HS02 - Days of Atonement (55 page)

I made no move to touch those sad remains, watching in petrified silence as the Frenchman stretched his hands inside the coffin, reaching for the head. Two lifeless holes in that tiny mask of death seemed to stare up at us, the jaw hanging loose, held by a sinew on one side only, as if the ghost of the child, disturbed after so many years, were amazed at such temerity, and wished to scream, but could not.

‘He’s still wearing his bonnet, you see.’ Lavedrine caressed the grey crusted cap with the tips of his fingers. ‘Is it the same bonnet that Kant mentioned in his report, do you think?’

I tried to speak, but no words came. I thought of my own children, and I was horrified. What would Helena say if she could see me? The fright of it registered like a voltaic shock. Lavedrine had taken the head in his hands like a baby marrow, and he was attempting to separate it from the body. Like the roots of the vegetable, some obstinate muscle, nerve, or sinew refused to yield, and he was obliged to apply more pressure than was strictly decent or respectful. Then, there was a crack. Whatever it was gave up the fight, and he held the head of the baby couched in his hands. Some crawling creature fell from the cavity onto his right hand, and he shook it rapidly, holding the skull in his left hand only. The forehead was fragmented at various points. As if some object with a small dull point had tried to penetrate the skull and failed. A web of fine cracks like tracery had damaged the frontal plate of bone.

The Frenchman pulled off the bonnet and held out the head to me in the palm of his hand. ‘This is what Kant would have done,’ he said, ‘but he was prevented. What do you make of it, Stiffeniis?’

‘It is a disturbing sight,’ I murmured. ‘Horrible . . .’

‘You miss my point,’ he snapped. Despite the macabre circumstances, he was vibrant with curiosity. His eyebrows arched, his head inclined towards his shoulder, he looked at me with a sort of cunning, irrepressible smile on his lips. ‘I am not interested in what you think,’ he went on. ‘I am interested in what you see.’

For an instant, I slipped back in time. I was standing in Kant’s secret laboratory, examining the decapitated head of a man, which had been preserved inside a jar in wine. Kant had also been amused by my timidity in the
face of mortality. He, too, had insisted that I should use my eyes, suppress my sentiments, and describe only what I was able to observe.

‘The skull is misshapen by Nature,’ I said, coughing to clear the emotion from my throat. ‘It appears to be much larger on the left side than it is on the right.’

‘Precisely,’ he said, the similarity with Kant ever greater. ‘Science is a peculiar trick; it requires an honest eye, and a blunt soul. And what do you . . . Rather, what would our friend, Aaron Jacob, make of such a serious malformation?’

‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘He might see the coming of Lilith, or some such nonsense in it.’

‘But we do not,’ Lavedrine went on. It was as if he had discovered the invisible matter that every natural scientist seeks, but cannot find. ‘We stick to facts. The child was not normal. Georg-Albert von Mandel was eight months old, but the bulging of his skull was already evident. The mother certainly knew about it. Why else was she so troubled when the child’s bonnet went missing the day before he died? Why insist on covering the baby’s head? Even in death. Did she hope that no one would notice, but herself? Kant appears to have spotted something, after all.’ There was measureless admiration in his voice. ‘Just think what effects such a malformation, with subsequent compression of the brain, would have had on the child’s existence? Imbecility, at the least. This child was facing a difficult future, despite the immense fortune of his birth. But someone decided—mercifully, perhaps—to spare him the suffering.’

‘Kant guessed,’ I countered. ‘He did not know for sure. He was not allowed to examine the corpse. The child was not struck down by hatred, he said. Love was the cause. But we will never know the truth. In any case, it is not relevant to the Gottewald massacre. What has this expedition taught us that will solve that mystery? Nothing, I am tempted to . . .’

‘This case is as clear as day,’ Lavedrine declared.

‘Is it?’ I questioned. ‘All the actors are dead. You may hypothesise all you like, but you will never know for certain.’

‘We know enough, I believe,’ he said, as he replaced the skull gently inside the coffin and reached for the lid and the bolts. ‘Kant dared to hypothesise the unthinkable. Little Georg-Albert was put to sleep for all eternity, and love
was
the cause.’

‘A sleep that we have disturbed,’ I objected.

‘Let’s get it done, then. And quickly.’

I helped him, twisting and tightening the bolts on one side of the coffin, while he applied himself to the fastenings on the other flank.

As we walked back down the lane to Svetloye, the snow began to fall
again. I had written and signed an official note in the graveyard register, concerning the examination of the corpse, and Pieter Sweiten had been rewarded for his help.

We sat down at a table in the post-house, eating bread and cheese while we waited for the coach, talking over what we had discovered.

‘Karlus Wettig was innocent,’ Lavedrine concluded. ‘Do you remember the question that Kant posed? What reason could there be for the footman to murder the child in his cot? And deny it to the very end? Wetting was
not
the killer. He tried to defend the actions of another, and Kant knew it. Only the murderer knew of the flaw in the child’s skull, realising the pain and torment that the growing boy would have to face. That person loved him then, and wished to spare his suffering afterwards.’

Lavedrine shivered as he spoke. His face grew pale. His eyes retreated deeper into their sockets. I cannot say what expression appeared on my own face. I felt as if a venomous asp had nipped me, paralysing all my vital functions.

The coach pulled in shortly afterwards.

There were three other passengers aboard.

Thank God, I thought. There will be no more discussion of what we have seen until we reach Lotingen.

 37 

T
HE NEXT DAY,
I did not see Lavedrine at all. Nor did I hear from him.

At first, I was content to be left in solitude. I had no desire to talk about the matters swirling around like a vortex inside my brain. Kant’s carefully worded report to the judge protesting the innocence of Karlus Wettig; the evidence Lavedrine and I had uncovered in Svetloye, which seemed to support his thesis. No matter how I tried, I could find no connection between the cases. Nothing in the murder of Georg-Albert von Mandel promised to clarify the mystery of the annihilation of the Gottewald children.

Nevertheless, Lavedrine’s absence alarmed me.

Had Kant made everything clear to him, while I was fumbling in darkness and obscurity? Was the Frenchman trying to solve the case alone?

I had sent a letter to Berlin a week before. The reply was due at any moment.
Kamenetz
was where the answer lay, according to me. When the case was solved, I would tell him. He would be furious, but I would be beyond caring as I carried off the laurels. I visited my office twice that morning, but the place was colder than the funeral crypt in Svetloye. No Knutzen, no letter from Berlin, no news from Lavedrine.

Helena was in a state of distraction equal to mine. How many times did I see her glance out of the window that day, as if searching for someone in the lane? As if she, too, were expecting a visitor.

‘Lotte’s cousin brought a hen while you were away,’ she announced. She was silent for a moment. ‘Shall I cook it, Hanno?’

‘I am expecting no one, Helena,’ I replied flatly. In my own mind, I was certain that Serge Lavedrine was the guest that she was yearning to see.

The previous night I had told her of our business in Königsberg. More or less. I tried to give her the impression that I was hiding nothing that related to the murder, and that she was a party to the investigation. Just as Lavedrine would have done, at least in her fond imagination.

‘Professor Kant
was
interested in crime, then!’ she exclaimed.

In the four years that had passed since murder drew me back to Immanuel
Kant and Königsberg, the philosopher’s name was rarely ever mentioned in our house. When it did come up, I made every effort to set it aside quickly, dismissing the subject in the blandest terms: the anniversary of his death, a commemorative article in one of the papers, a new edition of some work or other. All of these would draw some comment from Helena. And I would respond with an apposite exclamation: ‘How long ago it all seems!’

Now, the ghost of Kant had been raised once more, and Lavedrine was the necromancer.

‘Did he find what he was looking for?’

I answered offhandedly. ‘Nothing that will help us, I’m afraid.’

The next morning, I left the house early and made my way into town.

More uncertainty awaited me at the office.

Knutzen ought to have been at his post, but my door was locked.

Had his pig taken a turn for the worse? If so, his duties to me, and, more generally, to the Prussian state, would certainly take second place. And yet, as I entered my room, I realised that he had been there some time earlier in the morning. The day’s despatches and other court papers had been laid out neatly on my desk, along with my pens, and the inkwell had been filled.

I rifled quickly through the documents. Not a word from Berlin.

I sat down behind my desk. Without that letter I had no idea where to turn, what to do next. Lavedrine must have found some way out of the impasse. I would have to brace myself to face defeat. While I was blundering about in the darkness, he had chanced upon the light. Immanuel Kant had set him on the right track . . .

I raised my head.

A belated knock came at the door, which I had forgotten to close.

Wolfgang Beck, the flighty young clerk to the civic notary, Osvald Menckeren, whose offices were situated on the floor above my own, was watching me. The youth was an arrogant dandy, much given to embroidered waistcoats and brightly coloured neckties. He was hanging on to the doorpost, holding up a letter which he waved at me.

‘This arrived an hour ago, sir. Knutzen had just gone out.’

‘Come in,’ I said, holding out my hand for the letter.

‘There’s no name on it,’ the poppycock remarked, advancing across the room, waving the envelope tantalisingly just beyond my reach. ‘The man who brought it said that he was looking for you. “To be delivered by hand,” he insisted. Took an age to decide whether I could be trusted,’ he added with a smirk. ‘Obviously, he didn’t want to hang about. Too many Frenchmen in Lotingen.’ He winked. ‘He didn’t want to take this letter back. In the end my master signed for it’.

He leant closer, letting me grip the letter with my fingertips.

‘Herr Menckeren swore on his honour that it wouldn’t fall into French hands. Now, isn’t that a turn-up?’

He handed me the note, then snapped to salute. ‘It’s a pleasure to serve the nation, sir, even in such a small matter. We Prussians have to stick together.’

As the door closed gently on his complicit smile, I opened the envelope.

Request granted. The person that you wish to examine regarding the Gottewald case will present himself at your office within the week.

The missive had been dated the previous Friday. A red seal of smudged wax obscured the signature. I dropped the paper onto my desk and felt a thrill of exultation. All I had to do was wait. As for Lavedrine . . . Now, I
had
to know where he was, and what he was doing. My heart lighter than it had been for a week, I rushed across to the general quarters, hoping that I would find him there, or that someone would tell me where to look for him.

The guard was slack that day. The general quarters building was a bustling hive of activity. Officers and their subordinates raced up and down the corridors, waving sheets of papers in their hands, eloquently cursing. I asked to be received by Lieutenant Mutiez, but he himself came striding down the corridor to meet me a minute later. ‘
Monsieur le Procureur
,’ he greeted me, his eyes wide with surprise ‘What are you doing here? You have come too late, sir.’