Munster's Case

by Håkan Nesser

  “Thank you,” said Münster, and hung up.

  He removed the top cassette from the stack and took out the one dated October 25. Saturday, October 25. Went back to the desk chair, sat down, and started listening.

  It took about ten minutes before he got there, and while he was waiting he recalled something Van Veeteren had once said. At Adenaar’s, as usual, probably one Friday afternoon, when he usually liked to speculate a bit more than usual.

  “You’ve got to get to the right person,” the chief inspector had asserted. “In every case there’s one person who knows the truth—and the frustrating thing is, Intendent, that they usually don’t realize it themselves. So we have to hunt them down. Search high and low for them, and keep persevering until we find them. That’s our job, Münster!”

  He recalled what Van Veeteren had said word for word. And now here he was, having found one of those people. One of those truths. If he had interpreted the evidence correctly.

  “Where are you now?” asked Clara.

  “I’m at home,” said Irene.

  “Whereabouts at home?”

  “I’m in my bed,” said Irene.

  “You’re in your bed. In your room? Is it night?”

  “It’s evening.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Ruth is in her bed. It’s evening, but it’s late.”

  “But you’re not asleep?”

  “I’m not asleep, I’m waiting.”

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “I want it to go quickly.”

  “What do you want to go quickly?”

  “It must go quickly. Sometimes it goes quickly. It’s best then.”

  “You’re waiting, you say?”

  “It’s my turn tonight.”

  “Is there someone special you’re waiting for?”

  “His cock is so big. It’s enormous.”

  “His cock?”

  “It’s stiff and big. I can’t get it into my mouth.”

  “Who are you waiting for?”

  “It hurts, but I have to be quiet.”

  “How old are you, Irene?”

  “Ruth couldn’t keep quiet yesterday. He prefers me. He comes to me more often. It’s my turn this evening, he’ll be here soon.”

  “Who’s coming?”

  “I’ve rubbed that ointment into myself, so that it won’t hurt so much. I hope it will go quickly.”

  “Where are you, Irene? How old are you?”

  “I’m in bed. I’m trying to make my hole bigger so that there’s room for his cock. It’s so big, his cock. He’s so heavy, and his cock is so big. I have to keep quiet.”

  “Why do you have to keep quiet?”

  “I have to be quiet so that Mauritz doesn’t wake up. He’s coming now, I can hear him. I have to try to be bigger still.”

  “Who’s coming? Who are you waiting for?”

  “I can only get two fingers inside, I hope it goes quickly. His cock is terrible.”

  “Who’s coming?”

  “…”

  “Irene, who are you waiting for?”

  “…”

  “Who is it that has such a big cock?”

  “…”

  “Irene, tell me who’s coming.”

  “It’s Dad. He’s here now.”

  38

  Jung was standing by Bertrandgraacht, staring at Bonger’s boat for the hundred and nineteenth time.

  It lay there, dark and inscrutable—but all of a sudden he had the impression that it was smiling at him. A friendly and confidential smile, of the kind that even an old canal boat can summon up in gratitude for unexpected and undeserved attention being paid to it.

  What? You old boat bastard, Jung thought. Are you telling me it was as simple as that? Was that really what happened?

  But Bonger’s boat didn’t reply. Its telepathic powers evidently didn’t run to more than a discreet smile, so Jung turned his back on it and left. He pulled down his cap and dug his hands deeper into his coat pockets: a biting wind had blown up from the northwest, putting an end to the fraternization.

  “I have an idea,” he said when he bumped into Rooth in the canteen not long afterward.

  “I have a thousand,” said Rooth. “But none of them work.”

  “I know,” said Jung. “Redheaded dwarfs and all that.”

  “I’ve dropped that one,” said Rooth. “Nine hundred and ninety-nine, then. What are you trying to say?”

  “Bonger,” said Jung. “I think I know where he is.”

  Münster remained in the room with the cassette player for a quarter of an hour after switching it off. Stared out the window at the deserted grounds again while the jigsaw pieces inside his mind joined together, one after another. Before he stood up he tried to ring Synn, but she wasn’t at home. Of course not. He let it ring ten or so times, hoping that the answering machine would kick in, but evidently she had switched it off.

  “I love you, Synn,” he whispered even so into the dead receiver; then he went back to Hedda deBuuijs’s office.

  She was dealing with a visitor, and he had to wait for another ten minutes.

  “How did it go?” she asked when Münster eventually sat down on her visitor chair.

  For one confused second he didn’t know what to say. How had it gone?

  Well? Exceedingly well? A disaster?

  “Not bad,” he said. “I discovered quite a bit. But there are a few things I need some help with.”

  “I’m at your service,” said Hedda deBuuijs.

  “Clara Vermieten,” said Münster. “I need to speak to her. A telephone call would do.”

  “Let’s see,” said deBuuijs, leafing through a couple of lists. “Yes, here we are. There’s something I need to follow up on, so you can talk undisturbed. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  She left the room. Münster dialed the number, and as he waited he worried that Clara Vermieten might have gone away on an open-ended visit. To Tahiti or Bangkok. Or the north of Norway. That would be typical.

  But when she answered he immediately recognized her silky voice and her slight Nordic accent from the cassette. It took a few moments for her to realize who he was, but then she recalled having given him permission to listen to the cassette recordings, via Hedda deBuuijs.

  “Forgive me,” she said. “I’m being pestered by a couple of children. They tend to wear you down.”

  “I know how it is,” said Münster.

  He had only two questions, and as he could hear the whining and whimpering clearly in the background, he came straight to the point.

  “Do you know about the murders of Waldemar Leverkuhn and Else Van Eck down in Maardam?” he asked.

  “What?” said Clara. “No, I don’t think so.… Maardam, did you say? There are so many.… What was the name again?”

  “Leverkuhn,” said Münster.

  “Good Lord!” said Clara. “Is it …?”

  “Her father,” said Münster.

  Silence.

  “I didn’t know,” said Clara after a while. “I don’t know.… When did it happen?”

  “October,” said Münster. “The same week as you had your last conversation with Irene, in fact.”

  “I was in the maternity ward from the second of November,” said Clara. “Gave birth on the fifth. Good Lord, does she know about it? No, of course she doesn’t. Have you met her?”

  “Yes,” said Münster. “And I’ve listened to the tapes. Several of them. Toward the end.”

  Clara said nothing for a while again.

  “I understand,” she said eventually. “What you must have heard. But I don’t really understand why it should be of any interest to you. Surely you don’t mean it could have something to do with what happened? With the goings-on in Maardam? Did you say murder?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Münster. “It’s all very complicated. We won’t go into that now, but I’d like to ask you something that’s very important for our investigation. I hope you can make
a correct judgment—but I’m sure you can,” he added. “I must say I have the deepest respect for what you have managed to achieve with Irene Leverkuhn.”

  “Thank you,” said Clara.

  “Anyway,” said Münster. “What I’m wondering is if she—Irene, that is—can remain in that state … in those childhood experiences … even after you’ve concluded your conversation. Or whether you have to return her to the present every time.”

  A few seconds passed.

  “Do you understand what I’m getting at?” Münster asked.

  “Of course,” said Clara. “I was just wondering.… Yes, she could well recall it, what we were talking about. For a while, at least … if somebody were to strike the right chord, so to speak.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “As sure as one can be. The soul isn’t a machine.”

  “Thank you,” said Münster. “I have what I need to know. But I’d like to talk to you again at some point, if that’s possible.”

  He could hear her smiling as she replied.

  “You’ve got my number, Intendent. I have a brother in Maardam, incidentally.”

  “There’s just one detail left now,” said Münster when deBuuijs returned. “You said that you keep a record of all visits the patients in this home receive. Could you please give me access to that information? I know I’m being a nuisance, but I promise to leave you in peace after this.”

  “No problem,” said Hedda deBuuijs with her usual enthusiasm. “Would you like to follow me?”

  They went into the reception area, where deBuuijs knocked on a little glass window. Before long she was handed two red ring binders, which she passed on to the intendent.

  “Last year,” she said. “If you need to go further back than that, just knock on the glass window and tell one of the girls. There’s something I must see to now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  “Thank you,” said Münster. “These two will be fine. You have been very hospitable and of great help.”

  “No problem,” said Hedda deBuuijs, leaving him again.

  Münster sat down at a table and started thumbing through them.

  Now, he thought. Now we shall see if everything falls into place. Or if it falls apart.

  Five minutes later he knocked on the window and returned the binders.

  If somebody were to strike the right chord? he thought as he drove out of the car park. That is what Clara Vermieten had said. It couldn’t be put any better.

  “What the hell do you mean?” said Reinhart.

  “Don’t bother trying to comprehend what you don’t understand anyway,” said Van Veeteren. “Tell me the situation instead!”

  “We’re nearly there,” said Reinhart.

  “There?”

  “Listen carefully, my dear ex–chief inspector,” said Reinhart. “Münster is up north, and things are going according to plan, if not better. I spoke to him on the phone half an hour ago, and he’d unearthed evidence that points clearly in a certain direction.”

  “Go on,” said Van Veeteren.

  Reinhart sighed and explained patiently what had happened for another two or three minutes until Van Veeteren interrupted him.

  “All right, that’s enough,” he said. “We’ll drive there. You can tell me the rest in the car.”

  “Drive there? What the hell …?” exclaimed Reinhart, but as he did so a warning light started blinking somewhere in the back of his mind. He thought for a moment. If there was a rule he had discovered that was worth following during the chief inspector’s time—just one single rule—it was this one.

  Never ask questions when Van Veeteren makes a sudden and apparently incomprehensible decision.

  Reinhart had done that a few times. At first. Queried the decision. He had always been proved wrong.

  “You can pick me up outside Adenaar’s five minutes from now,” said Van Veeteren. “No, four minutes. Are you with me?”

  “Yes,” Reinhart said with a sigh. “I’m with you.”

  When Münster had finished his dinner at a Chinese restaurant, he realized once again how tired he was. He drank his usual two cups of strong black coffee as an antidote, and wondered how many years it would be before he had stomach ulcers. Five? Two?

  Then he paid, and tried to concentrate on work again.

  On the case. The last act was looming now. About time too: he made a mental note to the effect that he would go to Hiller and demand a week off as soon as it was all over. Or on Monday. Make that two weeks.

  Then he phoned Maardam from the car, to put them in the picture. He spent ten minutes relating the latest developments to Heinemann, the only person available. Heinemann concluded by urging him to be extremely careful, in his usual long-winded style.

  When he had finished with Heinemann, Münster informed the local police authorities. Spoke to Inspector Malinowski, who had some difficulty in catching on at first: but he eventually seemed to have grasped the situation. He promised that everything would be on standby by the time he heard again from Intendent Müssner.

  “Münster,” said Münster. “Not Müssner.”

  “Okay,” said Malinowski. “I’ve made a note.”

  He started the engine and set off. It was almost six o’clock, and darkness was beginning to settle over the deserted town. A strong wind had blown up again, but there still hadn’t been a drop of rain this long Thursday.

  He parked a few minutes later. Remained seated for a while, composing himself. Then he checked that he had both his gun and his cell phone with him and got out of the car.

  39

  “There’s a film by Tarkovsky,” said Van Veeteren. “His last one. The Sacrifice. That is what this is all about.”

  Reinhart nodded. Then he shook his head.

  “Enlighten me,” he said. “I’ve seen it, but it was several years ago.”

  “You should see Tarkovsky several times, if you have the opportunity,” said Van Veeteren. “There are so many layers of meaning. You don’t remember it?”

  “Not off the top of my head.”

  “He poses a fundamental question in that film. We could put it like this: If you meet God in a dream and make him a promise, what do you do when you wake up?”

  Reinhart stuck his pipe in his mouth.

  “I do recall that,” he said. “He’s going to sacrifice his son in order to make the reality that is threatening everybody merely an illusion, isn’t that right? A world war becomes only a nightmare if he carries out that deed?”

  “Something like that,” said Van Veeteren. “The question, of course, is whether we really do receive signs like that. And what happens if we ignore them. Break the agreement.”

  Reinhart sat in silence for a while.

  “I never stood on the lid of a well during the whole of my childhood,” he said.

  “That’s presumably why you’re still alive,” said Van Veeteren. “How long to go?”

  “An hour,” said Reinhart. “I have to say I’m still not at all sure what the heck Tarkovsky has to do with this trip. But I suspect you are not going to tell me?”

  “You suspect correctly,” said Van Veeteren, lighting a newly rolled cigarette. “That’s also part of the agreement.”

  The taxi driver’s name was Paul Holt. It was Krause who had tracked him down, and Moreno met him in his yellow car outside the Hotel Kraus. A slim man in his thirties. White shirt, tie, and a neat ponytail. Moreno sat down in the front passenger seat, and when he shook her hand and introduced himself she detected the distinct smell of marijuana on his breath.

  Ah well, she thought. He’s not going to be driving me anywhere.

  “It’s about that fare of yours a few months ago,” she said. “Fru Leverkuhn in Kolderweg. How well do you remember it?”

  “Quite well,” said Holt.

  “It wasn’t exactly yesterday,” said Moreno.

  “No,” said Holt.

  “You must have had hundreds of fares since then, surely?”

  “T
housands,” said Holt. “But you remember the special ones. I can tell you in detail about an old man in spotted trousers I drove eight years ago, if you want me to. In detail.”

  “I understand,” said Moreno. “And that trip with Fru Leverkuhn—that was special, was it?”

  Holt nodded.

  “Why?”

  Holt adjusted his hair ribbon and clasped his hands over the steering wheel.

  “You know why just as well as I do,” he said. “I mean, there were articles in all the newspapers about them. Mind you, I’d have remembered that trip in any case.”

  “Really?”

  “It was a bit unusual, and that’s the kind of thing you remember.”

  “So I gather,” said Moreno. “Can you tell me where you drove to, and what she did?”

  Holt wound down the side window about four inches and lit an ordinary cigarette.

  “Well, it was more of a goods delivery than anything else. Both the backseat and the trunk were full of suitcases and bags. I think I pointed out to her that there were delivery firms for jobs like that, but I’m not sure. I took it on, anyway. You do what you have to do.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “First to the charity shop in Windemeer,” said Holt. “Dropped off a few of the bags. I waited outside while she sorted things out in the shop. Then we continued to Central Station.”

  “The railway station?”

  “Yes, Central Station. We carried in the rest of the stuff. I think there was a suitcase and two other bags—those big, soft-sided bags, you know the kind. Yes, there were three of them. Heavy, too. She locked them away in luggage lockers, and then we drove back to Kolderweg. She got out at the shopping center. It was pouring.”

  Moreno thought for a while.

  “You must have a good memory for details,” she said.

  He nodded, and drew on his cigarette.

  “I suppose so,” he said. “But as I said, it’s not the first time I’ve thought about that trip. Once you’ve recalled something, it’s there. Sort of like a photo album. Don’t you think?”

  Yes, Ewa Moreno thought after she had left the yellow taxi. He was right about that. There were things you never forgot, no matter how much you wished you could. That early morning four years ago, for instance, when she and Jung broke into a flat in Rozerplejn, and found a twenty-four-year-old immigrant woman with two small children in a large pool of blood on the kitchen floor. The letter informing her that she would be deported was lying on the table. She recalled that all right.…