‘And he hasn’t rung again?’ asked Reinhart.
‘No,’ said Liebling. ‘We haven’t heard anything more since then.’
‘Did he give you any instructions?’
Liebling shook his head.
‘Only that we should stand by for when he arrived with this… person. We’ve got his number, of course. His mobile.’
‘So have we,’ said Reinhart. ‘But he’s not answering.’
‘Damn and blast!’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Give us the address, and we’ll go there! This is taking too long.’
Liebling printed it out.
‘Krautzwej 28,’ he said. ‘It’s out at Gochtshuuis. Would you like me to come with you? To show you the way?’
‘Yes, come with us,’ said Van Veeteren.
‘There’s a light on in any case,’ said Reinhart ten minutes later. ‘And that’s his car.’
Van Veeteren thought for a moment.
‘Ring one more time, to make sure we don’t barge in at a vital moment,’ he said.
Reinhart took out his mobile and dialled the number. Waited for half a minute.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘He might have switched it off, of course. Or forgotten to charge the batteries.’
‘Batteries?’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Do you need batteries in those bloody things as well?’
Inspector Liebling cleared his throat in the back seat.
‘There’s no other car standing outside,’ he pointed out. ‘And there doesn’t seem to be a garage… Assuming the Audi belongs to your man, that is.’
‘Hmm,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘That’s right. Okay, let’s go in. Liebling, stay here in the car, in case something happens.’
‘Got you,’ said Liebling.
Reinhart and Van Veeteren approached the front door cautiously, and listened.
‘Can’t hear a thing,’ said Reinhart. ‘Apart from the bloody wind. Nothing to be seen through the window either. What shall we do? Ring the bell?’
‘Try the door first,’ said Van Veeteren.
Reinhart did as bidden. It was locked.
‘Okay, we’ll ring the bell,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Have you got your gun?’
Reinhart nodded and took out his Grossmann. He pressed himself as close to the wall as he could and Van Veeteren rang the bell.
Nothing happened. Van Veeteren waited for ten seconds, then rang again.
Nothing.
‘Go round the house and check,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I’ll stay here.’
It took less than half a minute for Reinhart to go round to the back, and then return.
‘It’s not possible to go round the whole building,’ he explained. ‘This house is joined onto the next one. I couldn’t see anything through the windows. I don’t think there’s anybody in.’
‘Then what the hell is Munster’s car doing here?’ asked Van Veeteren. ‘We have to go in.’
‘I suppose we must,’ said Reinhart.
Van Veeteren muttered a stream of curses while looking for a suitable means of assistance. He eventually found a stone the size of a clenched fist in the soaking wet flowerbed next to the drive. He dried it, weighed it in his hand for a second or two, then threw it at the living room window.
‘Bull’s eye,’ said Reinhart. He went up to the broken pane, removed a few pieces of glass, put his hand through the hole and opened it.
It was Van Veeteren who climbed in first, and Van Veeteren who saw him first.
‘Oh, hell!’ he said. ‘Hell, hell, hell!’
Intendent Munster was lying on his stomach on the light-coloured parquet floor, halfway out into the hall, as if he had been on his way out when he fell. His arms were stretched along the sides of his body, and on the back of his light green jumper, a few centimetres above the waistband of his trousers and to the right of his spine, was a dark red stain, slightly bigger than the palm of a man’s hand.
‘Ambulance, Reinhart! Like greased lightning!’ roared Van Veeteren. Then he leaned down over Munster and started checking his pulse.
Good God, he thought. This wasn’t part of my leave of absence agreement.
When Mauritz Leverkuhn had left his home in Frigge, he started driving more or less due south for an hour and a half. When he came to Karpatz he changed direction and continued eastwards until he came to Tilsenberg, just a few kilometres from the border. He filled his tank and turned off towards the north.
The nationwide alert was set in motion at 20.45, and when a police patrol car found his white Volvo in a lay- by off the motorway just outside Kossenaar, it was turned half past six in the morning.
Mauritz Leverkuhn was lying asleep under a blanket on the back seat, shivering, with a sky-high temperature and in a state of total exhaustion. On the floor in front of the passenger seat was a carving knife with a handle of mahogany and a blade about twenty centimetres long, covered in blood.
Leverkuhn was taken to the police station in Kossenaar, but his condition was such that he was not subjected to questioning.
Given the circumstances, it was not considered necessary for him to say anything at all.
FIVE
41
It took the two divers dressed in green and black less than a quarter of an hour to find Felix Bonger.
Jung stood in the rain in the middle of the little group of onlookers in Bertrandgraacht, and tried to benefit from the scant shelter provided by Rooth’s battered umbrella. When the swollen body was lifted up onto the quay and put inside a black, zipped body bag, he noticed that the woman on his left, the mannish Barga, was sniffling.
‘It’s so sad,’ she said. ‘He was such a fine fellow, Bonger.’
‘He was indeed,’ said Jung.
‘They should really have left him there. Buried under his own boat – that would have been stylish.’
Could be, Jung thought. That was no bad idea. Although perhaps it would have been most stylish of all if they had never found him. Let’s face it, he had nothing to do with that other business. Absolutely nothing.
He had slipped on the gang-plank, that’s all, when he came home that Saturday night. Drunk and unsteady on his feet. It could have happened to anybody, Jung thought. It could have happened to me. Presumably he had hit his head as well, Bonger, and then fallen into the water. Sunk a few metres, and later floated up against the bottom of his own canal boat.
And stayed there. Under his own floor, as it were. Yes, Barga had a point.
‘Poor bastard,’ said Rooth. ‘Lying in the water doesn’t make you any prettier. But I should congratulate you. You were right after all… There was nothing more mysterious to it than that. I wonder how many other missing persons are lying in canals.’
‘Let’s not worry about that just now,’ said Jung. ‘I think we ought to try to get a roof over our heads instead.’
‘Another good idea,’ said Rooth, shaking the umbrella so that Jung became even wetter than he was already. ‘But there’s one thing you can clear up for me first, before we forget about it.’
‘What’s that?’ said Jung.
‘That pair of screwing machines – de Booning and whatever the other character is called – why did they move
