Munster's Case

by Håkan Nesser

  “Okay,” said Rooth. “Now we know. It seems that everyone draws a blank in this goddamned lottery.”

  Shortly before Münster went home for the day he got a phone call from Reinhart.

  “Do you have fifteen minutes to spare?”

  “Yes, but not much more,” said Münster. “Are you coming to my office?”

  “Come to mine instead,” said Reinhart. “Then I can smoke in peace. There are a few things I’m wondering about.”

  “I’ll be there in two minutes,” said Münster.

  Reinhart was standing by the window, watching the sleet fall, when Münster arrived.

  “I seem to recall that the chief inspector thought January was the worst month of the year,” he said. “I must say I agree with him. It’s only the sixth today, but it feels as if we’ve been at it for an eternity.”

  “It can’t have anything to do with the fact that you’ve only just started work again, can it?” Münster wondered.

  “I shouldn’t think so,” said Reinhart, lighting his pipe. “Anyway, I had just a few theoretical questions.”

  “Good,” said Münster. “I’m tired of being practical all the time.”

  Reinhart sat down behind his desk, turned his chair, and put his feet up on the third shelf of the bookcase, where there was a space left for precisely this purpose.

  “Do you think she’s innocent?” he asked.

  Münster watched the wet snow falling for five seconds before replying.

  “Possibly,” he said.

  “Why would she confess if she didn’t do it?”

  “There are various possibilities.”

  “Such as?”

  Münster thought. “Well, there’s one at any rate.”

  “One possibility?” said Reinhart. “That’s what I call a multiplicity.”

  “Who cares?” said Münster. “Perhaps it’s simple, but it could be that she was protecting somebody … or that she thought she was. But that’s just speculation, of course.”

  “Who was she protecting?”

  The telephone rang, but Reinhart pressed a button and switched it off.

  “It’s obvious,” said Münster, with irritation in his voice. “I’ve been wondering about it from the very start, but there’s no evidence to support it. Nothing at all.”

  Reinhart nodded and chewed at the stem of his pipe.

  “Then there’s Fru Van Eck,” Münster said. “And this damned Bonger. That complicates matters somewhat, don’t you think?”

  “Of course,” said Reinhart. “Of course. I tried to talk to the poor widower at Majorna today. But there’s not much of a spark left in him.… Ah well, what are you going to do now? In the way of positive action, I mean.”

  Münster leaned back in his chair.

  “Follow up on that simplistic thought,” he said after consulting himself for a few seconds. “See if it holds water, at least. I need to get out for a bit and chase things down. Only one of the siblings attended the funeral, so we didn’t get very far then. And it wasn’t exactly fun either, interrogating the mourners as soon as they left the church.”

  “No, it wouldn’t be,” said Reinhart. “When are you taking off?”

  “Tomorrow,” said Münster. “They live quite a long way up north, so it might be a two-day job.”

  Reinhart thought for a while. Then he removed his feet from the bookshelf and put down his pipe.

  “It certainly is strange business, don’t you think?” he said. “And unpleasant.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Münster. “I suppose they could be coincidences. It’s over two months now since it all started, but it’s only now that I’m beginning to sniff the possibility of a motive.”

  “Hmm,” said Reinhart. “Does it include Else Van Eck?”

  “I’m not really sure,” said Münster. “It’s only a faint whiff at the moment.”

  Reinhart’s face suddenly lit up.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!” he said. “You’re beginning to sound like the chief inspector. Are you starting to get old?”

  “Ancient,” said Münster. “My kids will start thinking I’m their granddad if I don’t get a week off soon.”

  “Time off, oh yes …,” said Reinhart with a sigh, and his eyes began to look dreamy. “It’s time to go home. I’ll see you in a few days. Keep us informed.”

  “Of course,” said Münster, opening the door for Intendent Reinhart.

  34

  He allowed himself an extra hour the next morning. Made the beds, washed up, took Marieke to nursery school, and left Maardam by ten o’clock. Driving rain came lashing in from the sea, and he was relieved to be sitting in a car with a roof over his head.

  His main traveling companion was oppressive exhaustion, and it was not until he had drunk two cups of black coffee at a gas station by the motorway that he began to feel remotely awake and clear in the head. Van Veeteren used to say there was nothing like a long car journey—in solitary majesty—when it came to unraveling muddled thoughts, and when Münster set off he had cherished a vague hope that the same would apply to him as well.

  For there was certainly a lot to come to grips with. And a lot of tangles to unravel.

  First of all Synn. His lovely Synn. He had hoped that they would have been able to have a heart-to-heart the previous evening after the children had gone to sleep, but that’s not how it had turned out. Quite the reverse, in fact. Synn had settled down on her side and turned out the light before he had even gotten ready for bed, and when he made tentative moves to try to make contact with her, she had already fallen asleep.

  Or pretended to—he wasn’t sure which. He lay awake until two o’clock and felt awful. When he finally fell asleep, he dreamed instead of Ewa Moreno. Nothing seemed to be going right.

  Is this relationship coming to an end? Münster wondered as he came to the hills around Wissbork. Is this what happens when two people start drifting away from each other?

  He didn’t know. How the hell could he know?

  All you can do is look after your own life, he thought. That is the only consideration. All comparisons are gratuitous and would-be-wise. Synn is unique, he is unique, and so is their family and their relationship. There are no guidelines, no pattern to follow. All you can do is rely on your feelings and intuition. Damn it all.

  I don’t want to know, he suddenly realized. I don’t want to know how it’s going to turn out. It’s better to be blind, and to hope.

  But Synn was right in one respect—even a worn-out detective intendent could understand that. Things couldn’t go on like this—no way. Not their lives, or other people’s lives. If they couldn’t succeed in changing the conditions, making some radical changes to the way things were at present, well … it was like sitting in a train that was slowly but inexorably approaching a terminus where there was no alternative but to get off and go their different ways. Whether they wanted to or not.

  Is her conscience as bad as mine? he wondered in a sudden flash of insight.

  Or was that aspect also infected by gender roles? Was that perhaps another shield against a nagging conscience? he wondered, now that he was looking more closely at the situation—that calm, female sense of certainty, which could survive no matter the circumstances, but which he could never understand.

  But which he loved.

  The more I think about it, the less I understand.

  He had driven more than sixty miles before he was able to concentrate his thoughts on his work and the investigation.

  The Leverkuhn case.

  Leverkuhn–Bonger–Van Eck.

  He worked out that it was now more than ten weeks since the whole thing began. And they had been standing still for most of that time, if he were to be honest: November and half of December while Fru Leverkuhn had been on remand and they failed to find the slightest trace of Else Van Eck.

  But then the investigation had exploded into action the week before Christmas. Marie-Louise Leverkuhn’s suicide and the grisly discovery in
Weyler’s Woods.

  It was as if everything had conspired to ruin his Christmas, he told himself glumly. To take away from him the opportunity to stop that train heading for ruin. For new incidents kept on cropping up afterward—tin after tin of red herrings, as Rooth had put it.

  The information about the diaries, for instance. Did any diaries still exist? They had existed, that much was clear; but if he would ever be able to read what was in them (assuming there was something of importance)—well, that was probably a vain hope.

  And that woman’s report to Moreno. About family relationships by the seaside during a few summers in the sixties. What was the significance of that?

  Or yesterday’s discussion with Reinhart. Although he didn’t know all that much about the investigation, Reinhart seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Münster himself. But perhaps that wasn’t too surprising—Reinhart was generally more perceptive than most.

  Then there was that conversation with Ruth Leverkuhn after the funeral. A woman difficult to make contact with. It hadn’t yielded much, either. A pity he didn’t know about what Lene Bauer had told him at the time. It would have been interesting to ask her to comment, if nothing else.

  Yes, there were a few openings, no doubt about that.

  Or pitfalls, if one preferred to adopt Rooth’s pessimism.

  Speaking of openings, he couldn’t help wondering about the conversation with Van Veeteren yesterday evening. The chief inspector had rung shortly before nine to ask about the latest developments. Münster had failed to discover exactly what he wanted to know, or what he had in mind. He had hemmed and hawed and spoken in riddles, like he used to do when something special was brewing. Münster had met him halfway and told him about his plans, and Van Veeteren had urged him to be careful. Warned him to watch his step, in fact; but it was impossible to get him to be more precise or to give any positive advice.

  Surely, this was remarkable? Was he on his way back? Had he grown tired of life as an antiquarian bookseller?

  Impossible to say, Münster decided. As so often where Van Veeteren was concerned.

  And in Kolderweg the Menakdise–de Booning couple were busy moving out. The screwing machines! Or la Rouge et le Noir, as Moreno had christened them, rather more romantically. Why? Why move out just now? It sometimes seemed as if everything depended on getting out of that building. The Leverkuhns were gone. The caretaker and his wife as well. And now this young couple. Only Fröken Mathisen and old Engel were left.

  Very strange, Münster thought. What’s going on?

  At one o’clock he still had an hour’s drive ahead of him, and decided it was time for lunch. Turned off the main road just north of Saaren and entered yet another of those postmodern rest bunkers for postmodern drivers. As he sat at his window table—with a view of the rain and the car park and four stunted larch trees—he made up his mind to inject his thoughts with more systematics. He turned to a new page in his notebook, which he had taken in with him, and started writing down all the things he had been thinking about during the last hour in the car. Telegram style. Then, as he sat chewing his healthful schnitzel, he had the list in front of him and tried to extract from it some new, bold conclusions. Or at any rate a few cautious old ones: there were five centimeters of blank page left at the bottom where he could note down these thoughts.

  When he had finished eating, the centimeters were still blank; but nevertheless, for some abstruse reason, he felt sure of one thing. Just the one.

  He was on the right track.

  Fairly sure. The blind tortoise was approaching the snowball.

  It was blowing at least half a gale in Frigge. When Münster had struggled out of his car in the circular open plaza in front of the railway station, he was forced to lean into the wind in order to make any progress at all. Inside the station he was given a map and a route description by an unusually helpful young woman in the ticket office. He thanked her for her efforts, and she explained with a smile that her husband was also a police officer, so she knew what it was like.

  There, you see? Münster thought. The world is full of understanding policemen’s wives.

  Then he went out into the storm again, this time leaning backward. Clambered back into his car and studied the information he’d been given. It seemed that Mauritz Leverkuhn lived in a suburb. Detached houses and modern terraced houses, no doubt, and only an occasional apartment building, anything but a skyscraper. He checked his watch. It was only half past three, but as Mauritz Leverkuhn was supposed to be suffering from influenza, there was no reason to worry that he might not be at home.

  He had no intention of calling in advance to arrange a meeting. Certainly not, Münster thought. If you’re going to take the bull by the horns, there’s no point in asking for permission first.

  The suburb was called Gochtshuuis. It was on the western outskirts of the town. He started the car and drove off.

  It took him a little more than fifteen minutes to find the place. A rather dull 1970s project with two-story terraced houses alongside a canal, and a somewhat sparse strip of trees pointing at the low marshland and the sea. A windbreak. All the trees were leaning eastward at the same angle. Mauritz Leverkuhn’s house was farthest away, where the road petered out with a postbox, a recycling station, and a turning area for buses.

  Concrete gray. Two low stories high, thirty feet wide, and with a pathetic swamp of a garden at the front. Probably a similar one at the back, facing the trees. Dusk was already in the air, and Münster noted that lights were on in two of the windows.

  Here we go, he thought as he got out of his car.

  If Intendent Münster had bothered to take his cell with him when he had lunch, he would certainly have had an opportunity to fill in the last empty lines of the page in his notebook.

  Not with any conclusions, that’s for sure, but with another point in the list of new developments in the case.

  Shortly after one-thirty Inspector Rooth had tried to contact him—in vain, of course—in order to report the latest find in Weyler’s Woods. The fact that nobody remembered to call again later in the day was partly because it was overlooked in the general excitement caused as a result of the find, and partly because—despite everything—it was still not clear how great a significance the discovery would have.

  If any at all. The search party, a dozen strong, had finally found the remains of Else Van Eck’s so-called intimate parts—a section of pelvis, a length of spine, and two appropriately large buttocks in comparatively good condition. As usual it was all carelessly stuffed into a pale yellow plastic bag, and just as carelessly concealed in an overgrown ditch. Organs, such as the intestines, liver, and kidneys, had been removed, but what made this find more interesting than all the others was that when it was all tipped out onto a workbench at the Forensic Medicine Department, they discovered a scrap of paper sticking out of one of the many folds that inevitably form on the body of a woman the size of Fru Van Eck.

  It wasn’t large, but still.… Dr. Meusse himself carefully lifted up a section of the rotting flesh and removed the strip of paper without tearing it.

  Nothing to write home about, Meusse insisted, but quite a feat even so. A flimsy scrap of paper about the length and width of a banana stained by blood and other substances. There was no doubt that it was from a newspaper or magazine.

  Naturally, Meusse appreciated the importance of the find and had it transported by courier to the Forensic Chemistry Laboratory on the same block. Rooth and Reinhart were informed immediately about the development, and spent most of the afternoon at the Forensic Chemistry Lab—if not to accelerate the results of the analysis then at least to keep themselves informed about them. Needless to say they could just as well have waited for information via the telephone, but neither Rooth nor Reinhart were of that bent. Not today, at least.

  The results emerged bit by bit, reported with a degree of scientific pomp and ceremony by the boss himself, Intendent Mulder—the least jovial person Rooth had ever
met.

  After an hour, for instance, it was obvious that the object was indeed part of a page from a newspaper or magazine. We know that already, you cockeyed jerk, thought Rooth, but he didn’t say so.

  Forty-five minutes later it was established that the paper was high quality—not in the weekly magazine class, but nevertheless not from an ordinary daily newspaper such as Neuwe Blatt or Gazett.

  Mulder pronounced the names of the two newspapers in such a way that it was obvious to Rooth that only in a state of dire emergency would he condescend to wipe his ass with either of them.

  “Thank God for that,” said Reinhart. “If it had been from the Blatt, we might just as well have thrown it in the stove without more ado.”

  At about the same time they received a photocopy of the strip of paper. Reinhart and Rooth—and Moreno, who had just arrived—crowded around it and established that the banana shape was unfortunately in a vertical plane, and that it was not possible to extract anything meaningful from the fragments of text. Not at the moment, at least—despite the fact that the technicians had managed to define individual letters with unexpected clarity. Ninety percent of the reverse side seemed to be covered by a murky black-and-white picture that was just as impossible to interpret. Rooth maintained that it was a cross-section of a liver in an advanced state of cirrhosis, but his opinion was not shared by his colleagues.

  By shortly after three o’clock they had also started to draw cautious conclusions about the typeface—even if that was not something within the range of competence of the forensic chemistry technicians, as Mulder was careful to point out. It wasn’t Times New Roman or Geneva or any of the usual faces, however, which enhanced the possibility of eventually establishing the origins of the scrap of paper.

  At five o’clock Intendent Mulder closed up shop for the day, but expressed a degree of optimism—scientifically restrained—with regard to the continued analysis the following day.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” said Reinhart. “But what are the odds?”