“You refused to lead the investigation into the case of the boy people say was ritually murdered by Jews?” she asked, not expecting a reply.
“How do you know?” he retorted and swallowed a bite of gingerbread.
“I heard. And even if I hadn’t I’d have guessed … You always sit beneath the clock, smoke and read the paper before breakfast. Today you didn’t. Slowo and its supplement are lying there untouched. Either you were so overwrought you didn’t want to read or you knew what was on the front page. I deduced the latter.”
“True,” he answered glumly and did not, as he usually did, praise her correct reasoning.
“Why did you refuse Zubik? You know you can be dismissed for it. But above all, do you want the criminal to go unpunished?”
Such an insinuation would, in normal circumstances, have made Popielski explode with anger. “How dare you suspect me of such a thing?” he would have yelled. Now, however, he said nothing and his jaw moved rhythmically as he ate.
“Zubik asked me the same thing,” he said unhurriedly once he had swallowed, “and that’s when I raised my voice at him.”
“But I’m not Zubik!” Leokadia’s slender form stirred suddenly. “And you can tell me everything …”
“You’re not Zubik,” he interrupted her, “and that’s why I’m not going to raise my voice at you.”
She knew that she was not going to learn anything from him as usual. She drank her coffee and got up to go to the kitchen to heat some sausages for him. Popielski leaped up too, grabbed her by the wrist and sat her down again.
“I’d tell you everything, Lodzia, but it’s a terribly long story.” He inserted a new cigarette into his holder.
With joy she thought this meant the end of his reluctance to talk, and that she was about to learn everything.
“I’d tell you everything but I don’t know where to start … It’s to do with the case of the Minotaur.”
“So start ab ovo.” Leokadia was tense with curiosity. “Best to start with that Silesian city and thick-set Silesian you call your friend, whom I never really liked …”
“Yes …” he said pensively. “That’s where it all started.”
BRESLAU, FRIDAY, JANUARY 1ST, 1937 FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
Fireworks welcoming in the New Year exploded above the Municipal Theatre as a shaking droschka drew up outside the impressive tenement marked Zwingerplatz 1, in which Abwehr Captain Eberhard Mock lived along with his wife Karen, their German sheepdog Argos and a couple of ancient servants, Adalbert and Martha Goczoll. The droschka shook for two reasons. Firstly, it was being jostled by a gusty wind which vigorously lashed it with snow, and secondly, after a party at the Silesian Museum of Fine Art that was awash with champagne, Mock was filled with an indefatigable male force which he was attempting to relieve in transit, not even waiting to find himself alone in the bedroom with his wife. Caring little about the frost, or about Karen’s weak protests and the cabby’s garrulousness, he was trying to penetrate the layers wrapped around his wife’s body. The results of his efforts were feeble, however, and merely ended with the cabby, who was used to such frolicking in his cab, becoming discreetly silent.
“We’ve arrived, Ebi, calm down.” Karen delicately pushed her panting husband away.
“Good,” Mock muttered, evidently pleased, and he held out a tenmark note to the cabby. “And this is for picking us up punctually.” He added another two marks.
Climbing out of the droschka, they were caught in the cold flurries of a wind which had picked up outside the Guildhall and whisked up dry snow from the pavement. The force of the wind was so strong it tore Mock’s top hat from his head and the white silk scarf from his neck. Both pieces of attire swirled in the gusts then parted ways, the top hat hopping along the tram tracks towards the Hotel Monopol while the scarf stuck to the window of Fahrig’s Café. Half-blinded, Mock decided to retrieve the scarf first, as it had been a Christmas present from Karen. He rushed towards the café window gesticulating to his wife to shelter from the blizzard. A second later he was pinning the scarf to the window pane and looking around for his hat. Karen stood in the gateway.
“Go to the bedroom and wait for me there!” he shouted, tying the scarf in a knot.
Karen did not move. Shielding his eyes, Mock made his way towards the brightly lit hotel from which steam and the majestic rhythm of a Vienna waltz burst forth. He strained his eyes for the hat but could not see it anywhere. He imagined it rolling along the pavement becoming soiled with horse manure, and the image annoyed him greatly. He stood still, looking around; his eyes came to rest on Karen standing in the gateway. “Why in God’s name doesn’t she go indoors?” he thought. “Is the caretaker drunk, has he fallen asleep? Well, I’ll go and wake him up alright!” Gazing at her helpless, huddled figure, he felt disinclined towards bedroom frolics. He opened his mouth and swallowed several flakes of snow. His tongue, parched from an excess of alcohol and cigars, felt like a rough, unplaned block. There was only one thing he wanted: a large, cool jug of lemonade. He turned on his heels and made towards his tenement, leaving his top hat prey to cabby horses.
A tall man with a bowler hat pulled down over his eyes cut briskly across his path. Mock reacted instinctively, dodging an imaginary blow, and squatted to observe his assailant. The latter did not strike, however, but merely extended a hand holding Mock’s his top hat.
“Thank you very much,” said Mock delightedly, taking his headgear. “I’m sorry, I thought you were going to assault me, whereas here you are performing a good deed …”
“It would be a shame to lose such an expensive top hat,” said the stranger.
“Thank you once again.” Mock glanced at Karen who was smiling as she watched the scene. “A healthy New Year!” he said to the man.
“Criminal Secretary Seuffert, assistant for special affairs to Criminal Director Kraus, liaison officer between the Gestapo and the Abwehr.” The man did not reciprocate with good wishes but with an absurd list of his responsibilities, and then held out a business card. “There is an urgent political case, Herr Hauptmann. You have to come with me. On the orders of Colonel von Hardenburg.” He enunciated the name of Mock’s superior with such accuracy and emphasis, as if he were pronouncing the long and technical name of some disease.
Mock shook the snow off his hat, put the hat on his head and looked at Karen. She was no longer smiling.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME JANUARY 1ST, 1937 A QUARTER PAST FOUR IN THE MORNING
There was great commotion at the squalid Warsaw Court Hotel, at Antonienstrasse 16. Two uniformed policemen bore a body on a stretcher covered with a grey sheet stamped INSTITUTE OF FORENSIC ANATOMY; next to the receptionist’s lodge Helmut Ehlers, police photographer and fingerprint technician, folded away his tripod; on the stairs raged forensic physician Doctor Siegfried Lasarius as, using one violent gesture after another, he explained to Criminal Assistant Hanslik in a raised voice that he was not in a position to determine a corpse’s ethnic identity unless the corpse was male and Jewish. The only person who remained still, other than to bring a long thin cigarillo to his lips at intervals, was Colonel Rainer von Hardenburg, Chief of the Abwehr Breslau Regional Branch VII, who stood on the landing. Mock noticed that the heads of all the men were graced with a top hat; only on Seuffert’s elongated skull was there a bowler. The receptionist, swaying behind his desk and trying to sober up by constantly moistening his face with water from a basin, was bare-headed. Except for Mock and Seuffert, who had only just arrived, each of those present was holding a tall glass.
“A good thing you’re here, Captain Mock!” von Hardenburg loudly greeted his subordinate, forgoing any New Year’s wishes. “Have a glass of soda water and take a look at the murdered woman’s body. Show him the girl!” he bellowed at the two policemen who, having conquered the stairs, set down the corpse at Mock’s feet.
“This man from Hanover knows me inside out,” Mock reflected. “He knew I’d have a hangover the morning after
a New Year’s ball.” Mock walked up to the reception desk on which stood four siphons, held one firmly in his hand and generously squirted some soda water into a glass. He glanced at the receptionist’s bloodshot eyes, then at the siphon bottles, and realized he had overestimated von Hardenburg’s concern. Who at this time on New Year’s Day doesn’t have a hangover? Everyone’s been to some New Year’s ball, and everyone’s been drinking! Everyone except him over there – he ran his eyes over Seuffert with disdain. The scum from the Gestapo only drink water and don’t eat meat, just like their god, that miserable Austrian Feldfebel.†
“I warn you, Captain!” von Hardenburg’s voice electrified the company. “It’s a shocking sight!”
One of the uniformed men threw aside a corner of the sheet and covered his eyes. The other left the hotel together with Seuffert and held up his face to the sky, from whence fell thick flakes of snow. Ehlers turned his back to the stretcher and started packing his equipment into a huge leather case as fast as he could; von Hardenburg lit another cigarillo, while Hanslik’s patent-leather shoes flashed briefly in the light as he ran to the top of the stairs, heels clattering, and hurried away somewhere. Only Doctor Lasarius leaned over the body and with his ever-present cigar butt pointed out various important details. Mock felt as though his tongue was swelling in his mouth as he listened to Lasarius’ deductions.
“It’s not at all difficult, Mock,” – Lasarius indicated the red flesh between the nose and eye with his cigar butt – “to tear away half of somebody’s cheek. A man with a healthy set of teeth can do so with no problem whatsoever. His teeth don’t have to be filed sharp like those of the leopard men in Cameroon. Oh yes, he can do it, no problem whatsoever …”
Mock drank the entire glass of soda water in one go. It did not help. His mouth was full of splinters.
“What you see here” – Lasarius’ cigar wandered towards the vicinity of the girl’s crotch – “are fragments of the girl’s hymen stuck together with blood.”
Mock’s eyes followed the doctor’s unconventional pointer and suddenly felt all the various dishes he had eaten at the New Year’s reception fill his mouth. First came the taste of salmon roll, pickled tongue and collared herrings, then fillet of perch, asparagus with ham in aspic, veal and wild mushrooms. All these dishes now took on a hint of rancid butter in Mock’s mouth. He grabbed the siphon, put the spout into his mouth and pressed the lever. Water spurted onto his tongue; the siphon gurgled and spat out its last drops. Mock rinsed out the taste of rancid butter, got a grip on himself and looked at the body again.
“These bloodied half-moon abrasions” – Lasarius touched the girl’s neck with his fingertip – “were made by fingers and nails. The victim was strangled. She was raped, had half her face devoured, and was strangled. She was probably strangled at the end. Why are you so surprised, Mock?” Lasarius said, misinterpreting the horror on Mock’s face. “That can be ascertained even at first glance. You can see the results of haemorrhaging from the cheek and genitals. That means he bit and raped her while she was still alive.”
There was a taste of vinegar in Mock’s dry mouth. Acid spilled over his tongue. He rushed towards the reception desk and started to shake the siphons. Every one of them was empty. The vinegar demanded a reaction. Spasms shook Mock’s gullet. And at that moment he saw the receptionist run his tongue over his parched lips and, without a trace of repulsion, stare at the thin white body whose face had been prey to some beast. Oil and vinegar flowed back into the depths of Mock’s digestive tract.
“What the hell are you gaping at?” yelled Mock, grabbing the receptionist by the lapels of his dirty uniform. “Turn you on, does it, you pervert? Get me some soda water or beer. In a flash, you dog!”
The receptionist turned away so as to escape his persecutor, but not without some help from Mock. Mock had aimed well. His patent leather shoe landed squarely on the receptionist’s backside, and within a split second the unfortunate man disappeared behind his desk.
“What are you doing, Mock?” Von Hardenburg was beside himself with indignation. “You can’t treat people like that! Now follow me, we’re going upstairs! I’m going to show you the scene of the crime. Come with us, Seuffert.”
As he followed his boss up the stairs it seemed to Mock that it was not the creaking of the old floorboards he could hear, but the symphyses in his brain. The hangover was spilling across his head and stomach. On top of that, he was yawning until his eyes watered. He kept tripping, swearing and glancing to see whether he had scuffed his patent shoes.
In a small room stood an iron bed with a pillow and coverless duvet. Snow fell through an open window, beneath which stood a metal stand with a chipped basin partially hidden by the open door of a wardrobe. Mock went to the wardrobe to close it, in vain. It opened again a moment later with a sound that grated in Mock’s skull. He leaned out of the window and looked down. The gas lantern fixed to the wall gave a fair amount of light. The one-way street was so narrow that only a clever cyclist would be capable of slaloming between the over-filled dustbins, pieces of furniture and punctured buckets. Mock looked up. Guttering ran down next to the window. One of the brackets holding it in place had recently been torn from the wall. The captain felt someone’s breath on the side of his face; like his own, it reeked of alcohol.
“Yes, Captain Mock,” von Hardenburg said, indicating the edge of the roof, “this is how the criminal got in. Along the gutter perhaps. He couldn’t have weighed much. Only one bracket broke away. If – forgive me – he’s built like you, all the brackets would have come away from the wall and he himself would be lying in pieces among the rubbish.”
“Colonel, sir,” said Mock as he withdrew into the room, “you and I work for the Abwehr. You’re its head in Breslau. And that man over there” – he nodded towards Seuffert who was inspecting his hands – “is from the Gestapo. What the hell are we doing here? Why doesn’t the Murder Commission take care of this? Hanslik is the only one who should be in the room, no-one else, yet all the most important officers of the secret services in Silesia are here, with hangovers and, to top it all, dragged from parties. Well, all except the chap from the Gestapo … He probably doesn’t dance or drink. And the only ball he’s ever seen is on a New Year’s card!”
“If I were you” – there was amusement in von Hardenburg’s eyes – “I wouldn’t speak so scornfully of your fellow worker. He’s your assistant as of today.”
Mock rested his backside on the sill. He could not believe what he had just heard. He had left the police for the Abwehr in 1934. He could not bear to watch scum from the Gestapo penetrate his world like syphilitic pathogens and turn everything upside down. He had not been able to look his two finest men in the eye when they had been obliged to leave their entire professional life behind just because they were Jewish. He had left because he believed that all the dirt which surfaced after the Reichstag elections and the “Night of the Long Knives” would not cling to him in the Abwehr. And all of a sudden, three years later, on the first day of the new year, the slime had caught up with him. “Once contaminated, always contaminated,” he thought as he ran his tongue over a palate as coarse as sand.
“It’s not my decision.” Von Hardenburg was now completely serious. “I made it … not without a certain amount of coercion. After midnight the receptionist you kicked in the backside sensed the pull of God’s will. He decided to go and visit a girl, a daughter of Corinth, or so he thought. The girl was registered here as Anna. Just that, no surname. Rooms are rented by the hour, and all the receptionist is interested in is whether the client has the money to pay. A guest could call himself Frankenstein’s Monster for all he cares. The girl arrived, dragging this lot with her.” He pointed to a large cardboard suitcase beneath the bed. “She hardly spoke a word of German. But that didn’t bother the drunken receptionist whose intentions were not, so to speak, to chat. So when he felt the will of God he entered her room and saw a corpse. He telephoned the Police Praesidium immediately, s
aying that the murdered girl was a foreigner but he could not say what nationality. The duty officer knows what to do when a foreigner dies. He telephoned the Murder Commission where Hanslik was on duty, and then the Gestapo. The Gestapo duty officer was Criminal Secretary Seuffert who … well, what is it you did, Seuffert?”
“I telephoned Criminal Director Erich Kraus,” Seuffert reported stiffly, tearing himself away from contemplating his neatly filed nails. “And he …”
“And he,” von Hardenburg interrupted him, “first came here and then to the ball at the Silesian Provincial Town Hall, where I was having a wonderful time. He reported that we were dealing with a case of espionage. He suspected the woman of being a spy. A strange spy who doesn’t speak German!”
Von Hardenburg grabbed Mock by the elbow and dragged him to the window. He glanced back at Seuffert and added in a whisper:
“Kraus created a real drama. He stopped the music and announced that we had arrived at a bloody settling of accounts between spies. And do you know on whom everybody’s eyes rested? On the man who is the expert in espionage in this town! On me! So I had to demonstrate to our Silesian dignitaries that I am a man of responsibility; that despite it being New Year’s Eve I was equal to the task and ready to throw everything in. I had to abandon the ball and desert my family so as to take care of some foreign whore! And I” – he was now speaking out loud – “appointed you to this task as my best man, the man with the most police experience. But unfortunately nobody knew where you were spending New Year’s Eve, which is why you got here so late. Thanks to you I couldn’t get back to the ball!” yelled von Hardenburg so suddenly that his monocle sprang from his eye. “So, to work, Mock! I’m going to bed!”
He left, slamming the door behind him.
The Minotaur's Head: An Eberhard Mock Investigation (Eberhard Mock Investigation 4) Page 2
