He smiled with a cynic’s empty grimace. The cheerful glimmer faded from Lahore’s eyes and, calling aside the doctor who had come with the ambulance and certi"ed the body, he exchanged a few words with him. He then turned back to face Czerbó.
“She died at approximately one thirty, or rather between one thirty and two in the morning, from poisoning,” he said.
“In that time I slept,” replied Czerbó, unruffled.
His sister confirmed his words with another nod.
“Who else lives with you?”
“No one. We not having servants.”
“Very well.”
Lahore stepped aside to make way for the stretcher bearing Frida Eidinger’s body. Rita and señorita Iñarra averted their eyes. Soler, who had woken up and was about to light a cigarette, threw it to the floor with a repulsed grimace. Frida Eidinger was leaving the scene of her death accompanied only by disgust.
Only Aurora Torres seemed curious and craned her neck to watch how the stretcher-bearers loaded the body into the ambulance.
“Dear goodness!” she exclaimed, distractedly crossing herself.
“You’re all free to go,” Lahore said to everyone present, “I’ll call if I need you.”
They filed towards the service lift in silence. As the ambulance’s siren tore through the air the lobby filled with palpable worry and mistrust. The empty lift, its light still on, opened its jaws to suspicion. Lahore moved away quickly, shaking off the journalists who were trying to besiege him.
An hour later, Blasi was knocking on the door of Soler’s apartment. After a few minutes Soler appeared holding a bag of ice to his head. When he recognized the Inspector’s secretary his face became one of consternation.
“It’s you! Have you come for me?”
“Not yet. This is a social visit. May I come in?”
“Of course, I was just making a cup of coffee. My head’s spinning.”
The harmonious combination of antique furniture and modern details in Soler’s apartment revealed the care with which those educated in good taste and a profound sense of elegance always decorate a house. From the door one could sense the comfort of the place. Blasi breathed it in like a lungful of fresh air.
“What can they want with me now?” asked Soler. “I don’t know who she was.”
“She was Frida Eidinger,” said Blasi, “just as that brute with the frightful Spanish said. I was in the morgue when her husband identified the body.”
Water was bubbling in the coffee percolator. Dark liquid thickened in the upper glass bowl as the gurgling column of boiling water rose towards the filter. Soler, frowning, put the cap on the alcohol burner.
“An instinctive gesture, covering up,” thought Blasi, who had acquired certain psychological assumptions and was keen to get rid of them through practical application.
“Then I swear I don’t know what they want with me,” said Soler.
“They assume you were with her.”
“But I didn’t know her! I’ve told the truth and I can prove it. I was seen in a nightclub with a girl a few minutes before I came back here. My companion will tell you that I escorted her home.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
Soler simultaneously considered the sugar bowl and this absurd possibility. His thoughts must have led him to an optimistic conclusion because he smiled as he offered Blasi a cup of coffee.
“Luisita wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Suppose she went out with you, shall we say, unofficially. It must happen a lot with the kind of relationships you seem to cultivate.”
Soler drank the bitter coffee in one gulp.
“Not with her, she’s a loyal girl.”
“Don’t kid yourself. The loyalty of girls like her shifts like a weathervane.”
“What are you suggesting? Do you mean to help me?”
In Soler’s moral code, teasing naturally meant mistrust.
“Aren’t you from the police?”
“That’s exactly the point. I aim to save time and I believe pursuing you would mean wasting it, which is why I came to see you. I’d like you to tell me what you can about the others.”
“Do you really take me for a gossip?”
“No, for someone who lives in the same building. Everyone has something to say, even if it is only general observations. What do you do when you’re standing in front of a painting? You adopt different positions until you get the best perspective. Do you see?”
“Not entirely.” Soler poured himself another cup of coffee. “Nor do I see why a suicide has to be so complicated.”
“Do you really think the lift in an apartment building is where a stranger would choose to commit suicide? The police are assuming someone put the body there. But who?”
His inquisitive smile surprised Soler.
“It wasn’t me,” he said.
“OK, it wasn’t you. So tell me about the others. Who are they?”
Soler let out a sigh in surrender.
“Who do you want me to start with? This job isn’t for me. I don’t know how to do it.”
“Let’s eliminate Luchter because he wasn’t at home. That leaves the Iñarras. Is señor Iñarra as unwell as his wife says he is?”
“Señor Iñarra is a respectable person. The whole family is.” Blasi had naturally discounted Soler’s partiality. Groups form as soon as danger rears its head.
“His wife looks too young to be the mother of that girl. What’s her name?”
“Betty, I mean Beatriz. Señora de Iñarra is her stepmother.” Soler paused. “You’ll find out in any case. She was Betty’s nursemaid when her mother was alive. She married señor Iñarra not long after he was widowed, and ever since then she’s dedicated her life to him,” he added, using the idea of sacrifice to explain a marriage he must have thought unequal. “Betty’s very independent, she’s not at home much.”
“Caramba! How do you know that?”
Soler pointed sheepishly towards the light shaft window.
“And the others?”
“The Czerbós? They haven’t lived here long and they’re a real mystery. I shouldn’t tell you anything. It’s not my place.”
A man holding a bag of ice to his head and gulping down large cups of coffee becomes a caricature when he starts outlining his moral obligations. Blasi carried on regardless.
“The sister seems very intimidated.”
“She’s always like that. She works like a slave for him, even though people say he’s a rich man.”
“They’re Bulgarian?”
“They used to live in Germany. They came over soon after the war ended.”
The doorbell interrupted them.
“I’ll answer it,” said Blasi, standing up. “Go and get dressed.”
Vera was at the door with two other officers. Blasi looked sidelong into the apartment. Soler had disappeared.
“Are you making an arrest?”
“Not yet, but there’s a serious charge. Are you coming with us?”
Blasi shook his head.
“I haven’t finished my rounds. My boss is getting me to work on my social skills. I have to go up to the caretaker’s apartment.”
Gabriela de Iñarra entered the bedroom carrying a steaming cup of tea on a tray, which she put down on the bedside table. Don Agustín’s left arm trembled constantly on top of the blankets and although his face, aged by his illness, was stern, he spoke to his wife in a sweet, measured voice.
“Thank you, darling. You always go to such trouble. You’re an angel.”
Betty Iñarra was reading a magazine in the corner of the room. Hearing her father’s words, she buried her nose in the pages.
“Your heart rate is fine, Don Agustín,” said Dr Luchter. He was standing next to the bed, preparing a syringe. The bedside lamp cast a circle of white light over the scene.
“I feel absolutely fine,” said his patient. “Sleepless nights are old acquaintances of mine. They don’t affect me. It’s young people who need their sleep.”