helped him to his feet and made sure he was on steadier ground in Zuyderstraat.
The rest of the walk home was a doddle, and he reached his flat just as the clock in the Keymer church struck a quarter to twelve.
But his wife wasn’t at home yet. Waldemar Leverkuhn closed the door without locking it, left his shoes, overcoat and jacket in the hall, and crept down into bed without more ado.
Two minutes later he was asleep. On his back and with his mouth wide open; and when a little later his rasping snores were silenced by a carving knife slicing twenty-eight times through his neck and torso, it is not clear if he knew anything about it.
2
The woman was as grey as dawn.
With her shoulders hunched up in her shabby coat, she sat opposite Intendent Munster, looking down at the floor. Showed no sign of touching either the mug of tea or the sandwiches froken Katz had been in with. There was an aura of weary resignation surrounding her, and Munster wondered for a moment if it might not be best to summon the doctor and give her an injection. Put her to bed for a rest instead of sitting here being tortured. Krause had already conducted a preliminary interrogation after all.
But as Van Veeteren used to say, the first few hours are the most important ones. And the first quarter of an hour weighs as much as the whole of the third week.
Assuming it was going to be a long-drawn-out business, of course. But you never knew.
He glanced at the clock. Six forty-five. All right, he thought. Just a quarter of an hour.
‘I’ll have to take the details one more time,’ he said. ‘Then you can get some sleep.’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t need to sleep.’
Munster read quickly through Krause’s notes.
‘So you got home at about two o’clock, is that right?’
‘Yes, about five past. There had been a power cut, and we’d been stuck in the train for over an hour. Just outside Voigtshuuis.’
‘Where had you been?’
‘Bossingen. Visiting a friend. We generally meet on a Saturday… not every week, but now and then. I’ve already told an officer this.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Munster. ‘What time was it when you set off from Bossingen?’
‘I took the twelve o’clock train. It leaves at 23.59, and is supposed to arrive at a quarter to one. But it was nearly two.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then I went home and found him.’
She shrugged, and fell silent. She still hadn’t raised her eyes. For a brief second Munster recalled a kitten that had been run over, which he’d found when he was ten or eleven. It was lying there, stuck to the asphalt in a pool of blood as he came cycling past, and it hadn’t raised its eyes either. It simply lay there, staring into the tall grass at the side of the road, waiting to die.
He wondered why that particular image had come back to him on this gloomy morning. It wasn’t fru Leverkuhn who was dying after all, it was her husband who was dead.
Murdered. Seventy-two years of age and he had met his killer, a killer who had found it safest to stab his knife into him between twenty and thirty times, making sure he would never again be able to get out of bed.
At some time between half past twelve and half past two, according to the preliminary forensic report which had been delivered shortly before Munster arrived at the police station.
A bit over the top, to be sure. One or two stabs would presumably have been enough. The loss of blood had been so great that for once it was justified to talk about bathing in his own blood. Apparently there was much more in the bed and on the floor than in the man’s body.
He eyed Marie-Louise Leverkuhn and waited for a few seconds.
‘And so you phoned the police straight away?’
‘Yes… er, no: I went outside for a bit first.’
‘Went outside? What on earth for?’
She shrugged once again.
‘I don’t know. I must have been in some sort of shock, I suppose… I think I was intending to walk to Entwick Plejn.’
‘Why did you want to go to Entwick Plejn?’
‘The police station. I was going to report it there… but then it dawned on me that it would be better to phone. I mean, it was late, and I supposed they would only be open there during office hours. Is that the case?’
‘I think so,’ said Munster. ‘What time did you get back?’
She thought for a moment.
‘Just after half past two, I suppose.’
Munster thumbed through his papers. That seemed to be right. The call had been recorded at 02.43.
‘I see here it says that the door wasn’t locked when you got home.’
‘No.’
‘Had somebody broken in?’
‘No. He sometimes forgot to lock it… or just didn’t bother.’
‘He seems to have been drinking quite heavily.’
She made no reply. Munster hesitated for a few moments.
‘Fru Leverkuhn,’ he said eventually, leaning forward over the desk and trying to fish her gaze up from the floor. ‘There is no doubt at all that your husband was murdered. Have you any idea who might have done it?’
‘No.’
‘Not the slightest little suspicion?… Somebody he might have fallen out with, or something of the sort?’
She shook her head ever so slightly.
‘Was anything missing from the flat? Apart from the knife, that is.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘No trace of the killer?’
‘No.’
‘Was there anything at all that you noticed, that you think might be of significance?’
A shudder ran through her body, and she raised her eyes at last.
‘No, everything was the same as usual, everything… Oh, what am I saying? I mean…’
‘It’s okay, I understand,’ said Munster. ‘It’s as you said, you’ve had a nasty shock. We’ll have a break now. I think it would be best if you have a lie-down for a while. I’ll send for a lady officer to look after you.’
He closed his notebook and stood up. Beckoned fru Leverkuhn to accompany him and opened the door for her. As she passed by close to him, he noticed her smell for the first time.
Moth balls, unless he was much mistaken.
Rooth looked very much like how Munster felt.
‘Have you been at it for long?’
Rooth stirred his coffee with a pencil.
‘You can say that again,’ he said. ‘When I was a kid we used to have something called Sunday mornings. Where have they gone to?’
‘No idea,’ said Munster. ‘You’ve been there, I take it?’
‘For three hours,’ said Rooth. ‘I got there shortly after Krause. Spent an hour looking at the bloodbath, two hours interviewing the neighbours. Krause looked after the wife.’
‘So I heard,’ said Munster. ‘What did the neighbours have to say?’
‘Unanimous information,’ Rooth explained as he dug a sandwich out of a plastic bag on his desk. ‘Would you like one?’
