“Trying?”
“Your rendition of the opening phrase took certain liberties with the concept of key.”
Mathias shrugged. Then he raised his arm and stretched out his fingers in a manner reminiscent of a stage hypnotist. The tips of his fingers almost made contact with the interior of the dead man’s neck. Looking down his arm as if he were aiming a pistol, he closed one eye and began to rotate his wrist-first clockwise, then counterclockwise. As he did this, he muttered anatomical terms to himself: “Thyroid cartilage, cricothyroid muscle, fifth vertebra…”
Rheinhardt gazed across the morgue to the bank of square metal doors behind which, he knew, the dead had been stacked. He imagined their supine bodies, their bloodless lips and ice-block feet, the enfolding darkness, and the reek of decay. He imagined their brains dissolving, the last physical traces of recollection losing their integrity, and each skull filling with an insensate chemical sludge: memories of love and friendship, clear skies and the sound of rain, music, tears, and laughter-all reduced to nothing. The fate of all of us, he thought. Even his daughters, within whom the life force seemed so strong, and whose ebullience and flashing smiles seemed powered by an inexhaustible source of energy, they too would one day surrender their memories to an inexorable process of disintegration. At that moment the terrible sadness of the human condition was converted into a heavy weight that fell squarely on Rheinhardt’s shoulders. He became dimly aware of a querulous voice. Its reedy wheedling coaxed him out of his grim meditation like a snake charmer’s pipe.
“Wake up, Rheinhardt!”
“I’m sorry. I was thinking…”
The professor gave him an equivocal look, seasoned with just enough skepticism to suggest an unspoken (but intentional) slur.
“I said the method employed is identical.”
“What?”
“The monk you brought in two weeks ago. Exactly the same-the displacements suggest that the head was twisted off the body. Clockwise cranial rotation.”
Mathias rotated his hand to demonstrate the direction.
“How many men would it take to do this?”
“Difficult to say…”
“Could you hazard a guess?”
“I would prefer not to.”
Rheinhardt sighed again, a great expulsion of air that declared his patience was at an end.
“Oh, very well,” said the pathologist, grumbling and wiping his hands on his apron, even though they were perfectly clean. “Come closer, will you? That’s it. Bend down so you can take a good look. Good. Now… see here.” Mathias urged Rheinhardt to peer into the dead man’s neck. Under the bright electric light every detail was revealed with sickening clarity. Rheinhardt realized that-until that moment-he had never fully acknowledged what his eyes were seeing. An instinctive revulsion had made him gloss over the arabesques and flourishes of human flesh. He had only registered an impression of gory redness and felt with it a sympathetic horror, a vague tingling of imaginary pain. Now that he was faced with the stark reality, he realized that the interior of the human neck did not correspond with the sketchy representation that had hitherto occupied his mind, that of a hollow tube down which food and air could pass. In fact, the neck was complex, and dense with glistening slabs of meat.
“Look at these muscles. See how thick they are… and look at this tissue here.” Mathias pulled at a flap of rubbery white gristle. “See how elastic it is? Have you ever seen a fat man hang? No? Well, the neck often stretches. It doesn’t tear.” Mathias released the elongated sinew, and it snapped back, wetly. “What are you doing, Rheinhardt? Don’t look away. I’m trying to explain! Now… if I were to pick up that saw and cut through the neck to create a clean transverse section, what would it look like? I’ll tell you: the flat end of a substantial ham. Now, let us return to your question, which might be expressed in another form: How many men would it take to tear a large joint of meat apart?”
“It would take quite a few, wouldn’t it?”
Mathias gave his tacit assent by raising an eyebrow.
“And it would take time,” Rheinhardt added.
“Of course.”
“Yet the Piarist monk and this man were both killed in conspicuous locations, on open concourses next to street lamps! They must have been able to achieve these decapitations very quickly. Otherwise they would have risked being caught.”
“Then you are looking for two exceptionally strong men… or a gang of some kind. Although…” Mathias’s fingers circumnavigated the ragged perimeter of the giant wound, occasionally lifting the repugnant skirt of skin. “I can’t help thinking about that poor chap I told you about, the one who got killed by a bear when I was doing national service. If this man’s clothes were torn, and there were scratches…”
“You’d say he’d been mauled by a wild animal.”
“Precisely.”
Rheinhardt frowned. “But his clothes haven’t been torn.”
“No.”
“And an angry bear running loose in Vienna would surely have come to someone’s attention by now.”
“Indeed,” said Mathias. The two men looked at each other, neither of them very sure what the other was thinking. Mathias broke the silence. “It was only an observation, Rheinhardt! I wasn’t suggesting that you should go to the zoo to look for suspects!”
The pathologist rolled the head over and riffled through the hair, as if looking for nits. He discovered a laceration on the crown.
“Again-just like the other one, just like the monk. He was struck on the back of the head.”
“What with?”
“Something blunt. That’s all I can say.” Professor Mathias righted the head and stroked the wrinkled brow. He opened both of the eyes, and then closed them again. “‘There is a gentle sleep,’” he whispered, “‘Where sweet peace dwells, Where quiet rest heals the weary soul’s sorrow.’”
“You have me there,” said Rheinhardt.
“‘Secret Grief,’ by Ernst Koch.”
25
The private dining room in which Councillor Schmidt sat-one among many-was where he usually met with his mistress; however, he also used it for other “business” purposes. Schmidt could depend on the landlord, Herr Linser, to be discreet. When it had been proposed by the transport committee that the block of dilapidated eighteenth-century houses, in which the dining room was located, should be demolished to make way for a new streetcar line, Schmidt had argued that the route extension was not really necessary. In due course an alternative had been approved. And when two health and safety officers had paid the establishment an impromptu visit, and had subsequently forwarded a damning report to the relevant bureau in the town hall, Schmidt had made sure that the report was unavailable when the municipal hygiene group met to discuss what action should be taken.
Shortly after, Schmidt had suggested to Herr Linser that, if he so wished, he might choose to express his gratitude in the form of a monthly 10 percent levy, paid in cash and delivered by hand to an associate of Schmidt’s named Knabl. When Herr Linser first balked at this suggestion, Schmidt reminded him that reports that had been mislaid could also be found again. Herr Linser apologized for his bad manners, begged to be excused, and promised the councillor that he would never take his patronage for granted again.
Sitting opposite Schmidt were two of his most trusted “business associates,” Haas and Oeggl. Both of them were wearing badly fitting suits in which they looked distinctly uncomfortable-Haas in particular, who kept on running his finger around the inside of his shirt collar as if it were too small and were stopping him from breathing.
“More wine, gentlemen?” asked Schmidt.
Haas and Oeggl both nodded, and Schmidt replenished their glasses. Then he emptied onto the table the contents of an envelope that they had given him earlier. It contained a wad of dirty banknotes and an assortment of silver and bronze coins.
“Is that all?” said Schmidt.
“They said they didn’t have any more,” said Haas, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
“Well, they’re lying-obviously.”
“We done everything we could,” said Oeggl. His speech was slurred, although not because of the wine. He always spoke like that.
“Come now,” said Schmidt, lighting a cigar. “I’m sure two experienced gentlemen like yourselves could be a great deal more persuasive if you put your minds to it.”
“Well, we could,” said Haas. “But…”
“But what?”
“It’s risky. Sometimes it’s difficult to judge. You know? How far you can go?”
Haas rubbed the scar on his cheek. It looked a little inflamed.
“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” said Schmidt benevolently. “Do whatever you think is necessary. If something untoward occurs-well, I won’t blame you. Accidents happen.”
“With respect, your honor,” said Oeggl, “if accidents happen, then the police get involved.”
Schmidt shook his head.
“How many times must I repeat myself? That really isn’t a problem. I’m on exceptionally familiar terms with the boys at the Grosse Sperlgasse station. They won’t ask any questions, I can assure you. So… next time, do whatever it takes. Indeed, I would go as far as to say that perhaps the time has come to make an example of someone.” Schmidt picked up the coins and let them drop onto the table. “I mean to say, this will hardly keep us in the style to which we have become accustomed, eh, gentlemen? Do whatever is necessary!”