all, everything seemed to confirm what they had guessed must be the facts. Marie-Louise Leverkuhn had used the Central Station as a storage depot for a few days, or a day or so at least, before finally disposing of the butchered caretaker’s wife in Weyler’s Woods. Simple and painless. A neat solution, as somebody had said.
Nevertheless, on the way home she stopped to check the buses leaving the Central Station. It fitted in. There was such a bus. Number sixteen. It ran every twenty minutes during working hours. Once an hour if you preferred to work under the cover of darkness. Nothing could have been simpler.
But she would wait until tomorrow before reporting this. Unless Intendent Munster got in touch during the evening: that would obviously present an opportunity to report then.
It could well be an advantage to have something concrete to talk about. She had begun to feel more and more clearly that she was standing with at least one foot on the wrong side of the border. That border you had to stake everything on not crossing – not least because all the roads over it were so definitely one way only. Once over it, there was no going back.
In the next life I’m going to be a lioness, Moreno thought, and made up her mind to sublimate all her desires and indeed the whole of the world by jumping into the bath and having a long soak in jujuba oil and lavender.
‘You again?’ said Mauritz Leverkuhn.
‘Me again,’ said Munster.
‘I don’t get the point of this,’ said Mauritz. ‘I’ve nothing more to talk to you about.’
‘But I have quite a lot to talk to you about,’ said Munster. ‘Are you going to let me in?’
Mauritz hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and went into the living room. Munster closed the door behind him and followed. It looked the same as it had done on his first visit. The same advertising leaflets were lying in the same place on the table, and the same glass was standing beside the easy chair in which Mauritz was now sitting.
But the television was on. A programme in which four colourfully dressed women were sitting on two sofas, laughing. Mauritz pressed a button on the remote control, and switched them off.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Munster, ‘I have quite a lot to talk to you about. I’ve been talking to your sister this afternoon.’
‘Ruth?’
‘No, Irene.’
Mauritz made no reply, didn’t react.
‘I spent several hours at the Gellner Home, in fact,’ said Munster. ‘You’ve been lying to me.’
‘Lying?’ said Mauritz.
‘Did you not say yesterday that you hadn’t been to see her for over a year?’
Mauritz emptied his glass.
‘I forgot about that,’ he said. ‘I went to see her last autumn, I’m not sure when.’
‘Forgot?’ said Munster. ‘You were there on Saturday the 25th of October, the same day as your father was murdered.’
‘What the hell has that got to do with it?’
He still didn’t seem to have made up his mind what attitude to adopt, and Munster reckoned that his head must be spinning now. But surely he must have been expecting another visit? He must have known that Munster would return sooner or later. Or had the flu and the fever stopped his mind from working?
‘Can you tell me what you and Irene talked about last October?’
Mauritz snorted.
‘It’s not possible to talk to Irene about anything sensible. You must surely have noticed that if you’ve been visiting her?’
‘Maybe not in normal circumstances,’ said Munster. ‘But I don’t think she was in her normal state that Saturday.’
‘What the devil d’you mean by that?’
‘Do you want me to spell out what she told you?’
Mauritz shrugged.
‘Prattle on,’ he said. ‘You seem to have a screw loose. Have had all the time, come to that.’
Munster cleared his throat.
‘When you arrived at the home, she had just finished a therapy session, isn’t that right? With a certain Clara Vermieten. You saw her immediately afterwards, and then… then she began talking about things from your childhood, and that you had no idea about. Concerning your father.’
Mauritz didn’t move a muscle.
‘Is it not the case,’ said Munster, ‘that on that Saturday afternoon you discovered circumstances you knew nothing about? Circumstances which, to some extent at least, explain the occurrence of Irene’s illness? Why she became the way she is now?’
‘You’re out of your mind,’ said Mauritz.
‘And isn’t it a fact that this news affected you so deeply that to a large extent you took leave of your senses?’
‘What the hell are you sitting there babbling on about?’ said Mauritz.
Munster paused.
‘What I’m talking about,’ he said eventually, as slowly and emphatically as he could, ‘is that you discovered that your father had been sexually abusing both your sisters throughout the whole of their childhood, and that as a result you got into your car, drove down to Maardam and killed him. That’s what I’m talking about.’
Mauritz was still sitting there motionless, with his hands clasped in his lap.
‘I can understand your reaction,’ Munster added. ‘I might well have done the same if I’d been in your shoes.’
It’s possible that those were the words that made Mauritz change his tune. Or at least, to give way slightly. He sighed deeply, wiped the sweat off his brow and seemed to relax.
‘You can never prove this,’ he said. ‘You’re being ridiculous. My mother has admitted doing it. If it’s true what you say about my father, she had just as good a reason for doing it as I had. Don’t you think?’
‘Could be,’ said Munster. ‘But it wasn’t her that did it. It was you.’
‘It was her,’ said Mauritz.
Munster shook his head.
‘Incidentally, why did you visit your sister on that particular Saturday?’ he asked. ‘Was it because your girlfriend had just left you? The timescale seems to fit, at least.’
Mauritz didn’t reply, but Munster could see from his reaction that the guess was probably spot on. It was the same old story. Just as when a game of patience is about to be resolved, and the cards seem to turn up in a predictable order.
‘Shall I tell you what happened next?’ he asked.
Mauritz stood up with difficulty.
‘No, thank you,’ he said. ‘I want you to leave immediately. You are coming out with a mass of sick fantasies, and I have no intention of listening to you any longer.’
‘I thought you had just agreed that Irene really did tell you this?’ Munster said.
Mauritz stood there for a few seconds, swaying back and forth indecisively.
‘Your mother caught you in the act, didn’t she?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Did she come home while you were stabbing him, or did you meet her on the way out?’
I’d give a fortune for his thoughts just now, Munster thought. Surely he’ll give up now?
‘I suspect there are a few other things you don’t know about,’ said Munster. ‘About what happened next, that is.’
Mauritz stared at him for a few blank seconds again. Then he sat down.
‘Such as what?’ he said.
‘Fru Van Eck, for instance,’ said Munster. ‘Did you see her that night, or was it just she who saw you?’
Mauritz said nothing.
‘Have you any explanation for the murder of Else Van Eck? Did your mother tell you what happened? I’m asking because I don’t know.’
