Mauritz shrugged, and his aggression crumbled away.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But you must leave her in peace.’
‘We’ve received a letter,’ Munster repeated.
‘I don’t understand why they should want to write to you. What do they say?’
Munster ignored the question.
‘Do you have much contact with her?’ he asked instead.
‘You can’t come into contact with Irene,’ said Mauritz. ‘She’s ill. Very ill.’
‘We’ve gathered that,’ said Munster. ‘But that wouldn’t prevent you from visiting her now and again, surely.’
Mauritz hesitated for a few seconds, and took a drink from his glass.
‘I don’t want to see her. Not the way she’s become.’
‘Wasn’t she your favourite sister in the old days?’
‘That’s nothing to do with you,’ he said, and the irritation was returning. Munster decided to back off.
‘I apologize,’ he said. ‘I realize that this must be difficult for you. It’s not a lot of fun having to sit here and ask you such questions either. But that’s my job.’
No answer.
‘When did you last visit her?’
Mauritz seemed to be considering whether or not to refuse to make any comment. He wiped his brow again and looked wearily at Munster.
‘I’m running a temperature,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Munster.
‘I haven’t been there for a year.’
Munster made a note and thought that over.
‘Not for a year?’
‘No.’
‘Did your parents use to visit her?’
‘My mother did, I think.’
‘Your other sister, Ruth?’
‘I don’t know.’
Munster paused and studied the pale grey walls.
‘When did you split up from that woman?’ he asked eventually.
‘What?’ said Mauritz.
‘That woman you used to live with. When did she move out?’
‘I don’t understand what that has to do with it.’
‘But would you kindly answer the question even so,’ said Munster.
Mauritz closed his eyes and breathed heavily.
‘Joanna,’ he said, and opened his eyes. ‘She left me in October. She’d only been living here for a couple of weeks. We fell out, as I said.’
October, Munster thought. Everything happens in October.
‘These things happen,’ he said.
‘Yes, they do,’ said Mauritz. ‘I’m tired. I must take a pill and go to bed.’
He sneezed twice, as if to stress the point. Fished out a crumpled handkerchief and blew his nose. Munster waited.
‘I understand that you’re not in good shape,’ he said. ‘I’ll soon be leaving you in peace. But do you remember the de Grooit family or Lene Bauer?’
‘Who?’
‘Lene. She was called Gruijtsen in those days. You sometimes went on holiday together. In the sixties.’
‘Ah, Lene! Good Lord, I was only a kid then. She spent most of the time with Ruth.’
‘And that episode in the shed – no doubt you remember that?’
‘What bloody shed?’ asked Mauritz Leverkuhn.
‘When you hid there instead of going to school.’
Mauritz took two deep, wheezing breaths.
‘I haven’t a clue what you’re on about,’ he said. ‘Not a bloody clue.’
Munster checked into a hotel down by the harbour which seemed about as run-down as he felt. Showered, then dined in the restaurant in the company of two decrepit old ladies and a few members of a handball team from Oslo. Then he returned to his room and made two phone calls.
The first was to Synn and Marieke (Bart was not at home, as it was a Wednesday and hence film club at school). Marieke was being visited by a girlfriend who would be sleeping over, and hence only had time to ask him what time he’d be coming home. He spoke to his wife for one and a half minutes.
Then Moreno. It lasted nearly half an hour, and of course that said quite a lot in itself. She informed him about the new plastic carrier bag in Weyler’s Woods, and the ongoing investigation into the scrap of newspaper; but most of the time they talked about other things.
Afterwards he couldn’t really remember what. He spent an hour watching three different films on the television, then showered again and went to bed. It was only eleven o’clock, but he was still awake when the clocks struck two.
36
Thursday, 8 January was a comparatively fine day in Maardam. No sun, certainly, but on the other hand no rain – apart from a couple of hesitant drops just before dawn. And a good five degrees above freezing.
Quite bearable, in other words; and there was also a feeling of cautious optimism and a belief in the future about continued efforts to throw light on the Leverkuhn case.
The Leverkuhn-Van Eck-Bonger case.
Reports from the Forensic Chemistry Lab were arriving in quick succession, but today both Reinhart and Rooth were content to follow developments by telephone. They didn’t want to suck up too much to Intendent Mulder after all, and they did have other business to attend to…
The first message arrived at ten o’clock. New analyses of the typeface and paper showed that in all probability the Van Eck strip of paper had come from one of two publications.
It took Ewa Moreno five seconds to hit upon the possible link with the Leverkuhns.
Pixner’s. Waldemar Leverkuhn had worked – for how long was it? Ten years? – at the Pixner Brewery, and the
‘Leverkuhn,’ said Moreno when she, Reinhart, Rooth and Jung gathered for a run-through in Reinhart’s office. ‘It comes from the Leverkuhns, I’d bet my reputation on it!’
‘Steady on,’ said Reinhart, enveloping her in a cloud of tobacco smoke. ‘We mustn’t jump to conclusions, as they say in Hollywood.’
‘Your reputation?’ said Jung.
‘Metaphorically speaking,’ said Moreno.
After a few productive telephone calls they had discovered all they needed to know about both magazines.
‘Bloody bourgeois rag,’ said Reinhart.
‘For the bastards who decide the fate of the world,’ said Rooth.
