“He must be out on visits.”
“I don’t like this business.”
“There’s no need to be nervous. I’m just getting to like it.”
An officer asked to have a word with the Superintendent. Lahore called him in.
“You’d better hear this man out, Superintendent, sir. He says he’s not going anywhere until he’s spoken to you.”
“Who is it?”
“The caretaker.”
“Send him in,” advised Ericourt. “He’ll have nothing to say, mark my words. They never talk when they should.”
Andrés Torres appeared. There was a prologue that included the inevitable refrains, “women’s stuff ” and “mine never leaves me in peace”, while he repeatedly ran his hand over the back of his shaved head, his eyes glued to the floor.
But he did have something to say, after all. Soler and Czerbó had had an argument, months ago, in Soler’s apartment. His wife was there because she had been covering for Soler’s maid, who was unwell. The two men had shut themselves in the study because Czerbó insisted on “talking alone”. Soon after, Aurora heard raised voices and then saw Soler shoving the other man out. After the door had closed, she heard him say that one day “he was going to give himself the pleasure of squashing him like a cockroach.”
“What was the argument about?”
“My wife says they were talking about a woman, and this morning señor Soler came to see me and warned me not to tell anyone about the episode. He said it was silly but he didn’t want any trouble.”
“You clearly took his advice,” said Ericourt mockingly.
“I thought, señor Inspector, that I ought to help the police. It’s our duty.”
“And you’ve done yours. You can calm down now.”
He imagined Czerbó’s motionless body as he had seen it a few moments earlier. An unfortunate soul who only ever attracted bad feeling. He had slipped like a reptile into the others’ lives. A blackmailer, Ericourt said to himself—I guessed as much.
Rita entered the room. The life had drained from her pinched and faded features, not even fear remained. She dragged her feet as she walked and her arms hung limply at her sides. Blasi remembered how she had followed him into the hall the day of his visit with Muck. Then, even her listless obedience and her slavish automatism had indicated some spirit. Now it was worse. Rita Czerbó has become a ghost, a shadow outliving its body.
All the same, she responded to the questions with extraordinary fluency and precision. She stated that the previous day her brother had seemed nervous and irritable. These crises, which were followed by sleepless nights and bouts of deep nervous depression, were familiar. At Boris’s request she had called Dr Luchter. The doctor had come at eight p.m. He prescribed some tranquillizing capsules and personally took the prescription to the pharmacy to have them prepared. He came back with them at ten p.m. and advised Rita to go and get some rest, saying he would stay with Boris until the medicine took effect. He warned her that Boris would probably sleep for a long time, so she should not worry if he stayed in bed later than usual.
Rita did as she was told and went to her room. She always locked the door and that night she did so trusting that her brother would not need her again. She did not hear Dr Luchter leave the apartment because her bedroom was at the end of the hall, separated from Boris’s by an anteroom, the study and his bathroom.
That was all. She got up early. She served Boris’s breakfast. She was not surprised that he had not called for it. She did the cleaning and then went out to run an errand.
“Where did you go?”
“To the laundry. The previous day I’d had an incident with Boris…”
Boris had been very nervous lately and told her not to let any strangers in. The previous morning the young man from the laundry had called by. It was not their day but he explained that a ticket had been lost which he assumed she had not given back. He asked her to look carefully for it to avoid any trouble with his employers. She looked for the ticket to no avail. When she returned to the kitchen (the lad had called at the service entrance, of course) there was no one there.
“I didn’t think anything of it,” Rita went on, “but I told Boris all the same. He called the laundry and they told him the lad hadn’t turned up that afternoon. They had the ticket. Boris blamed me, saying I would be responsible for whatever happened.”
Always the same droning voice, stripped of any nuance of tone, innocuous as a stream of distilled water, echoless as a punch thrown at a feather cushion.
“The young man still hadn’t turned up this morning. I went home. It was time to make lunch. I thought I should tell Boris. I always told him everything. That was when I found him.”
The slow, monotonous wave stopped. Rita was still staring at the interior window. On the opposite side there was a greyish wall with long teary streaks of soot and rain.
“Get the number for the laundry and find that young man,” Lahore ordered Blasi.
The questioning started up again. Blasi mentally classified the missing information as something that would have to wait to be resolved because he was busy with the task at hand.
“Did anyone ever visit your brother at night?” asked Lahore.
Blasi repeated the question in German.
“Oh, yes!”
Almost at the same time as he heard the answer, Blasi had to formulate the next question. A clerk was writing constantly.
“Who?”
“A woman.”
“How do you know?”
Rita pointed to the door leading to the hall.
“You spied on them?”
She nodded.
“Did you know who the woman was?”
Blasi was trying hard to remain professional.
“Señorita Iñarra,” he translated unnecessarily. The name had been perfectly clear.
“Tell señorita Czerbó she’s free to go.”
Rita muttered a few words in a language Blasi did not understand.
“What’s she saying now?”
“I don’t know. She’s not speaking German.”
“Ask her.”
The angry drumming of Lahore’s fingers accompanied Rita’s explanation.
“She’s afraid to be left alone.”
“An officer will go with her. Get her out of here. Bring señorita Iñarra in. You, go and do what I asked.”
Blasi hesitated. Which was worse, silence or an ill-timed explanation? He decided to keep quiet. Betty passed him in the hall while he was instructing one of the officers to stay with Rita.
“She’ll say no more than she wants to,” he thought. He now knew it was the young woman’s strong will bubbling below the surface that made her eyes shine.
Ericourt also identified in her gaze the energy of an instinct for self-preservation that gradually pushes the soul to its last defences. It was he who began the interrogation.
“Señorita Iñarra, señorita Czerbó has told us you’d been visiting her brother late at night, is that true?”
“Yes,” said Betty, very sure of herself.
“When did these visits start?”
“About a month ago.”
“Did you come here every night?”
“No, only occasionally.”
How could one explain her apparent repulsion at hearing such a simple question?
“Did señorita Czerbó know about your visits?”
“I didn’t think she did, until now.”
“So you kept your visits a secret.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Betty bit her bottom lip.
“For the same reason such visits are usually kept secret,” she said with the air of superiority adopted by those who aim to strip all importance from something they know will be viewed badly. “My family didn’t think highly of Czerbó.”