Deadly Communion

‘Herr Frece, I understand that you are acquainted with a young lady called Bathild Babel. Is that correct?’

Frece pursed his lips.

‘Fraulein Babel … Fraulein Babel …’ He muttered. ‘No. I’m afraid that name isn’t familiar to me.’

Rheinhardt sighed.

‘You are mentioned in her address book.’

‘Bathild?’ said Frece, cupping his ear and feigning deafness. ‘Did you say Bathild Babel?’ He stressed the syllables of ‘Bathild’ in a peculiar way.

‘Yes,’ said Rheinhardt. ‘Bathild Babel.’

The accountant shifted in his chair.

‘Yes, yes … I do know someone of that name. I’m sorry, my hearing isn’t very good.’

‘And what is the nature of your relationship?’

‘She is a client.’

‘I see. Could I see her documents, please?’

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible …’

‘Why not?’

‘Because …’ Frece searched the ceiling for a convincing answer, but the cornicing failed to supply one.

‘Herr Frece,’ said Rheinhardt firmly. ‘If you continue to be uncooperative, I am afraid we will have to continue this interview at the Schottenring station.’

‘Please — no,’ said the accountant. ‘I’m sorry. That won’t be necessary.’ He opened a cigarette box with trembling fingers and struck a match. After lighting the cigarette, he drew on its gold filter. His exhalation dissipated the cloud of smoke that hung in front of his mouth. ‘I’m sorry, inspector … a man in my position. It was a mistake … I never should have …’ His voice trailed off.

‘Where did you meet her?’

‘With respect, inspector, why should my peccadilloes be of interest to the police? I don’t understand.’

Rheinhardt glared at the accountant.

‘Where did you meet her?’ he repeated.

‘In Frau Schuschnig’s hat shop, behind the Town Hall. I was buying a hat for my wife. Bathild was very forward.’ Rheinhardt listened as Frece spoke of his illicit meetings with Bathild Babel, in private dining rooms and cheap hotels. At its conclusion, Frece pleaded: ‘Inspector, if my wife were to find out she would be mortified. She hasn’t any idea. My marriage would be over.’ The accountant reached out and turned the family photograph towards Rheinhardt. ‘I have two children. Richarda and Friedo. I beg you to be discreet — if not for my sake, then for theirs.’

Rheinhardt chewed the end of his pencil.

‘Did she ever speak of her other …’ Rheinhardt thought clients was too strong a word and chose a less offensive substitute ‘… admirers?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Her other gentleman friends,’ said Rheinhardt.

The accountant looked indignant.

‘I was her only …’ Frece was unable to finish his sentence, given Rheinhardt’s world-weary expression. He might as well have said out loud: You can’t possibly be that naive! Frece’s shoulders fell. ‘No,’ the accountant continued. ‘She didn’t mention anyone else.’

Rheinhardt made a few notes and when he looked up again Frece was staring into space.

‘What is it?’ Rheinhardt asked.

‘I remember, I went to the hat shop a few weeks ago, and Bathild was talking to a man. They seemed very familiar. After he had left, I asked her who he was. She was evasive and tried to make a joke of her flirtation. She said she flirted with all the men who came into the shop — it was good for business, according to Frau Schuschnig.’ Frece scratched his nose. ‘He was educated and wearing an expensive frock coat.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Quite tall — dark hair.’

‘How old?’

‘Twenty-nine, thirty — perhaps.’

‘What colour were his eyes?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Think, Herr Frece. What colour were his eyes?’

‘Blue … or grey … I can’t be sure. A light colour anyway. He was buying a hat pin. And he smelt rather strange. A sort of hospital smell.’

‘Could he have been a doctor?’

‘Possibly.’ Frece observed the tightening of Rheinhardt’s facial muscles, the sudden intensifying of his expression. ‘Inspector, why are you asking me all of these questions?’

‘She’s dead,’ said Rheinhardt bluntly. ‘Murdered — on Saturday.’

The accountant said something inaudible, and the colour drained from his ruddy cheeks. His hands shook so much that when he tried to light a second cigarette Rheinhardt was obliged to give him some assistance.

24

PROFESSOR FREUD TAPPED THE ash from his cigar and consulted the pages of a manuscript. The writing was his own: regular and leaning forward, showing, perhaps, a certain impatience to proceed, ideas arriving more swiftly than his hand could comfortably transcribe. He opened his mouth, releasing a cloud of smoke that tarried in the air before losing definition in the already opaque atmosphere.

They had been discussing the professor’s unpublished and unfinished work on sexuality, and Liebermann had — by means of subtle questioning — moved the conversation from more general considerations to the specific problem of deviance.

‘The sexual instinct is, I believe, infinitely pliable with respect to its aims,’ said Freud. ‘Indeed, I am of the belief that all human beings are born with what might be described as a polymorphously perverse disposition: that is to say, a disposition that can be diverted into all possible kinds of sexual irregularity.’ He was in full spate, glancing down at the text to remind himself of his conclusions. ‘If one defines healthy sexual behaviour as that which is necessary for human reproduction, namely, heterosexual congress, it follows that all other forms of arousal-seeking behaviour are surplus, and therefore, in a literal sense, perverse. Their introduction into marital relations does little to further the primary reproductive purpose of the union between man and woman. Yet …’ Freud sucked on his cigar. ‘The human sexual instinct is so plastic that we find evidence of its Protean character everywhere — even in the most ordinary couplings. Take, for example, fetishism. The point of contact with the normal is provided by the psychologically essential overvaluation of the sexual object, which invariably extends to everything that is associated with it. A certain degree of fetishism is thus usually present in normal love, especially in those stages of it in which the normal sexual aim seems unattainable or its fulfilment prevented. May I remind you of Goethe’s Faust, Part One, Scene Seven.’ He looked at Liebermann expectantly.

The young doctor shook his head, indicating that he could not recall so precise a reference.

‘Get me a kerchief from her breast,’ Freud intoned. ‘A garter that her knee has pressed.’

The professor nodded, impressed by his own apposite example.

‘When, then,’ asked Liebermann, ‘does the situation become pathological?’

‘When the longing for the fetish passes beyond the point of being merely a necessary condition attached to the sexual object and actually takes the place of the normal aim, and, further, when the fetish becomes detached from a particular individual and becomes the sole sexual