by Håkan Nesser
While Reinhart was busy doing this, Moreno contacted the editorial office of Breuwerblatt, which luckily was located in nearby Löhr, and after a typically efficient visit by young Krause, half an hour later they had two copies of each of the last three years’ issues lying on the table.
‘Good God!’ said Rooth. ‘This is going like clockwork. We’ve barely got time to eat.’
And it was Rooth who found the right page.
‘Here we are!’ he yelled. ‘Three bloody cheers!’
‘Altho’ a poor blind boy . . .’ said Reinhart. He went over to Rooth to check.
No doubt about it. The little strip of paper sticking out of Else Van Eck’s bottom in Weyler’s Woods came from the September issue of the previous year’s Breuwerblatt. Pages eleven and twelve. At the top on the left – a two-column announcement about a working environment conference in Oostwerdingen. The picture on the reverse side was part of a table and a suit belonging to the county governor who was officially opening a new brewery in Aarlach.
‘This is pretty clear,’ said Reinhart.
‘Crystal clear,’ said Moreno.
‘It’s obvious he has cirrhosis of the liver,’ said Rooth, examining the governor close up.
There followed a few seconds of silence.
‘Did you say there were twelve hundred and sixty subscribers?’ asked Jung. ‘So it doesn’t necessarily—’
‘Don’t be such a bloody prophet of doom!’ said Rooth. ‘Of course it’s from the Leverkuhns. So she’s done in the old lady Van Eck as well, I’d stake my damned . . . house on it.’
‘Metaphorically speaking?’ asked Moreno.
‘Literally,’ said Rooth.
Reinhart cleared his throat.
‘The evidence seems to suggest it might be from the Leverkuhns,’ he said. ‘In any case, shouldn’t we order some coffee and discuss the matter in somewhat more formal circumstances?’
‘I’m with you there,’ said Rooth.
During the coffee session another report arrived from the Forensic Chemistry Lab, and Reinhart had the pleasant task of informing Intendent Mulder that they were already dealing with the matter.
Since it was rather urgent. In the unlikely event of there being other things to attend to at the lab, there was nothing now to prevent them from getting on with them.
‘I understand,’ said Mulder, and hung up.
Reinhart did the same, lit his pipe and smiled grimly.
‘So, where were we?’ he said, looking round the table.
‘Oh, bugger!’ said Inspector Moreno.
‘There speaks a real lady,’ said Rooth.
But Moreno made no attempt to comment.
‘It’s just dawned on me,’ she said instead.
‘What has?’ said Jung.
‘I think I know how it happened,’ said Moreno.
Thursday, 8 January was a comparatively fine day in Frigge too. Before setting off Münster noted that the gale had died down during the night, and that the morning presented a pale blue non-threatening sky, and a temperature probably a few degrees above freezing.
He set out shortly after nine, weighed down by the same tiredness he had been feeling for the past few months. Like an old friend, almost. At least I have a faithful stalker, he thought cynically.
According to the directions he had been given, the Gellner Home was situated just outside the town of Kielno, only a couple of miles from Kaalbringen where he had spent a few weeks some years ago in connection with a notorious axe murder. As he sat driving through the flat countryside, he recalled those weeks in September. The idyllic little coastal town, and all the bizarre circumstances that eventually led to the capture of the killer.
And Inspector Moerk. Beate Moerk. Another female colleague he had got to know rather too well. Perhaps he ought to ask himself if this was a flaw in his character – being unable to keep certain female colleagues at the necessary professional distance?
He wondered what she was doing nowadays. Was she still in Kaalbringen? Was she still single?
And Bausen! What the devil was Chief Inspector Bausen doing now? He made up his mind to ask Van Veeteren the next time he saw him. If anybody knew, he would.
The drive took less than an hour. For some reason the Gellner Home was signposted from the motorway, and he had no trouble in finding it. He parked in a car park with space for a hundred or so cars, but there was only a handful of vehicles there at the moment. He followed a series of discreet signs and entered the reception in a low, oblong building on top of a ridge. The whole complex seemed to be spread out over a considerable area. Yellow and pale green buildings two or three storeys high. Lawns and plenty of flowerbeds and trees. Small copses, and a strip of larches and mixed deciduous trees encircling the grounds. Irregular paths, paved with stone, and frequent groups of benches round small tables. The whole place seemed attractively peaceful, but he didn’t see a single person in the open air.
I expect it’s very different in the summer, he thought.
As agreed, he first met the woman he had spoken to twice on the telephone – the same confidence-inspiring welfare officer who had informed him about Irene Leverkuhn’s illness during the first stages of the investigation back in October.
Her name was Hedda deBuuijs, and she looked about fifty-five. A short, powerfully built woman with dyed iron-grey hair and a warm smile which seemed unable to keep away from her face for more than a few seconds at a time. It was clear to Münster that the respect for her he had felt during the telephone calls was in no way precipitate or unfounded.
She gave him no new information in connection with his impending meeting with Irene Leverkuhn, merely explained that he should not expect too much, and that she would have time for a brief chat with him afterwards, if he felt that would help.
Then she rang for a nurse, and Münster was led along several of the stone paths to one of the yellow buildings at the far end of the grounds.
He didn’t really know what to expect from his meeting with Irene Leverkuhn – or indeed if he expected anything at all. In appearance she was nothing at all like her overweight brother and sister. More like her mother: slim and wiry, it seemed, under her loose-fitting pale blue hospital jacket. Slightly hunch-backed, with long, thin arms and a bird-like face. Narrow nose and pale eyes noticeably close together.
She was sitting at a table in quite a large room, painting in watercolours on a pad. Two other women were sitting at different tables busy with some kind of batik prints, as far as Münster could tell. The nurse left, and he sat down opposite Irene Leverkuhn. She glanced at him, then returned to her painting. Münster introduced himself.
‘I don’t know you,’ Irene said.
‘No,’ said Münster. ‘But perhaps you’d like to have a little chat with me even so?’
‘I don’t know you,’ she repeated.
‘Do you mind if I sit here for a while, and watch while you’re painting?’
‘I don’t know you. I know everybody here.’
Münster looked at the painting. Blue and red in big, wavy shapes: she was using too much water and the paper was buckling. It looked more or less like it did when his little daughter occupied herself with the same pastime. He noticed that the used pages in the pad looked roughly the same.
‘Do you like living here at the Gellner Home?’ he asked.
‘I live in number twelve,’ Irene said. ‘Number twelve.’
Her voice was low and totally without expression. As if she were speaking a language she didn’t understand, it struck him.
‘Number twelve?’
‘Number twelve. The other girl is called Rebecka. I’m also a girl.’
‘Do you often have visitors?’ Münster asked.
‘Liesen and Veronica live in number thirteen,’ said Irene. ‘Liesen and Veronica. Number thirteen. I live in number twelve. Rebecka also lives in number twelve. Twelve.’
Münster swallowed.
‘Do you often have visits from your family? Your m
other and father, your brother and sister?’
‘I’m painting,’ said Irene. ‘Only girls live here.’
‘Ruth?’ said Münster. ‘Does she often come here?’
‘I don’t know you.’
‘Do you know who Mauritz is?’
Irene didn’t reply.
‘Mauritz Leverkuhn. Your brother.’
‘I know everybody here,’ said Irene.
‘How long is it since you came here?’ Münster asked.
‘I live in number twelve,’ said Irene.
‘Do you like sitting here, talking to me?’
‘I don’t know you.’
‘Can you tell me what your mother and father are called?’
‘We get up at eight o’clock,’ said Irene. ‘But we can lie in until nine if we want. Rebecka always stays in bed until nine.’
‘What are you called?’ Münster asked.
‘I’m called Irene. Irene’s my name.’
‘Have you any brothers and sisters?’
‘I’m painting,’ said Irene. ‘I do that every day.’
‘Your painting is beautiful,’ said Münster.
‘I paint in red and blue,’ said Irene.
Münster stayed for a while until she finished the picture. She didn’t even look at it, but simply turned to another page in the pad and started again. She never looked up to glance at him, and when he stood up to leave, she seemed unaware of his presence or his going.
Or even that he had ever been there.
‘One of the problems,’ said deBuuijs when Münster returned to her office, ‘is that she is physically well. She might even be happy. She is forty-six years old, and frankly, I can’t see her surviving in society, functioning as a normal citizen. Can you?’
‘I don’t really know . . .’ said Münster.
Fröken deBuuijs eyed him for a few seconds, smiling as usual.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said eventually. ‘Cows and hens and pigs are also happy. Or contented, at least . . . until we slaughter them. But we demand a little bit more of what is called human life. Don’t we?’
‘Yes,’ said Münster. ‘I suppose we do.’
‘Irene hasn’t always been like this,’ said deBuuijs. ‘Ever since she fell ill she has retired into her own little, familiar world: but further back she didn’t feel secure there either. But in recent years, as long as she’s been here in the Gellner Home, she’s behaved as I assume she did when you spoke to her.’
‘Inside herself?’ said Münster.
‘You could put it like that. Never anywhere distant from her immediate surroundings, in any case. Neither in time nor space. But contented, as I said.’
Münster thought for a moment.
‘Is she on medication?’
DeBuuijs shook her head.
‘Not any more. Or nothing to speak of, in any case.’
‘Any kind of . . . treatment?’
She smiled again.
‘I thought we’d get round to this eventually,’ she said. ‘We are expected to do something, after all – right? The least we can do is to try to restore some kind of dignity . . . Yes, of course Irene undergoes therapy – if she didn’t, she would presumably come to a full stop one of these days. As it were.’
Münster waited.
‘We work partly on a traditional basis,’ explained deBuuijs, ‘but we also experiment to some extent. We don’t take any risks, of course, but in Irene’s case it has worked surprisingly well – or at least, that’s what our therapist says.’
‘Really?’ said Münster.
‘We have a sort of conversational therapy every day. In small groups. We do that with all our patients. And then we have a few therapists who come here and work on an individual basis. Various schools of thought and methods – we don’t want to exclude anything. Irene has been meeting a young woman by the name of Clara Vermieten for nearly a year now, and it seems to have gone well.’
‘In what way?’ Münster asked.
‘I don’t really know,’ said Hedda deBuuijs. ‘They’re having a break at the moment because Clara has just had a baby, but she intends to continue the therapy in spring.’
Münster began to wonder if she had something hidden up her sleeve, or if she was just making conversation out of pure politeness.
‘If you would like to partake, I can fix that,’ said deBuuijs after a short pause. ‘Seeing as you have come all this way.’
‘“Partake”?’
‘All the conversations are recorded on tape. I haven’t heard them, but I phoned Clara when I heard that you were coming. She has nothing against your listening to the tapes. Assuming that you don’t abuse them in any way, of course.’
‘Abuse them?’ said Münster. ‘How would I be able to abuse them?’
DeBuuijs shrugged.
‘I might have to switch off certain comments now and then,’ she said. ‘That’s part of my job. Is that okay with you?’
‘Yes,’ said Münster. ‘These things happen.’
DeBuuijs stood up.
‘I think we are on the same wavelength,’ she said. ‘Come with me, I’ll take you to her room. You can sit there for as long as you like. If you’d like a cup of coffee while you’re listening, I’ll bring you one.’
‘Yes, please,’ said Intendent Münster. ‘I could do with one.’
37
‘What do you mean?’ said Jung. ‘How it happened?’
‘It’s an idea that struck me,’ said Moreno. She bit her lip and hesitated for a few seconds. ‘Do you remember that day – a Thursday, I think it was – when Arnold Van Eck reported that his wife had disappeared? We drove there . . . Come to think of it, it was just Münster and me. Anyway, we arrived at Kolderweg to talk to Van Eck. We met fru Leverkuhn in the entrance hall. She was clearing away stuff that had belonged to Waldemar, carrying out suitcases and sacks with his old clothes. She was going to take them to the charity shop in Windemeerstraat. She was busy doing that for most of the time we were there. But of course . . . of course, it wasn’t just clothes she was carrying out.’
Rooth froze, with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth.
‘What the hell are you saying?’ he exclaimed. ‘Are you suggesting . . . are you suggesting that she was carrying out the Van Eck woman before your very eyes? Butchered and packaged? That’s the most . . . Who was it who said something about a blind boy a few minutes ago?’
‘It’s not possible,’ said Reinhart. ‘Or maybe that’s exactly what it is,’ he added after a few seconds. ‘Do you really believe this?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Moreno. ‘What do you all believe?’
‘Believing is something you do in church,’ said Rooth. ‘You were the one there, watching. How the hell could we know what she had in the bags?’
‘It’s a bit steep,’ said Jung. ‘It sounds incredible.’
Nobody spoke. Moreno stood up and started walking back and forth in front of the window. Reinhart watched her as he scraped out his pipe and waited. Rooth swallowed his Danish pastry and looked round for another. When he failed to find one, he sighed and shrugged.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘As you all seem to have been struck dumb, I’ll take over the baton. Shall we go there again? For the seventy-fourth time? In any case we need to check if there’s anything left of that magazine. And see if we can find any blood-stained suitcases. Although we ought to have found those already if they exist. If it is as Moreno says, it would be the most . . . Christ Almighty, the most . . .’
He couldn’t think of what it would be. Reinhart put down his pipe and cleared his throat demonstratively.
‘Jung and Moreno,’ he said. ‘You know the way?’
‘Haven’t you left yet?’ said Rooth.
‘There’s just one thing I don’t understand,’ said Moreno after they had established that there wasn’t so much as a quarter of a square centimetre left of the Breuwerblatt’s September issue – or any sign of blood-stained suitcases – in the Leverkuhns
’ flat in Kolderweg. ‘If it really was her who did it, that is.’
‘What?’ said Jung.
‘Why?’ said Moreno.
‘Why what?’
‘Yes. Why on earth would she want to kill Else Van Eck as well?’
Jung thought for three seconds.
‘Where do you think she did it?’ he said. ‘The butchery, I mean. If we ignore why for the moment.’
Moreno shook her head.
‘How should I know? The bathtub, perhaps. Yes, she hit and killed her with a frying pan, then butchered her in the bathroom – that sounds about right, don’t you think? That’s what I’d do. Afterwards you only need to rinse everything down, maybe a bit of soap or scrubbing powder. But why? Tell me why! We can’t just ignore the cause, there must be a reason.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jung. ‘I’m just one of the blind boys.’
At a quarter to two – that same rain-free January day – there was a discreet knock on the door of Intendent Reinhart’s room.
‘Come in,’ said Reinhart.
The door opened slowly, and Winckelhübe the linguist popped his head round it.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Reinhart, looking up from his pile of papers.
‘Well, I’ve made a little analysis,’ said Winckelhübe, scratching his stomach. ‘I’m not a hundred per cent certain, but I’m prepared to bet on it being about seals. The text, that is.’
‘Seals?’ said Reinhart.
‘Yes, seals,’ said Winckelhübe.
‘Hmm,’ said Reinhart. ‘Bang on. That’s exactly what we suspected. Thank you very much. Send your invoice to the police authorities.’
Winckelhübe remained standing there, looking slightly confused.
‘Would you like a lollipop as well?’ asked Reinhart. ‘I’m afraid we’ve run out.’
It was obvious that the therapist Clara Vermieten treated several of the patients at the Gellner Home. In the bookcase of the cramped office deBuuijs showed Münster into, four of the shelves were marked with initials. It said I.L. on the top shelf, where there were several cassettes, neatly sorted into stacks of ten. Münster counted sixty-five of them. The shelves lower down contained significantly fewer.
