And echoed by the dull greyness of the November day. She recalled something Van Veeteren had said a few years ago. We must unfortunately be aware, he had maintained, that for many people, life ends before they die.
All she could do was to bow down once again before the Chief Inspector’s superior wisdom. And it seemed there was plenty to suggest that Barbara Traut’s sister belonged to this category. To those who hadn’t had much of a life before she lost it and passed over into the next one.
Assuming of course that the scant amount of information that had so far emerged turned out to be true.
But why anybody should help her along the way in such a hideous fashion was another question. Murder her. Why would anybody have wanted to get rid of Martina Kammerle?
And what had happened to her daughter?
Good questions, thought Inspector Moreno as she sipped her cup of tea. Hopelessly good.
And of course the reason why she was hanging around in the Trauts’ over-decorated kitchen, waiting for the shower to come to an end, was to receive an answer to those questions.
‘Martina and I never really got on,’ said Barbara Traut, blowing her nose. ‘I ought to make that clear from the start, even if it sounds awful at a time like this.’
She was a morose woman who seemed to exude a sort of self-justified dissatisfaction, both in her facial expression and in her voice. As if the world had failed to fulfil her expectations of it. Her shower had taken a long time, and Moreno gathered that making herself up had no doubt been a laborious process. She seemed to be about forty-five. Pale and somewhat colourless, but with hair of many colours that seemed to need non-stop care. She put on water for more tea and coffee, produced some biscuits and muffins and a third of a rillen cake from the pantry, breathing hard and chainsmoking all the while.
‘We’ve gathered that things were not all they might have been,’ said Moreno. ‘But it’s important that we get a good idea of her life and general circumstances to begin with, and you are the obvious person to turn to. We haven’t yet found anybody in Maardam who knew her well.’
‘No,’ said fru Traut, blinking away the tears that threatened to well up into her eyes. ‘She led a pretty solitary life.’
‘But she used to be married, I gather?’
‘To Klaus, yes. He was a big support for her, no doubt about that; but he died. Since then — that was 1996 — things haven’t been easy for her. I assume and hope you’ve found Monica?’
Moreno shook her head.
‘I’m afraid not. Have you any idea where she might be?’
‘Me? No, I haven’t a clue. We didn’t socialize, I haven’t seen the girl since Klaus’s funeral. She was twelve then. A really nice girl, poor thing.’
‘Klaus Kammerle died in a car accident, is that right?’
‘Yes. Drove off the road and into a tree. Somewhere between Oostwerdingen and Ulming — there wasn’t much left of him. . They say he fell asleep at the wheel.’
‘They say?’ said Moreno. ‘Do you mean you are not convinced?’
‘No, no, of course not,’ said fru Traut. ‘Certainly not. It was at night, and he was on his way home from some course or other. No doubt he just dozed off.’
Moreno took another sip of tea, and changed tack.
‘Let’s concentrate on your sister,’ she said. ‘How was she? Was she in difficulty?’
Fru Traut inhaled deeply and coughed.
‘Difficulty? You can say that again. She swung this way and that like a weathercock — that was her problem, and it started while she was still at school. . She was always in a mess. Manic depressive — do you understand what that means?’
Moreno nodded and made a note.
‘Before she met Klaus she was taken into care several times. There are medicines to treat the condition, but she never took them as she should. Refused to take any tablets when she was feeling good, and of course, she suffered as a result. When she was on a high she would start up one daft project after another, and behaved in such a way that nobody could put up with her. Then she would fall to pieces, get into a state of anxiety, and she tried to commit suicide. It was like that all the time. She cut her wrists several times as well, but that was mainly cries for help and they managed to save her.’
‘But things got better when she met Klaus, is that right?’
‘Yes. At least there was always somebody close to her who could ride her punches and make sure that she kept going. I don’t know, but I suspect that she got pregnant the very first time they met. In any case, she told me about both things at the same time — that she was pregnant and they were going to get married. That was 1984. I think she’d had a few abortions before then, incidentally. Or one at least. .’
‘But you didn’t start socializing with them then? When they were going to start a family?’
Fru Traut paused and stirred another lump of sugar into her coffee.
‘They came here once,’ she said. ‘Stayed for an hour and a half and had lunch. Monica was three or four. But that’s all, I’m afraid. She wasn’t easy to be together with, my sister. Klaus didn’t always have an easy time either.’
‘What was he like?’
‘Calm. As safe as a parking place, as far as I could tell. Maybe things would have turned out all right, if only he’d been able to keep going. .’
Her voice started to tremble, and she blew her nose again.
‘What a bloody mess,’ she said. ‘I can’t get it into my head that somebody would have wanted to murder her. What kind of a lunatic could have done such a thing? Do you have any idea?’
‘Not yet,’ said Moreno. ‘The body’s been lying there in the flat for quite a long time — that makes things more complicated.’
‘Didn’t anybody go and ask about her?” asked fru Traut with a sob — she had been crying silently now for a while. ‘Wasn’t there anybody who wondered where she’d been all that time?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Moreno.
‘But what about Monica? Where is she? Are you suggesting that she’s also dead and that nobody’s bothering about her either?’
Moreno suddenly felt how the bitterness of this large woman was beginning to infect her as well.
Was that really possible? she thought. That a mother and her daughter could vanish, without anybody asking about their disappearance for a whole month? Surrounded by lots of people in the centre of a town?
And this was supposed to be civilization?
She looked down at her notebook and tried to concentrate.
‘Do you know anything at all about her circle of friends?’ she asked. ‘Any names of people she used to mix with?’
‘No. I know nothing at all about things like that.’
‘But you used to phone her occasionally. Isn’t that right?’
‘Yes, of course. I used to ring her at least once every month. To find out how she was and so on. But I hardly ever found out anything at all. And she never phoned me. Never — can you believe that? Since Klaus died I haven’t received a single telephone call from my little sister.’
‘I understand,’ said Moreno. ‘But have you any idea whether she had any friends at all? I mean, you did speak to her now and again.’
Fru Traut frowned even more intensely, and thought for a moment.
‘I don’t think she had any friends,’ she said. ‘No, she was a pretty lonely person. In the old days she often used to bring new people into her life when she was in a manic phase, but I think she stopped that. . I gather that’s a normal development.’
‘Did you use to speak to her daughter as well?’