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

  “Now you’re exaggerating, Herr Kraus.” Mock did not use the official Gestapo title and, lashing out blindly, unfortunately showed his unease. “You have no right to assign duties to me or give me orders. An invitation to a meeting at seven in the morning is one thing, but it’s something else to …”

  “Well?” Kraus closed the file and pushed it under Mock’s nose. “Getting worked up already are you, Mock? Take a look at this.” He nodded towards the file. “There are orders for you here signed by Colonel Rainer von Hardenburg.”

  Mock did not even glance at the file, he did not intend to give Kraus the satisfaction.

  “Yes, Mock.” Kraus stood up again and walked to the window. “That’s the end of getting drunk, the end of girls, the end of the comfortable five-room apartment on Zwingerplatz for a few weeks if not months … Yes … The end of civilization, of culture … Of insolence … If you look into the file you’ll see a letter from Police President Schmelt to the Chief of Police in Lemberg. In that letter there’s an offer to collaborate. We also have a reply in the file. Our offer of collaboration has been accepted …”

  Mock still said nothing and did not open the file, which made Kraus furious.

  “You are going, sir” – the vein on Kraus’ forehead pulsated – “to Lemberg to find the Gypsy homosexual who, in his hatred of women, his hatred of the German family and the German nation, two weeks ago murdered a young German girl, Anna Schmidt, at the Warsaw Court Hotel.”

  This time Kraus succeeded. A knockout. With every one of his nerves Mock sensed his powerlessness. The worst of it was not that the scum von Frankenstein – as he called Kraus – was ordering him about while that coward and careerist von Hardenburg threw him at the feet of the political police. It was that Mock’s mind had been raped; he had been denied the right to think; he had become a blunt instrument in the hands of political manipulators who were telling him all of a sudden that the earth was flat and a Polish girl was German; he was going to play a part in a propagandist scandal and become a herald who sang the hymn Ad maiorem Hitleri gloriam.

  “That murdered girl was Polish,” he choked.

  “Here are your orders, Mock.” Kraus rapped a fingernail on the file. “Signed by your boss. This week you’re off – for how long we don’t know” – his smile displayed healthy white teeth – “to the wild, Jew-ridden country of underpeople, where dogs are used to drag harnesses in the streets. To a country of barbarians, Mock. Just the place for you. You’re going to go there, find the Gypsy homosexual and bring him here. You’re to introduce yourself to the Poles using your police, not military, rank. They don’t have to know you work in espionage. That’s all, Mock. You’re to finalize the details with von Hardenburg.”

  Mock got to his feet, lit up and rested his fists on Kraus’ desk. Without removing the cigarette from his lips he blew a cloud of smoke across its surface.

  “You can spare yourself this pitiful demonstration, Mock.” Kraus moved a little away from the desk. “Dismissed!”

  “How dare you, sir” – Mock’s voice was somewhat distorted by the cigarette clenched between his teeth – “be so familiar with me and order me ‘dismissed’! I’m Captain Mock to you, understand? I’m going to find that Polish girl’s murderer not because you have ordered me to, but because it is my job!”

  A column of ash fell from Mock’s cigarette onto the gleaming table. The captain drew back from the desk, plucked his cigarette from his lips and threw it onto the polished parquet floor.

  “And do you know what, sir?” He ground the stub beneath his shoe. “Lemberg’s not so barbaric after all: Commissioner Popielski speaks better German than you do.”

  LWÓW, TUESDAY, JANUARY 19TH, 1937 FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  Jadzia Wajchendler, finding herself in the reading room of the Ossolineum for the first time in her life, sat poring over the first volume of Władysław Tatarkiewicz’s History of Philosophy, and in her exercise book noted down the more salient information regarding Stoic thinking. Thanks to Professor Sedlaczek’s influence she was in a library to which only students, professors from secondary schools, and academics had access. Initially she had been proud and overawed, but as the day wore on, she grew indifferent. She could not concentrate on Xryzyp’s and Zenon’s succinct and sound characterizations because the information bored her to tears. Her eyes kept wandering over the green tables, over the book-filled shelves, the librarian in his purple housecoat and the snow-covered trees on Wronowski Hill visible from the windows. More and more frequently her eyes came to rest on the slim student sitting opposite her at a table strewn with several volumes of the Journal of Laws and reading just as inattentively as she was, the only difference being the books he was reading. In front of him there also lay Buczym-Czapliński’s Code of Criminal Procedure. Miss Jadzia was secretly angry at the cankerous Latinist, Professor Sedlaczek, who must have asked her to prepare the lecture on Stoics as a punishment, and thought with tenderness about the handsome young supply teacher who had taken the Latin class at the beginning of the school year.

  The bell announcing breaktime rang in the stooping librarian’s hand. The girl sighed with relief. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that the student was watching her surreptitiously from beneath the peak of his black-rimmed cap. As she made her way to the corridor she contrived ways to bolster his interest, but all of a sudden a man loomed in front of her, thwarting her plan. He was hefty, bald, dressed in black and carrying a bowler hat and she immediately recognized him as Commissioner Popielski, father of her close friend Rita; she had seen him only once in her life, and yet had never forgotten. Even then, when he had been summoned by the school head together with her father, he had terrified her. She imagined that someone in his line of work must almost on a daily basis meet people possessed by the dybuks with which her grandmother had so frightened her in childhood.

  “Good evening, Miss Jadwiga,” said the commissioner in a deep voice which sounded as though it emerged from the depths of a well.

  “Good evening.” Jadzia curtseyed and lowered her eyes. She felt Popielski’s voice right down in her stomach.

  “May I speak to you, Miss Jadwiga?” He stared at her through dilated pupils. “Here, at the table with the book slips.”

  “Of course, Commissioner, sir,” she replied and glanced at the place he was indicating. “But there’s a gentleman sitting there already …”

  “The gentleman’s a colleague of mine.” Popielski took her lightly by her slender elbow. “He’s going to be present at our conversation. I promise it won’t take long.”

  She nodded and walked over to a table where there were some blank library cards. Popielski’s colleague rose to his feet, tipped his hat and held a chair out for her. She was grateful for the gesture, as her legs were shaking with fright. Commissioner Popielski sat on another chair pushed towards him by what was, she presumed, his subordinate – a corpulent man with a grey, turned-up moustache and a broad, smiling face. He looked sympathetic. Everybody looked sympathetic at that moment, compared to the commissioner who was studying her with the eyes of someone possessed by a wandering spirit.

  “I know everything” – she picked up the scent of tobacco and spicy eau de cologne as he leaned over and whispered – “about you and my daughter being in a drinking-den in Zamarstynowska in the company of bandits, rogues and prostitutes. I didn’t hear this from Rita, but from one of the cads who was there. And your father, I take it, knows nothing about it, am I right?”

  He broke off as a female student approached the table and picked up a library card to fill in. There were tears in Jadzia Wajchendler’s eyes.

  “Your father doesn’t know anything about it,” continued Popielski. “And he’s not going to find out if ” – he pushed a business card towards her – “if you inform me of your plans and actions.”

  The schoolgirl burst into tears, her sobs resounding across the empty space of the corridor. The law student, who had been watching the whole scene with
some concern, now made towards Popielski. Zaremba blocked his way, pulling out a distinctive badge showing an eagle and laurel wreaths. The boy leapt aside as if burned. Popielski and Zaremba left the building. The commissioner’s hands shook as he lit a cigarette.

  “Edek, how could you? That schoolgirl is senseless with fear!” said Zaremba, concerned. “Do you know what you’ve just done? You’ve turned the girl into a stool-pigeon, don’t you see? And deprived your daughter of a good friend! That’s what you’ve done!”

  Popielski grabbed Zaremba by the shoulders and yanked him closer.

  “Can’t you understand, Wilek” – his faltering voice would not have terrified Miss Jadzia now – “that that beast has struck once more and is probably here again? He’s chewed up a virgin in Breslau and now he’s come back. He’s a danger to every young lady … including that Jewish girl and my Rita! My Rita! That monster’s loose somewhere among us.” He turned and ran his eye over the passers-by, the Lubomirski Gallery and the narrow, dark street which climbed the slope of the Citadel. “Maybe he’s tearing a girl’s cheek apart with his fangs even now! I cannot allow it to happen!”

  He left Zaremba and walked off a few paces. He took a wide swing and slapped himself on the thigh. Everyone on Ossoliński heard something which Zaremba, who had been Popielski’s friend since secondary school, had heard only a few times in his life: “Fucking son of a whore!”

  Getting it out of his system, Popielski ran back to the Ossolineum. He approached the empty table where Jadzia Wajchendler had just been sitting. His business card was still there. He tore it up, spat on it and threw it into the basket of blank library cards.

  Zaremba was now sitting behind the steering wheel of the Chevrolet. Before climbing in, Popielski removed his bowler hat and approached the low wall surrounding the educational institution. He gathered up a handful of snow in his glove and applied it to his head and neck. Then he rested his forehead on the spiked iron railings. As he got into the car Zaremba looked at him and fired the engine. Both men remained silent. They drove along Kopernik Street by the Greek-Catholic seminary, past the police building on Łącki Street with which they were only too familiar, and turned into Leon Sapieha Street. On their left they passed the beautiful corner tenement with its huge, semi-circular terraces where the famous Helena Bodnar flower shop was located, and drove alongside the large edifice of the Politechnik. They passed the church of St Teresa, the Ukrainian secondary school and the church of St Elizabeth. Behind dirty façades stretched a dangerous world of crooks. A good many of them were standing in the doorways of the squat houses on Bilczewski Square, wafts of smoke drifting up from beneath the visors of their cloth caps. Glum eyes rested on the gleaming body of the car. Apart from their place of birth they did not have much in common with the jolly figure of Szczepcio who, to the amusement of the whole of Poland, bantered with his companion Tońcio in the programme “On Lwów’s Merry Wave”. There was as much merriment on their faces as poison on the head of a matchstick.

  The Chevrolet came to a halt in front of Main Station. Popielski squeezed Zaremba’s hand in both of his, stepped out into the snow and wind, and disappeared through the monumental entrance. He made his way straight to the ticket office and bought a ticket for the Saturday train to Kraków together with a return ticket for Sunday. Zaremba watched his friend through the car window. Popielski had not told him where he wanted to be driven. He did not have to. Both knew the remedy the commissioner needed in moments of great turmoil.

  THE KRAKÓW–LWÓW TRAIN SUNDAY, JANUARY 24TH, 1937, TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  The remedy was also known to someone else: Eberhard Mock. Before partaking of it, however, he had been subjected to a thorough personal search and changed trains once. His pockets and luggage were searched by Polish officials at the border station in Chebzia and the carriages had been shuffled in Mysłowice, where the former Prussian Iron Railway of Upper Silesia came to an end. Mock and the other travellers climbed into another set of carriages which was going to Kraków and then on to Lwów. This train, the conductor informed him with pride, was being pulled by an exceptionally fast and modern steam engine which had been awarded a gold medal at a fair in Paris.

  Only a few moments later Mock had the impression that he was in another world. He stood by the window marvelling at cottages with thatched roofs and little stations where timber huts with heart shapes cut out beneath the eaves caught his eye, as did the beauty of the young women who stepped onto the platforms to sell cooked cabbage and tea. He let himself be tempted by the Polish treats in Trzebinia where the train stopped a little longer, and from a peasant woman rosy from the frost he accepted a tin plate of piping-hot, aromatic and thick cabbage garnished with crackling. He enjoyed it so much that he wiped his plate clean with a slice of bread, giving rise to spiteful comments from his fellow passengers in first class, a middle-aged couple who insisted on speaking to Mock in French even though he only gesticulated in reply. The couple snorted disdainfully and kept repeating something which amazed Mock no end; they referred to him as a “Swabian”.† How they had come to think that he had been born in Swabia he could not imagine, all the more so since they spoke no German and therefore would have been unable to catch the idiosyncrasies of the Swabian dialect. He tried to ask them but this only gave rise to giggles. So he abandoned all attempt at conversation with these conceited people and went and stood in the corridor to smoke and stare out of the window. At the stations his attention was riveted above all by the Jews. Easily recognizable by their gabardines, round peaked caps and long beards, they in no way resembled the Jews of Breslau who distinguished themselves from their fellow German citizens by certain physiological characteristics alone. Here in Poland their language and their dress was different, too. Mock had known they spoke a medieval German dialect, but he had never heard it before, so it was with great interest that he listened to the Jewish traders on the platforms. Their discussions and arguments were a clear indication to Mock that he now found himself in some transitional country at the border of Europe and the East, where these rather odd people used a language that belonged to the West while their gesticulations and expressions placed them rather in some Oriental marketplace.

  “Outside the window it’s lively even in the frost of winter,” he thought, “whereas inside this luxurious express train there are only whispers, polite chatter and upturned noses.” Reluctantly he considered returning to his compartment, where the elegantly dressed man kept kissing his lady’s hand while she grinned, baring small, uneven teeth, and shook her head. He glanced at his watch. Six hours of the journey still to go. It was a good thing he had taken with him Golem, a fantastical novel by Gustav Meyrink. He would just have to find himself a compartment where the passengers were less garrulous and would allow him to concentrate.

  The thought anticipated a situation in which he had wanted to find himself. Because there in front of him were two conductors who spoke a little German and would be able to show him to an empty compartment. He observed them with joy, but as they approached he heard something which astounded him and prevented him from even enquiring. One of the conductors uttered a familiar name: “Commissioner Popielski”. When the official handed back his much-punched ticket, Mock, loathe to scare away the herald of faint hope, asked politely:

  “Did you say ‘Commissioner Popielski’?”

  “Yes,” replied the conductor, surprised, “I did. I don’t see why you’re asking.”

  “Is Police Commissioner Edward Popielski from Lwów travelling on this train?” Mock used the Polish “Lwów” because “Lemberg” would have been unknown to the train crew.

  The other conductor tapped his colleague on the shoulder and said something in Polish.

  “Excuse me, sir” – the man addressing Mock tried to pass by him – “but I have my duties.”

  “My sincere apologies,” Mock said as he pulled out his identification, “I’m a German police officer and I’m just on my way to Lwów to visit my colle
ague, Commissioner Edward Popielski. If he happened to be on this train it would be wonderful …”

  The conductors looked at each other and there was another exchange in that sibilant, jangling language which Mock often heard at the street market on Neumarkt in Breslau. To hasten their decision he took a two-złoty piece from his pocket, change from the Polish peasant woman along with some other coins. One of the conductors accepted it without hesitation.

  “Yes,” he replied. “As usual Commissioner Popielski is in the private compartment with his daughter, Miss Rita. This way, please!”

  Mock could not believe his luck. He followed the conductor and laughed out loud. First of all, he would not be subjected to the refined company of the scornful, giggling couple; secondly, he was going to meet the man with whom he might be working for quite some time. He would have an excellent opportunity to explain their misunderstanding on the telephone and discuss any eventual details of the investigation if, that is, Popielski was willing to talk about any of this in front of his daughter. They stopped at the door to the private compartment.

  “Ticket inspector!” called the man as he knocked.

  “Come in,” came a stentorian voice from beyond the door.

  The conductor opened the door and said, “Commissioner, sir, what a coincidence! I met a friend of yours in the corridor, a German!”

  He moved aside to allow Mock to pass. The German beheld an elegant private compartment lined with yellow and pale-blue striped wallpaper. The curtains were drawn and the lamp by the window cast a feeble light. On the table stood a carafe of red wine, two glasses and a silver tray with two covered dinner plates. On the couch sprawled a hefty, bald man with a small beard, his shirt and waistcoat unbuttoned. At the corner of his lips hung a smoking cigarette in a holder. On a side table lay a chessboard and an open book. One glance was enough for Mock to see that the book contained Latin poems, the characteristic versification of which pointed to Horace. The conductor picked up the tray and quietly closed the door from the outside.