The Unlucky Lottery (3 page)

Why?

He sighed and looked at the clock. The morning had barely started.

3

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.

4

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.