Munster's Case

by Håkan Nesser

  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. She had walked a long way, and her knee was causing her serious pain now. She slowed down and tried to avoid putting any weight on her heel, but it just felt odd, 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 to 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 this rainy morning. Three or four grim-faced dog owners. A jogger in a red tracksuit listening to his music player, and a down-and-out old man searching for empty bottles in the rubbish bins, dragging a shopping cart 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 was freezing cold, and although she knew full well that any hope of the rain easing off was mostly wishful thinking, she stood up and set off again. She noticed that she wasn’t thinking straight: thoughts were buzzing 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 being kept company at her kitchen table by Ruth Leverkuhn.

  As soon as she saw her mother in the doorway, Ruth stood up. Cleared her throat, smoothed 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 rain her friend had brought in with her dripping onto the threshold and parts of the linoleum.

  Do something, for God’s sake, she thought. Why does nobody say anything?

  12

  “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 spoke only to Wauters. Palinski was about to leave for the hospital for some sort of check. But I had the impression …”

  She hesitated and stared out the window.

  “What?” said Münster. “What sort of impression?”

  “That they’re hiding something. I asked Wauters straight out if they’d won some money, and 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 in top 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 him on the way home from the hospital.”

  Münster thought it 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 too far an assumption. 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 go up in smoke the same night that Leverkuhn is murdered, don’t you think?”

  “Of course,” 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 boat.”

  Moreno nodded and said nothing for a while.

  “A strange crowd, this gang of old geezers,” she said eventually.

  “They had one another,” said Münster. “Shall we have coffee?”

  “Yes, let’s,” said Moreno.

  In the end he couldn’t hold back any longer.

  “What about your private life?” he said. “How are things?”

  Moreno contemplated the gray, misty view through the window once again, and Münster realized she was sizing him up. He passed the test, it seemed, when she took a deep breath and straightened her back.

  “I moved out,” she said.

  “Away from Claus?”

  He remembered his name in any case.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh dear,” said Münster, and waited.

  “It’s been a month now,” she went on after a while. “I have a friend who’s in Spain for six months, so I took the opportunity of subletting her place.… 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,” said Moreno and sighed again. “It’s not that at all. I’m prepared to put it behind me and start fresh. Experience is experience, after all.”

  “Without a doubt,” said Münster. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. 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 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 in front of me?”

  “He’s begging and pleading, is he?” Münster asked.

  “You can say that again.”

  “How often do you meet?”

  Moreno sighed.

  “Several times a week. And he calls me every day. He’s taken sick leave as well. I loved him, but every time we talk, that love ebbs further and further away.… He says he’s going to kill himself, and I’m almost starting to believe him. That’s the worst part—that I believe him.”

  Münster rested his head on his hands, leaning closer to her. He suddenly realized that he wanted 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 truthfully he didn’t have an especially positive opinion of the young bank lawyer.

  One of those pretty-boy financial yuppies, the type that changes his shirt three times a day and pours aftershave into his underpants.

  But then again, perhaps there was just some kind of primitive and atavistic jealousy behind that judgment. He recalled that Reinhart once said it was perfectly normal to be jealous of every guy who went around with a woman who was more or less attractive. Healthy and natural. And you could be sure that anyone who didn’t feel that way was definitely suffering from some nasty afflictio
n 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 depressed, 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 not many are in disguise, at 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 afterward!”

  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. “I suppose you have a point. Are there never any mature people at all?”

  Münster sighed.

  “A few, I suppose,” he said. “It’s not easy being human. Especially when you’re 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 150 feet 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 onto 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 eat 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 fueled 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 (insofar as it’s possible to rush when you’re 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 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 around; 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 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 calculations.

  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’re 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 if he tried 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 red flags, and you never know.…

  As said before.

  Before Münster ended this lugubrious Monday, he ran through the witness testimonies with Krause. There was little useful information. Not much, but better 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 clearly been a degree of animosity between the two old friends, and it seemed as if Bonger had simply abandoned his friend and gone 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 the majority of people probably hadn’t read about it yet.

  So there was still hope.

  For some obscure reason Münster had difficulty in sharing Krause’s apple-cheeked can-do spirit, and when he went down to his car in the underground garage he noticed to his surprise that he felt old.

  Old and tired.

  It didn’t help that Monday evening was when Synn attended her course in commercial French; nor the fact that his son, Bart, had borrowed a saxophone from a classmate and devoted every second of the evening to practicing. In the end Münster locked the instrument in the trunk 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 afterward, nagged by a bad conscience and without Synn by his side.

  13

  “I’m staying only until tonight,” 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, disinterested, in his way of speaking and behaving—as if he weren’t really with it—and Münster assumed 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 some 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 las
t see him?”

  Mauritz thought for a few moments.

  “A few months ago,” he said. “I was here on an assignment, and I called in on them briefly. Drank coffee. Gave Mother a bottle of cherry liqueur—it was her birthday.”

  “So you didn’t have 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 one another?”

  “What has that got to do with it?”

  He shifted his position on his chair and fingered the crease of his trousers.

  “Nothing,” said Münster. “It’s difficult to say what is relevant at this stage. And what isn’t.”

  We’ve got a real bundle of fun here, he thought—and it struck him that the same applied to the family as a whole. None of them were likely to be the life of any party: not the ones he’d been in contact with at least. Wood lice, as Reinhart used to call them.

  But perhaps he was being unfair. He didn’t feel all that much of a live wire himself, come to think of it.