HS02 - Days of Atonement (58 page)

I did not answer. The line that followed seemed to say it all.

Helena had told me of the terror of the woman she had met. That letter was an expression of the selfsame fear. The husband had passed it on to his wife like a disease. But fear of what? Of whom?

‘Two days later, Gottewald was dead,’ I whispered.

‘A week later, they were dead as well.’ I felt the warmth of Lavedrine’s breath upon my cheek. ‘Kant suggested the unthinkable. This letter provides the evidence. Now we know who killed the children,’ he murmured close to my ear.

‘We still do not know why,’ I reminded him.

‘She killed the infants, then buried the rags and the letter,’ Lavedrine
replied. ‘Somehow, she ended up in Gummerstett’s warehouse. And there she died as the result of an accident, or by her own hand. That is all we need to know.’

He shrugged his shoulders, as I folded up Gottewald’s letter.

I glanced down at the pile of rags. They were so stained with dirt, it hardly looked like blood at all. ‘When he speaks of storm clouds gathering, what does he mean?’ I asked. ‘And
which
abyss did Moloch lead him to? The long night, days of atonement . . .’

‘The man was mad,’ Lavedrine replied. ‘And he drove her to the same folly. The ghosts that had terrorised him were transported to Lotingen by means of this letter. The evidence is overwhelming. Helena set us on the track. Kant helped us along it. Now, the Bölls have brought
me
successfully to the conclusion.’

He stared at me and a hollow smile scarred his lips.

‘You are ignoring Kamenetz,’ I objected.

He turned on me sharply. ‘Something
did
come from Kamenetz,’ he answered, ‘but it was not a killer. It was this!’ He tore Gottewald’s letter from my hands. His eyes were as bright and challenging as they had been that night at Dittersdorf’s feast. ‘A letter. Nothing more . . .’

‘That letter caused a mother to murder her own children!’ I objected. ‘We still don’t know why she did it.’

‘That is for you to find out,’ he snapped back. ‘You’ve always been obsessed with Kamenetz as the cause of everything. Just as this house has fascinated me.’

He turned and began to round up the Bölls, preparing to leave.

‘I intend to write my report this evening. If you come by Mutiez’s office tomorrow morning, you can add your own remarks. I will explain what happened—who the murderer was, and how the thing was done. That is the easiest part, I admit. The hardest part I’ll leave to you. You may say what you will about
why
it might have happened.’

‘What about this evidence?’ I said, pointing to the hole and the rags.

‘The soldiers will collect them together and send them back to town,’ he said, folding up the letter, putting it away in his pocket. ‘Do you wish to ride back with us?’

‘I am going to stay here for a while,’ I replied stubbornly, pointing at the pile of bloodstained rags. ‘Don’t concern yourself, I’ll take care of those. I mean to bury them again. Sybille Gottewald marked this spot as some sort of family shrine, if Helena is correct. I think we can allow her that, don’t you?’

Lavedrine was silent. As if he meant to raise some objection. Then, he shrugged his shoulders. ‘You may be right,’ he said. ‘Beneath the earth is
where they belong.’

I watched them go.

Then, I buried those blood-soaked towels exactly where we had found them.

The day was drawing on by the time I replaced the saplings and the holly shrubs, pressing down the circle of stones with my heel. I had no transport to take me back to Lotingen. Mutiez had ordered my driver to return to town at once. But I did not care. I set off along the road in the hope of tiring myself out.

I walked in search of peace, but I did not find a trace of it.

 39 

L
AVEDRINE HAD WON.

At every stage of the investigation, he had turned instinctively in the right direction, while I had stubbornly opposed him. If I laid an obstacle in his way, he struggled all the more to prove me wrong. I had been secretive, unhelpful, and all in defence of a hypothesis that I was unable to demonstrate.

As I returned alone on foot to Lotingen, as the daylight began to fade, one question pounded in my head like the remorseless piston of a steam engine.

Was there no connection between the father’s death in Kamenetz and the massacre of his children in Lotingen?

I could find no answer as I trudged along the empty road.

Had I not seen Gottewald’s death certificate, I might have believed that he had come to wipe his family off the face of the earth. Full of strange forebodings, that letter had been written by a man who feared for his life. Had he still been living, I might have read it as the feverish announcement of an incomprehensible deed.

But Gottewald had died before the children.

And Lavedrine had found the evidence that the mother had killed them.

What was I to ask Doctor Korna now?

A cold wind blew strongly in my face as I entered town by the southern gate, and it began to snow. Occasional dancing flakes settled on my mouth and eyelashes. I could be home within ten minutes. The fire would be burning brightly in the kitchen. Lotte would be preparing dinner. Helena might be darning by the hearth, telling stories to the children as she plied her needle. They would all be waiting for me.

But I had no heart for home.

I turned towards my office, cursing the permission I had received that morning from Berlin. The authorities wished to see the murder solved. The Minister of Justice had given me a free hand to summon Doctor Korna from Kamenetz. How I wished that the reply had been negative! If only the Minister had denied my request!

I climbed the stairs with lead in my heart.

Knutzen started nervously as the door creaked open. He was alone, a broom in his hand.

‘Herr Procurator, I did not expect you so late.’

‘Did any stranger come today?’

Knutzen shook his head. ‘The clerk from general quarters brought some sentences to be countersigned, sir. They are waiting on your desk. A signature, he said, no more. Five minutes’ work, I’d say.’

Relief washed over me. It was after six o’clock. Doctor Korna would not be coming. We would see no more post-coaches in Lotingen that night. Still, I had no wish to sit at my desk, pick up a quill, endorse sentences for minor infractions against the French. I was in no mood for it. I was in no mood for anything. I was stinging from the drubbing Lavedrine had given me.

‘Don’t you have a pig to nurse?’ I asked him.

‘Oh no, sir,’ Knutzen smiled contentedly. ‘They’ll have slit her throat by now. They took her off my hands yesterday.’

In my mind’s eye, I saw that pig, basted with honey, scented with chives, an apple in its gaping mouth, lying in state on some French dining table. I could almost smell the aroma. Among the diners, Lavedrine, perhaps, boasting of his cleverness, laughing at the blind stupidity of the dull Prussian magistrate they had forced him to work with.

‘It will soon be curfew, Knutzen,’ I advised him. ‘Go home while you can.’

Shortly after, I was on the point of leaving myself. My hand raised to pull open the door, when it was pushed violently inward and a large man bundled up in black—a huge cloak, large hat, a scarf wrapped about his face—came rushing in. He surged past, barging me aside with his shoulder. He strode across the room as if he were the only creature left on earth, threw off his cloak and hat, and sat himself down behind my desk.

‘My men are answerable to me!’ he thundered like a cannon. ‘Before you speak to my surgeon, you must tell me what you want with him. I’ll instruct him in his answers. Every soul in Kamenetz belongs to
me
!’

My legs gave way, and I collapsed in the chair reserved for visitors.

It was worse than a nightmare. I had sent for the doctor, his superior had come. And I had questions for neither of them. The case was closed, Lavedrine had seen to that.

Yet, there was General Juri Katowice, sitting in my chair.

‘Well, Magistrate? What have you to say?’

Blood pounded painfully at my temples.

‘You summoned my surgeon,’ he accused again, his voice hoarse with anger. ‘What did you want with him?’ he insisted,

‘I wrote to Berlin . . .’ I stuttered and stopped.

He closed one eye, sighted at me as if he held a pistol in his fist.

‘You won’t find anyone to listen,’ he roared. ‘They know me there. They won’t admit it, but they know me. They won’t stop
me
. They do not dare. The king must bend to Bonaparte, but that doesn’t mean he likes being shafted.’ He laughed at this barrack-room metaphor. ‘He will need an army, and I’ll be ready for him. Our time will come. Tomorrow, or the next day, true Prussians will stand up, and they will be counted!’

He nodded to himself, as if his rhetoric pleased him. ‘Harm me, or mine, and I will murder you, and yours, Herr Stiffeniis. I speak the truth. You’ve been to Kamenetz. You know what we are doing there. You kept your mouth shut then, I’ll give you that. In future you will keep it shut. Do I speak plain enough?’

He sat back, waiting for me to answer.

‘You do, Herr General.’

He rested his head against the stump of his hand, as if to remind me what he had lost in the name of Prussia. ‘Now, what did you want with Korna?’ He opened his arms wide in an extravagant theatrical gesture. ‘I am here in his place
en route
to Berlin. Go on. Don’t be shy. Ask
me
.’

He seemed to take pleasure in my perplexity.

‘I want to know about Gottewald,’ I said at last.

‘Gottewald again,’ he muttered angrily. The name might have been a curse. ‘Haven’t you found the man who killed his brats yet?’

‘You did not help when I was in Kamenetz. You avoided me, Herr General,’ I said sullenly. Then, I made a decision. After all, what did I have left to lose? ‘Since you have come, sir, tell me why you abandoned Bruno Gottewald. He was your favourite once.’

Katowice stared at me, and a smile played upon his lips.

‘Have you ever been deceived, Herr Procurator? Have you ever suspected that your wife was attracted to another man?’

The intimacy of his question disturbed me. Lavedrine loomed large in my thinking. Should I tell the truth, and spite myself, or lie to spite the general?

‘I have suffered disappointment,’ I replied at last.

‘There,’ Katowice snapped, sitting forward, resting his arms upon my desk as if he owned it. ‘Then you know what I am talking about.’

I was lost by this unexpected appeal to shared experience.

‘You talk in riddles, sir. What do I know?’

He was silent for some moments. ‘Soldiers are the scum of the earth. They protest their wrongs from dawn till dusk. They fail to see the road ahead of them. They are blind to the greater truth, blind to their sworn duty. But in the end, they obey.’

A light dawned.

‘And Gottewald did not?’ I quizzed him. ‘Are you suggesting that he was not what he seemed?’

‘What he seemed?’ he mimicked. ‘What do you know? I raised that boy as my right arm!’ He held up the mutilated stump, and waved it in my face. ‘Bruno was the perfect officer. He followed my orders to the letter. He was merciless. Do you understand me? As deadly cruel as a soldier must be. As so few really are. He was born without a heart. If Prussia had a thousand like him, I used to think, we’d conquer the world. But there was betrayal in him . . .’