Why the hell didn’t I telephone instead? thought Munster.
When he’d got back home and read the bedtime stories for the kids, Rooth rang.
“How did you get on?” he asked.
“It’s not him,” said Munster. “He’s alive and kicking.
They’d forgotten to inform the police.”
“Oh dear,” said Rooth.
“What about yours?”
“Same thing, presumably,” sighed Rooth. “Doesn’t seem to be missing a testicle, in any case. Nor does his wife. The fact is, he’s probably done a runner.”
“Huh,” said Munster. “What do we do now, then?”
“I had a bright idea,” said Rooth. “About that butchery job. Either there must have been some kind of distinguish-ing feature on his hands or feet, or there might be a simpler explanation.”
“Simpler?” wondered Munster.
“Fingerprints,” said Rooth.
Munster thought for a moment.
“You don’t get rid of fingerprints by cutting a man’s feet off,” he said.
“True,” said Rooth. “But he probably did that to confuse us. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
Munster thought for another couple of seconds.
“Of course,” he said. “We’ve got his fingerprints. He’s on our crime register.”
“There’s a clever boy,” said Rooth. “Yes, we’ve got his fingerprints somewhere in the archives; I’ll bet my damned life on it. Do you know how many we have, by the way?”
“Three hundred thousand, I think,” said Munster.
“Just over, yes. Ah well, given the way things are we can’t pin him down that way, in any case, but at least it’s a lead. See you tomorrow.”
“Yes, see you,” said Munster, putting the phone down.
“What’s keeping you so busy?” asked Synn when they had switched the light off and he’d put his left arm around her.
“Oh, nothing special,” said Munster. “We’re looking for an old lag who disappeared sometime last year, that’s all. He’s between fifty-five and sixty, and only has one testicle.”
“How fascinating,” said Synn. “How are you going to find him?”
“We have done already,” said Munster. “He’s dead, of
course.”
“Ah,” said Synn. “I’m with you. Could you cuddle me a bit more tightly, please?”
8
It was true that Munster won all three sets, but there was no doubt that this was the closest match they had played for many a long year. The final scores were 15–10, 15–13, 15-12-not that anybody bothered to record them-and Van Veeteren had been leading for much of the time, in both the second and the final set. In the latter by as much as 12-8.
“If I hadn’t mishit that crappy serve, you’d have bitten the dust,” he maintained as they strolled back to the changing rooms. “I want you to be quite clear about that.”
“An unusually good game,” said Munster. “You seem to be on song.”
“On song!” snorted Van Veeteren. “I’m just going through the death throes. I shall be under the surgeon’s knife tomorrow, let me remind you.”
“Oh yes, so you will,” said Munster, as if it wasn’t a fact that everybody at the police station knew all about it. “When exactly will it happen?”
“I’ll go in this evening. The operation is set for eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. Ah well, it happens to all of us sooner or later.”
“An uncle of mine has had cancer of the intestine,” said Munster. “They’ve operated on him twice. He’s fighting fit now.”
“How old is he?”
“Seventy, I think,” said Munster.
Van Veeteren muttered something and flopped down on
the bench.
“Let’s have a glass at Adenaar’s when we’ve been in the shower,” he said. “I want to hear about how you’re getting on.”
“OK,” said Munster. “I’ll have to ring Synn first, though.”
“By all means,” said Van Veeteren. “Give her my regards.”
He doesn’t think he’s going to pull through, Munster
thought, and it occurred to him that he felt sorry for his boss.
This was very definitely the first time ever, and it was a surprising feeling. He ducked under the shower and allowed the hot water to rinse away the smile it brought on.
But at Adenaar’s the detective chief inspector was his usual self again. He complained peevishly that there was water in his beer, and had his glass changed twice. Sent Munster to buy him some cigarettes. Knocked ash into the flowerpots.
“As I said, you’d better make the most of it while I’m still available. You’re not getting anywhere, I gather?”
Munster sighed, took a deep drink and started to explain the position.
No, he had to admit that Van Veeteren was quite right in his assumption. The unidentified body in Behren was still just as unidentified as ever. Two weeks had gone by, and they had made no progress.
Not that the effort being put in by everybody left anything to be desired; it was simply that it wasn’t producing any results. They had made several appeals, in the press, on the radio and on television. There was no doubt that the case fascinated the whole country, even if the interest of the mass 4 7
media had waned after the first week. Every missing-person case nationwide (males between forty and seventy, just to cover the unlikely possibility that Meusse had made a mistake) had been investigated, but none of them tallied: If it wasn’t the testicle business, it was something else. Rooth had contacted several hospitals and established that between nine thousand and ten thousand men in that age group were missing one testicle, for one reason or another. Considerably more than one might have guessed, but it was virtually impossible to follow all of them up via case notes and similar data, not least because of the secrecy oath applying to the medical profession. Munster had also been in touch with three or four prison governors, but found that checks on prisoners’ genitalia was regrettably not a priority as far as looking after criminals was concerned.
“It seems pretty pointless bothering about prisons,” Munster said. “That business of fingerprints was only a guess, after all.”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“What about the carpet?” he asked.
“Well,” said Munster, “we know quite a lot about it, of course. Do you want to hear it all?”
“In outline, please.”
“A cow-hair carpet. Fairly low quality, blue and green once upon a time. Five foot six by six foot six. Between thirty and forty years old, apparently. No manufacturers’ labels or similar stuff, quite worn even before it was used as a. . shroud.”
“Hmm,” said Van Veeteren.
“There are traces of dog hair and about fifty other things you find in every household. Brown paper string as well. Used to tie around the bundle, of course. A double strand wound around several times. The commonest kind. They sell about 250,000 yards of it every year. Nationwide, that is.”
Van Veeteren lit a cigarette.
“Anything more from Meusse?”
