Håkan Nesser - The Unlucky Lottery

‘Yes.’

‘Do you want to phone your children?’

No answer.

Oh dear, Emmeline thought. She’s not well at all.

Hardly surprising. Murdered? Waldemar Leverkuhn murdered? Emmeline shuddered. Who on earth could have imagined such a thing? An old fart like that.

For a few minutes she said nothing, concentrating on her driving and trying to imagine what it must feel like to come home and find your husband manhandled like that. Dead. Murdered and wallowing in his own blood, as they had put it on the radio. A carving knife!

After a while she gave up the attempt to imagine it. It was simply too much to ask.

Much too much. Emmeline peered cautiously from the side at her motionless friend. Poor Marie-Louise, she thought, I promise to take care of you! You’re bound to be in shock and confused; the main thing is to get a few tablets down you and then tuck you up in bed. I hope I have the strength.

When the police rang that morning her first and immediate reaction had been to rush and do what she could for her friend; but it was only now, as she sat here with the silent widow beside her in the car, that she began to realize what was involved.

Anyway, it’s no doubt best not to let silence reign, she thought. I’d better say something.

It wasn’t a difficult decision to make: if there was anything Emmeline von Post had difficulty in coping with, it was silence.

‘You can sleep in Mart’s room,’ she said. ‘Then you won’t be disturbed by all the traffic noise. Will that be okay?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve got a bit of that lamb cutlet left in the freezer. We can eat that, don’t you think? You thought it was very good. Then we won’t need to go shopping.’

‘Yes.’

‘For God’s sake! Here am I chattering on about food – you must be absolutely washed out.’

No answer.

‘Waldemar was such a lovely man.’

One thing at a time, Emmeline thought, putting her hand on her friend’s arm. We’ll sort it out eventually.

‘What miserable weather,’ she said. ‘It was lovely yesterday.’

Marie-Louise Leverkuhn went to bed in what used to be the boy’s room in Geldenerstraat 24 at half past two on Sunday afternoon, and didn’t get up until about eight on Monday morning. Emmeline came in to check on her several times during the afternoon and evening, and before going to bed herself she left a tray with juice and some sandwiches on the bedside table. For the sake of nourishment and to get some vitamins into her. And out of consideration for her welfare. Although what her old friend needed above all else, as anybody could see, was of course some peace and quiet.

And that is exactly what she got. Even if it was on the silent side.

On her part Emmeline had quite a frustrating afternoon and evening. The lamb cutlet went into and out of the oven several times – until she finally put it in the refrigerator and decided it would serve as Monday’s evening meal. She drank at least five cups of tea, and watered the flowers twice. It felt especially odd to have her old friend lying in Mart’s room – Mart who had eventually flown the nest eight years ago, but still came back to visit and sleep in his old unchanged boy’s room at regular intervals, especially when his all-too-young wife had done something silly again. Of course it had been high time he found somebody at last: thirty-five was no age at which to be still living at home with Mummy. There’s a time for everything, after all.

But now it was Marie-Louise Leverkuhn lying in his bed, because her husband had been murdered. As Emmeline tiptoed carefully about the house so as not to disturb or wake up her guest, it occurred to her how fortunate it was that Edward – her own Edward – had had the good taste to die of cancer, instead of being stabbed to death with a carving knife.

Murdered! It was terrible. Her lower arm broke out in goose pimples whenever she thought of that word – and by Jove, there were not many minutes when she managed to think of anything else.

Eventually, when it was already quite dark outside and in corners of the house, she also began to think about who could have done the deed: and that did not make things any better. There was a murderer on the loose!

Then she started thinking about Marie-Louise, their meeting last Saturday evening, playing whist and drinking port wine (perhaps at the very moment Waldemar was being murdered!) – and how remarkably reserved she had been during the car journey and the half-hour before she went to bed, and then… well, then she suddenly felt very weary. And a little dizzy.

There was something very strange about it all.

Obviously you couldn’t expect a person to behave normally in circumstances like these, but even so? There was something else, Emmeline thought. Some other thing gnawing away deep down inside her friend, forcing her to keep silent. God only knows what.

Then she shook her head and told herself it was just the silence inside the house and the darkness growing out of the corners and her thoughts about that blood-soaked body in the bed that sent her imagination spinning… But nevertheless, there was no denying that she didn’t know very much about Marie-Louise and her life after all these years. Not much at all.

And about her husband? Absolutely nothing.

But then, perhaps she didn’t know any more than that about anybody else? A human being is a riddle, Edward – her Edward – occasionally used to say. An unsolvable bloody riddle. (He was not afraid to throw in the odd expletive occasionally!)

Having got thus far in her speculations, she went into the kitchen and poured herself a substantial whisky. Drank it while standing up, established that she still had goose pimples on her lower arm and poured herself another one.

It was quite simply one of those evenings.

The children rang on Monday morning.

Ruth and Mauritz, one after the other, with less than fifteen minutes between the calls. Marie-Louise shut herself into the bedroom while she was speaking to them, and Emmeline couldn’t hear a word – although she would have liked to.

But not a lot seemed to have been said. Both calls took less than five minutes – as if Marie-Louise had been worried about the telephone bill, even though she was not the one who had phoned.

‘You must talk about it,’ Emmeline urged her friend when she came back to the breakfast table after speaking to her son. ‘It’s not good to bottle it all up.’

Marie-Louise looked at her with tired, vacant eyes.

‘What on earth is there for me to say?’ she said.

Three seconds passed before she suddenly burst into tears.

At last, Emmeline thought as she put an arm tenderly round Marie-Louise’s hunched shoulders. At last.

‘Any comments?’ said Münster, spreading the photographs out over the table so that all present could study them to their hearts’ content.

The variations were insignificant: Waldemar Leverkuhn’s mutilated body from a dozen different angles and distances. Blood. Crumpled bedclothes. Wounds in close-up. Pale skin covered in moles. An absurdly colourful tie sticking out from under the pillow. Blood. And more blood.

Moreno shook her head. Intendent Heinemann took off his glasses and began rubbing them clean with the aid of his own much more discreet tie. Rooth stopped chewing away at a chocolate biscuit and turned his back demonstratively on the table. Only young Krause continued perusing the macabre details, dutifully and with furrowed brow.

‘Take them away!’ said Rooth. ‘My digestive system demands an ounce of respect. And in any case, I was there and saw it all in real life.’

Life? Münster thought. Does he call this life? It’s a long time since I’ve seen anything so stone-cold dead. He sighed as he gathered up the photographs, leaving two of them lying there as a reminder of the subject of their discussions.