Munster's Case

by Håkan Nesser

  One would hope not, Münster thought. Because it was not difficult to restrict the links quite radically. Leverkuhn and Bonger had been good friends. Leverkuhn and Fru Van Eck lived in the same block of flats. But on the other hand, Bonger and Fru Van Eck had no known connections at all, so if there was in fact some kind of common denominator, it must be Leverkuhn.

  And Leverkuhn was the only one of them who was definitely dead. Very dead.

  Münster sighed and wished he were a smoker. If he had been, he would have lit up at this point; as it was, he had to make do with clasping his hands behind the back of his neck and leaning still farther back on his chair.

  What about the disappearances? he thought. There were differences between them. Big differences. As far as Bonger was concerned, he could have gone up in smoke at any time during the night of the murder—or even later. No one had seen any trace of him after he had left Freddy’s, but no one missed him until well into Sunday. At a guess he had never arrived back at his houseboat at all, but that was only a hypothesis. There were masses of alternatives and variations.

  It was different in the case of Else Van Eck. Here the margins were reduced to an hour between seven and eight on Wednesday evening, and bearing in mind her size and general profile, that was not a very large space to pass through. Witnesses should—no, must, surely—turn up, Münster thought. We shall have to carry out yet another door-to-door operation tomorrow!

  Then he just sat there for a while with his eyes closed, and imagined the three puzzle pieces dancing around in a deep and increasingly dark space—like that logo of some film company until the letters clung to one another and formed its name, or at least its abbreviation. He couldn’t remember the name of the film company, and the puzzle pieces Leverkuhn, Bonger, and Van Eck never clung to one another. They simply continued whirling around and around in the same unfathomable and never-ending loops, receding farther and farther away, it seemed, deeper and deeper into blacker space.

  He made a big effort and opened his eyes. Noted that it was past five o’clock and decided to go home.

  I’d bet my life, he thought as he wormed his way into his jacket, I’d bet my life that if all the detective officers in the world got an hour’s extra sleep per night, five hours per day would be saved. Due to the fact that our brains would have the strength to think more clearly.

  Surely it must be better to cut back on wasted time rather than on sleep? Surely sleep can never be wasted?

  What’s all this buzzing around in my head? he thought. Am I growing old? And I haven’t made love for two weeks either.

  19

  “I can’t shake this feeling,” said Rooth.

  “What feeling?” said Jung.

  “That I’m sort of lost as far as this investigation is concerned. I can’t get the hang of what the hell is going on. I think I ought to be working on a different case.”

  Jung eyed him with a cool smile.

  “Such as? I don’t have the feeling that we’ve covered ourselves with glory as far as that jerk in Linzhuisen is concerned either.… Perhaps you ought to pack it in altogether?”

  Rooth sighed self-critically. Rummaged around in his pockets for something to pop into his mouth, but found only a lump of ancient chewing gum wrapped up in an old movie ticket. There was a knock on the door and Krause came in with an envelope.

  “Pictures of Else Van Eck,” he announced.

  “Okay,” said Jung, accepting them. “Can you tell Joensuu and Kellerman to come to my office—and whoever else it was …”

  “Klempje and Proszek.”

  “Right,” said Rooth. “Let’s go for broke.”

  Krause left. Jung took the photographs out of the envelope and examined them. Passed one over to Rooth, who stood up and started scratching his head demonstratively.

  “What’s the matter with you?” said Jung.

  “It’s remarkable,” said Rooth.

  “What is?”

  “That so much can disappear without a trace. Everything disappears eventually, I mean, but even so?”

  “Hmm,” said Jung. “You have a theory, is that what you’re trying to say?”

  “Well,” said Rooth. “Theory and theory … I don’t really dare to make any further comment about this business. No, keep your own counsel, that’s best.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” said Jung. “What the hell are you talking about? Even if they’ve succeeded in bugging this office, there isn’t a newspaper in the whole of Europe that could print anything you say. Do you get what I’m saying?”

  “All right,” said Rooth. “It has to do with her bulk.”

  “Bulk?”

  “Bulk, yes. I simply can’t believe that a gigantic woman like Else Van Eck could simply disappear like this.”

  “Like this? What do you mean?”

  Rooth sat down again.

  “Don’t you get it?”

  “No.”

  “And they made you an inspector?”

  Jung gathered together the pictures and put them back in the envelope.

  “High and mighty unshaven cop speaks with forked tongue,” he said.

  “I think she’s still in the building,” said Rooth.

  “Eh?”

  “That Van Eck woman. She’s still in Kolderweg 17.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Rooth sighed again.

  “Just that it’s hardly credible that she could have left the building without anyone seeing her. So she must still be there.”

  “Where?” asked Jung.

  Rooth shrugged.

  “I have no idea. In the attic, or down in the cellar.”

  “You’re assuming she’s dead?”

  “That’s possible,” said Rooth. “She might have been butchered and embalmed. Or tied up and muzzled. Who cares? The point is that we ought to do a thorough search of the building instead of wandering around the neighborhood.”

  Jung said nothing for a while.

  “You have a point,” he said. “Why don’t you go to Münster and talk it over with him?”

  “That’s exactly what I intend to do,” said Rooth, standing up again. “I just wanted to give you some insight into how a bigger brain works first.”

  “Thank you,” said Jung. “It’s been both interesting and instructive.”

  Two minutes later the four constables turned up. Jung inspected the quartet while thinking over the priorities.

  “I think we can manage with two of you for the time being,” he said. “Klampe and Proszek. Joensuu and Kellerman can wait down in the duty officer’s room for the time being. We’ve received some new … indications.”

  Constables Klempje and Proszek spent six hours on Friday showing enlarged photographs of Else Van Eck to a total of 362 persons in and around Kolderweg. A large proportion of those people recognized the woman in the photograph immediately, but a comparatively small number had seen her later than six p.m. on Wednesday.

  None at all, to be precise.

  “Why the hell don’t they just put a Wanted notice in the newspapers instead of making us work our socks off?” Proszek wondered when they finally managed to find a sufficiently sheltered corner in the Café Bendix in Kolderplejn. “This is making me look impotent.”

  “You always have been,” said Klempje. “There’ll be one tomorrow.”

  “One what?”

  “A Wanted notice.”

  “For God’s sake,” said Proszek. “In that case what’s the point of our dicking around like this?”

  Klempe shrugged.

  “Perhaps they’re in a hurry?”

  “Kiss my ass,” said Proszek. “And cheers. Where the hell are Joensuu and Kellerman, by the way? Lounging about and lording it over at some stakeout again, no doubt.”

  Neither Joensuu nor Kellerman would have regarded what they were doing on Friday as lording it, assuming they had an opportunity to comment, which they didn’t. They spent five hours and forty-five minutes searching Kolderweg 17 from attic to b
oiler room. They were assisted by two German shepherds with two red-haired handlers, and, for at least half the search, Detective Inspector Rooth in his capacity as leader of the operation.

  The property was built at the end of the 1890s: there was an abundance of remarkable passages, corridors, and abandoned cupboards, and nobody still alive had ever seen a plan of the building. That is if you could believe the owner, a certain Herr Tibor, who turned up in a Bentley with a large collection of keys at lunchtime. But when Rooth himself called off the operation two hours later, it could be stated with confidence that no woman of Else Van Eck’s dimensions—in no circumstances (and no other woman come to that!)—could have been hidden away in any of the building’s nooks or crannies.

  Dead or alive.

  Several of the tenants were feeling distinctly upset, however. Joensuu’s protestations that it was just a routine investigation lost credibility as first the attic spaces were emptied, then bathtubs were turned upside down and the bottoms of sofas were cut open.

  “Hooligans!” snarled Herr Engel when the German shepherd investigated the collection of bottles under his bed. “Where’s that woman who came to see me the other day? At least she displayed a modicum of tact and good sense.”

  What did I say! thought Inspector Rooth when it was all over. I’m going to keep this case at arm’s length.

  “Well, how did it go with your theory?” Jung asked when Rooth returned to the police station.

  “Great,” said Rooth. “I have another theory now. About how it happened.”

  “You don’t say,” said Jung, looking up from the piles of papers.

  “Fröken Mathisen ground her down in the mincing machine and let Mussolini gobble her up.”

  “I thought Mussolini was a vegetarian?” said Jung.

  “Wrong,” said Rooth. “It was Hitler who was a vegetarian.”

  “If you say so,” said Jung.

  The run-through with Chief of Police Hiller on Friday afternoon was not a very memorable event. Two dwarf acacias had died during the week, despite having received all the care, nourishment, and love of which a human being is capable.

  The chief of police wasn’t mourning, although he did have black bags under his eyes.

  Things were not much better on the human level. Münster recounted the situation with the assistance of Moreno and Jung (who had spent most of the day locating and interviewing various relatives and acquaintances of Else and Arnold Van Eck—and made about as much progress as a string quartet in a school for the deaf), and after an extremely uninspiring hour it was decided to keep more or less all the officers currently on the case, to send out a lengthy press communiqué, and to leave all doors wide open for the mass media and any member of the public who might be able to provide relevant information.

  Help, thought Münster when he had finally returned to his office. That’s what we need. We don’t know a damned thing, and what’s required now is help.

  TV, newspapers, anything at all. The general public, that great detective.

  Tips, that’s what they needed.

  And yet, it was still only a three-piece puzzle.

  Leverkuhn. Bonger. Else Van Eck.

  When he tried to think about how it felt, the only conclusion he could draw was that it was not especially uplifting.

  20

  “You do realize it’s Saturday, don’t you?” said Synn.

  “I called him yesterday,” said Münster. “The only time he had available was a couple of hours this morning. Do you think he’s found himself a woman?”

  Synn raised an eyebrow.

  “You’re not suggesting that he would give her preference over work, are you? He must be unique in the world of men if he does, I must say.”

  Münster tried to respond but found that there was some kind of spiritual eructation in the way, and no words came out.

  “Synn, for goodness sake …,” he managed to utter in the end, but she had already turned her back on him.

  He drank his coffee and left the kitchen. As he stood in the hall tying his shoelaces, he could hear her messing around with the children upstairs.

  She loves me even so, he thought hopefully. When all is said and done, she still does.

  “I’ll be home by one at the latest!” he shouted up the stairs. “I’ll do some shopping on the way back.”

  “Buy me something!”

  Marieke came sliding down the stairs.

  “Buy me something! I want something! Wrapped up in paper!”

  He lifted her up. Gave her a hug, buried his nose in her newly washed hair, and decided he would buy no less than three presents. Something for Marieke, something for Bartje, something for Synn.

  A hundred roses for Synn.

  I must put a stop to the deterioration in our relationship, he thought. I really must.

  But if roses would be the right thing to fill the cracks—well, that was something he would have to think long and hard about.

  He put Marieke down and hurried out into the rain.

  “You’re looking well, Chief Inspector,” said Münster.

  Van Veeteren sucked the froth off his beer.

  “Kindly refrain from using those words, Münster,” he said. “I’ve known you long enough; we don’t need to use titles.”

  “Thank you,” said Münster. “But in any case, you’re looking well. That’s what I was trying to convey.”

  Van Veeteren took a deep swig and smacked his lips with pleasure.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ve had a word with the good Lord, and we’ve agreed on seven good years after the wandering through the darkness. And I’ll be damned if that isn’t what I deserve—when I’m sixty-five. He can do whatever He likes with me.”

  “Really?” said Münster. “I must say I’ve started feeling a bit older and Reinhart is on leave of absence, so things get a bit difficult at times.”

  “Don’t they have a new chief inspector up their sleeves?”

  Münster shook his head.

  “I think they’re waiting for two things. To see if you come back …”

  “I’m not coming back,” said Van Veeteren.

  “… and if you don’t, I reckon Heinemann has to retire first. Nobody can see him in that role, and he’s next in line.”

  “But Hiller became chief of police,” Van Veeteren reminded him.

  He picked up his pack of tobacco, placed a little cigarette machine on the table, and started rolling.

  “I’ve given up toothpicks,” he explained. “I was becoming addicted. And this rolling almost makes it a craft.… Anyway, what the hell is it you want? We don’t need to sit around all day being as polite as a couple of Chinamen.”

  Münster took a swig of his beer and looked out over the rainy square, where people were rushing from one stall to another. He wondered vaguely how many times he’d sat here at Adenaar’s with the chief inspector. Listening to his bad-tempered expositions and gloomy observations … and noting the absolutely clear and incorruptible spirit that was always present under the surface. No, it was not difficult to understand why he had jumped off the bandwagon, Münster thought. He’d been on it for thirty-five years, after all.

  And it was not surprising that the good Lord had granted him seven good years. Münster would have done the same.

  “Well?” Van Veeteren asked again.

  “Yes, there was something I wanted to ask you about.”

  “Leverkuhn?”

  Münster nodded. “How could the chief … how did you know that?”

  Van Veeteren lit his cigarette and inhaled as if he had just invented the first cigarette.

  “Five a day,” he said. “This is number one. What did you say?”

  “You knew that I wanted to talk to you about Leverkuhn. How?”

  “I guessed,” said Van Veeteren modestly. “It’s not the first time. And I still read the newspapers.”

  Münster nodded, somewhat embarrassed. It was true. On two previous occasions since Van Veeteren had lef
t the stage, Münster had plucked up courage and discussed ongoing investigations with him. The first time, nearly a year ago, he had been reluctant to get him involved again, but he had soon realized that the old bloodhound instinct had not died out altogether. And that the chief inspector even derived a certain grim satisfaction from being consulted in this fashion.

  But the fact that he would never admit as much for even a second was another matter, of course.

  “I understand,” said Münster. “Thank you for being willing to help. And to listen. Anyway, of course it’s about Leverkuhn, no point in denying it.”

  Van Veeteren emptied his glass.

  “I’ve read about it, as I said. It seems a bit special. If you buy me another beer it would no doubt improve my sense of hearing.”

  There was a slight twitch in the muscles of one cheek. Münster drained his own glass and went to the bar.

  Two beers and forty-five minutes later, they had finished. Van Veeteren leaned back in his chair and nodded thoughtfully.

  “No, this certainly doesn’t seem to be a straightforward case,” he said. “Things seem to be pulling in different directions. The threads seem to be unwinding instead of coming together.”

  “Exactly,” said Münster. “Leverkuhn, Bonger, and Fru Van Eck. I’ve been thinking about it, and there seems to be just enough that links them together to suggest that their fates were connected—but yet not enough to suggest a motive.”

  “That could well be, yes,” said Van Veeteren mysteriously. “But I think you should be careful not to take that jigsaw puzzle analogy too far. It can be so damned annoying to have a piece too many.”

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

  Van Veeteren didn’t answer. Sat up in his chair and began playing with his cigarette machine instead. Münster looked out the window again. Another of those meaningless comments, he thought, and felt a little pang of irritation that was as familiar to him as a favorite jacket.

  A piece too many? No, he decided that it was just an example of the chief inspector’s weakness for smoke screens and mystification, nothing more. But what was the point of that in a situation like this?