-plank again, he decided that the urge for something to eat could not be resisted much longer.
And he was starting to feel cold. If he took a slightly longer route back to the police station, he reckoned he would be able to nip into Kurmann’s for a fillet steak with fried potatoes and gravy. Nothing could be simpler.
And a beer.
It was nearly twelve o’clock, so there was no time for dilly-dallying.
Marie-Louise Leverkuhn left the police station with Münster’s blessing shortly after one o’clock on Sunday. She was accompanied by Emmeline von Post, the friend with whom she had spent Saturday evening and who had been informed of the awful happening a few hours previously.
And who said immediately without needing to be prompted that the newly widowed Marie-Louise was welcome to stay in her terraced house out at Bossingen.
For the time being. Until things had calmed down a bit. In other words, for as long as it might be thought necessary.
After all, they had known each other for fifty years. And been colleagues for twenty-five.
Münster escorted the two ladies to the car park, and before they struggled into fröken von Post’s red Renault, he stressed once more how important it was to contact him the moment she recalled anything at all, no matter how apparently insignificant, that might possibly be of interest to the police in their work.
Their work being to capture her husband’s murderer.
‘In any case we shall be in touch with you in a day or so,’ he added. ‘Thank you for volunteering to take care of her, fröken von Post.’
‘We humans have to help each other in our hour of need,’ said Marie-Louise’s short and plump friend, squeezing herself into the driving seat. ‘Where would we be if we didn’t?’
Yes, where would we be indeed? Münster thought as he returned to his office on the third floor.
Up the creek without a paddle, presumably. But wasn’t that where we were all heading for anyway?
The forensic reports were ready half an hour later. While he sat chewing two frugal sandwiches from the automatic machine in the canteen, Münster worked his way through them.
It was not especially uplifting reading.
Waldemar Leverkuhn had been killed by several deep knife-wounds to his trunk and neck. The exact number of blows had been established at twenty-eight, but when the last ten or twelve were made he was most probably already dead.
There had been no resistance, and the probable time of death was now narrowed down to between 01.15 and 02.15. But taking into account the widow’s evidence, that could be narrowed down further to 01.15-02.00, since she had arrived home soon after two.
At the moment of death Leverkuhn had been wearing a white shirt, tie, underpants, trousers and one sock, and the alcohol content in his blood had been 1.76 per thousand.
No weapon had been recovered, but there was no doubt that it must have been a large knife with a blade about twenty centimetres long – possibly identical with the carving knife reported missing by fru Leverkuhn.
No fingerprints or any other clues had been found at the scene of the crime, but chemical analysis of textile fibres and other particles had yet to be carried out.
All this was carefully noted on two densely typed pages, and Münster read through it twice.
Then he phoned Synn and spoke to her for ten minutes.
Then he put his feet up on his desk.
Then he closed his eyes and tried to work out what Van Veeteren would have done in a situation like this.
That did not take very long to work out. He rang down to the duty officer and announced that he would like to see Inspector Jung and Inspector Moreno in his office at four o’clock.
Then he took the lift down to the basement and spent the next two hours in the sauna.
‘Nice weather today,’ said Jung.
‘We had sun yesterday,’ Münster pointed out.
‘I’m serious,’ said Jung. ‘I like these curtains of rain. The grey all around you sort of makes you want to look inside yourself instead. At the essentials of life, if you follow me… The internal landscape.’
Moreno frowned.
‘Sometimes, you know,’ she said, ‘sometimes an unassuming colleague can say things that are very sensible. Have you been on a course?’
‘The university of life,’ said Jung. ‘Who’s going to kick off?’
‘Ladies first,’ said Münster. ‘But I agree with you. There’s something special about black, wet tree trunks… But perhaps we ought to discuss that another day.’
Ewa Moreno opened her notebook and started things going.
‘Benjamin Wauters,’ she said. ‘Born 1925 in Frigge. Lived in Maardam since 1980. All over the place before that. He’s worked on the railways all his life – until he retired, that is. Confirmed bachelor… No relations at all – none that he wants to acknowledge, at least. Suffers from verbal diarrhoea, to be honest. Loquacious and lonely. The other old codgers he meets at Freddy’s are the only company he keeps, apart from his cat. Half angora, I think. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so well groomed. I had the impression that they take their meals together. A very neat and tidy flat as well. Flowers on the window ledges and all that.’
‘What about last night?’ Münster interjected.
‘He didn’t have much to say about that,’ said Moreno. ‘Apparently they had a decent meal for once – they usually spend their time in the bar. They got a bit drunk, he admitted that. Leverkuhn fell under the table, and so they thought they ought to accept a walkover – that’s the way he put it. He’s sport mad, and a gambler, he made no attempt to conceal that. Anyway, that’s about it: but it took two hours with coffee and all his dirty jokes.’
‘No views about the murder?’
‘No views he’d thought through,’ said Moreno. ‘He was sure it must have been a madman, and pure coincidence. Nobody had any reason to bump Leverkuhn off, he maintained. A good mate and a real brick, even if he could be a bit cussed at times. To tell you the truth I tend to agree with him. At any rate it seems out of the question that any of these old codgers could have had anything to do with the murder.’
‘I agree,’ said Jung, and recapitulated his meeting with Palinski and his visit to Bonger’s canal boat.
Münster sighed.
‘A complete blank, then,’ he said. ‘Well, I suppose that was only to be expected.’
‘Were the doors unlocked, then?’ Jung asked. ‘At the Leverkuhns’, I mean.’
‘Apparently.’
‘So we only need some junkie as high as a kite to go past, sneak inside and find a poor old buffer fast asleep that he can take his revenge on. Then sneak out again the same way as he came in. Dead easy, don’t you think?’
‘Good thinking,’ said Moreno. ‘But how are we going to find him?’
Münster thought for a moment.
‘If that’s the answer,’ he said, ‘we’ll never find him.’
‘Unless he starts talking out of turn,’ said Jung. ‘And somebody is kind enough to tip us off.’
Münster sat in silence for a few seconds again, eyeing his colleagues one after the other.
‘Do you really think this is what happened?’
Jung shrugged and yawned. Moreno looked doubtful.
‘It’s very possible,’ she said. ‘As long as we don’t have the slightest hint of a motive, that could well be the answer. And nothing had been stolen from the flat – apart from that knife.’
‘You don’t need to have a motive for killing anybody nowadays,’ said Jung. ‘All that’s needed is for you to feel a bit annoyed, or to think you’ve been slighted for one reason or another, and that gives you the green light to go ahead and throw your weight around. Would you like a few examples?’
‘No thank you,’ said Münster. ‘Motives are beginning to be a bit old-fashioned.’
He leaned back and folded his hands behind his head. Moreno’s digital wristwatch produced a mournful chirruping sound.
‘Five o’clock,’ she said. ‘Was there anything else?’
Münster leafed through the documents on his desk.
‘I don’t think so… Hang on, though: did any of the old boys say anything about having won some money?’
Moreno looked at Jung and shook her head.
‘No,’ said Jung. ‘Why?’
‘Well, the people at Freddy’s had the impression that they were celebrating something last night, but I suppose they were just guessing. This fourth character… Bonger: we’d better make sure we find him, no matter what?’
Jung nodded.
‘I’ll call in on him again on the way home,’ he said. ‘Otherwise it’ll be tomorrow. He doesn’t have a telephone; we’d have to contact him via his neighbour. Just think that there are still people like that about.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Moreno.
‘People without a phone. In this day and age.’
Münster stood up.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Thank you for this Sunday. Let’s cross our fingers and hope that somebody confesses tomorrow morning.’
‘Yes, let’s hope,’ said Jung. ‘But I very much doubt if somebody who bumps off a poor old buffer the way that was done is going to start being bothered by pangs of conscience. Let’s face it, this is not a very pleasant story.’
‘Very nasty,’ said Moreno. ‘As usual.’
On the way home Münster called in at the scene of the crime in Kolderweg. As he was the one in charge of the investigation, for the moment at least, it was of course about time he did so. He stayed for ten minutes and wandered around the little three-roomed flat. It looked more or less as he had imagined it. Quite run-down, but comparatively neat and tidy. A hotchpotch of bad taste on the walls, furniture of the cheap fifties and sixties style. Separate bedrooms, bookcases with no books, and an awful lot of dried blood in and around Leverkuhn’s sagging bed. The body had been taken away, as had the bedlinen: Münster was grateful for that. It would have been more than enough to examine the photographs during the course of the morning.
And of course, what Moreno had said described the scene of the crime exactly.
Very nasty.
When he finally came home he could see that Synn had been crying.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, hugging her as gently as if she were made of dreams.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just don’t want life to be like this. We get up in the mornings and get ready for work, and send the children off to school. We see each other again after it’s dark, we eat and we go to sleep. It’s the same all week long… I know it has to be like this just at the moment, but what if we were to snuff it a month from now? Or even six months? It’s not what it should be like for human beings, there ought to be time to live as well.’
‘Just to live?’ Münster said.
‘Just to live,’ said Synn. ‘All right, I know there are people who are worse off than we are… Ninety-five per cent of humanity, if we want to be finicky.’
‘Ninety-eight,’ said Münster.
He stroked her tenderly over the back of her neck and down her back.
‘Shall we go and take a look at the children sleeping?’
‘They’re not asleep yet,’ said Synn.
‘Then we’ll just have to be patient,’ said Münster.
It was only when he entered the police station on Monday morning that Münster remembered he hadn’t yet contacted the Leverkuhns’ children. One and a half days had passed since the murder, there was no further time to be lost. Luckily the mass media had not published any names in their quite restrained coverage of the case, so he hoped that what he had to tell them would still be news.
It was bad enough to have to be the bearer of bad tidings. Even worse if the bereaved had already been informed – and Münster had found himself in that position several times.
In order to avoid any further delay he instructed Krause to make preliminary contact – not to pass on the message itself, but to prepare the way so that Münster himself could give them the melancholy details.
After all, he had already accepted the fact that it was his duty to do so.
Half an hour later he had the first of them on the line. Ruth Leverkuhn. Forty-four years old, living up in Wernice, over a hundred kilometres from Maardam. Despite the distance involved, as soon as Münster had explained that her father had been the victim of an accident, they arranged a private meeting: Ruth Leverkuhn preferred not to discuss serious matters on the telephone.
But she was told that Waldemar Leverkuhn was dead, of course.
And that Münster was a CID officer.
So, the Rote Moor cafe in Salutorget. Since, for whatever reason, she preferred such a location rather than the police station.
And at twelve noon. Since, for some other unknown reason, she preferred to talk to the police before visiting her mother in Bossingen.
The son, Mauritz Leverkuhn, born 1958, rang barely ten minutes later. He lived even further north – in Frigge – and Münster didn’t beat about the bush. He came straight to the point.
Your father is dead.
During the night between Saturday and Sunday. In his bed. Murdered, it seemed. Stabbed with a knife.
It ‘seemed’, Münster thought as he listened to the silence at the other end of the line. Talk about cautious prognoses…
Then he heard – or at least, thought he could hear – the usual muted signs of shock in Mauritz Leverkuhn’s confused questions.
‘What time, did you say?’
‘Where was Mum?’
‘Where’s the body now?’
‘What was he wearing?’
Münster filled him in on these points and more besides. And made sure he had Emmeline von Post’s telephone number so that he could contact his mother. Eventually he expressed his condolences and arranged a meeting on Tuesday morning.
The son’s intention was to set off as soon as possible – no later than this evening – in order to be by his mother’s side.
As far as the elder daughter was concerned, Irene Leverkuhn, Münster had already spoken to the Gellner Home, where she had been a resident for the last four years. A very confidence-inspiring welfare officer had listened and understood, and assured Münster that she personally would inform her patient about her father’s untimely death.
In the most appropriate way, and as considerately as possible.
Irene Leverkuhn was in a frail state.
Münster decided to postpone a conversation with this daughter indefinitely. The welfare officer had indicated that in all probability it would not be productive, and there were things to do that were no doubt more important.
He sat for a while wondering about what they might be. What more important things? There was still half an hour to go before the update meeting, and for want of anything better to do he took another look at the forensic scene-of-crime report, to which a few more pages had been added during the night. He also phoned and spoke to both the pathologists, Meusse and Mulder, at the lab, but neither of them was able to cast much light on the darkness. None at all, to be more precise.
But there were still a few analyses left to do, so there was hope.
It would be silly to throw in the towel too soon, Mulder pointed out, as was his wont. These things take time.
Jung did not have a headache this Monday morning.
But he was tired. Sophie had come home quite late on Sunday evening after being away for nearly two whole days. Over tea and sandwiches and a bit of intimate small talk in the kitchen, it emerged that she had taken the opportunity of making her sexual debut on Saturday night.
About time, too: she was sixteen, well on the way to seventeen, and most of her girlfriends were way ahead of her in that respect. The unfortunate aspect was that she was not especially interested in the young boy in question – a certain Fritz Kümmerle, a promising central midfielder with a shot like Beckenbauer’s and a future staked out on football pitches all over Europe and indeed the world – and that they had made no attempt to take precautions.
Plus that she had been somewhat intoxicated at the time. Due to red wine and other substances as well.
Obviously it was mainly up to Maureen to look after her sobbing daughter, but even so Jung was aware – with a dubious feeling of satisfaction as well as of being an outsider – of the trust displayed in him simply by the fact that he was allowed to be present during the discussions. To be sure, he had known Sophie for four or five years by now, but nevertheless, he was no more than a plastic father.
Perhaps it was not irrelevant that her real father was a shit father.
Whatever, neither Jung nor Maureen nor the unhappy debutante had gone to bed before half past one.
So he was a little on the tired side.
Bonger’s canal boat didn’t seem to be in any better condition. Just as dilapidated as it had looked the previous day, Jung decided. He tugged at the bell rope several times without success, and looked around to see if there was any sign of life elsewhere on the dark canal. The woman on the boat next door seemed to be at home: a thin, grey wisp of smoke was floating up out of the chimney, and the bicycle was locked to the railings under the lime tree, in the same place as she had parked it yesterday. Jung walked over to her boat, announced his presence with a cough and tapped his bunch of keys on the black-painted rail that ran around the whole boat. After a few seconds she appeared in the narrow doorway. She was wearing a thick woollen jumper that reached down as far as her knees, high rubber boots and a beret. In one hand she was holding the gutted body of an animal – a hare, as far as Jung could tell. In her other hand, a carving knife.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ said Jung.
‘Huh,’ said the woman. ‘It’s you again.’
‘Yes,’ said Jung. ‘Perhaps I should explain myself… I’m a police officer. Detective Inspector Jung. I’m looking for herr Bonger, as I said…’
She nodded grumpily, and suddenly seemed to become aware of what she was holding in her hands.
‘Stew,’ she explained. ‘Andres bumped it off yesterday… My son, that is.’
She held up the carcass, and Jung tried to give the impression of looking at it with the eye of a connoisseur.
‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘We all end up like that eventually… But this Bonger – you don’t happen to have seen him, I suppose?’
She shook her head.
‘Not since Saturday.’
‘Didn’t he come home last night, then?’
‘I very much doubt it.’
She came up on deck and peered at Bonger’s boat.
‘No lights, no smoke,’ she said. ‘That means he’s not in, as I explained yesterday. Anything else you want to know?’
‘Does he often go away?’
She shrugged.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, he isn’t often away for more than an hour or two. Why do you want to find him?’
‘Routine enquiries,’ said Jung.
‘And what the hell is that supposed to mean?’ said the woman. ‘I’m not an idiot, you know.’
‘We just want to ask him a few questions.’
‘What about?’
‘You don’t seem to be too fond of the police,’ said Jung.
‘Too right I’m not,’ said the woman.
Jung thought for a moment.
‘It’s about a death,’ he explained. ‘One of Bonger’s friends has been murdered. We think Bonger might have some information that could be useful for us.’
‘Murder?’ said the woman.
‘Yes,’ said Jung. ‘Pretty brutal. With something like that.’
He pointed at the carving knife. The woman frowned slightly, no more.
‘What’s your name, by the way?’ Jung asked, taking a notebook out of his pocket.
‘Jümpers,’ said the woman reluctantly. ‘Elizabeth Jümpers. And when is this murder supposed to have taken place?’
‘On Saturday night,’ said Jung. ‘In fact herr Bonger is one of the last people to have seen the victim alive. Waldemar Leverkuhn. Perhaps you know him?’
‘Leverkuhn? No… I’ve never heard of him.’
‘Do you know of any relatives or friends he might be staying with? Bonger, that is.’
She thought for a moment then shook her head slowly.
‘No, I don’t think so. He’s a pretty solitary character.’
‘Does he often have visitors on his boat?’
‘Never. At least, I’ve never seen any.’
Jung sighed.
‘Ah well,’ he said. ‘I expect he’ll turn up. If you see him, could you please tell him we’ve been looking for him. It would be good if he could contact us as soon as possible. He can ring at any time.’
He handed her a business card. The woman put the knife down, took the card and put it in her back pocket.
‘Anyway, thank you for your help,’ said Jung.
‘You’re welcome,’ said the woman. ‘I’ll tell him.’
Jung hesitated.
‘Is it a good life, living on a boat like this?’ he asked.
The woman snorted.
‘Is it a good life, being a detective inspector like you?’ she asked.
Jung gave her a quarter of a smile, and took his leave.
‘Good luck with the stew!’ he shouted as he passed by Bonger’s boat, but she had already gone inside.
Not an easy person to make contact with, he thought as he clambered into his car.
But with a heart of gold under that rough exterior, perhaps?
Being a detective inspector like you?
A good question, no doubt about that. He decided not to consider it in any detail. Checked his watch instead, and realized he would be hard pressed to get to the update meeting in time.
It was in fact true that Emmeline von Post had been a colleague of Marie-Louise Leverkuhn’s for twenty-five years.
And it was also true that they had known each other for nearly fifty. That they had never really lost contact since they left Boring’s Commercial and Office College at the end of the 1940s. Despite getting married, having children, moving house and all the other things.
But it was hardly true to say that fru von Post counted fru Leverkuhn among her very best friends – something the latter might well have claimed, had she been asked. What was true was that since Edward von Post died of cancer four years ago, the two women had socialized much more than they had previously done: they met two Saturdays every month, alternating between Kolderweg in the town centre, and the terraced house out at Bossingen – but in reality, well… something vital was missing. And Emmeline von Post knew exactly what it was. That important little ingredient, that dimension of trust, open-heartedness and jokey exchanges; that simple and yet difficult element that she so eagerly and painlessly developed when she was with two or three other close friends, all of them in the prime of life it has to be said. But this… this dimension was simply never present when she was together with Marie-Louise Leverkuhn.
That was simply the way it was. Unfortunately and regrettably. It was difficult to say why, but there was no doubt a limit to their intimacy – she had thought about it many times – an invisible line that they were careful not to cross. On the few occasions when she happened to cross it even so, she could immediately see the effect by her friend’s reaction. A reserved shaking of the head. Tightly pinched lips, raised shoulders… Even a negative silence. When she thought about it she realized that it had been that way from the very beginning – it was not something that had developed over the years. Perhaps the fact of the matter was (Emmeline used to think in moments of philosophical perspicacity) that the relationship between people was established and written in stone during the very first contacts, the earliest meetings, and there was not much one could do about it afterwards.
Just as it said in that American investigation she had received from her book club a year or so ago.
Not that she herself was especially keen to pass on intimate details about her husband and children and their private life, of course not; but nevertheless, most people seemed to be rather more willing than Marie-Louise Leverkuhn to lift the veil of secrecy, even if only a tiny little bit.
However, that’s the way it was. Marie-Louise simply wasn’t the confiding type, and of course there were other worthwhile aspects of life: they had no difficulty in talking about their aches and pains, their medication, and their recipes for rhubarb pie. About colleagues, television personalities and the price of vegetables; but their really private lives remained exactly that: private.
The fact that Emmeline von Post had rushed over to help out in a catastrophic situation like this one was naturally due to the fact that there was no one else. She knew that. For Marie-Louise Leverkuhn, just as she had explained to the police, she was the faithful friend who would do whatever she could to help, no matter what the weather.
The loyal and only friend.
So there was no need to hesitate.
Not much was said during the drive to the Sunday-sleepy suburb. Marie-Louise Leverkuhn sat hunched up, her handbag on her knee, staring out through the side windows at the pouring rain, and seeming to be in a state of shock. Her shoulders were raised up – as if to shield her from the hard and far too intrusive world outside – and all Emmeline’s questions were answered with at best a slight movement of the head or a monosyllabic yes or no.
‘Have you slept at all?’
‘No.’
‘Are you going to be okay?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want to phone your children?’
No answer.
Oh dear, Emmeline thought. She’s not well at all.
Hardly surprising. Murdered? Waldemar Leverkuhn murdered? Emmeline shuddered. Who on earth could have imagined such a thing? An old fart like that.
For a few minutes she said nothing, concentrating on her driving and trying to imagine what it must feel like to come home and find your husband manhandled like that. Dead. Murdered and wallowing in his own blood, as they had put it on the radio. A carving knife!
After a while she gave up the attempt to imagine it. It was simply too much to ask.
Much too much. Emmeline peered cautiously from the side at her motionless friend. Poor Marie-Louise, she thought, I promise to take care of you! You’re bound to be in shock and confused; the main thing is to get a few tablets down you and then tuck you up in bed. I hope I have the strength.
When the police rang that morning her first and immediate reaction had been to rush and do what she could for her friend; but it was only now, as she sat here with the silent widow beside her in the car, that she began to realize what was involved.
Anyway, it’s no doubt best not to let silence reign, she thought. I’d better say something.
It wasn’t a difficult decision to make: if there was anything Emmeline von Post had difficulty in coping with, it was silence.
‘You can sleep in Mart’s room,’ she said. ‘Then you won’t be disturbed by all the traffic noise. Will that be okay?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve got a bit of that lamb cutlet left in the freezer. We can eat that, don’t you think? You thought it was very good. Then we won’t need to go shopping.’
‘Yes.’
‘For God’s sake! Here am I chattering on about food – you must be absolutely washed out.’
No answer.
‘Waldemar was such a lovely man.’
One thing at a time, Emmeline thought, putting her hand on her friend’s arm. We’ll sort it out eventually.
‘What miserable weather,’ she said. ‘It was lovely yesterday.’
Marie-Louise Leverkuhn went to bed in what used to be the boy’s room in Geldenerstraat 24 at half past two on Sunday afternoon, and didn’t get up until about eight on Monday morning. Emmeline came in to check on her several times during the afternoon and evening, and before going to bed herself she left a tray with juice and some sandwiches on the bedside table. For the sake of nourishment and to get some vitamins into her. And out of consideration for her welfare. Although what her old friend needed above all else, as anybody could see, was of course some peace and quiet.
And that is exactly what she got. Even if it was on the silent side.
On her part Emmeline had quite a frustrating afternoon and evening. The lamb cutlet went into and out of the oven several times – until she finally put it in the refrigerator and decided it would serve as Monday’s evening meal. She drank at least five cups of tea, and watered the flowers twice. It felt especially odd to have her old friend lying in Mart’s room – Mart who had eventually flown the nest eight years ago, but still came back to visit and sleep in his old unchanged boy’s room at regular intervals, especially when his all-too-young wife had done something silly again. Of course it had been high time he found somebody at last: thirty-five was no age at which to be still living at home with Mummy. There’s a time for everything, after all.
But now it was Marie-Louise Leverkuhn lying in his bed, because her husband had been murdered. As Emmeline tiptoed carefully about the house so as not to disturb or wake up her guest, it occurred to her how fortunate it was that Edward – her own Edward – had had the good taste to die of cancer, instead of being stabbed to death with a carving knife.
Murdered! It was terrible. Her lower arm broke out in goose pimples whenever she thought of that word – and by Jove, there were not many minutes when she managed to think of anything else.
Eventually, when it was already quite dark outside and in corners of the house, she also began to think about who could have done the deed: and that did not make things any better. There was a murderer on the loose!
Then she started thinking about Marie-Louise, their meeting last Saturday evening, playing whist and drinking port wine (perhaps at the very moment Waldemar was being murdered!) – and how remarkably reserved she had been during the car journey and the half-hour before she went to bed, and then… well, then she suddenly felt very weary. And a little dizzy.
There was something very strange about it all.
Obviously you couldn’t expect a person to behave normally in circumstances like these, but even so? There was something else, Emmeline thought. Some other thing gnawing away deep down inside her friend, forcing her to keep silent. God only knows what.
Then she shook her head and told herself it was just the silence inside the house and the darkness growing out of the corners and her thoughts about that blood-soaked body in the bed that sent her imagination spinning… But nevertheless, there was no denying that she didn’t know very much about Marie-Louise and her life after all these years. Not much at all.
And about her husband? Absolutely nothing.
But then, perhaps she didn’t know any more than that about anybody else? A human being is a riddle, Edward – her Edward – occasionally used to say. An unsolvable bloody riddle. (He was not afraid to throw in the odd expletive occasionally!)
Having got thus far in her speculations, she went into the kitchen and poured herself a substantial whisky. Drank it while standing up, established that she still had goose pimples on her lower arm and poured herself another one.
It was quite simply one of those evenings.
The children rang on Monday morning.
Ruth and Mauritz, one after the other, with less than fifteen minutes between the calls. Marie-Louise shut herself into the bedroom while she was speaking to them, and Emmeline couldn’t hear a word – although she would have liked to.
But not a lot seemed to have been said. Both calls took less than five minutes – as if Marie-Louise had been worried about the telephone bill, even though she was not the one who had phoned.
‘You must talk about it,’ Emmeline urged her friend when she came back to the breakfast table after speaking to her son. ‘It’s not good to bottle it all up.’
Marie-Louise looked at her with tired, vacant eyes.
‘What on earth is there for me to say?’ she said.
Three seconds passed before she suddenly burst into tears.
At last, Emmeline thought as she put an arm tenderly round Marie-Louise’s hunched shoulders. At last.
‘Any comments?’ said Münster, spreading the photographs out over the table so that all present could study them to their hearts’ content.
The variations were insignificant: Waldemar Leverkuhn’s mutilated body from a dozen different angles and distances. Blood. Crumpled bedclothes. Wounds in close-up. Pale skin covered in moles. An absurdly colourful tie sticking out from under the pillow. Blood. And more blood.
Moreno shook her head. Intendent Heinemann took off his glasses and began rubbing them clean with the aid of his own much more discreet tie. Rooth stopped chewing away at a chocolate biscuit and turned his back demonstratively on the table. Only young Krause continued perusing the macabre details, dutifully and with furrowed brow.
‘Take them away!’ said Rooth. ‘My digestive system demands an ounce of respect. And in any case, I was there and saw it all in real life.’
Life? Münster thought. Does he call this life? It’s a long time since I’ve seen anything so stone-cold dead. He sighed as he gathered up the photographs, leaving two of them lying there as a reminder of the subject of their discussions.
‘Let’s take the forensics to start with,’ he said. ‘Where’s Jung, by the way?’
‘He was going to speak to that Bonger character,’ said Moreno. ‘He’ll turn up shortly, no doubt.’
‘The forensics,’ said Münster again. ‘No further news, I’m afraid, just confirmation of what we know already. Waldemar Leverkuhn was killed by twenty-eight deep knife wounds in his stomach, chest and neck. Mainly in his stomach. Pretty accurate, it seems. But if you stab somebody as often as that, accuracy is neither here nor there, of course. Well, what does that suggest?’
‘A hot-headed type,’ said Krause with restrained enthusiasm. ‘Must be out of his mind – or was when he did it, at least.’
‘As high as a kite,’ said Rooth, swallowing the last of the chocolate biscuit. ‘A junkie who’d had a bad trip. There’s no limit to what they could do, dammit. What does Meusse have to say about the stab wounds?’
Münster agreed.
‘Yes, you could well be right. The wounds vary a lot. Some of them are deep – ten or fifteen centimetres – others superficial. Some caused not much more than scratches. The killer was right-handed, by the way – no doubt about that.’
‘Great,’ said Moreno. ‘A right-handed drug addict. We’ve only got about three thousand of those in this town. Can’t we hit upon a slightly more interesting theory? If there’s anything I hate about this glamorous job of ours, it’s having to spend time grubbing around among the drug addicts.’
Münster folded his hands and rested his chin on his knuckles.
‘We can’t always set the agenda,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately. But if we put off speculation until we’ve finished going through the facts, we can see where we’ve got to… Knowledge is the mother of guesses, as Reinhart usually says. We don’t know a lot, but we do know a bit.’
‘Let’s hear it, then,’ said Rooth. ‘But bollocks to poetry for the time being.’
‘The weapon…’ said Münster, refusing to react, ‘the weapon seems to have been a pretty substantial knife. The blade was at least twenty centimetres long. Sharpened and sharp – presumably a carving knife pretty similar to the one fru Leverkuhn described, and which, according to the same source, disappeared from its place in the kitchen at some point on the evening of the murder…’
‘And which now,’ said Rooth, ‘is almost certainly lying at the bottom of one of the canals. I may be wrong, but a quick calculation suggests that we have about five thousand metres to choose from…’
‘Hmm,’ said Heinemann. ‘Interesting. Purely from the point of view of probability, that is. Three thousand drug addicts times five thousand metres of canal… That means that if we’re going to find both the killer and the murder weapon, the chances are… one in about fifteen million…’
He leaned back in his chair and smoothed down his tie over his stomach.
‘How nice to see that we’re all so optimistic,’ said Moreno as Jung appeared in the doorway.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘But I was on official-’
‘Excellent,’ interrupted Rooth. ‘Sit down!’
Münster cleared his throat. If only I could give all these comedy shows a miss, he thought. I’m not sufficiently arrogant yet, but no doubt that’ll come.
‘Regarding the time,’ he said, ‘we can assume that Leverkuhn was murdered at some time between a quarter past one and a quarter past two. When I pressed Meusse a bit, he leaned towards the later half-hour, in other words between a quarter to and a quarter past two.’
‘Hm,’ said Heinemann. ‘What time did his wife get home?’
‘Three or four minutes past,’ said Moreno.
‘That narrows things down, then,’ said Krause. ‘Assuming Meusse is right, that is.’
‘Meusse hasn’t got anything wrong for the past fifteen years,’ said Rooth. ‘So, between a quarter to two and two. She must have been pretty damned close to bumping into him. Have we checked if she noticed anybody?’
‘Yes,’ said Krause. ‘Negative.’
‘She could have been the one who did it, of course,’ Heinemann pointed out. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t exclude that possibility. Sixty per cent of all men are murdered by their wives.’
‘What the hell are you saying?’ wondered Rooth. ‘Thank God I’m not married.’
‘What I mean is…’ said Heinemann.
‘We know what you mean,’ said Münster with a sigh. ‘We can discuss fru Leverkuhn’s credibility later, but we’ll take the report from the lab first.’
He fished the relevant papers out of the folder.
‘There was a hell of a lot of blood,’ he continued, ‘both in the bed and on the floor. But they haven’t found any leads. No fingerprints, apart from the victim’s and a couple of old ones of the wife’s – and the only mark on the floor was also from her: a footprint she made when she went in and found him. They had separate bedrooms, as I said earlier.’
‘What about the rest of the flat?’ Moreno asked.
‘Only her fingerprints there as well.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Heinemann. ‘Did she really go right up to the bed? Surely that wasn’t necessary. She must have seen that he was dead before she entered the room. We’d better look into whether she really needed to rummage around at the scene of the crime like that-’
Krause interrupted him.
‘It was dark when she went in, she claims. Then she realized something was wrong and went back to switch on the light.’
‘Aha,’ said Heinemann.
‘That fits in with the footprints in the blood,’ explained Münster. ‘You might think it seems odd that the murderer could flee the scene without leaving any trace, but Meusse says that wouldn’t be anything remarkable. There was an awful lot of blood, but it wasn’t spurting out: most of it apparently ran out when the attack was over and done with, as it were. Evidently it depends on which sort of artery you happen to hit first.’
‘An old man’s blood,’ said Rooth. ‘Viscous.’
‘That’s right,’ said Münster. ‘It’s not even certain that the murderer would get any blood on his hand. Not very much, in any case.’
‘Great,’ said Jung. ‘So we haven’t got a single bloody clue from the forensic boys… Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Hrrm,’ said Münster, ‘I’m afraid that’s the way it looks, yes.’
‘Good,’ said Rooth. ‘In that case we’d better all have a cup of coffee. Otherwise we’ll get depressed.’
He looked benevolently round the table.
We could do with a chief inspector here, thought Münster as he rose to his feet.
But that’s the way it was… Münster leaned back in his chair and raised his arms towards the ceiling while Rooth and fröken Katz passed round mugs and saucers.
Exactly the way it was. For just over a year now their notorious chief inspector had been on leave, devoting himself to antiquarian books rather than to police work – and there were indications that he had no intention of returning to police duties at all.
Quite a lot of indications, to be honest. It was Chief of Police Hiller who had insisted on what he called ‘leave of absence’. Van Veeteren himself – as Münster understood it at least – had been prepared to resign once and for all. To burn all his bridges.
And in fact Münster couldn’t help envying him just a little. The last time he had popped into Krantze’s – a cloudy afternoon in the middle of September – he had found Van Veeteren lounging back in a worn leather armchair, right at the rear of the shop under overloaded bookshelves, with an old folio volume on his knee and a glass of red wine on the arm rest. With that peaceful expression on his face he had looked not unlike a Tibetan lama.
So there was good reason to assume that Van Veeteren had drawn a line under his police career.
And Reinhart! Münster thought. Detective Intendent Reinhart had spent the last three weeks at home babbling away to his eight-month-old daughter. Rumour had it that he intended to continue doing that until Christmas. An intention that – it was said – made Chief of Police Hiller froth at the mouth and turn cross-eyed in frustration. Temporarily, at least.
There had been no question of appointing replacements, not for either of these two heavyweights. If there was an opportunity to cut down on expenditure, that was of course what was done. No matter what the cost.
The times they are a-changin’, Münster thought, taking a Danish pastry.
‘The wife’s a bit odd though, don’t you think?’ suggested Krause. ‘Or at least, her behaviour is.’
‘I agree,’ said Münster. ‘We must talk to her again… Today or tomorrow. But of course it’s hardly surprising if she seems a bit confused.’
‘In what way has she seemed confused?’ asked Heinemann.
‘Well,’ said Münster, ‘the times she gave are obviously correct. She did travel on the train she said she was on, and there really was a power failure last Saturday night. They didn’t get to the Central Station until a quarter to two, an hour late, so she should have been at home roughly when she claims. One of the neighbours thinks he heard her as well. So, she finds her husband dead a few minutes past two, but she doesn’t ring the police until 02.43. During that time she was out – she says she was going to report the incident at Entwick Plejn police station. But she goes back home when she discovers it’s closed… I suppose one could have various views about that. Does anyone wish to comment?’
A few seconds passed.
‘Confused,’ said Rooth eventually. ‘Excessively confused.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Moreno. ‘But wouldn’t it be more abnormal to behave normally in a situation like this? Mind you, she’d have had plenty of time to get rid of the knife – half an hour, at least.’
‘Did anybody see her while she was taking that walk?’ Heinemann wondered.
Münster shook his head.
‘Nobody has reported having done so yet, in any case. How’s the door-to-door going?’
Krause stretched.
‘We’ll have finished by this evening,’ he said. ‘But everything she says is unverified so far. And it’s likely to stay that way – the streets were pretty deserted, and there’s not much reason to stand gaping out of the window at that time either. But she ought to have passed Dusar’s cafe, where there were a few customers. We’ll check there this evening. But it was raining, as I said…’
Münster turned over a page.
‘The relatives,’ he said. ‘Three children. Between forty and fifty or thereabouts. Two of them are travelling here today and tomorrow – I’ve arranged to meet them. The elder daughter is in a psychiatric home somewhere, and I don’t think we have any reason to disturb her… No, I don’t suppose any of us thinks it’s a family affair, do we?’
‘Does anybody think anything at all?’ muttered Moreno, gazing down into her empty coffee mug.
‘I do,’ said Rooth. ‘My theory is that Leverkuhn was murdered. Shall we move on to the old codgers?’
Moreno and Jung reported on their visits to Wauters and Palinski, and the failed attempts to contact Bonger. Meanwhile Münster contemplated Moreno’s knees and thought about Synn. Rooth ate two more Danish pastries and Heinemann polished his thumbnails with his tie. Münster wondered vaguely if there really was a mood of despondency and a lack of active interest hanging over the whole group, or if it was just he who was affected. It was hard to say, and he made no effort to answer his own question.
‘So he’s disappeared, has he?’ said Rooth when Moreno and Jung had finished. ‘Bonger, I mean.’
Jung shrugged.
‘In any case, he hasn’t been home since last Saturday night.’
Krause cleared his throat to show signs of enthusiasm.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said. ‘Four old codgers, and two of them have gone. There must be a connection, surely. If they’ve all managed to hang on until they are past seventy, it’s surely pretty unlikely that one of them would disappear naturally the same night as another of them is murdered!’
‘“Disappear naturally”?’ said Jung. ‘What does that mean?’
‘What’s it to do with their age?’ Heinemann asked, frowning. ‘I’ve always been under the impression that your chances of dying are greater, the older you get. Isn’t that the case? Statistically, I mean…’
He looked round the table. Nobody seemed inclined to answer. Münster avoided his gaze and looked out of the window instead. Noted that it had started raining again. How old is Heinemann? he asked himself.
‘Anyway,’ said Rooth, ‘it’s possible of course that there’s a connection here. Do the other oldies know whether Bonger returned home at all on Saturday?’
Jung and Moreno looked at each other.
‘No,’ said Jung. ‘Not as far as they’ve told us, in any case. Shall we give ’em a grilling?’
‘Let’s wait for a bit with that,’ said Münster. ‘Tomorrow morning… If Bonger hasn’t turned up by then, presumably there’s something funny going on. He isn’t normally away from his boat for more than a few hours at a time, isn’t that what you said?’
‘That’s right,’ said Jung.
Silence again. Rooth scraped up a few crumbs from the empty plate where the pastries had been, and Heinemann returned to cleaning his glasses. Krause looked at the clock.
‘Anything else?’ he wondered. ‘What do we do now? Speculate?’
Nobody seemed especially enthusiastic about that either, but eventually Rooth said:
‘A madman, I’ll bet two cocktail sausages on it. An unplanned murder. The only motive we’ll ever find will be a junkie as high as a kite – or somebody on anabolics, of course. Did he need to be strong, by the way? What does Meusse have to say about that?’
‘No,’ said Münster. ‘He said… He maintained that with well-hung meat and a sharp knife you don’t need a lot of strength.’
‘Ugh, for Christ’s sake,’ said Rooth.
Münster looked round for any further comments, but as none was offered he realized that it was time to draw the meeting to a close.
‘You’re probably right,’ he said, turning to Rooth. ‘For as long as we don’t find a motive, that’s the most likely solution. Shall we send out a feeler in the direction of the drugs squad?’
‘Do that,’ said Moreno. ‘A feeler, but not one of us.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Münster promised.
Moreno stayed behind for a while after the others had left, and only then did Münster discover that he’d forgotten a detail.
‘Oh, shit! There was another thing,’ he said. ‘That story about having won some money – can there be anything in it?’
Moreno looked up from the photograph she was studying with reluctance.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
Münster hesitated.
‘Four old codgers club together and win some money,’ he said. ‘Two of them kill off the other two, and hey presto! They’ve suddenly won twice as much.’
Moreno said nothing for a few moments.
‘Really?’ she said eventually. ‘You think that’s what happened?’
Münster shook his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s just that fröken Gautiers down at Freddy’s said something about a win, and she admits herself that she’s only guessing… But I suppose we ought to look into it.’
‘Rather that than drugs,’ said Moreno. ‘I’ll take that on.’
Münster was about to ask why she was so strongly opposed to the murky narcotics scene, but then he recalled another detail.
Inspector Moreno had a younger sister.
Or did have, rather. He thought for a moment. Maybe that was what was depressing her, he thought. But then he noted her hunched shoulders and tousled hair, and realized there must be something else as well. Something quite different. Apart from Synn, Inspector Moreno was the most beautiful woman he had ever had the pleasure of coming into anything like good contact with. But right now she looked distinctly human.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
She sighed deeply twice before replying.
‘I feel so bloody awful.’
‘I can see that,’ Münster said. ‘Personal problems?’
What an idiotic question, he thought. I sound like an emasculated social care worker.
But she merely shrugged and twisted her mouth into an ironic smile.
‘What else?’
‘I tell you what,’ said Münster, playing the man of cunning and checking his watch. ‘You go and check up on the old codgers and I’ll talk to Ruth Leverkuhn – and then we’ll have lunch at Adenaar’s. One o’clock. Okay?’
Moreno gave him a searching look.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But I won’t be very good company.’
‘So what?’ said Münster. ‘We can always concentrate on the food.’
‘And what’s strange about that?’
The powerfully built woman glared threateningly at Rooth from behind her fringe, and it occurred to him that he wouldn’t have a chance against her if it came to hand-to-hand fighting. He would need a gun.
‘My dear fru Van Eck,’ he said nevertheless, taking a sip of the insipid coffee her husband had made in response to her explicit command. ‘Surely you can understand even so? An unknown person gets into the building, up the stairs, into the Leverkuhns’ flat. He – or she, for that matter – stabs herr Leverkuhn twenty-eight times and kills him. It happens up there’ – he gestured towards the ceiling – ‘less than seven metres from this kitchen table. The murderer then saunters out again through the door, down the stairs and disappears. And you don’t notice anything at all. That’s what I call strange!’
Now she’ll thump me, he thought, bracing himself against the edge of the table so that he would be able to get quickly to his feet, but evidently his aggressive tone of voice had thrown her off balance.
‘But good grief, Constable…’
‘Inspector,’ insisted Rooth, ‘Detective Inspector Rooth.’
‘Really? Anyway, no matter what, we didn’t notice a thing, neither me nor Arnold. The only thing we heard that night was those screwing machines, that nigger and his slut… Isn’t that right, Arnold?’
‘Er, yes,’ said Arnold, scratching his wrists nervously.
‘We’ve already explained this, both to you and that other plod, whatever his name is. Why can’t you find whoever did it instead of snooping around here? We’re honest people.’
I don’t doubt that for a second, Rooth thought. Not for a single second. He decided to change track.
‘The front door?’ he said. ‘What about that? It’s usually left unlocked, I gather?’
‘No,’ said fru Van Eck. ‘It could very well have been locked – but it’s a crap lock.’
‘You can open it simply by peeing on it,’ squeaked Arnold Van Eck somewhat surprisingly, and started giggling.
‘Hold your bloody tongue!’ said his wife. ‘Pour some more coffee instead! Yes, it’s a crap lock, but I assume the door was probably standing ajar so that Mussolini could get in.’
‘Mussolini?’ said Rooth.
‘Yes, he’d probably gone out for a screw as usual – I don’t understand why she doesn’t castrate the bloody thing.’
‘It’s a cat,’ explained Arnold.
‘He’ll have gathered that, for Christ’s sake!’ snorted fru Van Eck. ‘Anyway, she’d no doubt propped it open with that brick like she usually does.’
‘I see,’ said Rooth, and started to draw a cat in his notebook while trying to recall if he had ever come across such a vulgar woman before. He didn’t think so. In the earlier interrogation, conducted by Constable Krause, it had emerged that she had worked for most of her life as a teacher in a school for girls, so there was considerable food for thought.
‘What do you think about it?’ he asked.
‘About what?’ asked fru Van Eck.
‘The murder,’ said Rooth. ‘Who do you think did it?’
She opened her mouth wide and tossed in two or three small biscuits. Her husband cleared his throat but didn’t get as far as spitting.
‘Immigrants,’ she said curtly, and washed down the biscuits with a swig of coffee. Slammed her cup down with a bang. ‘Yes, if you take my advice you’ll start interrogating the immigrants.’
‘Why?’ asked Rooth.
‘For Christ’s sake, don’t you see? It’s sheer madness! Or it could be some young gangsters. Yes, that’s where you’ll find your murderer. Take your pick, it’s up to you.’
Rooth thought for a while.
‘Do you have any children yourselves?’ he asked.
‘Of course we bloody well don’t,’ said fru Van Eck, starting to look threatening again.
Good, Rooth thought. Genetic self-cleansing.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I won’t disturb you any longer.’
Mussolini was lying on his back on the radiator, snoring.
Rooth had never seen a bigger cat, and purposely sat as far away on the sofa as possible.
‘I’ve spoken to the Van Ecks,’ he said.
Leonore Mathisen smiled.
‘You mean you’ve spoken to fru Van Eck, I take it?’
‘Hm,’ said Rooth. ‘Perhaps that is what I mean. Anyway, we need to clarify a few things. To ask if you’ve remembered anything else about the night of the murder, for instance, now that a little time has passed.’
‘I understand.’
‘One thing that puzzles us is the fact that nobody heard anything. For example, you, fröken Mathisen, have your bedroom almost directly above the Leverkuhns’, but you fell asleep at…’
He rummaged through his notebook and pretended to be looking for the time.
‘Half past twelve, roughly.’
‘That’s right,’ he confirmed. In fact Leonore Mathisen was not much smaller than fru Van Eck, but the raw material seemed to be completely different. Like a… a bit like a currant bush as opposed to a block of granite. To take the comparison further, the bush was wearing cheerful home-dyed clothes in red, yellow and violet, and an intertwined hair ribbon in the same colours. The block of granite had been greyish brown all over and at least a quarter of a century older.
‘I heard when he came home, as I said. Shortly before midnight, I think. Then I switched on the clock radio and listened to music until… well, I suppose I dozed off after about half an hour.’
‘Was he alone when he came in?’ Rooth asked.
She shrugged.
‘No idea. I’m not even sure it was him. I just heard somebody coming up the stairs, and a door opening and closing. But it was their door, of course – I’m sure about that.’
‘No voices?’
‘No.’
Rooth turned over a page of his notebook.
‘What was he like?’ he asked. ‘Leverkuhn, I mean.’
She started fiddling with one of the thin wooden beads she was wearing in clusters around her neck while weighing her words.
‘Hmm, I don’t really know,’ she said. ‘Very courteous, I’d say. He was always friendly and acknowledged me; rather dapper and correct; occasionally drank one glass too many when he was out with his old mates – but never drank so much that he became unpleasant with it. I suppose I only saw him when he was on his way in and out, come to think about it.’
‘How long have you been living here?’
She counted up.
‘Eleven years,’ she said. ‘I suppose the Leverkuhns have been living here twice as long as that.’
‘What about his relationship with his wife?’
She shrugged again.
‘As it usually is, I suppose. Old people who’ve been living together all their lives… She tended to wear the trousers, but my dad had a much rougher time.’ She laughed. ‘Are you married, Inspector?’
‘No,’ Rooth admitted. ‘I’m single.’
She suddenly burst out laughing. Her heavy breasts bobbed up and down, and Mussolini woke up with a start. It struck Rooth that he had never made love to a woman as big as she was, and for a few moments – while her salvo of laughter ebbed away and Mussolini slunk away in the direction of the hall – he sat there trying to imagine what it would be like.
Then he returned to the job in hand.
‘Did they have much of a social life?’ he asked.
She shook her head.
‘Frequent visitors?’
‘No, hardly ever. Not that I noticed, in any case. They live directly below this floor, and I have to say that for the most part it’s as quiet as the grave, even when they’re both at home. The only sounds you ever hear in this building come from the young couple, who live-’
‘I know,’ said Rooth quickly. ‘And they were at it as usual that night, were they?’
‘Yes, they were at it as usual that night,’ she repeated, stroking her index finger along her bare lower arm, deep in thought.
Then she smiled, revealing twenty-four perfect teeth. At least.
My God, Rooth thought, feeling himself blush. She wants me. Now. I’d better do a runner before I take the bait!
He stood up, thanked her and took the same route as Mussolini.
The screwing machines – Tobose Menakdise and Filippa de Booning, according to the handwritten note taped above the letter box – didn’t answer when he rang their doorbell, and when he pressed his ear against the wooden door he couldn’t hear the faintest sound from inside the flat. He concluded that they were not at home, and wrote a question mark in his notebook. Went back upstairs to the second floor instead, to talk to herr Engel.
Ruben Engel was about sixty-five, and his dominant feature was a large, fleshy, red nose so striking that in profile he reminded Rooth of the parrot he’d had as a textile portrait over his bed when he was a young boy. He was not sure whether the appearance – Engel’s, not the parrot’s – was due to an excessive intake of alcohol, or whether there was some other medical cause, but in any case, he was promptly invited to sit down at the kitchen table and partake of a drop or two of mulled wine.
It was so damned cold in the flat, Engel explained, that he always began the day with one or two warm drinks.
In order to keep healthy, of course.
The place looked reasonably clean and tidy, Rooth thought benevolently. More or less like his own flat. Only a few days’ dirty dishes, a few weeks’ newspapers, and a layer of dust about a month thick on the windowsills and television set.
‘Anyway, I’m here in connection with herr Leverkuhn, of course,’ he began, and took a swig of the steaming drink. ‘You said last Saturday night that you knew him slightly. That you socialized occasionally.’
Engel nodded.
‘Only to the extent that we were good neighbours,’ he said. ‘I mean, we’ve been living in the same block of flats for over twenty years. We went to a football match occasionally. Had a drink together occasionally.’
‘I see,’ said Rooth. ‘How often?’
‘Football once a year,’ said Engel. ‘Old age is creeping up on us. There are so many hooligans. A drink now and then. I usually drink at Gambrinus just down the road, but then I always have Faludi with me.’
‘Who is Faludi?’
‘An old colleague of mine. An Arab, but a bloody great Arab. He lives a bit further up the block. Cheers.’
‘Cheers,’ said Rooth.
‘Aren’t you on duty, by the way?’
‘Never when I have a drink,’ said Rooth. ‘Have you thought back again to last Saturday night, as I asked you to?’
‘Eh?… Oh yes, of course,’ said Engel, licking his lips. ‘But I don’t remember any more than I told you last time.’
‘So you didn’t hear anything or notice anything unusual?’
‘Nope. I came home at round about half past eleven and went to bed like a shot. Listened to our pair of lovebirds for a while, then fell asleep not far short of midnight, or thereabouts. It’s not bad good-night music for an old fart like me, I can tell you! Hehe.’
He raised his eyes to heaven and lit a cigarette.
Rooth sighed.
‘Nothing else to add?’
‘Not a jot, as I’ve already said.’
‘Who do you think did it?’ Rooth asked.
That was an old Van Veeteren ploy. Always ask people what they think! They tend to pull themselves together when they are trusted to use their own judgement; and then there’s a bloody good chance that if three out of five think the same thing, they’re right.
In some cases even two out of five.
Engel inhaled and thought it over. Scratched his nose and drank a little more mulled wine.
‘It’s not anybody living in this building,’ he said in the end. ‘And not one of his mates. So it has to be some bloody madman from the outside.’
Rooth scratched at the back of his neck.
‘Do you know if he had any enemies, people who didn’t wish him well?’
‘Of course he bloody well didn’t,’ said Engel. ‘Leverkuhn was a good man.’
‘What about his wife?’
‘A good woman,’ said Engel laconically. ‘She moans a bit, but that’s the way they are. Are you married, Inspector?’
‘No,’ said Rooth, emptying his glass. ‘I never got round to it.’
‘Neither did I,’ said Engel. ‘I’ve never managed to hang on to a woman for more than three hours.’
Rooth suspected he was dealing with a kindred spirit, but he refrained from exploiting the vibrations.
‘Okay,’ he said instead. ‘Many thanks. We’ll probably be in touch again, but it’s not certain.’
‘I hope you can solve it,’ said Engel. ‘There are too many murderers on the loose nowadays.’
‘We shall see,’ said Rooth.
At least nobody seems to be taking all this especially hard, he thought as he emerged into the stairwell again. If they really were looking for a madman – a lunatic drop-out – one might have expected to find traces of fear and uncertainty. But not in this case, it seemed. Unless of course he chose to interpret herr Engel’s parting words literally.
Perhaps people in general have grown just as accustomed over the years to violent deaths and perversities as he had himself. That wouldn’t surprise me, Rooth thought sombrely.
Hardly had he left through the front door than he was accosted by a bearded man aged about thirty-five with a notebook and pen in his hand.
‘Bejman, Neuwe Blatt,’ he explained. ‘Have you got a moment?’
‘No,’ said Rooth.
‘Just a couple of questions?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘We’ve already told you all we know.’
‘But you must know something else by now, surely?’
‘Hmm,’ said Rooth, looking round furtively. ‘Not officially.’
Bejman leaned forward to hear better.
‘We’re looking for a red-headed dwarf.’
‘A red-headed…?’
‘Yes, but don’t write anything about that, for God’s sake. We’re not really sure yet.’
He observed the reporter’s furrowed brow for two seconds, then hurried over the street and jumped into his car.
I shouldn’t have said that, he thought.
The Rote Moor was characterized by stucco work, uninspiring cut-glass chandeliers and self-assured women. Münster sat down behind an oak-panelled screen and hoped the pianist didn’t work mornings. As he sat there waiting, gazing out of the crackled windowpane overlooking Salutorget and the bustling shoppers, he began to feel for the first time that he was able to concentrate on the case.
As usual. It always took some time before the initial feeling of distaste faded away, a day or two before he managed to shake off his immediate reactions – protesting about and distancing himself from the violent killing that was always the starting point, the starting gun, the opening move in every new case. Every new task.
And the disgust. The disgust that was always there. At the start of his career – when he spent nearly all his working time in freezing cold cars keeping watch during the night, or thanklessly shadowing suspects, or making door-to-door enquiries – he had believed the disgust would go away once he had learned how to face up to all the unpleasantness, but as the years passed he realized that this was not the case. On the contrary, the older he became the more important it seemed to be to protect himself and to keep things at arm’s length. It was only when the initial waves of disgust had begun to ebb away that it made any sense to start digging deeper into the case. To establish and try to become closely acquainted with the nature of the crime. Its probable background. Causes and motives.
The very essence, as Van Veeteren used to put it.
The pattern.
No doubt the chief inspector had taught him some of these strategies, but by no means all. During the last few years – the last few cases – Van Veeteren’s disgust had been even greater than his own, he was quite certain of that. But perhaps that was a right that came with increased age, Münster thought. Age and wisdom.
Hard to say. There was a sort of pattern in the chief inspector’s last years as well. And in his current environment among all those books. That unfathomable concept known as the determinant, in fact, that Münster had never really got to grips with. Never understood what it actually meant. But perhaps it would dawn on him one of these days: time and inertia were not only the province of oblivion, but sometimes also of gradual realization. In fact.
But Waldemar Leverkuhn. Forget everything else! Münster rested his head on his hands.
A seventy-two-year-old pensioner killed in his sleep. Brutally murdered by a hair-raisingly large number of stab wounds – excessive violence, as it was called. A dodgy term, of course, but perhaps it was appropriate in this case.
Why?
For Christ’s sake, why so many stab wounds?
A waitress in a white hat coughed discreetly, but Münster asked her to wait until his companion arrived, and she withdrew. He turned his back on the premises and instead watched two pigeons strutting back and forth on the broad window ledge while he tried to conjure up an image of Leverkuhn’s mutilated body in his mind’s eye.
Twenty-eight stabs. What did that suggest?
It was hardly an insoluble puzzle. Fury, of course. Raging fury. The person who had put an end to this old man had been totally out of self-control. There had been no reason to continue after four or five stabs if the aim had been simply to kill the victim. Meusse had been crystal clear on that point. The last thirty seconds – the last fifteen or twenty stabs – were an expression of something other than the urge to kill.
Frenzy? Insanity? Revenge and retribution, perhaps? An implacable and long-standing hatred that now finally erupted and resolved itself?
The latter possibility was mere speculation; but it was logical, and there was nothing to rule it out.
The possibility that there might be a deep-seated motive, in other words.
Münster tapped on the window pane and the pigeons flew off, their wings numb with cold.
But of course there was nothing to rule out Rooth’s theory either – a crazy drug addict. Nothing at all.
You pays your money and makes your choice, Münster thought.
Still, even if Chief of Police Hiller cuts our resources to the bone, I’m going to have a stab at resolving this case.
Good grief! What am I saying? Münster thought with a shudder. It sometimes seemed as if words acquired a life of their own, and lay in wait ready to ambush him.
Ruth Leverkuhn turned up at ten minutes past twelve: ten minutes late, a fact to which she devoted several explanations. She had been a bit late setting off. Lots of traffic, and then she couldn’t find a parking place, neither in the square nor down at Zwille; she finally found one in Anckers Steeg and had only put money in the meter for half an hour. She hoped that would be enough.
In view of what they had to talk about, Münster received these trivial bits of information with suppressed surprise. Observed in silence as she hung her brown coat over the back of the empty chair at their table, made quite a show of digging out cigarettes and a lighter from her handbag, adjusted her glasses and also the artificial flowers on the table.
She was about his own age, he decided, but quite a bit overweight and the worse for wear. Her brown-tinted shoulder-length hair hung down like shabby and unwashed curtains round her pale face. Restlessness and insecurity surrounded her almost like body odour, and it was only when she lit a cigarette that there was a pause in her nervous chattering.
‘Have you been in touch with your mother?’ Münster asked.
‘Yes.’ She nodded, inhaled deeply and examined her fingernails. ‘Yes, I’ve heard what happened. I phoned her after I’d spoken to you. It’s awful, I don’t understand, it felt as if it were a dream when I got into the car and drove here… A nightmare, rather. But is it really true? That somebody killed him? Murdered him? Is it true?’
‘As far as we can tell,’ said Münster.
‘But that’s absolutely… awful,’ she said again, taking another drag at her cigarette. ‘Why?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Münster. ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.’
She nodded and took another drag. The waitress appeared again and took their order: café au lait for fröken Leverkuhn, black coffee for the intendent. He took out his notebook and put it on the table in front of him.
‘Did you have a good relationship with your father?’ he asked.
She gave a start.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Exactly what I said,’ said Münster. ‘Did you have a good relationship with him?’
‘Well, yes… he was my father after all.’
‘It does happen that children have a bad relationship with their fathers,’ Münster pointed out.
She hesitated. Scratched herself quickly on the outside of her left breast and took another drag.
‘We haven’t had all that much contact lately.’
‘Lately?’
‘Since I grew up, I suppose you could say.’
‘Twenty, twenty-five years?’ Münster asked.
She made no reply.
‘Why?’ Münster wondered.
‘It just turned out that way.’
‘Did the same apply to your brother and sister?’
‘More or less.’
‘How often did you meet your mother and father?’
‘Just occasionally.’
‘Once a month?’
‘Once a year, more like.’
‘Once a year?’
‘Yes… At Christmas. But not always. You might think it sounds bad, but they didn’t take any initiatives either. We simply didn’t socialize, full stop. Why should we have to observe social conventions when nobody concerned was bothered…?’ Her voice trailed away.
‘… I’m a lesbian,’ she added, out of the blue.
‘Really,’ said Münster. ‘What has that to do with it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ruth Leverkuhn. ‘But people talk such a lot.’
Münster watched the pigeons, which had returned, for a while. Ruth put two spoonfuls of sugar into her cup and stirred.
‘When did you last see your father?’
She stubbed out her cigarette and started fumbling for another one while she thought that over.
‘That would be nearly two years ago,’ she said.
‘And your mother?’
‘The same. We were there for Christmas. Two years ago.’
Münster noted it down.
‘Have you any idea about what might have happened?’ he asked. ‘Had your father any enemies? People who have known him for a long time, who didn’t like him?’
‘No…’ She moved her tongue up behind her upper lip and tried to look thoughtful. ‘No, I have no idea at all. Not the slightest.’
‘Any other relatives?’
‘Only Uncle Franz. He died a few years ago.’
Münster nodded.
‘And how were things between your mother and father?’
She shrugged.
‘They stuck together.’
‘Evidently,’ said Münster. ‘Did they have much of a social life?’
‘No… No, hardly any at all, I should think.’
Münster thought for a moment.
‘Are you intending to visit your mother now?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course I am. What did you think?’
The last convention, Münster thought.
‘What do you work as?’
‘I’m a shop assistant.’
‘In Wernice?’
‘Yes.’
‘What were you doing last Saturday evening?’
‘What do you want to know that for?’
‘What were you doing?’
She took out a paper tissue and wiped her mouth.
‘I was at home.’
‘Do you live alone?’
‘No.’
‘With a girlfriend?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was she also at home last Saturday evening?’
‘No, she wasn’t as it happens. Why are you asking about that?’
‘Do you remember what you gave your mother as a Christmas present fifteen years ago?’
‘Eh?’
‘A Christmas present,’ Münster repeated. ‘1982.’
‘How should I…?’
‘A carving knife,’ said Münster. ‘Is that right?’
He saw that her facial muscles were beginning to twitch here and there, and he realized there was probably not long to go before she started crying. What the hell am I doing? he thought. This job makes you a sadist.
‘Why…?’ she mumbled. ‘I don’t know what you mean. What are you getting at?’
‘Just routine,’ said Münster. ‘Don’t take it personally. Are you staying here overnight?’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t think so. I’ll probably go back home this evening… Unless Mum wants me to stay with her.’
Why should she want that? Münster thought. Then he closed his notebook and reached his hand out over the table.
‘Thank you, fröken Leverkuhn,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I had to torment you at a difficult time, but we would rather like to catch your father’s murderer, as I’m sure you understand.’
‘Yes… Of course.’
She presented him with four cold fingers for half a second. Münster pushed back his chair and stood up.
‘I think you’d better hurry before your parking time runs out.’
She glanced at the clock, stuffed the cigarettes and lighter into her handbag and got to her feet.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I hope…’
He never discovered what she hoped. Instead she tried to produce a smile, but when it refused to stick she turned on her heel and left him.
Ah well, Münster thought as he beckoned to the waitress. One of those conversations.
A condensed life in twenty minutes. Why was it that other people’s lives could seem so clear-cut when his own almost always seemed to evade judgement and reflection?
He didn’t know. One of those questions.
When Marie-Louise Leverkuhn had finished crying – a comparatively short outburst of emotion that lasted only a minute – Emmeline von Post removed her arm from her friend’s shoulders and suggested a walk by the river. The weather was quite pleasant – the occasional shower was likely during the course of the day, but there were raincoats and Wellington boots available. That she could borrow.
Fru Leverkuhn blew her nose and declined the offer. Remained seated for a while at the kitchen table – like an injured and dishevelled bird, it seemed to her hostess – and then explained that she needed a little more rest after all, before she was ready to meet her children. Her daughter Ruth was expected about lunchtime, and it wasn’t quite clear who would be expected to support whom.
Emmeline didn’t quite understand the last bit, but kept a straight face even so and submitted to her newly widowed friend’s wishes. Decided to go for a short walk herself instead – to the post office and the shopping centre to buy a few odds and ends that would be necessary, now that there would be several mouths to feed.
And Marie-Louise could spend the time recovering as she thought best. While waiting for the children.
Emmeline set off as soon as the breakfast dishes had been washed up, shortly before eleven, and when she returned with her carrier bags three-quarters of an hour later, Marie-Louise had vanished.
The door to Mark’s room was standing ajar, so it seemed that she had made no attempt to conceal the fact that she wasn’t there. But there was no message, neither in the room nor anywhere else.
Ah well, Emmeline thought as she unpacked her bags and allocated the goods to the larder or the refrigerator as appropriate. I expect she has just nipped out to buy a postage stamp or something of the sort.
She’ll soon be back, no doubt.
And so she took a Swiss roll out of the freezer, switched on the coffee maker and sat down at the kitchen table with a newspaper.
And waited.
She came down to the river next to the wooden cabin that served as the rowing club MECC’s clubhouse. A few young people were busy scraping the window frames. She hesitated for a moment before setting off westwards along the unpaved bridle path through the deciduous woods. She felt almost immediately the raw, cold wind blowing off the dark water, and tied her shawl more tightly round her head. Wished she had a woolly hat instead, dug her hands down into her coat pockets and clutched the package more tightly under her arm.
She had been along this path before – two or three times in the summer together with Emmeline – and she began to picture what it was like a bit further on. Tried to remember if there was any one place that was better and more inaccessible than anywhere else, but couldn’t decide for sure. She would have to make the best of it, this area along the bank of the river: waterlogged, covered in brushwood and with hardly any buildings – but of course it could never be a hundred per cent foolproof. She had realized and accepted that, seeing as there had been no opportunity to burn it, which would have been the best solution, of course.
She had walked only a hundred metres or so when her bad knee started to make itself felt – the typical prickling sensations and shooting pains were hurting whenever she put her right foot down into the loose sand, and it was clear that it would be risky to continue much further.
But in all probability it wouldn’t be necessary anyway. The river bank was covered in alders and brushwood, and the belt of reeds extended a long way out into the water, fifty metres or more in places. She could hardly have asked for anything better. When she came to the first side-track leading inland, she paused and looked around. No sign of anybody. She turned off along the muddy path down to a jetty that ran in a sort of diamond shape round a tumbledown boathouse. Walked carefully along the shaky, slippery planks to where it changed direction like the apex of a triangle, and leaned against the boathouse wall while she pressed the air out of the package and tied the string tightly. Listened attentively, but there was no sound save for the distant, mournful cries of birds and the hum of traffic a long way off on the motorway. No sign of any people. No boats on the river. She took a deep breath and hurled the package out into the reeds. Heard the rattling noise as the brittle stalks snapped, and the dull plop when it dropped into the water.
That’s that, then, she thought. Looked around once more. Nothing. She was alone, and the deed was done.
She put her hands back into her pockets, and started to retrace her steps.
It took longer than she had expected. After all, she had walked quite a long way, and her knee was causing her serious pain now. She slowed down and tried to avoid putting any weight at all on her heel, but that just felt odd and unusual, and didn’t help much in the loose sand. By the time she returned to the built-up area it had started raining quite hard again, and she decided to allow herself a few minutes’ rest. She found a run-down and graffiti-covered bus shelter, sat down on the bench and tried to keep as warm as possible in the circumstances while observing the few people who had ventured out of doors on such a rainy morning. Three or four grim-faced dog owners. A jogger in a red tracksuit wearing headphones, and a down-and-out old man searching for empty bottles in the rubbish bins, dragging a shopping trolley behind him… A few steamed-up cars drove past, but no bus. But that didn’t matter – she wouldn’t know which one to catch anyway. After a while she really did feel freezing cold, and although she knew full well that signs of the rain easing off were mostly wishful thinking, she stood up and set off again. She noticed that she wasn’t thinking straight: thoughts were buzzing around inside her head like restless, nervous dreams; but before long everything was dominated by a desire to drink something hot. Or strong.
Or both.
When she finally returned to the neat little terraced house in Geldenerstraat it was ten minutes past one, and Emmeline von Post was accompanied at her kitchen table by Ruth Leverkuhn.
As soon as she saw her mother in the doorway, Ruth stood up. Cleared her throat, smoothed down her skirt, and made a sort of half-hearted gesture with her hands.
Marie-Louise stood still and stared at her daughter with her arms hanging down by her sides.
Neither of them said a word. Five seconds passed. Emmeline scraped her coffee cup against the saucer and watched the raindrops her friend had brought in with her dripping down onto the threshold and parts of the linoleum.
Do something, for God’s sake, she thought. Why does nobody say anything?
‘Well?’ said Münster. ‘I hope you caught them in your trap?’
They had bagged one of the window booths at Adenaar’s, and had made a start on the salad of the day.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Ewa Moreno. ‘Kicking and screaming in a net of lies… No, I don’t know. I only spoke to Wauters really. Palinski was about to leave for hospital for some sort of check-up. But I had the impression…’
She hesitated and stared out of the window.
‘What?’ said Münster. ‘What sort of an impression?’
‘That they are concealing something. I asked Wauters straight out if they’d won some money, and to tell you the truth I thought his reply seemed rehearsed. Raised eyebrows, broad gestures, the whole caboodle. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve hit the jackpot.’
‘But you didn’t press him?’
‘I’m not on form,’ said Moreno apologetically. ‘I told you that. I didn’t want to mess things up, I thought it would be better to question them one at a time at the police station instead. A lamp shining into their faces and all that. But they both seemed to be genuinely at a loss regarding Bonger. Wauters claimed he’d been to the boat, looking for him, and Palinski said he intended to call in on the way home from the hospital.’
Münster thought that over.
‘So your guess is that they’ve won some money, but that it hasn’t got anything to do with Bonger’s disappearance?’
Moreno nodded.
‘And hence nothing to do with Leverkuhn either,’ she said. ‘No, I reckon that would be an asumption too far. I think they are just scared of being suspected. Wauters at least is quite sharp, and he could well have realized the risk as soon as he heard what had happened to Leverkuhn… There are lots of old crime novels in his bookcase.’
‘They might be reluctant to give the widow a quarter share as well,’ Münster pointed out. ‘Anyway, we’ll give them a warm reception tomorrow morning. But let’s face it, it’s damned odd that Bonger should disappear in a puff of smoke the same night that Leverkuhn is murdered, don’t you think?’
‘Too right,’ said Moreno. ‘Have we issued a Wanted notice yet?’
Münster checked his watch.
‘It went out an hour ago.’
‘Does he have any relatives?’
‘A son in Africa. Nothing has been heard from him since 1985. And an elder sister with Alzheimer’s, in Gemejnte hospital. His wife died eight years ago – that was when he moved into the canal boat.’
Moreno nodded and said nothing for a while.
‘A strange crowd, this gang of old codgers,’ she said eventually.
‘They had one another,’ said Münster. ‘Shall we have coffee?’
‘Yes, let’s.’
In the end he couldn’t hold back any longer.
‘What about your personal life?’ he said. ‘How are things?’
Moreno contemplated the grey, misty view through the window once again, and Münster guessed she was weighing him up. Evidently he passed the test, for she took a deep breath and straightened her back.
‘I’ve moved,’ she said.
‘Away from Claus?’
He remembered his name in any case.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Münster, and waited.
‘It’s a month ago now,’ she went on after a while. ‘I have a friend who’s in Spain for six months, so I took the opportunity of borrowing her flat… It took two days before I was convinced that I’d done the right thing, and that I’d wasted five years.’
Münster tried to look on the bright side.
‘Some people waste a whole life,’ he said.
‘It’s not that,’ Moreno responded and sighed again. ‘It’s not that at all. I’m quite prepared to draw a line under it all and start afresh. Experience is experience, after all.’
‘Without a doubt,’ said Münster. ‘What doesn’t kill you toughens you up. What is the matter, then?’
‘Claus,’ she said, and the expression on her face was something he’d never seen before. ‘It’s Claus that’s the problem. I think… I don’t think he’s going to get over it.’
Münster said nothing.
‘For five bloody years I’ve been under the impression that he was the strong half of the duo, and that it was me who didn’t dare to let go – but now…’
She clenched her fists so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
‘… now he’s so damned pitiful. I know it sounds cold and hard, but why can’t he at least stop degrading himself before me?’
‘He’s begging and pleading, is he?’ Münster wondered.
‘You can say that again.’
‘How often do you meet?’
Moreno sighed.
‘Several times a week. And he phones me every day. He’s taken sick leave as well. I did love him, but every time we talk, that love ebbs further and further away… He says he’s going to kill himself, and I’ve almost started to believe him. That’s what’s worst – that I believe him.’
Münster rested his head on his hands and thus came closer to her. He was suddenly aware that he would have liked to touch her: just a gentle stroke over her cheek or along her arm, but he didn’t dare. Come to think of it, he didn’t recall having seen Claus Badher more than three or four times; he’d never spoken to him, but to be honest he did not have an especially positive opinion of the young bank lawyer.
One of those pretty-pretty financial puppies, the type that changes their shirt three times a day and pours aftershave into their underpants. To tell the truth.
But there again, perhaps there was just some kind of primitive and atavistic jealousy behind that judgement. He recalled that Reinhart once said it was perfectly normal to be jealous of every bloke who went around with a woman who was more or less attractive. Healthy and natural. And you could be sure that anybody who didn’t feel that way was definitely suffering from some nasty affliction or other. Constipation, for instance.
However, it wasn’t always easy to scrutinize your own putative emotional life. Especially with regard to women.
Or so Intendent Münster thought, attempting to be honest in a melancholy sort of way.
‘I understand,’ he said simply. ‘Is there anything I can do? You sound a bit grey, if you’ll pardon my saying so.’
She pulled a face.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s not that I hate the man, and I don’t want him to lose control; I just want to be left in peace. It’s so damned difficult when the whole of my environment seems to be shedding its skin like this. I haven’t slept more than three hours a night for several weeks now.’
Münster leaned back in his chair.
‘The only things that can possibly help are time and coffee,’ he said. ‘Another cup?’
Moreno managed to produce a grimace that might have been intended to be a smile.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘I sometimes get the feeling that men are nothing more than overgrown boy scouts in disguise – and quite a lot isn’t in disguise, come to that.’
‘I’ve heard that before,’ said Münster. ‘But there is a female defect as well.’
Moreno had raised her cup, but paused.
‘Really? What?’
‘The incomprehensible tendency to fall for overgrown boy scouts,’ Münster said. ‘Not to mention overgrown little boys whose voices are breaking, and rowdies, and swine in general. If you can explain to me why you can put up with being beaten and humiliated and raped and tortured by these macho gorillas year in and year out, then we can get around to discussing boy scout morals and disguises afterwards!’
His anger struck without his having anticipated it, and he could see that Moreno had not been prepared for his attack.
‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘But I suppose you have a point. Are there never any mature people at all?’
Münster sighed.
‘Occasionally, I suppose,’ he said. ‘It’s not easy being human. Especially when you are tired and overworked all the time… That’s when you become inhuman.’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said Moreno.
Jung stared down into the water.
He was standing on Doggers Bridge about fifty metres from Bonger’s houseboat, where he had just made his third – fruitless – visit. He’d had a third conversation with fru Jümpers as well – more of an exchange of opinions really – but nothing had emerged that could bring the disappearance of the old boat-owner any closer to a solution. Nothing at all. However, it was raining more heavily now: water was running down from his hair into both his face and the back of his neck, but it didn’t bother him any longer. There was a limit beyond which it was impossible to get any wetter, and he had passed it some time ago. Moreover something was beginning to nag away inside his head.
Something quite complicated.
A theory.
Suppose, he thought as he watched a duck paddling away in an attempt to progress upstream without moving from the spot – suppose that Leverkuhn and Bonger fall out as they walk back home from Freddy’s… There were witnesses who testified that they had been arguing on the pavement outside the entrance door before they set off.
Suppose also that the argument becomes more heated, and Bonger goes all the way home with Leverkuhn. Eventually Leverkuhn goes to bed, but simmering with anger and fuelled by alcohol, Bonger collects the carving knife and kills him.
Then Felix Bonger panics. He takes the knife with him, rushes out of the flat and away from Kolderweg (in so far as it’s possible to rush when you are that age), hurries home along the dark streets and alleys to Bertrandgraacht, but by the time he reaches Doggers Bridge the realization and horror of what he’s done gets through to him. Regret and remorse. He stands on the bridge and stares at his blood-soaked weapon and the dark water.
Suppose, finally, Jung’s fast-flowing stream of thought continued, that he stands on this very spot.
He paused and stared down at the canal. The duck finally gave in to another surge of current and turned round; a few seconds later it had disappeared into the shadows not far from Bonger’s houseboat.
He stands right here beside the cold, wet railings! In the middle of the night. Would it be all that strange if he decided to take the consequences of what he had done?
Jung nodded to himself. It wasn’t every day that he came up with a plausible theory.
And so – ergo! – there was without doubt quite a lot to suggest that they were both down there. In the mud at the bottom of the canal under this bridge.
Both the murder weapon and the murderer! Despite Heinemann’s pessimistic probability calculation.
Jung leaned over the railings and tried to gaze down through the coal-black water. Then he shook his head.
You’re out of your mind, he thought. You are a dilettante. Leave thinking to those whom God blessed with the gift of a brain instead!
He turned on his heel and walked off. Away from this murky canal and this murky speculation.
Mind you, he thought, when he had come to slightly drier ground under the colonnade in Van Kolmerstraat… It wouldn’t be totally out of place for him to try out his hypothesis on one of his colleagues. Rooth, for example. After all, it wasn’t entirely impossible that it had happened exactly in this way. There were no logical howlers, and, hey, you never know…
As they say.
Before Münster drew a line under this lugubrious working Monday, he ran through the witness testimonies with Krause. There was a little useful information. Not a lot, but a bit more than nothing, as Krause put it optimistically. A handful of people had seen Leverkuhn and Bonger outside Freddy’s, and at least two of them were convinced that they had not left together. There had evidently been a degree of animosity between the two old friends, and it seemed as if Bonger had simply abandoned his mate and set off home on his own. So far, however, nobody had come forward to say they had seen either of the two men after they had left the restaurant – on their way to Kolderweg and Bertrandgraacht respectively.
They had also drawn a blank regarding fru Leverkuhn’s walk to and from Entwick Plejn a few hours later.
But then – as Krause also pointed out – it was still only Monday: the case was less than two days old, and no doubt a lot of people hadn’t read about it yet.
So there was still hope.
For some obscure reason Münster had difficulty in sharing Krause’s apple-cheeked go-ahead spirit, and when he went down to his car in the underground car park he noticed to his surprise that he felt old.
Old and tired.
Things were not helped by the fact that Monday evening was when Synn attended her course in business French; or the fact that his son Bart had borrowed a saxophone from a classmate and devoted every second of the evening to practising.
In the end Münster locked the instrument in the boot of his car and explained that the ten-year-old was much too young for that sort of music.
Ten-year-olds should go to bed and keep quiet. It was half past ten.
For his own part he dropped off to sleep not long afterwards, nagged by a bad conscience and without Synn by his side.
‘I’m only staying until this evening,’ Mauritz Leverkuhn explained. ‘She doesn’t want us hanging around so why play the hypocrite?’
Yes, why indeed, Münster thought.
The man sitting opposite him on the visitor’s chair was big and heavy, with a receding hairline and the same ruddy complexion as his sister. There was something superficial, disengaged, in his way of speaking and behaving – as if he were not really with it – and Münster assumed, for the time being, that it had something to do with his profession.
Mauritz Leverkuhn worked as a salesman and distributor of paper cloths, serviettes and candle-rings to department stores and supermarkets.
‘I’d just like a few bits of information,’ said Münster. ‘So far we don’t have much to go on with regard to the murder of your father, so we need to follow up any leads we can manage to dig up.’
‘I understand,’ said Mauritz.
‘When did you last see him, for instance?’
Mauritz thought for a few moments.
‘A few months ago,’ he said. ‘I was here on a sales mission, and I called in on them briefly. Drank coffee. Gave Mum a bottle of cherry liqueur – it was her name day.’
‘So you didn’t have all that much contact with your parents, generally speaking?’
Mauritz cleared his throat and adjusted his yellow and blue striped tie.
‘No,’ he said. ‘We didn’t… We don’t have. None of us.’
‘Why?’
He shrugged.
‘Is it necessary?’
Münster refrained from responding.
‘Do you have any children?’
‘No.’
‘So there aren’t any grandchildren at all, then?’
Mauritz shook his head.
‘Are you married?’
‘No.’
‘Have you been?’
‘No.’
Münster waited a few seconds, but it was apparent that Mauritz had no intention of saying anything off his own bat.
‘What’s the relationship between you and your sisters?’ he asked. ‘Do you see much of each other?’
‘What has that got to do with it?’
He shifted his position on his chair, and fingered the crease of his trousers.
‘Nothing, I assume,’ said Münster. ‘It’s difficult to say what is relevant at this early stage. And what isn’t.’
We’ve got a right bloody bundle of fun here, he thought – and it struck him that the same applied to the family as a whole. None of them was likely to be the life and soul of any party: not the ones he’d been in contact with at least. Woodlice, as Reinhart used to call them.
But perhaps he was being unfair. He didn’t feel all that much of a livewire himself, come to that.
‘What about your elder sister?’ he asked. ‘She’s unwell, if I’m not mistaken.’
Mauritz suddenly looked positively hostile.
‘You have no reason to drag her into this,’ he said. ‘Our family has nothing to do with what has happened. Neither me nor my sisters. Nor my mother.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ said Münster.
‘What?’
‘How can you be so sure that none of them is involved? You don’t have any contact with them, after all.’
‘Shut your trap,’ said Mauritz.
Münster did as he was told. Then he pressed the intercom and asked fröken Katz to serve them some coffee.
‘Tell me what you were doing last Saturday night.’
The coffee had induced a climate change for the better, but only marginally.
‘I was at home,’ said Mauritz sullenly, after a couple of seconds’ thought. ‘Watching the boxing on the telly.’
Münster wrote that down as a matter of routine.
‘What time was that?’
Mauritz shrugged.
‘Between nine and twelve, roughly speaking. Surely you don’t think that I drove here and murdered my father? Are you soft in the head?’
‘I don’t think anything,’ said Münster. ‘But I’d like you to be a bit more cooperative.’
‘Oh yes? And how do you think I’m going to be able to cooperate when I’ve got bugger all to say?’
I don’t know, Münster thought. How many years is it since you last smiled at anything?
‘But what do you think?’ he asked. ‘We have to try to find somebody who might have had a motive to kill your father. It’s possible of course that it was a pure act of madness, but that’s not certain. There might have been something behind it.’
‘What, for instance?’ Mauritz wondered.
‘That’s something we hoped you might be able to tip us off about.’
Mauritz snorted.
‘Do you really think I’d shut up about something like that, even if I knew anything?’
Münster paused, and checked the questions he had written down in advance.
‘When did they move to Kolderweg?’ he asked.
‘In 1976. Why do you want to know that?’
Münster ignored the question.
‘Why?’
‘They sold the house. We youngsters had moved out.’
Münster made a note of that.
‘He got a new job as well. He’d been out of work for a while.’
‘What kind of a job?’
‘Pixner Brewery. I’m sure you know about that already.’
‘Could be,’ said Münster. ‘And before that you lived down at Pampas, is that right?’
Mauritz nodded.
‘Pampas, yes. Shoeboxes for the working class. Four rooms and a kitchen. Twenty square metres of lawn.’
‘I know,’ said Münster. ‘And where did you move to when it became too cramped?’
‘Aarlach. I started at the commercial college in 1975. This can’t be important, surely?’
Münster pretended to check his notebook again. Mauritz had folded his arms over his chest and was gazing out of the window at the rain-filled clouds. His aggressiveness seemed to have lapsed into genuine lethargy again. As if he were sitting there reflecting the weather, Münster thought.
‘Who do you think did it?’ he asked speculatively.
Mauritz turned his head to look at Münster dismissively.
‘I don’t know. How the hell should I? I haven’t had any real contact with my father for over twenty years, and I’ve no idea who he used to knock around with. Can’t we stop all this crap now so that I can get away from here?’
‘All right,’ said Münster. ‘Just one more thing. Do you know if your father was not short of a bob or two? If he had any cash stashed away, for instance?’
Mauritz had already stood up.
‘Rubbish,’ he said. ‘He worked for half his life at Gahn’s, and for the other half at the brewery. Those are not the kind of places at which you can scrape together a fortune. Goodbye, Intendent!’
He started to reach out over the desk with his hand, but changed his mind halfway through and put it in his pocket instead.
‘Do you miss him?’ Münster asked, but the only response he got was a vacant look. Nevertheless, Mauritz paused in the doorway.
‘When I was a teenager I actually considered applying to police college,’ he said. ‘I’m glad I didn’t.’
‘So are we,’ Münster muttered when the door had closed. ‘Very glad indeed.’
When he was alone in the room, he went to the window and looked out over the town, as he generally did. Over the streets, rooftops and churches; over Wejmargraacht and Wollerims Park, where the grey mist enveloped the trees in a blanket of damp, obliterating outlines. Like an amateurish watercolour painting, he thought, in which the colours have spread and mixed with one another and with the water. The skyscrapers a little further off, up on the ridge at Leimaar, could hardly be made out, and the thought struck him that if there was any town in the whole world where a murderer had a good chance of hiding away, it was here.
When he looked down he saw Mauritz Leverkuhn walking across the car park towards a white and fairly new Volvo. Some kind of company car, presumably – with the boot and back seat crammed full of serviettes and candle-rings in every cheerful colour imaginable. For the benefit of mankind and their endless striving after the greatest possible enjoyment.
Hmm, I seem to be a bit disillusioned today, Intendent Münster thought, turning his back on the town.
Chief of Police Hiller looked like a randy frog.
At least that was Münster’s immediate reaction when he came into the conference room where the run-through was set to take place, a few minutes late. The whole man seemed to be inflated, especially over his shirt collar; his eyes were bulging, his cheeks swollen and his face was deep red in colour.
‘What the hell’s the meaning of this?’ he hissed, drops of saliva glittering in the reflected light from the overhead projector which was switched on, ready for use. ‘Explain what the hell this means!’
He was holding a newspaper in his hand, waving it at the cowering assembly – Intendent Heinemann, Inspectors Rooth, Jung and Moreno, and in the far corner the promising young Constable Krause.
Münster sat down between Heinemann and Moreno without speaking.
‘Well?’ snorted Hiller, hurling the Neuwe Blatt onto the table so that Münster could see at last what the problem was.
The headline ran across all eight columns, and was followed by three exclamation marks:
THE POLICE ARE SEARCHING FOR A RED-HEADED DWARF!!!
and underneath, in less bold type:
IN CONNECTION WITH THE PENSIONER MURDER
Heinemann put on his glasses.
‘That’s odd,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ve been informed.’
Hiller closed his eyes and clenched his fists. Evidently in an attempt to calm himself down, for his next comment came through clenched teeth.
‘I want to know the meaning of this. And who is responsible.’
Moreno glanced at the newspaper and cleared her throat.
‘Red-haired dwarf?’ she said. ‘It must be a joke.’
‘A joke?’ snarled Hiller.
‘I agree,’ said Rooth. ‘Surely none of you is looking for a dwarf?’
He looked enquiringly around the table, while Hiller chewed at his lower lip and tried to stand still.
‘I’m not,’ said Heinemann.
Münster glanced at Jung. Realized that a disastrous burst of laughter was on the point of breaking out, and that he had better intervene before it was too late.
‘It’s just a newspaper cock-up,’ he said as slowly and pedagogically as he could. ‘Some bright spark has no doubt phoned the editorial office and spun them a yarn. And some other bright spark has swallowed the bait. Don’t blame us!’
‘Exactly,’ said Rooth.
Hiller’s facial colour went down to plum.
‘What a bloody mess,’ he muttered. ‘Krause!’
Krause sat up straight.
‘Yes?’
‘Find out which prize idiot has written this drivel – I’ll be damned if they’re going to get away with it!’
‘Yes sir!’ said Krause.
‘Off you go, then!’ the chief of police roared, and Krause slunk out. Hiller sat down at the end of the table and switched off the overhead projector.
‘Moreover,’ he said, ‘we have too many people working on this case. Just a couple of you will be sufficient from now on. Münster!’
‘Yes?’ said Münster with a sigh.
‘You and Moreno will sort out Leverkuhn from now on. Use Krause as well, but only if it’s really necessary. Jung and Rooth will look after the rapes in Linzhuisen, and Heinemann – what were you working on last week?’
‘That Dellinger business,’ said Heinemann.
‘Continue with that,’ said Hiller. ‘I want reports from all of you by Friday.’
He stood up and would have been out of the room in two seconds if he hadn’t stumbled over Rooth’s briefcase.
‘Oops,’ said Rooth. ‘Sorry about that, but I think I need to have a quick word with Krause.’
He picked up his briefcase and hurried off, while the chief of police brushed off his neatly creased knee and muttered something incomprehensible.
‘Well, what do you think?’ said Münster as he and Moreno sat down in the canteen. ‘A memorable performance?’
‘There’s no doubt about the entertainment value,’ said Moreno. ‘It must be the first time for a month that I very nearly burst out laughing. What an incredible idiot!’
‘A boy scout, perhaps?’ said Münster, and she actually smiled.
‘Still, he says what he means,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t try to fool anybody. Shall we get down to work?’
‘That’s the idea, no doubt. Have you any good ideas?’
Moreno swirled her cup and analysed the coffee lees.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No good ones.’
‘Nor have I,’ said Münster. ‘So we’ll have to make do with bad ones for the time being. We could bring Palinski in, for instance?’
‘Not a bad idea,’ said Moreno.
After two days out at Bossingen, Marie-Louise Leverkuhn returned to Kolderweg 17 on the Tuesday afternoon.
The children had been, commiserated and gone back home. Emmeline von Post had lamented and sympathized in every way possible, the heavens had wept more or less continuously. It was high time to return to reality and everyday life. It certainly was.
She began by scrubbing the blood-soaked room. She was unable to get rid of the blood that had penetrated the floorboards and walls, despite her best efforts with strong scouring-powder of various makes; nor was there much she could do about the stains on the woodwork of the bed – but then again, she didn’t need the bed any more. She dismantled it and dragged the whole caboodle out onto the landing for Arnold Van Eck to take care of. She then unrolled a large cowhair carpet that had been stored up in the attic for years and covered the floorboards. A couple of tapestries hanging quite low down took care of the wall.
After this hard labour she started going through her husband’s wardrobe: it was a time-consuming and rather delicate undertaking. She didn’t like doing it, but she had no choice. Some stuff ended up in the dustbin, some in the laundry basket, but most of it was put into suitcases and plastic sacks for taking to the charity shop in Windemeerstraat.
When this task was more or less taken care of, there was a ring on the doorbell. It was fru Van Eck, inviting her down for coffee and cake.
Marie-Louise hesitated at first. She had never been on particularly good terms with the caretaker’s wife, but fru Van Eck was insistent and in the end she heaved the sack she had just finished filling into the wardrobe, and accepted the invitation.
Life must go on after all, she thought, somewhat confused.
‘Life must go on,’ said fru Van Eck five minutes later as her husband sliced up the cake with raspberries and blackberries. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Not too bad,’ said Marie-Louise. ‘It takes time to get used to things.’
‘I can well imagine that,’ said fru Van Eck, eyeing Arnold for a few seconds with a thoughtful expression on her face.
‘By the way, there was one thing,’ she said eventually. ‘Arnold, will you leave us alone for a minute or two, please. Go and buy a football pools coupon or something, but take that apron off!’
Arnold bowed discreetly and left the ladies alone in the kitchen.
‘There’s one thing I didn’t mention when the police were here,’ said fru Van Eck when she heard the flat door close.
Marie-Louise said nothing, merely stirred her cup of coffee, didn’t look up.
‘I thought perhaps we could discuss it and agree on what line we should take. Do help yourself to a slice of cake. Arnold baked it himself.’
Marie-Louise shrugged, and took a slice.
‘Let’s hear it, then,’ she said.
‘Thanks a lot,’ said Rooth as he left Krause’s office. ‘I’ll make sure you get two tickets.’
As he went through the door he found himself confronted by Joensuu and Kellerman, who were steering Adolf Bosch along the corridor. After a search lasting a day and a half, they had eventually found him in a dodgy bar in the block just below the customs station. Rooth turned his nose up and squeezed past. There was a smell of old sweat and drunkenness surrounding the man: Krause immediately ushered him towards the PVC-covered sofa next to the door, and the constables used all their strength to force him to sit down on it.
‘Ouch,’ said Bosch.
‘Shut your trap,’ said Kellerman. ‘That was far from easy, believe you me.’
‘The bastard started pissing in the car,’ said Joensuu.
‘Well done,’ said Krause. ‘You can go now.’
Joensuu and Kellerman left and Krause closed the door. Bosch had already lain down on the short sofa, with his knees raised and his head on the arm rest. Krause sat down at his desk and waited.
‘I don’t feel very well,’ said Bosch after half a minute.
‘You never have done,’ said Krause. ‘Stop putting it on, you know what’s what. If we want we can have you locked away for eighteen months… Unless you tell me a thing or two about certain unpleasant characters. Sit up!’
Bosch was a grass. Or an informer, as he preferred to call himself. A good-for-nothing drop-out in any case – but with just the acute lack of backbone and civil courage required for the role. Krause observed him in disgust. He had always found it difficult to accept this form of cooperation. Bosch was constantly being admitted to various clinics and institutions for detoxification and reform: nobody seriously thought he would live to be much older than the forty-five he had managed to achieve so far – but despite everything, asking him to find out information often produced results. Much more often than one would have expected.
‘When it comes to crooks, you can always rely on Adolf Bosch to stir up the shit,’ Van Veeteren used to say. ‘But never give him more than three days – he has no concept of time any longer than that.’
The threat of being locked away and reprisals from the underworld made him sit up half-straight. His eyes looked shifty and he scratched away at his armpits.
‘Are you listening?’ said Krause.
‘Any chance of a fag, boss?’
Krause took a packet out of the desk drawer where it was kept for this kind of purpose, and handed it over.
‘You can have what’s left, but wait until you’ve left the building.’
‘Thanks,’ said Bosch, taking tight hold of the packet.
‘It’s in connection with a murder,’ said Krause. ‘That pensioner in Kolderweg. Have you heard about it?’
Bosch nodded.
‘But I’ve no idea who did it. I swear…’
‘Spare us the swearwords,’ said Krause. ‘We think it was some junkie who had a bad trip. See what you can find out and report back to me the day after tomorrow.’
‘I’m a bit short of cash at the moment, boss,’ said Bosch, looking worried.
‘We’ll see about that on Thursday.’
‘But I’m skint,’ said Bosch.
‘Thursday,’ said Krause, pointing at the door.
‘Thursday,’ muttered Bosch, and left reluctantly.
Krause sighed and opened the window.
They stuck to the rule book with regard to Palinski. At first they considered drawing lots, but as Moreno was a woman Münster climbed down and took the first round.
‘Name?’
‘Eh?’ said Palinski. ‘You must know what it is.’
‘We’re recording this conversation,’ explained Münster impatiently, pointing at the tape recorder. ‘Please state your name and date of birth.’
‘Is this an interrogation?’
‘Of course. Name?’
‘Palinski… Jan. Born 1924.’
‘Date?’
‘April 10, but…’
‘Here in Maardam?’
‘Of course. But why are you treating me like this? Police car and everything, I’ve never been involved in anything all my life.’
‘You’re involved in this now,’ said Münster. ‘Civil status?’
‘Eh?… Bachelor, of course – or widower, depending on how you look at it. We were going to divorce twenty years ago, but she died before all the papers were signed and sealed. Run over by a lorry in Palizerlaan. Bloody shocking business.’
‘Current address?’
‘Armastenplejn 42. But look here-’
‘Do you understand the seriousness of the situation?’ Münster interrupted him.
‘Yes. Well, no.’
‘We suspect you are intentionally withholding important information.’
‘I would never do such a thing,’ said Palinski, clasping his hands. ‘Not from the police, at least.’
From whom would you withhold important information, then? wondered Münster, and gave an impatient snort.
‘Is it not the case,’ he went on, ‘that together with the other three gentlemen you have won quite a substantial amount of money, and that is what you were celebrating at Freddy’s last Saturday evening?’
‘No.’
Palinski looked down at the table.
‘You’re lying,’ said Münster. ‘Shall I tell you why you’re lying?’
‘No,’ said Palinski. ‘What do you mean? Huh…’
‘Listen to me now,’ said Münster. ‘Last Saturday there were four of you. Now there are only two of you. Leverkuhn has been murdered, and Bonger has disappeared. There is a lot to suggest that he is no longer alive either. But you and Wauters are. There are only three possibilities.’
‘Eh?’ said Palinski. ‘What do you mean by that?’
His head had begun shaking now, Münster noted, and he realized that what was about to happen was likely to be what Moreno had predicted. It was surely only a matter of time before he threw in the towel, but it seemed only fair to let his colleague look after the confession itself. More gentlemanly, if nothing else: that was why he hadn’t wanted to draw lots, after all.
‘Three possibilities,’ he repeated slowly, holding up three fingers in front of Palinski’s eyes. ‘Either you and Wauters have done them in together-’
‘What the…?’ exclaimed Palinski, rising to his feet. ‘Come now, Intendent, you’ve gone far enough!’
‘Sit down!’ said Münster. ‘If you didn’t do it together, it must have been Wauters on his own.’
Palinski sat down and his jaws started moving but no words came.
‘Unless of course you did it yourself!’
‘You’re out of your mind! I want to talk to a… Oh no, no, no! You’re suggesting that I…’
Münster leaned forward over the table and his eyes drilled into his victim’s.
‘What conclusion would you draw yourself?’ he asked. ‘Four elderly gentlemen win a large sum of money. Two of them decide to get rid of the other two in order to get a bigger slice of the cake. Or perhaps it’s one of the four who intends wiping out the other three and getting the whole lot for himself. Doesn’t it make you feel a little uncomfortable, herr Palinski, knowing that two of your friends are dead? Don’t you lie awake at night wondering when it will be your turn?’
Palinski had gone white in the face.
‘You… you… you…’ he stammered, and Münster thought for a moment that he was going to flake out.
‘How well do you know this Wauters, in fact?’ asked Münster. ‘Isn’t he a newer member of the gang than you other three?’
Palinski made no reply. He tried to swallow, but his protruding Adam’s apple stopped halfway.
‘Because if you’re not afraid of Wauters, I have to conclude that you are the one behind it all, herr Palinski!’
‘I have never…’ protested Palinski. ‘I have never…’
But there was no continuation. Münster’s reasoning had come home to him now, and it was obvious that his paradoxical predicament was dawning on him.
‘We’ll give you five minutes to think this over,’ said Münster, pushing his chair back. ‘If I were you I’d avoid any more evasive answers when we return.’
He pressed the pause button. Stood up, left the room and locked the door.
It only took a few minutes for Moreno to conclude the business. A certain degree of feminine concern in the questioning and a hint of compassion in her eyes were evidently exactly what Jan Palinski’s soul aspired to after Münster’s bullying.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Palinski, ‘what the hell did he mean? Surely we wouldn’t… I wouldn’t…’
‘Come clean,’ said Moreno. ‘You can’t keep quiet about it any longer now. It will only do you more harm if you do, can’t you see that?’
Palinski looked at her like a dog that has disobeyed its master.
‘You think so?’
‘Yes, certainly,’ said Moreno.
Palinski wrung his hands and sucked in his lips. Then he straightened his back and cleared his throat.
‘It was Wauters,’ he said.
‘Wauters?’ said Moreno.
‘Who said we should keep quiet about it.’
Moreno nodded.
‘He thought…’
Moreno waited.
‘… He thought that we would come under suspicion if it became public knowledge that we’d won.’
‘How much?’ asked Moreno.
‘Twenty thousand,’ said Palinski, looking shamefaced.
‘How?’
‘In the lottery. Wauters bought the ticket, it was his turn. We were going to get five thousand each… But with Leverkuhn out of the picture it’s almost seven.’
‘And minus Bonger, it’s ten,’ said Moreno.
‘Yes, by God,’ said Palinski. ‘But surely you don’t believe it’s as your colleague suggested? Surely you can see that we would never do anything like that?’
Moreno didn’t reply. She leaned back on her chair and observed the nervous twitches in Palinski’s face for a while.
‘Just at the moment we don’t think anything at all,’ she said. ‘But you are in no way cleared of suspicion, and we don’t want you to leave Maardam.’
‘Good God,’ said Palinski. ‘It’s not possible. What the hell is Wauters going to say?’
‘You don’t need to worry about that,’ said Moreno. ‘We’ll take care of him. As far as you are concerned, you can go now – but we want you back here tomorrow morning so that you can sign the transcript of what you’ve said.’
She switched off the tape recorder. Palinski stood up, his legs shaking.
‘Am I a suspect?’ he asked.
Moreno nodded.
‘I apologize… I really do apologize. If I’d had my way, we’d have told you this straight away, of course. But Wauters…’
‘I understand,’ said Moreno. ‘We all make mistakes. Off you go now, this way.’
Palinski slunk off through the door like a reprimanded and penitent schoolboy – but after a few seconds he reappeared.
‘It’s Wauters who has the lottery ticket,’ he said. ‘He hasn’t cashed it in yet. Just so that you know.’
The he apologized again and left.
Detective Inspector Moreno noticed that she was smiling.
Erich Reijsen was a well-groomed gentleman in his sixties with a wife and a terraced house in the same good condition as himself. Moreno had telephoned and made an appointment, and when she arrived the tea tray was already waiting in the living room, where a realistic electric fire was burning in the hearth.
She switched off her soul, and sat down on the plush sofa.
‘We don’t eat anything sweet,’ said herr Reijsen, gesturing towards the coarse rye bread and red pepper rings. ‘We’ve started to live a healthy life as we grow older.’
His weather-beaten face and neatly trimmed moustache bore witness to that – as did his wife’s tight tracksuit and mop of blonde hair kept in place by a red and gold headband.
‘Help yourself,’ she said, demonstrating her successful facelift by opening her eyes wide. ‘My name’s Blenda.’
‘Inspector Moreno,’ said Moreno, fishing up her notebook from her briefcase. ‘Please take as much time as you like, but of course it’s mainly herr Reijsen I need to speak to.’
‘Of course,’ said Reijsen, and Blenda scampered off to some other part of the house. After only a few seconds Moreno could hear the characteristic whining noise of an exercise bike at full speed.
‘It’s about Waldemar Leverkuhn,’ she said. ‘I take it you know what’s happened?’
Reijsen nodded solemnly.
‘We’re trying to piece together a more all-round picture of him,’ said Moreno, as her host poured out some weak tea into yellow cups. ‘You were a colleague of his for… for how long?’
‘Fifteen years,’ said Reijsen. ‘From the day he started work at Pixner until he retired – 1991, that is. I carried on working for five more years, and then the staff cuts began. I was offered early retirement, and accepted it like a shot. I have to say that I haven’t regretted that a single day.’
Neither would I, Moreno thought in a quick flash of insight.
‘What was he like?’ she asked. ‘Can you tell me a little about Waldemar Leverkuhn?’
It took Erich Reijsen over half an hour to exhaust the topic. It took Moreno rather less time – about two minutes – to realize that the visit was probably going to be fruitless. The portrait of Waldemar Leverkuhn as a reserved and grumpy person (but nevertheless upright and reliable) was one she had already, and her attentive host was unable to add any brush strokes that changed it, or provided anything new.
Nor did he have any dramatic revelations to make, no insightful comments or anything else that could be of the slightest relevance to the investigation.
In truth, she had difficulty at the moment in envisaging what a relevant piece of the puzzle might look like, so she dutifully noted down most of what herr Reijsen had to say. It sapped her strength, there was no denying it – both to write and to keep awake – and when she stood up after three slices of rye bread and as many cups of tea, her first instinct was to find her way to the bathroom and sick it all up. Both herr Reijsen and the sandwiches.
Her second instinct was to take a hammer and batter the exercise bike that had been emitting its reproachful whining for the whole of her visit, but she managed to restrain herself. After all, she did not have a hammer handy.
I’m a bloody awful police officer at the moment, she thought shortly afterwards, sitting at the wheel of her car again at last. Certainly nothing for the force to be proud of… It’s a good job we’re not busy with something more serious than this case.
She was not at all clear about what she meant by that last thought.
Something more serious? Was the death of Waldemar Leverkuhn not serious, or what? She shook her head and bit her lower lip in the hope of becoming more wide awake. It felt increasingly clear that all this accumulated tiredness was approaching a borderline beyond which it would probably be safer to switch over to automatic pilot as far as work was concerned. Not rely on her own judgement. Not make any decisions. Not think.
Not until she had managed to get a few nights of decent sleep, in any case.
She started the car and set off for the town centre. It was turned five o’clock, and the town seemed to comprise approximately equal amounts of exhaust fumes, damp and darkness – a mixture that corresponded pretty well with her own state. She stopped at Keymer Pleijn and did some shopping at Zimmermann’s – yoghurt, juice and fifteen grapes: that was more than enough after the rye sandwiches, she told herself – and when she parked outside her temporary refuge in Gerckstraat, she was convinced that there were only two things in the world that could put her back on her feet.
A long, hot bath and a large cognac.
Fortunately both these phenomena were within the realm of possibility, so she switched on her soul again and clambered out of the car. She broke with her usual practice and took the lift up to the fourth floor, and even began to hum some modern ear-fodder she must have heard on the car radio or in Zimmermann’s.
When she opened the lift door, the first thing she saw was Claus. He was sitting on the floor outside her flat, with a large bouquet of red roses in his lap.
He stared at her with blank, worn-out eyes.
‘Ewa,’ he said.
The sandwiches made their presence felt. Hell’s bells, she thought. I don’t have the strength for this.
She slammed the lift door closed again and went back down. Half-ran over the paved area outside the entrance door and had just managed to sit down in her car again when he appeared in the lit-up doorway.
‘Poor you,’ she mumbled as she rummaged for the ignition key. ‘I’m sorry, but I just don’t have the strength.’
Then she started the car and drove away to look for an acceptable hotel.
Münster was dreaming.
At first it was all perfectly innocent. Some sort of party with cheerful people in their gladrags, drinks in their hands and laughter in their faces. He recognized several of them – both colleagues and good friends, of himself and Synn. Only the premises seemed to be unfamiliar: a confusion of various rooms, staircases and corridors. And then, gradually, a hint of something unpleasant began to insinuate itself into the dream. Not to say frightening… He went from one to another of these cubbyholes, each one smaller than the last, darker, occupied by increasingly unknown men and women up to more and more dodgy business. And all the time he kept bumping into people who wanted to speak to him, to drink a toast with him, but he felt unable to stay in any given place for more than a couple of minutes… There was something beckoning to him, something he was looking for, but didn’t understand what it was until he was there.
He entered yet another room. It was dark, and at first he thought it was also empty – but then he heard a sound. Somebody whispered his name. He went further in, and suddenly he felt a woman’s hand on his chest. She huddled up to him, and he knew immediately that it was for her sake that he was here. Exclusively and only for her sake.
She was obviously naked, and it was obvious that they were going to make love. She led him to a low, wide bed in front of a fire which had almost burned out, but the embers were still glowing… Yes, it was obvious that they were going to make love, and he knew almost immediately that the woman was Ewa Moreno. Her eyes like halved almonds, her small, firm breasts that he had never seen before but nevertheless had always known that they would look exactly like this… And her skin reflecting the glowing embers – no, nothing could be clearer. In no more than a second he was also naked, lying on the bed, and she was astride him, guiding him into her eager pussy, and he watched her gleaming body raising and lowering itself, and it was ineffably blissful. Then he noticed the door slowly opening without really registering it… until he saw his children, Bart and Marieke, standing there watching him only a metre away, with their serious and somewhat sorrowful eyes.
He was woken up by his own cry. Synn stirred restlessly, and he could feel the cold sweat all over his skin like an armour plate of angst. He lay there motionless for a few seconds, then slid cautiously out of bed, tiptoed into the bathroom and showered for ten minutes.
When he returned to the bedroom he saw that it was a quarter past four. He lifted the duvet and crept down to lie close to Synn’s warm back. Close, very close.
Then lay there, holding her tightly, without sleeping a wink all night.
Something is happening, he thought.
It mustn’t happen.
Wednesday felt like a funeral in a foreign language. He almost crashed the car twice on the way to the police station, and for a while seriously considered driving back home and going to bed instead. He had just flopped down at his desk, propping up his head with his hands, when Jung knocked on the door.
‘Have you got a spare moment?’
Münster nodded.
‘Two, if you need them.’
Jung sat down.
‘You look tired.’
‘What did you want?’ asked Münster.
‘Well,’ said Jung, squirming on the chair. ‘Nothing much really, just a thought that struck me.’
‘Really?’
‘Hmm,’ said Jung. ‘Er, I was thinking that the simplest solution to this Leverkuhn business would be that Bonger did it.’
Münster yawned.
‘Go on,’ he said.
Jung braced himself.
‘Well, I thought that Bonger could have gone home with Leverkuhn, for instance… or called round later, it doesn’t really matter which… and killed him. I mean, they had been arguing outside Freddy’s, and if Bonger lost his temper, it could well be that he lost control of his senses, as it were.’
‘You think so?’ said Münster.
‘I don’t know. But at least that would explain why he’s disappeared, wouldn’t it? At first I thought he had jumped into the canal when he sobered up and realized what he’d done, but of course he could equally well simply be in hiding. He must realize that he would be under suspicion. What do you think?’
Münster pondered for a moment.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘God knows, it’s certainly a possibility. There’s nothing to say that’s not what happened in any case.’
‘That’s exactly what I thought,’ said Jung, looking pleased with himself. ‘I just wanted you to bear it in mind.’
He stood up.
‘Thank you,’ said Münster. ‘If Hiller agrees to let me have you for a few days, you could follow it up – check possible pals and acquaintances and so on. Regarding a hiding place, that is.’
‘I’d be glad to,’ said Jung. ‘Although he doesn’t seem all that cooperative just now, Hiller… Something to do with that dwarf. But let me know if he gives us the okay.’
When he had left, Münster went to stand by the window again. Pulled up the blind, rested his forehead against the cool glass and gazed out at the completely unchanged town, which hardly seemed to have had the energy to get out of bed either.
Bonger? he thought. A dead simple solution. But why the hell not? Maybe he should do what Van Veeteren used to say: always do the simplest thing first. It’s so damned easy to miss a checkmate in one move!
Then he looked at the clock and saw there was less than twenty minutes to go before his meeting with Marie-Louise Leverkuhn. He armed himself with coffee, pen and notebook. Sat down at his desk again, and tried to concentrate.
‘To tell you the truth, we’re having difficulty in coming to grips with this case, fru Leverkuhn.’
She made no reply.
‘Nevertheless, we must work on the assumption that there is a motive behind the murder of your husband, that there is something in his background or general circumstances that has resulted in this terrible crime.’
It was a heavy-handed opening, but he had decided to take that line. Marie-Louise didn’t move a muscle.
‘There is only one person who can know about such things, and that is of course you, fru Leverkuhn. Have you had any thoughts about such matters in the last few days?’
‘None at all.’
She stared vacantly at him.
‘You must have been thinking about what has happened.’
‘I suppose I’ve been thinking about it, but nothing has come of it.’
‘Have you talked to many people you know?’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t know all that many people. My children. Emmeline. A few neighbours.’
‘But can you give me the names of your closest friends? Apart from Emmeline von Post, that is. That you and your husband used to socialize with.’
She looked down at the floor. Aha, Münster thought. So that’s how it is. That’s where the problem lies.
The most shameful thing in life, he’d read somewhere, was not having any friends. Being on your own. You can be as stupid as they come, a racist, a sadist, obese and stink like a skunk, a practising paedophile – but you have to have friends.
‘We didn’t socialize much,’ she said without looking up. ‘He had his friends, I had mine.’
‘No mutual friends?’
She shook her head.
‘What about relatives?’
‘Our children,’ she said again.
‘You don’t have any brothers or sisters?’
‘No, not any more.’
‘Who did your husband use to meet, apart from the gentlemen at Freddy’s?’
She thought for a moment.
‘Nobody else at all, I think. Maybe herr Engel now and then.’
‘Ruben Engel? In the same block of flats?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what about you?’ Münster persisted. ‘You used to meet fröken von Post a few times a month. Who else?’
‘Nobody else,’ said Marie-Louise.
‘Are you sure?’ said Münster. ‘No former colleagues, for instance? You were working at that department store until a couple of years ago, isn’t that right?’
‘Fröken Svendsen,’ she said. ‘Regina Svendsen. We sometimes used to go out together, but she moved to Karpatz a few years ago. She found a new man, an old school friend who had also found himself on his own.’
‘Do you have her telephone number?’
‘No.’
Münster made a note and turned over a page.
‘Tell me about your coming home last Saturday night.’
‘I’ve already done that several times.’
‘This will be the last time,’ Münster promised.
‘Why?’
‘You never know. Things sometimes come back to you that you overlooked shortly after the event. Especially if you were in shock.’
She looked at him. Somewhat annoyed.
‘I haven’t overlooked anything.’
‘You came home at a few minutes past two, is that right?’
‘Yes,’ said fru Leverkuhn.
‘And the entrance door was standing ajar?’
‘Yes.’
‘The door to your flat wasn’t locked, right?’
‘I’ve already said it wasn’t.’
‘Did you see anybody? In the street or on the staircase, or in the flat?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Of course.’
‘So you went inside and discovered that something was wrong?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How did you know that something was wrong?’
She thought for a moment.
‘There was a smell,’ she said.
‘Of what?’ Münster asked.
‘Blood.’
Münster pretended to be making notes while waiting for her to say more. But she didn’t. He tried to recall the smell of blood, and established that it was distinctly possible that she could have detected it. If his memory served him rightly, he had read somewhere amongst all the information about her that, like her daughter, she had worked for a few years as a butcher. She presumably knew what she was talking about.
‘You went into the room?’
‘Yes.’
‘And switched the light on?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you react when you saw what had happened?’
She paused. Sat in silence again for a few seconds, then sat up straight and cleared her throat.
‘I stood there and felt like throwing up,’ she said. ‘It sort of came in waves, but then it stopped. So I went back out to report it.’
‘You set off for Entwick Pleijn?’
‘Yes, I’ve told you already.’
‘Were there many other people about?’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t remember. I don’t think so. It was raining.’
‘Did you go all the way to the police station?’
She thought that over again.
‘No. There were no lights in the windows, I could see that from the other side of the square.’
‘And so you turned back?’
‘Yes.’
‘And went the same way back home?’
‘Yes.’
Münster paused.
‘Shall I tell you something odd, fru Leverkuhn?’ he said.
She didn’t answer.
‘You say you walked nearly two kilometres through the town, and so far not a single witness has come forward to say they saw you. What do you say to that? I mean, the streets were not completely deserted.’
No reply. Münster waited for half a minute.
‘It’s not the case that you’re lying, is it, fru Leverkuhn?’
She looked up and stared at him with mild contempt.
‘Why on earth should I be telling lies?’
To save your own skin, for instance, Münster thought; but that was naturally an extremely dodgy thought, and he kept it to himself.
‘Had he fallen out with any of those old friends?’ he asked instead.
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘With herr Bonger, for instance?’
‘I don’t even know which is which of them.’
‘Have they never visited your flat?’
‘Never.’
‘But you knew that they had won some money, I take it?’
He had been leading up to that question for some considerable time, but it was difficult to draw any conclusions from her reaction.
‘Money?’ was all she said.
‘Twenty thousand,’ said Münster.
‘Each?’ she asked.
‘All together,’ said Münster. ‘Five thousand each. But that’s still quite a lot.’
She shook her head slowly.
‘He never mentioned that,’ she said.
Münster nodded.
‘And you still haven’t noticed anything missing from the flat? Apart from the knife, that is.’
‘No.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘No… Mind you, I haven’t seen any trace of five thousand.’
‘They haven’t collected the money yet,’ said Münster.
‘That would explain it,’ said fru Leverkuhn.
Münster sighed. He could feel weariness creeping up on him, and suddenly – in no more than one second – the pointlessness of it all took possession of him. He suddenly felt that he could see right through this old woman’s vacant face, like looking through a pane of glass; and what he saw was a cul de sac, with himself standing there, staring at a brick wall. From half a metre away. With his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slumped in despair. In some strange way he was able to look at his own back and the brick wall at the same time. Filthy bricks covered in faded graffiti, and a smell of eternal, acid rain. It was not a pleasant picture of the situation. Not pleasant at all. I’d better retrace my steps, he thought, and blinked a few times in order to come into contact with reality again.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I haven’t any more questions for the moment, but I’d still like you to keep thinking, fru Leverkuhn. Even the tiniest insignificant detail might help us to get on the right track.’
‘I want you to leave me in peace.’
‘We want to find your husband’s murderer, fru Leverkuhn. And we shall find him.’
For a moment he thought she looked more than acceptably doubtful, and it was probably that – together with the increasing feeling of gravelliness behind his eyes – that made him raise his voice.
‘We intend to find the murderer, fru Leverkuhn, you can be absolutely bloody certain of that!’
She looked at him in surprise. Then rose to her feet.
‘Was there anything else?’
‘Not for the moment,’ said Münster.
The rest of Wednesday passed by in more or less the same tone. Bonger’s canal boat was as deserted as ever, testimony from people who had been out and about on Saturday night was conspicuous by its absence, and the only response from the so-called underworld came from an anonymous source, urging the police to stop rummaging around in the wrong pile of dirty laundry.
Tell us which pile of dirty laundry is the right one, then! Münster thought, aggressively.
He purposely avoided contacting Inspector Moreno, and while he was struggling with an unusually unpalatable lunchtime pasta in the canteen, Krause informed him that she had phoned in earlier that morning and reported sick. At first Münster was relieved to hear that, but then he was filled with a degree of uncertainty that he dare not analyse too closely. The dream he had experienced the previous night was still hovering in the back of his mind – like an X-rated film he had watched by mistake – and he knew that it wasn’t there purely by chance.
He spent the whole afternoon in his office, reading through all the reports and minutes connected with the case that had accumulated already, without becoming much the wiser.
The case of Waldemar Leverkuhn?
That’s the way it is, was how he summed it up in resignation as he left the police station at half past four. For some unknown reason, an unknown perpetrator (man? woman?) had killed a harmless pensioner – in the most bestial fashion imaginable. Four days had passed since the murder, and they were still nowhere near a solution.
Another elderly man had disappeared that same night, and the police knew just as much about that as well.
Nothing.
Yet again – he had lost count of how many times it had happened these last few days – some wise words from Van Veeteren came into his head.
Police work is like life, the chief inspector had announced over a Friday beer at Adenaar’s a few years ago. Ninety-five per cent of it is wasted.
Wasn’t it about time they had got round to that last five per cent? Intendent Münster asked himself as he worked his way up through the labyrinth that formed the exit from the underground garage at the police station. Shouldn’t the breakthrough be due any time now?
Or was it the case, it struck him as he emerged into Baderstraat, that those gloomy words of wisdom from Van Veeteren were a sort of nudge, encouraging him to call in at Krantze’s antiquarian bookshop?
To pay a visit to the chief inspector?
It was a bold thought, of course – probably the only one that had struck him all day – and he decided to leave it in the back of his mind for the moment, and see how it grew.
Then he put his foot down on the accelerator and began to long for Synn and the children.