‘Nobody has reported having done so yet, in any case. How’s the door-to-door going?’
Krause stretched.
‘We’ll have finished by this evening,’ he said. ‘But everything she says is unverified so far. And it’s likely to stay that way – the streets were pretty deserted, and there’s not much reason to stand gaping out of the window at that time either. But she ought to have passed Dusar’s cafe, where there were a few customers. We’ll check there this evening. But it was raining, as I said…’
Munster turned over a page.
‘The relatives,’ he said. ‘Three children. Between forty and fifty or thereabouts. Two of them are travelling here today and tomorrow – I’ve arranged to meet them. The elder daughter is in a psychiatric home somewhere, and I don’t think we have any reason to disturb her… No, I don’t suppose any of us thinks it’s a family affair, do we?’
‘Does anybody think anything at all?’ muttered Moreno, gazing down into her empty coffee mug.
‘I do,’ said Rooth. ‘My theory is that Leverkuhn was murdered. Shall we move on to the old codgers?’
Moreno and Jung reported on their visits to Wauters and Palinski, and the failed attempts to contact Bonger. Meanwhile Munster contemplated Moreno’s knees and thought about Synn. Rooth ate two more Danish pastries and Heinemann polished his thumbnails with his tie. Munster wondered vaguely if there really was a mood of despondency and a lack of active interest hanging over the whole group, or if it was just he who was affected. It was hard to say, and he made no effort to answer his own question.
‘So he’s disappeared, has he?’ said Rooth when Moreno and Jung had finished. ‘Bonger, I mean.’
Jung shrugged.
‘In any case, he hasn’t been home since last Saturday night.’
Krause cleared his throat to show signs of enthusiasm.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said. ‘Four old codgers, and two of them have gone. There must be a connection, surely. If they’ve all managed to hang on until they are past seventy, it’s surely pretty unlikely that one of them would disappear naturally the same night as another of them is murdered!’
‘“Disappear naturally”?’ said Jung. ‘What does that mean?’
‘What’s it to do with their age?’ Heinemann asked, frowning. ‘I’ve always been under the impression that your chances of dying are greater, the older you get. Isn’t that the case? Statistically, I mean…’
He looked round the table. Nobody seemed inclined to answer. Munster avoided his gaze and looked out of the window instead. Noted that it had started raining again. How old is Heinemann? he asked himself.
‘Anyway,’ said Rooth, ‘it’s possible of course that there’s a connection here. Do the other oldies know whether Bonger returned home at all on Saturday?’
Jung and Moreno looked at each other.
‘No,’ said Jung. ‘Not as far as they’ve told us, in any case. Shall we give ’em a grilling?’
‘Let’s wait for a bit with that,’ said Munster. ‘Tomorrow morning… If Bonger hasn’t turned up by then, presumably there’s something funny going on. He isn’t normally away from his boat for more than a few hours at a time, isn’t that what you said?’
‘That’s right,’ said Jung.
Silence again. Rooth scraped up a few crumbs from the empty plate where the pastries had been, and Heinemann returned to cleaning his glasses. Krause looked at the clock.
‘Anything else?’ he wondered. ‘What do we do now? Speculate?’
Nobody seemed especially enthusiastic about that either, but eventually Rooth said:
‘A madman, I’ll bet two cocktail sausages on it. An unplanned murder. The only motive we’ll ever find will be a junkie as high as a kite – or somebody on anabolics, of course. Did he need to be strong, by the way? What does Meusse have to say about that?’
‘No,’ said Munster. ‘He said… He maintained that with well-hung meat and a sharp knife you don’t need a lot of strength.’
‘Ugh, for Christ’s sake,’ said Rooth.
Munster looked round for any further comments, but as none was offered he realized that it was time to draw the meeting to a close.
‘You’re probably right,’ he said, turning to Rooth. ‘For as long as we don’t find a motive, that’s the most likely solution. Shall we send out a feeler in the direction of the drugs squad?’
‘Do that,’ said Moreno. ‘A feeler, but not one of us.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Munster promised.
Moreno stayed behind for a while after the others had left, and only then did Munster discover that he’d forgotten a detail.
‘Oh, shit! There was another thing,’ he said. ‘That story about having won some money – can there be anything in it?’
Moreno looked up from the photograph she was studying with reluctance.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
Munster hesitated.
‘Four old codgers club together and win some money,’ he said. ‘Two of them kill off the other two, and hey presto! They’ve suddenly won twice as much.’
Moreno said nothing for a few moments.
‘Really?’ she said eventually. ‘You think that’s what happened?’
Munster shook his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s just that froken Gautiers down at Freddy’s said something about a win, and she admits herself that she’s only guessing… But I suppose we ought to look into it.’
‘Rather that than drugs,’ said Moreno. ‘I’ll take that on.’
Munster was about to ask why she was so strongly opposed to the murky narcotics scene, but then he recalled another detail.
Inspector Moreno had a younger sister.
Or did have, rather. He thought for a moment. Maybe that was what was depressing her, he thought. But then he noted her hunched shoulders and tousled hair, and realized there must be something else as well. Something quite different. Apart from Synn, Inspector Moreno was the most beautiful woman he had ever had the pleasure of coming into anything like good contact with. But right now she looked distinctly human.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
She sighed deeply twice before replying.
‘I feel so bloody awful.’
‘I can see that,’ Munster said. ‘Personal problems?’
What an idiotic question, he thought. I sound like an emasculated social care worker.
But she merely shrugged and twisted her mouth into an ironic smile.
‘What else?’
‘I tell you what,’ said Munster, playing the man of cunning and checking his watch. ‘You go and check up on the old codgers and I’ll talk to Ruth Leverkuhn – and then we’ll have lunch at Adenaar’s. One o’clock. Okay?’
Moreno gave him a searching look.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But I won’t be very good company.’
‘So what?’ said Munster. ‘We can always concentrate on the food.’
9
‘And what’s strange about that?’
The powerfully built woman glared threateningly at Rooth from behind her fringe, and it occurred to him that he wouldn’t have a chance against her if it came to hand-to-hand fighting. He would need a gun.
‘My dear fru Van Eck,’ he said nevertheless, taking a sip of the insipid coffee her husband had made in response to her explicit command. ‘Surely you can understand even so? An unknown person gets into the building, up the stairs, into the Leverkuhns’ flat. He – or she, for that matter – stabs herr Leverkuhn twenty-eight times and
