by Håkan Nesser
The only surprise she felt at her decision was how easy it had been to make. Half an hour later she drank tea and ate a couple of sandwiches with an eager appetite, as if life was still something relevant to her.
27
Moreno had got in touch with Krystyna Gravenstein via the secretary at Doggers grammar school, where she had worked until she retired three years ago.
Gravenstein welcomed the detective into her little two-roomed flat in Palitzerstraat, at the top of the building with a view over the river and Megsje Bois. When she entered the flat Moreno wondered if everybody had such splendid views from their homes nowadays, and recalled Ruth Leverkuhn’s picture window. It seemed to be the case, at least for home-owners on the distaff side. Fröken Gravenstein was a slim little woman with a haycock of chalk-white hair and owl-eyes behind thick spectacles. Tweed suit and crocheted shawl over her shoulders. She moved a pile of books from a tubular steel armchair and urged the inspector to sit down, sat down herself on a swivel chair in front of a desk, and spun round. Of the two rooms, one evidently served as a bedroom and the other as a study. Moreno guessed that nothing else was required. The desk, with a view of rooftops and open sky, was covered in papers, books, dictionaries and a computer. Bookshelves covered the walls from floor to ceiling, and were chock-a-block with books.
‘I’ve started to do a bit of translating since I finished at the school,’ Gravenstein explained, with a faint suggestion of a smile. ‘You have to find something to do. Italian and French. It helps to make the pension go a bit further as well.’
Moreno nodded in agreement.
‘Literature, I assume?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said Gravenstein. ‘Mostly poetry, but I’ve done the occasional novel as well.’
‘So you used to teach at Doggers, right? Romance languages?’
‘For thirty-seven years . . . Thirty-seven . . .’
She shrugged and looked somewhat apologetic. Moreno gathered that she didn’t exactly long to be back in the classroom again. And that it was time to come to the point.
‘You were a colleague of Else Van Eck’s, I understand,’ she began. ‘That’s why I want to talk to you. Are you aware of what has happened?’
‘She’s vanished,’ said Gravenstein, adjusting her spectacles.
‘Exactly,’ said Moreno. ‘She’s been missing for nearly seven weeks now, and we still haven’t a clue where she is. There are good reasons for suspecting she is no longer with us. Were you close to her as a colleague?’
Her hostess shook her head and looked worried.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Certainly not. Nobody was – I’m sorry to have to say that, but it’s the way it was. We never met in our free time – apart from the odd occasion when the French Society had something interesting in its programme.’
‘How long did you work together?’
Gravenstein worked it out.
‘Nearly twenty years,’ she said. ‘Else Van Eck is a . . . a remarkable woman. Or was.’
‘In what way?’ wondered Moreno.
Fröken Gravenstein adjusted her shawl while she thought that over.
‘Unsociable,’ she said in the end. ‘She had no desire to associate with or even to talk to the rest of us teachers. She wasn’t unpleasant, but she didn’t bother about other people. She was self-sufficient, if you see what I mean.’
‘What was she like as a teacher?’
Gravenstein gave a hint of a smile.
‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘That might sound unlikely, but it’s a fact. Once the pupils had got to grips with her, they liked her. Maybe young people find it easier to get on with weirdos – I think so. And she loved French. She never taught any other subject, and – well, she was a walking dictionary. And grammar book as well, come to that. Obviously she would never have been able to stay on as a member of staff if she hadn’t had those qualities. Not in view of the way she was.’
Moreno thought for a moment.
‘And why was she the way she was?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea. I never got to know her, and know nothing about her private life.’
‘What about her professional life?’ Moreno asked. ‘Do you know why she became a French teacher?’
Gravenstein hesitated.
‘There is a story,’ she said.
‘A story?’ Moreno repeated.
Fröken Gravenstein bit her lip and contemplated her hands. Seemed to be discussing something with herself.
‘One of those myths,’ she said. ‘The kind that circulate among pupils about almost every teacher. Sometimes there’s a grain of truth in them, sometimes there isn’t. But you can’t put too much faith in them.’
‘And what was the mythology surrounding Else Van Eck?’ Moreno asked.
‘A love story.’
Moreno nodded encouragingly.
‘Young and unhappy love,’ explained Gravenstein. ‘A Frenchman. They were engaged and were going to get married, but then he left her for someone else.’
Moreno said nothing, waited for a while.
‘Not especially imaginative,’ she said eventually.
‘There’s more to come,’ said fröken Gravenstein. ‘According to legend, she started reading French for his sake, and she continued doing so for his sake. His name is said to be Albert, and after a while he regretted what he’d done. Tried to win her back. But Else refused to forgive him. When it finally got through to him what he’d done, he hurled himself in front of a train and died. Gare du Nord. Hmm . . .’
‘Hmm,’ Moreno agreed. ‘And when was this supposed to have happened?’
Gravenstein threw her arms out wide.
‘I don’t know. When she was young, of course. Shortly after the war, I assume.’
Moreno sighed. Krystyna Gravenstein suddenly smiled broadly.
‘Everybody must have a story,’ she said. ‘For those who don’t, we need to invent one.’
She glanced up at the rows of books as she said that, and Moreno realized that it was a quotation. And that the words had a certain relevance to Gravenstein’s life as well.
What’s my story? she thought in the lift on the way down. Claus? My police work? Or do I have to invent one?
She shuddered when she remembered that there were less than seven days to go to Christmas, and she had no idea how she was going to spend the holiday.
Perhaps I might as well volunteer to work over the whole time, she thought. If I could make things easier for a colleague, why not?
Then she thought for a while about Albert.
A Frenchman who had taken his own life fifty years ago or more? For the sake of Else Van Eck. Would it still be possible to identify him?
And could it have anything at all to do with this case that Intendent Münster insisted on persevering with and poking about in?
No, nothing at all, she decided. Could anything possibly be more far-fetched? Nevertheless she decided to report the matter. To tell the story. The myth. If nothing else it would be nice to sit and talk about it for a while with Münster. Surely she could grant herself that much?
That apart, Krystyna Gravenstein seemed to have sorted out quite a pleasant way of spending her old age, Moreno thought. Sitting up under the roof beams among lots of books high above the town, and doing nothing but read and write . . . Not a bad existence.
But before you got that far, of course, you had a life to find your way through.
She sighed and started walking back to the police station.
Münster checked his watch. Then counted the Christmas presents on the back seat.
Twelve in an hour and a half. Not bad. That gave him plenty of time for his visit to Pampas, and he gathered that the widowed fru de Grooit didn’t like being rushed. Peace and quiet, and there’s a time for everything – that’s what it had sounded like on the telephone.
He parked in the street outside the low, drab, brown house. Sat there for a minute, composing himself and wondering what exactly it was that prevented him from
letting go of this business.
In his infinite wisdom, Chief of Police Hiller had declared that in the name of all that’s holy there was no rational reason for wasting any more resources on this case. Waldemar Leverkuhn had been murdered. His wife had confessed to doing it, and on Thursday she would be found guilty of either murder or manslaughter. He didn’t give a toss which. A certain Felix Bonger had gone missing and a certain Else Van Eck had gone missing.
‘So what?’ Hiller had asked, and Münster knew that he was right, in fact. The average number of people who went missing in their district was 15–18 per year, and the fact that two of them happened to disappear at about the same time as the Leverkuhn business was obviously pure coincidence.
Naturally the police continued to look for the two missing persons – just as they did for all the others who had gone up in smoke – but it wasn’t a job for highly paid (overpaid!) detective officers.
Bugger that for a lark. Full stop. Exit Hiller.
It’s a damned nuisance, having to work on the sly, Münster thought as he got out of the car.
But if you are an uncompromising seeker of the truth, you must grin and bear it.
‘Really, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read about it in the paper,’ said fru de Grooit. ‘Take a biscuit. They used to live over there, and we called on one another almost every day.’
She pointed out of the cluttered window at the house on the other side of the hedge.
‘Over there,’ she repeated. ‘Between 1952 and 1976. We moved in when the house was new in 1948, and since my husband died I’ve often thought I ought to move out, but I’ve never got round to it. Don’t be afraid to dunk if you want to. It’s terrible. We are normal people here in Pampas. Honest working people, not murderers. I talk too much, do interrupt me if you need to. My husband always used to say you have to interrupt me in order to shut me up.’
‘Did you know the Leverkuhns well?’ Münster asked.
‘Well . . . no, not really,’ said fru de Grooit, blinking a little nervously. ‘We always had more to do with the Van Klusters and the Bolmeks on the other side and opposite, not so much with the Leverkuhns, no . . . It wasn’t that . . .’
She fell silent and looked thoughtful.
‘Wasn’t what?’ Münster wondered.
‘It wasn’t that they weren’t good neighbours and good people, but they tended to keep their distance. They were like that, especially him.’
‘Waldemar Leverkuhn?’
‘Herr Leverkuhn, yes. A reserved chap, not easy to talk to; but an honest worker, nobody could possibly suggest anything else . . . It’s awful. Do you think she really murdered him in that terrible way? I don’t know what to think any more. How was the coffee?’
‘Good,’ said Münster.
It looked for a moment as if fru de Grooit was going to start crying. Münster coughed to distract her while he thought of something apposite to say, but he couldn’t think of anything that might console her.
‘Did you know fru Leverkuhn a little better, then?’ was the best he could do. ‘Better than him, that is. Woman to woman, as it were.’
But fru de Grooit merely shook her head.
‘No,’ she said. ‘She wasn’t the type to get pally with, and if you ever needed to borrow some sugar or flour, it was natural to go to one of the other neighbours – the Van Klusters or Bolmeks. On the other side and opposite. Has she really killed him?’
‘It looks like it,’ said Münster. ‘What were the children like?’
Fru de Grooit fiddled with her coffee cup and didn’t reply immediately.
‘They were also reserved,’ she said after a while. ‘They didn’t have any real friends, none of them. Mauritz was exactly the same age as our Bertrand, we had him late on, but they never became good friends. We tried ten, twenty times, but he always preferred to be at home on his own, playing with his electric train set, Mauritz did – and don’t think that Bertrand was allowed to join in. There was something . . . something mean, something off-putting about the boy. I think he had a rough time at school as well. And with girls – no, it wasn’t exactly a home with open doors, certainly not.’
‘Have you had any contact with them in recent years?’ Münster asked. ‘Since they left here?’
‘None at all,’ said fru de Grooit. ‘They moved out and disappeared. From one day to the next. The children had already flown the nest, of course, so it was easier for them with a flat – they were never very interested in the garden. They didn’t even leave an address. We heard later that things had gone badly for Irene . . .’
‘Really?’ said Münster, pretending to be surprised.
‘Nerves,’ said fru de Grooit. ‘She just couldn’t cope, that’s all there was to it. Some people just can’t cope, that’s the way it’s always been. They put her in a home, I don’t know if she’s come out again. They were introverted as well, the sisters – you never saw them with boys. Always kept themselves to themselves. No, it wasn’t a happy family, if you can put it like that. But one knows so little about it.’
She fell silent again, sighed and stirred her coffee. Münster wondered what he had hoped to get out of this conversation, but realized that it was just a matter of blind chance. Yet again.
Maybe something will crop up, maybe not.
That’s not a bad motto for police work overall, he thought. A vain and arbitrary search for a needle in a haystack, that’s exactly what it always seemed to be like.
Or, as Reinhart preferred to put it: a copper is a blind tortoise looking for a snowball in the desert.
There were plenty of appropriate images.
‘I remember one incident,’ said fru de Grooit after a few moments of silence. ‘That Mauritz didn’t have an easy time of it at school, as I said. He was in the same class as our Bertrand, and on one occasion he’d been beaten up by some older boys. I don’t know how serious it was, or what lay behind it, but in any case, he didn’t dare go back to school . . . And he didn’t dare to stay at home either, scared of what his parents would say or do – fru Leverkuhn was out of work when it happened. So he would pretend to go off to school in the morning, but instead of being in school he was hiding away in the shed at the back of their house all day. He can’t have been more than about eleven or twelve at the time: his sisters knew about it and looked after him . . . One of them was also without a job and so was at home all day and she used to smuggle sandwiches out to him. He sat there for day after day, for about a fortnight at least . . .’
‘Didn’t the school ask about where he was?’ Münster asked.
She shrugged. Brushed some imaginary crumbs off the tablecloth.
‘Eventually, yes. I think he got a good hiding from his dad then. For being such a coward.’
‘Not a very good way of making him any braver,’ said Münster.
‘No,’ said fru de Grooit. ‘But that’s the way he was, Waldemar.’
‘How was he?’ asked Münster.
‘Hard, sort of.’
‘You didn’t like him, I gather?’
Fru de Grooit looked a little embarrassed.
‘I don’t really know,’ she said. ‘It was a long time ago. We didn’t have a lot to do with them, and you have to leave people in peace if that’s what they want. It takes all sorts . . . Everybody is happy in his own way.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ said Münster.
He went for a walk among the little detached houses in Pampas when he had taken his leave of fru de Grooit. He was pretty fed up of the little houses, but the weather was pleasant enough for walking.
This Pampas was a rather special part of the town, it couldn’t be denied. And he hadn’t been here for ages. The low-lying, almost swampy area next to the river had not been built on until shortly after the war, when all at once these rows of tiny houses sprang up, all of them with only three or four rooms, on plots barely large enough to accommodate them. A local council project to provide owner-occupied houses for hard-working labourers an
d junior office workers, if he understood it rightly. A sort of clumsy attempt to boost the lower classes in the direction of equality, and all of them – more than six hundred houses – were still standing in more or less unchanged condition after nearly fifty years. Repaired and modernized and extended here and there, of course, but nevertheless remarkably intact.
Post-war optimism, Münster thought. A monument to an age.
And to a generation that was disappearing into the grave.
Like fru de Grooit and the Leverkuhns.
I’ll never get any further with this damned case, he thought as he settled behind the wheel of his car. It’s going to stand as still as Pampas. Nothing more is going to happen.
But that is where Intendent Münster was wrong.
In spades.
28
If her boyfriend hadn’t given her the boot the previous evening – on 20 December – Vera Kretschke would presumably have slept a bit better.
If she had slept a bit better, she would obviously have been able to run all the way round her jogging route without any problems. She usually did.
If she had managed to run all the way, she certainly wouldn’t have stopped after fifteen hundred metres and started walking instead of running.
And if she hadn’t started walking as slowly as she did, well, she would never have noticed that yellow bit of plastic sticking up from the undergrowth in among the trees a few metres from the path.
Probably not, in any case.
And then . . . then that awful image would not be filling her head like a lump of hot goo, preventing her from having much in the way of rational thoughts.
That’s what she was thinking as she lay in bed that same evening in her old, secure, childhood room, waiting for Reuben to ring despite everything – if not to apologize and take back what he’d said, then at least so that she could tell him what had happened while she was out jogging that morning.
Jogging and walking.
What an ugly sight, she thought, and stopped. Why couldn’t people dispose of things in the right place instead of out here in the forest?
