HS03 - A Visible Darkness (36 page)

Like a desert island in that calm, cold ocean stood a vast black desk.

A silver candelabrum with a dozen tall candles gusted to no effect in the flurrying currents of chill air.

‘Herr Stiffeniis,’ a voice groaned from behind the mass of flickering lights.

Louis-Georges Malaport appeared to be even more thoroughly exhausted than when I had seen him last. Was it only five days before? His uniform was so weighed down with medals—I noted that he was prominently wearing a Commander of the Legion of Honour—he seemed to sink beneath their weight. His large bald head was more bowed than ever, his rounded shoulders more sloped, more stooping. His tiny hands were joined together, as if in supplication. Those grey eyes fixed me with their glaring intensity.

‘I’ve been expecting you,’ he said, inviting me to sit, continuing to stare at me in silence for longer than was polite, as if he expected me to blurt out everything that I had discovered.

What should I tell him? And what I should keep to myself?

Those questions had occupied my mind as I travelled to Königsberg, and tried to make sense of what I had learnt in Nordcopp: the dead amber-gatherers, Jakob Spener’s trea sure, the shadowy figures of Annalise and Megrete who had stolen part of it, the rank corruption of the French soldiers, the illicit smuggling of amber of a scientific nature, the role that Erika Linder had played in the trade, my suspicions about Dr Heinrich. I had struggled to shape these elements into a convincing whole, but something always jarred, as if some vital piece of the narrative was missing. My principal aim was to demonstrate the innocence of Adam Ansbach, but the absence of any other person to accuse did not help me.

General Malaport asked me nothing, however.

He looked down, stretched out his fingers, then laid them flat on a scuffed and dirty pile of papers that were spread out before him on the table.

‘These come from what remains of the police archives,’ he began, pushing the documents across the table towards me. A moment later, he shifted the candelabrum as well, as if I might need it.

Could such miserable scraps have come from a Prussian police office?

‘French rule was enforced here with great difficulty,’ he announced, as if a general overview of the situation were somehow necessary. ‘Indeed, there had been a widespread breakdown of law and order. Most of the town watch abandoned the city when our army approached, along with what remained of the Prussian garrison. In the last ten or eleven months, there have been sporadic outbreaks of looting, vandalism, the wanton destruction of public offices. Many important civic matters, together with some hideous crimes, have been obscured or overlooked in the chaos. Only now are the facts coming slowly to the light. My task, as you know, is to re-establish civil order, and guarantee the safe transport of amber back to France.’

There had been rioting in the city that winter. The grain harvest had failed for the second time since Jena. Trade with En gland and
Rus sia had been hampered, as Bonaparte insisted on the adoption of his Continental System. There had been unrest in the whole of Prus sia, but especially in Königsberg, where a slice of stale black bread was considered a luxury. Most families made much with a quarter-loaf where they had once made light of a whole.

‘Surely the situation is now in hand?’

General Malaport pursed his lips, and frowned.

‘In hand, you say? Three months ago, a mob set light to the building where the criminal files are kept,’ he continued, gently massaging the bridge of his nose. ‘A great deal was lost, though fortunately some material was salvaged. Including this file. It was brought to my attention just yesterday. As soon as I saw the contents, I knew that you had better read these papers, too.’

I held up what remained of the fascicle.

Three pages held together with a loop of twine. The first was a handwritten document in square, childlike German italics—full of blots, smears and crossings-out. The second appeared to have been more carefully written out by a professional hand. The last page was nothing more than a torn scrap with a scribbled note in pencil. In addition, the top page had been severely scorched, as had sections of the two underlying pages, particularly at the bottom of the second sheet, where the flames had taken hold. There was a charred diagonal line, and the words below it had all dissolved away to ashes.

‘Read them,’ he instructed me. The candlelight struck harshly at his harrowed cheeks. His hooded, unblinking eyes fixed on mine with the solemn intensity of a toad stranded on a water-lily.

I obeyed.

. . .
on the Pregel bank beneath the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . bridge. Throttled with a length of wire . . . . . . . . . . . . no sign of interference with the skirts (she was wearing no drawers), though there was not a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ual violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the lower left forearm, hand and the thumb were missing
. .

.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
like an empty bag containing bones, and nothing else
.

A doctor was called to certify the dea . . .

The fragment ended there.

‘A murder?’

‘A murder,’ he confirmed.

‘This paper is not dated,’ I objected.

‘Read the other one,’ he answered brusquely.

Again, I obeyed.

Lomse District, 26th April 1808.

Criminal Investigation 3/05/08 B (ref. murder file)

Reporting officer’s statement: The remains of another young woman were found at half past nine this morning. The corpse was blocking a drain outlet beneath the Grünen Brücke bridge, and was removed of necessity by workers from the city Water Board. It should be noted that a similar discovery was made–not fifteen feet away–beneath the very same bridge just four days ago. As in the previous case
[
ref. CI 3/05/08 A
]
, the victim had been garrotted with a length of thin wire. It is not clear whether both of the murders were committed at the same time–the second corpse being overlooked on the first occasion–or whether the very same place had been chosen to dump the women’s bodies on two distinct and separate occasions. Nor is it clear, given the decomposed condition of the two corpses, which of the two was the first to die . . .

‘Two corpses in the same spot?’ I said, holding up the paper in my trembling hand.

Had it all begun in Königsberg? Before the killing started in Nordcopp?

‘Two,’ he confirmed.

‘Have the bodies been identified, sir?”

‘No names are mentioned in those fragments,’ Malaport admitted quietly.

Suddenly, his temper flared. ‘The cleansing power of flame. We know this, and nothing more. Two women murdered a short while
ago in Königsberg. There may be other corpses—previous cases, or subsequent ones—about which we still know nothing. The archives and the city rec ords are being thoroughly examined on my specific orders, though nothing has yet emerged. The great problem is that few of our men read German, Stiffeniis. One or two from the Saar and Alsace regions are doing what they can.’

He did not move an inch, but sat as still as a snake ingesting a large prey. His eyes never left mine, nor did they blink. It was as if he were waiting for me to say something that he evidently expected me to say.

‘Two dead females,’ I said, and my voice sounded hard and callous, even to my own ears. ‘This is nothing new in Prus sia, sir. Nor, I believe, in the rest of the empire. Both of them were garrotted. And by the same hand, probably. What connection can there be with Nordcopp, if not for the fact that they met a premature death?’

I turned to the second sheet, noting that the police in Königsberg appeared to have adopted Professor Kant’s system of recording witnesses’ statements. The policeman’s prompts and casual observations were recorded, and every spoken word was scrupulously included in the declaration.

Doctor’s interrogation: a naval surgeon living close by was immediately called to examine the body in the culvert.

 

Q. How did this person die?

The evidence is there for all to see, officer. This creature died as the result of strangulation by a means of a tight ligature binding around her throat. That rusty wire did for her, I shouldn’t wonder. It is still there, and quite impossible to undo. Her eyes and her tongue are popping out.

 

Q. How long has she been dead?

How long, sir? I can give you no close estimate of how long she may have been left to rot in this here culvert. From two days to a week. Two weeks, perhaps. The outer tissue of the corpse, the skin covering
her body– here and here, can you see?–has largely fallen away. Comes off in strips and patches, it does. The whole thing is riddled with maggots, worms, and the like. Decomposition accelerates to a marked degree when quantities of bilge water are present, I’ve observed at sea. This corpse was found in the main city drain, remember, sir, so there’s the contents of that drain to take into account as well. Mainly organic and faecal matter. Can’t you smell it?

Observation: a small eel wriggled out of the corpse’s nose to everyone’s surprise.

Apart from the general decay, there is more evident damage to the upper left arm, which hangs as an open flap around the bones, and an even more profound cavity in the area of the left shoulder. The tensor muscle and the bone of the scapula are nowhere to be found. Which does not amaze me. Such severe, localised damage is caused, as a rule, by animal scavengers. Starving dogs and rats are plentiful here by the docks, and if that shoulder were sticking out from the drain, that is where they would attack it . . .

‘Who was this doctor?’ I asked.

‘I cannot say,’ Malaport replied. ‘The police in Königsberg never name the doctor, surgeon or dentist who is called to inspect a corpse, unless the case is brought to trial in a law-court . . .’

This was another one of Professor Kant’s innovations. It served, he said, to protect the identity of the professional witness from intimidation by anyone else who happened to be involved in the eventual criminal proceedings.

‘This case never got to court,’ the general concluded.

‘Have you any idea who compiled the notes?’ I asked him. ‘Surely the policeman would know the name of the doctor?’

General Malaport sniffed loudly. ‘If there was a signature, Stiffeniis,’ he said, ‘it went up in smoke. I doubt that any Prussian policeman would own up to having written it, especially now that the French authorities are taking an interest in the case. The same thing goes for the doctor. You might start your enquiries on that count, of course.’

I was already making enquiries in my own head.

Had I found Annalise and Megrete?

Two women murdered in the port area. The amber-trading district was close by, just on the other side of the Grünen Brücke bridge. Was that what the two women were doing there? Selling off the amber they had stolen the month before from the Church of the Saviour in Nordcopp? Was that why they had been murdered in Königsberg? And had the killer then retraced the girls’ steps to Nordcopp in the hope of finding more amber of the sort that they had been offering?

Malaport was talking on, regardless of me.

‘To my mind, the similarities seemed striking. With what is happening out on the coast, I mean to say. Even to a rough old soldier like myself, who is more at home with maps and provisions and the daily running of the garrison. I could not avoid making a direct deduction. That’s why I sent for you.’

‘You are convinced that it is the work of the same killer,’ I said, having already come to the same conclusion.

‘Can it
not
be?’ he replied more forcefully. ‘You have been investigating those more recent murders on the coast, Stiffeniis. In both those cases, the victim was a young woman. In both cases, the corpse was interfered with after death. That is, the body was purposely mutilated. And certainly not attacked by rats or dogs! Here in Königsberg, too, some part of the body had been removed and carried off for reasons that we can only guess at.’

I was impressed by what he said.

I had never considered the act of mutilation as the prime objective of the crime. General Malaport proposed that the mutilation was an end in itself. He had, so to speak, turned the case on its head.

‘Clearly,’ he continued, ‘the murderer selects his victim on the basis of a par tic u lar anatomical detail which he appears to covet. Having quickly despatched the woman, this heartless butcher then possesses himself of the physical item in question. Sex does not come into it.’

He stopped and peered at me for some moments in silence.

‘What do you make of it, sir?’ I asked.

‘What do
you
make of it, Stiffeniis?’

I was thinking of Dr Heinrich in Nordcopp.

I saw the moulds and braces, the artificial limbs that he made, hanging on his surgery wall. The drawings he had made. Heinrich was interested in the mechanics of the human body. I remembered Gurten’s ire and the hypothesis that he had advanced: that the doctor’s avidity for amber containing animal insertions knew no limits. Was anatomy, then, what truly interested him? And would he go to the trouble of securing examples of the bones and joints that were his livelihood by committing murder?

‘This person is interested in human anatomy,’ I replied. ‘Female anatomy.’

On hearing this, a trace of a smile seemed to settle on his lips.

‘Herr Procurator,’ he said, his eyes shifting to the paper in my hand. ‘Read on to the very end.’

I turned my attention to the third and final sheet of paper.

Scrawled with a blunt stub of graphite pencil on rough brown paper, the handwriting sloped riotously away to the right in a downward slant. I had to turn the note this way and that to catch the light, and I moved it even closer to the candle on more than one occasion to make it out at all.