Nothing would have surprised him after having found Wohsedt’s letter in a drain at his very own home, and then discovering the man’s body hanging in a tree in South Park — even finding Councillor Ilssheimer, father of four, in August’s arms. But he could not understand why August was still smiling. He approached him and watched as his open palm struck August’s cheek, leaving a burning red mark.
“What the fuck are you smiling at?” Mock asked, and without waiting for an answer left the room.
Kitty’s little salon was already tidy and she herself was dressed; she had forgotten only to remove her tiered wig. Sitting at the table she lowered her eyes modestly. Mock sat opposite her and drummed his fingers on the marble slab set in the silver tabletop. “Not a bad imitation of an eighteenth-century table,” he thought. “Everything in here’s from the eighteenth century.”
“From what time were you with him, Kitty?”
“Who, Criminal Assistant, sir?”
“The man I just threw out.”
“Six, I think. That’s when he arrived. He paid for the whole night up front. He’s a good client. Bought a carafe of cherry schnapps and paid for dinner, too. A good client. He used to live not far from here …”
“A good client.” That’s what they had called Mock when he used to drink away his wages in the Hungarian King. That’s what they called him when he used to take two girls to a room and paid them generously, although in his drunkenness he could not move his hands or legs, let alone anything else. They used to bow to him when he walked into his favourite Jewish taverns on Antonienstrasse and stood for hours at the bar, silent, furious and glum. That whore, she too would have bowed to him from afar in the days when he used to go for walks with his father in South Park. That was only a few months ago. Then Mock’s bad dreams had begun, as had his father’s apathy, broken only by his games with postman Dosche’s dog. A good client in taverns and brothels. A good client with whom nobody had any sympathy — no innkeeper and no whore. And why should they sympathize with him? After all, how were they to know that some monster was slaying people and writing him letters! They weren’t interested; they were too busy looking after their own affairs. They had their own problems. Mock banished these unpleasant thoughts and asked Kitty mechanically:
“So, he lived not far from here?”
“Yes. He once came with his dog, for a quickie.”
“A dog?”
“He took his dog for a walk and came to see me. The dog lay beside the bed, while on the bed we …”
“Well, I should hope the dog wasn’t in there with you … And has a fat man called Julius ever been to see you? He had nasty eczema on his neck …”
“My clients don’t introduce themselves … And I don’t recall anyone with eczema … No … There hasn’t been anyone like that … Besides, I wouldn’t take anyone like that on …”
“You’re demanding, Kitty.” Mock got to his feet. “And would you take me on?” He went to the window and watched Muhlhaus questioning the would-be lovers while Lasarius squatted beside the corpse. Muhlhaus asked Smolorz something, and the latter pointed to the hotel. The commissioner strode briskly towards the building, as if he had seen Mock standing at the net curtain.
“Any time, Mr Mock,” Kitty smiled flirtatiously. It pained Mock to think that this beautiful woman in a crooked wig had once been a child, cuddled and kissed by her parents. “Naked or dressed up? I’ve got a Roman outfit too … And all sorts of lingerie accessories … For the clients, too …”
Mock studied the girl in silence. In his head thundered the words: “Dressed up …”, “outfit …”
“Listen Kathe,” he said, addressing her by her rightful name. “I’ve not been here for a long time. I didn’t know queers came here. I didn’t know anything about dressing up … Who thought all that up? Your new boss?”
“Yes, Mr Nagel.”
“And August, does he dress up for his clients, too?”
“Rarely.” Kathe smirked. “But some do ask.”
“And what does August dress up as?”
“A gladiator, a worker,” she mused. “Oh, I don’t know what else … Usually it’s a gladiator … There was one client who yelled” — and here Kitty shouted, imitating a drunkard’s gibberish — “I want a gladiator!”
Mock believed in the promptings of intuition and in the automatism of thought — a recent fashion in avant- garde art — and he appreciated the notion of a chain of even the most extraordinary associations. He believed in the prophetic value of a sequence of images, and he did not consider Duchamp’s manifestos to be inauthentic or degenerate. He believed in premonitions and in a policeman’s superstitions. He knew that now, too, it was intuition which had prompted him to ask about August dressing up. He closed his eyes and tried to conjure up associations. Nothing. Thirst. A hangover. Tiredness. A sleepless night. Kitty imitating a drunk and shouting: “I want a gladiator!” A lady in an alcove yelling, in a voice distorted by alcohol: “I want a carter! Now! Immediately!” Mock heard the sounds of a foxtrot. A few days ago, heavy with gin, he had wrapped his arms round the waist of a slim dance- hostess. In the Hungarian King. A young waiter, who was helping him carry Ruhtgard, had explained to him: “Our manager, Mr Bilkowsky, doesn’t allow the hiring of fiacres. The horses foul the pavement in front of the hotel.” The lady had shouted: “I want a carter!” The waiter had then replied … What had he replied? Yes, he had replied: “Right this minute, at your service, my lady.”
“Tell me, Kathe,” — Mock could sense the trail he was going to follow — “does August dress up as a carter? Or a sailor, perhaps?”
Kitty shook her head and watched in surprise as Mock, despite her negative reply, smiled gleefully and ran from the room, almost breaking the high mirror sprinkled with powder.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1919
SIX O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
Mock bumped into Muhlhaus in the hotel entrance. The new chief of the Murder Commission was crushing the mouthpiece of his pipe in his teeth and twirling his grey beard in his fingers. He took Mock by the arm and very slowly led him to where the corpse had been found. The birds, lost in song, announced another hot September day. Above the plane trees rose the yellow circle of the sun.
“Let’s take a little walk, Mock. Do you like taking early-morning walks in the park?”
“Only when there are no corpses hanging from the trees.”
“I see you’re in a good mood, Mock. Nothing like gallows humour.” Muhlhaus took the pipe from his mouth and squirted brown saliva into the bushes. “Tell me, are we dealing with a serial killer?”
“I’m not well up on criminal theory, and anyway, I don’t know whether such a thing exists, or how serial killings are defined …”
“And according to you …”
“I think we are.”
“Victims of serial killings have something in common with each other. Firstly, the murderer leaves them in a place where they’re bound to be found. The sailors’ corpses at the dam, a body hanging from a tree in a popular walking spot … And secondly, what do these victims of ‘Mock’s enemy’, as the perpetrator is widely known, have in common?”
“‘Widely’ meaning where?”
“For the time being where we work, in the Police Praesidium … Before long in the Breslau newspapers and across the whole of Germany. Despite the secrecy of the operation, sooner or later there’s going to be a leak to the press. We can’t hold everybody in quarantine, like that maid in the park and her lover. You’re going to be famous …”
“What was it you asked me?” Mock wanted to slap Muhlhaus as he had August, and then to run, fly to where pimps offer up male prostitutes dressed in sailors’ outfits; instead of which he had to traipse along beside Muhlhaus with the acrid, smoky aroma of Badia tobacco in his nostrils. His fingers and his back itched; he knew that no amount of scratching would relieve him. The sensation overwhelmed him quite frequently, and he could never find quite the right word for it. A fragment from Livy came to mind in which a Latin adjective perfectly expressed the present state of his spirit:
“I asked you what the victims of ‘Mock’s enemy’ have in common with each other?”
“That singular name given to the perpetrator is an answer in itself. Why are you asking something we’ve already known for so long?”
