Mortal Mischief (18 page)

Natalie Heck looked surprised as the interview veered – quite suddenly – into less comfortable territory. Rheinhardt stopped grooming his moustache and sat up straight.

'Herr Braun,' said Fräulein Heck, 'is my friend.'

Liebermann replaced his spectacles, and looked directly into the young woman's eyes. She looked away, and her cheeks flushed a little.

'Do you often visit Herr Braun's apartment?' After the smallest of pauses, he added: 'Alone?'

Natalie Heck shook her head: 'No, no. Herr Braun is my friend. We aren't . . .'

'Please,' Liebermann interrupted. 'Forgive me. It wasn't my intention to suggest any impropriety on your part.' Then, carefully selecting his words, he added: 'Any immodesty.'

Natalie Heck turned bright red. Flustered, she launched into a garbled defence.

'I've only been to Herr Braun's apartment a few times. He isn't a strong man – he's often sickly. On Saturday, when the constable stopped me – I was worried – I wanted to see if he was all right.'

'Do you have any idea where he is now?'

'Of course not.' She looked angrily towards Rheinhardt. 'Inspector, I told you the truth last week. There's nothing more to tell.'

'Indeed, Fräulein,' said Rheinhardt, 'and we are very grateful for your assistance.'

Natalie Heck turned to face Liebermann again. He continued as if the previous exchange hadn't happened.

'Do you think, Fräulein, that your friend Herr Braun was attracted to Fräulein Löwenstein?'

'I . . .' She struggled to regain her composure. 'I think he probably was. She was a very beautiful woman.'

'Did he ever talk about her?'

'No.'

'Then why do you think he was attracted to her?'

'Sometimes . . .' She tightened her richly coloured shawl around her shoulders as though a cold wind had passed through the room. 'Sometimes he would look at her in a certain way.'

Just as Rheinhardt thought that his friend had scented blood and was preparing his prey for the delivery of a fatal question, Liebermann simply smiled, leaned back in his chair, and said: 'Thank you, Fräulein Heck. You have been most helpful.' Then, turning to Rheinhardt, he added: 'I have no further questions, Inspector.'

'Are you sure, Herr Doctor?' said Rheinhardt.

'Yes, Inspector. Quite sure.'

Rheinhardt stood, somewhat reluctantly, wondering whether Liebermann was playing a psychological game and was craftily creating in Natalie Heck a false sense of security. But the young doctor showed no signs of further engagement.

'In which case,' said Rheinhardt, 'you are free to leave, Fräulein Heck.'

The seamstress rose from her chair and, frostily giving Liebermann a wide berth, left the room. Rheinhardt followed and Liebermann heard his friend instructing an officer to escort Fräulein Heck back to her home near the Prater.

When Rheinhardt returned, he sat in the chair previously occupied by the seamstress. For a moment the two men shared an uneasy silence. Finally Rheinhardt shook his head: 'That was a curious interview, Max.'

'Was it?'

'Yes. Why did you bring it to such a peremptory close? Just – or so it seemed to me – when things were starting to get interesting.'

'Fräulein Heck has told us all that she knows.'

'Then this hasn't been a very productive morning.'

'Well, I wouldn't say that.'

Rheinhardt frowned.

'All right: do we know anything now that we didn't know yesterday?'

'Yes – quite a lot, I think. We know that Natalie Heck was besotted with Otto Braun: her denial spoke volumes. We also have more evidence to suggest that Fräulein Löwenstein and Braun were lovers. Heck's despair was palpable. But more importantly, we now have confirmation of an earlier hypothesis.'

'We do?'

'Oh yes. You will recall that I speculated about the presence of a third person when Charlotte Löwenstein was murdered?'

'Indeed, but—'

Interrupting, Liebermann continued: 'We now know the identity of that third person.'

Liebermann paused and Rheinhardt, unable to restrain himself, stood up again. His movement was so abrupt his chair rocked back and almost toppled over.

'What?'

'The third person,' said Liebermann softly, 'was Fräulein Löwenstein's unborn child. At the time of her murder, she was approximately three months pregnant.'

'But how on earth have you deduced that?' cried Rheinhardt. The door opened, and a junior officer poked his head in.

'Everything all right, sir?'

'Yes, yes,' said Rheinhardt impatiently, waving his hands in the air. The officer bowed apologetically, and closed the door.

'I'll explain in due course,' said Liebermann. 'I must get back to the hospital. But for the moment, Oskar, I would strongly urge you to compose a polite note to Professor Mathias, requesting the completion of Fräulein Löwenstein's interrupted autopsy – as soon as possible.'

'Of course.'

'Oh, and Oskar?'

'Yes.'

'I would like to attend as well – if I may?'

25

Z
OLTÁN
Z
ÁBORSZKY
was sitting at his usual table in the garden of Csarda, a restaurant on the Prater. A cimbalom player and two violinists were performing 'Rákóczi's Lament', a folk song that Záborszky's nurse would sing to him when he had been a very small child. He closed his eyes, and for a moment it seemed to him that he could hear again the Tisza flowing through the park of the long-lost family estate. In his mind, he could see the imposing house with its battlements and round towers, perched on its steep, rocky bluff: those cavernous rooms, which in the summer had filled with a soft, slow light that rolled through the windows like honey. Who, he wondered, would now be availing himself of that well-stocked cellar, which, under blankets of spiders' silk, had contained bottles brought from the finest wine merchants in Paris?

Záborszky took a sip of his lifeless burgundy and winced, as though suffering from a toothache.

Had his father, the old Count, survived the final onslaught of tuberculosis he would very probably have risen from his bed with only one intention – to plant a bullet in his errant son's brain. Záborszky contemplated this imaginary scenario with some regularity, and more often than not regretted that it had not come to pass.

When the music stopped, he beckoned to the cimbalom player who immediately rested his mallets on the strings and came over to Záborszky's table.

'Yes, my dear Count?'

The musician could not suppress his reaction to Záborszky's appearance. He had acquired a sumptuous black eye. Swollen flesh had almost closed the socket, making the whites and the iris barely visible.

Záborszky noticed the musician flinching.

'An accident,' he said flatly.

'You must take better care of yourself, Count.'

'Indeed,' Záborszky folded a serviette before continuing. 'Tamás, please . . . no more of the old tunes.'

'Ahh, I understand,' the musician smiled sympathetically. 'The melancholy, is it?'

Záborszky nodded, his single visible eye becoming moist.

The musician bowed and marched back to his companions. When they started to play again, the air filled with a spare but spirited arrangement of Strauss's
Kaiser Waltz.

Záborszky picked up his copy of the
Wiener Zeitung
and read the news – most of which did not interest him. Occasionally the text was interrupted by otherwise blank spaces bearing the single word 'Confiscated'. Copies of every paper were submitted each morning for approval by the censor – who was inclined to judge numerous articles unfit for public consumption. Záborszky was about to put the
Zeitung
down again, when his attention was drawn by a headline
: Leopoldstadt Murder Baffles Police.

So: they had finally decided to publish the details. Záborszky wondered whether the delay was anything to do with the censor.

In his eagerness to read the article he skipped whole sentences.

Locked room . . . no bullet . . . a statuette of an ancient god . . .

Clever illusion . . . stagecraft
.

A thin smile appeared on Záborszky's face.

Looking for a young man called Otto Braun.

Tamás, assuming that the Count was enjoying the Strauss, beat the strings of his cimbalom with greater vigour and encouraged his companions to play faster.

'That bumbling clown of an Inspector,' muttered Záborszky to himself. 'Completely out of his depth.'

Záborszky could picture them all: the constables with their ridiculous spiked helmets and sabres guarding the entrance, the Inspector's team floundering around her apartment, tapping the walls, looking for trapdoors and levers. They would discover nothing.

The Count closed his good eye again, and a distant memory floated to the surface of his already troubled mind: winter. Ravens, like tattered rags, caught on the branches of bare trees.

He had been hunting in the immense wood that covered the uplands of the estate: pools of fog churning in the hollows, clods of frozen earth kicked up by the horse.

The animal had been frightened. It sensed danger. An old crone was standing by the bridleway. She seemed to come from nowhere. The horse neighed and nervously swung its head. Záborszky did not know
who
she was – but he knew
what
she was.

The witch had spoken a taboo word. She had mentioned the
szépasszony
– The Fair Lady, the beautiful woman with long blonde hair who preyed on young men. The demonic seductress who emerged in storms and showers of hail . . .

The witch had cursed him.

She will get you
, the witch had said.

26

F
RÄULEIN
L
ÖWENSTEIN'S BODY
had been returned to the dissection table where it lay concealed under covers. The folds and creases of the material created a miniature landscape of mounds and ravines that all but disguised the human form underneath. The air was ripe with corruption – a noxious effluvium that might have been coughed up through a vent in the earth's crust.

Professor Mathias tugged gently at the top sheet. It slipped downward, revealing Fräulein Löwenstein's face. Rheinhardt had not expected her to be very much changed, but already her skin was discoloured and her features wasted. Her lips, previously blue in the early stages of death, were now almost black. There was something about her expression that suggested terror, as though her mouldering brain was still in possession of just enough sentience to generate a nightmare. Only Fräulein Löwenstein's hair had retained its incandescence. Her curls and tresses blazed defiantly beneath the merciless electric light.

Mathias placed a finger on her brow and pressed out a wrinkle.

'The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.'

Rheinhardt caught Liebermann's eye and assumed a hangdog expression – the old man's eccentricity was already beginning to pall. Mathias sighed and, slowly lifting his head, examined the young doctor who stood on the opposite side of the table.

'I will grant your request,' said Mathias with sudden firmness. 'But I do so with some reluctance. I still suspect that we are all the victims of some dreadful practical joke. What you ask, Liebermann, is a kind of violation – you realise that, don't you? It is not a procedure that I undertake lightly.'

Liebermann had been forewarned of Mathias's peculiar affinity with the dead and was prompted to wonder why a man possessed of such sensitivities should choose to be a pathologist in the first place.

'Professor Mathias,' said Liebermann, 'permit me to assure you that I have given this matter the utmost consideration.'

'I hope so,' Mathias continued. 'Because if you are wrong and your psychological methods of deduction prove deficient, not only shall we all appear very foolish – yet again, I might add – but we shall also have performed an inexcusable act of violence against this poor, poor woman.'

Mathias's eyes bulged behind his thick lenses.

'Indeed,' said Liebermann. 'However, I am confident that the results of today's post-mortem examination will be in accordance with my prediction and of great value to my colleague.' He motioned towards Rheinhardt.

Mathias tilted his head a little.

'Where do you work, Liebermann?'

'In the psychiatry department of the General Hospital.'

'Under Professor Gruner?'

'Yes.'

'And what is your opinion of Professor Gruner?'