Chapter 23.

'Good news at last, Stiffeniis! They have found her. The efficiency of our police force offers you a second chance to question the woman and find the proof that you lack.'

'Indeed, sir,' I replied, though Kant's enthusiasm sounded strangely fulsome to my ears. I was troubled by a ringing note of irony in his voice.

But then his thoughts veered like a sailing boat in a squall. Looking out of the window, he said with equal pa.s.sion: 'It must be freezing out there! Bring me my waterproof cape, Johannes.'

The valet threw a worried glance in my direction as he left the room.

'You are not thinking of going out, sir?' I asked, but Kant did not reply. He remained by the window, studying the formation of the dark clouds with boundless interest, while I stood waiting, awkward and embarra.s.sed, fully aware that I ought to have been rushing away on more important business.

Johannes returned some moments later, bearing the large waterproof overgarment with its distinctive sheen of beeswax, which Professor Kant had worn on the banks of the River Pregel the day before.

'This is for you, Stiffeniis,' Kant announced. 'It was designed to my own specifications. That wrap of yours may do well enough in Lotingen, but here in Konigsberg the climate is unforgiving.'

I did not dare to protest. Nor did I wish to waste another minute. I let the valet help me on with his master's cloak, then thanked Professor Kant profusely for his kindness. And with my own mantle bundled under my arm, I hastened out into the hall along with Koch.

'He's in a very odd mood today,' I muttered.

'It's age, sir,' the sergeant replied gruffly. 'Senility plays the strangest tricks. Even men of genius succ.u.mb to it eventually.'

I turned to the servant. 'Do not let him out of your sight, Johannes,' I warned. 'Call the soldiers if danger threatens.'

'I will not hesitate,' Johannes replied, and touched his hand to his heart.

I felt rea.s.sured by the solemnity of his promise. Then, calling to the waiting gendarme to follow us, I stepped outside with Koch to find that a howling Arctic gale had taken raging possession of the day. We hurried down the garden path to the coach, where the young soldier had to pit all his strength against the might of the wind to hold the carriage door open for Koch and myself.

I had just set my foot on the step, when something happened to prevent me from boarding the vehicle. At the time, I attached no importance to the incident. A tiny woman came trotting out of the villa next door, hurrying down the garden path, a black woollen shawl covering her head. This shawl whipped wildly about her shoulders, but provided little protection from the cold. She seemed to have grabbed the first thing that came to hand in rushing out of the house.

'Are you a friend of Professor Kant's?' she asked, stopping by the carriage door. Through the folds of the black shawl I could see that this woman was about the same age as her ill.u.s.trious neighbour.

'I enjoy that privilege,' I replied.

'Is he well?' she asked bluntly.

'For his age, remarkably well,' I replied. 'May I ask the reason for your concern, Frau...?'

'Mendelssohn. I live next door,' she said, pointing to a large square villa which was almost identical to Kant's. 'I always exchange a word or two with Professor Kant when he pa.s.ses on his daily walks in spring and autumn. He never refuses a sprig of fresh parsley from my kitchen garden.'

And I suppose you set your living-room clock by his comings and goings, I added silently. She gave me the impression of being one of those infernal busybodies who pay more careful attention to other people's business than they do to their own.

'I was worried about him,' she continued. 'I haven't seen him much of late. So, when I saw Herr Lampe, the gendarmes, and persons such as yourself, going in and out of the house at all hours of the day and night, well, I feared that some ill might have befallen him.'

'Herr Lampe?'

'His valet,' she explained. 'The man who tends to his needs.'

She has confused the new servant with the old one, I thought, and I made no attempt to correct her. 'Professor Kant has a slight cold,' I added. 'The inclement weather does not permit him to go out as often as he might like.'

The woman nodded her head. 'That's probably why he comes so often. He always did have a winning way with his master.'

The wind had risen to a fury, and it began to snow again in a flurry. I had no time for useless conversation with an old chatterbox.

'Frau Mendelssohn, I thank you on Professor Kant's behalf for your good intentions and wish you a good day.' I did not wait for a reply, but skipped up the steps and into the carriage, thinking to myself that Martin Lampe seemed to be a persistent ghost in the existence of Immanuel Kant.

Safe on board, shivering with the cold despite the weight of the borrowed cloak, I put that conversation out of my mind and let myself be hurried away in pursuit of Anna Rostova and the Truth.

'Has the prisoner been taken to the Fortess?' I asked the gendarme who was sitting stiffly opposite me in the coach. He was very young. His straggling blond moustache still bore traces of the scrambled eggs he had eaten for his breakfast.

'No, sir. She's still out by the Haaf, where she was found.'

'No one has laid a hand on the woman, I hope?'

'Oh no, sir,' the soldier replied. 'Your orders have been followed to the letter. Officer Stadtschen warned us very strictly not to touch her.'

'Very good,' I said with a genuine sense of relief. One glance at the soles of her shoes would be enough to condemn or redeem her. Having spoken with Kant, I was mightily swayed to believe that Anna was guilty, though I still preferred to hope that she was not. As for motives whether driven by witchcraft or some other mania I would have the time and opportunity to discover everything. For the moment, I needed only to prepare myself for what lay ahead. I had already felt the power of the woman's attractions. Her mesmerising eyes and seductive mannerisms had entranced me then, and I would need to fortify myself against her charms. This time, I silently pledged, I would be more precise and insistent in my interrogation. Helena's face would not be so easily displaced in my mind and heart by that woman's white skin, piercing eyes and silver curls.

It took us almost thirty minutes to reach the Haaf, a sandy promontory not far from Anna Rostova's dwelling. But as we struggled across the windswept beach towards a group of soldiers huddling by the water's edge, I realised that there would be no questions, no interrogation, no temptation. Not unless I decided to avail myself of the services of Doctor Vigilantius. Anna Rostova was floating face down in the cold, grey waters of the Pregel estuary, her arms spread wide as if attempting to scoop up whatever the tide might bring within her reach. The driving sleet and the rippling waves b.u.mped her corpse rhythmically against the whispering shingle. That distinctive red gown had ballooned above her white legs and ridden up her thighs. Her feet were caught up in a dense tangle of black seawort. Strands of tangled white hair were spread out on the water around her head like the rays of the moon. Five soldiers sat on the pebbles smoking pipes and swearing at one other and at the louring sky above, as they grumbled about who should fish the body out of the estuary.

Sergeant Koch spoke up sharply, and two of the men waded reluctantly into the icy flood and began to drag the body towards the sh.o.r.e, while I stood apart on the strand, watching in silence. Anna looked like one of those mythical creatures that Baltic fishermen sometimes report finding tangled in their nets, half human, half fish. Distracted thoughts rushed round wildly inside my head like a flight of disorientated swifts. Without the albino woman's testimony, would I be able to prove that she had killed those people? And if she were innocent, if she had been murdered like all the others, then the murderer was still free. In either case, I would be obliged to start my investigation from the beginning again.

At my back, Koch shouted angrily at the gendarme who had brought us out to the Haaf in the coach. 'Why was Herr Procurator not told that the woman was dead?' he thundered. 'You'll be punished! That thin white stripe of yours will be torn off, Lance-Corporal!'

I turned and laid a hand on his arm. 'It doesn't matter, Koch. Just tell them, at all costs, not to lose her shoes.'

Koch gave instructions to the soldiers.

'D'you think the killer got to her, sir?' he asked, standing by my side again, his eyes never shifting from the work-party.

I shook my head. 'I really don't know what to think,' I said.

'Suicide, perhaps?'

Anna Rostova's face flashed before me, and I had to force the image from my mind. 'Anything could have happened,' I replied. 'And yet, she did not strike me as the sort of woman who would take her own life.'

I followed the progress of the soldiers as they hauled the body onto the sh.o.r.e and laid her out on the cold shingle. 'G.o.d forgive me!' I murmured to Koch. 'She may be as useful to us dead as alive. One look at the base of her skull will clinch it. And her footwear will speak the truth more plainly than she ever did.'

I closed my eyes, gathering my strength for the physical examination I would soon have to undertake.

'Excuse me, sir.'

Looking up, I found a lean young soldier standing before me. His angular face might have been shaped with a blunt hatchet, his eyes pinched and raw. He was white with cold, his pointed nose red and runny. 'Officer Glinka, sir.'

'What is it?' I snapped.

'I spotted that woman's body while we were patrolling the sh.o.r.e, sir,' he said. 'Rolling in the shallows, I though it was a dead seal at first.'

'Did you see anyone else on the beach?'

'In winter, sir? The whalermen use this place in summer and autumn. Maybe smugglers land by night, but otherwise...' He stopped abruptly, staring out across the water to an isolated building on the far bank.

'Well?' I asked impatiently.

Glinka took off his forage-cap and flattened his lank hair. 'There's a sort of...well, there's a...a place over yonder, sir,' he said. 'On the other bank. A drinking den where tramps and suchlike seek shelter for the night. Oh, and felons are taken aboard there for the transportations.'

'Transportations?' I asked.

'To Siberia, sir. She might have been over there carousing, last night. A body could easily have floated across on the tide. Especially with this wind, sir.'

'Thank you for your suggestion, Glinka,' I said, dismissing him.

I walked down to the water's edge, looking across the estuary at the place that Glinka had mentioned. There was little to be seen at such a distance, just a breakwater, a small jetty, a building or two. The mountainous sky seemed to crush and flatten the scene like an immense lead weight.

'Sir!' Koch called.

I turned and found him standing beside the body. The seaweed had been removed from her corpse, and I was able to see Anna Rostova's feet at last. They were slender, fine-boned, as white as marble. And they were naked...Two of the gendarmes were busily throwing grappling irons into the turgid waters, hauling great swathes of black seawort onto the pebbly sh.o.r.e, while another group were sorting through the filthy mess then discarding the wrack further up the shelving beach, where it lay in stinking piles. If they were working with method it was only because Koch stood over them, barking orders from time to time, reminding them to look for the woman's shoes.

'Have the body taken to that hut over there, Koch,' I ordered, pointing up the beach a hundred yards. 'It looks deserted. Let's hope that no one thinks of going fishing.'

'Not today, sir,' he said, glancing around. 'Not with all these uniforms on the beach. Not in this weather.'

'So much the better,' I grunted, looking across the estuary again while Sergeant Koch gave the order for the body to be taken up.

Cold and wet as the gendarmes were, neither their shoulders nor their hearts were in the work. What did they care for Anna Rostova? She was dead, and she was heavy. That was more than enough for them. I walked behind the stumbling funeral procession as the soldiers staggered up the steeply shelving beach with the dripping corpse, the pebbles shifting and sliding beneath their boots, shuffling on towards the abandoned shack. Then the body had to be laid down, the door broken open, before Anna could be accommodated on the floor. It was dark in there, the atmosphere cloying, suffocating, impregnated with the smell of ancient, dead fish. Without waiting to be dismissed, muttering bitter complaints about the stench, the men began to drift outside.

'Bring a lamp,' I called after them.

Sergeant Koch went outside to repeat my order. No one had a lamp, of course. No one knew where to find one either.

'Run up to the carriage,' Koch shouted sharply. 'Tell the coachman to light his carriage-lamp for you, then bring it back here.'

I went outside to join him, and we waited in silence for the lantern to appear.

'I'll wait out here, Herr Stiffeniis, sir, if you don't mind. A corpse last night, another one this morning, it's more than enough for me. I'll make sure that no one disturbs you,' he said. 'And I'll need to keep an eye on this lot, sir. There's still work to be done on the sh.o.r.e, and...'

'Very good, Sergeant,' I said, cutting him short. I had forgotten all too quickly that he was an office worker, not a policeman or a soldier used to the rough-and-tumble of life of the streets. 'Sights such as this are good for no man.'

Glinka returned at a run, panting as he held the carriage-lamp out to me.

'Thank you,' I said, turning away and stepping into the hut.

I placed the glimmering light on the carpet of pebbles, and knelt down beside the body. It was, I reflected, the first time that I had ever been alone with Anna Rostova. Closing my eyes, I instantly recalled her house in The Pillau. The darkness in that hut was heavy with nauseous unfamiliar smells, the s.p.a.ce full of strange objects cast up on the sh.o.r.e, like those that she had draped upon the walls of her house. It was the sort of out-of-the-way place, I guessed, that she had often visited in pursuance of her trade.

I opened my eyes and looked down. A shudder of sadness and regret shook my body. Had it not been for Anna's silvery hair, I doubt that I would ever have recognised her. Her once-beautiful face was puffed and bloated. Jagged cuts and a thousand scratches scarred her fine features. The abrasive motion of the waves against the rocky, pebbled sh.o.r.e had removed the skin from her chin, nose and forehead. The whiteness of the skull-bone was a fraction paler than the natural pallor of her complexion. The crabs of the Pregel had done their scavenging well. Her eyes were gone, leaving two raw, black holes in their place. Those piercing lights would frighten Officer Lublinsky no more. Nor tempt myself, or any other vulnerable man, with their unspoken promises of l.u.s.t and luxury. Seaweed draped her throat and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and other strands of the same rubbery stuff still clung to her legs and naked feet. I brushed away a sea-slug, then carefully unwound the straggling weeds that were matted around her bare throat. Dull, brown bruises stained the sides of her neck. I studied those marks for quite some time, aware only of the steady pounding of my heart as I turned my attention to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and legs, and took her hands in mine to examine the nails, which were ragged, torn and ripped. Now that she could not reproach me, I held those cold hands for longer than I ought...

'She's been strangled, sir.'

Koch was at my shoulder. I had not heard him enter. Nor had I expected him to do so.

'So it would seem,' I said, gently setting down the dead woman's hand and standing up. I flexed my stiff knees, and gazed down at her. 'Turn her body over, Koch, would you?'

I was reluctant to touch her again in front of him. And yet, I had no other choice if I wished to examine the base of her skull. That important detail could not be avoided. The woman's body squelched, flopped, then lolled and settled, as Koch made himself useful.

'There you are, sir,' he said, shaking water from his hands.

Dropping down again on one knee, I removed the heavy wet hair from her alabaster neck, and felt the clammy coldness of her lifeless flesh. I ran my finger up along the k.n.o.bbly vertebrae of her spine from the shoulder-blades to the start of the hairline. There was no sign of the Devil's claw. 'Whoever killed her,' I said, 'it is not the person we are looking for. We'll never know if she was the intruder in Professor Kant's garden unless her shoes...'

'Sir,' a voice called from the door.

Glinka entered, and in his outstretched hand he held a shoe.

A gla.s.s of iced water offered to a man who had just crossed a desert on foot would not have been more welcome. I sprang forward eagerly, and took hold of it with both hands.

'It was further down the sh.o.r.eline,' he added. 'The other one must be somewhere near as well.'

'This is more than enough,' I replied, turning it over quickly, examining the shoe, the left one of a pair. My heart, which had soared not a moment before, now sank like a stone. The sole was as smooth and as worn as a pebble that had been washed and wearied by the tireless sea for a million years. There was no sign of the distinctive cross-cut that Officer Lublinsky had drawn at the scene of the first murder.

'It wasn't her,' I said, my feeling of disappointment and confusion growing.

'Do you think she may have had another pair, sir?' Koch suggested.

'I doubt it, Sergeant.'

We remained in silence, looking first at the shoe in my hand, then at the lifeless body on the ground, finally at one another.

'What now, Herr Procurator?' he asked, his voice subdued, distant, respectful. My investigation had come unstuck, and Koch knew it.

I thought for some moments before replying.

'I wish to go across to that tiny port on the far bank,' I said. 'She may have been seen over there last night.'

'But, sir!' Koch protested. 'This woman's death is not relevant to the case. It's a matter for the civil police...'

'Can you find a rowing boat to take us?' I insisted.

Koch's eyes widened at this suggestion.

'There's a footbridge down the way, sir. We can walk there and back in less than half an hour!'

I had to smile, despite the seriousness of our business. Suddenly, I realised just how much Koch's salt-of-the-earth common sense comforted me. I needed his presence, the dullness of his blinkered point-of-view provided a vital counterbalance to my own excitable nature. He never dared to ask me why, he only asked me how. For the same reason, I did not tell him truly why I wished to travel to the other side of the estuary. The fact was that I hoped to collar the person who had murdered her, and see him hang.

I stepped to the door and called in the gendarmes.