‘Where did you go to?’ wondered Moreno.
The girls explained that they had gone to London, and that it was fab. All the class had been there apart from Monica and a fat slob called Dimitri.
‘A really, really fat slob,’ agreed Betty, lighting another cigarette.
Moreno had a sudden urge to snatch the cigarette out of her excessively made-up mouth, squash it in the ashtray — the cigarette, that is, not her mouth — and tell her and her friend to go to hell. Or at least to go out jogging.
Or to eat an apple. No, she thought, if I really passed through a phase like this I must have suppressed all memory of it.
And rightly so. Some things need burying.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Edwina. ‘Has something happened to her?’
‘I can’t go into that,’ said Moreno again. ‘But if you come across anybody who’s seen Monica recently, please give me a ring. Ask among your classmates if you have time.’
She took out a couple of business cards and gave them one each. The girls took them, and suddenly their heavily made-up faces took on a more serious, unforced expression.
As if a child were peeping out from behind all the makeup, Moreno thought. She guessed that it was the italicized words on the cards that had brought about the change: Detective Inspector Moreno.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Betty. ‘We’ll. . we’ll ask around. Is it. . I mean, is it serious? What’s-’
‘I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you any details,’ said Moreno for the third time. ‘Thank you very much for speaking to me. I might be in touch again before long.’
‘Great,’ said Edwina Boekman.
Inspector Moreno stood up and left the Café Lamprecht. Neither of the girls showed any sign of going back to school, and when she came out into the street Moreno caught a glimpse of their black heads through the dirty window, deep in conversation. Enveloped in fresh clouds of smoke from newly lit cigarettes.
They’ll have cellulite and drooping breasts before they are twenty, she thought, sighing deeply. Serves them right.
‘I know what’s the worst aspect of this bloody job of ours,’ said Rooth.
‘Really?’ said Jung. ‘Let’s hear it, then.’
‘The constant confrontation with life and death,’ said Rooth. ‘It’s so hard to handle that you’re just not able to cope. You either have to be so damned serious and profound and gloomy all the time — and my petty brain’s not really up to that. .’
‘I know,’ said Jung. ‘Or?’
‘Don’t interrupt,’ said Rooth. ‘Or you have to back off and keep it all at arm’s length. Be cynical, or however you’d like to put it. . And my big bleeding heart can’t manage that in the long run. Do you understand what I mean?’
Jung thought for a moment.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘You’re absolutely right, for once. You’re constantly veering from one extreme to the other. Facing up to Death, or waving two fingers at him. That’s what it’s all about.’
Rooth scratched his head.
‘Very well put, dammit!’ he said. ‘Facing up or two fingers! That’s what I shall call my schizophrenic memoirs. No wonder we grow prematurely old. If only we could look after rabbits instead, or something of that sort.’
‘That will come in the next life,’ Jung assured him. ‘Anyway, shall we go in and get going?’
‘Let’s do that,’ said Rooth. He put the key into the lock and turned it. ‘The murderer’s name is what we’re after!’
They entered Martina Kammerle’s flat. There was a sort of grey light inside, but nevertheless Jung began by walking from room to room and switching on every light he could find.
Rooth put a packet of sandwiches and two bottles of mineral water on the kitchen table, and looked around.
‘An interesting job, this,’ he said. ‘Believe it or not.’
It was Rooth himself who had proposed it, so Jung refrained from comment. Besides, he was inclined to agree: if the person who had put his hands round Martina Kammerle’s neck just over a month ago and squeezed tightly — if that person was known to his victim, no matter how slightly, was Rooth’s point — then the probability was that she had written down his name somewhere.
If not in blood on the wall under the bed where her body was discovered, then in some other place. In an address book, perhaps. A note pad. On a scrap of paper. . Anywhere at all. There were indications that the killer had cleaned up the flat and removed any traces of his presence: but he had been most concerned about fingerprints, and surely he couldn’t have checked absolutely everything?
There was nothing to suggest that Martina Kammerle or her missing daughter had had a wide circle of friends — on the contrary. If for instance they were to find fifty names — Rooth had maintained — there was a good chance that one of them would be the person they were looking for. The murderer.
To be honest, this was a routine measure that was carried out in eleven out of ten investigations: but with a bit of luck the chances of finding a vital clue were greater in this case than usual. The investigation team had been in agreement on that point.
So, it was time for Inspectors Rooth and Jung to get going. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and they had promised Reinhart to report by five in the afternoon.
Or to be pedantic, that was when Reinhart had said he expected them to report.
‘I’ll take the mother’s room, and you take the daughter’s,’ said Rooth. ‘To start with, at least. We’ll meet in the kitchen two hours from now over a sandwich.’
‘Two hours?’ wondered Jung. ‘Can you really last as long as that without food?’
‘Character,’ said Rooth. ‘It’s all a question of character and strength of mind. I’ll explain it to you in more detail some other time.’
‘I’ll look forward to that,’ said Jung, opening the door to Monica Kammerle’s teenage room.
17
A picture of the murdered Martina Kammerle appeared in the three most important Maardam newspapers on Tuesday — the Telegraaf, the Allgemejne and the Neuwe Blatt — and by four o’clock, in response to the police’s appeal for tips and assistance, three people had telephoned the switchboard and been passed on to Chief Inspector Reinhart in person.
The first was a social worker by the name of Elena Piirinen. She reported that on and off — mostly off — she had been in contact with Martina Kammerle until about a year ago, when she changed jobs and was given more administrative work. The assistance she had given Martina Kammerle had mainly been in connection with financial matters: Piirinen had helped her to apply for various grants, and also — once or twice — arranged for her to receive regular social care. But she was adamant that she had not had much of an insight into her client’s private life. However, it was horrendous that she had been murdered.
Reinhart agreed, and wondered if she had any more concrete tips to give him.
No, she hadn’t, she assured him. She had decided to get in touch because she thought it her duty as a responsible citizen to do so, nothing else. Reinhart thanked her for her laudable public spirit, and said he might be in touch again if developments in the investigation suggested that it might be helpful to do so.
Number two was a certain fru Dorffkluster, who had lived next door to the Kammerles in Palitzerlaan in Deijkstraa for five years, but unfortunately had even less information to impart than Elena Piirinen. Fru Dorffkluster was eighty-seven years old, and recalled clearly that there were two small, badly brought-up boys in the neighbouring family, and that Martina Kammerle herself had been a very successful television presenter who liked to play golf and ride thoroughbred Arabian horses in her spare time. She presented one of those question-and-answer programmes that everybody watched, and that changed its name more often than a cat scratched itself. . Or a pig. Some sort of quiz. .