Håkan Nesser - The Unlucky Lottery

Inspector Moreno had a younger sister.

Or did have, rather. He thought for a moment. Maybe that was what was depressing her, he thought. But then he noted her hunched shoulders and tousled hair, and realized there must be something else as well. Something quite different. Apart from Synn, Inspector Moreno was the most beautiful woman he had ever had the pleasure of coming into anything like good contact with. But right now she looked distinctly human.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

She sighed deeply twice before replying.

‘I feel so bloody awful.’

‘I can see that,’ Münster said. ‘Personal problems?’

What an idiotic question, he thought. I sound like an emasculated social care worker.

But she merely shrugged and twisted her mouth into an ironic smile.

‘What else?’

‘I tell you what,’ said Münster, playing the man of cunning and checking his watch. ‘You go and check up on the old codgers and I’ll talk to Ruth Leverkuhn – and then we’ll have lunch at Adenaar’s. One o’clock. Okay?’

Moreno gave him a searching look.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But I won’t be very good company.’

‘So what?’ said Münster. ‘We can always concentrate on the food.’

‘And what’s strange about that?’

The powerfully built woman glared threateningly at Rooth from behind her fringe, and it occurred to him that he wouldn’t have a chance against her if it came to hand-to-hand fighting. He would need a gun.

‘My dear fru Van Eck,’ he said nevertheless, taking a sip of the insipid coffee her husband had made in response to her explicit command. ‘Surely you can understand even so? An unknown person gets into the building, up the stairs, into the Leverkuhns’ flat. He – or she, for that matter – stabs herr Leverkuhn twenty-eight times and kills him. It happens up there’ – he gestured towards the ceiling – ‘less than seven metres from this kitchen table. The murderer then saunters out again through the door, down the stairs and disappears. And you don’t notice anything at all. That’s what I call strange!’

Now she’ll thump me, he thought, bracing himself against the edge of the table so that he would be able to get quickly to his feet, but evidently his aggressive tone of voice had thrown her off balance.

‘But good grief, Constable…’

‘Inspector,’ insisted Rooth, ‘Detective Inspector Rooth.’

‘Really? Anyway, no matter what, we didn’t notice a thing, neither me nor Arnold. The only thing we heard that night was those screwing machines, that nigger and his slut… Isn’t that right, Arnold?’

‘Er, yes,’ said Arnold, scratching his wrists nervously.

‘We’ve already explained this, both to you and that other plod, whatever his name is. Why can’t you find whoever did it instead of snooping around here? We’re honest people.’

I don’t doubt that for a second, Rooth thought. Not for a single second. He decided to change track.

‘The front door?’ he said. ‘What about that? It’s usually left unlocked, I gather?’

‘No,’ said fru Van Eck. ‘It could very well have been locked – but it’s a crap lock.’

‘You can open it simply by peeing on it,’ squeaked Arnold Van Eck somewhat surprisingly, and started giggling.

‘Hold your bloody tongue!’ said his wife. ‘Pour some more coffee instead! Yes, it’s a crap lock, but I assume the door was probably standing ajar so that Mussolini could get in.’

‘Mussolini?’ said Rooth.

‘Yes, he’d probably gone out for a screw as usual – I don’t understand why she doesn’t castrate the bloody thing.’

‘It’s a cat,’ explained Arnold.

‘He’ll have gathered that, for Christ’s sake!’ snorted fru Van Eck. ‘Anyway, she’d no doubt propped it open with that brick like she usually does.’

‘I see,’ said Rooth, and started to draw a cat in his notebook while trying to recall if he had ever come across such a vulgar woman before. He didn’t think so. In the earlier interrogation, conducted by Constable Krause, it had emerged that she had worked for most of her life as a teacher in a school for girls, so there was considerable food for thought.

‘What do you think about it?’ he asked.

‘About what?’ asked fru Van Eck.

‘The murder,’ said Rooth. ‘Who do you think did it?’

She opened her mouth wide and tossed in two or three small biscuits. Her husband cleared his throat but didn’t get as far as spitting.

‘Immigrants,’ she said curtly, and washed down the biscuits with a swig of coffee. Slammed her cup down with a bang. ‘Yes, if you take my advice you’ll start interrogating the immigrants.’

‘Why?’ asked Rooth.

‘For Christ’s sake, don’t you see? It’s sheer madness! Or it could be some young gangsters. Yes, that’s where you’ll find your murderer. Take your pick, it’s up to you.’

Rooth thought for a while.

‘Do you have any children yourselves?’ he asked.

‘Of course we bloody well don’t,’ said fru Van Eck, starting to look threatening again.

Good, Rooth thought. Genetic self-cleansing.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I won’t disturb you any longer.’

Mussolini was lying on his back on the radiator, snoring.

Rooth had never seen a bigger cat, and purposely sat as far away on the sofa as possible.

‘I’ve spoken to the Van Ecks,’ he said.

Leonore Mathisen smiled.

‘You mean you’ve spoken to fru Van Eck, I take it?’

‘Hm,’ said Rooth. ‘Perhaps that is what I mean. Anyway, we need to clarify a few things. To ask if you’ve remembered anything else about the night of the murder, for instance, now that a little time has passed.’

‘I understand.’

‘One thing that puzzles us is the fact that nobody heard anything. For example, you, fröken Mathisen, have your bedroom almost directly above the Leverkuhns’, but you fell asleep at…’

He rummaged through his notebook and pretended to be looking for the time.

‘Half past twelve, roughly.’

‘That’s right,’ he confirmed. In fact Leonore Mathisen was not much smaller than fru Van Eck, but the raw material seemed to be completely different. Like a… a bit like a currant bush as opposed to a block of granite. To take the comparison further, the bush was wearing cheerful home-dyed clothes in red, yellow and violet, and an intertwined hair ribbon in the same colours. The block of granite had been greyish brown all over and at least a quarter of a century older.

‘I heard when he came home, as I said. Shortly before midnight, I think. Then I switched on the clock radio and listened to music until… well, I suppose I dozed off after about half an hour.’

‘Was he alone when he came in?’ Rooth asked.

She shrugged.

‘No idea. I’m not even sure it was him. I just heard somebody coming up the stairs, and a door opening and closing. But it was their door, of course – I’m sure about that.’

‘No voices?’

‘No.’

Rooth turned over a page of his notebook.

‘What was he like?’ he asked. ‘Leverkuhn, I mean.’

She started fiddling with one of the thin wooden beads she was wearing in clusters around her neck while weighing her words.

‘Hmm, I don’t really know,’ she said. ‘Very courteous, I’d say. He was always friendly and acknowledged me; rather dapper and correct; occasionally drank one glass too many when he was out with his old mates – but never drank so much that he became unpleasant with it. I suppose I only saw him when he was on his way in and out, come to think about it.’

‘How long have you been living here?’

She counted up.