‘You know nothing,’ said Mauritz.
‘Then I’ll have to speculate,’ said Munster. ‘But it’s only of academic interest. Fru Van Eck saw you when you came to Kolderweg to kill your father. She told your mother she’d seen you a few days later: I’m not certain, but I assume she tried to use that knowledge to her own advantage. To earn money, in fact. Your mother reacted in a way she had never expected. She killed fru Van Eck.’
He paused for a few seconds, but Mauritz had no comment to make. He knew about it, Munster thought.
‘She killed the caretaker’s wife. Then she needed a few days to butcher the body and get rid of it. Then, when all that was done, she confessed to the murder of your father, so that we would stop investigating and you would go free. A cold-blooded woman, your mother. Very cold-blooded.’
‘You’re out of your mind,’ said Mauritz for the second time.
‘Obviously she couldn’t confess to the murder of Else Van Eck as well because she wouldn’t have been able to give a motive. It all fits together, you see – I think you have to admit that. She commits one murder, but confesses to another one: perhaps there is some kind of moral balance there. I think that’s the way she thought about it.’
Mauritz muttered something and scrutinized his hands. Munster watched him for a while without saying anything. Surely he’ll crack any minute now, he thought. I don’t have the strength to sit through all this again at the police station. I simply don’t have the strength.
‘I’m not sure either why she committed suicide in her cell,’ he said. ‘But it’s not difficult to sympathize with her. Perhaps it’s not difficult to understand anything of what she did. She was protecting you from being discovered as the murderer of your father, and she murdered another person in order to continue protecting you. She did a lot for your sake, herr Leverkuhn.’
‘She owed a debt.’
Munster waited, but there was no continuation.
‘A debt for what your father did to your sisters, d’you mean? For allowing it to happen?’
Mauritz suddenly clenched his fists and thumped them down on the arms of the chair.
‘Hell and damnation!’ he said. ‘He made Irene ill and she didn’t do anything to stop him! Can’t you understand that he wasn’t worth having a natural death? The bastard! I’d do it again if I could. I was prepared to accept responsibility for it as well. I was going to do so, and that’s why…’
He fell silent.
‘Why she committed suicide?’ asked Munster. ‘Because you were thinking of confessing?’
Mauritz stiffened, then seemed to crumple, and nodded weakly. Munster took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Opened them again and looked at the hunched-up figure slumped in the chair opposite him: he tried to decide what he really felt about him.
One of those losers, he thought. Yet another one.
He must have been damaged by his childhood, he as well, even if it didn’t make itself felt as dreadfully as in his beloved sister.
Those accursed, inescapable birth marks which could never be operated away. Which could never be glossed over or come to terms with.
And that accursed, pointless evil, Munster thought. Which kept on asserting itself, over and over again. Yes, he felt sorry for him. He would never have believed it even an hour ago, but he did now.
‘Are you going to arrest me now?’ said Mauritz.
‘They’re waiting for us at the police station,’ said Munster.
‘I don’t regret a thing. I’d do it again, can you understand that?’
Munster nodded. He wanted comfort and understanding now. Mun-ster recognized the situation. Very often it wasn’t confirmation of a justified crime that would provide the release the perpetrator was longing for, but words. Being able to talk about it afterwards. The ability to explain his actions face to face with another person. A person who understood, and a face that could tolerate the reflection of his desperation.
Oh yes, it had happened before.
‘It would be wrong for a bastard like him to complete his life without being punished… To get away with something like that.’
‘Let’s go now,’ said Munster. ‘We’ll take the rest down at the station.’
Mauritz stood up. Wiped the sweat off his brow again, and breathed deeply.
‘Can I just go to the kitchen and take another pill?’
Munster nodded.
He left the room, and Munster heard him dropping a tablet into a glass and then filling it with water. Thank God, he thought. It’s all over now. I can wash my hands of this awful business.
It was too late when Munster realized that the passive resignation displayed by Mauritz Leverkuhn for the past few minutes was not quite what it had seemed. And too late when he realized that the carving knife they had spent so much time looking for in October and the beginning of November had not in fact been thrown into a canal or a rubbish bin. It was in Mauritz Leverkuhn’s hand now, just as it had been during the night between the 25th and 26th of October. He discovered that fact via the corner of his eye looking over his right shoulder, felt for his pistol in its holster, but that was as far as he got. The knife blade entered his midriff from behind: he felt an agonizing stab of pain, then he fell headfirst to the floor without breaking the fall with his hands.
The pain was so acute that it paralysed him. Penetrated the whole of his body like a white-hot iron drill of agony. Neutralized his ability to move. Annihilated time and space. When it eventually began to ease, he heard Mauritz Leverkuhn leave and slam the outside door.
He turned his head, and thought the cool parquet floor felt pleasant against his cheek. Gentle and conciliatory. It’s my tiredness, he thought. This would never have happened if I hadn’t been so tired.
Before a black wave of oblivion flowed over his consciousness, he thought two more thoughts.
The first was to Synn: Good, I need never know how things would have turned out.
The second was just one word:
No.
40
The police station in Frigge had moved since Van Veeteren served his apprenticeship in that northern coastal town. Or rather, they had squeezed a new building into the same block and rehoused the forces of law and order in almost the same place as before. Van Veeteren didn’t think the move had improved anything. The new police station was built mainly of grey concrete and bullet-proof glass, and the duty officer was a young red-haired man with prominent ears. Not a bit like old Borkmann.
Ah well, Van Veeteren thought. At least his hearing ought to be sharp.
‘Reinhart and Van Veeteren from Maardam,’ said Reinhart. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Inspector Liebling,’ said the red-head, shaking hands.
‘Chief Inspector Van Veeteren actually used to work up here,’ said Reinhart. ‘But that was probably before you were born.’
‘Really?’ said Liebling.
‘At the dawn of recorded time,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Late nineteenth century. Have you heard anything?’
‘You mean…?’ said Liebling, feeling a little nervously for his thin moustache.
‘He ought to be here now, for Christ’s sake,’ said Reinhart. ‘It’s nearly eight o’clock.’
‘Intendent Munster from Maardam,’ Van Veeteren explained.
‘Yes, I know,’ said Liebling. ‘Malinowski filled me in when I relieved him. I have the details here.’
He tapped away at the computer keyboard and nodded his head in acknowledgement.
‘Intendent Munster, yes. Expected to come in with a suspect… but there hasn’t been one yet. He hasn’t turned up yet, I mean.’
‘When did he contact you?’ Van Veeteren asked.
Liebling checked.
‘At 17.55,’ he said. ‘Inspector Malinowski took the call, as I said. I came on duty at half past six.’
