The Unlucky Lottery (7 page)

‘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.’

9

‘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.