The Quiet Twin (25 page)

His eyes found Beer’s. There was no malice in them, the doctor thought, just hunger. It took him a moment to gain control of his voice.

‘It’s no longer customary. Not among the younger generation.’ He paused. ‘Don’t hurt her.’

‘Hurt her? But why should I? She’s – perfect. God’s idea of woman, when he whittled on that rib.’ He smiled, pleased with himself, red lips parting over neat white teeth. ‘Leave us, Dr Beer, why don’t you? Fix some coffee, perhaps, and a glass of brandy.’

Beer remained where he was, halfway between bed and door, feet spread wide for balance. He became aware of his own breathing, the detective’s gaze upon him, awaiting his reaction. Beer had a strange sensation as of a noise rising in his ears, like the shouts of many voices, the words just out of earshot and conjoining into the seashell whisper of the tides.

‘You can’t,’ he said. ‘I won’t.’

Teuben shook his head, raised a hand to scratch within his wig.

‘Dr Beer. There is only one way this can end. If you were doing something legal, you’d have thrown me out by now, made some noise about your
rights
.’

‘She has an acute infection. She could die at any moment.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘Have a look then.’

The doctor stepped up to the bed, and folded over the lip of the sheet, revealing the back of the nightgown. The voices grew louder in his ears; he wondered what would happen if they suddenly broke into intelligibility. With swift, tender movements he undid the topmost clasp and pointed to the bandage.

‘Go on, peel it back. It’s loose, so the wound can breathe.’

Teuben reached forward with surprising delicacy. He raised the corner of the adhesive tape with one fingernail, then peeled it back slowly, trying not to hurt the skin. The bandage came off, revealing the crater of the wound, looking fresh and pink like the gums of a newborn. Inside the half-inch hole there was a wriggle of movement. Teuben bent closer, trying to see, then leapt back to the window, his face suddenly pale.

‘Maggots!’ he said, appalled.

Beer readjusted the bandage, buttoned up the gown. They stared at each other across the bed. Teuben looked thoughtful, white under his wig. All his blood seemed to cling to his lips.

‘But what is that noise?’ he said, and turned around to the window.

‘You hear it, too?’ Beer asked, surprised. Just then a whistle joined the hubbub of voices. It sounded from outside.

The two men stepped to the window. All was quiet in the street, two lamps casting cones of light on to the pavement. A flow of pedestrians, not all of them in coats, was heading for the building’s front door, which had been propped open with a brick.

‘It’s coming from the courtyard. That’s a police whistle, that.’

Teuben turned abruptly and headed for the corridor. Beer followed close behind, cast a parting glance at Eva, her eyes open and unmoved. Her foot was sticking out the bottom of the sheet where Teuben had held on to it, the toes curled inwards, into the sole.

In the corridor the two men ran into Zuzka, emerging from the door to the living room. Teuben stared at her, standing there in her grey woollen dress, one stocking flapping down around her ankle, then burst into a sudden laughter.

‘You’re full of surprises, Herr Doktor.’

Zuzka brushed past him, took a hold of Beer’s arm. He noticed with irritation that there was a stiffness to her walk that recalled one of her earlier symptoms: she dragged the left leg. It struck him as a bad moment to indulge in childishness.

‘There’s been a murder,’ she murmured, fear in her eyes. ‘Across the yard. Lieschen–’

A gust blew from the living room behind her (she had opened the window to have a clearer view of the yard) and carried with it the sharp trill of a police whistle, unmistakable now in its pitch. Even Teuben started at its sound. Without another word all three of them rushed forward, out the front door, and could soon be heard running down the stairs. Outside they were met by a dense crowd of neighbours and strangers, held in check by the police.

Chapter 5

Zuzka stood in the yard and shivered. She had left her coat in Beer’s living room upstairs, where she’d taken it off and flung it to the floor some time after the doctor had run to answer the door, hoping he would see it upon his return and read it as a clue to her displeasure. It had been a long half-hour that she’d spent, alone, having offered up her virtue and been spurned. She’d lain on the couch and cried a little, embarrassed, stung at having been abandoned at a moment such as that, abject and unhappy, though some small part of her was listening, exercised as to who had dared to ring the bell. It was a single man who entered the flat, and from the few words that carried from the kitchen she formed the dim understanding that it was a policeman working on the killing of the dog. When he and Beer walked past into the bedroom, she opened the door a little and thus overheard much of the policeman’s long and filthy speech, then grew aware of the hubbub of voices floating up from the yard. Distracted, her mind clinging to the image of a woman kneeling before a man’s unbuttoned fly, she ran to the window and drew back a corner of curtain. Right away – before, even, she’d become aware of the crowd that pressed together in the rectangle of yard – her eyes sought out the flat inhabited by Lieschen, marked as it was by the sudden flash of a photo camera inside. Even after the flash the flat stood brightly lit. There was no mistaking the uniform of the man who leaned against the window, staring down on to the crowd. A second flash, behind him, lit up the kitchen and threw his shadow across the yard. The crowd stood with their heads thrown back, staring up as though they were admiring a firework display. Two further policemen, their hands busy with their truncheons, secured the door to the back wing. Zuzka opened the window; snatches of conversation drifted up to her. The word ‘murder’ hung in the air: ‘once again with a knife’; someone talked loudly about ‘the
Zellenwart
’s dead cur’. She listened further, the cold contracting her fair skin. ‘Lieschen,’ somebody said, and again, ‘Lieschen,’ fingers pointing at the flat. She recognised among the crowd the man from the hospital gardens with the scar and the dead eye. He was eating a sandwich, talking as he chewed. Vesalius was there, and old Frau Novak; the Bergers; the Obermanns; the English teacher with her head of auburn locks. Half the crowd was smoking. In the half-dark of the yard the glow of the cigarette ends hung like fireflies on a summer’s eve. A group of men were shouting questions at the policemen guarding the back entry. A schoolgirl laughed and was loudly told to shut her trap.

When the first of the whistles sounded, Zuzka flinched and left the window. A glance at the mirror would have told her that she looked dishevelled: the eyes red from crying, puffy skin around the cheeks, blouse and stockings in some disarray. She stopped at the door, heard another whistle rise behind her, then stepped on through, nearly colliding with the policeman in the hallway, big-hipped, ugly, with large hairy hands. What she said to Beer, she could not later recall. The stairs received them, the staccato click of her heels, the men running ahead of her, gaining ground with every step. Her left leg gave her trouble, would not quite move; a tightness in her chest that had not bothered her in days.

Outside, the two policemen parted for the detective and for Beer, then closed ranks before she had time to cross the yard. She craned her neck, saw a third flash spill from the lit windows, which threw the crowd into relief. It occurred to her that she’d have a better view from her own window, but realised at once that her key was in her coat. Vesalius would let her in. Vesalius was standing talking to Herr Neurath, a fur-lined cap upon her head. Zuzka shivered and stayed where she was. Someone next to her offered her a cigarette. It was a worker in overalls, a patch of grease clinging to his cheek. He did not seem offended when she declined. Someone at the back started singing a tune; another voice soon inserted a dirty verse. Half the crowd seemed to be drunk; a fairground spirit mingling with the fear.

A half-hour passed, new bodies entering the press, and now and then a whistle sounded from its thick, calling to order the drunken and the bold. Zuzka looked through the crowd for someone who might hold some information. Her eyes fell again on the divorcee who was said to make a living teaching English: the made-up face under the tumble of her hair, a little blue hat pinned into it and serving no purpose other than to add a dash of contrast to the ample locks. She wore a long black coat and lace-up boots, looked respectable and fragile, leather gloves on her hands. Her name was Klara Kovacs. Zuzka pushed through to her, avoided looking at her lips.

‘
Grüss Gott
,’ she said, blushing. ‘Can you tell me what is going on?’

The woman inspected her, turned up the collar of her coat, frowned.

‘There’s been a murder. Up there in that flat. Where the little cripple lives.’

‘Lieschen. Is it she who –?’

‘I heard it was the father. The door was wide open. Blood everywhere. A man told me he wasn’t the first such victim. Somebody killed Speckstein’s dog, cut him open with a hatchet.’ She gave a little shiver, reached for a handkerchief to dab her nose.

‘Yes,’ said Zuzka. ‘So I’ve heard.’

Something was happening near the door to the back wing, at the other end of the yard. A movement went through the crowd, irresistible, like the swell of the sea, at first rushing in on the space, then swiftly parting to grant passage to a group of men. It was the detective, followed by Beer, a man in uniform walking by their side. As soon as Frau Kovacs became aware of the little group, a hardness crept into her eyes and she turned abruptly to vanish into the crowd. Zuzka was left standing alone in the press of men. When she noticed that Beer was headed in her general direction, she raised her hand until he caught sight of her. The detective by his side was talking at him, his small mouth inches from the doctor’s ear. He stopped speaking as soon as she was in earshot. She noticed that he had threaded a hand through the gap under Beer’s armpit and was holding on to his arm. They both came to a halt in front of her.

‘What happened up there?’ she asked.

‘Lieschen’s father is dead.’

‘But how? Who –?’

Beer was about to answer, but stopped himself short when the hand around his arm tightened. One could see him wince under the detective’s grip.

‘It’s under investigation,’ he began again. ‘The autopsy is tonight.’

‘And Lieschen?’

‘Nowhere to be found.’ Beer paused, looked up to the detective as though seeking his permission. ‘The body is some days old. When did you last see her?’

‘I can’t remember. Two, three days ago.’

‘We must try to find her.’

Zuzka was about to ask for further details when she felt Beer’s attention shift to somewhere behind her. She looked around and saw her uncle march through the door that led from the front of the building into the yard. He was dressed in coat and tails and had evidently been drinking. His face was very flushed.

‘Somebody at the police station found me at the Mayor’s reception. He said there’d been a murder in my house.’

He peered over to the policemen who stood barring the way to the back wing, then focused in on Teuben. ‘Are you in charge?’

‘Yes, Professor. Detective Inspector Teuben. The Chief of Police will have my report first thing in the morning.’

‘Come now, my man, no need to be coy. What happened here?’

‘We have to wait for the post-mortem. Impossible to give you a sense of the case before.’ He seemed to be speaking more to Beer than to Speckstein, his knuckles white against the doctor’s coat.

‘But there must be some details you can give me.’

The detective shrugged, gave Beer’s arm a final squeeze, then led Speckstein a few yards to one side and began talking to him in rushed whispers. Beer and Zuzka gazed after them. The doctor looked tired and pale.

‘I should go back and look in on Eva,’ he murmured. ‘She needs to be turned.’

‘We have to find Lieschen.’

‘And where do you propose we go look for her?’

He sighed, took her hand in his own, then dropped it quickly, aware of the crowd that surrounded them. ‘But you are shivering.’

‘I forgot my coat upstairs. In your living room.’

‘I’ll go fetch it for you.’ He paused, caught sight of Speckstein, who was waving at him with the magnificence of a king, a little drunkenly, that is, curling his fingers in their white glove. ‘Just a moment. Your uncle wants to speak to me.’

Beer seemed relieved to leave her presence. She wondered whether he would be avoiding her from now on. Stung and stubborn, she followed him and stood behind his back while Speckstein instructed him to ‘take full charge of the medical side of things’. There was a large, brown stain on the expanse of her uncle’s shirt-front, in the shape of a teardrop. It surprised her. He was normally the most fastidious of diners.

A voice distracted her. Later, she would marvel that she was able to pick it out from the din of the yard. She turned around and saw Otto, in his black clothes and shabby coat, standing a few yards behind her, asking questions of an old man in the crowd. There was no greasepaint on his face and something of his sister stared out from his large, expressive eyes. A flood of thoughts and feelings rushed her, all connected to this man: about their daily awkward meetings, almost wordless now, filled with a tension neither one of them seemed willing to relieve; about the article from the magazine (she had long asked to have it back) with its strange and silly words – ‘spatial clairvoyance’, ‘ideoplastic materialisation’ – that somehow pointed to his sister, that living corpse that the detective wished to own; about the memory of his performance, the whitened lips, the silent moans, the knee he slipped between her thighs. There was no telling how long he’d been standing in the yard, nor whether he had noticed her, drifting through the crowd. He finished his conversation and set out for the side wing, passing within a yard of where she stood.