The Unlucky Lottery

He walked to Freddy’s. A grey mist hung over the canals and the deserted Sunday streets, but at least it had stopped raining for the moment. The little restaurant was in Weiskerstraat, on the corner of Langgraacht, and the entrance doors were not yet open. Sundays 12–24, it said on a yellowed piece of paper taped to the door, but he knocked on the wet glass and, after a long pause, he was allowed in. The door was opened by a powerfully built woman in her forties. She was almost as tall as he was, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, with a slightly grubby red shawl over her head. She was evidently busy transforming the premises into a reasonably presentable state.

Doing the cleaning, you could say.

‘Elizabeth Gautiers?’

She nodded and put a pile of plastic-laminated menus down on the bar counter. Münster looked around. The lighting was very low-key – he assumed this was connected with the level of cleanliness aimed at. Otherwise it looked much the same as any other similar establishment. Dark wooden panels, drab furnishings in brown, green and red. A cigarette machine and a television set. Another room at the back had tables with white cloths and was slightly more generously lit: evidently a somewhat posher dining area. Voices and the clattering of pots and pans could be heard from the kitchen: it was half past ten and they were starting to prepare for lunch.

‘Was it you who rang?’

Münster produced his ID and looked for a convenient place to sit down.

‘We can sit through there. Would you like anything?’

She pointed towards the white tablecloths and led the way through the saloon doors.

‘Coffee, please,’ said Münster, ignoring the fact that he had promised Synn to reduce his intake to four cups per day. This would be his third. ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

It wasn’t. They sat down under the branches of a weeping fig made of cloth and plastic, and he took out his notebook.

‘As I said, it’s about that group of diners you had here last night . . .’ He checked the names. ‘Palinski, Bonger, Wauters and Leverkuhn. All of them regulars, I believe? It looks as if Leverkuhn has been murdered.’

This was evidently news to her, her jaw dropped so far that he could hear a slight clicking noise. Münster wondered if she could possibly have false teeth – she couldn’t be more than forty-five, surely? His own age, more or less.

‘Murdered?’

‘No doubt about it,’ said Münster, and paused.

‘Er . . . but why?’

‘We don’t know yet.’

She sat absolutely still for a few seconds. Then she removed the shawl and revealed a head of hair almost exactly the same shade of red. But not quite as grubby. A rather beautiful woman, Münster decided, somewhat to his surprise. Large, but beautiful. A good catch for the right man. She lit a cigarette.

‘Robbery, I expect?’

Münster made no reply.

‘Was he attacked on the way home?’

‘Not really. Can you tell me what time he left here?’

Elizabeth Gautiers thought for a moment.

‘Eleven, maybe a few minutes past,’ she said. ‘It had been a bit special,’ she added after a while.

‘Special?’

‘They got drunk. Leverkuhn fell under the table.’

‘Under the table?’

She laughed.

‘Yes, he really did. He dragged the tablecloth down with him, and there was a bit of a palaver. Still, we managed to stand them up and set them on their way . . . You mean he was killed on the way home?’

‘No,’ said Münster. ‘In his bed. Did they have an argument, these gentlemen, or anything of the sort?’

‘No more than usual.’

‘Did you see how they set off for home? Did you phone for a taxi, perhaps?’

‘That’s never necessary,’ said Gautiers, ‘there are always plenty of taxis just round the corner, in Megsje Plejn. Let me see, I think two of them took a taxi – I was watching through the window. But Leverkuhn and Bonger started walking.’

Münster nodded and made a note.

‘You know them pretty well, I take it?’

‘I certainly do. They sit here two evenings a week, at least. Bonger and Wauters more than that – four or five times. But they’re usually in the bar . . .’

‘How long have they been coming here?’

‘Ever since I’ve been working here, that’s eight years now.’

‘But yesterday they were in the restaurant?’

She stubbed out her cigarette and thought about that.

‘Yes, there was something special on last night, as I said. They seemed to be celebrating something. I think they had won some money.’

Münster wrote that down.

‘What makes you think that? How would they have won some money?’

‘I don’t know. Football pools or the lottery, I expect – they usually sit here filling in coupons on Wednesday nights. They try to keep it secret for some silly reason, they don’t speak aloud about it, but you catch on even so.’

‘Are you certain about this?’

She thought it over again.

‘No, not certain,’ she said. ‘But it can hardly have been anything else. They were dressed up as well. They ordered expensive wines and cognac. And they ate à la carte . . . But for God’s sake, why would they want to kill Leverkuhn? Poor old chap. Was he robbed?’

Münster shook his head.