Munster's Case

by Håkan Nesser

  There never was, but she had nothing against his sitting there. He was tall and thin, slightly stooping in view of his age, and he reminded her of the vicar who conducted her confirmation classes. She once asked him if they were relatives, but of course they were not.

  However, he had worked for a while in the Maalwort parish in Pampas. This emerged from one of their sparse conversations, but as she had been to church only once or twice during all the years they had lived only a stone’s throw away, there was not much to say about this circumstance either.

  Nevertheless, he would sit there in the corner several afternoons a week. And made himself available, as he had promised. Perhaps he was simply tired, and needed to rest for a while, she sometimes thought.

  At least he did not annoy her.

  Other people who took the trouble to come and visit her were her two children and the assiduous Emmeline von Post.

  Before the trial began, when she counted up the visits, she concluded that Mauritz had been three times, and Ruth and Emmeline twice each. On her birthday, the second of December, Mauritz and Ruth turned up together with a chocolate cake and three white lilies—which for some reason she found so absurd that she had difficulty not bursting into laughter.

  Otherwise she made a big effort—during all these visits and greetings—to behave politely and courteously; but the circumstances sometimes meant that the atmosphere inside her pale yellow cell felt tense and strained. Especially with Mauritz, there were a few occasions when heated words were exchanged about trivialities—but then, she hadn’t expected anything else.

  On the whole, however, her time in prison—the six weeks of waiting before the trial began—was a period of rest and recovery, and when she went to bed the evening before the proceedings started, she inevitably felt a bit worried about what lay in store, but also calm and quite confident that her inner strength would carry her through these difficult times as well.

  As it had done thus far.

  The trial began on a Tuesday afternoon, and her lawyer had promised her that it would be all over by Friday evening. Assuming no complications arose, that is, and there was hardly any reason to expect that they would.

  The first few hours in the courtroom were characterized by ceremonial posturing and a slow pace that made her wonder. She had been placed behind an oblong wooden table with bottles of mineral water, paper mugs, and a notepad. On her right was her lawyer, smelling of his usual aftershave; on her left was a youngish woman dressed in blue, whose role was unclear to Marie-Louise Leverkuhn. But she didn’t ask about it.

  This was not one of the bigger courtrooms, as far as she knew. The space for members of the public and journalists was limited to about twenty chairs behind a bar at the far end of the rectangular room. Just now, on this first afternoon, the audience was restricted to six people: two balding journalists and four women reassuringly well into retirement age. It was a relief to find that there were so few, but she suspected there would be more people sitting on the high-backed chairs later in the performance. Once it was properly under way.

  Sitting opposite her, enthroned on a dais barely four inches high, was Judge Hart, behind a broad table covered in a green cloth hanging down to the floor on all sides—so that one didn’t need to look at his feet. Or up skirts, she fancied, if the judge happened to be a woman. But she didn’t know. In any case, her own administrator of justice was a man of generous proportions in his sixties. He reminded her very much of a French actor whose name she couldn’t remember, no matter how hard she tried. Ended in -eaux, she seemed to recall.

  To the right of the judge were two other officers of justice—young and immaculately groomed men wearing glasses and impeccable suits—and to the left was the jury.

  In the early stages everything was aimed at the six members of this jury: four men and two women, and as far as she could make out it was all intended to establish the irreproachable and impartial nature of their characters when it came to the trial that was about to start.

  When they had all been approved, Judge Hart declared that the proceedings could begin and handed over to the prosecutor, Fru Grootner, a woman in late middle age wearing a beige suit and with a mouth so wide that it sometimes seemed to continue for some distance outside the face itself. She stood in front of her table on the other side of the center aisle, leaning back with her ample bosom as a counterbalance, and pleaded her cause for more than forty-five minutes. As far as Marie-Louise Leverkuhn could understand it was based on the premise that in the early hours of October 26 she had stabbed to death Waldemar Leverkuhn with premeditation and in full control of her senses, so that the only crime she could possibly be accused of was first-degree murder. And hence this was the count that she would have to answer for.

  Does she really believe what she’s saying? Leverkuhn wondered to herself. But it was hard to judge what was hiding behind the torrent of words and the streamlined spectacles that, on closer examination, proved to have precisely the Cupid’s bow form that was missing from her lips.

  When the prosecutor had finished, it was the defense’s turn. Bachmann stood up with all the dignity he could muster, stroked his right hand several times over his mahogany-brown hair, and then announced that the defense would contest the charge and instead plead guilty to manslaughter.

  He elaborated on this forcefully and verbosely for almost as long as the broad-mouthed prosecutor had spouted forth, and Marie-Louise felt frequently as if her eyelids were closing.

  Perhaps she hadn’t slept as well as she’d thought last night?

  Perhaps she was too old for this kind of thing. Would everything be over and done with more quickly if she were to plead guilty to murder?

  When proceedings were suspended for the day shortly after four o’clock, she hadn’t needed to utter a single word. Nor answer a single question. Bachmann had already explained that this was how things would go on the first day, but even so she felt somewhat confused as she was led out by the lady in blue who had remained at her side all the time.

  It’s like being at the dentist’s or in the hospital, she thought with a mixture of relief and disappointment. One is without doubt the leading character, but doesn’t have a single word to say about it.

  That was presumably the norm in courts of law as well.

  23

  “A longer racket,” said Van Veeteren, feeling his back. “That’s what’s needed, dammit. I don’t understand why they don’t invent something of the sort.”

  “Why?” said Münster.

  “So that you don’t need to bend so far down for stop balls, of course. My back isn’t what it used to be. Never has been.”

  Münster considered these words of wisdom and switched on the shower. He had won all three sets as usual, but the chief inspector—former chief inspector—had offered stiff competition. The scores were 15–9, 15–11, 15–6, which suggested that Van Veeteren was in better shape now than he had been before leaving the police station.

  Surely he can’t have much further to go before passing the sixty mark? Münster thought, trying to brush aside the possibility that the fairly even outcome of the match might have something to do with his own state at the moment.

  “Adenaar’s now?” wondered Van Veeteren as they came up to the foyer. “I gather you have something else on your chest?”

  Münster coughed a little self-consciously.

  “If you have time, Chief Inspector.”

  “Stop using those words, will you?” grunted Van Veeteren.

  “I’m sorry,” said Münster. “It takes time to get used to it.”

  “I know that only too well,” said Van Veeteren, holding the door open.

  “I suppose it’s Leverkuhn that’s worrying you, is it?”

  Münster looked out in the direction of the square and took a deep breath.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “The trial started this afternoon. I just can’t get it out of my head.”

  Van Veeteren took out his unwieldy cigarette machine and st
arted filling it with tobacco.

  “Those are the worst kind,” he said. “The ones that won’t allow you to sleep at night.”

  “Exactly,” said Münster. “I dream about this cursed case. I can’t make head or tail of it, whether I’m awake or asleep. Despite the fact that I’ve been through it hundreds of times, both with Jung and Moreno. It doesn’t help.”

  “Reinhart?” Van Veeteren asked.

  “On leave of absence,” said Münster with a sigh. “Playing with his daughter.”

  “Ah, yes, of course,” said Van Veeteren, pressing down the lid of the machine so that a rolled cigarette fell onto the table. With a contented expression on his face he placed the cigarette between his lips and lit it. Münster watched his activities in silence.

  “Do you think she’s innocent?” asked Van Veeteren after his first drag. “What’s the problem?”

  Münster shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I suppose it must have been her, but that’s not the end of the case. We have Fru Van Eck and that damned Bonger as well. Nobody’s seen any trace of either of them since they vanished, and that was more than a month ago now.”

  “And Fru Leverkuhn has nothing to do with them?”

  “Not a thing. If you can believe what she says, that is. We pressed her pretty hard once she confessed, but she didn’t give an inch. She owns up to stabbing her husband in a fit of anger, but she’s as innocent as a newborn babe as far as the others are concerned, she claims.”

  “Why did she kill her husband?”

  “Why indeed?” said Münster glumly. “She just says it was the last straw.”

  “Hmm,” said Van Veeteren. “What kind of a straw could that have been, was she more precise about it? If we assume that the camel’s back was full.”

  “That he’d won some money, but didn’t intend to give her a penny. She says she came home and found him lying in bed bragging about all the things he was going to buy, and after a while she’d had enough.”

  Van Veeteren drew on his cigarette and thought for a moment.

  “I suppose it could happen like that,” he said. “Is she the type?”

  Münster scratched his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “If we assume that she’s been leading that camel all her life—or throughout their marriage at any rate—well, I suppose it could be true; but it’s hard for an outsider to judge. That’s her story—that she’s been having to put up with this and that for what seemed to be forever, and she simply couldn’t take it anymore. Something snapped inside her, she says, and so she did it.”

  Van Veeteren leaned back and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Theories?” he said eventually. “Do you have any? What do you think? About this lady Van Eck, for instance?”

  Münster suddenly looked almost unhappy.

  “I haven’t a damn clue,” he said. “Not the slightest. As I said before, I find it difficult to believe that these three cases aren’t connected in some way. It seems unlikely that Bonger, Leverkuhn, and Fru Van Eck would all kick the bucket at the same time purely by chance.”

  “You don’t know that Bonger and Van Eck are dead,” Van Veeteren pointed out. “Or have I missed something?”

  Münster sighed.

  “You’re right,” he said. “But it doesn’t exactly make things any easier if they’ve simply gone missing.”

  Van Veeteren said nothing for a few seconds.

  “Maybe not,” he said eventually. “What have you done about it? From the point of view of the investigation, I mean. Presumably you haven’t just wandered around thinking about this?”

  “Not a lot,” Münster admitted. “Since the prosecutor charged Fru Leverkuhn, we’ve only been going through the routine motions as far as Bonger and Fru Van Eck are concerned.”

  “Who’s in charge of the investigation?” asked Van Veeteren.

  “I am,” said Münster, taking another swig of beer. “But once Fru Leverkuhn is sentenced Hiller is probably going to shelve the other cases. That will be next week. There are a few other things to keep us occupied.”

  “Really?” said Van Veeteren.

  He drained his glass and signaled for another. While waiting for it to be served, he sat in silence with his chin resting on his knuckles as he gazed out the window at the traffic and the pigeons in Karlsplats. When the beer arrived he sucked off the froth first, then emptied it in one enormous swig.

  “Very good!” he announced. “All that exercise makes you thirsty. Why exactly did you want to speak to me?”

  Münster looked embarrassed. He never learns, Van Veeteren thought. But then, perhaps it’s not a bad thing to have a few red cheeks in the police force. It makes things seem nice and peaceful.

  “Well?”

  Münster cleared his throat.

  “All that stuff about intuition. I thought I’d ask the chief … ask you to do me a favor, to be frank.”

  “I’m all ears,” said Van Veeteren.

  Münster squirmed on his chair.

  “The trial,” he said. “It would be good to get an idea of whether she really is as guilty and as innocent as she says. Fru Leverkuhn, that is. If somebody with an eye for such things could go and take a look at her. Whether she’s found guilty or not.”

  “Which she will be?” said Van Veeteren.

  “I think so,” said Münster.

  Van Veeteren frowned and contemplated his cigarette machine.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll go there and take a look at her, then.”

  “Excellent,” said Münster. “Many thanks. Room four. But it’ll be all over by Friday, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “I’ll go tomorrow,” said Van Veeteren. “The eagle’s eye never sleeps.”

  Huh, big chief is never wrong, Münster thought. But he said nothing.

  24

  “Tell me about when you came home in the early hours of October twenty-sixth!”

  Prosecutor Grootner pushed up her spectacles and waited. Marie-Louise Leverkuhn took a sip of water from the glass on the table in front of her. Cleared her throat and straightened her back.

  “I got home at about two o’clock,” she said. “There had been a power cut on the railway line to Bossingen and Löhr. We were standing still for an hour. I’d been to visit a friend.”

  She looked up at the public gallery, as if she were looking for a face. The prosecutor made no attempt to hurry her, and after a while she continued of her own accord.

  “My husband woke up as I came through the door into the bedroom and started making abusive remarks.”

  “Abusive remarks?” wondered the prosecutor.

  “Because I’d woken him up. He claimed I’d done it on purpose. Then he went on and on.”

  “How did he go on?”

  “He said he’d won some money, and that he was going to spend it so that he didn’t have to see me so often.”

  “Did he usually say things like that?”

  “It happened. When he’d been drinking.”

  “Was he drunk that evening?”

  “Yes.”

  “How drunk?”

  “He was pretty far gone. Slurring when he spoke.”

  Short pause. The prosecutor nodded thoughtfully several times.

  “Please continue, Fru Leverkuhn.”

  “Well, I went out into the kitchen and saw the knife lying on the cutting board. I’d used it when I’d been cutting up some ham that afternoon.”

  “What did you think when you saw the knife?”

  “Nothing. I just picked it up to wash it and put it back in the drawer.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Did you wash the knife?”

  “No.”

  “Tell us what you did instead.”

  Leverkuhn brushed aside an annoying strand of hair and seemed to be hesitating about what to say next. The prosecutor eyed her without moving a muscle.

  “I was standing
with the knife in my hand. And then my husband shouted something.”

  “What?”

  “I’d rather not say. It was a very rude insult.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I felt that I just couldn’t go on like this any longer. I don’t think I really understood what I was doing. I went into the bedroom, and then I stabbed him in the stomach.”

  “Did he try to defend himself?”

  “He didn’t have time.”

  “And then?”

  “I just carried on stabbing. It felt …”

  “Yes?”

  “It felt as if it wasn’t me holding the knife. As if it was somebody else. It was very odd.”

  Prosecutor Grootner paused again, then went for a little walk. When she returned to her starting point, a few feet in front of the table, she first coughed into her hand, then turned her head so that she seemed to be speaking to a point somewhere diagonally above where the accused was sitting. As if she were talking to somebody else.

  “I find it a bit difficult to believe this,” she said. “You have been married to your husband for more than forty years. You have shared the same home and bed and endured the same hardships during a long life, but now you suddenly lose your head without any real reason. You said you were used to, um, exchanges of opinion like that, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” said Leverkuhn, looking down at the table. “It’s just that this was something extra.…”

  “This wasn’t something you’d considered doing earlier?”

  “No.”

  “You’d never even given it a thought?”

  “No.”

  “Not earlier that evening, for instance?”

  “No.”

  “Are you suggesting that you didn’t know what you were doing when you murdered your husband?”

  “Objection!” shouted Bachmann. “It has not been established that she murdered her husband.”