Death in Breslau Read Free Page B

slowly, his coat unbuttoned. He felt the burden of his fifty years. After half an hour, he found himself among familiar houses. In the doorway of one of the tenements on Opitzstrasse, he came to a standstill and looked at his watch. Four o’clock. At this time, he would normally be coming back from his Friday “chess”. Yet never had any of the exquisite sessions wearied him so much as today’s experience.
    Lying next to his wife, he listened to the ticking of the clock. Before falling asleep, he remembered a scene from his youth. He was staying as a twenty-year-old student on the estate of his distant family near Trebnitz and flirting with the wife of the manor steward. In the end, after many unsuccessful attempts, he had arranged a tryst with her. He was sitting on the river bank under an old oak tree, certain that the day had come when he was finally going to have his fill of her voluptuous body. Smoking a cigarette, he listened to an argument between a few country girls who were playing on the other side of the river. The cruel creatures, their voices raised, were chasing away a lame girl and calling her a cripple. The child was standing by the water and looking in Mock’s direction. In her outstretched arm, she held an old doll, her darned dress rippled in the breeze, her newly polished shoes were splattered with clay. Mock realized that she reminded him of a bird with a broken wing. As he watched the girl, he all of a sudden began to cry.
    Nor could he stifle his tears now. His wife muttered something in her sleep. Mock opened the window and turned his burning face to the rain.Marietta von der Malten had been lame too and he had known her since she was a child.
    BRESLAU, THAT SAME MAY 13TH, 1933
EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
    On Saturdays, Mock would arrive at the Police Praesidium at ten in the morning. The porters, couriers and detectives would glance meaningfully at each other as, faintly smiling and heavy with sleep, the Counsellor would reply to their greetings, leaving behind him a waft of expensive eau de cologne from Welzel. But this Saturday he did not remind anyone of that self-satisfied policeman, their mild and understanding superior. He came into the building as early as eight, slamming the door behind him. He snapped open his umbrella several times, spraying droplets of rain all around. Without replying either to the porter’s or to the sleepy courier’s “Good morning, sir”, he took the stairs at the double, caught the tip of his shoe and all but fell. Porter Handke could not believe his ears – for the first time in his experience, he heard a ripe curse from Mock’s lips.
    “Oh, the Counsellor’s ill-disposed today,” he smiled to Bender, the courier.
    Mock, meantime, had entered his office, sat behind his desk, and lit a cigar. His unseeing eyes fixed on a glazed brick wall. Although aware that he was still wearing his coat and hat, he did not move. After some minutes, a knock echoed on the door and Forstner came in.
    “Everybody’s to be here in an hour.”
    “They are here already.”
    The Counsellor looked at his assistant with cool kindliness for the first time.
    “Forstner, please arrange for me to talk to Professor Andreae from theuniversity over the telephone. And please phone Baron Olivier von der Malten’s residence and ask what time the Baron would be willing to see me. Briefing here in five minutes.”
    It seemed to Mock that Forstner clicked his heels as he left.
    The Detectives and Inspectors, titled Assistants, Secretaries and Criminal Sergeants, looked at their unshaven boss and the pale Forstner with no surprise. They knew that the latter’s stomach upset was in no way due to over-indulging in his favorite dish of black pudding and onions.
    “Gentlemen, you’re to put aside all other cases currently in hand.” Mock spoke loudly and clearly. “We are to use all means, lawful and unlawful, to find the murderer or murderers. You may use violence and you may use