Department IIIb of the Police Praesidium to work with us. We have here its chief, Criminal Councillor Ilssheimer.” Muhlhaus glanced respectfully at his colleague. “With his best men, Criminal Assistant Eberhard Mock and Criminal Sergeant Kurt Smolorz.” Muhlhaus’ tone as he uttered the adjective “best” expressed at least a shadow of doubt. “Briefing in my office at midday sharp, after the post-mortem examination. That’s all from me. Over to you, Doctor.”
Doctor Lasarius completed his perfunctory examination. He removed his top hat, wiped his forehead with fingers that had touched the corpses, reached into his gown and, after some time, extracted a cigar stump. He accepted a light from one of the stretcher-bearers and said with deliberate irony:
“Thank you, Commissioner Muhlhaus, for so accurately specifying the time of the post-mortem. I was not aware until now that I was your subordinate.” His voice became serious. “I’ve ascertained that the four men have been dead for approximately eight hours. Their eyes have been gouged out and their arms and legs broken. Here and there contusions are visible on their limbs which would indicate imprints made by the sole of a shoe. That’s all I can say for now.” He turned to his men: “And now we can remove them from here.”
Doctor Lasarius fell silent and watched as the stretcher-bearers grabbed the corpses by their arms and legs and gave them a mighty swing. The bodies landed on the stretchers, leather suspensories protruding from between their spread legs, and then came the dull thump of the remains as they hit the deck of the police barge. On Lasarius’ orders, the schoolboys standing on deck turned their heads from the macabre sight. The doctor set off towards the car, but before he had gone far he stopped in his tracks.
“That’s all I can say for now, gentlemen,” he repeated in a hoarse voice. “But I have something else to show you.”
He looked around and extracted a thick, dry branch from the bushes. He rested it on a stone and jumped on it with both legs. A brittle crack resounded.
“Everything points to the fact that this is how the murderer broke their limbs.” Lasarius flicked his cigar stump into the thorn bushes beside the Oder. The cigar caught on one of the bushes and hung there, wet with spittle, torn from lips a moment earlier by fingers sullied by the touch of a corpse.
Mock felt hair in his throat once more and squatted. Seeing his convulsions, the police officers moved away in disgust. Nobody held his sweating temples; nobody pressed his stomach to hasten its work. Today, the world was not looking after Mock.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 1ST, 1919
NINE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
The large motorboat in which the six plain-clothes police officers sat had not seen a war; it came from Breslau’s river police surplus. Steering it was First Mate Martin Garbe, who studied the men from beneath the peak of his hat. When their broken conversation began to bore him, he looked out at the unfamiliar river banks overgrown with trees and lined with formidable buildings. Although he had lived in Breslau for a couple of years, he had only been working for the river police for a few weeks and the city as seen from the Oder fascinated him. Every now and then he leaned towards the police officer nearest to him, a slim man with Semitic features, to make sure he was correctly identifying the places they passed.
“Is that the zoo?” he asked, pointing to a high wall behind which could be heard the roar of predators being fed their daily ration of mutton.
The banks of the Oder passed slowly. Occasional anglers, mostly retired men, were returning home with nets full of perch. The trees dripped with foliage; nature was refusing to recognize the approach of autumn.
“That’s the water tower, isn’t it?” Garbe whispered, pointing to a square brick building on their left. The police officer nodded and addressed a colleague sitting opposite him clutching a locked hold-all marked MATERIAL EVIDENCE:
“Look how fast we’re going, Reinert. I told you we’d get there quicker by river.”
“You’re always right, Kleinfeld,” muttered the other man. “Your Talmudic mind is never mistaken.”
First Mate Garbe looked up at Kaiserbrucke spanning the river on its steel web and accelerated. The air was hot and muggy. The police officers on the motorboat fell silent. Garbe focussed his attention on the rivets in the bridge, and once they had cleared it, on the faces of his passengers. Four of them sported moustaches, one a beard, and another was clean-shaven. The bearded man blew smoke rings from his pipe which then trailed over the water, and talked in a whisper to the fair-haired moustachioed man sitting next to him. Both men were trying to make it clear with every word and gesture that it was they who gave the orders around here. Kleinfeld and Reinert wore small moustaches, and red whiskers bristled on the top lip of the stout and taciturn police officer. Next to him sat a stocky, clean-shaven, dark-haired man. He looked exhausted. He leaned over the water, breathing in the damp air, and then a cough would tear at his lungs, persistent and dry, as if something was irritating his throat. He rested his arm on the boat’s machine-gun and stared down at the water. First Mate Garbe soon tired of scrutinizing the six silent men and looked up at the underside of Lessingbrucke, which they were now approaching. From its girders dripped water or horse urine. Garbe navigated in such a way that not a single drop fell onto his motorboat. When they had passed under the bridge, Garbe caught a very interesting snippet of conversation:
“I still do not understand, Excellency” — barely suppressed irritation could be heard in the dark-haired man’s voice — “why my man and I have been summoned to this crime. Would you, as my immediate superior, care to explain it to me? Has our duty remit been extended?”
“Of course, Mock,” the fair-haired, moustachioed man said in a shrill voice. “But let us first get one thing straight. I don’t have to explain anything to you. Have you never heard of ‘orders’? Police work is founded on issuing orders and often calls for a strong stomach. And subordinates are to execute these orders, even if it means throwing up a hundred times a day. Do we understand each other, Mock? And do not address me as Excellency unless you’re attempting to be extremely ironic.”
“Yes sir, Criminal Councillor sir,” the dark-haired man said.
“I’m glad you’ve understood.” The blond moustache curved into a smile. “And now, think about it yourself and answer me: why do you think you and I are both here? Why has Criminal Commissioner Muhlhaus asked us for help?”
“Naked corpses with leather pouches on their balls,” came a muttering from beneath the red moustache. “They could be queers. Those of us in IIIb have come across men like that before.”
“Good, Smolorz. I didn’t actually ask you, but you’re right. Four murdered queers. That’s a case for Commissioner Muhlhaus and the men in IIIb. As of today, you and Mock are to be transferred, for the duration of this investigation, to the Murder Commission under the direction of Commissioner Muhlhaus.”
The dark-haired man stood up so abruptly that the boat rocked: “But of our men Lembcke and Maraun are much more sure of themselves in the homosexual demi-monde than we are; they’re the ones best acquainted with it. Smolorz and I book girls and sometimes raid illegal clubs. So why …”
“First of all, Mock,” said the man with the pipe and thick beard, “Councillor Ilssheimer has already explained the meaning of an order. Secondly, we don’t know whether or not these four sailors
“I don’t understand.” The dark-haired man spoke slowly and huskily. “What private investigation? Why should I want to conduct any sort of investigation into the case of a few murdered queers?”
“Here’s why.” From the greying beard puffed a cloud of Badia tobacco smoke. “Read this. This card was stuck in the belt of one of the dead men’s underpants. Be so kind as to read it. Out loud.”
First Mate Garbe did not pay the slightest attention to the Regier-ungsbezirk Schlesien building which they were just passing on the left, or to St Joseph’s Hospital built of white clinker bricks on their right. He was listening to the cryptic message being read slowly from the card:
“‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Mock, admit your mistake, admit you have come to believe. If you do not want to see more gouged eyes, admit your mistake.’”
“What?” shouted the man with the red moustache. “Are you talking to yourself?”
“Listen to me, Smolorz, use that thick brain of yours,” the dark-haired man said quietly and deliberately. “No, that’s too much of an effort for you. Read it yourself. Read the card yourself. Well, go on, read it, damn you!”
