The dead girl’s horse was tied to a tree by a nearby clearing; Polakowski’s bicycle stood next to the shore.
Sergeant Wengler had then pronounced Anna von Mathée dead before taking leave of the crime scene and requesting a doctor. Prior to that, he had pulled her body towards the shore and closed her eyes, exactly the sort of thing Gennat had been trying to prevent simple-minded uniform cops doing for years. Ordering things, then calling for CID, was a habit those first on the scene couldn’t seem to kick.
In Anna von Mathée’s case, no one had been especially worried. CID officers from Lyck reconstructed the chain of events using Wengler’s witness statement, alongside clues found at the site, and the autopsy report. The reconstruction had the suspect follow Anna von Mathée to the lake on his bicycle, perhaps to watch her bathe, only for desire to get the better of him. When she tried to defend herself he drowned her.
There were all sorts of suppositions in the text. According to Wengler, the plebiscite’s bleak prognosis for Poland could have filled Polakowski with hatred against all things German, speculation aided by the fact that the suspect had instigated a quarrel against three members of the Marggrabowa Homeland Service on the morning of the same day. An appendix provided the details. Again, the names of those involved were familiar: Herbert Lamkau, August Simoneit and Hans Wawerka. Wengler had actually placed Polakowski under arrest for a short time.
Around an hour after Polakowski’s release, Anna von Mathée’s fiancé had arrived at the police station to report her missing, Anna having failed to appear for lunch at the Luisenhöhe estate. Witnesses had seen her riding out to the Markowsken forest in the late morning. So, the search began.
It was striking that Sergeant Wengler had only mentioned the name of this fiancé on one occasion, at a point that could be easily overlooked, as if he were somehow embarrassed to have set out in search of the missing girl with a family member. For the man with whom he scoured the forest, before eventually arriving at the little lake, was none other than Anna’s fiancé himself, was none other than his own brother, the superintendent at Luisenhöhe: Gustav Wengler.
The wicked man, as the Kaubuk called him. The man who had returned to the scene of his crime.
78
Dr Karthaus had moved quickly. Dietrich Assmann’s corpse still lay covered by a white cotton sheet as the pathologist met the Vaterland team down in the hallowed halls of the morgue.
Charly felt uneasy entering the autopsy room, which would be one reason why Wilhelm Böhm had brought her along. It was something any CID cadet assigned to Homicide, however temporarily, must experience. In the days she’d worked as a stenographer for A Division, Böhm and Gennat had valued her theories and deductions, but they had never brought her here. The smell, a mix of human blood and disinfectant, took some getting used to, but her curiosity outweighed any sense of disgust.
Most officers had remained in the Castle to assist Gennat in interrogating the squad of guards. It was still unclear how on earth the killer had gained access to the cells.
‘That was quick, Doctor,’ Böhm said, and Karthaus arched an eyebrow in surprise. Praise from the chief inspector was as rare as a snowflake in August.
‘Superintendent Gennat asked me to prioritise this autopsy, and there were several details that struck me as odd during my initial examination.’
‘The broken neck.’
‘Right! At first I thought it could be a result of the water torture. If you tie your victims up and put the fear of death in them, some react so violently that they break their bones.’
‘But our man doesn’t secure his victims, he paralyses them,’ Charly said.
‘Not this time.’ Karthaus had their undivided attention. ‘The blood analysis is still pending, but I’d be willing to bet it shows negative. I couldn’t find a single puncture site.’
‘So, he did tie Assmann up?’ Böhm asked.
‘That’s what I thought, but there are no signs of a struggle, nothing to indicate the man was tied.’
‘What about the water on the plank bed, the wet cloth? That points to water torture.’
‘That’s what it’s supposed to point to, certainly. However, we only found water in the trachea, and it got in post-mortem.’
‘Nothing in the lungs.’
Karthaus shook his head.
‘A copycat,’ Charly suggested.
‘That’s what I suspect too,’ said Karthaus. ‘Nothing points to the victim having been exposed to the tormenta de toca, let alone having died as a result. Which was his great good fortune, if you can speak of fortune when a man has died. Most likely he barely noticed a thing, except, perhaps, for the lights going out. Metaphorically speaking.’ He threw Charly an apologetic glance. ‘To come back to the water: I’ve examined samples from both the plank bed and the victim’s hair, as well as the residue from the red cloth. The strange smell – it is indeed Pitralon. I found traces of camphor in the water, camphor and alcohol. It was mixed with aftershave, albeit heavily diluted.’
‘Could it be from the victim?’ Böhm asked.
‘Unlikely, but I have another explanation.’ Karthaus pointed to the covered corpse. ‘The man’s neck was broken by someone who knew what he was doing, someone trained in close combat, or similar. Everything else is for the purposes of misdirection.’ The pathologist looked at the two CID officers. ‘He didn’t have a lot of time to prepare. He had to improvise. As for the water used to simulate the tormenta de toca… my guess is that the perpetrator brought it into the cell using an empty or almost empty bottle of Pitralon, because he had nothing else to hand.’
79
Rath went for a stroll. He’d have liked to go straight back to Treuburg, but the next train wasn’t for another hour and a half. So he strolled, file under his arm, through the town. Schwentainen was a ribbon settlement on the shore of a lake bearing the same name, with a small church, on whose spire red roof tiles gleamed in the sun. Perhaps being forced to walk like this was good. He needed to think.
Now wasn’t the time to confront Gustav Wengler, whatever his instincts told him. He tried to place what he’d read into some kind of order, comparing it with the lines from Radlewski’s diary.
It was a fix-up, all of it. From Anna’s death right up to Jakub Polakowski’s murder trial.
The Homeland Service boys had deliberately embroiled Polakowski in a fight, so that Gustav Wengler could calmly go about cornering Anna at the lake where she met her paramour in secret. Near the tree in whose bark the young couple had immortalised their love.
Was her murder planned? Her rape? Or was it just meant to be a talk, which had spiralled out of control? A brutal murder for which the Wengler brothers had found the perfect scapegoat in Jakub Polakowski?
Rath left Schwentainen, passing over a narrow headland separating two lakes from one another, and reaching the village on the other shore where a sign read: Suleyken, Oletzko District, Administrative Region of Gumbinnen.
He sat on a jetty and gazed at the roofs of Schwentainen lining the opposite shore, a breathtakingly beautiful scene. Nothing could disturb the idyll here in the Oletzko District, Gumbinnen, and certainly not the truth that Maria Cofalka had closed in on.
They had buried her only yesterday, but already Rath was determined to exhume her body. The librarian might be dead, but her case was far from closed.