“Too old.”
Munster hesitated.
“My sister’s in Hessen-I think.”
He paused.
“Oh, and police HQ, of course,” said Munster eventually.
Van Veeteren felt for a new toothpick, but he’d evidently run out.
“Finished?” he asked.
Munster nodded.
“You’re forty-two years old and have learned four
addresses by heart. Well done, Inspector. I could only manage three. What conclusion do you draw from that?”
“He wrote to somebody. . very close to him.”
“Or?”
“To himself?”
“Idiot,” said Van Veeteren. “Or?”
“Or to his workplace.”
Van Veeteren clasped his hands behind his head and
stretched himself out on his desk chair.
“Bunge High School,” he said. “Fancy a beer?”
Munster nodded again. Van Veeteren looked at the clock.
“If you give me a lift home, you can buy me a glass of beer on the way. I think Kraus’s place will be best.”
Munster wriggled into his jacket.
I suppose he’s doing me a favor, he thought.
“It’s Friday already, dammit!” Van Veeteren announced as they elbowed their way through to the bar.
Carrying two foaming tankards, he wriggled into an
almost nonexistent space between two young women on a bench. He lit a cigarillo, and after a couple of minutes there was room for Munster as well.
“Bunge or a good friend,” said Van Veeteren. “And we can no doubt forget about the good friends. Any snags?”
“Yes,” said Munster. “At least one. An unusual name.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you have an unusual name, letters get through to you no matter what. Dalmatinenwinckel, or something like that. .”
“What the hell are you on about?”
“Dalmatinenwinckel. I once had a girlfriend called that. It was enough to write her name and the town; a street address wasn’t necessary.”
“A good job you didn’t marry her,” said Van Veeteren. “But I expect you’re right. We’d better send somebody to check at the post office.”
He drank deeply and smacked his lips in appreciation.
“How are we going to go about it?” Munster asked. He suddenly felt exhausted again. He was slumped down in a corner of the bench, and the smoke was making his eyes hurt. It was already half past one. If he added up the time it would take them to drink the beer, then to drive V.V. home, drive out to his own suburb, get undressed, and take a shower, he concluded that it would be three o’clock at the earliest before he could snuggle down beside Synn. .
He sighed. The thought of Synn was much more persistent than the murder chase just now: still, no doubt that was a healthy sign, when all was said and done.
“You can take Bunge,” said Van Veeteren. “You and Reinhart. I suppose you won’t be able to get started before Monday.”
Munster nodded gratefully.
“The letter is the first thing, of course. It’s possible that we won’t be able to track it down at all, obviously, but if we have an amazing stroke of luck. . Well, if somebody remembers it, we’ll know. We’ll have him, Munster, and it’ll be all over there and then!”
Munster said nothing.
“But I don’t think we’re going to have an amazing stroke of luck; I can feel it in my bones. Check the mail procedures at the school in any case-who sorts out incoming mail, if they put stuff in different pigeonholes, that kind of thing. You’ll get an envelope from Majorna to take with you, of course, but there’s nothing special about it, unfortunately. It looks like any other bloody envelope. And be careful-it’s not necessary for all and sundry to know about this letter.”
“How many teachers are there?” asked Munster.
Van Veeteren pulled a face.
“Seventy, I think. And the bastards get half a ton of mail every week.”
Munster wasn’t sure if Van Veeteren was exaggerating or not.
“What about the pupils?”
“Seven hundred of them,” sighed Van Veeteren. “I don’t suppose they get many letters sent to them at school, but stilclass="underline" seven hundred. Bloody hell!”
“I read a detective story once, about a pupil who started executing his teachers. He disposed of nine of them before they nailed him.”
“I know the feeling,” said Van Veeteren. “I was tempted to do the same when I was a pupil there.”
“What do we do next? Alibis?”
“Yes. Interrogate every single one of the bastards. Tell Reinhart to be hard on them. The time involved is nice and clear: Thursday afternoon to Friday morning. This morning.
Anybody who can’t account for that period will be locked up anyway.”
“Eva Ringmar as well? Or have we enough to be going on with?”
“Have another go at the Ringmar alibis; it won’t do any harm. And, Munster, if we find anybody who might have had an opportunity both times, lie low: I’d like to be in on what happens next.”
He raised his tankard and drained it completely.
“That was good,” he said. “Fancy another one?”
Munster shook his head.
“Really? Ah well, I suppose it’s starting to get a bit late.
Anyway, Rooth and deBries can spend a bit longer out at Majorna, and then they can do the rounds of the neighbors.
Plus Bendiksen, I think. Sooner or later we have to find out what happened to Eva Ringmar.”
“And what are you going to do yourself, sir?”
Without thinking about it, he’d slipped back into the usual formal politeness. Van Veeteren sat for a while without answering.
“First of all I shall talk to the wig-makers,” he said eventually. “Did you know that in this town you can buy or hire wigs from eleven different places?”
“I had no idea,” said Munster. “Just think.”
“Yes; and there are a few more loose ends I’m intending to tie up,” Van Veeteren said as he dropped his cigarillo into his tankard. “Do you know what I think, Munster?”
“No.”
“I think this is a nasty business. A very nasty business indeed, dammit.”
27
He took the route over the moors. It would doubtless add an hour to his journey, but that was what he wanted today.
Alone behind the wheel with Julian Bream and Tarrega echoing in his ears, and the barren landscape acting as a barrier and a filter between himself and all too importunate reality; that was more or less what he had reckoned on. He also chose a car from the police pool with considerable care: an almost new red Toyota with tinted windows and some decent loudspeakers at front and back.
He was on his way by eight or so; a dark, foggy morning which improved as time wore on, but the damp, gray clouds never really went away. When he stopped for lunch at an inn in Moines, the whole village was still shrouded in a heavy mist that seemed to come rolling in from the moors. He realized that it was one of those days when the light would never really break through. Darkness would never be totally conquered.
He ate a fish stew with a lot of onion and wine in it, and allowed his thoughts to wander over the previous day and the paltry results it had produced. He had spent more than eight hours interviewing the staff of various wig boutiques, a thankless and monotonous exercise that he could have delegated to somebody else in view of his rank, but which he had undertaken nevertheless. When it was all finished and he was installed at his desk, summing up, he was at least able to confirm that during the past week, none of the eleven boutiques had sold, rented out, or been robbed of a wig similar to the one worn by the killer on the night of the murder at Majorna.
He had expected no other outcome. Why should such an intelligent and cold-blooded person-which is what they seemed to be dealing with, no matter what-have done something so stupid? But everything had to be checked, and now that was done.
The work carried out by the pathologist and the forensic team had failed to produce a breakthrough, either. Meusse’s observations had been confirmed down to the smallest detail, and what the forensic boys liked to call their Hoovering opera-tion produced as little in the way of results as if the crime scene had been an operating theater instead of a ward in a psychiatric hospital.