“Shitty weather, by the way! You wonder how people can raise the strength to go out and kill one another.”
“Go out?” said deBries, and sneezed twice. “Most of the murderers I know kill one another indoors.”
“Yes, but that’s because they can’t go out to do it,” said Rooth. “They obviously get on everybody’s nerves, just sitting around and gaping at this nonstop rain day after day.”
“It stopped raining in the afternoon the day before yesterday,” said Heinemann.
“Can we get started?” asked Van Veeteren. He counted his flock: Munster, Reinhart, Rooth, deBries, Jung, and Heinemann. That made seven, including himself. Seven officers working on the same case. That wasn’t something that happened every day.
Mind you, this was only the first week. The newspapers were still dreaming up headlines. Psycho Murderer. Death High School. And so on. There again, the word count dimin-1 9 7
ished noticeably with every new edition. Presumably he could expect several of his team to be given other assignments from Monday onward. DeBries, Jung, and Heinemann. . perhaps also Rooth.
But for the time being, they were at full strength. Hiller had committed himself to several pledges, both on TV and in the newspapers. It would soon be time to bid for money for the next financial year. It wouldn’t do any harm if they had a murderer under lock and key before Christmas, at the latest.
And the right murderer this time.
Rooth blew his nose. Reinhart looked as if he needed to do the same, but he lit his pipe instead. Van Veeteren was being careful with every movement involving the small of his back.
The match against Munster on Tuesday had left its mark, no doubt about that. He was in pain, especially when he sat down. He glanced at deBries and Heinemann. They looked distinctly groggy as well. Who knows if that was due to a cold or a lack of sleep? But in any case, his collection of police officers was not a particularly impressive bunch, to be honest.
Not something to line up for a live broadcast, he thought.
Let’s hope the inside looks a bit better than the shell.
“Can we get started?” he said again.
“Majorna first?”
Van Veeteren nodded, and deBries took a notebook out of his briefcase.
“There’s not a lot to say,” he said. “We’ve spoken to every living soul out there, apart from those afflicted with mutism and the potted plants. Doctors, staff, patients. . A total of 116
in all. About 100 haven’t seen a thing, but half of them think they have. Several have had dreams and visions. . For fuck’s sake, four have admitted to the murder.”
He paused and blew his nose into a paper handkerchief.
“Nevertheless, we’ve pinned down an overall picture that seems to hold water. Ninety-five percent, in any case. The murderer appeared in the office a few minutes past five. Asked about the patient Janek Mitter. Said she was a colleague of his, and would like to see him. Nothing unusual about that. Mitter had had several visits earlier.”
“Did he use the word ‘colleague’?” Van Veeteren asked.
“Yes, they’re sure about that. There were two people in reception when she turned up.”
“And both of them have forgotten all about her?” said Reinhart. “Great.”
“Well, it was only one of them who handed over to the night shift later,” said Rooth. “We asked all sorts of questions about the pitch of this person’s voice, of course, and it seems highly likely that it was a man. He found it necessary to ask the way several more times, and everybody had the impression that there was something odd about the voice.”
“Okay,” said Van Veeteren. “We’ve established that it was a man. Go on!”
“As for where he hid himself,” said deBries, “we don’t really know a thing. There are plenty of possibilities-to be precise, sixteen places that weren’t locked: storerooms, lavatories, communal rooms, and no end of cupboards.”
“I had the impression that everything was locked up, apart from the patients,” Reinhart said.
“No, that’s not true,” said Rooth. “But whatever, we haven’t found any clues at all.”
“I don’t think that’s very important,” said Van Veeteren.
“What about the letter?”
Rooth thumbed through his notebook.
“We’ve checked what Mitter was up to that Monday, from the moment he woke up to the time when he handed over the letter to Ingrun.”
“Ingrun?”
“That’s the name of the attendant. He received the letter at precisely five minutes past two. We tried to discover if Mitter could have checked a telephone directory before he started writing-bearing in mind the address, of course. .”
“Tell us about the time after lunch,” said Van Veeteren.
“That will suffice.”
“Yes, probably. We have an interesting piece of information regarding the morning, but we can come back to that later.
Anyway, there’s a telephone kiosk for the use of patients on every floor. And in every kiosk there’s a directory for the local district. Mitter finishes his lunch in the dining room at about a quarter past one, then he sits in the smoking room with several other patients and a few attendants. Then, according to a couple of witnesses, he goes to the lavatory. Comes out again a few minutes after half past. Then there’s a bit of a gap. Some maintain that he goes back to his room for a while, others say that he went straight to the office to collect what he needed to write his letter, and that he had to wait for a few minutes. In any case, Ingrun turns up at the office at a quarter to two. He finds Mitter waiting there, produces a pen, some paper, and an envelope, and takes Mitter with him to the dayroom. He stands outside for the ten minutes it takes Mitter to write the letter; he stays outside because he wants to smoke in peace and quiet. He’s just finished his coffee in the staff canteen.”
“Did Mitter have a note with him?” asked Munster.
“No,” said deBries. “We pressed Ingrun hard on that point.
I suppose you could say that he’s not the most gifted of all the people we questioned, but we’re as sure as you could expect us to be. Mitter had no papers, apart from what he was given by Ingrun.”
“Did this clown notice if Mitter wrote the letter first, or the envelope?” Van Veeteren asked.
“No, unfortunately not,” said Rooth. “He was too preoccupied with his cigarette. I think you’ve met him, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” said Van Veeteren. “I agree with your assessment of the creature.”
He paused and contemplated the little pile of chewed-up toothpicks on the desk in front of him.
“Anyway,” he said. “The question is if the man wrote to Bunge High School, or to somewhere else. As far as I’m concerned, I shall continue to assume that he wrote to Bunge.
You are welcome to reach a different conclusion. What was all that about something that happened during the morning? I think I know what you are referring to, but it would be as well if everybody was informed.”
Rooth sighed.
“Mitter was in the telephone booth for some time in the morning, but evidently not to look for an address. He called somebody.”
“Very interesting,” said Van Veeteren. “Who did he call, if I might ask?”
“Perhaps you can tell us that yourself, Chief Inspector, if I’ve understood the situation correctly,” said deBries.
“Mmm,” growled Van Veeteren. “Klempje has confessed.”
“Confessed what?” asked Reinhart, blowing out a cloud of smoke.
“There was a call from Majorna to the duty officer last Monday. It was Mitter, who had something to tell us. He asked for me, but I wasn’t in. . Nobody informed me when I did come in.”
“But that’s a bloody scandal!” said Reinhart.
There was a pause for several seconds.
“What happened to Klempje?” asked Jung. “When did you hear about this, Chief Inspector?”
“Yesterday,” said Van Veeteren. “Klempje has been tem-porarily replaced.”
Reinhart nodded. DeBries snorted.
“Anything else from Majorna?” asked Van Veeteren.
Rooth shook his head.