The Minotaur's Head: An Eberhard Mock Investigation (Eberhard Mock Investigation 4) Read online

A long moment elapsed. Wearing a pair of gloves, Mock opened the girl’s suitcase and rummaged through her belongings. Apart from some warm underwear, a few pairs of stockings, a hairbrush, mirror, talc, scented soap and a few dresses, there was a large Torpedo typewriter. He looked at the keyboard. Some keys appeared to have been replaced because they now featured French accents.

  Mock sat on the window sill, his mind in shambles. He knew now why Kraus had suspected a French spy network, but he could not concentrate on the thought. The description “foreign whore” rang in his head. He gritted his teeth and regretted not having reminded von Hardenburg that Abwehr chiefs had more than once fallen asleep in the embrace of a foreign whore at Madame le Goef’s establishment in Opperau on the outskirts of Breslau. “People should not have to die,” he thought, “just so that some high-ranking scum can finish his tango! Gnawed, raped and strangled, the poor thin girl shouldn’t have to give up the ghost after terrible torment just because some bespectacled son-of-a-bitch doesn’t want to leave his cake half eaten!” He glanced at Seuffert who was once again examining his manicured nails, and felt a surge of fury. In order to control himself, he started to decline in his head the passive present subjunctive tense of the Latin verb mordere – to bite. He hoped that the mantra – mordear, mordearis, mordeatur, mordeamur, mordeamini, mordeantur – would calm him, that the receptionist would presently arrive with another siphon, and that a good gulp of water would enable him to collect his thoughts.

  There was a knock at the door. The receptionist stood on the threshold.

  “Unfortunately there’s no beer or soda water for you, sir,” he said, frightened. “I even went to the Green Pole, but the students had already drunk it all.”

  Mock pushed himself up from the sill. He brusquely shouldered the receptionist and Seuffert aside, heavily made his way along the hallway and stomped downstairs. There was no-one left at the Warsaw Court Hotel.

  “Where are you going, Criminal Director?” Seuffert shouted.

  “Home, for a cold drink,” Mock said slowly.

  “And what about me?” Seuffert was clearly losing control of his voice.

  “You conduct the investigation! Those are my orders to you as my assistant!”

  Mock snatched his coat and top hat from the hanger and left the hotel. He found himself in a white alley where the rubbish was already covered with a layer of powdery snow and made towards Reuschenstrasse and Wachtplatz and the droschka stand. A few years earlier he might have plunged his head into a bucket of cold water and begun his search for the beast which had gnawed away half of a girl’s face. But that was in the past. Now Mock was fifty-four and his hangovers were growing increasingly acute.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME JANUARY 1ST, 1937 SIX O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  Mock did not reach home. As he neared the droschka stand he glanced down Fischerstrasse and noticed the curtained windows of Café Nicolaiplatz on the corner. He felt the strong, stabbing hunger of a hangover. Spurred by curiosity, he peered through the window. The room was empty and tidy; all that remained of the New Year’s party were an enormous clock decorated with extinguished candles and red ribbons, and strips of tissue paper hanging from the ceiling. Mock’s thoughts returned to his student days, when the dirty drinking-den whose customers were anything but wealthy university youths looked nothing like the present-day, orderly Café Nicolaiplatz. In breaks between lectures he had devoured modest lunches there, generally made up of fried potatoes and sauerkraut, or of herring salad, frankfurters and rolls. The hunger which now drilled at his insides was the same as that of many years ago. This cheered him. He no longer felt like a man on the threshold of middle- or old-age who finds consolation in an absence of needs, but like a youth with strong needs and a desire to satisfy them.

  He tugged at the doorbell. Nobody came. He tugged once more with such force that the cord almost snapped. A window opened above the café and an elderly man in a nightshirt and with a black net over his walrus moustache peered out.

  “Hey there, why the hammering?” he shouted. “Can’t you see we’re closed? Is your head still swimming in beer?”

  “This is for you” – Mock held up a twenty-mark note – “for the best New Year’s breakfast!”

  “Just coming, good sir,” the man in the nightgown said politely.

  A moment later, Mock was sitting in the dining-room as Heinrich Polkert, the manager, having first hung up his customer’s coat and top hat, took down his hearty order. The guest was first served coffee in a pot and cream in a milk jug. After a few sips he felt his muscles grow taut and the sand beneath his eyelids dissolve. He undid his bowtie, removed his plastron and collar, then unfastened three shirt buttons. Dishes appeared on the table: first to arrive were slightly stale rolls and a ball of butter decorated with parsley, then scrambled eggs arranged evenly over thick slices of fried bacon. A small vegetable platter appeared with marinated herrings, horseradish and pickled cucumbers, followed by two long serving plates: on the first were rolled ham and tiered little balls of liver pâté and parsley, and on the second, a pyramid of hot Polish sausages and dried Knackwurst. Mock was a virtuoso of taste. Methodically he spread a roll with butter and liver pâté then arranged slices of ham on top. He bit off a little of this sandwich, then filled his mouth with scrambled egg, bacon and a piece of Polish sausage or Knackwurst. The next bite was of herring, horseradish and cucumber. And so on. In turn. In military order imposed by this pedantic gourmand.

  Mr Polkert held out a bottle of rye vodka and a glass; his eyebrows shot up. Mock nodded, devoured the last morsels of this satiating breakfast and a moment later a tall glass stood in front of him. The sharp, burning liquid turned to velvet in his stomach. Mock pointed to his glass, which was immediately refilled. He emptied it once more, sighed and loosened a button on his trousers. From his pocket he extracted a golden case full of Muratti cigarettes, lit one and blissfully blew a cloud of smoke towards the ceiling.

  He should have gone home then and fallen asleep next to his wife, but something kept him in the café where he was the only guest. He felt a slight stomach ache which, at any other time, he would have taken to mean that he had eaten his fill, but on that day, that New Year’s morning, it seemed to him like an undefined stimulus. He recalled his student days when, after eating dinner in the dining-room, he would rush off to a Latin seminar with the young yet strict professor Norden, during which he would passionately and joyfully parse Plautus’ verses. The modest meals had not induced sleepiness in those days, but inexhaustible energy. “I used to take Plautus’ poems apart, and now? What am I supposed to do now?” He looked at his table still laden with food. On the edge of a plate lay a bitten slice of dry sausage. The association was immediate. “I bit on Knackwurst, the beast bit on the girl’s face. I chewed herrings and he chewed skin from her cheek. I drank vodka, he – blood.” Mock got up abruptly, scraping his chair across the floor.

  “Pack up the rest of the breakfast for me, please,” he said, laying a banknote on the table. “Oh, and add about three bottles of Engelhardt!”

  “Yes, sir,” said Mr Polkert. He ran out to the back and fetched two cake boxes which he quickly filled.

  Mock set his attire to rights and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

  “Do you know what, one doesn’t need a bucket of icy water to spring into action,” he said, taking the boxes and bottles from Polkert. “A good breakfast’s enough, and two glasses of rye vodka.”

  “A blessed and healthy New Year to you, sir, and to your whole family,” the owner of the café replied, guessing that his guest had drunk one glass too many.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME JANUARY 1ST, 1937 A QUARTER TO SEVEN IN THE MORNING

  The receptionist at the Warsaw Court Hotel, Max Wallasch, was not pleased when the doorbell rang shrilly, tearing him from his sleep. Even less so when for the second time that day he saw the square build of the man with the thick dark hair and a considerable stomach. He still felt the pain in his tail bone where the tip o
f the dandy’s shoe had landed two hours earlier. The dandy’s face was not hard now, however, which reassured the receptionist a little. The man hung his coat and top hat on the same rack as before, pulled three bottles of Engelhardt’s Brewery beer from his coat pocket, sat down heavily at a table covered in leaflets advertising brothels, and waved to Wallasch.

  “Sit down, man,” he said and ran his arm over the table like a snow-plough, pushing all the leaflets to the floor. “Sit down and have something good to eat. There’s nothing better for a hangover than good food.”

  Wallasch watched in disbelief as the man who had earlier been addressed as Captain opened two cake boxes from which wafted the smell of sausages and bacon. He did not quite know how to behave. The hiss of beer being opened finally convinced him. He sat down at the table and took the bottle from the captain. The frothy liquid was like medicine.

  “Eat, man.” The captain pushed the two boxes towards him. “Haven’t you got a spoon around here?”

  Wallasch fetched a spoon from his enclosed lobby and began to eat. The captain watched him with a smile. Wallasch ate everything in a flash, drank the beer, sat back in his chair and belched loudly.

  “The stomach approved, eh?” The captain burst out laughing and all of a sudden his laughter set. “And now I’ll tell you something. A Latin proverb – Primum edere, deinde philosophare. You know what that means? First eat, then philosophize. You’ve just eaten, so now we’re going to philosophize. You’re going to tell me everything, right?”

  “But what, sir?” Wallasch felt the pain in his tail bone again. “What am I supposed to tell you? I’ve already told you everything …”

  “But not to me.” The captain tipped back on his chair, which squeaked dangerously. “To others but not to me. So go on, man! From the beginning, everything! From the moment you first saw the girl Anna.” He held out a cigarette. “Smoke?”

  “Yes, thank you.” A moment later Wallasch was inhaling deeply. “This is what happened … Last night, it must have been about ten, the little one came in with a damn huge suitcase. She could barely drag it along. She was tired, could barely talk. She took a room for two days under the name of Anna.”

  “That didn’t surprise you? First name only?”

  “There’s not much surprises me here, sir. I ask for a name so I know what to put in the register. Someone gives me their first name? Fine. So I add a surname. And that’s what’s in the register: both first and second names. The owner, Mr Nablitzke, demands it. And nothing surprises him either.”

  “So what surname did you give her?”

  “What else?” Wallasch grinned broadly. “Schmidt! That’s what I gave her.”

  “Fine.” The captain opened more two beers and pushed one in front of Wallasch’s nose. “You say she was tired, dragging a heavy suitcase … Fine … But if she was tired dragging it the few metres from the door to your desk she couldn’t have dragged it before, down the road, otherwise she’d have collapsed on her face from exhaustion, right?”

  “Of course that’s right! She came by cab! As soon as she walked in the mare clattered away along the cobbles and the cabby left.”

  “The cabby went off.” Mock mused.

  “Yes, he left. I even asked why he didn’t help her with the chest … But she said it was none of my business.”

  “She spoke German?”

  “Only that much. ‘None of your business.’ Only that much. She didn’t understand anything and just gawped goggle-eyed.”

  “Goggle-eyed, you say.” The captain’s face changed and he stood up abruptly. “Goggle-eyed like she did when she was dead, or a bit different? And her swollen tongue hung from her mouth, too, eh? Well, go on, you son-of-a-whore, how did she gawp at you with those goggle-eyes? And was there a blue mark on her neck when you stared at her little tits?”

  Wallasch pushed back in his chair and at that moment felt his cheek burn. He tumbled to the floor, waving his arms helplessly. The captain leaned over him. The receptionist caught the smell of beer and tobacco.

  “You know why you got it in the gob? Lack of respect. You should have helped that poor girl carry her luggage.”

  Wallasch did not get up but cowered, watching his assailant. The latter walked up to his coat, pulled out a visiting card from one of the pockets, picked up the telephone receiver and dialled.

  “Seuffert? Mock here … So what if you’re asleep!” he said in a raised voice. “I’ve got a task for you! Get as many men as necessary and question all the droschka and cab drivers. I know there’s going to be a thousand of them! You’ve got a couple of days in which to do it! Find the one who took a girl speaking very little German from the station to the Warsaw Court Hotel on Antonienstrasse at about ten o’clock. I know all the cabbies in Breslau were working on New Year’s Eve! So question them all, even if there’re two thousand of them! Just do it!”

  Wallasch still lay on the floor. As Mock passed him, the receptionist heard his assailant burst out laughing and say to himself:

  “Fucking Gestapo! Get to work, you scum!”

  BRESLAU, SUNDAY, JANUARY 10TH, 1937 A QUARTER TO EIGHT IN THE EVENING

  Mock was not too keen on Pastor Berthold Krebs who, at Karen’s invitation, paid them a visit more or less once a month. The pastor was a preacher through and through, and not only from the pulpit of St Paul’s Protestant Church but, what was worse, also when drinking herbal tea and eating cinnamon buns. Karen, who was an Evangelist unlike the Catholic Eberhard, would return from morning service at the distant church in a state of elation and describe to her husband in detail all the messages and rhetorical tricks bandied about by Pastor Krebs without restraint. These exaltations and raptures, and especially the information that the pastor was still unmarried, aroused Mock’s interest in Krebs in two ways. Firstly, he checked the pastor’s police file; secondly, he forced himself to get up early one morning and surreptitiously visit St Paul’s Church in order to take a look at the priest. The first exercise brought no results since there was no police file with the pastor’s details; the second, on the other hand, proved fundamentally important. When he saw the small, thin man who was desperately trying to paste what remained of his dyed hair to his bald pate, his jealousy vanished without a trace and his wife obtained Mock’s agreement to invite the pastor home, something she had been requesting in vain for some time.

  And that had been Mock’s mistake, because with Pastor Krebs’ first visit he found himself gripped by powerlessness. He did not know how to behave when the guest devoutly entered their living-room, sat himself down in the armchair, lay the Bible on his closed knees and began to thunder in a loud, resonant voice. What mattered was that the priest strongly criticized everything that Mock considered normal and legitimate. The consumption of alcohol and meat Pastor Krebs saw as a straight path to the degeneration of body and mind, smoking tobacco and drinking coffee as self-destruction, and the practice of sport as meeting bodily temptation halfway. A praiseworthy exception was made by the preacher for sweet delicacies, the eating of which he justified with a sentence from the Book of Deuteronomy. Bombarded with criticism which he took as a personal attack, Mock could no longer stand being in his own home. When he lit a cigar, he felt like a criminal; when he sipped coffee, he felt a degenerate. So he held back from any discussions and answered in monosyllables, for which his wife later reproached him, calling it an ostentatious demonstration of ill-will towards such a wise man. He was in a spot because he did not want to hurt Karen’s feelings as she blossomed spiritually in the pastor’s shade, yet he could not do what he most wanted to do, namely to crudely and definitively break off Kreb’s moralizing arguments and ask him to leave. He therefore sat with his weak tea and no tobacco and picked at a cake with his fork, counting the hairs pasted down on the pastor’s bald pate and the quarter-hours chimed by the grandfather clock.

  Now the beautiful handicraft of the Black Forest master craftsmen in Kieninger struck three times, announcing that in exactly a quarter of an hour, �
��infallibility personified” would stride into their parlour. Martha Goczoll arranged the pastry plates and a pot of tea on the table. Karen looked at Eberhard with a smile and turned up the radio which was transmitting Viennese waltzes. At that moment the telephone rang.

  “Maybe it’s Pastor Krebs,” said Eberhard. “Maybe he wants to call off his visit because he has to dye his roots?”

  “Oh, Ebi, your ill-will towards the pastor bores me.” Karen could not help smiling.

  Eberhard went out into the hall, sat down by the phone and lifted the receiver to his ear.

  “Good evening, Captain. This is Criminal Secretary Seuffert.”

  “Good evening,” he muttered into the speaking tube. “No doubt ringing to say you haven’t managed to complete your task, are you?”

  “Not quite, Captain. I’m reporting that we’ve questioned seven hundred and forty-two cabbies and three hundred and fifty droschka drivers. None of them took any girl from any station whatsoever on New Year’s Eve …”

  “What do I need the numbers for, Seuffert?” asked Mock, lighting up his last cigarette before the arrival of their special guest. “I want to know whether you’ve asked all the droschka drivers and cabbies in our beautiful city if they took Anna to the Warsaw Court! All, and not how many!”

  “I’m trying to be precise,” retorted Seuffert, offended by Mock’s tone. “Because I’ve heard that what you appreciate most is exactitude … All the cabbies and nearly all the droschka drivers. We’ve got two left, drivers 36 and 84. Both often park themselves outside Main Station. I haven’t had time to question them yet. But I’ll do that tomorrow … I’ve got their addresses from the cabby register.”

  “No need, Seuffert,” said Mock sweetly, and hearing that Karen was listening to the radio quickly added: “I’ll take care of it. After all, you’ve done a good piece of work. Over a thousand men in a week! Ha, ha, not bad, Seuffert, not bad …”