“On the contrary. My boss says I take too much initiative.”
“In any case I’m going to tell you what you shouldn’t ask me so as not to reoffend on that count. I stated yesterday that I wasn’t ever part of any political associations, student bodies or nudist colonies in my country.”
“How can you have kept yourself to yourself to that degree?”
“Because I’ve only ever been interested in my career. Do you want my whole life story?”
“I know it, thank you. Adolfo Federico Luchter, son of a Lutheran pastor, Juan Federico Luchter, and Margarita Oederle, who died in 1928. Born in Munich on the 28th of September 1910. Only child. Your father was arrested by a paramilitary group in 1939. Disappeared. Presumed dead. You studied medicine in Munich and left Germany in 1935. You lived for three years in Paris. Is there anything else? Oh, yes! There is no known link between you and Frida Eidinger.”
“Absolutely,” declared Dr Luchter. “And now will you allow me to call the waiter?”
“Absolutely,” said Blasi approvingly.
5
The Web
VII. Pay private visits to any residents of the building on Calle Santa Fe you think seem interesting.
Blasi had been feeling torn since Betty had confided in him. His sense of professionalism was at odds with his personal feelings, and over the next three days something stopped him acting on the last point of Santiago Ericourt’s recommendations any time he found a sliver of time in his work that would have allowed it.
It was no good telling himself he should talk to Betty again even if the issue of her visits to the Czerbós had nothing to do with the circumstances of Frida Eidinger’s death. He was always so busy! Inspector Ericourt was forever mentioning more people who were in some way linked to the dead woman. He had to find them, listen to them, hear new names, track down others. And in the background of all that coming and going was the uncomfortable twinge of the secret.
Since Betty was with Czerbó at the time of señora Eidinger’s death, neither could be involved in the matter and as such it was no use mentioning a relationship that had nothing to do with the investigation. The point was not to discover what intimacy existed between the two of them, but rather any Frida Eidinger might have shared with someone else.
He told himself this for the hundredth time as he was preparing to enter his boss’s office that morning. Santiago Ericourt received him looking his best. His lively gaze, rosy face and the agility of his movements all indicated a man ready to spring into action.
“News,” he said, pointing happily to the telephone. “A call from Eidinger. He wants to talk to me. We’re going over there.”
“Has something happened?”
Why did he feel as if he had just been punched in the stomach? He really was on edge.
“It seems so. I knew someone would end up feeling the need to talk.”
Until that moment Inspector Ericourt’s official conclusion had been that the case was a suicide planned to trouble the supposed guilty party. “Generally,” he liked to say, “when women in love kill themselves it’s to get revenge on someone equally weak who has been unable to manage the situation.”
As they climbed into the police car, Blasi, who knew the intensity of Ericourt’s self-absorption, suggested humbly:
“Shall I drive?”
“No, let me. I feel very lively this morning.”
“Lord help us,” sighed Blasi.
They set off with Ericourt at the wheel. All of a sudden the Inspector said, in a voice so distant it proved to Blasi the danger they were in:
“The man over whom Frida Eidinger committed suicide is keeping quiet out of fear. Deep down it’s a matter of no consequence, a simple personal problem.”
“Crimes tend to be personal problems,” said Blasi, who felt inclined towards pessimism that morning.
“It’s not a crime. If someone killed her there would’ve been better ways to get rid of the key ring.”
“There can be cases of mental confusion, can’t there? Anyway, the keys were found by chance.”
“You’re right,” admitted Ericourt.
He must have set off along a new path of conjectures. Blasi saw the back of a red truck fill the car’s windscreen, almost flat against the bonnet.
“Watch out!” he shouted.
“I’ve interrogated more than twenty people,” went on Ericourt calmly. “No one knows anything. You’ve heard the neighbours and friends. They all say it seemed like a perfect marriage. Frida didn’t have a social life, she was a good housewife, she didn’t shirk her duties.”
“Reserved, haughty and spurning friendships, according to local gossip. You call that a good image?”
“More than one husband would think it ideal.”
“I’m single. Any theory about the perfect woman—”
He didn’t finish formulating his thought. The driver of a bus passing too close flung a few choice phrases at him as he went by, making several references to family members, along with a gesture that made their meaning perfectly clear. Blasi opted for silence.
They took a side street where Ericourt could give himself over to speculation without further incidents. A few minutes later they arrived at the house on Calle Lácar.
Eidinger hadn’t lost his resemblance to a rat sniffing around a cave. He took a few minutes to come to the door.
“Forgive me, I was upstairs,” he explained as he beckoned them in. “I keep wandering around doing nothing. I can’t get used to being alone.”
It was true, the place had become the charmless refuge of a desolate man. It was as if Frida’s presence had disappeared completely. The unpleasant grey day filtered into the house. Blasi examined the small living room, looking for material evidence of the change. He noted the absence of Frida’s photograph. Eidinger watched his movements warily.
“How’s Muck?” he asked.
“Very well.”
“You can bring him back tomorrow. I’ll keep him until I decide to go away. I’ve started to miss the bother he caused me. I felt better with him here.”
The endearing melancholy of a simple man, but had he called just to tell them he missed Muck?
“What happened?” Ericourt tackled the issue head-on.
Eidinger sat in front of him, his eyes downcast.
“Last night I got a strange, threatening phone call. They said I should immediately destroy the photographs of Frida if I didn’t want anything to happen to me.”
“What time was that?”
“Midnight.”
“Did you recognize the voice?”
“It was a man’s voice. He sounded threatening and spoke perfect Spanish. The voice didn’t seem disguised.”
Ericourt listened behind a mask of seriousness, with his eyes half-closed.
“And did you destroy the photographs?”
The fact that he had called them made it seem unlikely that he had. However, more than nine hours had passed since the mysterious call. Fear doesn’t wait that long to raise the alarm.
“They’re in my studio as usual.”
“You should’ve called straight away.”
“Why? It was ridiculous. Nothing could happen. Both doors are locked. And the windows have bars. No one could get in.”
“You might’ve had an unexpected visit.”
“I wouldn’t have let any stranger in.”
“It needn’t necessarily be a stranger.”
Eidinger looked at the Inspector, seemingly wounded.
“I’ve spent the night thinking, Inspector. Do you remember Frida’s letters? She insisted on bringing those photos with her even though she knew I didn’t want her to. She refused to destroy them or get rid of them, which made me think they meant a lot to her. After her death I felt sorry I’d been so pig-headed. Now I think my wife was hiding something from me, and not necessarily a matter of the heart.”