A Hunt in Winter

by Conor Brady

  Elena shrugged.

  ‘Yes, I understand that people now are much better off. But there are other things that make people happy too.’

  ‘Consider the conditions in which we live here,’ Pfaus resumed enthusiastically. ‘You see no fire in this apartment, Joseph, yet it is beautifully warm, is it not, on this cold January night?’

  Swallow had been aware of the pleasant, even temperature of the apartment from the moment he had arrived.

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘Central heating,’ Pfaus said. ‘Many of the new buildings in the city have it. Coal from the Ruhr is burned in the basement furnace, driving heated water through the whole system.’

  When they had finished their Wiener Schnitzel, Elena served a fruit tart with a warm raspberry syrup. Then she excused herself from the table.

  ‘I’m going to retire to allow you gentlemen to converse. Good night, Mr Swallow. It’s been a great pleasure to meet you.’

  Swallow noted that as the evening had progressed, Elena Pfaus’s American pronunciation had become more accentuated. He had the sense that she was more than a little happy to connect to things that brought her back to the life she had left behind in the United States.

  He stood and shook her hand politely.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Pfaus, for a fine dinner and lovely company. Good night.’

  Pfaus poured a peach brandy for each of them when Elena had gone. Then he opened a small wooden box, decorated with images of fierce-looking military men in helmets with impressive moustaches. Swallow declined the offered cigar.

  ‘So,’ Pfaus said, striking a match and drawing deeply on his own cigar, ‘tell me what progress you made with our young Mr Carmody.’

  Swallow sipped at the peach brandy. It was sticky and too sweet for his taste.

  ‘He says he had nothing to do with the murder. And I’m inclined to believe him. He’d have liked to develop some romantic interest with the girl, but she rejected him, he says. I think he could be a helpful witness about the circumstances leading to the death, and he wants to do a deal with me.’

  ‘What sort of deal?’

  ‘I didn’t want to start negotiations with him tonight. Better to let him sweat for a bit. But I imagine he’ll want to be freed from any charges here and allowed to go free in return for his assistance.’

  Pfaus shrugged.

  ‘That’s not a problem as far as the Kriminalpolizei are concerned, Joseph. We don’t want him here. He’s costing the German Empire money, so you’re welcome to have him if you think he can be of help to you.’

  Swallow sipped again at the peach brandy. It was definitely too sweet for his taste, but he felt he might give offence if he left it unfinished.

  ‘I think he can, Johann. You mentioned something earlier that might actually have a bearing on this case. Tell me more about the law here in Germany about compensation for people who are injured at work.’

  Pfaus tilted his head to blow cigar smoke towards the ceiling and smiled. Swallow saw something between smugness and pride in his host’s expression.

  ‘Ah, yes. It is a very advanced measure, one of many that reflect the personal thinking of Chancellor Prince Von Bismarck. He devised this particular piece of legislation himself for Prussia, and now it applies across the empire. Essentially, it means that if anyone is injured in the course of their employment, and if it can be shown that this is due to some neglect or failure to provide safe conditions, then the employer is obliged to compensate them.’

  ‘Are there many cases in which this has happened?’ Swallow asked.

  Pfaus rapped on the table to emphasise his point.

  ‘That is the very success of the measure. Because employers know that they can face financial penalties, factories and other places of employment are now much safer. The numbers of accidents have come down, even in dangerous work like mining and heavy industry. It means work for the city police forces, of course: they have to inspect factories and other premises to ensure that there are safety measure in place.’

  He threw back the last of his peach brandy. Swallow did likewise. He was grateful that Pfaus did not offer a refill.

  ‘In fact,’ Pfaus said, ‘I read in the newspaper recently that the increases in our industrial output have more than met the additional costs of policing and inspection. So the exchequer and the empire are actually better off as a result.’

  He blew more smoke to the ceiling and smiled again. Definitely smugness this time, Swallow reckoned.

  ‘I understand the concept may be difficult for you to grasp, Joseph. Industry in England does not think progressively as it does here.’

  Swallow resisted the temptation of yet again explaining that Ireland was not England. But it would have been beside the point. No such provisions had even been thought of in Ireland or England, as far as he knew.

  ‘Perhaps you are right, Johann. But what I’m interested to know is if this compensation scheme would apply to someone who is injured while working in a restaurant?’

  ‘Of course. One or two of the earliest cases involved accidents in hotels and restaurants here in Berlin. A kitchen worker lost an arm in a machine used for grinding meat at one of Berlin’s finest hotels. There should have been a protective shield, but it had been removed for some reason. He was unable to work again. So the hotel had to pay his medical costs and give him a lot of money. I think it was the equivalent of a year’s wages.’

  Swallow felt the surge of energy that he always experienced when the elements of a mystery started to come together to form a coherent picture. The evasive arrogance of Stefan Werner on the two occasions when he had questioned him at the New Vienna now started to make sense. What Pfaus had just told him fitted in with what he had learned earlier in the cell from Michael James Carmody. His every instinct as a detective, developed over more than twenty years probing the criminal mind, was telling him that Werner was the man who had ended Alice Flannery’s life.

  ‘I think perhaps, Johann,’ he said cautiously, ‘that even though we don’t have these laws in Ireland or England, Mr Werner didn’t realise that. When Alice Flannery was injured in the kitchens of the New Vienna he may have seen himself facing an action for damages.’

  Pfaus frowned.

  ‘Are you saying this man murdered the young woman, or had somebody murder her, simply to avoid an injury claim?’

  ‘Murders have been committed with much less compelling motives, Johann. You know that as a policeman.’

  Pfaus shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘Most of my work has been on political crime. My experience with criminal investigation of this kind has been very limited. I have difficulty with the idea that a young woman’s life can be taken so lightly. But I defer to your knowledge.’

  ‘There is some information that might make my theory stronger,’ Swallow said. ‘Could I ask you to have someone make an inquiry for me?’

  Pfaus nodded.

  ‘If it relates to this crime in any way, it is perfectly in order for the Kriminalpolizei to inquire into any matter. What do you need to know?’

  ‘I need to know about this man, Stefan Werner, who owns the New Vienna restaurant. He is a native of Berlin, or so he says. He claims that his family is well known in the restaurant business here. And he says he worked as a restaurant manager in London. He knows his business, and I imagine that he would have been well established in it here before he went to Dublin. I want to know what he did here, where he worked and when. And anything else that might be significant about his past.’

  Pfaus had taken a small notebook from his pocket, and scribbled the details as Swallow spoke.

  ‘Werner. Stefan Werner. The name does not mean anything to me. On a police captain’s pay I am not a frequent patron of Berlin’s expensive restaurants or hotels. But by tomorrow afternoon, Joseph, you will know everything that is known to the Berlin police about this Mr Werner.’

  Saturday January 5th, 1889

  Chapter 34

  Swallow deci
ded on a lie-in in the morning. The Bremen Hotel served breakfast from seven o’clock to half past eight, but he was well fed from Elena Pfaus’s dinner of the night before. So he luxuriated in his warm bed until after nine. Then he rose, washed, shaved and dressed.

  It would be midday before Pfaus would have collated whatever intelligence there might be in the files on Stefan Werner. It might yield something that could offer a line of approach in his resumed questioning of Carmody at the Kriminalpolizei headquarters. So he decided he would defer that task until the afternoon and spend the morning sightseeing.

  The day was sharp and dry, with the sky a clear blue canopy over the German capital. Hard snow was compacted where the pavements met the walls of the buildings. But the walkways were swept clear and well gritted, offering the pedestrian a better foothold. He took coffee, a bread roll with butter and some spicy sausage at a café close by the hotel, and set off towards the government quarter. The official buildings were not particularly remarkable and seemed rather austere and functional compared to London or Dublin. But Bismarck’s new parliament building, the Reichstag, still under construction, was already impressive.

  Pfaus had told him how to find the Imperial Art Gallery, just a short walk from the Reichstag. Remarkably, and to his delight, they had guidebooks available at the entrance in several languages, including English. But the collections were a disappointment. Not surprisingly, the work of the German school predominated. He advanced through long galleries hung with gloomy portraits of princes, bishops and sour Teutonic ladies, sometimes with fat children by their side. But the Italian, French and English collections were quite limited. The Italian displays at Foulks’s national gallery in Dublin were far richer and more varied. Only the sense that he should not waste an opportunity that would be unlikely to come again kept him moving through the poorly lit rooms.

  He was relieved when his watch told him it was almost noon and time to rendezvous with Pfaus. He was familiar with the streets now, and he walked briskly to the offices of the Kriminalpolizei.

  Pfaus was waiting for him with the satisfied look of a man who has discovered something he believes to be significant.

  ‘Now, Joseph,’ he grinned, ‘you will be able to tell your superiors in Dublin of the efficiency of the policing system of Berlin, of Germany, indeed.’

  He turned the cover on the green cardboard file that sat before him on his desk.

  ‘Here we have the details of one Wilhelm Stefan Werner, born on 6 November 1845, now aged forty-four years. His place of birth is stated to be Hamburg. His father’s occupation is given as “restaurant porter”. But far from having any great success or reputation in the restaurant business here in Berlin, we find young Wilhelm Stefan at twenty years of age following in his father’s footsteps and working also as a restaurant porter here in the Hotel Imperial in Freidrichstrasse.

  ‘Now,’ he flicked to the next page of the file, ‘nothing wrong with that. Honest work, you might think. But this is where it starts to get interesting.’

  Swallow could see that Pfaus was relishing his role as narrator of whatever drama was about to unfold.

  ‘He has a few offences on the record committed in Hamburg. Two charges of assault, one serious, on a street girl near the port. She died a few days later, probably as a result of the beating he gave her. But the post-mortem showed she had liver disease and a bad heart, and there was not enough evidence upon which to mount a charge of murder. He did a year in prison. Then another assault on a police officer. He spent a month in jail for that. Then he moved to Berlin and somehow got a job at the Imperial, apparently helping to manage supplies coming into the kitchens. Then in February 1879 the manager of the hotel lodges a complaint with the Kriminalpolizei, alleging that Werner, along with another employee, had been systematically defrauding the place over three years, charging for goods that had never been supplied and lodging the proceeds in a false bank account.’

  ‘If they had a free run for three years, they must have creamed off a bit of money,’ Swallow ventured.

  ‘Indeed. They got away with an amount that might equate to several hundred of your British pounds.’

  Swallow did not attempt to conceal his incredulity.

  ‘What do you mean “got away with”? Are you saying they didn’t get jail?’

  ‘That’s precisely what I’m saying, Joseph. They were never charged. The owners of the hotel had already decided it was time to sell out. They had agreed a price with new investors, underwritten by one of Berlin’s leading banks. They didn’t want any scandal around the running of the business. In fact, they gave Wilhelm Stefan Werner a fine letter of commendation to his new prospective employers in London.’

  ‘Do I have to guess?’ Swallow asked. ‘The Savoy Hotel in the Strand?’

  Pfaus grinned.

  ‘Indeed. And he did very well there. He was not the restaurant manager, but he rose to be a senior waiter. It was probably not too difficult from that to pass himself off in Dublin as being more accomplished in his trade. So it seems that the respectable Herr Werner who moved from London to establish his fine restaurant in your city is not everything he seems or claims to be. He’s able to pass himself off in the restaurant trade, but he’s also got a record for violent crime. He’s a thief. A very successful one. A skilled fraudster. And, it seems, not just a career criminal but a very clever man.’

  It was as if something like a child’s jigsaw had been rearranged and fallen into place in Swallow’s head. Carmody was less likely to be Alice Flannery’s murderer than a potential witness. Werner was the more likely perpetrator of the crime. He had motive, means and opportunity. And he was no stranger to violence.

  ‘I think, Johann, that I’ll need to take a formal statement from Carmody. His price will be that you release him. I’ll take him off your hands and bring him back to Dublin. Would you be willing to witness and countersign his statement this afternoon? I’d like to depart as soon as possible.’

  ‘Happy to do that, Joseph. But first we’ll have lunch. You haven’t experienced the delights of the Kriminalpolizei canteen.’

  They lunched on the canteen dish of the day, thick stew, washed down with Bavarian Hofbraü. The stew was good, with hot spices and cubed chunks of lean meat. The beer was sharp and zesty.

  ‘It’s called goulash,’ Pfaus said. ‘The Hungarians make it with beef, or whatever they can get, but the canteen cook is Austrian, so he uses veal.’

  Swallow’s eyes watered as the spices hit his palate. Pfaus chuckled.

  ‘That’s paprika pepper. Very cleansing.’

  Swallow took a mouthful of Hofbraü to quench the fire in his throat.

  ‘So,’ Pfaus said, forking veal into his mouth, ‘you believe you are moving closer to solving one of your murders. But there have been other crimes, as you told me. Do you still believe they are connected?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Swallow answered. ‘If your countryman Stefan Werner is responsible for the death of Alice Flannery, I can’t see how or why he’d have any involvement in the other cases.’

  ‘Then that is good news,’ Pfaus said. ‘You’re not dealing with what our English colleagues refer to as a multiple or mass killer; your murders are separate, individual crimes.’

  Swallow shrugged.

  ‘You’re probably right. I don’t have all the answers my superiors would like to have. Maybe I can just clear up one problem at a time.’

  Pfaus nodded.

  ‘That’s what we do as policemen, Joseph. We can’t put the world to rights, much as we’d want to. We learn that, even if we’re good at what we do, we can solve only one small problem at a time. That’s why policemen don’t get into the history books but soldiers do. Maybe that’s unfair. But if you can bring the guilty person to account for the violence you have described in this case it will be work well done.’

  They finished their goulash, drained the last of the Hofbraü, and made their way to the custody cells in the basement of the Kriminalpolizei. Pfaus collect
ed foolscap paper, inkwell and pen as they passed his office on the ground floor.

  Carmody was finishing his own midday meal, seated at the deal table in his cell. Swallow noted that he was dining on the same fare that he had just consumed in the canteen upstairs, including a tankard of beer. Not bad, he thought.

  Pfaus smiled coldly at the prisoner.

  ‘I hope you enjoyed your refreshments, Mr Carmody. Because when you are transferred to the state prison shortly you will find that the standard of the food is very different. You are in police custody here with all the privileges and comforts it offers. Prison is another story.’

  Carmody glanced nervously at Swallow.

  ‘I gave you the information you needed, Mr Swallow, didn’t I? You told me I’d not be stoppin’ here. We had a deal, hadn’t we?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Swallow said. ‘I didn’t promise you anything. I want you to repeat what you told me in a formal statement. I’m going to write it down and you’re going to sign it, and Kapitän Pfaus here is going to witness it. Then if it’s satisfactory and complete, and if it’s helpful, I’ll see about you going back to Dublin with me.’

  ‘An’ I’ll be a free man . . . if I do that?’

  ‘No. You’ll be charged with theft of money from the New Vienna restaurant and lodged in Mountjoy on remand. You’ll give your evidence in court in Stefan Werner’s trial for the murder of Alice Flannery. When that’s over, you’ll be released. You’ll do six months, a year at most.’

  Carmody pushed the tankard away and stared at the ground.

  ‘Can I trust you, Mr Swallow?’

  ‘You haven’t much choice, Carmody,’ Pfaus said sharply. ‘You’re here in comfort because Inspector Swallow asked me not to have you taken off to the state prison. So either you co-operate with him as he wishes, or you’re on your way to a penal institution and for a long time. I don’t give a damn where you go as long as you’re out of our cells here.’