in the flat at seven o’clock?’
‘It could have been one of the other people in the building, of course,’ said Munster. ‘Hypothetically, at least. I think it’s best to discuss that later, when we start looking at links with the other case – Waldemar Leverkuhn. But as for the person who was heard inside the flat, it could have been anybody at all.’
‘The murderer, for instance?’ said Reinhart.
‘For instance,’ said Munster.
‘These Leverkuhns?’ wondered Reinhart.
Munster sighed and turned over a page.
‘I don’t really know, to be honest,’ he said. ‘On the surface it all seems crystal clear…’
‘Some surfaces can be both crystal clear and paper thin,’ said Reinhart. ‘I’ve been following it to some extent in the newspapers, but we all know how they report things.’
‘Start from the beginning,’ said the chief of police.
‘Saturday, the 25th of October,’ said Munster. ‘That’s when it all begins. Fru Leverkuhn comes home and finds her husband stabbed to death in his bed. We launch an investigation, of course, and after ten days she phones us and confesses to having done it herself. In an attack of anger. We spend a week interrogating her thoroughly, and before long both we and the prosecutor think we have enough evidence. Anyway, things then follow the usual path, the trial begins in the middle of December and it’s over after three or four days. Nothing remarkable. The prosecutor presses for murder, the defence for manslaughter. While waiting for the verdict, on Sunday the 21st, she hangs herself in her cell… She plaits a rope from strips of blanket and manages to hook it onto a jutting-out piece of pipe in a corner of her cell. Obviously, quite a lot has been said about how that could come about, so perhaps we don’t need to go into it here. She’s left a suicide note as well, in which she wrote that she had decided to take her own life in view of the circumstances.’
‘The circumstances?’ said Reinhart. ‘What bloody circumstances?’
‘That she’d killed her husband, and had nothing to look forward to apart from several years behind bars,’ said Moreno.
‘It’s not exactly difficult to understand her motive,’ said Munster. ‘But what is difficult to explain is why she waited so long. Why she allowed herself to be arrested and charged and put on show in court before putting an end to it all.’
‘Didn’t she write anything about that in the letter?’ wondered Reinhart.
Munster shook his head.
‘No. It was just a few lines, and of course you can’t expect logical reasoning. She must have been pretty exhausted mentally, and a decision like that must take a lot of time to come to, I’d have thought.’
‘You’d think so,’ said Rooth.
Heinemann cleared his throat and put his glasses on the table.
‘I’ve spoken to a woman by the name of Regine Svendsen,’ he began pensively. ‘A former colleague of fru Leverkuhn’s. We spoke about precisely these psychological aspects. She seems to have known her quite well – until a few years ago, at least. It’s obviously risky to draw conclusions in cases like this, and she was careful to stress that-’
‘Well, what did she say?’ Rooth cut in. ‘If we cut out the crap.’
‘Hmm,’ said Heinemann. ‘You could sum up the gist by saying that fru Leverkuhn was a very strong woman. Quite capable of doing all kinds of things. There was a sort of incorruptibility about her, according to fru Svendsen. Or something of the sort, at least.’
‘Really?’ said Munster. ‘Well, obviously she has displayed an ability to take action in this case, there’s no denying that.’
‘Have you found any diaries?’ Heinemann asked.
‘Diaries?’ Munster repeated.
‘Yes,’ said Heinemann. ‘I spoke to this woman only yesterday – she’d been away, so I haven’t been able to report on it until now. Anyway, she claims that Marie-Louise Leverkuhn has kept a diary all her life, and if that’s the case and we could manage to take a look at it – or them – well, maybe we could get some insight into quite a lot of things…’
There was a moment’s silence, then Hiller cleared his throat.
‘Yes indeed,’ he said. ‘I suggest you go and look for these diaries – it shouldn’t be too difficult, surely?’
Munster looked at Moreno.
‘We’ve… Obviously we’ve searched Leverkuhn’s flat,’ said Moreno. ‘But we weren’t looking for diaries.’
‘According to fru Svendsen there should be eight to ten of them,’ said Heinemann. ‘She’s seen them, but never read them, of course. Ordinary notebooks with black oilcloth covers, apparently. Each one covering three or four years. Just short notes, presumably.’
‘That would cover no more than about thirty years,’ said Reinhart. ‘I thought she was older than that?’
Heinemann shrugged.
‘Don’t ask me,’ he said. ‘But I thought it was worth mentioning, anyway.’
Munster made a note and thought about it, but hadn’t reached any conclusion before the chief of police once again took command.
‘Go there and start looking!’ he said. ‘Search the whole damned flat, and dig them out. The place is still under guard, I take it? That wouldn’t be unusual, surely?’
‘Not unusual at all,’ said Munster with a sigh. ‘Obviously. I don’t think she had a notebook with her while she was under arrest in any case – but she might have stopped keeping a diary in her old age, perhaps. How long is it since this Regine Svendsen was last in touch with her?’
‘About five years,’ said Heinemann. ‘They worked together at Lippmann’s.’
Reinhart had been filling his pipe for several minutes, under Hiller’s stern gaze. Now he put it in his mouth, leaned back on his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.
‘The link, what about that detail?’ he said. ‘And wasn’t there somebody else who came to grief?’
Munster sighed again.
‘Absolutely right,’ he said. ‘We have a certain Felix Bonger who’s disappeared as well. One of Leverkuhn’s mates. He hasn’t been seen since the night Leverkuhn was killed.’
But now Chief of Police Hiller had had enough. He stopped observing Reinhart’s tobacco activities and tapped demonstratively on the table with his Ballograph.
‘Now listen here,’ he said. ‘You must damned well make up your minds whether these cases are linked or not – I thought we’d already done that, as a matter of fact. Is there anything – anything at all! – to suggest that Leverkuhn’s and fru Van Eck’s deaths are connected in any way?’
‘Well,’ said Munster, ‘one has to say it’s not all that usual for two people living in the same building to be murdered within only a few days of each other, and-’
‘I regard the Leverkuhn case as finished and done with!’ interrupted Hiller. ‘At least as long as nothing completely new comes to light. What we have to do now is to find out who murdered Else Van Eck. Mind you, if it was fru Leverkuhn who did her in as well, that would suit me down to the ground.’
‘A neat solution,’ said Reinhart. ‘The chief of police ought to have become a police officer.’
That put Hiller off for a moment, but then he continued with undiminished authority:
‘As for this Bonger character, he’s disappeared, and I take it for granted that we shall pursue the same procedures as we would for any other similar case – routine missing person procedures, that is.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Incidentally, I have a meeting in five minutes.’
‘Perhaps we should have a smoking break,’ said Reinhart. ‘We’re about due for one.’
‘Does anybody else wish to say anything?’ asked Munster diplomatically.
‘Personally, I could do with a cup of coffee,’ said Rooth.
‘You look a bit tired,’ said Moreno, closing the door.
‘That’s probably because I am a bit tired,’ said Munster. ‘I was supposed to be off for seven days over the holidays: I was actually off for two and a half.’
‘Not much fun when you have a family, I suppose.’
Munster pulled a face,
‘Yes, having a family is great. It’s all this bloody work that isn’t so great. It makes you lose heart.’
Moreno sat down opposite him, and waited for him to continue.
