A Visible Darkness Part 15

So much for Professor Kant's scientific approach to the collection of data. Isolate the scene of the crime, he insisted. Allow no one in. Record everything, no matter how unimportant it may at first appear.

I turned sharply on Pastoris.

'Why are your women here?'

The small man stepped closer, wheezed loudly, bent his head and looked in through the low door. 'Adam came by the sheds,' he said, 'thinking that she might be one of my lot. But the girls are all accounted for. I told him where to look for you, Herr Magistrate. I tried to keep my girls away, but it was a dead loss. Two or three came over to help move the pigs. The rest came shortly afterwards. Word got out that one of their old companions from the sh.o.r.e was . . . well. It was difficult to keep them away, sir.'

'Get them out,' I hissed.

Pastoris went in. The dark interior seemed to swallow him whole. The only thing that issued from the sty was the stench. I heard the buzz of voices. Some of them were raised in anger, others were crying bitterly. It was clear to me that Pastoris could do little to control the situation.

I took a deep breath, bent low, then dashed inside. Adam Ansbach followed me. The women were huddled tightly together in the corner like frightened sheep, making a low wailing noise. Were they praying? Pastoris was standing in the centre of the group, murmuring alongside the others.

'Everybody out of here!' I roared through clenched teeth.

The women bobbed their heads and fled. One of them slipped and fell as she turned away. Pastoris pulled the woman to her feet, then shoved her out through the doorway. I could not fathom his power over them. Was he their sheep-dog, or was he the wolf that threatened to tear them to shreds?

'Stay here, Pastoris.' I caught Adam Ansbach by the arm. 'You, too,' I said.

The liquid bath of excremental filth was as deep as my ankles.

'Hold up those lamps,' I ordered.

Buzzing sounded close to my ears. Something touched my eye-lids, settled on my face. It was there, it was gone. Then, it was back again. Flies. I waved my hand in front of my face, then covered my nose and mouth, disregarding the advice that Pastoris had given me. Those flies had been feeding on the body. Like the pigs, I thought. Even more voraciously, according to Linnaeus.

The floor was a sea of dark green slime. A dull red sheen glistened on the surface of the puddles near the body like the pattern of an oriental carpet. The victim was in a sitting position in the corner. Slumped against the wall, her head pitched forward, long dark hair bunched and tied at the back, strands dangling free, arms hanging loose, her legs bent at the knees. She might have chosen that unlikely spot to fall asleep, were it not for the fact that her skin no longer looked like human flesh. Nor did her rags resemble the clothing a decent woman might wear. The body and her clothes had been torn to shreds.

Blood and slime, dark red, dark green, clotting to black.

I might have liked to run the way the women had gone, but I took the lantern from the hand of Pastoris, and stepped closer.

Ears, nose, cheeks, lips. All torn off. Not cut, but ripped and shredded. Exposed bone gleamed dull grey between the islands of coagulating blood and the lurid strips of dangling flesh. Her cheeks had been ravished by the pigs. Her teeth and jaws were harshly gritted in a bizarre grin.

Nothing appeared to have been taken away.

The tattered dress exposed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Two blood-dark circles. Nothing remained. Below was a large blood-encrusted cavern. Intestines and guts had spilled out over her lifeless hands. Her ribs jutted out like the bare struts of a whalebone corset. The legs seemed intact, folded at the knee, apparently demurely covered. I flicked the skirt away with my finger. Slivers of skin and strips of muscle dangled from the left thigh and calf. Her feet were planted squarely in the filth. The shoe had gone from her right foot. And with it, the toes. Below the right knee, there was nothing left but bone.

I found myself communicating silently with that formless ma.s.s.

What business brought you here? Whom did you intend to meet? And what did he take away with him before he left the rest to the pigs?

Without thinking, I drew my notebook from my bag, uncapped the graphite-case. Though my hand shook, I tried to record exactly what I saw. It was the most hideous sketch that I had ever made. And as I worked, I spoke over my shoulder.

'Was she like this when you found her, Adam?'

I heard a fearful rattle in the boy's throat. 'I had a hard time s.h.i.+fting the pigs, sir. Like I said. They'd had a taste of flesh and blood . . . Mother and me, we had to prod them with a pitchfork. Chased them out one at a time, more or less.'

'Did you touch the body?'

I heard him shudder.

'Did you move anything?'

'I would not touch her, sir. What good would it do?'

I envisaged the pigs fighting over their unexpected supper, and felt more ill than before. Yet, I had to persist. 'Did you know the girl, Adam? Had she been here on her own before?'

'Herr Pastoris said she wasn't one of his . . .'

Anger erupted from me. 'I am asking you!' I growled.

'I'd never met her, sir. Leastways, not as far as I can tell. Now, I mean.'

His reasonableness provoked me. He was calm as the sea on a summer's night. It must have been a horrifying moment, even for a peasant boy who was used to the sights and the smells of the farmyard: slaughtering animals, gutting the carca.s.ses, dead meat, the daily round of maggots and flies, rot and rancid putrefaction. He must have realised that he would be suspected.

'Did you hear that woman scream?'

'I did not hear a thing, sir.'

'Tell me now,' I pressed him. 'The French won't ask you twice, remember. They'll have the answer out of you in no time.'

Rumours were rife that the French tortured prisoners. I hoped that he believed those tales, that he would fear being handed over to them even more than he feared me.

'I heard the row the pigs was making. Didn't think nothing of it, sir. But when they wouldn't come out, I went in to chase them out.'

'You have nothing else to tell me?' I said sternly.

'We've nought to hide,' Pastoris protested. 'This is a catastrophe for us. I hope you understand the danger, sir. The French won't leave us in peace. Wasn't this just what they wanted?'

'The body was found here, Pastoris,' I insisted. 'On this farm. Someone brought her here, or she came of her own free will.' I paused, adding weight to what I wished to say. 'She may have come to meet the man who killed her.'

I expected a reaction, but it surprised me. Adam Ansbach's shoulders began to jerk violently. Loud, gasping sobs burst from his mouth.

Pastoris laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. 'Tell Herr Magistrate that you did not bring her here, Adam. Tell him that you did not plan to meet her. And that you did not even know her.'

'It's true, sir.' He was sobbing like a child.

'I have your word alone,' I said.

'You have mine!'

As I turned to meet that angry voice, I raised my lantern. The flames glistened on the boy's wet cheeks, then lit the figure of a woman who was straightening up, having pa.s.sed with difficulty beneath the low paddock door.

'My son would never mix with them!' she said, stepping up as if to strike me.

The woman was tall, bulky, larger than me. She wore a long black s.h.i.+ft, and a black shawl covering her head.

'Who are you?' I asked.

'Magda Ansbach,' the woman replied. 'His mother. This farm is mine.'

At last, I consoled myself sardonically, a credible witness.

'Have you been watching this shed all day?' I challenged her. 'And for no better reason than to swear that no member of your family came in here carrying the corpse of a woman?'

'Not all the day,' she replied with dignity. 'I've been busy round and about the farm since dawn. There are the goats and hens to feed, vegetables growing over yonder. I know everything that happens in this place. No one came. At least, that is, I saw no one . . .'

'You must tell a more convincing tale,' I said. 'The evidence here is obvious. An amber-gatherer from the coast is dead in your sty. And with the teeth-marks of your pigs upon her.'

'Who says that she was murdered?' the woman vehemently replied. 'Who says she wasn't drunk? She could have crept in there to sleep it off.'

The woman seemed to crowd in upon me as she continued speaking. She swelled up in front of me like a bantam c.o.c.k, her broad face seeming to grow ever larger. Before she had had her say, I could see nothing and no one beyond her scowling face. Her wide-set eyes locked into mine as if she never meant to let me go again.

'Those girls are cursed!' she shrieked. 'They spread corruption wherever they go. They pa.s.s it round like a disease. You've seen the lot who work for Pastoris here. Not one of them is whole, sir. This one got what was coming to her, I'll be bound.'

'Which disease are you talking of, Frau Ansbach?'

The woman was ugly and aggressive. Her jaw was large and square. When she scrunched her face up into a grimace, the effect was hideous. It was like speaking to a gargoyle.

'Amber,' she snarled, her eyes glinting. 'They gather amber. They know the greed and violence that it unleashes. Just like the horrid insects trapped inside it. The creatures can't break loose, and neither can those girls. It suffocates and crushes them in the end. I know what amber is!'

She was so close. Her breath was fouler than the pigsty.

'I worked on the sh.o.r.e when I was young. I've held a piece of amber in my hands. This size!' She held her closed fist in front of my nose. 'Twenty-seven years ago, it was. We didn't have no Frenchies then, we couldn't sc.r.a.pe by with just the farm. I'd go out searching on the sh.o.r.e, and found that lump of amber in the sea.' She stopped and her eyes peered bleakly into mine. 'There was a bug inside of it, the most peculiar thing I ever saw. Nine months later, I gave birth to a . . . to a monster, sir! G.o.d was merciful, that poor creature died, but I ain't been down to the sea again. Not once! The Lord gave me Adam four years after. Whole and strong.'

What was she ranting about? Was she trying to tell me that the creature trapped inside the stone had influenced the child inside her womb? Did she believe that physical deformity could be explained away in such a manner?

And yet, she believed it. As if it were an undeniable truth. And I was tempted to believe it, too. I had seen the horrors on that coast. The torn and twisted bodies in the sheds of Nordbarn, the avidity of the men who traded in the amber-market of Nordcopp. Erika Linder. Was it possible that amber, like some cruel witch's potion, could provoke both physical devastation and spiritual deformity?

Suddenly, I thought of Kati Rodendahl. She had hidden amber in her body, and she had been murdered. Had Magda Ansbach done the same , and had her child been deformed as a result of doing so?

I turned away, and faced the corpse of Ilse Bruen.

I was glad that it was night. I was grateful that the pigs had done such damage to the corpse. I was overjoyed that I would not be obliged to search the body, as I knew I must. Tomorrow, I would organise a squad of soldiers, and have the body taken from the sty, together with any clues that the killer might have left behind him.

'I always thought that amber was a gift from G.o.d,' I replied. 'For this region, and for the whole of Prus sia. Generations of our people have survived and thrived . . .'

'All dead,' she said plaintively. 'All gone.'

At my back I heard the renewed sobs of Adam Ansbach. I was tempted to add my own comforts to those of Pastoris. I wanted to tell the boy that what his mother said in crus.h.i.+ng apocalyptic tones was untrue. I heard Pastoris urging him to look up, but Adam was clearly terrified by every word that issued from his mother's mouth. Was his distress the proof of innocence that I sought? If Magda Ansbach could frighten me, she could certainly frighten him. If she told him to avoid those women, would he dare to disobey her?

'Dead. All dead,' she raved. 'Killed for the sake of amber. Those sands out there, sir, didn't you feel the crunch of bones beneath your feet?' She did not wait for my reply, nor seem to expect one. 'Every one of them lost their lives in the search for amber. That is the Baltic, sir. Dry bones, dead bodies.'

Her madness was a litany. She filled the air with hate and dark despair. As she spoke, the corpse of Kati Rodendahl seemed to rear up before me. Kati had lived by amber, died by amber. And what about the wrecked corpse in the corner? Had amber killed her, too? How many more would have to die before the French replaced them with machines?

'Do not try to touch that corpse, do you hear me? Close the sty. Lock the door, Frau Ansbach. That body might infect the farm and every soul that breathes here. Animal or human.'

Even as I spoke, I felt ashamed of myself. I would have said anything to shut her mouth, and I knew that I had chosen the argument correctly. The pigsty would be an inviolable shrine, where the corpse of Ilse Bruen would rest in peace.

At least for that night.

As I went out through the door, the night air was like nectar.

Pastoris came hard on my heels, while Adam Ansbach closed and barred the pigsty wicket. More to keep the evil spirits in, I thought, than to prevent any person from entering. As the son worked feverishly, the mother mumbled darkly, uttering I know not what lugubrious comforts.

'What now, Herr Procurator?' Pastoris asked. 'That corpse is the opportunity that the French have been looking for. A dead prussian discovered by Prussians in a Prussian pigsty.'

I understood his fear. More: I shared it.

Before I went to bed, I would be obliged to tell les Halles what he longed to hear.

'I'll have to tell them what has happened,' I said.

Pastoris stared at me in silence. Pain was there at first, but then his look hardened, and was as sharp as the blade he used to sc.r.a.pe encrusted amber.

As I returned to the coast that night, the ride seemed endless.

The fog had lifted, but the oppressive silence of the dunes persisted. There were no stars in the sky, the clouds were dark grey, low. No wind at all. My mind was filled with omens. The corpse of Ilse Bruen, the tears of Adam Ansbach, the fears of Pastoris, the dark prophecies of Magda Ansbach.

One thing alone was capable of s.h.i.+fting a little of the weight from off my heavy heart. A song that Helena often sang to the children sometimes. It came into my mind without my bidding, and would not go away.

I started to sing, softly at first, then louder. I was warding off my own fears.

Here comes the sun, here comes the light.

Where is the dark? Where is the night?

Locked in the cupboard, mother. Locked in the cupboard . . .

15.

THE OPEN DOOR cast a rhomboid of light on the ground.

Stripped to his vest and braces, Colonel les Halles was alone in the cabin.

A bulbous storm-lantern threw ample light onto a large sheet of paper spread out before him. Covered with intricate sketches, this paper absorbed all of his attention. Nothing seemed more important. Not even a spate of murders. The wooden models, which he had been so proud of the night before, were pushed aside like a boy's tin soldiers after the battle.

'Back already, Stiffeniis?' he said, looking up as I knocked on the door-post.

He waved for me to enter, but he did not invite me to sit down. Would I be obliged to stand before him like a schoolboy, I wondered, and recite the lesson? I stole a glance at the drawings, and instruments: set-square, compa.s.s, dividers. He was reshaping the extending arm of the coq du mer, the machine with which he intended to suck up the blaue Erde, and the amber that was embedded in it.

'Well, what did you find?' he asked impatiently.