and it was clear that it would be risky to continue much further.
But in all probability it wouldn’t be necessary anyway. The river bank was covered in alders and brushwood, and the belt of reeds extended a long way out into the water, fifty metres or more in places. She could hardly have asked for anything better. When she came to the first side-track leading inland, she paused and looked around. No sign of anybody. She turned off along the muddy path down to a jetty that ran in a sort of diamond shape round a tumbledown boathouse. Walked carefully along the shaky, slippery planks to where it changed direction like the apex of a triangle, and leaned against the boathouse wall while she pressed the air out of the package and tied the string tightly. Listened attentively, but there was no sound save for the distant, mournful cries of birds and the hum of traffic a long way off on the motorway. No sign of any people. No boats on the river. She took a deep breath and hurled the package out into the reeds. Heard the rattling noise as the brittle stalks snapped, and the dull plop when it dropped into the water.
That’s that, then, she thought. Looked around once more. Nothing. She was alone, and the deed was done.
She put her hands back into her pockets, and started to retrace her steps.
It took longer than she had expected. After all, she had walked quite a long way, and her knee was causing her serious pain now. She slowed down and tried to avoid putting any weight at all on her heel, but that just felt odd and unusual, and didn’t help much in the loose sand. By the time she returned to the built-up area it had started raining quite hard again, and she decided to allow herself a few minutes’ rest. She found a run-down and graffiti-covered bus shelter, sat down on the bench and tried to keep as warm as possible in the circumstances while observing the few people who had ventured out of doors on such a rainy morning. Three or four grim-faced dog owners. A jogger in a red tracksuit wearing headphones, and a down-and-out old man searching for empty bottles in the rubbish bins, dragging a shopping trolley behind him… A few steamed-up cars drove past, but no bus. But that didn’t matter – she wouldn’t know which one to catch anyway. After a while she really did feel freezing cold, and although she knew full well that signs of the rain easing off were mostly wishful thinking, she stood up and set off again. She noticed that she wasn’t thinking straight: thoughts were buzzing around inside her head like restless, nervous dreams; but before long everything was dominated by a desire to drink something hot. Or strong.
Or both.
When she finally returned to the neat little terraced house in Geldenerstraat it was ten minutes past one, and Emmeline von Post was accompanied at her kitchen table by Ruth Leverkuhn.
As soon as she saw her mother in the doorway, Ruth stood up. Cleared her throat, smoothed down her skirt, and made a sort of half-hearted gesture with her hands.
Marie-Louise stood still and stared at her daughter with her arms hanging down by her sides.
Neither of them said a word. Five seconds passed. Emmeline scraped her coffee cup against the saucer and watched the raindrops her friend had brought in with her dripping down onto the threshold and parts of the linoleum.
Do something, for God’s sake, she thought. Why does nobody say anything?
12
‘Well?’ said Munster. ‘I hope you caught them in your trap?’
They had bagged one of the window booths at Adenaar’s, and had made a start on the salad of the day.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Ewa Moreno. ‘Kicking and screaming in a net of lies… No, I don’t know. I only spoke to Wauters really. Palinski was about to leave for hospital for some sort of check-up. But I had the impression…’
She hesitated and stared out of the window.
‘What?’ said Munster. ‘What sort of an impression?’
‘That they are concealing something. I asked Wauters straight out if they’d won some money, and to tell you the truth I thought his reply seemed rehearsed. Raised eyebrows, broad gestures, the whole caboodle. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve hit the jackpot.’
‘But you didn’t press him?’
‘I’m not on form,’ said Moreno apologetically. ‘I told you that. I didn’t want to mess things up, I thought it would be better to question them one at a time at the police station instead. A lamp shining into their faces and all that. But they both seemed to be genuinely at a loss regarding Bonger. Wauters claimed he’d been to the boat, looking for him, and Palinski said he intended to call in on the way home from the hospital.’
Munster thought that over.
‘So your guess is that they’ve won some money, but that it hasn’t got anything to do with Bonger’s disappearance?’
Moreno nodded.
‘And hence nothing to do with Leverkuhn either,’ she said. ‘No, I reckon that would be an asumption too far. I think they are just scared of being suspected. Wauters at least is quite sharp, and he could well have realized the risk as soon as he heard what had happened to Leverkuhn… There are lots of old crime novels in his bookcase.’
‘They might be reluctant to give the widow a quarter share as well,’ Munster pointed out. ‘Anyway, we’ll give them a warm reception tomorrow morning. But let’s face it, it’s damned odd that Bonger should disappear in a puff of smoke the same night that Leverkuhn is murdered, don’t you think?’
‘Too right,’ said Moreno. ‘Have we issued a Wanted notice yet?’
Munster checked his watch.
‘It went out an hour ago.’
‘Does he have any relatives?’
‘A son in Africa. Nothing has been heard from him since 1985. And an elder sister with Alzheimer’s, in Gemejnte hospital. His wife died eight years ago – that was when he moved into the canal boat.’
Moreno nodded and said nothing for a while.
‘A strange crowd, this gang of old codgers,’ she said eventually.
‘They had one another,’ said Munster. ‘Shall we have coffee?’
‘Yes, let’s.’
In the end he couldn’t hold back any longer.
‘What about your personal life?’ he said. ‘How are things?’
Moreno contemplated the grey, misty view through the window once again, and Munster guessed she was weighing him up. Evidently he passed the test, for she took a deep breath and straightened her back.
‘I’ve moved,’ she said.
‘Away from Claus?’
He remembered his name in any case.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Munster, and waited.
‘It’s a month ago now,’ she went on after a while. ‘I have a friend who’s in Spain for six months, so I took the opportunity of borrowing her flat… It took two days before I was convinced that I’d done the right thing, and that I’d wasted five years.’
Munster tried to look on the bright side.
‘Some people waste a whole life,’ he said.
‘It’s not that,’ Moreno responded and sighed again. ‘It’s not that at all. I’m quite prepared to draw a line under it all and start afresh. Experience is experience, after all.’
‘Without a doubt,’ said Munster. ‘What doesn’t kill you toughens you up. What
‘Claus,’ she said, and the expression on her face was something he’d never seen before. ‘It’s Claus that’s the problem. I think… I don’t think he’s going to get over it.’
Munster said nothing.
‘For five bloody years I’ve been under the impression that he was the strong half of the duo, and that it was
