The Unlucky Lottery

‘That’s possible,’ said Rooth. ‘She might have been butchered and embalmed as well. Or tied up and muzzled. Who cares? The point is that we ought to do a thorough search of the building instead of gadding about the neighbourhood.’

Jung said nothing for a while.

‘You have a point,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you go to Münster and talk it over with him?’

‘That’s exactly what I intend to do,’ said Rooth, standing up again. ‘I just wanted to give you a bit of insight into how a bigger brain works first.’

‘Thank you,’ said Jung. ‘It’s been both interesting and instructive.’

Two minutes later the four constables turned up. Jung inspected the quartet while thinking over the priorities.

‘I think we can manage with two of you for the time being,’ he said. ‘Klempje and Proszek. Joensuu and Kellerman can wait down in the duty officer’s room for the time being. We’ve received some new . . . indications.’

Constables Klempje and Proszek spent six hours on Friday showing enlarged photographs of Else Van Eck to a total of 362 persons in and close by Kolderweg. A comparatively large proportion of those people recognized the woman in the photograph immediately – but a comparatively small number had seen her later than six p.m. on Wednesday.

None at all, to be precise.

‘Why the hell don’t they just put a Wanted notice in the newspapers instead of making us work our socks off?’ Proszek wondered when they finally managed to find a sufficiently sheltered corner in the Cafe Bendix in Kolderplejn. ‘This is making me impotent.’

‘You always have been,’ said Klempje. ‘There’ll be one tomorrow.’

‘One what?’

‘A Wanted notice.’

‘For God’s sake,’ said Proszek. ‘In that case what’s the point of our farting around like this?’

Klempe shrugged.

‘Perhaps they’re in a hurry?’

‘Kiss my arse,’ said Proszek. ‘And cheers. Where the hell are Joensuu and Kellerman, by the way? Lounging about and lording it at some stake-out again, no doubt.’

Probably neither Joensuu nor Kellerman would have regarded what they were doing on Friday as lording it – always assuming they had an opportunity of commenting, which they didn’t. They spent five hours and forty-five minutes searching Kolderweg 17 from attic to boiler room. They were assisted by two black Alsatians with two red-haired minders, and, for at least half the search, Detective Inspector Rooth in his capacity of instigator of the operation.

The property was built at the end of the 1890s: there was an abundance of remarkable passages, corridors and abandoned cupboards, and nobody still alive had ever seen a plan of the building. That is if you could believe the owner – a certain herr Tibor who turned up in a Bentley with a large collection of keys at lunchtime. But when Rooth himself called off the operation two hours later, it could be stated with confidence that no woman of Else Van Eck’s dimensions – and no other woman come to that! – could have been hidden away in any of the building’s nooks or crannies.

Be they alive or dead.

But on the other hand several of the tenants were feeling distinctly upset. Joensuu’s protestations to the effect that it was just a routine investigation lost credibility as first the attic spaces were emptied, then bath tubs were turned upside down and the bottoms of sofas were cut open.

‘Bloody hooligans!’ snarled herr Engel when the Alsatian Rocky II investigated the collection of bottles under his bed. ‘Where’s that woman who came to see me the other day? At least she displayed a modicum of tact and good sense.’

What did I say! thought Inspector Rooth when it was all over. I’m going to keep this case at arm’s length.

‘Well, how did it go with your theory?’ Jung asked when Rooth returned to the police station.

‘Great,’ said Rooth. ‘I have another theory now. About how it happened.’

‘You don’t say,’ said Jung, looking up from the piles of papers.

‘Fröken Mathisen ground her down in the mincing machine and let Mussolini gobble her up.’

‘I thought Mussolini was a vegetarian?’ said Jung.

‘Wrong,’ said Rooth. ‘It was Hitler who was the vegetarian.’

‘If you say so,’ said Jung.

The run-through with Chief of Police Hiller on Friday afternoon was not a very memorable event. Two dwarf acacias had died during the week, despite having received all the care, nourishment and love of which a human being is capable.

The chief of police was not wearing mourning, although he did have black bags under his eyes.

Things were not much better on the human level. Münster summarized the situation with the assistance of Moreno and Jung (who had spent most of the day locating and interviewing various relatives and acquaintances of Else and Arnold Van Eck – and made about as much progress as a string quartet in a school for the deaf ), and after an extremely uninspiring hour it was decided to keep more or less all the officers currently on the case, to send out a lengthy press communiqué, and to leave all doors wide open for the mass media and any member of the public who might be able to provide relevant information.