The Unlucky Lottery

Help, thought Münster when he had finally returned to his office. That’s what we need. We don’t know a damned thing, and what’s required now is help.

TV, newspapers, anything at all. The general public, that great detective.

Tip-offs, that’s what they needed.

And yet, it was still only a three-piece puzzle.

Leverkuhn. Bonger. Else Van Eck.

When he tried to think about how it felt, the only conclusion he could draw was that it was not especially uplifting.

20

‘You do realize it’s Saturday, do you?’ said Synn.

‘I rang him yesterday,’ said Münster. ‘The only time he had available was a couple of hours this morning. Do you think he’s found himself a woman?’

Synn raised an eyebrow.

‘You’re not suggesting that he would give her preference rather than work, are you? He must be bloody unique in the world of men if he does, I must say.’

Münster tried to respond, but found that there was some kind of spiritual eructation in the way, and no words came out.

‘Synn, for goodness’ sake . . .’ he managed to utter in the end, but she had already turned her back on him.

He drank up his coffee and left the kitchen. As he crouched in the hall fastening his shoelaces, he could hear her messing about with the children upstairs.

She loves me even so, he thought hopefully. When all’s said and done, she still does.

‘I’ll be home by one at the latest!’ he shouted up the stairs. ‘I’ll do some shopping on the way back.’

‘Buy something!’

Marieke came sliding down the stairs.

‘Buy something! I want something! Wrapped up in paper!’

He lifted her up. Gave her a hug, buried his nose in her newly washed hair and decided he would buy no less than three presents. Something for Marieke, something for Bartje, something for Synn.

A hundred roses for Synn.

I must put a stop to this deterioration in our relationship, he thought. I really must.

But would roses be the right thing to fill the cracks? Well, that was something he would have to think long and hard about.

He put Marieke down and hurried out into the rain.

‘You’re looking well, Chief Inspector,’ said Münster.

Van Veeteren slurped the froth off his beer.

‘Kindly refrain from using those words, Münster,’ he said. ‘I’ve known you for long enough and said many times that we don’t need to use titles.’

‘Thank you,’ said Münster. ‘But in any case, you are looking well. That’s what I was trying to convey.’

Van Veeteren took a deep swig, and smacked his lips with pleasure.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a word with the Good Lord, and we’ve agreed on seven good years after the wandering through the darkness. And I’ll be buggered if that isn’t what I deserve – when I’m sixty-five He can do whatever He likes with me.’

‘Really?’ said Münster. ‘I must say I’ve started feeling a bit on the old side . . . And Reinhart is off work just now, so things get a bit difficult at times.’

‘Don’t they have a new chief inspector up their sleeves?’

Münster shook his head.

‘I think they’re waiting for two things. To see if you come back . . .’

‘I’m not coming back,’ said Van Veeteren.

‘. . . and if you don’t, I reckon Heinemann has to retire first. Nobody can envisage him in that role, and he’s next in line, as it were.’

‘But Hiller became chief of police,’ Van Veeteren reminded him.

He picked up his tobacco pouch, placed a little cigarette machine on the table and started rolling.

‘I’ve given up toothpicks,’ he explained. ‘I was becoming addicted. And this rolling almost makes it a craft . . . Well, what the hell is it you want? We don’t need to sit around all day being as polite as a couple of Chinamen.’

Münster took a swig of his beer and looked out over the rainy square, where people were bustling from one stall to another. He wondered vaguely how many times he’d sat here at Adenaar’s with the chief inspector. Listening to his bad-tempered expositions and gloomy observations . . . and noting the absolutely clear and incorruptible spirit that was always present under the surface. No, it wasn’t difficult to understand why he had jumped off the bandwagon, Münster thought. He’d been on it for thirty-five years, after all.

And it was not surprising that the Good Lord had granted him seven good years. Münster would have done the same.

‘Well?’ Van Veeteren asked again.

‘Yes, there was something I wanted to ask you about, in fact.’

‘Leverkuhn?’

Münster nodded.

‘How could the chief . . . How did you know that?’

Van Veeteren lit his roll-up and inhaled as if he had just invented the first cigarette.

‘Five a day,’ he said. ‘This is number one. What did you say?’

‘You knew that I wanted to talk to you about Leverkuhn. How?’

‘I guessed,’ said Van Veeteren modestly. ‘It’s not the first time, after all. And I still read the newspapers.’