The Book of Murder - By Guillermo Martinez & Sonia Soto Page 0,22
milk. That was the key. I woke up with a start early one morning and it came to me: I remembered the row with Ramiro over the waitress and how my coffee—the one with milk—was always cold. I’d thought it was petty spitefulness on her part when in fact, with hindsight, I realised it was just something all waiters do: to save herself a trip she sometimes waited for another order to be put on her tray, together with ours. As she was the only one waiting on the tables outside, it also quite often happened that orders were left at the bar for a minute, until she went back inside. Kloster was sitting right there, where the owner of the bar placed the trays with the cups. And he knew very well that I always had milk in my coffee, which meant he knew that the black coffee had to be Ramiro’s. He simply waited for the first rough day, so that it would look like an accident.”
“Do you mean he poisoned your boyfriend’s coffee?”
“I don’t think it was poison; that would have been too risky. He must have known that there’d be a routine postmortem afterwards. I think he chose a substance that pathologists wouldn’t automatically be looking for, something that could cause arrhythmia, or the beginnings of suffocation, or maybe massive cramps. He was a swimmer, so he’d know, say, that a sudden potassium deficiency causes cramps. It could simply have been a powerful diuretic. At first, I didn’t realise exactly how it had all happened. I thought I’d have to convince Ramiro’s parents to have his body exhumed, but now I think that would only have made things worse. I’m sure he planned this too: nothing unusual would be detected and he’d be above suspicion once again.”
“Did you tell anyone about this?”
Her face darkened. “My brother. That morning, when it all suddenly became clear to me, I went to see him. He was working a shift at the hospital. I think I was a little overwrought: I hadn’t slept for several nights since the funeral. My hands were trembling and I was almost feverish with excitement. I showed Bruno the passage in the Bible and told him about my suing Kloster, and the death of Kloster’s daughter, the Cainites and sevenfold vengeance. I explained how I thought he’d planned the deaths. But I got a little muddled: I couldn’t explain it as clearly as I’d understood it. At a certain point I realised he was no longer listening, but was watching me with the eyes of a doctor. He looked genuinely alarmed. He saw that my hands were shaking and asked how long I’d gone without sleep. He told me to wait there and left the room for a moment. The book he’d been reading was lying on the desk. There was something horribly familiar about the cover so I turned it round: it was one of Kloster’s novels. I think at that moment I collapsed. My brother reappeared with a psychiatrist who was on duty, but I wouldn’t answer any of her questions. I knew what they were thinking. The psychiatrist said they’d give me something to help me sleep. She used a horrible patronising voice, as if she were explaining something to a child. My own brother gave me the injection. My own brother, who was reading one of Kloster’s novels during his shift.”
“If it was the novel that came out that year, I don’t find it too surprising: it was an even bigger hit than his previous one. It would have been hard to find someone who wasn’t reading it.”
“That’s just it. That’s why I was so devastated. I saw how perfect his plan was. It wasn’t surprising—it was quite natural—that everything should go his way. It’s what I said to you at the beginning: this was maybe the most cunning part. His name was everywhere, he’d become a public figure, moving in circles beyond the reach of mere mortals. So when I tried to point the finger at him everyone looked at me as my brother had, and rushed for psychiatrists.”
“But after you were given the tranquilliser…”
“They gave me another one, and another one. To put it simply, it was like a sleep cure. Until I realised what I had to do if I wanted them to stop drugging me and get out of that place. I just had to make sure I never mentioned the K word.”