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

  “I’ll just give you the addresses …”

  Mock hung up without another word, replaced the speaking tube and began to put on his coat and bowler hat as quickly as if someone spurred him on. He stepped into the parlour and kissed his wife. He registered disappointment in her eyes.

  “I have to, pet, I have to,” he interrupted all protest. “Such is the job, unfortunately …”

  He bowed most gallantly to Pastor Krebs, who was just mounting the stairs.

  BRESLAU, SUNDAY, JANUARY 10TH, 1937 HALF PAST EIGHT IN THE EVENING

  Mock nosed his black Adler into the parking bay outside Main Station and turned off the engine. He lit a cigarette and observed the three droschkas standing in front of the huge building. None of them were numbered 36 or 84. He climbed out of his car, pulled on his coat and bowler, then, hands behind his back, made slowly towards the main entrance. As he had thought, the cold had swept all the beggars and newspaper vendors from the approach. Only two women with painted lips were walking up and down outside. Mock stopped in front of them and measured them with his eye. As if on command, both unbuttoned their coats and rested their hands on their hips. One was tall and thin, the other short and curvaceous. He looked at them carefully and decided to help the one which seemed more desirable – meaning the more curvaceous one – to earn some money. He nodded to her and she approached with a dancing step. He looked at her lips, blue with cold, and pulled out two two-mark coins.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Bibi.”

  “Fine. So now I know you. And do you know me? You know who I am?”

  “A dandy like you must be some director …” She smiled broadly.

  “I’m a police officer,” he replied. “Once, when I was young, I dealt with girls like you.”

  “Oh, sorry.” The smile froze on the prostitute’s lips.

  “Don’t apologize, because you haven’t got anything to apologize for yet.” Mock spat out his cigarette and with the tip of his shoe crushed the butt as fastidiously as if he had wanted to grind it into the pavement. “I’m telling you so that you know you can’t fool me. Understood, Bibi?”

  The girl nodded without a word.

  “You’re cold. Want some supper?” He showed her the coins. “Then I’ll give you some money to buy supper. Two marks now. You stay here for the time being and keep your eyes wide open. If droschkas 36 or 84 roll up, I repeat 36 or 84, you’re immediately to run to the restaurant, buffet or cards club – I don’t know where I’m going to be yet – and let me know. Then you’ll get another two marks. And you’re not going to make an ass of me. Right, Bibi?”

  “And what happens” – she looked at him cheekily – “if a client comes along and cab 36 doesn’t turn up?”

  “My loss.” Mock patted her on the cheek. “But then I’ll come here again sometime and say hello. I’ll go to play cards or have a beer and you’ll have to carry on looking out for cabs 36 or 84. You’ve taken the deposit, you have to follow it through. Adieu!”

  He made towards the station concourse and was looking around for a newspaper vendor when he heard the brisk clatter of shoes.

  “Commissioner,” he heard Bibi’s voice. “Number 36 has just arrived. So, am I going to get the rest?”

  “I’m a man of honour.” He handed her a coin. “Don’t use it to buy cigarillos or vodka because your pimp will take it from you anyway. Eat a good supper tonight and drink one schnapps to warm yourself up, but remember: only one!”

  “And chocolate for the kid? Is that alright?” she asked and, without waiting for a reply, she clattered away down the concourse.

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

  Mock knew that nothing oppresses the interrogated as much as the sudden proximity of the interrogator. The cabby was not, in fact, suspected of anything, but the transgression of a person’s invisible boundaries was already in Mock’s blood. He walked up to droschka 36, jumped onto the box next to the driver and scrutinized him from a distance of ten centimetres. The fat cabby moved away a little but they were both still crushed. This, however, did not bother Mock in the slightest.

  “Name?” he asked, shoving his identification card under the cabby’s nose.

  “Pohler, Heinrich,” answered the driver, looking at Mock carefully. “You’ve probably …”

  “Tell me, Mr Pohler,” – Mock felt sure he was about to hear a negative reply, and would then be able to nip off for a game of skat or bridge – “did you take anyone from here, from the station, to the Warsaw Court Hotel on New Year’s Eve?”

  “Yes,” replied the driver. “Two young women. Foreigners.”

  Mock moved away from Pohler and climbed down from the box. He sat inside the droschka and fixed his eyes on the driver, mechanically pulling on his gloves.

  “What time was that?”

  “About ten at night.”

  “What makes you think they were foreigners?”

  “They spoke to each other in a whisper but I heard some of the sounds.”

  “And how would you describe the language?”

  “Slonsakisch,” answered the driver without hesitation. “They were speaking Silesian.”

  “Tell me everything as it happened from the moment they got into your droschka. And describe them.”

  “Well, they got in.” Pohler fixed his eyes on Mock anxiously. “They were young. Pretty? Both pretty. One was older, looked like twenty something – she had those sort of looks … Dark … Turkish … The other was younger, seventeen, maybe eighteen … Blonde. The older one showed me a card with the Warsaw Court Hotel on it. We drove there. The younger one got off at the hotel and the older one gave me another card with the word Morgenzeile on it and some number I don’t remember. And we left. On Morgenzeile, in front of some residence, she said ‘stop’. She rang at the gate. The villa was dark. Only dogs barking behind the fence. After a while a butler arrived and paid for my whole run. That’s all.”

  “What do you mean by ‘Turkish’ looks?”

  “I don’t know … Dark, sallow, black hair, black-eyed.”

  The adjective “black-eyed” made Mock think. Rarely used, untypical, literary, stylized. He looked at Pohler. A refined word for a cabby.

  “Fine, but something still bothers me. Why didn’t you help the younger one carry her suitcase into the hotel? Apparently it was very heavy.”

  “Because the other one took it. She tore it away and carried it to the door in a flash. Then she jumped into the cab and we left for Morgenzeile. That’s all.”

  Mock lit a cigarette and lost himself in thought. Two young women speaking Silesian, if the cabby’s ear could be trusted. One went to a shabby hotel which in truth acted as a cover for a brothel. The other dragged the suitcase from the droschka for her and carried it to the door. Why did Anna need a French typewriter? What was a virgin doing in a brothel anyway? Maybe this really was a case of espionage? Maybe that Hitlerite Kraus was right? And then some thin crook with strong teeth climbed in through the window, raped, murdered and gnawed Anna, although we don’t know – as Lasarius put it – whether he did all this in that order. Meanwhile, the other woman ended up in one of the most prestigious areas of Breslau.

  Mock roused himself from his musing under driver Pohler’s watchful eye.

  “I thought you’d fallen asleep, sir,” said the cabby with a smile.

  “Why aren’t we on our way there yet?” Mock looked sharply at Pohler.

  “To where, sir?”

  “Morgenzeile!”

  “Right away!” Pohler raised his whip.

  “Wait, wait!” Mock grabbed the whip handle. “The matter’s very urgent. We’re taking my car!”

  He rolled out of the cab so suddenly that the vehicle shook, and then walked briskly to the Adler. Pohler watched Mock in astonishment, his whip still held high.

  “Well, come on, come on!” shouted the captain.

  “And what am I supposed to do with my cab?” the droschka drive
r shouted back. “Someone might steal my horse!”

  Mock looked around and spotted Bibi smiling at him from the main entrance to the station.

  “Hey, Bibi, come here!” he ordered in a loud voice. “Keep an eye on this cab for two marks! And if something goes missing you’ll have me to deal with!”

  “Alright, just coming, my lovely,” Bibi laughed, daintily skipping up to Mock. “And for a tenner I can blow your balloon.”

  Pohler looked aghast at Bibi, who was supposed to look after his place of work. She smiled, and her alcoholic breath wafted over Mock. It was clear that that evening the girl’s child was not going to be eating chocolate.

  BRESLAU, SUNDAY, JANUARY 10TH, 1937 A QUARTER PAST NINE IN THE EVENING

  The windows of the vast villa on Morgenzeile gave on to the bare trees of Scheitniger Park, their dark panes reflecting the feeble light of street lanterns. Behind railings spiked like flames thrashed two massive dogs of a breed unknown to Mock. Keeping his finger pressed to the bell at the entrance gate, the captain watched the dogs; he was sure he had seen the breed before, but could not remember where. Standing next to Mock, Pohler kept glancing at the two beasts in fear.

  A light came on over the villa driveway, where a butler appeared marching stiffly and bearing a large, hanging torch. As he reached the fence and cast light on Mock, the latter imagined the servant’s tailcoat bursting under the strain of all that muscle.

  “Yes, sir? How can I help you?” said the butler slowly as the glow of the torch settled on his close-cropped hair.

  “Is that him?” Mock asked Pohler, indicating the man with his head.

  When he saw the cabby nod Mock quickly reached into his inner coat pocket for identification. The movement caused the butler to automatically go for his own pocket and the dogs to leap at the fence, covering it with slobber.

  “Get those monsters away, you lackey!” roared Mock, showing his identification. “And then open this manor! I’m Captain Eberhard Mock!”

  The butler only obeyed Mock’s first order. He whistled at the dogs and they lowered themselves onto their bellies, growling quietly. Their tamer walked up to the fence, leaned against the railings and fixed his eyes on Mock. Cold, scrutinizing eyes.

  “This is the residence of Baron Bernhard von Criegern,” he said quietly. “The baron and baroness have been at their villa, Villa Clementina, in Schreiberhau for a week now and I do the honours here. I don’t want to offend you, Captain, but in order to enter in the absence of the baron and baroness you need a higher rank.”

  “Well, look at that, Pohler,” – Mock turned to his companion – “how nicely he puts it! A true orator!”

  The captain’s head felt like a vacuum. Usually, in similar situations, he reacted with fury and decision. He either threatened, blackmailed or beat people. But here he could do none of these things and the results of a possible fight would be foregone in favour of the strongman with the crew cut. He spat on the ground profusely. He hated being unprepared for a talk.

  “Then I won’t go in,” he riposted. “We’ll talk here. Besides, I haven’t come to see the baron and his wife, but you. Would you care to open, Mr …”

  “And him, he’s a police officer, too, is he?” The butler glanced disdainfully at Pohler’s old coat. “I’m to let him in too, am I?”

  “Yes.” Mock did not understand why he said this. “He’s a police officer, Sergeant Pohler, my associate.”

  “Well I’m Bruno Gorsegner and I’m very sorry,” Cerberus replied and waved his hand as if he were chasing a fly from his face, “but according to Baron von Criegern’s instructions nobody apart from servants, family and authorized persons are allowed on villa territory. And you, Captain, sir and Sergeant,” – he smiled faintly – “do not belong to any of the above categories. You are not, after all, either a police officer, prosecutor or even bailiff, but only a high-ranking officer of the Abwehr. If I were to let you in I could just as easily make the land accessible to, for example, a high-ranking quartermaster officer. But I’m going to be polite and ask you once more: can I be of any assistance to you in a situation where a fence stands between us?”

  For the first time since he had met Criminal Secretary Seuffert, Mock regretted that the man from the Gestapo was not with him. The eloquent lackey would have been as obedient towards the Gestapo as were those growling beasts. At that moment it occurred to Mock where he had seen such dogs before. They had been tearing rats apart at a riding stables near a horseracing track when, along with some other men, he had been betting on which dog would gnaw the most rats to death. He cast aside the gory memories.

  “You can help me, Mr Gorsegner,” he said. “Even through the fence. Have you ever seen this here Sergeant Pohler before?”

  “No, never,” the butler hastily replied.

  “That’s not true!” shouted Pohler. “You paid me for that woman’s ride, the one I brought here in the evening!”

  “I’ve never seen you, sir,” answered Gorsegner. “And I won’t have you addressing me with such familiarity. The day before yesterday I was here and nobody troubled me or rang at the gate. Nor did I pay any droschka driver for any ride.”

  “Mr Gorsegner,” snarled Mock, “are you saying my man is lying?”

  “I’m not saying anything, Captain.” – Gorsegner laughed merrily – “I’m just stating that I did not see this man or any woman he apparently brought here. Either on Thursday, or any time before or after …” He slapped himself across the arms. “I’m very sorry, gentlemen, but it’s getting rather cold and I’m not dressed as warmly as you are … Do you have any other questions, Captain? I’m willing to answer.”

  “No.” Mock glared furiously at Pohler, who cowered in fright. “Thank you, Mr Gorsegner. Good night.”

  “Good night, gentlemen,” answered the butler and briskly made his way towards the mansion.

  The dogs, bereft of their master, howled and barked as Mock walked away dragging Pohler by the collar. As they neared the car, the captain took a swing like a discus thrower and spun the cabby who collapsed onto the Adler’s bonnet.

  “Perhaps you can explain that, Pohler?” Mock removed his bowler hat and wiped his brow. “Who’s lying, him or you? Are you going to explain or are we going to the Gestapo?”

  The terrified droschka driver took off his cap and smoothed his hair. He lowered his head and looked at Mock beseechingly, squeezing and wringing the cap in his hands. He reminded Mock of his own father, a poor cobbler from Waldenburg who had once been summoned by the headmaster of Eberhard’s secondary school. The headmaster had yelled and threatened Willibald Mock, saying that his son Eberhard, the schoolboy present there, had turned out to be a disgrace to such an excellent institution of learning because he had been caught by the secret police in a house of ill-repute along with two other pupils. The shamed cobbler, dressed in his Sunday best, had stood in front of the fuming headmaster cap in hand, just like Pohler now.

  “But you know I wouldn’t lie to you, sir,” said the cabby through his tears. “Do you really not recognize me, Captain? I know it was many years ago and I was much slimmer and had thicker hair. I was a helper at the theatre …”

  “Well, I think I do,” replied Mock. He flashed through his memory but could not find Pohler’s face there, let alone associate it with any theatre. “And so what if I recognize you?” He was furious again. “Even if I do, how am I to know you’re not lying?”

  “That woman was a misfit,” whispered Pohler.

  “Meaning what?” Mock put on his bowler and leaned over the cabby. “Whisper in my ear!”

  “A misfit, dressed up,” replied Pohler a little more loudly. “I drove him to that butler. He’s a misfit, too, a queer. Hides it … You know what it’s like now … The Gestapo, concentration camp … It’s not the golden twenties.”

  “And how do you know that woman was a man in a dress? Because what? Because she carried the suitcase herself? How do you know that butler’s a queer?” Mock felt as excite
d as a dog following a scent.

  “I know them. I recognize them all … But you know, you know me … In those days many years ago, you were a criminal assistant, not a captain like now … You treated me like a human being.”

  Mock lost himself in thought, gazing into the darkness of Scheitniger Park. Wind stirred the bare branches. Somewhere beneath those trees stood a public convenience where perverts met … The captain suddenly remembered a certain operation in which he had taken part. But when in the hell was he going to remember where he knew Pohler from? He sighed. As a matter of fact he did not really want to know. He did not want to listen to another trivial, painful and entirely predictable story. He just wanted to go home, where Pastor Krebs would definitely no longer be, and sit down at his desk with a glass of cognac to gather his thoughts. Later, far into the night, he would spread out his chessboard and recall the different variants of closed games, which he liked most of all.

  “Alright, I believe you, Pohler,” he muttered. “Get in or Bibi might catch a client and what’ll happen to your cab then?”

  He fired up the motor. Pohler did not dare sit next to Mock and curled up with cold in the back seat. The captain was cold, too. Passing the park, Fürstenbrücke and the Church of St Peter Canisius which could be seen beyond the naked trees, he glanced into the large windows of art nouveau tenements where lights were already going out. When home, he would first sit down by the stove and spend a long time warming himself. Next, he would eat a late supper. Liver and onion. And then he would pour himself a glass of cognac.

  He skidded a little on Kaiserbrücke but that was the only unpleasant surprise on the snow-covered roads, where night carts with sand were only now appearing here and there. He side-slipped a second time by the station, but the skid was intentional. The manoeuvre caught the attention of one lone sleepy cabby and Bibi, who was sitting on the box of the droschka with a man.