Sydney Jones - The Keeper of Hands

‘I’m afraid it will have to wait,’ Werthen said.

‘Why the devil should it?’ Gross boomed.

‘Because tomorrow is Saturday, and there are no visiting times on Saturday or Sunday.’

Gross merely harrumphed, as if Werthen himself had set the visiting hours at the prison.

On Monday morning Jakob Moos sat slump-shouldered on his bunk in the cell at the Liesel, the Landesgericht prison. Moos was being held in B block, for murder suspects.

The sallow-faced guard did not want to allow them into the cell at first, warning them that Moos had murdered a man with his bare hands.

‘It was in a moment of rage,’ Werthen replied. ‘There was no premeditation.’

‘It’s still the noose for him, killing a priest,’ the guard replied, sniffling as he took out his keys. ‘And don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ Another sniff, as if he was suffering from hay fever.

A call to Inspector Drechsler had allowed this visit but, to be honest, Werthen was not so sure about Moos. His one other meeting with the man had not gone well.

The prisoner sat hunched like a brooding bear, his massive fingers intertwined in his lap. He did not look up at the sound of the key in the lock, nor when Gross and Werthen entered. The guard remained outside the cell, his back turned to them, a snuffle emitting from him occasionally.

‘Herr Moos,’ Gross said, ‘we need your help.’

The bowed head did not move. He was dressed in standard grey convict jacket and pants, both of them at least a size too small. The man’s thick wrists and ankles showed. His hair had been shorn as if he were already convicted.

‘It is in regard to your daughter, Waltraude,’ Gross added.

This brought a low moan from Moos. Werthen was fearful that Gross might enrage the man after all.

‘We are trying to discover who killed her. Won’t you help us?’

The large hands flexed as if wringing the neck of a chicken.

Werthen tapped Gross’s arm in warning, but the criminologist plunged on.

‘I think I understand you, Herr Moos. Your daughter disappointed you. It is as if she was no longer your daughter before her cruel death. I have a son, you see, and we have been estranged for years.’

Werthen was shocked to hear Gross mention his only son, Otto. It was true, there was no love lost between father and son, but it was unlike the criminologist to mention his wayward son to a stranger.

‘But were my son to be so brutally murdered, I would want vengeance, I assure you.’ Gross spoke with real passion, Werthen thought. ‘I would want the killer brought to justice. That is what any father would want, isn’t it, Herr Moos?’

Moos suddenly stood upright, a movement so forceful it caught the attention of the guard who jolted himself into a semblance of action.

‘What is it you want?’ His voice thundered in the small cell; he towered over them.

Werthen stepped back a pace, but Gross held his ground. A tall man, Gross was not accustomed to looking up at others, but he had to do so with Moos.

‘We need your assistance with this letter from your daughter.’ Gross quickly drew out the letter in question, unfolding it for Moos.

The big man glanced at it for a moment, surprise on his face. ‘Where did you get this?’

Werthen said, ‘Your wife gave it to me when I visited your farm.’

Moos nodded his head. ‘Yes, I remember you. The fancy man from the city come to tell us our Traudl was dead.’

But he said it in a resigned tone, slumping back on the bunk, the letter in his hands.

Werthen turned to the guard, shaking his head. The policeman put the truncheon he had drawn back in its sheath.

‘I have underlined the passage we are concerned with, Herr Moos,’ Gross gently explained.

A sudden smile crossed Moos’s lined face. A strangled chuckle emitted from his mouth.

‘What is it, Herr Moos?’

Moos looked up at the two of them, his eyes watering. ‘She was always the bright one, our Traudl. The only one to really learn the language properly. So smart, she was. Such a waste.’ He lowered his head, choking back a sob, the paper trembling in his hands.

They waited a moment, not wishing to hurry him. It was perhaps the first time he had actually allowed himself to grieve the loss of his daughter.

He looked up again, his jaw muscles working. ‘We had a game, you see,’ Moos explained. ‘A little play with words, changing people’s names into a sort of code. A silly childish game, really, but it was our private fun.’

‘Is there a name here, Herr Moos?’ Werthen asked. ‘This passage has been translated as “the well-tended copse”. But that makes no sense, of course.’

An actual laugh came from Moos now. ‘To you folks, maybe not. But it is close.’

Then suspicion crossed his face. ‘You think this name is important?’

‘We think,’ Gross said, ‘that this is the person who. .’ Gross hesitated a moment, wondering how much detail to supply.

‘The person responsible for leading Waltraude astray,’ Werthen said, simplifying matters. ‘And perhaps also her killer.’

Moos set his jaw again, nodding. ‘Let’s get it right then. Like I say, whoever tried to translate this got it right and wrong. It’s this word here,’ Moos pointed to the word smafot on the page, showing it to Gross and Werthen.

‘That’s made up. Traudl put together a couple of words in Volapük to get that. Sma, that means small; and fot, for woods or forest. So your translator got the small part right, as a copse is a small wood. Problem is fot. Volapük is an economical language and, like I say, fot can mean either woods or forest. In one meaning it is a wild forest or wood, but in another meaning we have forest like where you cut timber, like farming almost.’

‘That’s the “well-tended” part?’ Werthen said.

Moos nodded. ‘Like I say, right and wrong.’

‘And your daughter meant “little forest”?’ Gross said. ‘ Forstl .’

‘That’s my guess. Mean anything to you?’

Gross sucked in air mightily. ‘Oh yes, Herr Moos.’

‘Wait. You don’t think he’s the one come visiting, do you?’

Werthen and Gross looked quizzical.

‘Another man from the city. He came several days after you did,’ he said, looking at Werthen. ‘Acting like he was handing out samples of perfume. I gave him short shrift, sent him on his way. Him and his bottles of fancy-smelling whale vomit.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘What do all city folk look like? Dressed in their suits and hats, so you can’t even see them.’

‘Tall, short, slim, fat?’ Werthen prompted.

‘Oh, he was a man you would never notice,’ Moos said. ‘Neither tall nor short, thin or fat. Almost like he had no features. But he wasn’t Austrian, I can tell you that. I’m a student of languages, and he spoke German like. . Well, he didn’t learn it from his mama. Too clear, like; too formal. Not just city formal, but from foreign parts.’

Werthen was immediately reminded of Frau Ignatz’s description of the man in the stairwell at Habsburgergasse the night before the explosion; and Duncan’s description of the man with the sandwich board outside their flat. Everyman; the man who blended into the background.

‘But I did notice something about him. His hands. When he went to gather up the bottles of perfume he’d tried to give us, his little fingers were odd. He picked things up like a high-class woman drinking tea.’ He mimicked holding a tea cup between thumb and forefinger, his little finger sticking out straight. ‘But on both hands, like he couldn’t use them properly. Like maybe they had been broken.’

‘Do you remember the name of the perfume?’ Gross asked.