The Unlucky Lottery (27 page)

‘Hmm,’ said Moreno. ‘This is what you wanted to tell me, isn’t it?’

Lene shrugged.

‘I don’t really know,’ she said. ‘I just started to think about them again when I heard about the terrible things that have happened. I simply couldn’t believe it was true.’

‘No,’ said Moreno. ‘I suppose it must have been a shock for you.’

‘Two,’ said Lene. ‘First the murder. Then the fact that she’d done it. She must have hated him.’

Moreno nodded.

‘Presumably. Did you have any idea of what their relationship was like? Then, thirty years ago, I mean.’

‘No,’ said Lene. ‘I’ve been thinking about it now, in view of what’s happened, but I was only a child in those days. I had no conception of things like that – and anyway, I hardly ever saw Waldemar. He only turned up very occasionally. No, I really don’t know.’

‘So it’s the children you remember?’

Lene sighed and fished a cigarette out of her handbag.

‘Yes. And then all that business of Irene’s illness. I’ve somehow always felt that it was connected. Her illness and her being over-protective of Mauritz. There was something wrong, but I suppose it’s easy to speculate. Darkness swallowed her up more or less all at once, if I understand it rightly. Just over twenty years ago, so it was a few years after our holidays together and I’ve no idea what it was all about. One can only guess, but it’s so easy to be clever with hindsight.’

She fell silent. Moreno watched her as she took out a lighter and lit her cigarette.

‘You know that Ruth is lesbian, I take it?’ she asked, mainly because she didn’t really know how to continue the conversation. Lene inhaled deeply, and nodded slowly several times.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But there are so many possible reasons for being that. Don’t you think?’

Moreno didn’t know how to interpret that answer. Did this stylish woman have a similar bent? Had she had enough of men? She took another sip of wine and thought about it, then realized that she was beginning to drift a long way away from the point.

Mind you, what was the point?

That’s certainly a good question, she thought. But she could think of nothing that might approximate to an answer. Not for the moment. Just now.

It was nearly always like this. Sometimes in the middle of an investigation, it seemed impossible to see the wood for all the trees. She had thought about that lots of times, and of course the only thing that helped was to try to find a mountain or a hill that you could climb up and get some sort of overview. See things in perspective.

She could see that Lene was waiting for a continuation, but it was difficult to find the right thread.

‘What about your mother?’ she asked for no particular reason. ‘Is she still alive?’

‘No,’ said Lene. ‘She died in 1980. Cancer. But I don’t think she had any contact with the Leverkuhns either in recent years. My father died last summer. But he knew them even less well.’

Moreno nodded and drank up the remains of her wine. Then she decided that this was enough. Thanked Lene Bauer for being so helpful, and asked if they could get in touch again if anything turned up she might be able to help with.

Lene handed over her business card, and said that the police were welcome to phone her at any time.

How nice to meet somebody who at least displays a bit of willingness to cooperate in this case, Moreno thought as she left Rüger’s. That sort was distinctly thin on the ground. Not to say few and far between.

But what Lene Bauer’s contribution was actually worth in a wider context – well, she had difficulty in deciding that. For the time being, at least. They were in the middle of a thicket, and the brushwood was anything but thin on the ground.

I must improve my imagery, Moreno thought, somewhat confused.

But some other time, not now. She clambered into the car and thought that all she wanted to do for the moment was to discuss the matter with Intendent Münster. Preferably in a whisper, as they had found themselves doing in the church that morning: but perhaps that was asking too much.

Quite a lot too much, in fact. She started the car. No doubt it would be best to postpone that conversation as well until tomorrow, she decided. To be on the safe side.

After these deliberations Inspector Moreno drove back to her temporary home, and spent all evening thinking about the concept of the battle of the sexes.

33

With the aid of Constables Klempje and Dillinger, Rooth and Jung searched the Leverkuhns’ flat in Kolderweg for four long hours on the Tuesday after fru Leverkuhn’s funeral.

It would have been quicker, Jung decided later, had they done so without the assistance of the constables altogether. Thanks to unbridled enthusiasm, Dillinger managed to demolish a bathroom cupboard that had no doubt been fixed to the wall for many a year (but since neither inhabitant of the flat was any longer of this world, Rooth reckoned that they could lie low when it came to the question of damages), and Klempje’s bulky frame tended to get in the way – until Jung had had enough and sent him packing to the attic space instead.

‘Aye, aye, Captain,’ said Klempje. Saluted and disappeared up the stairs. When Jung went to check on how things were going not long after, it transpired that with the aid of a bolt cutter, Klempje had broken into fröken Mathisen’s jam-packed storeroom and succeeded in removing most of the contents and piling them up in the narrow corridor outside. It was a considerable amount. Jung fetched Dillinger, gave still more detailed instructions to the pair of them, and half an hour later they came downstairs to report (Klempje looked suspiciously sleepy): there were no diaries to be seen, neither in Mathisen’s nor in the Leverkuhns’ storeroom.

No doubt about it, as sure as amen in church or whores in Zwille – they hadn’t found a single bloody page, full stop.

Jung sighed and announced that unfortunately, the same applied to the flat itself. Although he expressed it differently.

‘What a lot of crap,’ said Rooth when he’d locked the door behind them. ‘I’m hungry.’

‘There’s something wrong with your metabolism,’ said Jung.

‘What does that mean?’ asked Klempje, yawning so broadly that his neck muscles creaked. ‘I’m hungry as well.’

Jung sighed again.

‘But perhaps it means something,’ he said. ‘If you look at it that way.’

‘What the hell are you on about?’ wondered Rooth.

‘Don’t you see?’

‘No,’ said Rooth. ‘Don’t keep me guessing like this. I can hardly contain myself.’

Jung snorted.

‘There are some cops you can bribe by offering them a bun,’ he said. ‘Anyway, look at it like this. If she really did keep diaries, this Leverkuhn woman, and has now destroyed them, that must mean that they contained something of importance. Something she didn’t want anybody else to read. Don’t you think?’

Rooth thought about that as they walked back to the car.

‘Crap,’ he said. ‘That’s just normal. Who the hell do you think wants to leave a load of diaries to posterity? Irrespective of what’s in them? Not me in any case. So that doesn’t mean a thing.’

Jung conceded that there was probably something in that, but didn’t think there was any reason to expand on it.

‘I didn’t know you could write,’ he said instead.

‘Of course he can,’ said Klempje, picking his nose. ‘What a lot of bloody crap!’

When they got back to the police station, Jung and Rooth went down to the prison cells for a chat with Inspector Fuller: it emerged more clearly than was desirable that Marie-Louise Leverkuhn had made no effort at all to keep a diary during the six weeks she had spent in cell number 12. Either in notebooks with black oilcloth covers or anywhere else. Fuller could stake his bloody reputation on that, he claimed.

For safety’s sake they checked with all the warders and the drowsy chaplain, and everybody agreed. Even if no more reputations were staked.

There were no diaries. It was as simple as that.

‘Okay,’ said Rooth. ‘Now we know. It seems that everybody draws a blank in this bloody lottery.’

Shortly before Münster went home for the day he had a phone call from Reinhart.

‘Have you a quarter of an hour to spare?’

‘Yes, but not much more,’ said Münster. ‘Are you coming to my office?’

‘Come to mine instead,’ said Reinhart. ‘Then I can smoke in peace and quiet. There are a few things I’m wondering about.’

‘I’ll be with you in two minutes,’ said Münster.

Reinhart was standing by the window, watching the sleet fall, when Münster arrived.

‘I seem to recall that the chief inspector thought January was the worst month of the year,’ he said. ‘I must say I agree with him. It’s only the sixth today, but it feels as if we’ve been at it for an eternity.’

‘It can’t have anything to do with the fact that you’ve only just started work again, can it?’ Münster wondered.

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Reinhart, lighting his pipe. ‘Anyway, I had just a few little theoretical questions.’

‘Good,’ said Münster. ‘I’m fed up with being practical all the time.’

Reinhart sat down behind his desk, turned his chair and put his feet up on the third shelf of the bookcase, where there was a space left for precisely this purpose.

‘Do you think she’s innocent?’ he asked.

Münster watched the wet snow falling for five seconds before replying.

‘Possibly,’ he said.

‘Why should she confess if she didn’t do it?’

‘There are various possibilities.’

‘Such as?’

Münster thought.

‘Well, one at any rate.’

‘One possibility?’ said Reinhart. ‘That’s what I call a multiplicity.’

‘Who cares?’ said Münster. ‘Perhaps it’s simplisticity, but it could be that she was protecting somebody . . . Or that she thought she was. But that’s just speculation, of course.’

‘Who might she have been protecting?’

The telephone rang, but Reinhart pressed a button and switched it off.

‘That’s obvious,’ said Münster, with irritation in his voice. ‘I’ve been wondering about that from the very start, but there’s no evidence to support it. None at all.’

Reinhart nodded and chewed at the stem of his pipe.

‘Then there’s fru Van Eck,’ Münster said. ‘And this damned Bonger. That complicates matters somewhat, don’t you think?’

‘Of course,’ said Reinhart. ‘Of course. I tried to talk to the poor widower at Majorna today. But there’s not much of a spark left in him, it seems . . . Ah well, what are you going to do now? In the way of positive action, I mean.’

Münster leaned back on his chair.

‘Follow up that simplistic thought,’ he said after consulting himself for a few seconds. ‘See if it holds water, at least. I need to get about a bit and chase things up. Only one of the siblings attended the funeral, so we didn’t get very far then. And it wasn’t exactly fun either, interrogating the mourners as soon as they left the church.’

‘No, it wouldn’t be,’ said Reinhart. ‘When are you setting off?’

‘Tomorrow,’ said Münster. ‘They live quite a long way up north, so it might well be a two-day job.’

Reinhart thought for a while. Then he removed his feet from the book shelf and put down his pipe.

‘It certainly is a bloody strange business, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘And unpleasant.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Münster. ‘I suppose they could be coincidences. It’s over two months now since it all started, but it’s only now that I’m beginning to sniff the possibility of a motive.’

‘Hmm,’ said Reinhart. ‘Does it include Else Van Eck?’

‘I’m not really sure. It’s only a very faint whiff at the moment.’

Reinhart’s face suddenly lit up.

‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ he said. ‘You’re beginning to sound like the chief inspector. Are you starting to get old?’

‘Ancient,’ said Münster. ‘My kids will start thinking I’m their grandad if I don’t get a week off soon.’

‘Time off, oh yes . . .’ said Reinhart with a sigh, and his eyes began to look dreamy. ‘No, sod this for a lark, it’s time to go home. I’ll see you in a few days’ time, then. Keep us informed.’

‘Of course,’ said Münster, opening the door for Intendent Reinhart.

34

He allowed himself an extra hour the next morning. Made the beds, did the washing up, took Marieke to nursery school and left Maardam by ten o’clock. Driving rain came lashing in from the sea, and he was relieved to be sitting in a car with a roof over his head.

His main travelling companion was oppressive exhaustion, and it was not until he had drunk two cups of black coffee at a service station by the motorway that he began to feel anything like awake and clear in the head. Van Veeteren used to say that there was nothing to compare with a long car journey – in solitary majesty – when it came to unravelling muddled thoughts, and when Münster set off he had cherished a vague hope that the same would apply to him as well.

For there was certainly quite a lot to get to grips with. And a lot of tangles to unravel.

First of all, Synn. His lovely Synn. He had hoped that they would have been able to have a heart-to-heart talk the previous evening after the children had gone to sleep, but that’s not how it had turned out. Quite the reverse, in fact. Synn had settled down on her side and turned out the light before he had even got ready for bed, and when he made tentative moves to try and make contact with her, she had already fallen asleep.

Or pretended to, he wasn’t sure which. He lay awake until turned two, and felt awful. When he finally dropped off, he dreamed instead of Ewa Moreno. Nothing seemed to be going right.

Is the relationship coming to an end? Münster wondered as he came to the hills around Wissbork. Is that what happened when two people started drifting away from each other? As they say.

He didn’t know. How the hell could he know?

All you can do is look after your own life, he thought. That is the only consideration. All comparisons are gratuitous and would-be-wise. Synn is unique, he is unique, and so are their family and their relationship. There are no guidelines, no pattern to follow. All you can do is rely on your feelings and intuition. Dammit all.