HS03 - A Visible Darkness

by Michael Gregorio

  ‘. . . continuing assault upon my property,’ I resumed, ‘damages which have been estimated in the region of five hundred thalers.’

  I turned to Captain Keillerhaus again. ‘Do you stand by your statement, sir?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ he snapped. ‘I’d not have made it otherwise.’

  ‘Very well,’ I said, deciding to ignore the rudeness of his reply, which had caused titters from some of the women and knowing smiles and laughter from many of the men who were present in the room. I turned to Gaffenburger. ‘What have you to say, sir? How do you respond to the charge brought by Captain Keillerhaus?’

  ‘Captain Keillerhaus is looking for trouble,’ he said, ‘and hopes to make a profit by causing it. He seems to be convinced that I am rich.’

  Loud laughter came from the public gallery.

  Gaffenburger’s slaughterhouse was one of the largest business enterprises in Lotingen. The defendant’s grandfather had set up in a small way sixty years before. At that time, most people would have considered it a public utility of the first importance. The present owner’s father had enlarged the main building and constructed a network of holding-pens where the restless animals could be calmed down and watered before the fatal moment arrived when they would go to meet the executioner’s knife. Augustus Gaffenburger had inherited the business from his father a decade before, and nothing much had changed for a while.

  Then the French had arrived.

  After the pacification of Prussia, the French garrison in Lotingen numbered anywhere between one and three thousand men—our port and estuary were the gateway to the northern plain and the Berlin road to the south—so there was now an unending flow of foreign soldiers passing through. There was a constant demand for fresh meat as a consequence, and the French were paying for it. Gaffenburger’s business had tripled in the course of the occupation, and if, as many people suspected, Napoleon was intent on invading Russia when the next campaign season came around, the necessity to slaughter even more cows and sheep, and feed up the French for the fight, was likely to make him a very rich man indeed.

  Knutzen was obliged to insist on silence again before I could speak.

  ‘Captain Keillerhaus,’ I continued, ‘tell us, if you would, what the substance of this complaint is.’

  The Captain opened his mouth and a sound came out. ‘Shhh . . .’ He stopped, looked at the wooden altar-table behind which I was sitting, thought for an instant, then changed his mind. ‘Droppings, sir.’

  ‘What manner of droppings?’

  ‘You know as well as I do!’ he protested. ‘How many men and women have fouled their precious boots in recent weeks? Shoes do not come cheap. Every time you walk out on the street it’s an obstacle course to avoid stepping into the shhh . . . animal droppings. Of every shape and size, and all of them smelling like the Devil’s own. I have counted them, sir . . .’

  General laughter greeted this announcement.

  ‘Silence in court!’ Knutzen thundered.

  The trial proceeded in this manner for an hour or so.

  Having heard all the evidence, I donned my cap and began to read out the sentence which I had decided on the evening before. I was well aware of what I was doing, and I knew the risk that I was taking. The French authorities would be offended, but something had to be done, and I had determined to do it. A copy of my report would be submitted to them. For this reason, I made a particular point of citing a renowned French scientist to illustrate and justify my arguments. Could they ignore French logic?

  ‘As reported by J. N. Hallé in his Procès-verbal de la visite faite le long des deux rives de la rivière Seine, le 14 février, 1790,’ I began, ‘and employing Monsieur Hallé’s specific method of statistical analysis, we can say that the town of Lotingen, like Paris itself, is subject to the accumulation of rubbish and organic refuse to an alarming degree.’

  I looked around.

  There was a widespread nodding of heads.

  No one could deny the truth of what I said, not even the French.

  ‘It may be assumed,’ I went on, ‘that this is the norm in any town in Prussia at the present time.

  ‘In addition, Lotingen is subject to the daily transportation “on the hoof” of beasts from the countryside on their way to the slaughterhouse. According to the Gaffenburger abattoir records, upwards of fifteen hundred sheep and cattle are butchered there in the course of a normal working week. No precise information is available regarding the disposal of the usual remains, though butchers, tanners, soap-manufacturers, perfume-mixers, horn-carvers, button-makers, and the like, account for the general bulk of the comestible and marketable commodities which result from the killing of animals. Much else, in the way of blood, brain, intestines, inedible membranes, et cetera, finds its way, by one means or another, into the River Nogat and then, with the help of the estuary flow, into the open sea. Nature deals, we may say, with the matter that Man rejects . . .’

  I paused, and looked around. All eyes were turned in my direction. I was hoping that the inhabitants of the town would be shocked by my findings, and from the looks on their faces I was not disappointed.

  ‘But there is an additional nuisance,’ I went on with particular emphasis, ‘which Nature does not carry off by its own processes. I am speaking of the faecal matter which the sheep and the cattle deposit on our streets as they make their way to the Gaffenburger slaughterhouse pens. By means of statistical calculation, I have established that in excess of fourteen pounds’ weight of untreated dung are deposited on each ten-yard stretch of every road leading into town every morning, where it lies in a deplorable state of nauseous decomposition for the next twenty-four hours, when the process is repeated. The pestering flies and noxious worms which are spontaneously born of this accumulating effluvia are a general nuisance, but, more importantly, are a serious threat to the health of every man, woman and child.

  ‘No person in the town would deny the myriads of flies this summer.’

  Again, these remarks were intended for the French.

  ‘If we consider that the distances from the four main city gates to the slaughterhouse, which have been accurately measured by myself—they extend for a total of 2,100 yards—then we are able to calculate that about 2,900 pounds’ weight of animal excreta lies untreated on our city streets every single day of the working week. This is a vast, a staggering, amount of fresh, stinking . . .’

  Before I could complete the phrase, the door of the meeting-hall burst open.

  There was a beadle outside with instructions to let no one enter once the assizes began. Nevertheless, a French soldier in the green colours of a despatch-rider came striding down the aisles between the pews, his boots thumping hard on the wooden boards, his spurs jingling in the shocked silence. He was tall, bright-eyed, moustaches greased, his hair wound up in a pig’s tail, three white stripes on his sleeve.

  He drew up before the bench, saluted, and held out an envelope to me.

  ‘Procurator Hanno Stiffeniis?’

  I took the packet, examined my name in a curlicue hand, then turned it over and glanced at the seal. Unbroken, as it should be, but smudged, as if the wax had been pressed down rather too heavily, and with great haste.

  ‘Who is this letter from?’ I asked him in French.

  Even in a public courtroom, limited privacy is possible if two men converse in one tongue while all those about them speak another.

  ‘It is from the office of Lieutenant-Colonel Claudet, monsieur.’

  I tore the seal and opened the paper.

  Herr Procurator, please follow this messenger without delay.

  ‘Has something happened?’

  The messenger’s mouth pursed in that peculiar down-turned expression by which the French signal their ignorance of cause or consequence. ‘I cannot say, sir.’

  ‘And where are you to take me?’

  ‘Les Quartiers Générals, monsieur.’

  Every Prussian knew what the French General Quarters was. Every
man in Lotingen was in awe at the thought of being taken there against his will. The cellars, according to local legend, were the daily scene of tortures and beatings that the Holy Roman Inquisition would have blenched at.

  I stood up, then sat down again.

  My thoughts flew this way and that, like crows in a cornfield when a musket explodes in their direction. The French must have realised that they would be prominently mentioned at the trial. They knew well enough what the local population thought about them, their horses, their cattle and their dung. Was that why I had been so urgently summoned? To prevent me from speaking out in public?

  I looked at Knutzen.

  ‘The court is adjourned until nine o’clock tomorrow morning,’ I said. Though every person in the meeting-hall heard this announcement from my lips, Knutzen insisted on repeating it.

  As I laid my judge’s cap on the table, shook off my cloak of office and stepped down from the altar to join the French messenger, a stunned silence reigned in the courtroom.

  All eyes were on me as I left the chapel in his company.

  5

  THE DOOR WAS ajar.

  I could hear the rumble of voices on the other far side of the door, though I could make out nothing of what they were saying. I knocked and waited, but no one called for me to enter. And yet, this was the room, according to the French soldier who had led me there.

  I knocked again, pushed open the door, and stepped inside.

  An officer in a long-tailed jacket and brown riding-boots was standing before a desk, his shoulders turned towards me. He was tall, and very thin, a greasy yellow twist of a pig-tail drooping over his upturned collar below a bald flare of red scalp. He did not turn to face me, but continued speaking earnestly to someone on the far side of the desk that I could not see, his voice a rough, low, growl.

  ‘. . . a great deal of time and effort to hack it off. A piece of bone. . . . Pure evil! Why would anyone . . .?’

  The officer turned his head, revealing the profile of a low forehead and a broken, beaky nose, and spun round on his heel to face me. I recognised him. That is, I had seen him as he mounted a horse or climbed into a coach outside the General Quarters, though I had never actually met him, or been formally introduced.

  ‘Procurator Stiffeniis?’ he enquired, staring.

  His hand hovered in the air, a gesture that might as easily have been a rebuff as a welcome. He did not offer his hand for me to shake. Nor did he make any step towards me.

  I dipped my head in a necessary semblance of respect.

  ‘Hanno Stiffeniis,’ I answered, letting my outstretched hand drop, slapping it against my thigh. ‘I was administering an important trial. Was such an interruption necessary, sir?’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘I am Colonel Antoine Claudet, newly appointed commander of this garrison,’ the officer announced, blatantly ignoring my question.

  His hair fell over his forehead in crisp, white curls, like a sheep in need of shearing. His left eye was closed and shrunken, which added a grotesque air to his long, plain face. Despite his height and his bright silver epaulettes, he did not make a good impression on me. His nose was large and red, as were his hands. His sharp cheekbones were streaked with purple veins. And then there was his unsightly eye. He had started out as an infantryman of the lowest class, I was convinced of it, and had spent so many years sighting down the length of a musket that he was unable to open it again. Seniority, persistence, and heaven knows what other dubious ‘qualities’ had moved him up through the ranks. But slowly, very slowly. He was one of those lowly individuals that the emperor Napoleon purposely chose to elevate above the legitimate rulers of the proud nations that he had crushed, a constant reminder of their humiliation.

  How had we let ourselves be so easily conquered by such grubbing lice?

  ‘May I ask what you want from me, sir?’ I enquired.

  Colonel Claudet gritted his teeth in a vain attempt at a smile. There was nothing cordial about it. Indeed, I thought, if I had judged him correctly, he was one of those men who exercised his arrogance on those below him, just as he suffered the arrogance of his direct superiors. And while I was a magistrate, I was also Prussian, a citizen of a country that he and his fellows had occupied and crushed.

  ‘I did not ask for you at all,’ he replied curtly.

  He stretched his left foot out to the side, shifted his body after it in a sideways movement, and came stiffly to attention, allowing me to see the person sitting on the far side of the desk for the first time. ‘I suppose you have heard of General . . .’

  ‘Malaport. Louis-Georges Malaport.’

  The voice from the far side of the desk sounded like the bubbling of a pot of porridge on a low fire. I knew the name, of course. Who did not? Malaport was in charge of the French troops all along the Baltic coast from Danzig to Königsberg. As a soldier, he had distinguished himself at Auerstadt, leading the final charge on the exposed left flank, which had sent our army running from the field. He appeared to be exhausted, worn out, aged. His shoulders were rounded and narrow; his head seemed over-large; his stomach was enormous. He sat very quietly, looking down at his hands, which might have belonged to an ageing aristocratic lady. They were small, pink, creased and wrinkled like paper made from crêpe, joined tightly together, as if to hold him anchored in that position.

  Immediately, I was on my guard.

  ‘General Malaport,’ I echoed.

  He looked up at the sound of my voice. His eyes were piercing, naked—small, bloodshot, translucent, grey.

  ‘I have travelled a long way to speak with you today,’ he said. He pointed abruptly to the chair which stood in front of the massive desk. ‘Sit down,’ he said, and gestured impatiently at me. ‘You worked with an officer named Serge Lavedrine, we hear?’

  General Malaport leant forward, rested his chin on his tiny joined hands, and closed his eyes as if to concentrate on my reply.

  ‘Is Lavedrine in Lotingen?’ I asked, surprised to hear the name of the French criminologist.

  Claudet’s mouth fell open, but the words that I heard did not come from his lips.

  ‘He spoke very well of you, monsieur,’ General Malaport replied, though he hardly moved, and did not open his eyes. ‘I have read his report of your joint investigation. He praised your honesty and investigative abilities . We will need those qualities.’ He flicked his forefinger in the direction of Claudet. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘The emperor has drawn up plans for Prussia,’ Claudet continued quickly. ‘He considers the Baltic coast to be of vital importance for France.’ He hesitated, then added: ‘And for Prussia, naturally.’

  I might have asked him why, but he did not give me the chance.

  ‘A deplorable state of inefficiency reigns out there. Thieving is the order of the day along the Baltic coast. It’s been going on for centuries, of course, but now it is necessary, essential, I would say . . .’

  ‘Get on with it!’ Malaport grumbled, raising his head for an instant, as if his repose had been troubled by an impertinent fly.

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ the lieutenant-Colonel agreed. ‘The emperor’s aim is to increase production. Those resources must be exploited to the full, but they will not be properly . . . that is, not fully exploited while . . . well, while what is happening out there continues to happen.’

  The pig-like eyes of General Malaport opened wide. They stared malevolently at Colonel Claudet.

  ‘Come to the point!’ he snapped.

  ‘Sabotage, Herr Stiffeniis. That is the point.’ Claudet drawled on. ‘Someone on the coast is intent on making trouble. He, or they, will baulk at nothing . . .’

  Malaport’s fist crashed down on the table.

  ‘Murder,’ the general said quietly. ‘That is what we’re talking about. It is compromising important French interests, and must be stopped. You will stop it, Herr Procurator Stiffeniis.’

  I had read nothing of the sort in the newspapers, nor in the Court Despatches
which had recently arrived from Berlin. Nor had news of a murder on the coast been announced in the Bullétin militaire which reports every week on the state of affairs in East Prussia.

  ‘Have French soldiers been killed?’ I asked.

  General Malaport smiled wryly. ‘It might be better,’ he said. ‘At least, the motive would be clear. We have no one with experience in these matters to whom we may turn. Unfortunately, Lavedrine is not available.’

  He glanced at Claudet, then turned to me again.

  ‘I’ve been looking through your file. Even before Lavedrine came to Lotingen, you were chosen for your investigative skills by the late Professor Kant himself. Königsberg, 1804, I think it was?’

  I nodded, accepting the remark as the compliment he intended it to be, wondering whether he would be equally impressed by the case I had been working on more recently. One thing was clear: a murder hunt was on the cards. I felt a flutter of excitement. But an instant later, remembering the horror of the case which I had had to face the year before with Serge Lavedrine—the massacre of the Gottewald family—I felt less sure of myself. I would be obliged to cooperate with the French, but this time I would be working on my own.

  ‘I am grateful for the faith that you express in my regard, sir,’ I replied, ‘but I cannot help you unless I know a little more. Who has been murdered? How was the crime committed? And why will French interests be threatened if the killer continues to go unpunished?’

  Malaport slumped back against the chair, as if each question was a punch.

  ‘You are correct, Herr Stiffeniis,’ he said. He sat in moody silence, considering I knew not what, then he turned to his fellow-countryman. ‘Leave us alone, Claudet. You have other things to do, no doubt.’

  The most powerful man in Lotingen garrison glared at the most powerful man in northern Prussia. Then, the lieutenant-colonel saluted and strode stiffly out of the room, casting a black look at me. As the door closed more loudly than was necessary, General Malaport cast his tired eyes on mine.