by Håkan Nesser
The pain was so acute that it paralysed him. Penetrated the whole of his body like a white-hot iron drill of agony. Neutralized his ability to move. Annihilated time and space. When it eventually began to ease, he heard Mauritz Leverkuhn leave and slam the outside door.
He turned his head, and thought the cool parquet floor felt pleasant against his cheek. Gentle and conciliatory. It’s my tiredness, he thought. This would never have happened if I hadn’t been so tired.
Before a black wave of oblivion flowed over his consciousness, he thought two more thoughts.
The first was to Synn: Good, I need never know how things would have turned out.
The second was just one word:
No.
40
The police station in Frigge had moved since Van Veeteren served his apprenticeship in that northern coastal town. Or rather, they had squeezed a new building into the same block and rehoused the forces of law and order in almost the same place as before. Van Veeteren didn’t think the move had improved anything. The new police station was built mainly of grey concrete and bullet-proof glass, and the duty officer was a young red-haired man with prominent ears. Not a bit like old Borkmann.
Ah well, Van Veeteren thought. At least his hearing ought to be sharp.
‘Reinhart and Van Veeteren from Maardam,’ said Reinhart. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Inspector Liebling,’ said the red-head, shaking hands.
‘Chief Inspector Van Veeteren actually used to work up here,’ said Reinhart. ‘But that was probably before you were born.’
‘Really?’ said Liebling.
‘At the dawn of recorded time,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Late nineteenth century. Have you heard anything?’
‘You mean . . .?’ said Liebling, feeling a little nervously for his thin moustache.
‘He ought to be here now, for Christ’s sake,’ said Reinhart. ‘It’s nearly eight o’clock.’
‘Intendent Münster from Maardam,’ Van Veeteren explained.
‘Yes, I know,’ said Liebling. ‘Malinowski filled me in when I relieved him. I have the details here.’
He tapped away at the computer keyboard and nodded his head in acknowledgement.
‘Intendent Münster, yes. Expected to come in with a suspect . . . but there hasn’t been one yet. He hasn’t turned up yet, I mean.’
‘When did he contact you?’ Van Veeteren asked.
Liebling checked.
‘At 17.55,’ he said. ‘Inspector Malinowski took the call, as I said. I came on duty at half past six.’
‘And he hasn’t rung again?’ asked Reinhart.
‘No,’ said Liebling. ‘We haven’t heard anything more since then.’
‘Did he give you any instructions?’
Liebling shook his head.
‘Only that we should stand by for when he arrived with this . . . person. We’ve got his number, of course. His mobile.’
‘So have we,’ said Reinhart. ‘But he’s not answering.’
‘Damn and blast!’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Give us the address, and we’ll go there! This is taking too long.’
Liebling printed it out.
‘Krautzwej 28,’ he said. ‘It’s out at Gochtshuuis. Would you like me to come with you? To show you the way?’
‘Yes, come with us,’ said Van Veeteren.
‘There’s a light on in any case,’ said Reinhart ten minutes later. ‘And that’s his car.’
Van Veeteren thought for a moment.
‘Ring one more time, to make sure we don’t barge in at a vital moment,’ he said.
Reinhart took out his mobile and dialled the number. Waited for half a minute.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘He might have switched it off, of course. Or forgotten to charge the batteries.’
‘Batteries?’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Do you need batteries in those bloody things as well?’
Inspector Liebling cleared his throat in the back seat.
‘There’s no other car standing outside,’ he pointed out. ‘And there doesn’t seem to be a garage . . . Assuming the Audi belongs to your man, that is.’
‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘That’s right. Okay, let’s go in. Liebling, stay here in the car, in case something happens.’
‘Got you,’ said Liebling.
Reinhart and Van Veeteren approached the front door cautiously, and listened.
‘Can’t hear a thing,’ said Reinhart. ‘Apart from the bloody wind. Nothing to be seen through the window either. What shall we do? Ring the bell?’
‘Try the door first,’ said Van Veeteren.
Reinhart did as bidden. It was locked.
‘Okay, we’ll ring the bell,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Have you got your gun?’
Reinhart nodded and took out his Grossmann. He pressed himself as close to the wall as he could and Van Veeteren rang the bell.
Nothing happened. Van Veeteren waited for ten seconds, then rang again.
Nothing.
‘Go round the house and check,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I’ll stay here.’
It took less than half a minute for Reinhart to go round to the back, and then return.
‘It’s not possible to go round the whole building,’ he explained. ‘This house is joined onto the next one. I couldn’t see anything through the windows. I don’t think there’s anybody in.’
‘Then what the hell is Münster’s car doing here?’ asked Van Veeteren. ‘We have to go in.’
‘I suppose we must,’ said Reinhart.
Van Veeteren muttered a stream of curses while looking for a suitable means of assistance. He eventually found a stone the size of a clenched fist in the soaking wet flowerbed next to the drive. He dried it, weighed it in his hand for a second or two, then threw it at the living room window.
‘Bull’s eye,’ said Reinhart. He went up to the broken pane, removed a few pieces of glass, put his hand through the hole and opened it.
It was Van Veeteren who climbed in first, and Van Veeteren who saw him first.
‘Oh, hell!’ he said. ‘Hell, hell, hell!’
Intendent Münster was lying on his stomach on the light-coloured parquet floor, halfway out into the hall, as if he had been on his way out when he fell. His arms were stretched along the sides of his body, and on the back of his light green jumper, a few centimetres above the waistband of his trousers and to the right of his spine, was a dark red stain, slightly bigger than the palm of a man’s hand.
‘Ambulance, Reinhart! Like greased lightning!’ roared Van Veeteren. Then he leaned down over Münster and started checking his pulse.
Good God, he thought. This wasn’t part of my leave of absence agreement.
When Mauritz Leverkuhn had left his home in Frigge, he started driving more or less due south for an hour and a half. When he came to Karpatz he changed direction and continued eastwards until he came to Tilsenberg, just a few kilometres from the border. He filled his tank and turned off towards the north.
The nationwide alert was set in motion at 20.45, and when a police patrol car found his white Volvo in a lay-by off the motorway just outside Kossenaar, it was turned half past six in the morning.
Mauritz Leverkuhn was lying asleep under a blanket on the back seat, shivering, with a sky-high temperature and in a state of total exhaustion. On the floor in front of the passenger seat was a carving knife with a handle of mahogany and a blade about twenty centimetres long, covered in blood.
Leverkuhn was taken to the police station in Kossenaar, but his condition was such that he was not subjected to questioning.
Given the circumstances, it was not considered necessary for him to say anything at all.
FIVE
41
It took the two divers dressed in green and black less than a quarter of an hour to find Felix Bonger.
Jung stood in the rain in the middle of the little group of onlookers in Bertrandgraacht, and tried to benefit from the scant shelter provided by Rooth’s battered umbrella. When the swollen b
ody was lifted up onto the quay and put inside a black, zipped body bag, he noticed that the woman on his left, the mannish Barga, was sniffling.
‘It’s so sad,’ she said. ‘He was such a fine fellow, Bonger.’
‘He was indeed,’ said Jung.
‘They should really have left him there. Buried under his own boat – that would have been stylish.’
Could be, Jung thought. That was no bad idea. Although perhaps it would have been most stylish of all if they had never found him. Let’s face it, he had nothing to do with that other business. Absolutely nothing.
He had slipped on the gang-plank, that’s all, when he came home that Saturday night. Drunk and unsteady on his feet. It could have happened to anybody, Jung thought. It could have happened to me. Presumably he had hit his head as well, Bonger, and then fallen into the water. Sunk a few metres, and later floated up against the bottom of his own canal boat.
And stayed there. Under his own floor, as it were. Yes, Barga had a point.
‘Poor bastard,’ said Rooth. ‘Lying in the water doesn’t make you any prettier. But I should congratulate you. You were right after all . . . There was nothing more mysterious to it than that. I wonder how many other missing persons are lying in canals.’
‘Let’s not worry about that just now,’ said Jung. ‘I think we ought to try to get a roof over our heads instead.’
‘Another good idea,’ said Rooth, shaking the umbrella so that Jung became even wetter than he was already. ‘But there’s one thing you can clear up for me first, before we forget about it.’
‘What’s that?’ said Jung.
‘That pair of screwing machines – de Booning and whatever the other character is called – why did they move out?’
‘Menakdise,’ said Jung. ‘Tobose Menakdise. Guess.’
‘I haven’t a clue,’ said Rooth.
‘Okay. They need a bigger flat. She’s expecting a child.’
‘How odd,’ said Rooth.
Jung was just about to turn round and leave when he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was fru Jümpers, who was standing under another dripping umbrella.
‘I was just wondering,’ she said. ‘Would you gentlemen perhaps like to call in for a glass of something? In my boat that is. Barga and I think we ought to drink a toast to the dear departed.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Jung. ‘I think perhaps we ought to—’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Rooth. ‘We’ll be there in two flicks of a donkey’s tail.’
At first Ulrike Fremdli thought the antiquarian bookshop was closed, but then she saw Van Veeteren lying back in a wing chair in the middle of all the shelves.
‘You won’t sell much if you sit there all the time,’ she said.
Van Veeteren looked up from the little leather-bound volume he had in his hand.
‘You have to become acquainted with the stock,’ he said. ‘Nice to see you.’
‘The same to you,’ said Ulrike Fremdli with a smile. Then she became serious. Looked at him with a slightly doubtful expression, shaking her head slowly.
‘You are a remarkable fellow,’ she said. ‘I can’t get over that. Do you mean . . . Are you saying that your Macbeth dream came true?’
‘True and true,’ muttered Van Veeteren.
‘How is he?’
‘Better,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I was there an hour ago. He’ll pull through, but they’ll have to remove that kidney. And he’s bound to be off work for several months – maybe that’s just what he needs. He was foolish to go in on his own like he did.’
Ulrike nodded.
‘He’s been worn out,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘At least, that’s what his wife Synn said. She was there at the hospital with the children. And Inspector Moreno as well . . . It was a good job we turned up when we did – he couldn’t have coped with lying there for much longer.’
‘But what about that dream?’ said Ulrike again.
Van Veeteren didn’t answer. Instead he leafed back through a few pages of the book he was reading.
‘“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,”’ he quoted. ‘Hamlet. A lovely little edition. Printed in Oxford in 1836. Just come in.’
He held it up.
‘I thought it was Macbeth we were talking about?’ said Ulrike.
Van Veeteren stood up and replaced the volume in a bookcase with glass doors.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘There’s something about Shakespeare. I think he’s said more or less all that needs saying: he covers all the bases, you could say . . . He’d even have been able to make something of that Leverkuhn family, no doubt.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Listen to this. The father rapes both his daughters. One goes out of her mind, the other becomes a lesbian. The son murders his father, and stabs a police officer. The mother takes all the guilt upon herself, butchers a witness and hangs herself. Just the stuff to turn into a tragedy, don’t you think?’
Ulrike eyed him sceptically.
‘Is that what it’s all about?’ she said. ‘This case?’
‘In a nutshell,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘And you should bear in mind that until three months ago they were regarded as a perfectly normal family – until somebody happened to lift the lid on them, as it were.’
Ulrike thought that over for a while.
‘How do you put up with it?’ she said in the end.
‘I don’t put up with it,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I work in a bookshop.’
She nodded.
‘So I’ve heard. But you put your oar in, nevertheless, don’t you?’
‘I become involved,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘There’s a difference. Anyway, it’s—’
‘It’s time for lunch,’ said Ulrike. ‘I’m free until two o’clock. Are you coming?’
‘Of course,’ said Van Veeteren, stretching his arms above his head. Adjusted his back gingerly and suddenly looked worried.
‘What’s the matter?’
Van Veeteren cleared his throat.
‘Nothing. I just can’t help wondering, that’s all.’
‘Wondering?’
‘If this really was the way the tragedy happened. If life is a novel or a play, as some people suggest, it wouldn’t be all that difficult to write another chapter, or another scene – or what do you think?’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ said Ulrike Fremdli. ‘I’m hungry.’
He took hold of her hand and squeezed it slightly awkwardly.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I sometimes find it a bit hard to keep my thoughts in check. Let’s go.’
42
Elaine Vorgus stared first at the tarot cards, and then at her lover.
‘It’s remarkable,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s ever happened to me before. All sixteen cards the wrong way round – no, I’ve never seen the likes of it before. I’ll have to look it up in the books.’
‘What does it mean?’ asked Ruth Leverkuhn, sipping her wine at the same time as she leaned forward over the table and stroked her girlfriend’s bare arm. ‘What does it mean when they’re back to front?’
It was not the first time they’d been sitting there like this, and even if it was Ruth’s fate lying on the table in front of them, she knew that it meant more to her girlfriend than it did to herself. Elaine responded to her caress and looked up from the cards.
‘The significance is the opposite of what the cards say,’ she said. ‘The message is reversed. Wealth means poverty, strength means weakness, love means hatred . . . It’s as simple as that. But all sixteen cards, that must mean something very special. As if . . .’
‘As if what?’ said Ruth, with loving patience.
‘As if it referred to somebody quite different from you, for instance. As if the whole of you were back to front in some way . . . But I’m only guessing. I’ve never come across sixteen cards the wrong way round before.’
‘Let�
�s write it all down and leave it until later,’ said Ruth. ‘I want to drink more wine and then make love instead.’
Elaine smiled and thought for a while. Then she raised her glass and ran her tongue over her lips a few times.
‘Your wish is my command,’ she said with a smile. ‘Where would you like to start? In the bath, perhaps? I think I’d like that. I must just make that phone call first.’
‘The bath’s a good idea,’ Ruth decided. ‘Yes, I’d like to have you with me in the bath. Write down what’s on the cards and then make that call. I’ll get in the bath first, and be waiting for you.’
Once in the bathroom she stood and contemplated her sizeable body in the mirror. Lifted up her heavy breasts and sucked at each nipple for a few seconds. Stroked herself carefully between her legs with a finger in order to get confirmation of her desire.
Then her brother cropped up in her thoughts again, and she moved her hands to more neutral regions.
Poor Mauritz, she thought. Silly bugger! She sighed and wrapped a bath towel round her. Continued thinking while she somewhat mechanically and absent-mindedly rearranged the perfume bottles on the shelf under the mirror, and selected her favourite foam bath scents.
What is the point of confessing to something you haven’t done?
The question had been buzzing around in her mind for some days now. Nagging at her, making her worry. Why couldn’t Mauritz simply have admitted to being a weakling instead? A cowardly and confused person who would never have been able to carry off anything like that? Not in any circumstances.
Twenty-eight stabs! Mauritz?
It was ridiculous. Anybody who knew anything at all about him could have explained that it was absolutely impossible.