He saw that her facial muscles were beginning to twitch here and there, and he realized there was probably not long to go before she started crying. What the hell am I doing? he thought. This job makes you a sadist.
‘Why…?’ she mumbled. ‘I don’t know what you mean. What are you getting at?’
‘Just routine,’ said Münster. ‘Don’t take it personally. Are you staying here overnight?’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t think so. I’ll probably go back home this evening… Unless Mum wants me to stay with her.’
Why should she want that? Münster thought. Then he closed his notebook and reached his hand out over the table.
‘Thank you, fröken Leverkuhn,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I had to torment you at a difficult time, but we would rather like to catch your father’s murderer, as I’m sure you understand.’
‘Yes… Of course.’
She presented him with four cold fingers for half a second. Münster pushed back his chair and stood up.
‘I think you’d better hurry before your parking time runs out.’
She glanced at the clock, stuffed the cigarettes and lighter into her handbag and got to her feet.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I hope…’
He never discovered what she hoped. Instead she tried to produce a smile, but when it refused to stick she turned on her heel and left him.
Ah well, Münster thought as he beckoned to the waitress. One of those conversations.
A condensed life in twenty minutes. Why was it that other people’s lives could seem so clear-cut when his own almost always seemed to evade judgement and reflection?
He didn’t know. One of those questions.
11
When Marie-Louise Leverkuhn had finished crying – a comparatively short outburst of emotion that lasted only a minute – Emmeline von Post removed her arm from her friend’s shoulders and suggested a walk by the river. The weather was quite pleasant – the occasional shower was likely during the course of the day, but there were raincoats and Wellington boots available. That she could borrow.
Fru Leverkuhn blew her nose and declined the offer. Remained seated for a while at the kitchen table – like an injured and dishevelled bird, it seemed to her hostess – and then explained that she needed a little more rest after all, before she was ready to meet her children. Her daughter Ruth was expected about lunchtime, and it wasn’t quite clear who would be expected to support whom.
Emmeline didn’t quite understand the last bit, but kept a straight face even so and submitted to her newly widowed friend’s wishes. Decided to go for a short walk herself instead – to the post office and the shopping centre to buy a few odds and ends that would be necessary, now that there would be several mouths to feed.
And Marie-Louise could spend the time recovering as she thought best. While waiting for the children.
Emmeline set off as soon as the breakfast dishes had been washed up, shortly before eleven, and when she returned with her carrier bags three-quarters of an hour later, Marie-Louise had vanished.
The door to Mark’s room was standing ajar, so it seemed that she had made no attempt to conceal the fact that she wasn’t there. But there was no message, neither in the room nor anywhere else.
Ah well, Emmeline thought as she unpacked her bags and allocated the goods to the larder or the refrigerator as appropriate. I expect she has just nipped out to buy a postage stamp or something of the sort.
She’ll soon be back, no doubt.
And so she took a Swiss roll out of the freezer, switched on the coffee maker and sat down at the kitchen table with a newspaper.
And waited.
She came down to the river next to the wooden cabin that served as the rowing club MECC’s clubhouse. A few young people were busy scraping the window frames. She hesitated for a moment before setting off westwards along the unpaved bridle path through the deciduous woods. She felt almost immediately the raw, cold wind blowing off the dark water, and tied her shawl more tightly round her head. Wished she had a woolly hat instead, dug her hands down into her coat pockets and clutched the package more tightly under her arm.
She had been along this path before – two or three times in the summer together with Emmeline – and she began to picture what it was like a bit further on. Tried to remember if there was any one place that was better and more inaccessible than anywhere else, but couldn’t decide for sure. She would have to make the best of it, this area along the bank of the river: waterlogged, covered in brushwood and with hardly any buildings – but of course it could never be a hundred per cent foolproof. She had realized and accepted that, seeing as there had been no opportunity to burn it, which would have been the best solution, of course.
She had walked only a hundred metres or so when her bad knee started to make itself felt – the typical prickling sensations and shooting pains were hurting whenever she put her right foot down into the loose sand, and it was clear that it would be risky to continue much further.
But in all probability it wouldn’t be necessary anyway. The river bank was covered in alders and brushwood, and the belt of reeds extended a long way out into the water, fifty metres or more in places. She could hardly have asked for anything better. When she came to the first side-track leading inland, she paused and looked around. No sign of anybody. She turned off along the muddy path down to a jetty that ran in a sort of diamond shape round a tumbledown boathouse. Walked carefully along the shaky, slippery planks to where it changed direction like the apex of a triangle, and leaned against the boathouse wall while she pressed the air out of the package and tied the string tightly. Listened attentively, but there was no sound save for the distant, mournful cries of birds and the hum of traffic a long way off on the motorway. No sign of any people. No boats on the river. She took a deep breath and hurled the package out into the reeds. Heard the rattling noise as the brittle stalks snapped, and the dull plop when it dropped into the water.
That’s that, then, she thought. Looked around once more. Nothing. She was alone, and the deed was done.
She put her hands back into her pockets, and started to retrace her steps.
It took longer than she had expected. After all, she had walked quite a long way, and her knee was causing her serious pain now. She slowed down and tried to avoid putting any weight at all on her heel, but that just felt odd and unusual, and didn’t help much in the loose sand. By the time she returned to the built-up area it had started raining quite hard again, and she decided to allow herself a few minutes’ rest. She found a run-down and graffiti-covered bus shelter, sat down on the bench and tried to keep as warm as possible in the circumstances while observing the few people who had ventured out of doors on such a rainy morning. Three or four grim-faced dog owners. A jogger in a red tracksuit wearing headphones, and a down-and-out old man searching for empty bottles in the rubbish bins, dragging a shopping trolley behind him… A few steamed-up cars drove past, but no bus. But that didn’t matter – she wouldn’t know which one to catch anyway. After a while she really did feel freezing cold, and although she knew full well that signs of the rain easing off were mostly wishful thinking, she stood up and set off again. She noticed that she wasn’t thinking straight: thoughts were buzzing around inside her head like restless, nervous dreams; but before long everything was dominated by a desire to drink something hot. Or strong.
Or both.
When she finally returned to the neat little terraced house in Geldenerstraat it was ten minutes past one, and Emmeline von Post was accompanied at her kitchen table by Ruth Leverkuhn.
As soon as she saw her mother in the doorway, Ruth stood up. Cleared her throat, smoothed down her skirt, and made a sort of half-hearted gesture with her hands.
Marie-Louise stood still and stared at her daughter with her arms hanging down by her sides.