Munster's Case

by Håkan Nesser

  “No.”

  Palinski looked down at the table.

  “You’re lying,” said Münster. “Shall I tell you why you’re lying?”

  “No,” said Palinski. “What do you mean? Huh …”

  “Listen to me now,” said Münster. “Last Saturday there were four of you. Now there are only two of you. Leverkuhn has been murdered, and Bonger has disappeared. There is a lot to suggest that he is no longer alive either. But you and Wauters are. There are only three possibilities.”

  “Eh?” said Palinski. “What do you mean by that?”

  His head had begun shaking now, Münster noted, and he realized that what was about to happen was likely to be what Moreno foresaw. It was only a matter of time before he threw in the towel, but it seemed only fair to let his colleague look after the confession itself. More gentlemanly, if nothing else: that was why he hadn’t wanted to draw straws.

  “Three possibilities,” he repeated slowly, holding up three fingers in front of Palinski’s eyes. “Either you and Wauters have done them in together …”

  “What the …?” exclaimed Palinski, rising to his feet. “Come on, Intendent, you’ve gone far enough!”

  “Sit down!” said Münster. “If you didn’t do it together, it must have been Wauters on his own.”

  Palinski sat down and his jaws started moving but no words came.

  “Unless of course you did it yourself!”

  “You’re out of your mind! I want to talk to a … Oh no, no, no! You’re suggesting that I …”

  Münster leaned forward over the table and his eyes drilled into his victim’s.

  “What conclusion would you draw yourself?” he asked. “Four elderly gentlemen win a large sum of money. Two of them decide to get rid of the other two in order to get a bigger slice of the cake. Or perhaps it’s one of the four who intends wiping out the other three and getting the whole lot for himself. Doesn’t it make you feel a little uncomfortable, Herr Palinski, knowing that two of your friends are dead? Don’t you lie awake at night wondering when it will be your turn?”

  Palinski had gone white in the face.

  “You … you … you …,” he stammered, and Münster thought for a moment that he was going to flake out.

  “How well do you know this Wauters, in fact?” asked Münster. “Isn’t he the newest member of the gang?”

  Palinski made no reply. He tried to swallow, but his protruding Adam’s apple stopped halfway.

  “Because if you are not afraid of Wauters, I have to conclude that you are the one behind it all, Herr Palinski!”

  “I have never …,” protested Palinski. “I have never …”

  But there was no continuation. Münster’s reasoning had come home to him now, and it was obvious that his paradoxical predicament was dawning on him.

  “We’ll give you five minutes to think this over,” said Münster, pushing his chair back. “If I were you I’d avoid any more evasive answers when we return.”

  He pressed the pause button. Stood up, left the room, and locked the door.

  It took only a few minutes for Moreno to conclude the business. A certain degree of feminine concern in the questioning and a hint of compassion in her eyes were exactly what Jan Palinski’s soul needed after Münster’s bullying.

  “For Christ’s sake,” said Palinski, “what the hell did he mean? Surely we wouldn’t … I wouldn’t …”

  “Come clean,” said Moreno. “You can’t keep quiet about it any longer now. It will only do you more harm if you do, can’t you see that?”

  Palinski looked like a dog that has disobeyed its master.

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, certainly,” said Moreno.

  Palinski wrung his hands and sucked in his lips. Then he straightened his back and cleared his throat.

  “It was Wauters,” he said.

  “Wauters?” said Moreno.

  “Who said we should keep quiet about it.”

  Moreno nodded.

  “He thought …”

  Moreno waited.

  “He thought that we would come under suspicion if it became public knowledge that we’d won.”

  “How much?” asked Moreno.

  “Twenty thousand,” said Palinski, looking shamefaced.

  “How?”

  “The lottery. Wauters had bought the ticket, it was his turn. We were going to get five thousand each.… But with Leverkuhn out of the picture it’s almost seven.”

  “And minus Bonger, it’s ten,” said Moreno.

  “Yes, by God,” said Palinski. “But surely you don’t believe it’s as your colleague suggested? Surely you can see that we would never do anything like that?”

  Moreno didn’t reply. She leaned back in her chair and observed the nervous twitches in Palinski’s face for a while.

  “Just at the moment we don’t think anything at all,” she said. “But you are in no way cleared of suspicion, and we don’t want you to leave Maardam.”

  “Good God,” said Palinski. “It’s not possible. What the hell is Wauters going to say?”

  “You don’t need to worry about that,” said Moreno. “We’ll take care of him. As far as you’re concerned, you can go now—but we want you back here tomorrow morning so that you can sign the transcript of what you’ve said.”

  She switched off the tape recorder. Palinski stood up, his legs shaking.

  “Am I a suspect?” he asked.

  Moreno nodded.

  “I apologize.… I really do apologize. If I’d had my way, we’d have told you this straight away, of course. But Wauters …”

  “I understand,” said Moreno. “We all make mistakes. Off you go now, this way.”

  Palinski slunk off through the door like a reprimanded and penitent schoolboy—but after a few seconds he reappeared.

  “It’s Wauters who has the lottery ticket,” he said. “He hasn’t cashed it in yet. Just so you know.”

  Then he apologized again and left.

  Detective Inspector Moreno noticed that she was smiling.

  15

  Erich Reijsen was a well-groomed gentleman in his sixties with a wife and a terraced house in the same good condition as himself. Moreno had telephoned and made an appointment, and when she arrived the tea tray was already waiting in the living room, where a realistic electric fire was burning in the hearth.

  She blinked in disbelief and sat down on the plush sofa.

  “We don’t eat anything sweet,” said Herr Reijsen, gesturing toward the coarse rye bread and red pepper rings. “We started to live a healthy lifestyle as we grew older.”

  His weather-beaten face and neatly trimmed mustache bore witness to that—as did his wife’s tight tracksuit and mop of blond hair kept in place by a red and gold headband.

  “Help yourself,” she said, demonstrating her successful facelift by opening her eyes wide. “My name’s Blenda.”

  “Inspector Moreno,” she said, fishing out her notebook from her briefcase. “I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s mainly Herr Reijsen I need to speak to.”

  “Of course,” said Reijsen, and Blenda scampered off to some other part of the house. After only a few seconds Moreno could hear the characteristic whirring of an exercise bike at full speed.

  “It’s about Waldemar Leverkuhn,” she said. “I take it you know what’s happened?”

  Reijsen nodded solemnly.

  “We’re trying to piece together a more well-rounded picture of him,” said Moreno, as her host poured out some weak tea into yellow cups. “You were a colleague of his for … for how long?”

  “Fifteen years,” said Reijsen. “From the day he started work at Pixner until he retired. Nineteen ninety-one, I believe. I carried on working for five more years, and then the staff cuts began. I was offered early retirement and accepted it like a shot. I have to say that I haven’t regretted it a single day.”

  Neither would I, Moreno thought in a quick flash of insight.

  “What was he like?�
� she asked. “Can you tell me a little about Waldemar Leverkuhn?”

  It took Erich Reijsen more than half an hour to exhaust the topic. It took about two minutes to realize that the visit was probably going to be fruitless. The portrait of Waldemar Leverkuhn as a reserved and grumpy person (but nevertheless upright and reliable) was one she already had, and her attentive host was unable to add any brushstrokes that changed it, or added anything new.

  Nor did he have any dramatic revelations to make, no insightful comments or anything else that could be of the slightest relevance to the investigation.

  In truth, she had difficulty at the moment in envisioning what a relevant piece of the puzzle might look like, so she dutifully noted most of what Herr Reijsen had to say. It sapped her strength, there was no denying it—both to write and to keep awake—and when she stood up after three slices of rye bread and as many cups of tea, her first instinct was to find her way to the bathroom and throw it all up. Both Herr Reijsen and the bread.

  Her second instinct was to take a hammer and batter the exercise bike that had been emitting its reproachful whining for the whole of her visit, but she managed to restrain herself. After all, she did not have a hammer handy.

  I’m an awful police officer, she thought shortly afterward, sitting at the wheel of her car again at last. Certainly nothing for the force to be proud of.… It’s a good thing we’re not busy with something more serious than this case.

  She was not at all clear about what she meant by that last thought.

  Something more serious? Was the death of Waldemar Leverkuhn not serious? She shook her head and bit her lower lip in the hope of waking up. It felt increasingly clear that all this accumulated tiredness was approaching a point beyond which it would be safer to switch to automatic pilot as far as work was concerned. Not rely on her own judgment. Not make any decisions. Not think.

  Not until she had managed to get a few nights of decent sleep, in any case.

  She started the car and set off for the town center. It was past five o’clock, and the town seemed to be comprised of approximately equal amounts of exhaust fumes, damp, and darkness—a mixture that corresponded pretty well with her own state. She stopped at Keymer Pleijn and did some shopping at Zimmermann’s—yogurt, juice, and fifteen grapes; that was more than enough after the rye bread, she told herself—and when she parked outside her temporary refuge in Gerckstraat, she was convinced that there were only two things in the world that could put her back on her feet.

  A long, hot bath and a large cognac.

  Fortunately both these phenomena were within the realm of possibility, so she clambered out of the car. She broke with her usual practice and took the lift up to the fourth floor, and began to hum some pop song she must have heard on the car radio or in Zimmermann’s.

  When she opened the elevator door, the first thing she saw was Claus. He was sitting on the floor outside her flat, with a large bouquet of red roses in his lap.

  He stared at her with blank, worn-out eyes.

  “Ewa,” he said.

  The bread sitting in her stomach made its presence felt. Hell, she thought. I don’t have the strength for this.

  She slammed the lift door closed again and went back down. Half-ran over the paved area outside the entrance door and had just managed to sit down in her car again when he appeared in the lit-up doorway.

  “Poor you,” she mumbled as she rummaged for the ignition key. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t have the strength.”

  Then she started the car and drove away to look for an acceptable hotel.

  Münster was dreaming.

  At first it was all perfectly innocent. Some sort of party with cheerful people in their best outfits, drinks in their hands and laughter in their faces. He recognized several of them—both colleagues and good friends, of both himself and Synn. Only the premises seemed to be unfamiliar: a confusion of various rooms, staircases, and corridors. And then, gradually, a hint of something unpleasant began to insinuate itself into the dream. Not to say frightening.… He went from one to another of these cubbyholes, each one smaller than the last, darker, occupied by increasingly unknown men and women up to more and more dodgy business. And all the time he kept bumping into people who wanted to speak to him, to drink a toast with him, but he felt unable to stay in any given place for more than a couple of minutes.… There was something beckoning to him, something he was looking for, but he didn’t understand what it was until he was there.

  He entered yet another room. It was dark, and at first he thought it was also empty—but then he heard a sound. Somebody whispered his name. He went farther in, and suddenly he felt a woman’s hand on his chest. She huddled up to him, and he knew immediately that it was for her sake that he was here. Exclusively and only for her sake.

  She was naked, and it was obvious that they were going to make love. She led him to a low, wide bed in front of a fire that had almost burned out, but the embers were still glowing.… Yes, it was obvious that they were going to make love, and he knew almost immediately that the woman was Ewa Moreno. Her mop of chestnut-brown hair, her eyes like halved almonds, her small, firm breasts that he had never seen before but nevertheless had always known that they would look exactly like this … and her skin reflecting the glowing embers—no, nothing could be clearer. In less than a second he was also naked, lying on the bed, and she was astride him, guiding him into her eager pussy, and he watched her gleaming body raising and lowering itself, and it was ineffably blissful. Then he noticed the door slowly opening without really registering it … until he saw his children, Bart and Marieke, standing there watching him only a few feet away, with their serious and somewhat sorrowful eyes.

  He was woken up by his own cry. Synn stirred restlessly, and he could feel the cold sweat all over his skin like an armor plate of angst. He lay there motionless for a few seconds, then slid cautiously out of bed, tiptoed into the bathroom, and showered for ten minutes.

  When he returned to the bedroom he saw that it was a quarter past four. He lifted the duvet and crept down to lie close to Synn’s warm back. Close, very close.

  Then he lay there, holding her tightly, without sleeping a wink all night.

  Something is happening, he thought.

  It mustn’t happen.

  16

  Wednesday felt like a funeral in a foreign language. He almost crashed the car twice on the way to the police station, and for a while he seriously considered driving back home and going to bed instead. He had just flopped down at his desk, propping up his head with his hands, when Jung knocked on the door.

  “Have you got a moment?”

  Münster nodded.

  “Two, if you need them.”

  Jung sat down.

  “You look tired.”

  “What do you want?” asked Münster.

  “Well,” said Jung, squirming on the chair. “Nothing much really, just a thought that struck me.”

  “Really?”

  “Well,” said Jung. “I was thinking that the simplest solution to this Leverkuhn business would be that Bonger did it.”

  Münster yawned. “Go on.”

  Jung braced himself.

  “Well, what if Bonger went home with Leverkuhn, or called around later, it doesn’t really matter which … and killed him. I mean they had been arguing outside Freddy’s, and if Bonger lost his temper, maybe he lost control of his senses.”

  “You think so?” said Münster.

  “I don’t know. But at least that would explain why he’s disappeared, wouldn’t it? At first I thought he had jumped into the canal when he sobered up and realized what he’d done, but of course he could simply be in hiding. He must know that he would be under suspicion. What do you think?”

  Münster pondered for a moment.

  “Okay,” he said. “God knows, it’s certainly a possibility. There’s nothing to say that’s not what happened in any case.”

  “Exactly,” said Jung, looking pleased with himself. “I jus
t wanted you to bear it in mind.”

  He stood up.

  “Thank you,” said Münster. “If Hiller agrees to let me have you for a few days, you could follow it up—check possible friends and acquaintances and so on. Regarding a hiding place, that is.”

  “I’d be glad to,” said Jung. “Although he doesn’t seem all that cooperative just now, Hiller.… Something to do with that dwarf. But let me know if he gives the okay.”

  When Jung left, Münster went to stand by the window. Pulled up the blind, rested his forehead against the cool glass, and gazed out at the completely unchanged town, which hardly seemed to have had the energy to get out of bed either.

  Bonger? he thought. A dead simple solution. Why the hell not? Maybe he should do what Van Veeteren used to advise: Always do the simplest thing first. It’s so damned easy to miss a checkmate in one move!

  Then he looked at the clock and saw there was less than twenty minutes before his meeting with Marie-Louise Leverkuhn. He armed himself with coffee, pen, and notebook. Sat down at his desk again and tried to concentrate.

  “To tell you the truth, we’re having difficulty in coming to grips with this case, Fru Leverkuhn.”

  She made no reply.

  “Nevertheless, we must work on the assumption that there is a motive behind the murder of your husband, that there is something in his background or general circumstances that has resulted in this terrible crime.”

  It was a heavy-handed opening, but he had decided to take that line. Marie-Louise didn’t move a muscle.

  “There is only one person who can know about such things, and that is, of course, you, Fru Leverkuhn. Have you had any thoughts about such matters in the last few days?”

  “None at all.”

  She stared vacantly at him.

  “You must have been thinking about what has happened?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it, but nothing has come of it.”

  “Have you talked to many people you know?”

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t know all that many people. My children. Emmeline. A few neighbors.”

  “But can you give me the names of your closest friends, apart from Emmeline von Post? That you and your husband used to socialize with.”