‘Huh,’ said Klimkowski, rattling his bunch of keys. ‘Keep your money. Now, let’s see. . 16D, Kammerle, is that right?’
Traut nodded and they climbed the stairs once again. Violeta Paraskevi met them on the landing and pointed to the door in question with an exaggerated gesture typical of somebody from the south.
‘I know, I know,’ muttered Klimkowski. ‘Get out of the way.’
He fitted the key in the lock and opened the door.
‘You’ll have to sign a form as well,’ he said, turning to Traut. ‘It has to be a relative or the police for me to be authorized to open the door. I don’t want to find myself in the shit if I can avoid it.’
‘Of course,’ said Traut. ‘So, let’s go in and see what there is to see.’
It took them less than half a minute to find the body, and it was above all the smell that guided them. Martina Kammerle’s rotting corpse was packed into two black rubbish bags under her own bed. One bag was pulled down from the top, the other pulled up from the bottom. When Klimkowski pulled out the corpse and exposed the upper part, Egon Traut realized that the last thing one ought to do before discovering a dead body is to drink beer and eat a pizza.
When he had finished throwing up, he also realized — with a vague trace of gratitude amidst all the gloom — that the sneeze picked up by his mobile phone was not going to have as much significance for the future of his marriage as he had been fearing it would for the last few hours.
Every cloud has a silver lining, he thought, with a slight trace of guilt.
13
It was Detective Inspectors Jung and Rooth who were delegated to supervise the first few hours at Moerckstraat 16, and neither of them would write anything about the experience in their diaries.
Or at least, wouldn’t have done even if they had kept a diary. It was just too depressing. Too grim, too macabre. They wandered about in the cramped little flat, kept their eyes skinned for anything of importance worth noting down, tried to keep out of the way of the scene-of-crime team — and to breathe with their mouths wide open in order to avoid the smell.
‘What a lot of bloody crap,’ said Rooth. ‘I find it hard to cope with this sort of thing.’
‘You get paid to cope with this sort of thing,’ said Jung.
It was a few minutes after half past nine before Chief Inspector Reinhart turned up, just in time to hear a preliminary assessment from the medical team and an even more preliminary assessment from the technical specialists.
Martina Kammerle — assuming it really was her in the rubbish bags under the bed (there was no obvious reason to suspect that it might be somebody else, but because of the advanced state of decomposition of the body and his own indisposition at the time, Egon Traut had been unable to make a definitive identification) — had apparently died quite a long time ago. At least three weeks, it seemed, but in order to make a more precise judgement it was necessary to analyse more data, such as textile tests, blood status, average daily temperatures in the flat, and so on.
It was not possible to establish the cause of death at this early stage, but because it seemed likely that the woman hadn’t died of natural causes in two plastic sacks under her bed, Jung at least concluded that, as it was stated officially, she had been killed by a person or several persons unknown.
And there was nothing to suggest that anybody had been in the flat for at least three or four weeks. Whether or not Martina Kammerle had managed to collect fragments of her murderer’s skin under her fingernails, or possibly even drawn his blood — and hence, with a large dose of luck, enabled a DNA analysis — remained to be seen, after the National Laboratories for Forensic Chemistry and Forensic Medicine had played their part. In any case, no obvious clues had been discovered; but needless to say the flat would be cordoned off for as long as it was considered necessary, so that high-ranking detective officers would have the right to wander around and search for clues — always assuming that it was concluded that there was anything worth searching for.
That was more or less the attitude behind the statement issued by Inspector le Houde, who was in charge of the scene-of-crime group — and who had been summoned from a cup match in the Richter Stadium ten minutes before half time, and two minutes before the home side equalized — a goal that, according to all sensible spectators, had been dream-like, and executed by a recently bought Dane: the ovation had been echoing inside le Houde’s head ever since he was about to enter the patrol car.
‘Ah well, we’ll have to wait and see,’ said Reinhart. ‘I’m sorry you missed the match. Personally I couldn’t care less about football, but we won five-two, I gather. Not a bad performance,’
‘Shut up,’ said le Houde.
Reinhart spent five minutes inspecting the room and the flat. Then he decided to return to the police station together with Egon Traut, but he instructed Jung and Rooth to stay at the scene and begin interviewing the neighbours.
‘It’s a quarter to ten,’ Rooth pointed out.
‘Keep going until twelve,’ said Reinhart. ‘Nobody’s going to bed after this palaver. I’ll send you some back-up as soon as I find anybody,’
‘All right,’ said Rooth. ‘We’ll start by a trip to the pizzeria — it’s just round the corner. No point in working on an empty stomach, you just don’t function properly.’
Reinhart glared at him, then left with Traut. Jung declared that in the circumstances, he wasn’t all that hungry, and instead went to the neighbouring flat to talk to the woman from Yugoslavia who he had already exchanged a few words with.
And who seemed to have some idea of who the victim really was.
But only a bit of an idea. If this Kammerle woman had been lying here dead for a month or more, the idea of good neighbours couldn’t very well have been all that effective.
Thought Inspector Jung, as he dug out a pen and some paper.
‘What’s been going on?’ asked Münster, sitting down opposite Reinhart.
Reinhart pulled a face and placed his feet conveniently on a bookshelf.
‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ he said. ‘Murder. A woman who seems to be called Martina Kammerle. Lived in Moerckstraat. She was strangled, and has been lying dead under her bed for about a month.’
‘Under?’ said Münster.
‘Yes, under,’ said Reinhart. ‘The murderer had tucked her into a couple of rubbish sacks so that she didn’t have to feel too cold. Very thoughtful of him. It’s a right bugger. As usual.’
‘As usual,’ said Münster. ‘Was she raped as well?’
‘Possibly,’ said Reinhart. ‘But she was wearing a few clothes, so she might have escaped that. Knickers and a nightdress. . Or the remains of those garments, to be more precise. If a body has been lying at room temperature for a month or so, certain chemical processes take place — I presume I don’t need to go on about that.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ said Intendent Münster with a sigh. ‘You don’t need to. Who is she?’
Reinhart sat up straight and started scraping out his pipe.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but we have a bloke here who might know. His name is Traut — he was the one who found her. He’s a relative, it seems. Runs a business of his own. To be honest he’s not exactly my type — but being honest doesn’t really help us. .’
‘Have you interrogated him?’
‘Not yet. I thought there ought to be two of us — that’s why I rang you.’
Münster nodded.
‘Anything else before we get going?’
‘Not as far as I know at this stage,’ said Reinhart. ‘Shall we have a go at him? I think he’s been waiting for long enough now.’
‘It’s eleven o’clock now,’ said Münster. ‘High time we got started if we’re going to get any beauty sleep tonight.’
‘You’re right,’ said Reinhart, standing up. ‘There’s a time for everything. Just hang on a minute — I must have some tobacco handy: I reckon I can allow myself a bit of pleasure.’