HS03 - A Visible Darkness

by Michael Gregorio

  I could not shift my eyes from his ironic smile.

  My hand stretched out and found what it was looking for. An object that I had discarded on Edviga’s bed. It slipped comfortably into my outstretched palm. It might have been formed for my hand, and no other. It was my hand, not my brain, that drew back suddenly, then struck forward.

  The pointed blade arched through the air like Death’s scythe.

  I pushed past his heart and into Infinity.

  The sound was liquid, solid, a bucket overturned, a pile of clattering wood. My hand was deep inside his breast, blood spurted out and bathed my face. I pulled away, then thrust again to finish him off.

  That smile never left his face.

  As I pushed forward, he staggered back.

  He opened his mouth to speak, and blood poured out like a crimson cataract, cascading onto his shirt and his vest. Then spluttered words.

  ‘It will not end with me,’ he gagged. ‘We are . . . the Dev il’s brood.’

  Even in death, there was something twisted, false, and devilish about him.

  I knew that I had killed him. I rejoiced in the deed, and Gurten knew it. His eyes peered into mine. He saw into my soul, I think, and knew what I was feeling. And in that instant, the creature dwelling in the black depths of my heart looked at him without a grain of pity.

  The handle of the weapon seemed to sear my skin.

  I let it go, watching as his hands came up to clutch and hold it.

  He staggered backwards.

  I matched him pace for pace, my face two feet away from his. His shoulder smashed against the door-post, he spun away from me, falling heavily against the door. The handle of the weapon scraped a terrible dirge as he slid along the door, and staggered out into the air.

  I followed quickly, but it happened in an instant. He seemed to buckle, then run forward. In an instant, he was gone, falling headlong off the platform into the sea. I saw him sink, then bob and float, then sink again. Then, he disappeared for ever beneath the waves.

  I darted back inside the hut.

  The package was gone. He had carried it with him into the bay.

  I ran out again, scanned the oily waters, looking everywhere. I saw nothing. The Baltic Sea had opened its mouth and swallowed him whole.

  And my dead son along with him.

  38

  DAWN CAME on by slow degrees.

  Pitch black in Nordcopp, the heavens were indigo as I raced through Frombork. An hour later, a streak of speckled salmon-pink lit the far horizon, glinting off the tiled roofs and the distant spires of Lotingen. The clouds had formed themselves into puffy purple balls, like a hundred plums laid out on a large tray. Beyond the town, a lone star glistened over the sea, like a beacon.

  Hunched in the saddle, sighting between the mare’s sharp ears, cutting every bend as closely as I could, saving every inch, I galloped forward. But why was I hurrying at all? I could have stopped to count the blades of grass along the roadside. Nothing would alter.

  I was hurtling towards a massacre.

  That I knew.

  Gurten had mentioned Helena and my son. But he had said not a word of Manni, Süzi, or Anders. Nor had the name of Lotte cropped up. Only one question remained to be answered. How deep would the chasm be?

  That I did not know.

  I approached town by the East Gate, cursing as the bay mare lost her footing for an instant on the ancient, rounded cobbles of the hump-backed bridge. Then, I reined in hard at the guard-post. The animal wheezed, I panted, we gave off one united cloud of steam and sweat. Without a word, I thrust my papers at the soldiers. A corporal, two privates, all bleary-eyed with sleep. They must have been on guard all night.

  Suddenly, their eyes were wide awake.

  I cannot say what they beheld. Dust and filth, without a doubt. Tiredness to outmatch their own, perhaps. But what did they make of my expression? What terror did they see upon my face?

  ‘Allez, monsieur,’ the corporal murmured, ignoring the rumpled papers in my outstretched hand.

  I followed his gaze, saw a black slash across my right thigh. Blood had oozed from what appeared to be a deep cut, and it had stained my linen ducks. I had no remembrance of this accident. Had I jabbed myself with the riding-crop? Had a thorn-branch ripped at my leg as I flew by in the darkness? Might I have fallen from the saddle at some point along the road?

  ‘Faites donc! Monsieur, allez, allez!’ the Frenchman cried angrily.

  He jerked his head away, and whacked his hand on the horse’s rump.

  I almost fell as the animal spurted forward.

  I reached the market-place two minutes later. My office stands on the far side of the square. The briefest glimpse: windows gleaming like brass plaques in the frail first light of the rising sun. I dug my heels with force into the mare’s wet flank. The staccato clash of hooves rang off the walls, echoing beneath the covered arches. The offices and shops were all locked up, the street deserted. A sentry raised his hand in warning as I galloped past the General Quarters, but he did not shoot, or cry out, as I veered around the corner into Frederickstrasse and charged for home.

  Five minutes more, skittering gravel behind, hooves thumping on the sun-hard surface of the lane, I caught a first glimpse of my destination. The sight was lost to me at once as the lane ran downhill into the Dittersdorf estate. A light mist streamed through the lowland woods, rolling like billowing steam across the dew-damp lawns and the open meadows.

  Death was too light a sentence, Gurten had decided.

  I had left the coast without going in search of les Halles. There had been no time. As I wrested a horse from the enclosure at the camp, I told the flat-nosed ostler to send word to his superior officer that I was on my way to Lotingen.

  ‘Tell him I have killed the murderer,’ I said. ‘And that my family is in danger.’

  I knew les Halles would follow me to Lotingen. I knew that he would bring armed soldiers with him when he came. For all the good that it would do. I had to be the first to enter the house. I had to go alone.

  The mare was almost spent. She galloped mechanically onward, loping stiffly, shifting heavily, this way and that. When the gravel path veered left towards the house, she slid away again, and almost threw me off. I did the first sane thing that I had done all night: I slackened the reins and let the animal canter. Long before I reached the garden gate, I had slowed her down to a walk, approaching the house more warily, taking stock of what I could see. It was not that I was afraid. Rather, I realised the futility of haste.

  I slid down from the saddle, and my legs buckled beneath me. My right thigh quivered and quaked with fierce pain. After galloping relentlessly for over three hours, I was as exhausted as the mare. The reins slipped from my hands. The mare loped off to the far side of the lane and the long grass growing there.

  I steadied myself against the garden gate. My head weighed down as heavy as a millstone. I had to force myself to raise my eyes and look towards the little house that I had once called home. The mist was thicker in the dell. Helena often remarked that they had not picked the healthiest spot to situate that house. ‘It will be the death of all of us,’ she joked, because she loved it so. The roses beneath the kitchen window had shrivelled up and died in the summer heat-wave. The hazelnuts and the apple trees seemed alien, hostile.

  All was motionless, suspended, silent.

  The windows were six dull blanks, the curtains tightly drawn, the shutters closed. The blinds excluded everything, enclosing everything within. Visitors not welcome, those windows proclaimed. The general impression reminded me uncomfortably of the family mausoleum in Ruisling, though no wrought-iron gate had yet been placed before the door to keep the living out.

  Another world began beyond my own front door.

  The gate fell open. The old familiar creak. The rusty hinge. I suppose I must have shaken it loose with the violence of the emotion which threatened to overwhelm me. I had been entrusted with the investigation. I had been commanded to pu
t a stop to the killings, to halt the travesty of mutilation. But Gurten had followed me to my own door. He had desecrated my house. He had carried Death along with him from the coast. There was little I could do. Bear witness. Assess the horror. Take leave of my wife and children. Do my best to compose and dress the fragile corpses. Before any other person entered the house.

  I stood before the door, hesitating.

  In some deep recess of my mind, I heard it.

  My brain did not react. My animal spirit may have done. Suddenly, everything juddered to a halt. My blood lay stagnating. No room for thought. Energy drained out of me, like water from a lock. My lungs were empty. I was as immaterial as the morning mist. Had I heard the ghost of something brushing over the stone tiles in the hall?

  The sound repeated. Slightly louder. On the other side of the door.

  The bolt slid back. The inner bar was removed.

  I crouched and bunched my fists as the door swung open.

  A frightened whisper sounded to my ears like thunder.

  The dawn light painted her cheeks, nose, lips in delicate pastel shades of blue. She seemed less tall, less strong in such domestic garb.

  That frock was Helena’s . . .

  I recognised the lustrous pale-blue taffeta, the sprigs of pink blossom, the simple lace collar of the gown that Helena sometimes wore when she went out walking. I had brought it back from Hamburg several years before. I had never seen it worn before with one of Lotte’s grey sack-aprons.

  ‘What . . . are you . . . doing here?’

  I had to swallow, could not speak. It went beyond the powers of my imagining. Edviga and Gurten were in league together. She barred the entrance to my own home. And Helena’s gown was not the only element in the transformation. I had never seen her hair let down before. It hung in lustrous golden curls which graced her brow, her neck, and shoulders like ripe wheat, or amber of the purest hue. Only the livid scar on her left cheek proclaimed who she truly was.

  What right had I to call myself a magistrate? This case had swallowed my family whole. And still I had failed to see the truth. Johannes Gurten could not have done it all alone. Edviga Lornerssen was the creature who would be his prototype. By means of her, a Garden of Eden would be created anew on Prussia’s shores. Amber had united them. She had led her naive companions into his wily net. She had seduced me to confide in her the delicacy of Helena’s state. She had lulled me into confidentiality. And all the while, I had convinced myself that she was expecting a child, that that was the child which Vulpius had set his sights on to complete his horrid work in wax.

  Together they had schemed and planned. Together they had done it. Helena had been the target. Helena, and the child that she was carrying in her womb.

  Blood roaring through my temples, my hands came up, hovering at her throat.

  ‘You knew what he was after, didn’t you?’

  She stepped back, eyes wide with fright. She could not escape me in the confines of the hall. The only way was out, and I was blocking the door.

  ‘Of course, I did, sir,’ she cried, protesting. ‘Why else would I have come here?’

  As I advanced on her, she cowered in the corner.

  I blocked her in, felt the pull of my jaws, my teeth exposed, the desire to rip her body to shreds as a wolf might have done.

  ‘Why, Edviga?’

  She stared at me in puzzlement.

  ‘I was afraid. That’s why! The French were working on the beach. Colonel les Halles wanted to get rid of us all. You know what he was planning, sir. That’s why I ran away.’

  We were so close, I felt her warm breath on my face. Once, I had desired such intimacy. That thought now turned my stomach. I pressed my hands against the wall for fear of tangling them around her slender throat.

  ‘I fled to Pastoris,’ she went on quickly. ‘His girls had been dismissed. Those Frenchmen had taken over the polishing of the amber. The women had been told to leave that night. I decided that I’d go with them. I’ve got this mark on my face, I can limp like the best of them. Hans Pastoris would never give me away. He took me in. That’s what I did, sir. I left my things in the hut. I walked out on the water.’

  ‘So, Pastoris was lining up his lambs to march them out.’

  A look of anguish flashed upon her face. It made her seem almost human once again. This was the Edviga that I had spoken with on two occasions. I did not shift my hands, or ease my stance. I would crush her like a viper the instant she spoke of Gurten. I had to know how deeply she was in league with him.

  ‘Hilde Bruckner had them,’ she burst out suddenly. ‘Ilse had given them to her to keep the night before they found her dead in Ansbach’s pigsty. With Ilse dead, she was at her wits’ end, sir. Crossed herself again and again, and swore she wouldn’t touch a thing that Ilse had handled. Would I take them? That’s what she said.’

  My head was spinning.

  ‘Take what?’ I said.

  ‘Ilse’s things, sir. She’d dug up her treasures. Ilse was planning to leave as well. She’d left her things with Hilde. Ilse had a man, I told you that. Remember, sir, the one that drew her? We’ve always hidden our stuff in Nordbarn. We trust the girls. Anything we’re bringing out, or taking in. Spener’s stolen amber passed that way, I’d wager.’ She hurried on, as if to cancel out what she had just said. ‘Poor Hilde’d no idea what was in that sack. Ilse had stashed a load of amber, I expected that. But what surprised me more was the . . . the . . . what do you call them, sketches? Two of them, there were. One was a picture of a neck and chin. I realised that was Ilse. He cut her throat out, didn’t he, sir?’ She sobbed and looked away, but only for a second. ‘The other picture . . . Oh sir, it was a . . . a picture of a woman’s . . . of a woman’s belly, a woman that was carrying a babe. But Ilse Bruen wasn’t pregnant!’

  Slowly, I let my hands slide down and away from the wall.

  Edviga’s eyes flashed nervously from side to side, following them down.

  A deep sigh escaped from between her lips.

  Was that what she had hoped to achieve by telling me her tale? Did she dare to think that I could be placated?

  ‘It was you,’ I said.

  She shook her head, eyes down. ‘I can never have a child,’ she murmured. ‘Still, I thought, it must be one of us. But who, sir? Only the doctor would know for certain. All the girls go to him . . .’

  ‘Go on,’ I urged her.

  She refused to meet my gaze, as if to spare my embarrassment.

  ‘I knocked on Dr Heinrich’s door,’ she said more calmly. ‘He’d gone away, his housekeeper told me. Gone to buy medicines and stuff for his trade. Back tomorrow, the lady said. Of course, I didn’t believe her. He doesn’t want to speak with us no more, that’s what I thought. Got no time for amber-girls now. He knows we’re being sent away. But as I was turning away from his door, another possibility flashed through my mind. It frightened the life out of me, sir. There was a woman who was pregnant. But she was not in Nordcopp. Not there on the coast . . .’

  Her eyes were wide as she relived the terror of that moment.

  ‘A woman that the killer would be interested in. Frau Helena, sir, your wife. He’d want their child, I thought. You believed that you were chasing him, but was he chasing you? He’d set his eyes on everything that you held dearest.’

  ‘And so you came to Lotingen . . .’

  The air wheezed out of me as I tried to speak. My chest ached with the tension. Would she finally reveal the horror?

  ‘Frau Helena was in a proper state,’ she said. ‘Her labour had started, though the babe was not expected for a week or two. The waters broke while I was standing at your door. Lotte was in a panic, the little ones were terrified. They’d seen their mother lying on the floor. I told a lie, sir . . .’

  ‘What lie was that?’

  ‘Lotte thought that you had sent me, and so I said that you had.’ As she pronounced this sentence, her eyes lit up with simple pleasure, and a giggle issued from her lips. ‘Oh s
ir, they were so afraid and lost, they’d have welcomed in Napoleon himself!’

  ‘Who was in the house?’ I asked, still wary.

  Edviga shrugged her shoulders as if it were a silly question. ‘The mistress on the floor. The babes around her crying. Lotte doing her best to calm their tears and see to Helena. I dropped my bag, took off my cape, and set to work. Your wife was in a fright, sir. I tried to calm her, saying that you would soon be home. But there was no time to be lost. A decision had to be made.’

  I braced myself to hear how my son had been torn from Helena’s body. The blood-soaked object Gurten had let me glimpse. The tiny face a dark, twisted pulp of flesh and blood . . .

  I saw darkness, felt that I might faint away.

  ‘Are you feeling ill, sir?’

  Edviga’s voice revived me like smelling-salts. I had to hear her out.

  ‘What did you decide?’

  ‘To send Lotte off with the children. Her brother lives in . . .’

  ‘I know where Lotte’s brother lives!’ I snapped.

  It was the worst scenario I could imagine. Helena helpless. Lotte gone. My wife left all alone in the hands of Edviga. Gurten waiting somewhere close by. He’d have come to her the instant that the coast was clear.

  And then . . .

  ‘Lotte did not want to go, but I persuaded her,’ Edviga continued. ‘I made Frau Helena comfortable where she lay, while Lotte took the children off to safety. They’re still there, sir.’

  I saw a single ray of light. The children were safe. And Lotte, too.

  ‘But you stayed here with Helena,’ I murmured. ‘Alone . . .’

  Edviga did not speak, she merely nodded her head.

  ‘Then Gurten arrived,’ I cut in quickly.

  Edviga stared at me. Surprise traced furrows in her brow and seemed to etch the livid scar more deeply in her cheek. ‘It was a good while later, sir. Frau Helena’s labour was long and very hard,’ she replied obliquely, as if she would not be deflected from her tale. ‘The child would not come out . . .’

  ‘But out it came at last,’ I countered brusquely. ‘Who delivered it?’