The Unlucky Lottery

Thursday, 8 January was a comparatively fine day in Frigge too. Before setting off Münster noted that the gale had died down during the night, and that the morning presented a pale blue non-threatening sky, and a temperature probably a few degrees above freezing.

He set out shortly after nine, weighed down by the same tiredness he had been feeling for the past few months. Like an old friend, almost. At least I have a faithful stalker, he thought cynically.

According to the directions he had been given, the Gellner Home was situated just outside the town of Kielno, only a couple of miles from Kaalbringen where he had spent a few weeks some years ago in connection with a notorious axe murder. As he sat driving through the flat countryside, he recalled those weeks in September. The idyllic little coastal town, and all the bizarre circumstances that eventually led to the capture of the killer.

And Inspector Moerk. Beate Moerk. Another female colleague he had got to know rather too well. Perhaps he ought to ask himself if this was a flaw in his character – being unable to keep certain female colleagues at the necessary professional distance?

He wondered what she was doing nowadays. Was she still in Kaalbringen? Was she still single?

And Bausen! What the devil was Chief Inspector Bausen doing now? He made up his mind to ask Van Veeteren the next time he saw him. If anybody knew, he would.

The drive took less than an hour. For some reason the Gellner Home was signposted from the motorway, and he had no trouble in finding it. He parked in a car park with space for a hundred or so cars, but there was only a handful of vehicles there at the moment. He followed a series of discreet signs and entered the reception in a low, oblong building on top of a ridge. The whole complex seemed to be spread out over a considerable area. Yellow and pale green buildings two or three storeys high. Lawns and plenty of flowerbeds and trees. Small copses, and a strip of larches and mixed deciduous trees encircling the grounds. Irregular paths, paved with stone, and frequent groups of benches round small tables. The whole place seemed attractively peaceful, but he didn’t see a single person in the open air.

I expect it’s very different in the summer, he thought.

As agreed, he first met the woman he had spoken to twice on the telephone – the same confidence-inspiring welfare officer who had informed him about Irene Leverkuhn’s illness during the first stages of the investigation back in October.

Her name was Hedda deBuuijs, and she looked about fifty-five. A short, powerfully built woman with dyed iron-grey hair and a warm smile which seemed unable to keep away from her face for more than a few seconds at a time. It was clear to Münster that the respect for her he had felt during the telephone calls was in no way precipitate or unfounded.

She gave him no new information in connection with his impending meeting with Irene Leverkuhn, merely explained that he should not expect too much, and that she would have time for a brief chat with him afterwards, if he felt that would help.

Then she rang for a nurse, and Münster was led along several of the stone paths to one of the yellow buildings at the far end of the grounds.

He didn’t really know what to expect from his meeting with Irene Leverkuhn – or indeed if he expected anything at all. In appearance she was nothing at all like her overweight brother and sister. More like her mother: slim and wiry, it seemed, under her loose-fitting pale blue hospital jacket. Slightly hunch-backed, with long, thin arms and a bird-like face. Narrow nose and pale eyes noticeably close together.

She was sitting at a table in quite a large room, painting in watercolours on a pad. Two other women were sitting at different tables busy with some kind of batik prints, as far as Münster could tell. The nurse left, and he sat down opposite Irene Leverkuhn. She glanced at him, then returned to her painting. Münster introduced himself.

‘I don’t know you,’ Irene said.

‘No,’ said Münster. ‘But perhaps you’d like to have a little chat with me even so?’

‘I don’t know you,’ she repeated.

‘Do you mind if I sit here for a while, and watch while you’re painting?’

‘I don’t know you. I know everybody here.’

Münster looked at the painting. Blue and red in big, wavy shapes: she was using too much water and the paper was buckling. It looked more or less like it did when his little daughter occupied herself with the same pastime. He noticed that the used pages in the pad looked roughly the same.

‘Do you like living here at the Gellner Home?’ he asked.

‘I live in number twelve,’ Irene said. ‘Number twelve.’

Her voice was low and totally without expression. As if she were speaking a language she didn’t understand, it struck him.

‘Number twelve?’

‘Number twelve. The other girl is called Rebecka. I’m also a girl.’

‘Do you often have visitors?’ Münster asked.