Our troubles began with the death of the florist, Greg­orina Stavac. They found the body of the poor woman, whom hardly anyone in Paulstadt had really known, in the back room of her shop on Marktstrasse. The location of the shop was ideal, but the price was more than we could afford. Less than two months after the funeral, a big, modern shoe shop opened in its place. The owner was Edward Millborg, a thickset man with a grey beard and watery blue eyes. He described himself as an entrepreneur and was in various lines of business, for which his friendship with the mayor was an advantage. Whatever the weather, he always wore a straw hat and a pale suit with a collar that was covered in stains from all the pomade in his hair.

‘He’ll have it easy, with all his money and the good location,’ said Robert, and I felt a wave of hatred surge inside me.

‘Shut up,’ I said. ‘Just shut up!’

Every Friday morning, Edward Millborg went to his shop to check on things and pay the assistants their wages. He would sit in the cashier’s chair, handing out wage packets and little chocolates wrapped in silver paper, and laughing non-­stop.

On one such Friday I went to Marktstrasse to speak to him. There were various things I wanted to say. They were things of the greatest importance, which had been very clear in my mind the previous night. But when I saw him sitting in the midst of all those women, I couldn’t remember a single one. Edward Millborg sat there with his hat pushed back on his head and popped a sweet into his mouth.

‘I’d like to talk to you,’ I said.

He looked at me and said, ‘Who are you, madam?’ He said it with a smile, but there was no mockery in it.

The women retreated and busied themselves at the shelves.

‘I think you know very well who I am,’ I said. ‘My name is Martha Avenieu.’

He continued to smile as he shifted the sweet from one cheek to the other. Suddenly he got to his feet and held out his hand. ‘What can I do for you, madam?’

I looked around. The space seemed much bigger than it appeared from outside. Millborg had clearly knocked down the dividing wall to the back room.

‘It must have been over there that they found her,’ I said.

‘Who?’ he asked.

‘The florist. About there, more or less, next to the shelf with the Italian men’s shoes.’

‘Oh,’ said Edward Millborg. He raised his hat for a moment and ran his hand quickly over his hair, which gleamed in the light from the little overhead lamps.

‘Nobody noticed a thing,’ I said, a bit louder than I’d intended. ‘There was no one who missed her, you see?’

The saleswomen had stopped what they were doing. Tissue paper rustled in a shoebox.

‘All her life she was alone,’ I continued. ‘I don’t think anyone really saw her.’