“What do you mean?”
“Think, Munster, for Christ’s sake! If you can’t work this one out, I’ll never support your application for promotion!”
“Of course: How did he know the address?”
“Of the murderer, yes.”
“Address book?”
“No. He didn’t have one with him. Not anywhere in the hospital.”
“Telephone directory?”
“There isn’t one in the assembly hall.”
“And he stayed in there all the time?”
“The nurse was standing outside, keeping an eye on him.
Never let Mitter out of his sight-don’t ask me why. There are glass doors between the rooms. He smoked two cigarettes, he said. Evidently a five-minute brand. .”
“If the nurse was being that careful, surely he could have taken a look at the letter as well.”
Van Veeteren grunted.
“Do you think I haven’t explained that to him? Mind you, it’s by no means sure that that would have helped us: he didn’t seem all that good at reading. He’s the sort of he-man who can overturn a locomotive, but doesn’t know which end of a pen to hold downward.”
Munster smiled dutifully.
“Enough of that,” said Van Veeteren. “Nobody has seen what Mitter wrote on the envelope. He had no help from an address book or a telephone directory or anything else. So that means. .”
“That he knew the address by heart. Oh, shit. .”
“I’m coming to the same point, though I have to say I get there a bit faster. How many addresses do you know by heart, Munster?”
Munster pondered that one.
“Count them!” said Van Veeteren.
“My own,” said Munster.
“Bravo,” said Van Veeteren.
“My parents’. .”
“And?”
“My childhood address in Willby. .”
“Too old.”
Munster hesitated.
“My sister’s in Hessen-I think.”
He paused.
“Oh, and police HQ, of course,” said Munster eventually.
Van Veeteren felt for a new toothpick, but he’d evidently run out.
“Finished?” he asked.
Munster nodded.
“You’re forty-two years old and have learned four
addresses by heart. Well done, Inspector. I could only manage three. What conclusion do you draw from that?”
“He wrote to somebody. . very close to him.”
“Or?”
“To himself?”
“Idiot,” said Van Veeteren. “Or?”
“Or to his workplace.”
Van Veeteren clasped his hands behind his head and
stretched himself out on his desk chair.
“Bunge High School,” he said. “Fancy a beer?”
Munster nodded again. Van Veeteren looked at the clock.
“If you give me a lift home, you can buy me a glass of beer on the way. I think Kraus’s place will be best.”
Munster wriggled into his jacket.
I suppose he’s doing me a favor, he thought.
“It’s Friday already, dammit!” Van Veeteren announced as they elbowed their way through to the bar.
Carrying two foaming tankards, he wriggled into an
almost nonexistent space between two young women on a bench. He lit a cigarillo, and after a couple of minutes there was room for Munster as well.
“Bunge or a good friend,” said Van Veeteren. “And we can no doubt forget about the good friends. Any snags?”
“Yes,” said Munster. “At least one. An unusual name.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you have an unusual name, letters get through to you no matter what. Dalmatinenwinckel, or something like that. .”
“What the hell are you on about?”
“Dalmatinenwinckel. I once had a girlfriend called that. It was enough to write her name and the town; a street address wasn’t necessary.”
“A good job you didn’t marry her,” said Van Veeteren. “But I expect you’re right. We’d better send somebody to check at the post office.”
He drank deeply and smacked his lips in appreciation.
“How are we going to go about it?” Munster asked. He suddenly felt exhausted again. He was slumped down in a corner of the bench, and the smoke was making his eyes hurt. It was already half past one. If he added up the time it would take them to drink the beer, then to drive V.V. home, drive out to his own suburb, get undressed, and take a shower, he concluded that it would be three o’clock at the earliest before he could snuggle down beside Synn. .
He sighed. The thought of Synn was much more persistent than the murder chase just now: still, no doubt that was a healthy sign, when all was said and done.
“You can take Bunge,” said Van Veeteren. “You and Reinhart. I suppose you won’t be able to get started before Monday.”
Munster nodded gratefully.
“The letter is the first thing, of course. It’s possible that we won’t be able to track it down at all, obviously, but if we have an amazing stroke of luck. . Well, if somebody remembers it, we’ll know. We’ll have him, Munster, and it’ll be all over there and then!”
Munster said nothing.
“But I don’t think we’re going to have an amazing stroke of luck; I can feel it in my bones. Check the mail procedures at the school in any case-who sorts out incoming mail, if they put stuff in different pigeonholes, that kind of thing. You’ll get an envelope from Majorna to take with you, of course, but there’s nothing special about it, unfortunately. It looks like any other bloody envelope. And be careful-it’s not necessary for all and sundry to know about this letter.”
“How many teachers are there?” asked Munster.
Van Veeteren pulled a face.
“Seventy, I think. And the bastards get half a ton of mail every week.”
Munster wasn’t sure if Van Veeteren was exaggerating or not.
“What about the pupils?”
“Seven hundred of them,” sighed Van Veeteren. “I don’t suppose they get many letters sent to them at school, but still: seven hundred. Bloody hell!”
“I read a detective story once, about a pupil who started executing his teachers. He disposed of nine of them before they nailed him.”
