The Unlucky Lottery (11 page)

‘I’d just like a few bits of information,’ said Münster. ‘So far we don’t have much to go on with regard to the murder of your father, so we need to follow up
any leads we can manage to dig up.’

‘I understand,’ said Mauritz.

‘When did you last see him, for instance?’

Mauritz thought for a few moments.

‘A few months ago,’ he said. ‘I was here on a sales mission, and I called in on them briefly. Drank coffee. Gave Mum a bottle of cherry liqueur – it was her name
day.’

‘So you didn’t have all that much contact with your parents, generally speaking?’

Mauritz cleared his throat and adjusted his yellow and blue striped tie.

‘No,’ he said. ‘We didn’t . . . We don’t have. None of us.’

‘Why?’

He shrugged.

‘Is it necessary?’

Münster refrained from responding.

‘Do you have any children?’

‘No.’

‘So there aren’t any grandchildren at all, then?’

Mauritz shook his head.

‘Are you married?’

‘No.’

‘Have you been?’

‘No.’

Münster waited a few seconds, but it was apparent that Mauritz had no intention of saying anything off his own bat.

‘What’s the relationship between you and your sisters?’ he asked. ‘Do you see much of each other?’

‘What has that got to do with it?’

He shifted his position on his chair, and fingered the crease of his trousers.

‘Nothing, I assume,’ said Münster. ‘It’s difficult to say what is relevant at this early stage. And what isn’t.’

We’ve got a right bloody bundle of fun here, he thought – and it struck him that the same applied to the family as a whole. None of them was likely to be the life and soul of any
party: not the ones he’d been in contact with at least. Woodlice, as Reinhart used to call them.

But perhaps he was being unfair. He didn’t feel all that much of a livewire himself, come to that.

‘What about your elder sister?’ he asked. ‘She’s unwell, if I’m not mistaken.’

Mauritz suddenly looked positively hostile.

‘You have no reason to drag her into this,’ he said. ‘Our family has nothing to do with what has happened. Neither me nor my sisters. Nor my mother.’

‘How can you be so sure?’ said Münster.

‘What?’

‘How can you be so sure that none of them is involved? You don’t have any contact with them, after all.’

‘Shut your trap,’ said Mauritz.

Münster did as he was told. Then he pressed the intercom and asked fröken Katz to serve them some coffee.

‘Tell me what you were doing last Saturday night.’

The coffee had induced a climate change for the better, but only marginally.

‘I was at home,’ said Mauritz sullenly, after a couple of seconds’ thought. ‘Watching the boxing on the telly.’

Münster wrote that down as a matter of routine.

‘What time was that?’

Mauritz shrugged.

‘Between nine and twelve, roughly speaking. Surely you don’t think that I drove here and murdered my father? Are you soft in the head?’

‘I don’t think anything,’ said Münster. ‘But I’d like you to be a bit more cooperative.’

‘Oh yes? And how do you think I’m going to be able to cooperate when I’ve got bugger all to say?’

I don’t know, Münster thought. How many years is it since you last smiled at anything?

‘But what do you think?’ he asked. ‘We have to try to find somebody who might have had a motive to kill your father. It’s possible of course that it was a pure act of
madness, but that’s not certain. There might have been something behind it.’

‘What, for instance?’ Mauritz wondered.

‘That’s something we hoped you might be able to tip us off about.’

Mauritz snorted.

‘Do you really think I’d shut up about something like that, even if I knew anything?’

Münster paused, and checked the questions he had written down in advance.

‘When did they move to Kolderweg?’ he asked.

‘In 1976. Why do you want to know that?’

Münster ignored the question.

‘Why?’

‘They sold the house. We youngsters had moved out.’

Münster made a note of that.

‘He got a new job as well. He’d been out of work for a while.’

‘What kind of a job?’

‘Pixner Brewery. I’m sure you know about that already.’

‘Could be,’ said Münster. ‘And before that you lived down at Pampas, is that right?’

Mauritz nodded.

‘Pampas, yes. Shoeboxes for the working class. Four rooms and a kitchen. Twenty square metres of lawn.’

‘I know,’ said Münster. ‘And where did you move to when it became too cramped?’

‘Aarlach. I started at the commercial college in 1975. This can’t be important, surely?’

Münster pretended to check his notebook again. Mauritz had folded his arms over his chest and was gazing out of the window at the rain-filled clouds. His aggressiveness seemed to have
lapsed into genuine lethargy again. As if he were sitting there reflecting the weather, Münster thought.

‘Who do you think did it?’ he asked speculatively.

Mauritz turned his head to look at Münster dismissively.

‘I don’t know. How the hell should I? I haven’t had any real contact with my father for over twenty years, and I’ve no idea who he used to knock around with. Can’t
we stop all this crap now so that I can get away from here?’

‘All right,’ said Münster. ‘Just one more thing. Do you know if your father was not short of a bob or two? If he had any cash stashed away, for instance?’

Mauritz had already stood up.

‘Rubbish,’ he said. ‘He worked for half his life at Gahn’s, and for the other half at the brewery. Those are not the kind of places at which you can scrape together a
fortune. Goodbye, Intendent!’

He started to reach out over the desk with his hand, but changed his mind halfway through and put it in his pocket instead.

‘Do you miss him?’ Münster asked, but the only response he got was a vacant look. Nevertheless, Mauritz paused in the doorway.

‘When I was a teenager I actually considered applying to police college,’ he said. ‘I’m glad I didn’t.’

‘So are we,’ Münster muttered when the door had closed. ‘Very glad indeed.’

When he was alone in the room, he went to the window and looked out over the town, as he generally did. Over the streets, rooftops and churches; over Wejmargraacht and
Wollerims Park, where the grey mist enveloped the trees in a blanket of damp, obliterating outlines. Like an amateurish watercolour painting, he thought, in which the colours have spread and mixed
with one another and with the water. The skyscrapers a little further off, up on the ridge at Leimaar, could hardly be made out, and the thought struck him that if there was any town in the whole
world where a murderer had a good chance of hiding away, it was here.

When he looked down he saw Mauritz Leverkuhn walking across the car park towards a white and fairly new Volvo. Some kind of company car, presumably – with the boot and back seat crammed
full of serviettes and candle-rings in every cheerful colour imaginable. For the benefit of mankind and their endless striving after the greatest possible enjoyment.

Hmm, I seem to be a bit disillusioned today, Intendent Münster thought, turning his back on the town.

Chief of Police Hiller looked like a randy frog.

At least that was Münster’s immediate reaction when he came into the conference room where the run-through was set to take place, a few minutes late. The whole man seemed to be
inflated, especially over his shirt collar; his eyes were bulging, his cheeks swollen and his face was deep red in colour.

‘What the hell’s the meaning of this?’ he hissed, drops of saliva glittering in the reflected light from the overhead projector which was switched on, ready for use.
‘Explain what the hell this means!’

He was holding a newspaper in his hand, waving it at the cowering assembly – Intendent Heinemann, Inspectors Rooth, Jung and Moreno, and in the far corner the promising young Constable
Krause.

Münster sat down between Heinemann and Moreno without speaking.

‘Well?’ snorted Hiller, hurling the
Neuwe Blatt
onto the table so that Münster could see at last what the problem was.

The headline ran across all eight columns, and was followed by three exclamation marks:

and underneath, in less bold type:

Heinemann put on his glasses.

‘That’s odd,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ve been informed.’

Hiller closed his eyes and clenched his fists. Evidently in an attempt to calm himself down, for his next comment came through clenched teeth.

‘I want to know the meaning of this. And who is responsible.’

Moreno glanced at the newspaper and cleared her throat.

‘Red-haired dwarf?’ she said. ‘It must be a joke.’

‘A joke?’ snarled Hiller.

‘I agree,’ said Rooth. ‘Surely none of you is looking for a dwarf?’

He looked enquiringly around the table, while Hiller chewed at his lower lip and tried to stand still.

‘I’m not,’ said Heinemann.

Münster glanced at Jung. Realized that a disastrous burst of laughter was on the point of breaking out, and that he had better intervene before it was too late.

‘It’s just a newspaper cock-up,’ he said as slowly and pedagogically as he could. ‘Some bright spark has no doubt phoned the editorial office and spun them a yarn. And
some other bright spark has swallowed the bait. Don’t blame us!’

‘Exactly,’ said Rooth.

Hiller’s facial colour went down to plum.

‘What a bloody mess,’ he muttered. ‘Krause!’

Krause sat up straight.

‘Yes?’

‘Find out which prize idiot has written this drivel – I’ll be damned if they’re going to get away with it!’

‘Yes sir!’ said Krause.

‘Off you go, then!’ the chief of police roared, and Krause slunk out. Hiller sat down at the end of the table and switched off the overhead projector.

‘Moreover,’ he said, ‘we have too many people working on this case. Just a couple of you will be sufficient from now on. Münster!’

‘Yes?’ said Münster with a sigh.

‘You and Moreno will sort out Leverkuhn from now on. Use Krause as well, but only if it’s really necessary. Jung and Rooth will look after the rapes in Linzhuisen, and Heinemann
– what were you working on last week?’

‘That Dellinger business,’ said Heinemann.

‘Continue with that,’ said Hiller. ‘I want reports from all of you by Friday.’

He stood up and would have been out of the room in two seconds if he hadn’t stumbled over Rooth’s briefcase.

‘Oops,’ said Rooth. ‘Sorry about that, but I think I need to have a quick word with Krause.’

He picked up his briefcase and hurried off, while the chief of police brushed off his neatly creased knee and muttered something incomprehensible.

‘Well, what do you think?’ said Münster as he and Moreno sat down in the canteen. ‘A memorable performance?’

‘There’s no doubt about the entertainment value,’ said Moreno. ‘It must be the first time for a month that I very nearly burst out laughing. What an incredible
idiot!’

‘A boy scout, perhaps?’ said Münster, and she actually smiled.

‘Still, he says what he means,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t try to fool anybody. Shall we get down to work?’

‘That’s the idea, no doubt. Have you any good ideas?’

Moreno swirled her cup and analysed the coffee lees.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No good ones.’

‘Nor have I,’ said Münster. ‘So we’ll have to make do with bad ones for the time being. We could bring Palinski in, for instance?’

‘Not a bad idea,’ said Moreno.

After two days out at Bossingen, Marie-Louise Leverkuhn returned to Kolderweg 17 on the Tuesday afternoon.

The children had been, commiserated and gone back home. Emmeline von Post had lamented and sympathized in every way possible, the heavens had wept more or less continuously. It was high time to
return to reality and everyday life. It certainly was.

She began by scrubbing the blood-soaked room. She was unable to get rid of the blood that had penetrated the floorboards and walls, despite her best efforts with strong scouring-powder of
various makes; nor was there much she could do about the stains on the woodwork of the bed – but then again, she didn’t need the bed any more. She dismantled it and dragged the whole
caboodle out onto the landing for Arnold Van Eck to take care of. She then unrolled a large cowhair carpet that had been stored up in the attic for years and covered the floorboards. A couple of
tapestries hanging quite low down took care of the wall.

After this hard labour she started going through her husband’s wardrobe: it was a time-consuming and rather delicate undertaking. She didn’t like doing it, but she had no choice.
Some stuff ended up in the dustbin, some in the laundry basket, but most of it was put into suitcases and plastic sacks for taking to the charity shop in Windemeerstraat.

When this task was more or less taken care of, there was a ring on the doorbell. It was fru Van Eck, inviting her down for coffee and cake.

Marie-Louise hesitated at first. She had never been on particularly good terms with the caretaker’s wife, but fru Van Eck was insistent and in the end she heaved the sack she had just
finished filling into the wardrobe, and accepted the invitation.

Life must go on after all, she thought, somewhat confused.

‘Life must go on,’ said fru Van Eck five minutes later as her husband sliced up the cake with raspberries and blackberries. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Not too bad,’ said Marie-Louise. ‘It takes time to get used to things.’

‘I can well imagine that,’ said fru Van Eck, eyeing Arnold for a few seconds with a thoughtful expression on her face.

‘By the way, there was one thing,’ she said eventually. ‘Arnold, will you leave us alone for a minute or two, please. Go and buy a football pools coupon or something, but take
that apron off!’

Arnold bowed discreetly and left the ladies alone in the kitchen.