The Unlucky Lottery

Münster looked round for any further comments, but as none was offered he realized that it was time to draw the meeting to a close.

‘You’re probably right,’ he said, turning to Rooth. ‘For as long as we don’t find a motive, that’s the most likely solution. Shall we send out a feeler in the direction of the drugs squad?’

‘Do that,’ said Moreno. ‘A feeler, but not one of us.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Münster promised.

Moreno stayed behind for a while after the others had left, and only then did Münster discover that he’d forgotten a detail.

‘Oh, shit! There was another thing,’ he said. ‘That story about having won some money – can there be anything in it?’

Moreno looked up from the photograph she was studying with reluctance.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

Münster hesitated.

‘Four old codgers club together and win some money,’ he said. ‘Two of them kill off the other two, and hey presto! They’ve suddenly won twice as much.’

Moreno said nothing for a few moments.

‘Really?’ she said eventually. ‘You think that’s what happened?’

Münster shook his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s just that fröken Gautiers down at Freddy’s said something about a win, and she admits herself that she’s only guessing . . . But I suppose we ought to look into it.’

‘Rather that than drugs,’ said Moreno. ‘I’ll take that on.’

Münster was about to ask why she was so strongly opposed to the murky narcotics scene, but then he recalled another detail.

Inspector Moreno had a younger sister.

Or did have, rather. He thought for a moment. Maybe that was what was depressing her, he thought. But then he noted her hunched shoulders and tousled hair, and realized there must be something else as well. Something quite different. Apart from Synn, Inspector Moreno was the most beautiful woman he had ever had the pleasure of coming into anything like good contact with. But right now she looked distinctly human.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

She sighed deeply twice before replying.

‘I feel so bloody awful.’

‘I can see that,’ Münster said. ‘Personal problems?’

What an idiotic question, he thought. I sound like an emasculated social care worker.

But she merely shrugged and twisted her mouth into an ironic smile.

‘What else?’

‘I tell you what,’ said Münster, playing the man of cunning and checking his watch. ‘You go and check up on the old codgers and I’ll talk to Ruth Leverkuhn – and then we’ll have lunch at Adenaar’s. One o’clock. Okay?’

Moreno gave him a searching look.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But I won’t be very good company.’

‘So what?’ said Münster. ‘We can always concentrate on the food.’

9

‘And what’s strange about that?’

The powerfully built woman glared threateningly at Rooth from behind her fringe, and it occurred to him that he wouldn’t have a chance against her if it came to hand-to-hand fighting. He would need a gun.

‘My dear fru Van Eck,’ he said nevertheless, taking a sip of the insipid coffee her husband had made in response to her explicit command. ‘Surely you can understand even so? An unknown person gets into the building, up the stairs, into the Leverkuhns’ flat. He – or she, for that matter – stabs herr Leverkuhn twenty-eight times and kills him. It happens up there’ – he gestured towards the ceiling – ‘less than seven metres from this kitchen table. The murderer then saunters out again through the door, down the stairs and disappears. And you don’t notice anything at all. That’s what I call strange!’

Now she’ll thump me, he thought, bracing himself against the edge of the table so that he would be able to get quickly to his feet, but evidently his aggressive tone of voice had thrown her off balance.

‘But good grief, Constable . . .’

‘Inspector,’ insisted Rooth, ‘Detective Inspector Rooth.’

‘Really? Anyway, no matter what, we didn’t notice a thing, neither me nor Arnold. The only thing we heard that night was those screwing machines, that nigger and his slut . . . Isn’t that right, Arnold?’

‘Er, yes,’ said Arnold, scratching his wrists nervously.

‘We’ve already explained this, both to you and that other plod, whatever his name is. Why can’t you find whoever did it instead of snooping around here? We’re honest people.’

I don’t doubt that for a second, Rooth thought. Not for a single second. He decided to change track.

‘The front door?’ he said. ‘What about that? It’s usually left unlocked, I gather?’

‘No,’ said fru Van Eck. ‘It could very well have been locked – but it’s a crap lock.’

‘You can open it simply by peeing on it,’ squeaked Arnold Van Eck somewhat surprisingly, and started giggling.

‘Hold your bloody tongue!’ said his wife. ‘Pour some more coffee instead! Yes, it’s a crap lock, but I assume the door was probably standing ajar so that Mussolini could get in.’

‘Mussolini?’ said Rooth.

‘Yes, he’d probably gone out for a screw as usual – I don’t understand why she doesn’t castrate the bloody thing.’

‘It’s a cat,’ explained Arnold.

‘He’ll have gathered that, for Christ’s sake!’ snorted fru Van Eck. ‘Anyway, she’d no doubt propped it open with that brick like she usually does.’