“Documents. Name, surname. Purpose of visit.”
Anwaldt handed the man his passport and replied:
“Criminal Assistant Herbert Anwaldt from the Police Praesidium in Breslau …”
“Do you have relatives in Poznan?”
“No.”
“Purpose of visit?”
“I’m pursuing two murder suspects. I know they intended to visit Hanne Schlossarczyk. Now I would like to know who is questioning me.”
“Police Officer Ferdynand Banaszak from the Poznan police. Your official identification, please.”
“Here,” Anwaldt tried to give his voice a hard edge. “And besides, what kind of interrogation is this? Am I accused of something? I would like to see Hanne Schlossarczyk on a private matter.”
Banaszak laughed out loud.
“Say what you wanted to see her about or we’ll invite you to a building which has made our town famous throughout Poland.” And in so saying, he did not stop smiling.
Anwaldt realized that if a policeman from west Poland’s main city had appeared in this small town, then the affair in which Schlossarczyk was mixed up must be serious. Without unnecessary introduction, he told Banaszak everything, keeping secret only the reason why Erkin and Maass were searching for Schlossarczyk’s illegitimate son. The police officer looked at Anwaldt and sighed with relief.
“You asked whether you could speak to Hanna Slusarczyk.† My answer is: no, you can’t speak to Hanna Slusarczyk. She was chopped up with an axe this morning by a man whom the caretaker described as being a German-speaking Georgian.”
POZNAN, TUESDAY, JULY 17TH, 1934
THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
Anwaldt stretched his numb limbs. He breathed with relief in the cool interrogation room at the Poznan Police Praesidium on ulica 3 Maja. Banaszak had almost finished a German translation of the report of Hanna Slusarczyk’s case and was getting ready to leave. After returning to Poznan from Rawicz, it had taken them half the night to prepare official reports by which the investigation into the woman’s murder was to be shared between the Police Praesidium in Breslau, represented by Criminal Assistant Herbert Anwaldt, and the State Police Praesidium in Poznan in whose name acted Ferdynand Banaszak. The reasoning was long and intricate, and based on Anwaldt’s statements.
This record, together with Banaszak’s German translation — signed by both men — was to wait until morning to be signed by the President of the Poznan Police. Banaszak reassured Anwaldt that this was a mere formality and offered him a small, beefy hand. He was clearly pleased with the turn of events.
“I’m not even going to pretend that I would be only too glad to throw this whole stinking case on to your shoulders, Anwaldt. But I don’t have to. It’s your case anyway, a German-Turkish case. And, you’re the one who is mainly going to lead the investigation. Goodbye. Do you really intend to sit up all night over this? I’ve still got half a page left to translate. I’ll translate it for you tomorrow. I’m very sleepy now. You’ve all the time in the world to relish the case!”
His laughter boomed in the corridor for a long time. Anwaldt drank his strong coffee, which was now cold, and started to read the case files. He grimaced as he did so, feeling the sour taste in his mouth. Too much coffee and too many cigarettes were taking their toll. Police Officer Banaszak spoke fluent German, but his writing of it was atrocious. He had mastered only professional police terminology and phrasing — he had served in the Prussian Criminal Police in Poznan from 1905 to the outbreak of the war, as he had told Anwaldt — the rest of his vocabulary was very poor, and this together with the numerous grammatical errors, created a comical combination. Anwaldt read the short, clumsy sentences with genuine amusement. He closed his eyes to the stylistics. The most important thing was that the files were comprehensible to him. It appeared that Walenty Mikolajczak, the caretaker of the building where the deceased had lived, had, at about nine o’clock in the morning, July 16th, 1934, been asked in German by a “well-dressed, Georgian-looking” stranger — which, according to the caretaker, meant black hair and an olive complexion — for Hanna Slusarczyk’s apartment. The caretaker imparted the information and returned to his work. (He was repairing the cages where tenants kept their rabbits.) But the visit of such an unusual guest caused him unease. Slusarczyk was a loner. Every now and again, he went up to her door and eavesdropped. But he neither heard nor saw anything suspicious. At about ten o’clock, he got thirsty and went into the nearby Ratuszowy bar for a beer. He returned at about eleven-thirty and knocked on Slusarczyk’s door. Surprised by the sight of her open window — the old spinster, the crank, never opened her windows, fanatically afraid as she was of draughts and murderers; the latter because of the fame she enjoyed as “a rich woman”. According to Mikolajczak, “everybody knew that Miss Slusarczyk had more den de mayor hisself”. Since no-one answered, the caretaker opened the door with a spare key. He found her quartered remains in the wooden washtub. He closed the door and informed the police. Three hours later, Police Officer Ferdynand Banaszak arrived in Rawicz with five detectives. They pronounced that death had been caused by loss of blood. Nothing was discovered that could point to burglary as being the motive. Nothing, apart from a photographic album, had disappeared from the apartment, which was confirmed by Mrs Amelia Sikorowa, a friend of the deceased. He testified, furthermore, that the deceased had no relatives or, apart from Sikorowa, any friends. She had corresponded with no-one except a merchant in Poznan, but she kept his name a secret. (The neighbour suspected that he was Slusarczyk’s former loved one.)
Anwaldt felt immensely tired. In order to banish the tiredness, he shook the last cigarette from his packet. He inhaled and looked anew at Banaszak’s neat annotations. He did not understand anything because this was the page half-covered in Polish writing which Banaszak had not yet translated into German. Anwaldt examined the Polish text with fascination. He had always wondered about the mysterious diacritical marks: the flourishes beneath the “a” and “e”, the little wave over the “l”, the oblique accents over the “s”, “z” and “o”. Among these letters, he found his name written twice. This did not surprise him in the least, for in the arguments as to why the German police were to take over the investigation, Banaszak had often referred to its assignation. But the error in his name did surprise him. The name was written without a “t”. He leaned over the page so as to add a “t”, but withdrew his hand. A drop of ink flowed from the nib and splattered on the green felt which covered the table. Anwaldt could not pull his eyes away from his surname swimming among Polish squiggles, oblique lines and gentle waves. Only the surname was his. Not the first name: that sounded unfamiliar, foreign, proud: the Polish name “Mieczyslaw”.
He got up, opened the door and entered the main part of the station where, behind a wooden barrier, nodded a sleepy duty constable. His assistant, an old policeman just short of retirement, was arguing with some queen of the night in a flowery dress. Anwaldt walked up to him and discovered that the old man spoke German. Mentioning Police Officer Banaszak, he asked him if he would translate the Polish text. They went back to the interrogation room. The old policeman started stammering:
“According to Walenty Mikolajczak’s testimony … he carried Slusarczyk’s letters to the post office … He read and contemplated the name of the addressant … no … how do you say it?”
“Addressee. What does ‘contemplated’ mean?”
“Yes … addressee. ‘Contemplated’ means that he has it in his brain, he knows.”
“Addressee: Mieczyslaw Anwald, Poznan ul. Mickiewicza 2. Walenty Mikolajczak was surprised that she was sending letters addressed to a shop. The name of the establishment announces …”
“Reads, surely.”
“Yes. Reads. The name of the establishment reads ‘Mercer’s Goods. Mieczyslaw Anwald and Company’. Then is goes … well … I know … something about a photographic album … But what’s it to you? He’s asleep … sleeping …”