‘Never. If she was the one who answered the phone, she always used to hand over to her mother the moment she realized it was me. If Martina wasn’t at home, she would say so and put down the receiver without more ado. It would be a lie to pretend that I felt appreciated, let’s face it.’
‘And if your sister had met a new man, that’s not something she would have told you about?’
‘It would never have occurred to her to do so.’
‘This autumn, for instance?’
‘No. Not a word. I haven’t heard her mention a man since Klaus died. But no doubt she had a few. One of them even answered.’
‘You mean he answered the phone when you rang?’
‘Yes.’
‘When was that?’
Fru Traut shrugged.
‘I don’t remember. Last summer, I suppose.’
‘Just that one occasion?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he didn’t mention his name?’
‘No.’
Moreno turned over a page in her notebook. Fru Traut lit another cigarette.
‘So your sister didn’t have a steady job, is that right?’
‘I think she was on sick leave. Long-term or half-time or something along those lines. No, she hasn’t really been able to cope with a job since Klaus left the scene.’
‘But she used to work before that, did she?’
‘On and off. Mostly off. She was a hotel receptionist for a while. Then a cleaner at a hospital. . I think she worked in an office for a while as well. She didn’t have any educational qualifications — she didn’t even finish her GCEs. She just couldn’t cope with anything formal.’
‘Do you know if she had a doctor. . A therapist or a psychologist who used to see her regularly?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said fru Traut, scratching her lower arm where she had some kind of rash. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. Martina had trouble in coping with anything that required regular attendance. She always used to think that people were letting her down although in fact it was the other way round.’
‘I think I understand,’ said Moreno. ‘I’m sorry to keep harping on, but can you really not recall any name at all when it comes to your sister’s circle of friends? There must surely be somebody. If you think really hard?’
Fru Traut took the challenge ad notam and sat there quietly for half a minute.
‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll be damned if I can think of a single person at all.’
Just over an hour after Inspector Moreno left the Traut mansion in Chadow, she was very nearly run over.
A pale sun had begun to force its way through the thick cloud, the mists had lifted, and she decided to walk to the little airport. It was several kilometres away from the town, but she had a good two hours to fill.
The last of those kilometres was along a very busy road with only a narrow shoulder for cyclists and pedestrians, and it was there it happened. A motorcyclist suddenly cut in directly in front of a large long-distance lorry, and Moreno had to jump into the ditch and escaped being hit by a whisker.
The only tangible outcome of the incident was that she got her feet wet, but she also received a sharp reminder of the inherent fragility of life, and when she turned into the road leading to the little airport, thankfully much safer for pedestrians, she suddenly found herself longing for Mikael Bau.
A strong and powerful longing for him to wrap his arms around her and give her a big hug, and she promised herself to contact him the moment she got home that evening.
The feeling of being weak and vulnerable had of course to do with both her sinuses and the conversation with Barbara Traut, she was aware of that.
And with the murdered Martina Kammerle, whose life and death somehow seemed remarkably petty. She couldn’t shake off that impression — it was as if the poor woman’s brutal end had merely been a grotesquely exaggerated exclamation mark after a totally pointless and insignificant existence.
When Moreno was at secondary school — and hence was roughly the same age as the murdered woman’s missing daughter — she used to have two maxims printed on a piece of paper pinned over her bed:
It’s up to you to give significance to your life.
It’s better to regret what you have done,
than what you never did.
She knew that the second saying was a quotation from Nietzsche; she wasn’t sure where the first one came from, but that didn’t matter. Just now, as she walked through the almost white sunshine on her way to Chadow’s little airport, she felt that the words were of immense topical significance.
So topical, in fact, that she didn’t dare to wait until evening before telephoning Mikael Bau. She did so as soon as she entered the terminal building instead.
Needless to say he wasn’t at home, but she left a message on his answering machine: that she was longing to be with him, and that he should prepare something tasty as she intended to call round at his place for dinner that evening.
At about nine o’clock or thereabouts.
When she had switched off her mobile, she felt a little bit alive at last.
15
It was not until half past six on Monday evening that they were able to acknowledge anything resembling a breakthrough in the Martina Kammerle case.
But, as Reinhart said, the murderer had had plenty of time in which to cover his tracks, so perhaps matters were not as urgent as the media hacks — always keen to apply pressure — seemed to think. The investigation team had issued a press release at the routine media briefing at three o’clock, but had explained that there would be no press conference as such until Tuesday afternoon at the earliest.
In response to this, a young and obviously unbalanced reporter from the Telegraaf had called Reinhart a secrecy-obsessed turnip, and Reinhart had asked him if he had been accepted for training at the College of Journalism as part of a quota reserved for sticks of asparagus without heads.
Relations between the head of Maardam CID and the fourth estate were nothing to write home about.
In addition to Reinhart, Moreno and Münster, also present at the run-through were Jung, Rooth and Krause — the last-named had just been promoted to the rank of inspector — so it was obvious that plenty of resources had been mobilized at this early stage of the investigation.
Apart from that, as Reinhart stressed, things were not looking exactly rosy.
‘Unless a murderer full of regrets, or a five-star witness, turns up within the next few days, we shall no doubt have to resign ourselves to a long, hard slog. People who lie under a bed dead for a month without being discovered have not normally been living in the spotlight either. Does anybody disagree about that?’
Nobody did. Reinhart took out his pipe and tobacco, and handed over to Münster for a summary of what had been discovered during the day with regard to what are usually but somewhat inappropriately called ‘technical matters’.
‘A month seems about right,’ Münster began. ‘That’s what Meusse reckons at least, and we all know the status of an estimation by Meusse, right? The cause of death is obvious: strangulation. Persistent and hard pressure applied to the larynx. Only the hands were used, presumably from behind, probably by somebody who is pretty strong. No rape, no sign of any sort of struggle. Nothing odd at all, one could say.’
He paused, and looked around.
‘Go on,’ said Reinhart.
‘The scene of the crime and the place where the body was discovered seem to be identical. Somebody had been to visit Martina Kammerle four or five weeks ago. He killed her and put the body in rubbish bags — there are several in the broom cupboard by the way, so he might well have taken them from there — and then he shoved her under the bed and left the scene. The door can be locked without a key. There is no indication of anything having been removed from the flat, nor that it was searched, although of course we can’t be certain of that. There was no alcohol in the victim’s body, no sign of any unwashed plates or glasses. If we eventually find that he removed jewellery worth a million or two from the flat, we shall obviously have to consider the possibility of robbery with murder: but there is nothing to suggest that at the moment.’