She held out the little book to Luise, who opened it, but Relmyer took it from her. The information was meticulously presented in neat scholarly handwriting. Madame Blanken was obviously happy to be able to prove her good faith. She smiled, confidently waiting for Luise and Relmyer to praise her efforts and apologise for having criticised her so often. But this was not at all what happened. Relmyer started as if struck by an invisible blow, and flared up. ‘What is this nonsense? How can you write that Mark Hasach served in the army? You write that he disappeared in December 1804 and that he was killed on 2 December 1805 at the Battle of Austerlitz, which he took part in as a soldier in the Infan-terieregiment 20 Wenzel Kaunitz. That’s impossible! I knew him: he was also at Lesdorf,’ he explained to Margont. ‘His mouth was in a terrible state, full of broken teeth. Now having bad teeth is one of the few things that prevent you joining the army, because you have to be able to tear open the canisters with your teeth in order to pour the gunpowder into the chamber of your rifle. In any case, he hated soldiers because the war killed his parents.’
Madame Blanken frowned. ‘I didn’t know any of that. What exactly are you getting at?’
Relmyer leafed rapidly through the notebook, turning the pages so fast that some of them tore.
‘And this one!’ he exclaimed. ‘Albert Lietz: disappeared in August 1805 and apparently died at the Battle of Austerlitz, in the Infan-terieregiment 29 Lindenau. I also knew him. I promise you it is impossible that he would ever join the army! Albert was the biggest coward you’ve ever met. When he was fifteen, he was afraid of boys who were twelve and he let them bully him. Do you remember, Luise? He cried at the least little thing. He ran away from anything that came near him. It’s unimaginable that he should become a soldier.’
‘That’s true,’ confirmed Luise.
‘A scaredy-cat in 1804 who transforms himself into a fighter in 1805? And here! Ernst Runkel. He disappeared in October 1805 and turns up dead at Austerlitz in the Infanterieregiment 23 Sals-burg! Ernst, a soldier! All that bigot dreamt of was becoming a
priest! He read the Bible all day long, he was in the choir, he bored us with his parables ...'
‘That’s also true,’ said Luise categorically.
This information is all false!’ concluded Relmyer. ‘So where are all these boys really?’
Madame Blanken stiffened. The muscles in her neck contracted visibly beneath the skin.
‘Lukas, you’ve taken leave of your senses! You’re so traumatised by what you went through that you see kidnappings everywhere! All that does is convince me that I’m right: we have to leave this to the police. They have the necessary skill and they, unlike you, won’t be blinded by emotion.’
‘Right, so you’re just going to abandon us all over again!’ retorted Relmyer.
Margont intervened, fearing that Madame Blanken was on the point of hitting Relmyer, or vice versa — their views of the world and of how the investigation should be carried out were like chalk and cheese. ‘Madame, where did you get your information?’ ‘From a friend, Oberstleutnant Mallis.’
‘May we talk to him?’
‘Why not? Just cross the Danube, ask for Infanterieregiment 59 Jordis and walk towards the enemy fire, you can’t miss him.’
‘Ah, I see ... Well, could we keep the notebook?’
‘I’ll give it to Luise on condition that she gives it back to me in a few weeks. I don’t want to lose it.’
‘And how was Lieutenant Colonel Mallis able to put together the information?’
‘At my request he consulted army records. The young people we take in have no family and no private means. When they run away to seek adventure, without any real plans, they quickly fall into poverty. So the army is often one of the only avenues open to them. Of the thirty boys I was able to trace, no less than ten had chosen the military. Eleven, in fact.’
‘Didn’t you say earlier that you were able to find only twenty-nine?’ queried Margont.
‘He’s the thirtieth,’ she replied, indicating Relmyer.
Relmyer was scarlet with rage. In a way, he was the living proof that there was no need to worry when a teenage boy disappeared; sooner or later, he would resurface. So his very presence gave the lie to his argument and this maddened him.
‘Poor M all is spent an enormous amount of time studying the lists of effective forces looking for all those names,’ explained Madame Blanken. ‘All those papers and ...’
Relmyer stormed off and Luise followed him in silence. She was frightened without knowing exactly what it was she feared.
Margont thanked Madame Blanken before going over to join Relmyer. He was hunched over the notebook, drinking in the pages.
‘Harald Tyler! He disappeared before me, in January 1803. He was found dead at Austerlitz, in the Infanterieregiment 9 Czartoryski! Another one! Austerlitz is being blamed for all these disappearances!’ He skimmed the notebook faster and faster. ‘According to this notebook, five of the missing boys whose names were in army records were killed at Austerlitz. The fifth was one Karl
Fahne, of the Viennese Volunteer Chasseurs. Five deaths at Austerlitz? That’s a lot.’
‘But there were lots of Austrian casualties at Austerlitz,’ said Luise. ‘Even so, it’s an astonishingly high count,’ Margont put in. ‘It’s half of the boys who supposedly chose a military career. Yet at the Battle of Austerlitz, the Austrian army lost only about five per cent of its forces.’
Relmyer continued going through the names.
‘And here! Ferdinand Rezinski! Disappeared in July 1803 and died at the Battle of Elchingen in October 1805. And this one, Georg Knesch, disappeared in January 1807 and died in training in May 1807, in the Infanterieregiment 49 Baron Kerpen. So actually of the ten boys who were said to become soldiers, seven are dead! Including Mark, Albert and Ernst! Now I would be prepared to swear on Christ that nothing would ever induce those three to choose to go into the army.’
Then someone must have falsified the army’s records,’ concluded Margont. ‘Perhaps some of these young men did actually die at
Austerlitz. But it would be easy to add a name to a long list of deaths on the battlefield, to make a disappearance look like a casualty of war. And they were all, like Franz and Wilhelm, orphaned youngsters. I think we’re talking about the same murderer. We’re looking for someone who preys on boys, like a vulture: he thrives on dead bodies. It’s thanks to the war that he has been able to find so many victims without people noticing. He must be delighted each time a new conflict breaks out; he must want there to be continual war. Perhaps he’s one of those warmongers. I could well imagine that he might encourage war by rousing up bellicose minds, in order to satisfy his inclinations. He can then cover his tracks by burying the bodies in communal graves. Look, we won’t even be able to tell the difference between the deaths he’s responsible for and deaths incurred in the fighting.’
‘Apart from Mark, Albert and Ernst,’ insisted Relmyer.
‘If you add Franz and Wilhelm, that’s already five victims. More, in fact, because he must have struck in different orphanages to avoid drawing attention to what he was doing. One of the “Austerlitz deaths” this Karl Fahne, was from Baumen Orphanage, and the boy who died in training and the one who died at Elchingen were from Granz orphanage.’
It was far worse than Margont had imagined. It was so appalling, he could barely take it in. He had been too confident when he had let himself become involved. Now he found himself on the edge of an abyss, and the view was giving him vertigo. He needed words, reason, logic. He would have to analyse the situation all over again, in the same way that Jean-Quenin Brémond, shaken by being unable to make a diagnosis, would perform an autopsy on the body of a patient with an unknown illness.
‘Seven of the people in that notebook allegedly joined the army and died; of those seven, two disappeared in 1803, two in 1804, two in 1805 and one in 1807. But their names only appear in military records from 1805 onwards. So let’s suppose that the man responsible becomes rattled by the investigation started when Franz’s body is found in 1804. That’s why he is so determined to falsify army records after the event. The murderer easily covers up