Mortal Mischief

Natalie Heck turned bright red. Flustered, she launched into a garbled defence.

'I've only been to Herr Braun's apartment a few times. He isn't a strong man – he's often sickly. On Saturday, when the constable stopped me – I was worried – I wanted to see if he was all right.'

'Do you have any idea where he is now?'

'Of course not.' She looked angrily towards Rheinhardt. 'Inspector, I told you the truth last week. There's nothing more to tell.'

'Indeed, Fraulein,' said Rheinhardt, 'and we are very grateful for your assistance.'

Natalie Heck turned to face Liebermann again. He continued as if the previous exchange hadn't happened.

'Do you think, Fraulein, that your friend Herr Braun was attracted to Fraulein Lowenstein?'

'I . . .' She struggled to regain her composure. 'I think he probably was. She was a very beautiful woman.'

'Did he ever talk about her?'

'No.'

'Then why do you think he was attracted to her?'

'Sometimes . . .' She tightened her richly coloured shawl around her shoulders as though a cold wind had passed through the room. 'Sometimes he would look at her in a certain way.'

Just as Rheinhardt thought that his friend had scented blood and was preparing his prey for the delivery of a fatal question, Liebermann simply smiled, leaned back in his chair, and said: 'Thank you, Fraulein Heck. You have been most helpful.' Then, turning to Rheinhardt, he added: 'I have no further questions, Inspector.'

'Are you sure, Herr Doctor?' said Rheinhardt.

'Yes, Inspector. Quite sure.'

Rheinhardt stood, somewhat reluctantly, wondering whether Liebermann was playing a psychological game and was craftily creating in Natalie Heck a false sense of security. But the young doctor showed no signs of further engagement.

'In which case,' said Rheinhardt, 'you are free to leave, Fraulein Heck.'

The seamstress rose from her chair and, frostily giving Liebermann a wide berth, left the room. Rheinhardt followed and Liebermann heard his friend instructing an officer to escort Fraulein Heck back to her home near the Prater.

When Rheinhardt returned, he sat in the chair previously occupied by the seamstress. For a moment the two men shared an uneasy silence. Finally Rheinhardt shook his head: 'That was a curious interview, Max.'

'Was it?'

'Yes. Why did you bring it to such a peremptory close? Just – or so it seemed to me – when things were starting to get interesting.'

'Fraulein Heck has told us all that she knows.'

'Then this hasn't been a very productive morning.'

'Well, I wouldn't say that.'

Rheinhardt frowned.

'All right: do we know anything now that we didn't know yesterday?'

'Yes – quite a lot, I think. We know that Natalie Heck was besotted with Otto Braun: her denial spoke volumes. We also have more evidence to suggest that Fraulein Lowenstein and Braun were lovers. Heck's despair was palpable. But more importantly, we now have confirmation of an earlier hypothesis.'

'We do?'

'Oh yes. You will recall that I speculated about the presence of a third person when Charlotte Lowenstein was murdered?'

'Indeed, but—'

Interrupting, Liebermann continued: 'We now know the identity of that third person.'

Liebermann paused and Rheinhardt, unable to restrain himself, stood up again. His movement was so abrupt his chair rocked back and almost toppled over.

'What?'

'The third person,' said Liebermann softly, 'was Fraulein Lowenstein's unborn child. At the time of her murder, she was approximately three months pregnant.'

'But how on earth have you deduced that?' cried Rheinhardt. The door opened, and a junior officer poked his head in.

'Everything all right, sir?'

'Yes, yes,' said Rheinhardt impatiently, waving his hands in the air. The officer bowed apologetically, and closed the door.

'I'll explain in due course,' said Liebermann. 'I must get back to the hospital. But for the moment, Oskar, I would strongly urge you to compose a polite note to Professor Mathias, requesting the completion of Fraulein Lowenstein's interrupted autopsy – as soon as possible.'

'Of course.'

'Oh, and Oskar?'

'Yes.'

'I would like to attend as well – if I may?'

25

ZOLTAN ZABORSZKY was sitting at his usual table in the garden of Csarda, a restaurant on the Prater. A cimbalom player and two violinists were performing 'Rakoczi's Lament', a folk song that Zaborszky's nurse would sing to him when he had been a very small child. He closed his eyes, and for a moment it seemed to him that he could hear again the Tisza flowing through the park of the long-lost family estate. In his mind, he could see the imposing house with its battlements and round towers, perched on its steep, rocky bluff: those cavernous rooms, which in the summer had filled with a soft, slow light that rolled through the windows like honey. Who, he wondered, would now be availing himself of that well-stocked cellar, which, under blankets of spiders' silk, had contained bottles brought from the finest wine merchants in Paris?

Zaborszky took a sip of his lifeless burgundy and winced, as though suffering from a toothache.

Had his father, the old Count, survived the final onslaught of tuberculosis he would very probably have risen from his bed with only one intention – to plant a bullet in his errant son's brain. Zaborszky contemplated this imaginary scenario with some regularity, and more often than not regretted that it had not come to pass.

When the music stopped, he beckoned to the cimbalom player who immediately rested his mallets on the strings and came over to Zaborszky's table.

'Yes, my dear Count?'

The musician could not suppress his reaction to Zaborszky's appearance. He had acquired a sumptuous black eye. Swollen flesh had almost closed the socket, making the whites and the iris barely visible.

Zaborszky noticed the musician flinching.

'An accident,' he said flatly.

'You must take better care of yourself, Count.'

'Indeed,' Zaborszky folded a serviette before continuing. 'Tamas, please . . . no more of the old tunes.'

'Ahh, I understand,' the musician smiled sympathetically. 'The melancholy, is it?'

Zaborszky nodded, his single visible eye becoming moist.

The musician bowed and marched back to his companions. When they started to play again, the air filled with a spare but spirited arrangement of Strauss's Kaiser Waltz. Zaborszky picked up his copy of the Wiener Zeitung and read the news – most of which did not interest him. Occasionally the text was interrupted by otherwise blank spaces bearing the single word 'Confiscated'. Copies of every paper were submitted each morning for approval by the censor – who was inclined to judge numerous articles unfit for public consumption. Zaborszky was about to put the Zeitung down again, when his attention was drawn by a headline: Leopoldstadt Murder Baffles Police.

So: they had finally decided to publish the details. Zaborszky wondered whether the delay was anything to do with the censor.