HS02 - Days of Atonement (16 page)

‘Herr General is waiting.’

I followed him into the inner sanctum.

Juri Katowice was seated behind his desk in a large spartan room, hardly better lit than the anteroom, though this lofty cavern was enlivened by a huge fire which roared noisily in the grate, and by large maps draped over every wall, like dusty tapestries in an Italian palazzo. A large engraved silver tray was laid out before him, a relic of some ancient regimental glory, complete with china cup and saucer, and a matching plate of hard-tack biscuits. A rusty field kettle bubbled noisily at his elbow.

The general turned his gaze on me.

‘Stiffeniis?’ he said, without standing up. ‘This name is not new to me.’

‘We met, sir,’ I reminded him. ‘In Königsberg. Four years ago. You may recall that I was ordered . . .’

‘To catch a killer!’ he snapped with a sudden smile, and a concentrated knitting of his brow. ‘Of course. Procurator Stiffeniis! In Königsberg! Was there ever such a fine and glorious place? Prussia was still a nation to be proud of, then!’

‘I hardly thought to find you here, sir,’ I ventured.

‘Nor did I,’ he confided with a craggy smile. ‘But that is military life. We go where we are called. Or where we’re sent. In my own case, they decided to send me as far away from the danger as they possibly could.’

His blue eyes clouded over, and he stared at the wall, where one of the maps showed the most easterly territory of Prussia, and its contiguity to Russia. Kamenetz had been highlighted in large, red letters.

‘North-east Poland! Or what remains of it!’ he said, stretching out his
hand and picking up a different sheet of paper from the table. ‘I wouldn’t last a month at court. Too much backbiting for my tastes. But what’s this all about? I can’t make sense of this note of Dittersdorf’s. It’s full of parlour talk. “The national interest,” “questions of vital importance,” vague rubbish of that sort. The old sycophant is still making up to the odious Frenchman, I do not doubt. Bureaucrats like him have little choice about the company they’re required to keep, but it makes my war-worn flesh quiver!’

‘There is a great deal of truth in what Count Dittersdorf says,’ I protested. ‘We are engaged in a daily tug-o’-war with the French military presence, and the confrontation takes many forms. What seems like a local incident of no importance can have reverberations that threaten to shake the foundations of our nation. Yesterday I was stopped on the road by Major von Schill. Just imagine the consequences if
he
had murdered a Prussian magistrate!’

General Katowice lifted up a hard-tack biscuit, soaked it in his beverage, popped it into his mouth. He did not offer one to me. Nor anything to refresh my thirst after a night spent sleeping rough in the coach.

‘But he did not do so,’ he observed laconically.

‘Fortunately for me,’ I replied, taken back by the general’s ironical lack of concern for the lawlessness of the region. ‘And for you, too, sir. He told me to tell you that all is quiet looking westward.’

Katowice looked fiercely up into my eyes.

‘The man’s a legend,’ he snapped. ‘Doesn’t exist, except in the broadsheets they sell on the streets in Berlin.’

‘But I met him, sir!’ I insisted. ‘Not a two-hour drive . . .’

‘Tell me precisely what brings you here,’ he interrupted. ‘I’m sure you haven’t travelled all this way to catch a ghost.’

I had no intention of letting myself be intimidated. I waited a moment before replying. ‘I’ll sit down first, if I may?’

The general waved his hand, and the young officer brought a chair for me.

‘It is an extremely delicate matter,’ I began, without saying more.

General Katowice jerked his head at the junior officer, who clicked his heels, bowed from the waist, and left the room.

‘What is this extremely delicate matter of national importance?’ he asked sarcastically as soon as the door had closed. Despite the harping tone of his voice, he leant confidentially across the desk, as if expecting news from me, some communication which might hasten the day of national reprisal against the foreign invader he had been haranguing twenty minutes before on the parade ground.

‘A crime has been committed in Lotingen,’ I said. ‘I’ve been appointed to investigate it. The matter concerns one of your men, sir.’

‘One of my men?’ he repeated slowly, his eyes widening, his crooked nose rising, nostrils flaring as he spoke.

‘Before he came to Kamenetz, this officer was stationed for a very short time in Lotingen,’ I replied. ‘But when he left that town, his wife and three children remained behind. He . . .’

‘I am not surprised,’ the general said, sitting back comfortably in his high-backed chair, his left hand reaching for a black cheroot from a large wooden thermidor on the table next to the tray. Again, common politeness did not lead him to offer me one. He lit his cigar from a candle on the table and blew an enormous cloud of aromatic smoke more or less into my face.

‘There are no women in the fortress,’ the general announced blandly. ‘By my orders. We take the monastic approach here, preparing young men for what the future holds. From crack of dawn to last light, they are busy working together for the common cause. If they do have any energy left by the time we finish drilling them—that is, if any man needs a woman, and most of them seem to go exploring—there’s the usual tribe of sluts selling their wares outside the gate.’

The unsavoury light of lechery shone in his eyes, and I knew I ought to extinguish it before going any further. ‘The children of this particular officer were massacred three nights ago, sir. The throats were slit, the bodies mutilated, and their mother has disappeared. That’s why I am here. The gentleman needs to be informed. He will be required—as Count Dittersdorf should have made clear—to accompany me to Lotingen at once. I cannot guess how long he may be absent. Everything will depend on the speed with which we . . . that is, with which
I
can resolve the question and bring the murderer to justice.’

I had almost let slip the fact that I was cooperating with Lavedrine and the French. It would certainly have been a tactical error. If he were to learn how deeply the French authorities were involved in the investigation, he might assist me even less than he had been doing up to that moment. My only desire was to inform Gottewald of the tragedy, climb into the coach with him, and order Egon Eis to set our sights for home.

‘The French would love to blame a Prussian for the crime,’ I added, ‘which would lead to further repression. They seem to think we’re little more than animals.’

He let out a groan.

‘French troops may be responsible for the killing,’ I added, baiting the hook of national pride. ‘I hope to prove their complicity with the help of this officer. Every minute is valuable. Rather than waste more time, I wonder if I might be allowed to speak to the man?’

General Katowice looked intently at the lighted end of his cheroot, blowing hard on the tip until it glowed.

‘What is the name of the man?’

‘Gottewald, Herr General,’ I said. ‘Bruno Gottewald.’

General Katowice stared coldly at me, his broad brow a crusty and ferocious barricade. ‘You’ve come too late,’ he said suddenly, flicking his head to one side, sending the phantom braid flying.

He stood up without another word, dropped his cheroot on the table, picked up a polished half-cannonball which fitted neatly into his hand, and squashed the thing dead. As he did so, his elbow caught the samovar, which rocked on its base, then rolled onto its side, spilling its yellowish contents onto the table top. The letter from Dittersdorf began to soak up the liquid. It was not an intentional gesture, but he did not attempt to salvage the paper from the mess. Instead, he strode towards the door.

‘Herr General,’ I called after him, ‘I am not sure that I understand you.’

‘There is nothing to understand,’ he said, half turning, looking back as if he had already forgotten why I was there. ‘Bruno Gottewald is dead. Accidentally killed while out on exercises. He can no longer help you, I’m afraid.’

No word of compassion escaped from his lips. No praise for the officer who had served under him. No expression of sympathy for the fate of his family.

‘Herr General,’ I protested, ‘I need your help.’

I started from my seat and took three paces across the room towards him.

Perhaps he interpreted my behaviour as insubordinate. When he spoke, his tone was arrogant, dismissive. ‘This is a military outpost, Procurator Stiffeniis,’ he replied. ‘The man you wish to see is dead. You have no further motive for remaining here.’

‘A military exercise?’ I interrupted. ‘What exactly was he doing, sir?’

The general stared at me for some moments.

‘Never been a-soldiering, Stiffeniis?’ he asked, a thin challenging smile forming on his lips. ‘Never been out manoeuvring in the field? Accidents happen. They happen all the time. There is nothing strange, or incomprehensible in that. Men die as the result of carelessness, or crass stupidity.’

‘Quite possibly,’ I said, never lowering my eyes from his. ‘But circumstances alter cases, General Katowice. I know that an official report must be submitted when a man dies in the service of his king and country. I would remind you, I am a Prussian magistrate, sir. I need to see the file relating to Officer Gottewald. Then, and only then, will I draw my conclusions.’

His smile did not falter, but there was a new, hard, unforgiving glint in his eye as he replied. ‘You will see it, Herr Procurator. Then, you will leave this fortress with all possible haste.’

‘I am not concerned merely with what happened here,’ I fired back. ‘I need to know more about Gottewald. The details of his career, who he was, what he was like . . .’

‘You are looking in the wrong place,’ he snapped. ‘This is a border outpost, not a literary salon. The only information we can provide relates to the circumstances in which he met his death. During a banal military exercise. You say the French intend to exploit the massacre of his family for political purposes. Go back to Lotingen then, Herr Magistrate, fight them on their own ground, rather than wasting your energies in Kamenetz. Do not throw suspicion on
true
Prussians!’

The door crashed shut, and I ran to salvage Dittersdorf’s letter from the sodden catastrophe on the general’s table. Without that document I would have a hard time getting home again.

 12 

I
LINGERED IN
the smoke-scented room, waiting for the death certificate of Bruno Gottewald to be brought to me. But half an hour passed, and no one came. Did General Katowice intend to leave me there all day? Was this the way that visitors were treated in Kamenetz? My patience evaporated in a flash, and I stormed into the outer office.

‘Where is General Katowice?’ I asked, my temper up.

One of the scribes looked up. ‘Gone, sir,’ he mumbled, then his head dropped to his work again.

‘Will he be coming back?’

The men exchanged a glance, then spoke in unison. ‘No idea, sir.’

I bounced nervously on my heels for a moment.

Should I meekly bow to the general’s indifference?

Neither man looked up as my footfalls rang out on the stone flags. Neither man said a word as I approached the door. No voice called out to stop me as I left the room. If Kamenetz had done with me, I had not yet done with Kamenetz. I determined to go exploring.

General Katowice might instruct his men not to talk to me, but how long would it take for every soldier in the fortress to receive that order? If I moved quickly, I might be able to learn something. Even the very lowest of the low would have something to say about the death of a senior officer. It might be barracks talk and nothing more, but I would still know more than General Katowice had been prepared to tell me. Then, if and when I did eventually lay my hands on the official report, I would be in a better position to form an opinion of what had happened.

The official report?

If a death certificate was issued, a doctor had to sign it. That was the law in Prussia. The physician of the garrison would have been required to examine the body. Rather than read what the doctor had been obliged to write, possibly under pressure from his commanding officer to gloss over the details, I would try to search him out and question him about the fatal accident.