The Unlucky Lottery (2 page)

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.

2

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?