The Unlucky Lottery Read Online Free PDF Page B

eyes and tried to work out what Van Veeteren would have done in a situation like this.
    That did not take very long to work out. He rang down to the duty officer and announced that he would like to see Inspector Jung and Inspector Moreno in his office at four o’clock.
    Then he took the lift down to the basement and spent the next two hours in the sauna.
    ‘Nice weather today,’ said Jung.
    ‘We had sun yesterday,’ Münster pointed out.
    ‘I’m serious,’ said Jung. ‘I like these curtains of rain. The grey all around you sort of makes you want to look inside yourself instead. At the essentials of life, if you follow me . . . The internal landscape.’
    Moreno frowned.
    ‘Sometimes, you know,’ she said, ‘sometimes an unassuming colleague can say things that are very sensible. Have you been on a course?’
    ‘The university of life,’ said Jung. ‘Who’s going to kick off?’
    ‘Ladies first,’ said Münster. ‘But I agree with you. There’s something special about black, wet tree trunks . . . But perhaps we ought to discuss that another day.’
    Ewa Moreno opened her notebook and started things going.
    ‘Benjamin Wauters,’ she said. ‘Born 1925 in Frigge. Lived in Maardam since 1980. All over the place before that. He’s worked on the railways all his life – until he retired, that is. Confirmed bachelor . . . No relations at all – none that he wants to acknowledge, at least. Suffers from verbal diarrhoea, to be honest. Loquacious and lonely. The other old codgers he meets at Freddy’s are the only company he keeps, apart from his cat. Half angora, I think. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so well groomed. I had the impression that they take their meals together. A very neat and tidy flat as well. Flowers on the window ledges and all that.’
    ‘What about last night?’ Münster interjected.
    ‘He didn’t have much to say about that,’ said Moreno. ‘Apparently they had a decent meal for once – they usually spend their time in the bar. They got a bit drunk, he admitted that. Leverkuhn fell under the table, and so they thought they ought to accept a walkover – that’s the way he put it. He’s sport mad, and a gambler, he made no attempt to conceal that. Anyway, that’s about it: but it took two hours with coffee and all his dirty jokes.’
    ‘No views about the murder?’
    ‘No views he’d thought through,’ said Moreno. ‘He was sure it must have been a madman, and pure coincidence. Nobody had any reason to bump Leverkuhn off, he maintained. A good mate and a real brick, even if he could be a bit cussed at times. To tell you the truth I tend to agree with him. At any rate it seems out of the question that any of these old codgers could have had anything to do with the murder.’
    ‘I agree,’ said Jung, and recapitulated his meeting with Palinski and his visit to Bonger’s canal boat.
    Münster sighed.
    ‘A complete blank, then,’ he said. ‘Well, I suppose that was only to be expected.’
    ‘Were the doors unlocked, then?’ Jung asked. ‘At the Leverkuhns’, I mean.’
    ‘Apparently.’
    ‘So we only need some junkie as high as a kite to go past, sneak inside and find a poor old buffer fast asleep that he can take his revenge on. Then sneak out again the same way as he came in. Dead easy, don’t you think?’
    ‘Good thinking,’ said Moreno. ‘But how are we going to find him?’
    Münster thought for a moment.
    ‘If that’s the answer,’ he said, ‘we’ll never find him.’
    ‘Unless he starts talking out of turn,’ said Jung. ‘And somebody is kind enough to tip us off.’
    Münster sat in silence for a few seconds again, eyeing his colleagues one after the other.
    ‘Do you really think this is what happened?’
    Jung shrugged and yawned. Moreno looked doubtful.
    ‘It’s very possible,’ she said. ‘As long as we don’t have the slightest hint of a motive, that could well be the answer. And nothing had been stolen from the flat –