Marek Krajewski - Phantoms of Breslau

The banks of the Oder passed slowly. Occasional anglers, mostly retired men, were returning home with nets full of perch. The trees dripped with foliage; nature was refusing to recognize the approach of autumn.

“That’s the water tower, isn’t it?” Garbe whispered, pointing to a square brick building on their left. The police officer nodded and addressed a colleague sitting opposite him clutching a locked hold-all marked MATERIAL EVIDENCE:

“Look how fast we’re going, Reinert. I told you we’d get there quicker by river.”

“You’re always right, Kleinfeld,” muttered the other man. “Your Talmudic mind is never mistaken.”

First Mate Garbe looked up at Kaiserbrucke spanning the river on its steel web and accelerated. The air was hot and muggy. The police officers on the motorboat fell silent. Garbe focussed his attention on the rivets in the bridge, and once they had cleared it, on the faces of his passengers. Four of them sported moustaches, one a beard, and another was clean-shaven. The bearded man blew smoke rings from his pipe which then trailed over the water, and talked in a whisper to the fair-haired moustachioed man sitting next to him. Both men were trying to make it clear with every word and gesture that it was they who gave the orders around here. Kleinfeld and Reinert wore small moustaches, and red whiskers bristled on the top lip of the stout and taciturn police officer. Next to him sat a stocky, clean-shaven, dark-haired man. He looked exhausted. He leaned over the water, breathing in the damp air, and then a cough would tear at his lungs, persistent and dry, as if something was irritating his throat. He rested his arm on the boat’s machine-gun and stared down at the water. First Mate Garbe soon tired of scrutinizing the six silent men and looked up at the underside of Lessingbrucke, which they were now approaching. From its girders dripped water or horse urine. Garbe navigated in such a way that not a single drop fell onto his motorboat. When they had passed under the bridge, Garbe caught a very interesting snippet of conversation:

“I still do not understand, Excellency” — barely suppressed irritation could be heard in the dark-haired man’s voice — “why my man and I have been summoned to this crime. Would you, as my immediate superior, care to explain it to me? Has our duty remit been extended?”

“Of course, Mock,” the fair-haired, moustachioed man said in a shrill voice. “But let us first get one thing straight. I don’t have to explain anything to you. Have you never heard of ‘orders’? Police work is founded on issuing orders and often calls for a strong stomach. And subordinates are to execute these orders, even if it means throwing up a hundred times a day. Do we understand each other, Mock? And do not address me as Excellency unless you’re attempting to be extremely ironic.”

“Yes sir, Criminal Councillor sir,” the dark-haired man said.

“I’m glad you’ve understood.” The blond moustache curved into a smile. “And now, think about it yourself and answer me: why do you think you and I are both here? Why has Criminal Commissioner Muhlhaus asked us for help?”

“Naked corpses with leather pouches on their balls,” came a muttering from beneath the red moustache. “They could be queers. Those of us in IIIb have come across men like that before.”

“Good, Smolorz. I didn’t actually ask you, but you’re right. Four murdered queers. That’s a case for Commissioner Muhlhaus and the men in IIIb. As of today, you and Mock are to be transferred, for the duration of this investigation, to the Murder Commission under the direction of Commissioner Muhlhaus.”

The dark-haired man stood up so abruptly that the boat rocked: “But of our men Lembcke and Maraun are much more sure of themselves in the homosexual demi-monde than we are; they’re the ones best acquainted with it. Smolorz and I book girls and sometimes raid illegal clubs. So why …”

“First of all, Mock,” said the man with the pipe and thick beard, “Councillor Ilssheimer has already explained the meaning of an order. Secondly, we don’t know whether or not these four sailors were homosexuals. We’d like you to tell us who else might wear leather suspensories. Third, and finally, my respected colleague Ilssheimer has told me a great deal about you, and I know I wouldn’t be able to stop you conducting your own private investigation into this case. But why would you conduct your own investigation when you can do so under my command?”

“I don’t understand.” The dark-haired man spoke slowly and huskily. “What private investigation? Why should I want to conduct any sort of investigation into the case of a few murdered queers?”

“Here’s why.” From the greying beard puffed a cloud of Badia tobacco smoke. “Read this. This card was stuck in the belt of one of the dead men’s underpants. Be so kind as to read it. Out loud.”

First Mate Garbe did not pay the slightest attention to the Regier-ungsbezirk Schlesien building which they were just passing on the left, or to St Joseph’s Hospital built of white clinker bricks on their right. He was listening to the cryptic message being read slowly from the card:

“‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Mock, admit your mistake, admit you have come to believe. If you do not want to see more gouged eyes, admit your mistake.’”

“What?” shouted the man with the red moustache. “Are you talking to yourself?”

“Listen to me, Smolorz, use that thick brain of yours,” the dark-haired man said quietly and deliberately. “No, that’s too much of an effort for you. Read it yourself. Read the card yourself. Well, go on, read it, damn you!”

“‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Mock, admit your mistake, admit you have come to believe. If you do not want to …’”

“Commissioner, sir, Councillor Ilssheimer was right … I’d have conducted a private investigation into this case.” The dark-haired man now coughed as violently as if it were splinters stuck in his throat, not hair.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 1ST, 1919

NOON

Thick clouds floated across the sky and obscured the sun. Ten men were present in the briefing room on the second floor of the Police Praesidium at Schuhbrucke 49. Doctor Lasarius held a thick, brown cardboard box full of handwritten documents. Next to him sat three police officers with short names: Holst, Pragst and Rohs. They had searched the scene of the crime and then, on Muhlhaus’ orders, had been present at the postmortem and taken down minutes of the proceedings. Smolorz and Mock settled on either side of their chief, Councillor Ilssheimer, while to the right and left of Muhlhaus sat his own most trusted colleagues: Kleinfeld and Reinert. Tea in Moabit porcelain was set out in front of the men.

“This is what happened, gentlemen,” Lasarius began as he extracted a cigar from a tin carrying the logo of Dutschmann tobacconist’s. “At about midnight, what was probably a horse’s dose of drugs entered the bodies of these four sailors, all aged between twenty and twenty-five. This is indicated by traces of opium on their fingers. There was so much it could have put them to sleep for a good many hours. As a result it acted as an anaesthetic while their limbs were being broken. Let us add that all these men were, most likely, drug addicts, as demonstrated by their emaciated bodies and numerous scars along their veins. One of them had even injected morphine into his penis … So nobody would have had much trouble persuading them to smoke a pipe containing a large quantity of opium.”

“Were they homosexuals?” Kleinfeld asked.

“An examination of their anuses does not support this theory.” Lasarius did not like to be interrupted. “We can be certain that none of them had anal intercourse over the past few days. Returning to my interrupted train of thought … At about midnight, while they were under the influence of the drug, their eyes were gouged out and their arms and legs broken. The perpetrator broke sixteen limbs, all more or less in the same place, at the knee joint and the elbow joint.” Lasarius passed the police officers an anatomical atlas and pointed to the elbows and knees on an ink drawing of a skeleton. “I’ve already mentioned that the contusions are the imprints of a shoe …”