going through the facts, we can see where we’ve got to… Knowledge is the mother of guesses, as Reinhart usually says. We don’t know a lot, but we do know a bit.’
‘Let’s hear it, then,’ said Rooth. ‘But bollocks to poetry for the time being.’
‘The weapon…’ said Munster, refusing to react, ‘the weapon seems to have been a pretty substantial knife. The blade was at least twenty centimetres long. Sharpened and sharp – presumably a carving knife pretty similar to the one fru Leverkuhn described, and which, according to the same source, disappeared from its place in the kitchen at some point on the evening of the murder…’
‘And which now,’ said Rooth, ‘is almost certainly lying at the bottom of one of the canals. I may be wrong, but a quick calculation suggests that we have about five thousand metres to choose from…’
‘Hmm,’ said Heinemann. ‘Interesting. Purely from the point of view of probability, that is. Three thousand drug addicts times five thousand metres of canal… That means that if we’re going to find both the killer and the murder weapon, the chances are… one in about fifteen million…’
He leaned back in his chair and smoothed down his tie over his stomach.
‘How nice to see that we’re all so optimistic,’ said Moreno as Jung appeared in the doorway.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘But I was on official-’
‘Excellent,’ interrupted Rooth. ‘Sit down!’
Munster cleared his throat. If only I could give all these comedy shows a miss, he thought. I’m not sufficiently arrogant yet, but no doubt that’ll come.
‘Regarding the time,’ he said, ‘we can assume that Leverkuhn was murdered at some time between a quarter past one and a quarter past two. When I pressed Meusse a bit, he leaned towards the later half-hour, in other words between a quarter to and a quarter past two.’
‘Hm,’ said Heinemann. ‘What time did his wife get home?’
‘Three or four minutes past,’ said Moreno.
‘That narrows things down, then,’ said Krause. ‘Assuming Meusse is right, that is.’
‘Meusse hasn’t got anything wrong for the past fifteen years,’ said Rooth. ‘So, between a quarter to two and two. She must have been pretty damned close to bumping into him. Have we checked if she noticed anybody?’
‘Yes,’ said Krause. ‘Negative.’
‘She could have been the one who did it, of course,’ Heinemann pointed out. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t exclude that possibility. Sixty per cent of all men are murdered by their wives.’
‘What the hell are you saying?’ wondered Rooth. ‘Thank God I’m not married.’
‘What I mean is…’ said Heinemann.
‘We know what you mean,’ said Munster with a sigh. ‘We can discuss fru Leverkuhn’s credibility later, but we’ll take the report from the lab first.’
He fished the relevant papers out of the folder.
‘There was a hell of a lot of blood,’ he continued, ‘both in the bed and on the floor. But they haven’t found any leads. No fingerprints, apart from the victim’s and a couple of old ones of the wife’s – and the only mark on the floor was also from her: a footprint she made when she went in and found him. They had separate bedrooms, as I said earlier.’
‘What about the rest of the flat?’ Moreno asked.
‘Only her fingerprints there as well.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Heinemann. ‘Did she really go right up to the bed? Surely that wasn’t necessary. She must have seen that he was dead before she entered the room. We’d better look into whether she really needed to rummage around at the scene of the crime like that-’
Krause interrupted him.
‘It was dark when she went in, she claims. Then she realized something was wrong and went back to switch on the light.’
‘Aha,’ said Heinemann.
‘That fits in with the footprints in the blood,’ explained Munster. ‘You might think it seems odd that the murderer could flee the scene without leaving any trace, but Meusse says that wouldn’t be anything remarkable. There was an awful lot of blood, but it wasn’t spurting out: most of it apparently ran out when the attack was over and done with, as it were. Evidently it depends on which sort of artery you happen to hit first.’
‘An old man’s blood,’ said Rooth. ‘Viscous.’
‘That’s right,’ said Munster. ‘It’s not even certain that the murderer would get any blood on his hand. Not very much, in any case.’
‘Great,’ said Jung. ‘So we haven’t got a single bloody clue from the forensic boys… Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Hrrm,’ said Munster, ‘I’m afraid that’s the way it looks, yes.’
‘Good,’ said Rooth. ‘In that case we’d better all have a cup of coffee. Otherwise we’ll get depressed.’
He looked benevolently round the table.
We could do with a chief inspector here, thought Munster as he rose to his feet.
But that’s the way it was… Munster leaned back in his chair and raised his arms towards the ceiling while Rooth and froken Katz passed round mugs and saucers.
Exactly the way it was. For just over a year now their notorious chief inspector had been on leave, devoting himself to antiquarian books rather than to police work – and there were indications that he had no intention of returning to police duties at all.
Quite a lot of indications, to be honest. It was Chief of Police Hiller who had insisted on what he called ‘leave of absence’. Van Veeteren himself – as Munster understood it at least – had been prepared to resign once and for all. To burn all his bridges.
And in fact Munster couldn’t help envying him just a little. The last time he had popped into Krantze’s – a cloudy afternoon in the middle of September – he had found Van Veeteren lounging back in a worn leather armchair, right at the rear of the shop under overloaded bookshelves, with an old folio volume on his knee and a glass of red wine on the arm rest. With that peaceful expression on his face he had looked not unlike a Tibetan lama.
So there was good reason to assume that Van Veeteren had drawn a line under his police career.
And Reinhart! Munster thought. Detective Intendent Reinhart had spent the last three weeks at home babbling away to his eight-month-old daughter. Rumour had it that he intended to continue doing that until Christmas. An intention that – it was said – made Chief of Police Hiller froth at the mouth and turn cross-eyed in frustration. Temporarily, at least.
There had been no question of appointing replacements, not for either of these two heavyweights. If there was an opportunity to cut down on expenditure, that was of course what was done. No matter what the cost.
The times they are a-changin’, Munster thought, taking a Danish pastry.
‘The wife’s a bit odd though, don’t you think?’ suggested Krause. ‘Or at least, her behaviour is.’
‘I agree,’ said Munster. ‘We must talk to her again… Today or tomorrow. But of course it’s hardly surprising if she seems a bit confused.’
‘In what way has she seemed confused?’ asked Heinemann.
‘Well,’ said Munster, ‘the times she gave are obviously correct. She did travel on the train she said she was on, and there really was a power failure last Saturday night. They didn’t get to the Central Station until a quarter to two, an hour late, so she should have been at home roughly when she claims. One of the neighbours thinks he heard her as well. So, she finds her husband dead a few minutes past two, but she doesn’t ring the police until 02.43. During that time she was out – she says she was going to report the incident at Entwick Plejn police station. But she goes back home when she discovers it’s closed… I suppose one could have various views about that. Does anyone wish to comment?’
A few seconds passed.
‘Confused,’ said Rooth eventually. ‘Excessively confused.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Moreno. ‘But wouldn’t it be more abnormal to behave normally in a situation like this? Mind you, she’d have had plenty of time to get rid of the knife – half an hour, at least.’
‘Did anybody see her while she was taking that walk?’ Heinemann wondered.
Munster shook his head.
