Munster's Case

by Håkan Nesser

  “Yes, of course. She used to keep a diary. But why on earth do you want to know about that?”

  “Routine,” said Jung routinely.

  “I see.… Oh, it’s all so awful.”

  “Absolutely awful,” said Jung. “Had she been doing it long? Keeping a diary?”

  “I think so,” said Emmeline. “Yes, she was keeping one when we were at commercial college together. They weren’t really diaries, as I understand it; she wrote something only a couple of times a month.… To sort of sum up the situation; I don’t really know.”

  “Did you talk about it often?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever read anything she wrote?”

  “Never.”

  “But you’ve seen the diaries?”

  “Yes,” said Emmeline. “On the odd occasion.… We mentioned them every now and then, but it was her private business and had nothing to do with me.”

  “What do they look like?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The diaries. How many do you think there are, and what do they look like?”

  Emmeline thought for a moment.

  “I don’t know how many there are,” she said, “but I think she kept them all. Ten or twelve, perhaps? They were the usual kind of spiral-bound notebooks with soft covers you can buy all over the place. Quite thick … black, soft covers. Or maybe blue, the ones I’ve seen at least. Maybe there were more. I don’t think she showed them to her husband. But … I don’t understand why you’re asking about this. Is it important?”

  “No, not really,” said Jung reassuringly. “Just a detail, like I said. By the way, do you remember if she had one of those books with her when she was staying with you for a few days? In October?”

  “No … no, I don’t think so. I didn’t see one, at least.”

  “Thank you, Fru von Post. That was all. I apologize for disturbing you.”

  “Not at all,” said Emmeline. “No problem.”

  “Rooth, Maardam police,” said Rooth.

  “I haven’t got time,” said Mauritz Leverkuhn.

  “Why did you answer, then?” said Rooth. “If you haven’t got time?”

  Silence for a few seconds.

  “It could have been something important,” said Mauritz.

  “It is important,” said Rooth. “Did your mother keep a diary?”

  Mauritz sneezed directly into the receiver.

  “Bless you,” said Rooth, drying his ear.

  “Diary!” snorted Mauritz. “What the hell has that got to do with you? And why the hell are you poking your nose into all this? We’ve had enough of you snooping around. Can’t you leave people in peace? Besides, I’m sick.”

  “I’ve noticed,” said Rooth. “Did she keep a diary?”

  For a while there was no sound other than Mauritz’s heavy breathing. Rooth realized he was wondering whether to hang up or not.

  “Listen,” he said in the end. “I’ve been in bed with the flu for two days now. A hundred and two temperature. I’ll be fucked if I talk to you anymore. Both my father and my mother are dead. I don’t understand why the police can’t find something better to do instead of pestering us.”

  “You’re taking medication, I hope?” asked Rooth in a friendly tone, but the only answer he received was a clear and dismissive click.

  Rooth hung up. Bastard, he thought. I hope you’re bedridden for a few more weeks at least.

  “Do you really mean that?” asked Heinemann. “That the police have been treating you improperly?”

  “What?” said Ruben Engel.

  “That we’ve been bothering you unnecessarily,” Heinemann explained. “If so, you should make a complaint.”

  “Yes … er?” said Engel.

  “There’s a special form you can fill out. If you’d like I can arrange to have one sent to you.”

  “Eh? That’s not necessary,” said Engel. “But for God’s sake hurry up and get this business sorted out, so that we can get some peace and quiet.”

  “It’s a bit tricky,” said Heinemann, looking around the cluttered kitchen with his glasses perched on the end of his nose. “Murder investigations like this one are often more complicated than people can imagine. There’s an awful lot of aspects to take into account. An awful lot. What are you drinking?”

  “Eh?” said Engel. “Oh, just a drop of wine toddy—to raise my body temperature a bit. It’s so damned drafty in this apartment.”

  “I see,” said Heinemann. “Anyway, I shouldn’t disturb you any longer. Do you know if Fröken Mathisen next door is at home?”

  Engel looked at the clock.

  “She usually comes home at about five,” he said. “So with a bit of luck …”

  “We’ll see,” said Heinemann. “Anyway, sorry to have disturbed you.”

  “No problem,” said Engel. “The screwing machines are moving out, by the way.”

  “I beg your pardon?” said Heinemann.

  “The couple downstairs. They must’ve found someplace better. They’re moving out.”

  “Really?” said Heinemann. “We didn’t know that. Thank you for telling us.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Engel.

  Marie-Louise Leverkuhn’s funeral took place in one of the side chapels in Keymerkyrkan, and apart from the vicar and the undertaker there were four people present, all of them women.

  Closest to the coffin, a simple affair made of fiberboard and hardboard—draped with a green cloth that concealed the deficiencies—sat Ruth Leverkuhn in her capacity as next of kin. Behind her sat the other three: farthest to the left was Emmeline von Post; in the middle a pale woman of about the same age and, as far as Münster and Moreno could tell, identical to the Regine Svendsen who had supplied Heinemann with the information about the diaries; and on the right a tall, well-dressed woman about forty-five years old—Münster and Moreno had no idea who she was.

  They had placed themselves strategically in the nave: they were sitting in an austere, light-colored pew, leafing furtively through their hymnals and keeping a discreet eye on the simple ritual taking place some fifteen feet away.

  “Who is the younger woman?” whispered Münster.

  Moreno shook her head.

  “I don’t know. Why isn’t the son here?”

  “He’s sick,” said Münster. “Or says he is, in any case. Rooth spoke to him on the phone this morning.”

  “Hmm,” said Moreno. “So you won’t be having a chat with him, then. Should I try to grab that woman afterward? She must have some sort of connection with the family.”

  “She could be one of those funeral hyenas, mind you,” warned Münster. “It takes all sorts.… But by all means, see what she has to say. I’ll see if I can get a word with the daughter.”

  He noticed that he was enjoying sitting here, squeezed up close to Ewa Moreno in the cramped pew, whispering. Whispering so closely to her ear that he could feel her hair brushing against his skin.

  Keep on talking, Mr. Vicar, he thought. Make sure you spin the service out for as long as possible—it doesn’t matter if it takes all afternoon.

  What the hell am I doing? he then thought. Despite the fact that he was sitting in church with a hymnal in his hand.

  “No problem,” said the woman, whose name was Lene Bauer. “No problem at all—I meant to call you several times, but I never got around to it.… But then, perhaps I don’t have all that much to tell you, when it comes to the nitty-gritty.”

  At Lene Bauer’s suggestion they had ensconced themselves in a screened booth in Rüger’s bar in Wiijsenweg, diagonally opposite the church. Moreno took an instant liking to the woman, who had apparently taken time off from her post at the library in Linzhuisen in order to attend the funeral. Her connection with Marie-Louise Leverkuhn was not especially strong: she and Lene’s mother had been cousins, but there had been no contact at all during the last twenty to twenty-five years.

  However, Lene had followed what had happened in the papers and on the tele
vision: they had socialized quite a bit in the sixties.

  “Vacations by the sea,” she explained. “A few weeks in Lejnice, Oosterbrügge, and similar places. I guess it was cheaper if we all went together. My mother and Marie-Louise and us children. Me and Ruth, Irene, and Mauritz … but I used to play mainly with Ruth; we are exactly the same age. Our fathers—my dad and Waldemar—only came to join us for an occasional evening or on the weekends.… That’s about it, really.”

  “You haven’t kept in touch with the children either?” asked Moreno.

  “No,” said Lene, looking a bit guilty. “A few letters to Ruth at the beginning of the seventies, but I got married quite early and had other things to think about. My own children and so on. And for several years we lived down at Borghem as well.”

  Moreno thought for a while. Sipped the wine they had ordered and tried to work out how best to continue. It certainly seemed as if this woman had something she wanted to say, but it might be something that wouldn’t be mentioned unless she was asked the right questions.

  Or was it just her imagination? Questionable female intuition? Hard to say.

  “Did you enjoy those summer vacations?” she asked cautiously. “How many were there, incidentally?”

  “Three or four,” said Lene. “I can’t remember, to be honest. Each of them several weeks. I was between ten and fifteen years old. We used to listen to the Beatles—Ruth had a tape recorder. Yes, I enjoyed it—apart from Mauritz.”

  “Really?” said Moreno, and waited.

  “He was so terribly difficult to shake off,” she said. “You had to feel sorry for him, of course—the only boy with three girls. And he was younger as well, but there seemed to be no limit to his determination to cling to his sisters, especially Irene. She didn’t have a second’s peace, and she never turned him away either. She coddled him and built sand castles with him, painted pictures and read him bedtime stories. For hours on end. Ruth and I kept well out of the way, as I recall, only too glad to off-load the responsibility; but I know I found it extremely difficult to put up with Mauritz. They never said anything to him, and he never showed the slightest bit of gratitude. A crybaby and a moaner, that’s what he was.”

  “Hmm,” said Moreno. “This is what you wanted to tell me, isn’t it?”

  Lene shrugged.

  “I don’t really know,” she said. “I just started to think about them again when I heard about the terrible things that had happened. I couldn’t believe it was true.”

  “No,” said Moreno. “I suppose it must have been a shock for you.”

  “Two,” said Lene. “First the murder. Then the fact that she’d done it. She must have hated him.”

  Moreno nodded.

  “Presumably. Did you have any idea of what their relationship was like? Thirty years ago, I mean.”

  “No,” said Lene. “I’ve been thinking about it now, in view of what’s happened, but I was only a child in those days. I had no concept of things like that—and anyway, I hardly ever saw Waldemar. He turned up only occasionally. No, I really don’t know.”

  “So it’s the children you remember?”

  Lene sighed and fished a cigarette out of her handbag.

  “Yes. And then all that business of Irene’s illness. I’ve somehow always felt that it was connected. Her illness and her being over-protective of Mauritz. There was something wrong, but I suppose it’s easy to speculate. Darkness swallowed her up more or less all at once, as I understand it rightly. Just over twenty years ago, so it was a few years after our vacations together and I’ve no idea what it was all about. One can only guess, but it’s so easy to be clever in hindsight.”

  She fell silent. Moreno watched her as she took out a lighter and lit her cigarette.

  “You know that Ruth is lesbian, I take it?” Moreno asked, mainly because she didn’t really know how to continue the conversation. Lene inhaled deeply and nodded slowly several times.

  “Yes,” she said. “But there are so many possible reasons for that. Don’t you think?”

  Moreno didn’t know how to interpret that answer. Did this stylish woman have a similar bent? Had she had enough of men? She took another sip of wine and thought about it, then realized that she was beginning to drift a long way from the point.

  What was the point?

  That’s certainly a good question, she thought. But she could think of nothing that might approximate an answer. Not for the moment. Just now.

  It was nearly always like this. Sometimes in the middle of an investigation, it seemed impossible to see the forest for all the trees. She had thought about that lots of times, and of course the only thing that helped was to try to find a mountain or a hill that you could climb and get some sort of overview. See things in perspective.

  She could see that Lene was waiting for a continuation, but it was difficult to find the right thread.

  “What about your mother?” she asked for no particular reason. “Is she still alive?”

  “No,” said Lene. “She died in 1980. Cancer. But I don’t think she had any contact with the Leverkuhns either in recent years. My father died last summer. But he knew them even less.”

  Moreno nodded and drank up the remains of her wine. Then she decided that this was enough. She thanked Lene Bauer for being so helpful and asked if they could get in touch again if anything turned up she might be able to help with.

  Lene handed over her business card and said that the police were welcome to phone her at any time.

  How nice to meet somebody who at least displays an iota of willingness to cooperate in this case, Moreno thought as she left Rüger’s. Their kind were hard to come by. Not to say few and far between.

  But what Lene Bauer’s contribution was actually worth in a wider context—well, she had difficulty in deciding that. For the time being, at least. They were in the middle of a thicket, and the brushwood was anything but uncommon.

  I must improve my imagery, Moreno thought, somewhat confused.

  But some other time, not now. She clambered into the car and thought that all she wanted to do for the moment was to discuss the matter with Intendent Münster. Preferably in a whisper, as they had found themselves doing in the church that morning, but perhaps that was asking too much.

  More than a lot, in fact. She started the car. No doubt it would be best to postpone that conversation until tomorrow, she decided. To be on the safe side.

  After these deliberations Inspector Moreno drove back to her temporary home, and spent all evening thinking about the concept of the battle of the sexes.

  33

  With the aid of Constables Klempje and Dillinger, Rooth and Jung searched the Leverkuhns’ apartment in Kolderweg for four long hours on the Tuesday after Fru Leverkuhn’s funeral.

  It would have been quicker, Jung decided later, if they had done without the assistance of the constables altogether. Thanks to unbridled enthusiasm, Dillinger managed to demolish a bathroom cupboard that had no doubt been fixed to the wall for many a year (but since neither of the inhabitants of the apartment were any longer of this world, Rooth reckoned that they could lie low when it came to the question of damages), and Klempje’s bulky frame tended to get in the way—until Jung had had enough and sent him packing to the attic space instead.

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” said Klempje. Saluted and disappeared up the stairs. When Jung went to check on how things were going not long after, it happened that with the aid of a bolt cutter, Klempje had broken into Fröken Mathisen’s jam-packed storeroom and succeeded in removing most of the contents and piling them up in the narrow corridor outside. It was a considerable amount. Jung fetched Dillinger, gave still more detailed instructions to the pair of them, and half an hour later they came downstairs (Klempje looking suspiciously sleepy) to report: there were no diaries to be seen, neither in Mathisen’s nor in the Leverkuhns’ storeroom.

  No doubt about it, as sure as the dawn—they hadn’t found a single page.

  Jung sighed and announced t
hat unfortunately, the same applied to the apartment itself. Although he expressed it differently.

  “What a heap of crap,” said Rooth when he’d locked the door behind them. “I’m hungry.”

  “There’s something wrong with your metabolism,” said Jung.

  “What does that mean?” asked Klempje, yawning so broadly that his neck muscles creaked. “I’m hungry, too.”

  Jung sighed again.

  “But maybe it means something,” he said. “If you look at it another way.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” wondered Rooth.

  “Don’t you see?”

  “No,” said Rooth. “Don’t keep me guessing like this. I can hardly contain myself.”

  Jung snorted.

  “There are some cops you can bribe by offering them a bun,” he said. “Anyway, look at it like this. If she really did keep diaries, this Leverkuhn woman, and then destroyed them, that must mean that they contained something of importance. Something she didn’t want anyone else to read. Don’t you think?”

  Rooth thought about that as they walked back to the car.

  “Crap,” he said. “But that’s just normal. Who the hell would want to leave a load of diaries to posterity? Regardless of what’s in them? Not me. So that doesn’t mean a thing.”

  Jung realized that there was probably something in that, but didn’t think there was any reason to expand on it.

  “I didn’t know you could write,” he said instead.

  “Bullshit. Of course he can,” said Klempje, picking his nose.

  When they got back to the police station, Jung and Rooth went down to the prison cells for a chat with Inspector Fuller: it emerged more clearly than was desirable that Marie-Louise Leverkuhn had made no effort at all to keep a diary during the six weeks she had spent in cell number 12. Neither in notebooks with soft black covers nor anywhere else. Fuller could stake his bloody reputation on that, he claimed.

  For safety’s sake they checked with all the guards and the drowsy chaplain, and everybody agreed. Even if no more reputations were staked.

  There were no diaries. It was as simple as that.