watched his activities in silence.
‘Do you think she didn’t do it?’ asked Van Veeteren after his first drag. ‘Or what’s the problem?’
Munster shrugged.
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I suppose it must have been her, but that’s not the end of the case. We have fru Van Eck and that damned Bonger as well. Nobody’s seen any trace of either of them since they vanished, and that was over a month ago now.’
‘And fru Leverkuhn has nothing to do with them?’
‘Not a thing. If you can believe what she says, that is. We pressed her pretty hard once she’d confessed, but she didn’t give an inch. She owns up to stabbing her husband in a fit of anger, but she’s as innocent as a newborn babe as far as the others are concerned, she claims.’
‘Why did she kill her husband?’
‘Why indeed?’ said Munster glumly. ‘She just says it was the last straw.’
‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘What kind of a straw could that have been; was she more precise about it? If we assume that the camel’s back was full.’
‘That he’d won some money, but didn’t intend to give her a penny. She says she came home and found him lying in bed bragging about all the things he was going to buy, and after a while she’d had enough.’
Van Veeteren drew on his cigarette and thought for a moment.
‘I suppose it could happen like that,’ he said. ‘Is she the type?’
Munster scratched his head.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘If we assume that she’s been leading that camel all her life – or throughout their marriage at any rate – well, I suppose it could be true; but it’s hard for an outsider to judge. That’s her story in any case – that she’s had to put up with this and that for what seemed to be for ever, and she simply couldn’t take it any more. Something snapped inside her, she says, and so she did it.’
Van Veeteren leaned back and stared up at the ceiling.
‘Theories?’ he said eventually. ‘Do you have any? What do you think? About the Van Eck woman, for instance?’
Munster suddenly looked almost unhappy.
‘I’ve no bloody idea,’ he said. ‘Not the slightest. As I said before, I find it difficult to believe that these three cases are not connected in some way. It seems pretty unlikely that Bonger, Leverkuhn and fru Van Eck would all kick the bucket in the same way purely by chance.’
‘You don’t know that Bonger and Van Eck are dead,’ Van Veeteren pointed out. ‘Or have I missed something?’
Munster sighed.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t exactly make things any easier if they’ve simply gone missing.’
Van Veeteren said nothing for a few seconds.
‘Presumably not,’ he said eventually. ‘What have you done about it? From the point of view of the investigation, I mean. You presumably haven’t just wandered around thinking this?’
‘Not a lot,’ Munster admitted. ‘Since the prosecutor charged fru Leverkuhn, we’ve only been going through the routine motions as far as Bonger and fru Van Eck are concerned.’
‘Who’s in charge of the investigation?’ asked Van Veeteren.
‘I am,’ said Munster, taking another swig of beer. ‘But once fru Leverkuhn is sentenced Hiller is probably going to shelve the other cases. That will be next week. There are a few other things to keep us occupied.’
‘Really?’ said Van Veeteren.
He drained his glass and signalled for another. While waiting for it to be served, he sat in silence with his chin resting on his knuckles as he gazed out of the window at the traffic and the pigeons in Karlsplats. When the beer arrived he first siphoned off the froth, then almost emptied it in one enormous swig.
‘Very good!’ he announced. ‘All that exercise makes you thirsty. So why exactly did you want to speak to me?’
Munster suddenly looked embarrassed. He never learns, Van Veeteren thought. But then, perhaps it’s not a bad thing to have a few red cheeks in the police force. It makes things seem nice and peaceful.
‘Well?’
Munster cleared his throat.
‘All that stuff about intuition. I thought I’d ask the chief… ask you to do me a favour, to be frank.’
‘I’m all ears,’ said Van Veeteren.
Munster squirmed on his chair.
‘The trial,’ he said. ‘It would be good to get an idea of whether she really is as guilty and as innocent as she says. Fru Leverkuhn, that is. If somebody with an eye for such things could go and take a look at her. Whether she’s found guilty or not.’
‘Which she will be?’ said Van Veeteren.
‘I think so,’ said Munster.
Van Veeteren frowned and contemplated his cigarette machine.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll go there and take a look at her, then.’
‘Excellent,’ said Munster. ‘Many thanks. Room 4. But it’ll be all over by Friday, if I’m not much mistaken.’
‘I’ll go tomorrow,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘The eagle’s eye never sleeps.’
Huh, big chief him never wrong, Munster thought. But he said nothing.
24
‘Tell me about when you came home in the early hours of 26 October!’
Prosecutor Grootner pushed up her spectacles and waited. Marie-Louise Leverkuhn took a sip of water from the glass on the table in front of her. Cleared her throat and straightened her back.
‘I got home at about two o’clock,’ she said. ‘There had been a power cut on the railway line to Bossingen and Lohr. We were at a standstill for an hour. I’d been to visit a friend.’
She looked up at the public gallery, as if she were looking for a face. The prosecutor made no attempt to hurry her, and after a while she continued of her own accord.
‘My husband woke up as I came through the door into the bedroom, and started making abusive remarks.’
‘Abusive remarks?’ wondered the prosecutor.
‘Because I’d woken him up. He claimed I’d done it on purpose. Then he went on and on.’
‘How did he go on?’
‘He said he’d won some money, and that he was going to spend it so that he didn’t have to see me so often.’
‘Did he usually say things like that?’
‘It happened. When he’d been drinking.’
‘Was he drunk that evening?’
‘Yes.’
‘How drunk?’
‘He was pretty far gone. Slurring when he spoke.’
Short pause. The prosecutor nodded thoughtfully several times.
‘Please continue now, fru Leverkuhn.’
‘Well, I went out into the kitchen and saw the knife lying on the draining board. I’d used it when I’d been cutting up some ham that afternoon.’
‘What did you think when you saw the knife?’
‘Nothing. I think I just picked it up to wash it and put it back in the drawer.’
‘Is that what you did?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Did you wash the knife, in fact?’
