The Unlucky Lottery

‘I haven’t the slightest idea. I never got to know her, and know nothing about her private life.’

‘What about her professional life?’ Moreno asked. ‘Do you know why she became a French teacher?’

Gravenstein hesitated.

‘There is a story,’ she said.

‘A story?’ Moreno repeated.

Fröken Gravenstein bit her lip and contemplated her hands. Seemed to be discussing something with herself.

‘One of those myths,’ she said. ‘The kind that circulate among pupils about almost every teacher. Sometimes there’s a grain of truth in them, sometimes there isn’t. But you can’t put too much faith in them.’

‘And what was the mythology surrounding Else Van Eck?’ Moreno asked.

‘A love story.’

Moreno nodded encouragingly.

‘Young and unhappy love,’ explained Gravenstein. ‘A Frenchman. They were engaged and were going to get married, but then he left her for someone else.’

Moreno said nothing, waited for a while.

‘Not especially imaginative,’ she said eventually.

‘There’s more to come,’ said fröken Gravenstein. ‘According to legend, she started reading French for his sake, and she continued doing so for his sake. His name is said to be Albert, and after a while he regretted what he’d done. Tried to win her back. But Else refused to forgive him. When it finally got through to him what he’d done, he hurled himself in front of a train and died. Gare du Nord. Hmm . . .’

‘Hmm,’ Moreno agreed. ‘And when was this supposed to have happened?’

Gravenstein threw her arms out wide.

‘I don’t know. When she was young, of course. Shortly after the war, I assume.’

Moreno sighed. Krystyna Gravenstein suddenly smiled broadly.

‘Everybody must have a story,’ she said. ‘For those who don’t, we need to invent one.’

She glanced up at the rows of books as she said that, and Moreno realized that it was a quotation. And that the words had a certain relevance to Gravenstein’s life as well.

What’s my story? she thought in the lift on the way down. Claus? My police work? Or do I have to invent one?

She shuddered when she remembered that there were less than seven days to go to Christmas, and she had no idea how she was going to spend the holiday.

Perhaps I might as well volunteer to work over the whole time, she thought. If I could make things easier for a colleague, why not?

Then she thought for a while about Albert.

A Frenchman who had taken his own life fifty years ago or more? For the sake of Else Van Eck. Would it still be possible to identify him?

And could it have anything at all to do with this case that Intendent Münster insisted on persevering with and poking about in?

No, nothing at all, she decided. Could anything possibly be more far-fetched? Nevertheless she decided to report the matter. To tell the story. The myth. If nothing else it would be nice to sit and talk about it for a while with Münster. Surely she could grant herself that much?

That apart, Krystyna Gravenstein seemed to have sorted out quite a pleasant way of spending her old age, Moreno thought. Sitting up under the roof beams among lots of books high above the town, and doing nothing but read and write . . . Not a bad existence.

But before you got that far, of course, you had a life to find your way through.

She sighed and started walking back to the police station.

Münster checked his watch. Then counted the Christmas presents on the back seat.

Twelve in an hour and a half. Not bad. That gave him plenty of time for his visit to Pampas, and he gathered that the widowed fru de Grooit didn’t like being rushed. Peace and quiet, and there’s a time for everything – that’s what it had sounded like on the telephone.

He parked in the street outside the low, drab, brown house. Sat there for a minute, composing himself and wondering what exactly it was that prevented him from letting go of this business.

In his infinite wisdom, Chief of Police Hiller had declared that in the name of all that’s holy there was no rational reason for wasting any more resources on this case. Waldemar Leverkuhn had been murdered. His wife had confessed to doing it, and on Thursday she would be found guilty of either murder or manslaughter. He didn’t give a toss which. A certain Felix Bonger had gone missing and a certain Else Van Eck had gone missing.

‘So what?’ Hiller had asked, and Münster knew that he was right, in fact. The average number of people who went missing in their district was 15–18 per year, and the fact that two of them happened to disappear at about the same time as the Leverkuhn business was obviously pure coincidence.

Naturally the police continued to look for the two missing persons – just as they did for all the others who had gone up in smoke – but it wasn’t a job for highly paid (overpaid!) detective officers.

Bugger that for a lark. Full stop. Exit Hiller.

It’s a damned nuisance, having to work on the sly, Münster thought as he got out of the car.

But if you are an uncompromising seeker of the truth, you must grin and bear it.