“Do you mean he poisoned your boyfriend’s coffee?”
“I don’t think it was poison; that would have been too risky. He must have known that there’d be a routine postmortem afterwards. I think he chose a substance that pathologists wouldn’t automatically be looking for, something that could cause arrhythmia, or the beginnings of suffocation, or maybe massive cramps. He was a swimmer, so he’d know, say, that a sudden potassium deficiency causes cramps. It could simply have been a powerful diuretic. At first, I didn’t realise exactly how it had all happened. I thought I’d have to convince Ramiro’s parents to have his body exhumed, but now I think that would only have made things worse. I’m sure he planned this too: nothing unusual would be detected and he’d be above suspicion once again.”
“Did you tell anyone about this?”
Her face darkened. “My brother. That morning, when it all suddenly became clear to me, I went to see him. He was working a shift at the hospital. I think I was a little overwrought: I hadn’t slept for several nights since the funeral. My hands were trembling and I was almost feverish with excitement. I showed Bruno the passage in the Bible and told him about my suing Kloster, and the death of Kloster’s daughter, the Cainites and sevenfold vengeance. I explained how I thought he’d planned the deaths. But I got a little muddled: I couldn’t explain it as clearly as I’d understood it. At a certain point I realised he was no longer listening, but was watching me with the eyes of a doctor. He looked genuinely alarmed. He saw that my hands were shaking and asked how long I’d gone without sleep. He told me to wait there and left the room for a moment. The book he’d been reading was lying on the desk. There was something horribly familiar about the cover so I turned it round: it was one of Kloster’s novels. I think at that moment I collapsed. My brother reappeared with a psychiatrist who was on duty, but I wouldn’t answer any of her questions. I knew what they were thinking. The psychiatrist said they’d give me something to help me sleep. She used a horrible patronising voice, as if she were explaining something to a child. My own brother gave me the injection. My own brother, who was reading one of Kloster’s novels during his shift.”
“If it was the novel that came out that year, I don’t find it too surprising: it was an even bigger hit than his previous one. It would have been hard to find someone who wasn’t reading it.”
“That’s just it. That’s why I was so devastated. I saw how perfect his plan was. It wasn’t surprising-it was quite natural-that everything should go his way. It’s what I said to you at the beginning: this was maybe the most cunning part. His name was everywhere, he’d become a public figure, moving in circles beyond the reach of mere mortals. So when I tried to point the finger at him everyone looked at me as my brother had, and rushed for psychiatrists.”
“But after you were given the tranquilliser…”
“They gave me another one, and another one. To put it simply, it was like a sleep cure. Until I realised what I had to do if I wanted them to stop drugging me and get out of that place. I just had to make sure I never mentioned the K word.”
A tear of frustration ran down her cheek. She pulled off the latex gloves. Her hands, now reddened, were trembling even more than before.
“Well, I think I’ve told you the worst. But I wanted you to know everything. I was in hospital for two weeks and by the time I got out I’d learned my lesson: I never mentioned this to anyone again. More time passed-a whole year, then another. But I wasn’t fooled this time. I knew it was part of his plan that the deaths should be spaced out. Perhaps that was the worst part: the waiting. I stopped seeing my friends; I became isolated. I didn’t want anyone near me. I didn’t know where the next blow would come from. I was mainly terrified for Valentina. She was my responsibility by then as my brother had moved to a flat of his own. I hated leaving her alone even for a minute. The waiting that stretched on, living in suspense, the delay- it was unbearable. I tried to keep track of him in the papers, to find out the itineraries of his journeys in the news, where he could be. I only had a few days’ respite whenever I knew he was out of the country. Until finally it happened. I got a phone call from the police superintendent: a burglar had broken into my brother’s flat and killed him. My brother, who thought I’d lost my mind, was now dead. That was all the superintendent said but the gruesome details were already on the news. My brother hadn’t put up a fight, but the killer had been especially vicious, as if there was something more between them. He’d had a gun but had used his bare hands. He broke both my brother’s arms and gouged out his eyes. I think he did something even more horrible afterwards to the body, but I could never bring myself to read the pathologist’s report through to the end. When the police caught the man he still had my brother’s blood on his face.”
“I remember. I remember it quite clearly,” I said, amazed that I’d never made the connection. “He was a prisoner in a maximum security prison, and he got out to commit burglaries with the guards’ permission. Well, at least here it’s obvious it wasn’t Kloster.”
“It was Kloster,” she said, eyes blazing.
For a moment it all felt unreal. Her mouth was twisted angrily. She’d spoken with absolute conviction, with the dark determination of a fanatic, who will brook no contradiction. But a moment later she was crying quietly, pausing now and then as if the effort of having reached this point had exhausted her. She took a handkerchief from her bag, wringing it helplessly after wiping her eyes. Once she’d recovered, her voice was again controlled, oddly calm and distant.
“At the time, my brother was working in the prison hospital wing. Apparently this is where he met the convict’s wife. Unfortunately he became involved with her. They thought they were safe because the husband was serving a life sentence. They never dreamed that he had an arrangement with the guards to get out and burgle homes. It was a huge scandal in the prison service when it all came to light. The Internal Investigations Department had to carry out a detailed inquiry. That’s when they discovered the letters. Someone had been sending the prisoner anonymous letters, giving details of his wife’s meetings with my brother. The letters were in the court record so I was able to see them. The handwriting had been disguised. And there were deliberate spelling and grammatical mistakes. But I took dictation from Kloster for almost a year and he couldn’t fool me. It was his style-precise, calculating, full of humiliating details. Intended line by line to drive the man crazy. The scenes…the physical scenes were probably made up, but the letters gave very precise descriptions of the bar where they met, the clothes she wore each time, how the two of them made fun of him. Those letters were the real murder weapon. And whoever wrote them was the true murderer.”
“Did you tell the police any of this at the time?”
“I asked to speak to the officer in charge of the case, Superintendent Ramoneda. At first he was very pleasant and seemed willing to listen. I told him everything: about my suing Kloster, Ramiro’s death, my parents’ poisoning, the clues that it was Kloster who wrote the anonymous letters. He listened without saying a word, but I realised he didn’t like the direction things might go in if he decided to take me seriously. After all, for them it was an open-and-shut case. I think he was afraid he might be accused, in the midst of all the scandal, of wanting to absolve the prison service. He asked if I understood the gravity of my accusation and the absolute absence of proof in all that I’d told him. He took down Kloster’s details anyway and said he’d send one of his men to speak to him. A couple of days later I got a call summoning me back to his office. I could tell immediately that something had changed. His tone was both fatherly and slightly threatening. He said that because it was such a delicate matter and there was so much at stake he’d decided to go and see Kloster himself-he had to follow every lead, however absurd. Kloster, he said, had been very courteous-he was about to leave for a reception at the French embassy but had made time. He didn’t tell me about the interview itself but it was obvious that Kloster had impressed him. I’ve no doubt they ended up talking about his novels. Before I could say anything he produced a sheet of paper in my handwriting and laid it on the desk. I recognised it at once: it was the letter I sent Kloster after my parents died. A letter in which I asked his forgiveness for having sued him.”