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“Caretaker Frenzel …” Smolorz said, giving off the scent of soap. “He’s not there.”

“Tell me what happened, Zupitza,” Mock hissed through clenched teeth.

“I was at the caretaker’s” — Zupitza set his hands to work while Wirth translated into his characteristic German with its Austrian lilt — “and was keeping my eye on him all the time. He was uneasy. He kept looking around as if he wanted to go somewhere. All the more reason for me to keep an eye on him. I took him to the toilet. Stood outside the door. For a long time. In the end I knocked. Several times and — nothing. I forced the door. The window was open. The caretaker had escaped through the window. Mr Smolorz can take it from there.”

“Didn’t you hear what Wirth said?” Mock growled at Smolorz. “Out with it!”

“This is what Zupitza wrote.” Smolorz handed Mock a piece of paper with large scribblings. “Then we questioned the neighours. Nobody knows where Frenzel is. One said that he was a gambler. We’ve combed the local gambling dens. Nothing.”

Yet another corpse. The following day, or in a few days time, the murderer would send Mock a letter. They would go to a given address and find Frenzel with his eyes torn out. The organ grinder’s little girl would sing yet another verse. And you, Mock, you are to go home and talk to your father, and repair all the damage you’ve done. Admit you’re defeated, Mock. You’ve lost. Hand over the investigation to others. To those who haven’t made any mistakes that will be punished by people having their eyes gouged out or their lungs pierced.

Mock walked slowly to the table and grasped its edge. The surface shuddered and bounced, and then a moment later it was up in the air. Wirth and Zupitza fled to the wall, dishes crashed to the floor, glass shattered, plates gave an ear-piercing wail and cups screeched. The noise was terrible, and became intolerable when eighty-five kilograms of Mock jumped on to the upturned table. Fragments of crockery gave out their last strains, a shattered complaint, a grating requiem.

Panting, Mock stepped off the table and immersed his head in the iron sink. Cold water rushed around his neck and burning ears.

“Towel!” he yelled from the sink’s cool interior.

Somebody put a sheet round his shoulders. Mock stood upright and covered his head with it. Streams of water flowed down inside his collar. He felt as if he were in a tent; he would have liked to be in a tent at that moment, far from everything. After a while he uncovered his head and took stock of the anxious faces.

“We’re ending this investigation, gentlemen,” he spoke very slowly. “Criminal Commissioner Heinrich Muhlhaus will take over. I’ll just take down Erika Kiesewalter’s statement and you, Smolorz, are going to hand it to the Commissioner. He’ll know that they’ve got to find a man with a daughter in a wheelchair. Well, what are you staring at? Read the statement, then you’ll know what it’s all about.”

“And what about the people in the storeroom? Are we going to let them go?” Wirth asked nervously.

“You take them to a detention cell. Tomorrow night Guard Buhrack will be waiting for you. He’ll look after them. Any other questions?”

“Criminal Assistant, sir,” Smolorz mumbled. “What about her? The storeroom, or straight to Buhrack?”

There was silence. Mock looked at Erika as she stood in the doorway. Her nurse’s hat was now askew. Her lips were trembling and her vocal organs were positioning themselves to ask a question. But the bellows of her lungs could not expel the air. She stood breathless.

“What happens” — Smolorz had become exceptionally talkative — “if Muhlhaus wants to question her himself?”

Mock was staring at Erika. She shivered as the clock in the hall struck three times. The shivering did not subside, even though she was wrapped in an eiderdown. He looked at the nurse’s starched housecoat, at Smolorz, who was unhealthily excited, and then came to a decision.

“If Criminal Commissioner Muhlhaus wants to question the witness, Miss Erika Kiesewalter, he’s going to have to put himself to the trouble of going to the seaside.”

RUGENWALDERMUNDE, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH, 1919

NOON

Erika clenched her teeth. A moment later she sank slowly down onto Mock and snuggled her face between his neck and collarbone. She was breathing heavily. Mock swept the damp hair from her temple. Gradually her numbness passed and she slid from the man onto the tangle of sheets.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t cry out,” he said, barely able to control the shaking in his voice.

“Why?” she asked in a whisper.

“The receptionist didn’t believe we were married. He didn’t see any wedding rings. If you had yelled out that would have just confirmed his suspicions.”

“Why?” she repeated drowsily, and closed her eyes.

“Have you ever seen a married couple not leave their bed for fifteen hours?”

There was no reply. He got out of bed, pulled on his long johns and trousers, then stretched his braces and let them go. They slapped loudly against his naked torso. He whistled the well-known song “Frau Luna”, opened the window that gave onto the sea and breathed smells which transported him to the Konigsberg of his past, when nobody demanded he admit to some nameless offences or blackmailed him with eyeless corpses. The waves beat hard against the sun-baked sand and the two piers built on mounds of vast boulders. As he gazed at these constructions which embraced the port like a pair of arms, Mock tasted microscopic salty drops on his lips. From the nearest smokehouse wafted an aroma which set this fanatical lover of fish quivering nervously. He swallowed and turned towards Erika. She was no longer asleep. The slap of his braces had evidently woken her and she was resting her head on her knees, staring at him. Above her head hung a model of a sailing yacht which swayed in the salty breeze.

“Would you like some smoked fish?” he asked.

“Yes, very much,” she smiled timidly.

“Well, let’s go then,” Mock said as he buttoned up his shirt and tried on the new tie Erika had chosen for him in Koslin the previous day.

“I don’t feel like going anywhere.” She got out of bed and, stretching after her short nap, ran several paces across the room. She put her arms around Mock’s neck and with slender fingers stroked his muscular, broad shoulders. “I’m going to eat here …”

“Shall I bring you some?” Mock could not resist kissing her and gliding his hand over her naked back and buttocks. “What would you like? Eel? Plaice? Salmon, perhaps?”

“Don’t go anywhere.” She moved her lips towards his. “I want eel. But I want yours.”

She clung to him and kissed him on the ear.

“I’m afraid,” Mock whispered into her small, soft lobe tangled in a net of red hair, “that I might not be able … I’m not twenty any more …”

“Stop talking,” she rebuked him in a stern voice. “Everything’s going to be fine …”

She was right. Everything was fine.

RUGENWALDERMUNDE, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 9TH, 1919

TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

They left the Friedrichsbad Spa House Hotel holding hands. Two droschkas and a huge double-decker omnibus with a metal sign announcing its route between Rugenwalde and Rugenwaldermunde were parked in front of the porch of this massive building. Not far from the hotel stood a group of primary-school children and a bald, stout teacher who, as he fanned himself with his hat, was telling his charges that during the Napoleonic wars Prince Hohenzollern himself had taken the waters at this spa; the corpulent preceptor made use of his finger and pointed to a name plaque attached to the wall. Mock also noticed a pretty girl sitting alone on a bench outside the spa house, smoking a cigarette. He had worked long enough in the Vice Department to be able to indentify her profession.