The Village Post Office

Emmental, Friday at six · the post office has just closed · the yellow post bus waits on the square · Difficulty: Officer 4 · 8×8

A village in the Emmental, a Friday evening in October. At six the post office closed, and on the village square the yellow post bus waited for the 18:12 run. Viktor, the driver, went to the Loading Yard for the last mail sacks, but did not come back. He had been in a bad mood all week: a crate of prize cheese he was to take to Bern had gone missing. Viktor was found dead. The 18:12 never left.

Rules

Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
“Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the bicycle, the trolley, the stove, the table, the shelf, the crates, the scales, the desk, the safe, the counters, the clock, the apple tree, the flower bed and the fountain) cannot be occupied; the chairs, the stool and the benches can.
Directions refer to rows and columns, not to the same line: “exactly one row north of him was a woman” = the person in the row directly above was a woman, in any column; “the northernmost person in her area” = nobody else in her area was in a row further up.
The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area. The victim made no statement – his square, too, follows from the others’.

Statements

Annelies (postmistress): She was alone in her area.
Beat (postman): He was on the Village Square.
Corinne (counter clerk): The safe was somewhere in her row. She was beside the safe.
Daniel (apprentice): He was the only one beside the clock.
Esther (schoolteacher): She was not with Corinne. The desk was somewhere in her column.
Fabienne (cheesemaker): There was a man in her area.
Gody (farmer): Exactly one row north of him was a female villager. He was the only one beside the shelf.
Viktor (post-bus driver): The victim. He was alone with the murderer.

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