‘Did you notify the police when she left? Perhaps someone stole her away.’
He sat again, the shock beginning to wear off. He brusquely dismissed Werthen’s suggestion. ‘Waltraude? Unlikely. She was not the type to be stolen away.’
Then he looked at Werthen with suspicion.
‘What business, Advokat, is any of this to you?’
‘I have been retained to look into the death of the young lady.’
‘By whom? And are not the police already investigating? Murdered, you say?’
It was entirely possible that Father Hieronymus was being honest in his avowal that he did not know of his niece’s death. After all, the newspaper accounts identified the unfortunate young woman merely as ‘Fräulein Mitzi,’ not Waltraude Moos.
Werthen considered this quickly, then took the priest’s questions in reverse order. ‘Yes, murdered. Strangled and left naked in the Prater. And no, the police do not concern themselves over much with the death of a prostitute. Lastly, I have been retained by a good friend of the deceased who wants to see justice done.’
‘Are you mad? Waltraude a prostitute? Impossible!’
‘After she left here — left you — she was discovered on the streets by a recruiter for a well-known bordello. Until her death, she made her living playing the role of an innocent schoolgirl.’
Definitely past the time for going easy now, Werthen thought.
‘Which role she appears to have learned from an excellent teacher.’ From what Schnitzler had related to him of Mitzi’s story, such abuse had begun almost from the beginning of her stay in Vienna with her uncle.
Father Hieronymus cast Werthen a look of such animosity that the lawyer was happy the man was just a priest and not a shaman.
‘What are you insinuating?’
An innocent man would tell me to get the hell out, Werthen thought.
‘I know why your niece ran away from here,’ he said. ‘There are witnesses.’
‘Get out of my rectory this instant.’
Too late for that now, Werthen thought.
‘And the police might also be interested in knowing the background of the young woman so brutally murdered. As well as the whereabouts of those close to her on the night she was killed.’
The priest looked as if the air had suddenly been sucked out of him. He visibly slumped in his chair, his eyes darting this way and that as if looking for an escape.
Werthen kept applying the pressure. ‘The archdiocese might also be interested in such information.’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘The truth.’
‘I didn’t kill Waltraude. I couldn’t have harmed her. She was my niece and I cared deeply for her.’
‘Not enough to keep her safe, it seems. Sounds more like lust than love.’
‘I’ve given you the truth, now please leave. I have no idea who killed my niece, but if you find him I should like to know. Such a creature would be in need of the succour of confession. What more can you want from me?’
What in fact did he want from the man? A confession? By the looks of him, Uncle Hieronymus was not a killer. He had preyed on the helpless, had taken advantage of family trust; but he appeared too weak to kill. He did not have the blood for it. However, there was that moment of terror that made him leap from his seat; the evil glare he sent Werthen’s way.
Even if guilty, though, it was doubtful the priest was going to confess.
Did Werthen want contrition? Perhaps. But he knew instinctively that this was not the sort of man to admit sins. Revenge for Mitzi? Again, perhaps.
Werthen had spent only a few days dwelling on the life of Fräulein Mitzi, but already he felt empathy and compassion for her, farmed out from her home as one mouth too many to feed and sent off to her uncle in Vienna, a man of god who should have made a safe haven for her. Instead, he took advantage of the young woman in the vilest way — threatening, according to Schnitzler, to send her to an orphanage if she did not satisfy him sexually. And then there was Schnitzler, whom she looked up to and adored. Her first love, in all likelihood. But he too betrayed her, sent her away in her hour of need to make a living on the streets. The only one in this sorry mess to really love the girl, it seemed, had been the madam who sold the girl’s flesh to the highest bidder.
Yes, revenge, vengeance, justice, call it what you may. Mitzi, Werthen thought, deserved it.
In his mind he saw again the two contrasting sides of the wardrobe in her room: the virginal schoolgirl clothes of Waltraude and the vampish nightwear of Mitzi.
Why had she died? For the sins of Waltraude or of Mitzi?
‘Now I beg you to leave,’ Hieronymus said. ‘There is a group of parishioners due here any moment to discuss the Pfingsten decor-ations for the church.’
Whit Sunday, Pentecost, would take place in just a few days’ time. Though not a religious man, Werthen was angered to think of this sham priest officiating at such a service.
Leave the anger and outrage for later, he finally told himself. For now, focus on procedure.
‘Did she have any friends when she lived here?’
‘Of course not. She was my housekeeper. There was no time for such things.’
‘Would it surprise you to learn that she had a lover during that time?’
‘Why do you wish to torment me? I have answered your questions. .’
‘I would like to see her room.’
‘There is nothing to see. I have a new housekeeper and she now has the room. The few pieces of clothing Waltraude left behind when she ran away I threw into the bin.’
‘And you did not introduce her to any of your colleagues?’
‘She was my housekeeper!’
‘And your niece. And your lover.’
This time when Hieronymus leaped out of his chair, he had a mission. He strode to the door and held it open.
‘I am finished with this interview, Advokat. And if you dare threaten me again with allegations of impropriety, I shall have the full power of the church come down upon you. The diocesan bishop is a personal acquaintance of mine. Now good day to you.’
Werthen figured he was lucky with the information he had got and did not wish to push his luck.
‘I am sure we will see one another again,’ he said as he was leaving. ‘You might also try to establish your whereabouts on the night of April 30.’
Hieronymus slammed the door behind him. Werthen did not wait to be shown out, but made his way to the front door and outside, where Bachmann was waiting, nibbling on a wurst Semmel. The sun had come out.
‘Where to now, Advokat?’
‘The office, Herr Bachmann, if you please. And take it slowly. I need some fresh air.’
ELEVEN
‘Just what is it you want, Gross?’
‘I thought you would never ask.’ Gross eyed Minister Brockhurst, and told him plainly his request.
Brockhurst pursed his lips and raised his brows in silent denial, feigning surprise in the same way he had as a boy when they were growing up together in Graz.
Even back then, Brockhurst had been a bully, the leader of a band of lower-middle-class children who followed him with abject obedience. The son of a local magistrate, he had attempted to recruit Gross into his ranks, but Gross would have none of it. Already at the age of eight Gross was an avowed leader, not a follower. And he distrusted Brockhurst, who seemed to speak out of both sides of his mouth; sweetness and light one moment, a brow-beating tyrant the next.
Brockhurst would dispatch his crew of true believers to follow cooks on their shopping rounds, in order to find the secrets of the kitchens of the wealthy or discover which maids were taking kickbacks from shops, unbeknownst to their employers. In this manner, Brockhurst became a veritable font of both valuable and downright silly information on the doings of the top twenty families of Graz. These families laughingly referred to themselves as the ‘kilo’: as compared to England’s élite society, referred to as the ‘ton’.