‘What? I don’t understand.’
Izzy took out his pistol. ‘Drop your knife to the floor,’ he ordered, ‘or I’ll put a bullet in your head.’
I stepped around the counter to watch Jesion’s movements. When he tossed away the blade, it made a metallic clang on the tile floor.
‘I’m going to step through the door at the back to make sure no one is there,’ I told the butcher, ‘and then you’re going to follow me in. You understand?’
‘If it’s money you want,’ he replied, ‘just take it.’
I pushed open the door and entered a dark, chilly room, nearly bumping into a goat’s carcass hanging bug-eyed from an iron hook in the ceiling. I recoiled in horror. The smell of blood packed my nostrils.
I tugged on a cord attached to a bare bulb behind me. At the back, on a square marble table, were two other goats, not yet skinned. A vision of Adam lying beside them and stripped of his clothes made me avert my eyes.
‘All right, send him in,’ I called through the door.
Jesion stepped inside, followed by Izzy, who kept his gun pointed at the butcher’s chest.
‘Are you… are you one of the kids’ grandfathers?’ Jesion asked fearfully.
‘So you’ve guessed,’ I told him.
He cleaned his fingers on his apron. ‘Well, you hardly look like robbers.’
‘He was my grandnephew,’ I explained.
‘Which one?’
‘The boy with the birthmarks on his ankle.’
Jesion raised a hand to his face and took off his glasses, wiping his eyes. He showed me a desolate look. ‘What was his name?’
‘Adam,’ I told him.
‘Adam,’ he repeated to himself, listening keenly to the sound it made. ‘Did you get his body back?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’ve given him a proper burial?’
‘I’m not sure. We’ve been waiting for the ground to thaw. Listen, Jesion,’ I said, ‘you seem awfully calm for a man with a gun pointed at his heart.’
‘In a way, I’ve been hoping you’d come. I can’t stand any more of this. I think all the time about what I might have to cut from another kid. It’s too much.’
‘How do you kill them? There are no marks on…’
‘Me, kill them? It’s not like that!’ He shook his head. ‘When the kids are brought to me, they’re already dead –
His Yiddish was mis-pronounced. I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. ‘What did you say?’ I asked.
Jesion cursed the murderer again.
‘How in God’s name do you know Yiddish?’ Izzy questioned.
‘My mother is Jewish, though she changed her name when she was a young woman to hide her background.’ He started undoing the cord of his apron. ‘I only ever spoke Yiddish when I stayed with my grandparents. I’m rusty.’
‘Is it Lanik you want to burn in hell?’ I asked.
His face brightened. ‘You did it! You must have figured out the clues I left!’
‘So you were the one who put the string in Adam’s mouth and the gauze in Georg’s fist?’
‘Yes. I had to think of something to stop more children from being murdered. When did you understand what my clues meant?’
‘Only today. You were incredibly clever.’
‘I couldn’t risk anything obvious,’ Jesion replied, taking off his apron and folding it neatly, ‘but I’d heard that the Jews inside the ghetto were working in anagrams these days, so I thought that someone in the Jewish police might just turn
‘But you left nothing on Anna,’ Izzy interjected.
‘She was the first. I was too shocked and upset to think of how I might leave a clue behind. Only when Adam was left with me did it occur to me how I could do it without risking too much.’
‘If Lanik had discovered the string or gauze, what would you have said?’
‘That it was carelessness on my part. He wouldn’t have guessed. The Germans aren’t talking in code like the Jews.’
‘That was a good and brave attempt to help me,’ I told him. ‘Thank you.’
‘After what I’ve done, you’re thanking me?’
‘Under the circumstances, you did the best you could.’
Jesion grimaced, then raised a quivering hand to his head, dizzy. We sat him down at his table, and he leaned over and cried as if life were spilling out of him.
At length, I asked him, ‘How many children have been murdered so far?’
‘Four – three boys and a girl.’
‘Then there’s one I don’t know about,’ I told him.
‘Probably the first of the boys – he came in just after Anna. He wasn’t from the ghetto. Lanik told me he and his family had been in hiding.’
‘How did Lanik find him?’
‘Christians denounce Jews in hiding all the time. It’s become the national sport.’
‘The body of this boy… Where was it left?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. I don’t ask.’ Jesion sneered. ‘The son-of-a-bitch has his chauffeur bring the dead children here at night, and he tells me what I’m to do. When I’m done, he takes the body away. That’s all I know.’
‘And how does Lanik kill them?’
‘My guess is that he offers them poisoned food. He once told me they come to him famished.’
‘Have you ever heard of Mikael Tengmann?’ I asked.
‘No, who’s he?’
‘A doctor in the ghetto – an old friend of Lanik’s. He’s the one who identifies children who have birthmarks or blemishes.’
‘I see. So how did you find me?’
‘A courageous girl helped me figure out who the murderer was.’
‘Was it Lanik’s stepdaughter Irene?’ he questioned.
‘You know her?’ I asked in astonishment.
‘She and her mother often come into town to buy their meat from me.’
‘So did you tell Irene that her stepfather was ordering you to cut up the children?’
‘No, it wasn’t me. I couldn’t risk that. I was careful not to let on.’
‘Then one of them must have overheard Lanik discussing the murders or seen the skin you’ve taken from the children. Or Irene figured things out from other clues we’ll never know about.’
‘Does Lanik photograph the skin?’ Izzy questioned.
‘I’m not sure. All I really know is that it has something to do with a transfer he wants to a more important job. When the first boy was brought to me, he told me that he needed the skin around his birthmark for a present he would be carrying with him to a camp – to Buchenwald. As best I can figure out, he’s eager to work there so that he can perform experiments on the prisoners – medical experiments involving how to cure burns. That’s his speciality, as I understand it. I think he left a couple of days ago for there. I’m betting he took the children’s skins with him, though he talked of bringing them to a craftsman in leather before going and I’m not sure he’s had time to do that yet.’
‘Who’s the gift for?’
‘Someone at Buchenwald, but I don’t know who. Whether he hopes to prove some racial theory with the Jewish skin or simply ingratiate himself to some madman there, I haven’t any idea.’
‘Why did he pick you to desecrate the children for him?’ I asked.
‘Lanik found out that my mother was Jewish. He threatened to have her and the rest of our family sent to the
