Post-war optimism, Munster thought. A monument to an age.
And to a generation that was disappearing into the grave.
Like fru de Grooit and the Leverkuhns.
I’ll never get any further with this damned case, he thought as he settled behind the wheel of his car. It’s going to stand as still as Pampas. Nothing more is going to happen.
But that is where Intendent Munster was wrong.
In spades.
28
If her boyfriend hadn’t given her the boot the previous evening – on 20 December – Vera Kretschke would presumably have slept a bit better.
If she had slept a bit better, she would obviously have been able to run all the way round her jogging route without any problems. She usually did.
If she had managed to run all the way, she certainly wouldn’t have stopped after fifteen hundred metres and started walking instead of running.
And if she hadn’t started walking as slowly as she did, well, she would never have noticed that yellow bit of plastic sticking up from the undergrowth in among the trees a few metres from the path.
Probably not, in any case.
And then… then that awful image would not be filling her head like a lump of hot goo, preventing her from having much in the way of rational thoughts.
That’s what she was thinking as she lay in bed that same evening in her old, secure, childhood room, waiting for Reuben to ring despite everything – if not to apologize and take back what he’d said, then at least so that she could tell him what had happened while she was out jogging that morning.
Jogging and walking.
What an ugly sight, she thought, and stopped. Why couldn’t people dispose of things in the right place instead of out here in the forest?
Weyler’s Woods nature park was not large, but it was popular and well looked-after. There were waste paper bins and rubbish bins alongside all the paths for walkers and joggers that criss-crossed the forest in all directions, and she didn’t usually need to stop and pick up rubbish that had been dumped like this.
Occasionally an ice-lolly stick or an empty cigarette packet, perhaps, but not a big plastic carrier bag.
Vera Kretschke was the chairman of her school’s environmental society – had been for the last three terms – and she felt a certain responsibility.
She stepped out resolutely into the undergrowth. Shook the raindrops off the young birch sapling before ducking down underneath it and pulling out the plastic carrier bag. Most of it had been hidden under leaves and twigs, and she had to pull quite hard to get it loose.
Dirty bastards, she thought. Filthy pigs.
Then she looked inside the bag.
It contained a head. A woman’s head.
She started vomiting without being able to stop it. It simply came spurting out of her, just as it had done that time a few years ago when she’d eaten something very dodgy at the Indian restaurant in the centre of town.
Some of it went into the bag as well. Which naturally didn’t make matters any better.
And Reuben didn’t phone, so there was another sleepless night in store for poor Vera Kretschke.
‘Fucking hell!’ roared Inspector Fuller. ‘This sort of thing simply shouldn’t happen.’
Warder Schmidt shook his large head and looked unhappy.
‘But it has happened…’
‘How the hell did she do it?’ said Fuller.
Schmidt sighed.
‘Ripped up the blanket to make a rope, I think. And then used that little bit of pipe high up in the corner – we’ve talked about that before.’
‘I take it you’ve cut her down?’
‘No…’ Schmidt shuffled and squirmed uneasily. ‘No, we thought you might like to take a look at her first.’
‘Hell’s bells,’ muttered Fuller, getting to his feet.
‘We only found her a couple of minutes ago,’ said Schmidt apologetically. ‘Wacker is there now, but she’s dead, there’s no doubt about that. And there’s a letter on the table as well.’
But Inspector Fuller had already elbowed his way past and was charging down the corridor towards cell number 12.
Damn and blast, thought Schmidt. And it’s my birthday today.
When Fuller had established that fru Leverkuhn really was in the state that had been reported, he arranged for a dozen photographs to be taken and had her cut down. Then he sent for a doctor, took a couple of tablets to calm his upset stomach, and phoned Intendent Munster.
Munster took the lift down and eyed the dead woman on the bed in her cell for ten seconds. Asked Fuller how the hell something like this could happen, then took the lift back up to his office.
When he had read the letter twice, he rang Moreno and explained the situation.
‘Quite unambiguous,’ said Moreno after reading Marie-Louise Leverkuhn’s final message to the world.
‘Yes, very clear,’ said Munster. ‘She’s done her husband in, and now it was her turn. She was a woman of action, nobody can take that from her.’
He stood up and looked out at the rain.
‘But it’s a bugger that she’s committed suicide in her cell,’ he muttered. ‘They’ll have to revise their procedures. Hiller looked like a plum about to explode when he heard about it.’
‘I can well imagine,’ said Moreno. ‘But she did it well. Did you see the rope she’d made? Plaited four strands thick, it must have taken her several hours. A man would never have been able to do it.’
Munster said nothing. A few seconds of silence passed.
‘Why did she do it?’ asked Moreno. ‘I mean, you can understand that she didn’t particularly fancy spending the last years of her life in prison, but… Was it only that?’
‘What else could it be?’ said Munster. ‘I reckon that’s a good enough reason. If there’s anything to wonder about, it’s why she waited until now. It’s not exactly straightforward to commit suicide in a prison cell. Even if you are skilled, and the routines are bad. Or was it something else, d’you think? Why now?’
Moreno shrugged.
‘I don’t know. But there doesn’t seem much point in speculating now. We’ve got the key, after all.’
Munster sighed, and turned round.
‘What a pointless life,’ he said.
‘Marie-Louise Leverkuhn’s?’
‘Yes. Can you see any point in it? She had murdered her husband, then killed herself. One of her children is in a psychiatric hospital, and the other two are not exactly the life and soul of any party. No grandchildren. Well, you tell me if there’s some point that I’ve missed.’
Moreno glanced at the letter again. Folded it up and put it back in the envelope.
‘No,’ she said. ‘But that’s the way it is. It’s hardly likely to be a story with a happy end if we’re involved in it.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Munster. ‘But there ought to be limits nevertheless… The occasional little diamond among all the shit. What are you doing for Christmas?’
Moreno pulled a face.
‘The main thing is that I don’t have to see Claus,’ she said. ‘He’s due back tomorrow. At first I intended working over the holidays, but then I bumped into an old friend who had just been dumped. We’re taking six bottles of wine with us to her house by the sea.’
Munster smiled. Didn’t dare ask about details of the Claus situation. Or what state she was in now. There were certain things that were nothing to do with him, and the less he asked, the better. It was safer that
