‘Knowing where the rare fish dwells is half the hunt, sir,’ Gurten replied.
He was so determined, I did not know how to deter him. It might be better to let him run. On a loose leash, as my father said when the hounds had caught a scent. Either he would catch the prey, or he would come quietly back to heel. And I knew of a library where French scientific journals could be consulted. Count Dittersdorf in Lotingen was an avid collector of anything scientific. He had provided me with that copy of the Procès-verbal de la visite faite le long des deux rives de la rivière Seine, le 14 février, 1790 as I struggled to understand the implications and dangers of the animal excrement fouling the streets of my home town.
‘There is a place close by,’ I said, ‘where you might test your theory.’
Even as I made this announcement, I realised the temptation to which I had just exposed myself. Dittersdorf’s library was in Lotingen. It would be the perfect excuse for me to return home, and visit my wife. I would be testing a theory, after all, not abandoning my task there on the coast.
‘Where, sir?’ Gurten was bright-eyed, watching me in a sort of impatient ecstasy. The fact that I had admitted the possibility that his idea was worth the testing seemed to have quelled the fire in him.
‘Lotingen,’ I announced.
Gurten’s mouth fell open with surprise. ‘Shall we continue the investigation there, sir?’
I was sorely tempted for a moment.
Then again, Adam Ansbach and his mother were in Königsberg. A French judge might decide their fate before I could do anything to help them.
‘No,’ I said at last. ‘The doctor’s declaration regarding the age of the bones that were found in the Ansbach pigsty changes everything. I must speak to les Halles about Adam and his mother, and I need to do it now.’
‘Don’t you think that we should force the doctor into saying more, sir?’
I had begun to fear the passion with which Gurten threw himself into proving his theories. And I could hardly leave him there in Nordcopp, knowing that he might be tempted to pick up the argument with Dr Heinrich in my absence.
‘You go on to Lotingen,’ I said. ‘And I will come to you there.’
By the time we reached the North Gate, I had told him how to find Dittersdorf, where to contact Knutzen, and what he was to say to Helena on my behalf. At that point, our ways would part. He would take the next coach to Lotingen, I would return to the coast.
‘Monsieur Magistrate!’
A French voice called out my name.
‘Monsieur Stiffeniis!’
Standing by the office door at the foot of the tower I saw Sergeant Tessier. He was waving his hand in the air. He might have been waving a signal-flag, but he was holding up a letter, instead.
‘I’ve been searching for you for over an hour, monsieur,’ he said, coming towards me at a trot, his plump face red, swollen with the effort, holding out the missive in front of him like an overweight Greek athlete carry ing the sacred flame the last few strides to the top of the steep summit of Mount Olympus.
I took the note, turned it over, and realised immediately what had made for such a marked, servile change in his attitude towards me. The envelope had been closed with red wax, and over the seal, in a flamboyant hand, was the name Louis-Georges Malaport.
I broke the seal.
16th August ’08.
FOR THE EYES OF MAGISTRATE STIFFENIIS ONLY.
The coach which brought this note is waiting for you. Colonel les Halles has been informed of your departure by means of the daily despatches. There is something you must see here.
L.-G. M.
‘A waiting coach is mentioned here,’ I said, waving the paper.
‘It is just outside the gate,’ the sergeant pointed. ‘It was sent to the coast, but Col o nel les Halles said that you were here in Nordcopp.’
‘Thank you for your help, Tessier,’ I said.
For one moment, he seemed disappointed, as if he were bored and hoped that some excitement might be brewing. He had seen the name and seal of General Malaport on the note, after all. He sighed, saluted, then marched away as if he had just received a worthy commendation after a particularly arduous battle.
‘Herr Stiffeniis?’ Gurten appeared at my shoulder.
‘A sudden change of plan,’ I explained. ‘I must go to Königsberg. You go on to Lotingen. I will be in touch with you soon.’
He nodded, then bowed.
‘Thank you for your faith in me, sir,’ he simpered.
For a moment, I thought he wished to take my hand and kiss it. We looked at each other in silence for some moments. I was perplexed, he was radiant.
‘You should not be excited at the thought of hunting down a Prussian,’ I reproved.
‘It isn’t that, sir,’ he said, a warm smile on his face. ‘It’s just that . . . well, I did not expect to have the plea sure of making the acquaintance of Frau Helena.’
24
KÖNIGSBERG CASTLE IS a dark and gloomy place.
As the coach drew up in the shaded courtyard, my spirits drooped.
The Royal Guard had gone. Some to the grave, without a doubt, while others had thrown their death’s-head shakos in a heap on the cobbles before they fled to the Tsar in Rus sia, or to those remote and secret hideouts where our rebels gather in the East.
In their place, a regiment of French chasseurs now occupied the castle courtyard. They were wearing faded blue jackets which had certainly been slashed at by Prussian sabres. Their bright red caps by contrast, being evidently new, had felt nothing sharper than the prick of a hatter’s needle. These foreigners lounged upon the steps, comfortably straddled the ornamental cannon, or propped up as many door-posts as they had been able to find. Knots of them coalesced around the parade-ground, as if they had just come off duty, or were waiting to go on. Their muskets stood in upright piles like tents, the new-regulation bayonets glinting. They smoked and spat and swore out loud, jostling, pushing and shouting as if each one of them were the King of Prus sia. The vast cobbled square, once the hub of ordered Prussian military life, had become a shambles. To add to the disgrace, piles of rubbish rotted and stank beneath the windows from which they had been unceremoniously tipped.
‘Monsieur le Général is on the second floor,’ the driver called, as I jumped down.
I ran up the broad stone staircase, well aware that the general would be anxious to hear my report. Louis-Georges Malaport had made himself at home in the city governor’s apartments. At the far end of the long room, a small fire smouldered inside the baroque depths of an im mense marble fireplace, the sputtering flames like a ship’s lamp glimpsed in the vastness of a dark ocean. Cold enough in August, I did not like to think of that room in winter. The ceiling was almost invisible, the ogive arches lost in a permanent twilight high above my head. The walls were thick, roughly plastered, the stone floors shiny and slick with damp. Maps and standards hung from the walls, almost as heavy with age-old mould and clogged dust as the faded material from which they had been made. Three pointed windows, very tall and very narrow—the ancient stained-glass panes as cracked and opaque as the lead that fixed them—let in no light at all.
Like a desert island in that calm, cold ocean stood a vast black desk.
A silver candelabrum with a dozen tall candles gusted to no effect in the flurrying currents of chill air.
‘Herr Stiffeniis,’ a voice groaned from behind the mass of flickering lights.
Louis-Georges Malaport appeared to be even more thoroughly exhausted than when I had seen him last. Was it only five days before? His uniform was so weighed down with medals—I noted that he was prominently wearing a Commander of the Legion of Honour—he seemed to sink beneath their weight. His large bald head was more bowed than ever, his rounded shoulders more sloped, more stooping. His tiny hands were joined together, as if in supplication. Those grey eyes fixed me with their glaring intensity.
‘I’ve been expecting you,’ he said, inviting me to sit, continuin
g to stare at me in silence for longer than was polite, as if he expected me to blurt out everything that I had discovered.
What should I tell him? And what I should keep to myself?
Those questions had occupied my mind as I travelled to Königsberg, and tried to make sense of what I had learnt in Nordcopp: the dead amber-gatherers, Jakob Spener’s trea sure, the shadowy figures of Annalise and Megrete who had stolen part of it, the rank corruption of the French soldiers, the illicit smuggling of amber of a scientific nature, the role that Erika Linder had played in the trade, my suspicions about Dr Heinrich. I had struggled to shape these elements into a convincing whole, but something always jarred, as if some vital piece of the narrative was missing. My principal aim was to demonstrate the innocence of Adam Ansbach, but the absence of any other person to accuse did not help me.
General Malaport asked me nothing, however.
He looked down, stretched out his fingers, then laid them flat on a scuffed and dirty pile of papers that were spread out before him on the table.
‘These come from what remains of the police archives,’ he began, pushing the documents across the table towards me. A moment later, he shifted the candelabrum as well, as if I might need it.
Could such miserable scraps have come from a Prussian police office?
‘French rule was enforced here with great difficulty,’ he announced, as if a general overview of the situation were somehow necessary. ‘Indeed, there had been a widespread breakdown of law and order. Most of the town watch abandoned the city when our army approached, along with what remained of the Prussian garrison. In the last ten or eleven months, there have been sporadic outbreaks of looting, vandalism, the wanton destruction of public offices. Many important civic matters, together with some hideous crimes, have been obscured or overlooked in the chaos. Only now are the facts coming slowly to the light. My task, as you know, is to re-establish civil order, and guarantee the safe transport of amber back to France.’
There had been rioting in the city that winter. The grain harvest had failed for the second time since Jena. Trade with En gland and Rus sia had been hampered, as Bonaparte insisted on the adoption of his Continental System. There had been unrest in the whole of Prus sia, but especially in Königsberg, where a slice of stale black bread was considered a luxury. Most families made much with a quarter-loaf where they had once made light of a whole.
‘Surely the situation is now in hand?’
General Malaport pursed his lips, and frowned.
‘In hand, you say? Three months ago, a mob set light to the building where the criminal files are kept,’ he continued, gently massaging the bridge of his nose. ‘A great deal was lost, though fortunately some material was salvaged. Including this file. It was brought to my attention just yesterday. As soon as I saw the contents, I knew that you had better read these papers, too.’
I held up what remained of the fascicle.
Three pages held together with a loop of twine. The first was a handwritten document in square, childlike German italics—full of blots, smears and crossings-out. The second appeared to have been more carefully written out by a professional hand. The last page was nothing more than a torn scrap with a scribbled note in pencil. In addition, the top page had been severely scorched, as had sections of the two underlying pages, particularly at the bottom of the second sheet, where the flames had taken hold. There was a charred diagonal line, and the words below it had all dissolved away to ashes.
‘Read them,’ he instructed me. The candlelight struck harshly at his harrowed cheeks. His hooded, unblinking eyes fixed on mine with the solemn intensity of a toad stranded on a water-lily.
I obeyed.
. . . on the Pregel bank beneath the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . bridge. Throttled with a length of wire . . . . . . . . . . . . no sign of interference with the skirts (she was wearing no drawers), though there was not a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ual violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the lower left forearm, hand and the thumb were missing . .
.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . like an empty bag containing bones, and nothing else.
A doctor was called to certify the dea . . .
The fragment ended there.
‘A murder?’
‘A murder,’ he confirmed.
‘This paper is not dated,’ I objected.
‘Read the other one,’ he answered brusquely.
Again, I obeyed.
Lomse District, 26th April 1808.
Criminal Investigation 3/05/08 B (ref. murder file)
Reporting officer’s statement: The remains of another young woman were found at half past nine this morning. The corpse was blocking a drain outlet beneath the Grünen Brücke bridge, and was removed of necessity by workers from the city Water Board. It should be noted that a similar discovery was made–not fifteen feet away–beneath the very same bridge just four days ago. As in the previous case [ref. CI 3/05/08 A], the victim had been garrotted with a length of thin wire. It is not clear whether both of the murders were committed at the same time–the second corpse being overlooked on the first occasion–or whether the very same place had been chosen to dump the women’s bodies on two distinct and separate occasions. Nor is it clear, given the decomposed condition of the two corpses, which of the two was the first to die . . .
‘Two corpses in the same spot?’ I said, holding up the paper in my trembling hand.
Had it all begun in Königsberg? Before the killing started in Nordcopp?
‘Two,’ he confirmed.
‘Have the bodies been identified, sir?”
‘No names are mentioned in those fragments,’ Malaport admitted quietly.
Suddenly, his temper flared. ‘The cleansing power of flame. We know this, and nothing more. Two women murdered a short while ago in Königsberg. There may be other corpses—previous cases, or subsequent ones—about which we still know nothing. The archives and the city rec ords are being thoroughly examined on my specific orders, though nothing has yet emerged. The great problem is that few of our men read German, Stiffeniis. One or two from the Saar and Alsace regions are doing what they can.’
He did not move an inch, but sat as still as a snake ingesting a large prey. His eyes never left mine, nor did they blink. It was as if he were waiting for me to say something that he evidently expected me to say.
‘Two dead females,’ I said, and my voice sounded hard and callous, even to my own ears. ‘This is nothing new in Prus sia, sir. Nor, I believe, in the rest of the empire. Both of them were garrotted. And by the same hand, probably. What connection can there be with Nordcopp, if not for the fact that they met a premature death?’
I turned to the second sheet, noting that the police in Königsberg appeared to have adopted Professor Kant’s system of recording witnesses’ statements. The policeman’s prompts and casual observations were recorded, and every spoken word was scrupulously included in the declaration.
Doctor’s interrogation: a naval surgeon living close by was immediately called to examine the body in the culvert.
Q. How did this person die?
The evidence is there for all to see, officer. This creature died as the result of strangulation by a means of a tight ligature binding around her throat. That rusty wire did for her, I shouldn’t wonder. It is still there, and quite impossible to undo. Her eyes and her tongue are popping out.
Q. How long has she been dead?
How long, sir? I can give you no close estimate of how long she may have been left to rot in this here culvert. From two days to a week. Two weeks, perhaps. The outer tissue of the corpse, the skin covering her body– here and here, can you see?–has largely fallen away. Comes off in strips and patches, it does. The whole thing is riddled with maggots, worms, and the like. Decompos
ition accelerates to a marked degree when quantities of bilge water are present, I’ve observed at sea. This corpse was found in the main city drain, remember, sir, so there’s the contents of that drain to take into account as well. Mainly organic and faecal matter. Can’t you smell it?
Observation: a small eel wriggled out of the corpse’s nose to everyone’s surprise.
Apart from the general decay, there is more evident damage to the upper left arm, which hangs as an open flap around the bones, and an even more profound cavity in the area of the left shoulder. The tensor muscle and the bone of the scapula are nowhere to be found. Which does not amaze me. Such severe, localised damage is caused, as a rule, by animal scavengers. Starving dogs and rats are plentiful here by the docks, and if that shoulder were sticking out from the drain, that is where they would attack it . . .
‘Who was this doctor?’ I asked.
‘I cannot say,’ Malaport replied. ‘The police in Königsberg never name the doctor, surgeon or dentist who is called to inspect a corpse, unless the case is brought to trial in a law-court . . .’
This was another one of Professor Kant’s innovations. It served, he said, to protect the identity of the professional witness from intimidation by anyone else who happened to be involved in the eventual criminal proceedings.
‘This case never got to court,’ the general concluded.
‘Have you any idea who compiled the notes?’ I asked him. ‘Surely the policeman would know the name of the doctor?’
General Malaport sniffed loudly. ‘If there was a signature, Stiffeniis,’ he said, ‘it went up in smoke. I doubt that any Prussian policeman would own up to having written it, especially now that the French authorities are taking an interest in the case. The same thing goes for the doctor. You might start your enquiries on that count, of course.’
I was already making enquiries in my own head.
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