He turned his head, and thought the cool parquet floor felt pleasant against his cheek. Gentle and conciliatory. It’s my tiredness, he thought. This would never have happened if I hadn’t been so tired.
Before a black wave of oblivion flowed over his consciousness, he thought two more thoughts.
The first was to Synn: Good, I need never know how things would have turned out.
The second was just one word:
No.
40
The police station in Frigge had moved since Van Veeteren served his apprenticeship in that northern coastal town. Or rather, they had squeezed a new building into the same block and rehoused the forces of law and order in almost the same place as before. Van Veeteren didn’t think the move had improved anything. The new police station was built mainly of grey concrete and bullet-proof glass, and the duty officer was a young red-haired man with prominent ears. Not a bit like old Borkmann.
Ah well, Van Veeteren thought. At least his hearing ought to be sharp.
‘Reinhart and Van Veeteren from Maardam,’ said Reinhart. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Inspector Liebling,’ said the red-head, shaking hands.
‘Chief Inspector Van Veeteren actually used to work up here,’ said Reinhart. ‘But that was probably before you were born.’
‘Really?’ said Liebling.
‘At the dawn of recorded time,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Late nineteenth century. Have you heard anything?’
‘You mean…?’ said Liebling, feeling a little nervously for his thin moustache.
‘He ought to be here now, for Christ’s sake,’ said Reinhart. ‘It’s nearly eight o’clock.’
‘Intendent Münster from Maardam,’ Van Veeteren explained.
‘Yes, I know,’ said Liebling. ‘Malinowski filled me in when I relieved him. I have the details here.’
He tapped away at the computer keyboard and nodded his head in acknowledgement.
‘Intendent Münster, yes. Expected to come in with a suspect… but there hasn’t been one yet. He hasn’t turned up yet, I mean.’
‘When did he contact you?’ Van Veeteren asked.
Liebling checked.
‘At 17.55,’ he said. ‘Inspector Malinowski took the call, as I said. I came on duty at half past six.’
‘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 Münster’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 Münster 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 Münster 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.