‘Is there anything to suggest anything at all?’ wondered Rooth, but he received no reply.
‘Fingerprints?’ asked Krause.
‘Nix,’ said Münster. ‘It looks as if the murderer was careful to wipe everything clean before leaving. There are hardly any prints in the flat at all. Mulder says it seems that somebody spent several hours cleaning and dusting all surfaces. There were a few prints on crockery and books and suchlike, but most of them are those of the victim herself. It’s fairly obvious that the others are probably those of the daughter.’
‘A very cautious type, then,’ said Rooth. ‘So nothing to hope for there?’
‘Presumably not,’ said Münster.
‘I don’t suppose we have any of the usual suspects on the run, do we?’ asked Rooth. ‘Characters who enjoy strangling women now and then?’
Münster shook his head.
‘I’ve started looking into that,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think so. Not in the vicinity of Maardam, at least.’
Reinhart had lit his pipe by now, and blew a cloud of smoke over all those present.
‘So we’re looking for a loony making his debut, in other words,’ he said. ‘Anything else?’
‘Nothing of significance,’ said Münster. ‘All the reports are available for people to read.’
‘Very true,’ said Reinhart. ‘That will be the homework for tomorrow. I don’t know how long we’ll be allowed to continue on the case with as many officers as we have now, but for the time being it would be as well if everybody could make sure they were familiar with all aspects of it. There’s not all that much, and of course, three eyes see better than one.’
‘No doubt,’ said Rooth. ‘And coffee without any cake is better than no coffee at all. Are we going to get any refreshments?’
Reinhart ignored that question as well.
‘What about the neighbours?’ he asked instead. ‘Jung, Rooth, over to you.’
Jung explained that together with Constables Klempje, Dillinger and Joensuu, they had spent six hours knocking on doors in Moerckstraat, and the result had been depressingly thin. Nobody — not a single soul of the ninety-two persons listed as having been contacted — had known anything at all about Martina Kammerle.
And precisely the same number had been able to comment on her daughter, Monica.
‘It makes you think,’ said Jung. ‘And leaves you depressed. Violeta Paraskevi, who lives next door to the Kammerles, is the only one who noticed that there might be something wrong. Might be, note that. And it was thanks to her that this Traut character decided to call in the caretaker.’
‘And what about him?’ wondered Münster. ‘What did the caretaker have to say?’
‘Not a dicky bird,’ said Rooth. ‘As long as you pay your rent on time and don’t trash anything, you are as familiar as a paving stone in his eyes. And valued just about as much. Nice chap — it’s a pity we don’t have a standard punishment for being a bastard. But where’s the daughter? We should be talking about that instead. We can forget about the neighbours, despite the fact that Dillinger and Joensuu still have a few more doors to knock on tomorrow.’
‘Ah yes, the daughter,’ said Reinhart. ‘That’s another disaster, to say the least.’
‘Really?’ said Münster. ‘What do you mean by that?’
Reinhart had no desire to enlarge upon his comment, but delegated this question as well.
‘Inspector Krause,’ he said. ‘Over to you!’
‘Hmm, yes, thank you,’ said Krause leaning forward on his elbows. ‘It looks as if Monica Kammerle hasn’t attended school since the twenty-first of September — assuming the information we have received is correct, and no doubt it is in this case. She’s in the first year at the Bunge Grammar School, but nobody has reacted to the fact that she’s been absent. I’ve spoken to the headmaster, to one of the teachers and a few of her classmates, and there seem to be quite a few points that are unclear.’
‘Points that are unclear?’ wondered Moreno. ‘What, for instance?’
‘It seems to have been assumed that she had transferred to another school, but she hasn’t been registered at any of the other grammar schools in Maardam and district. There’s a social worker who ought to know a bit more about it, but she’s been at a funeral down in Groenstadt today. We shall be talking to her tomorrow.’
‘So you’re saying that the daughter has been missing for as long as her mother has been lying dead, are you?’ said Moreno.
‘It seems so,’ said Krause. ‘On the face of it.’
‘But that’s deplorable,’ said Rooth.
‘That’s exactly what I said,’ agreed Reinhart. ‘If nobody notices that a child has been missing for a month and a half, you have to ask what the hell is going on there.’
‘Precisely,’ said Krause. ‘The headmaster seemed flabbergasted, to be fair.’
‘No wonder,’ said Münster. ‘Perhaps we ought to say a few words about this at the press conference?’
‘When I played truant at secondary school, they nabbed me after no more than an hour,’ said Rooth. ‘Every bloody time.’
There followed a few moments of silence. Reinhart leafed through his papers and blew out another cloud of smoke.
‘That’s the way things are nowadays,’ he muttered eventually. ‘And however they are, it’s bonkers. But I suppose this isn’t really anything unprecedented. . The world is a madhouse, and has been that way for as long as I can remember. Münster, did you make contact with any of the medics?’
Münster nodded.
‘After considerable difficulty,’ he said. ‘Martina Kammerle was a manic depressive, and she was taken into care a few times. The first time she was only eighteen, and had tried to take her own life. She’s been on medication ever since then, but Dr Klimke — the one I spoke to — suggested that she sometimes used to skip it. It seems that is not uncommon, when patients are on a high. The usual medicines are Lithium and Calvonal. Martina Kammerle has been on both of them: they are used to try to level out the ups and downs of the manic-depressive psyche, as they say. Klimke works at Gemejnte Hospital and came into contact with Kammerle four years ago, in connection with the death of her husband — I expect you know about that car accident business?’
He looked round the table.
‘Yep,’ said Rooth. ‘Was she on the sick list now?’
‘Klimke thought so — we’ll check that tomorrow. He didn’t really know all that much about her. He’d signed prescriptions for her and phoned the pharmacy once or twice, when she had been in touch; but he says he hasn’t actually met her for about three years.’
‘Top class psychiatric care,’ said Rooth.
‘Brilliant,’ said Reinhart. ‘But that’s not exactly anything new either. Medicine is cheaper than therapy. Anyway, all this boils down to the fact that Martina Kammerle hasn’t had a steady job — or any job at all, come to that — for the last five years. She had no social contacts, not that we know about, at least; and apart from her daughter her only living close relative is her sister up in Chadow. Perhaps Inspector Moreno could be so kind as to inject a little light into the compact darkness and tell us something substantial about her visit to Chadow?’
Moreno did as she was asked, without feeling that anything had become any clearer. She was tempted to mention the incident with the motorcycle, in order to increase the degree of substantiality asked of her, but desisted.
‘A testament to sisterly love, in other words,’ said Reinhart when she had finished. ‘Is there a single person who has anything to say about Martina Kammerle? Didn’t she ever undergo a course of treatment, by the way?’
Krause cleared his throat and took the floor once more.