Part 3 (1/2)

He looked up at the sound of my voice. His eyes were piercing, naked-small, bloodshot, translucent, grey.

'I have travelled a long way to speak with you today,' he said. He pointed abruptly to the chair which stood in front of the ma.s.sive desk. 'Sit down,' he said, and gestured impatiently at me. 'You worked with an officer named Serge Lavedrine, we hear?'

General Malaport leant forward, rested his chin on his tiny joined hands, and closed his eyes as if to concentrate on my reply.

'Is Lavedrine in Lotingen?' I asked, surprised to hear the name of the French criminologist.

Claudet's mouth fell open, but the words that I heard did not come from his lips.

'He spoke very well of you, monsieur,' General Malaport replied, though he hardly moved, and did not open his eyes. 'I have read his report of your joint investigation. He praised your honesty and investigative abilities . We will need those qualities.' He flicked his forefinger in the direction of Claudet. 'Go on,' he said.

'The emperor has drawn up plans for Prussia,' Claudet continued quickly. 'He considers the Baltic coast to be of vital importance for France.' He hesitated, then added: 'And for Prussia, naturally.'

I might have asked him why, but he did not give me the chance.

'A deplorable state of inefficiency reigns out there. Thieving is the order of the day along the Baltic coast. It's been going on for centuries, of course, but now it is necessary, essential, I would say . . .'

'Get on with it!' Malaport grumbled, raising his head for an instant, as if his repose had been troubled by an impertinent fly.

'Certainly, sir,' the lieutenant-Colonel agreed. 'The emperor's aim is to increase production. Those resources must be exploited to the full, but they will not be properly . . . that is, not fully exploited while . . . well, while what is happening out there continues to happen.'

The pig-like eyes of General Malaport opened wide. They stared malevolently at Colonel Claudet.

'Come to the point!' he snapped.

'Sabotage, Herr Stiffeniis. That is the point.' Claudet drawled on. 'Someone on the coast is intent on making trouble. He, or they, will baulk at nothing . . .'

Malaport's fist crashed down on the table.

'Murder,' the general said quietly. 'That is what we're talking about. It is compromising important French interests, and must be stopped. You will stop it, Herr Procurator Stiffeniis.'

I had read nothing of the sort in the newspapers, nor in the Court Despatches which had recently arrived from Berlin. Nor had news of a murder on the coast been announced in the Bulletin militaire which reports every week on the state of affairs in East Prussia.

'Have French soldiers been killed?' I asked.

General Malaport smiled wryly. 'It might be better,' he said. 'At least, the motive would be clear. We have no one with experience in these matters to whom we may turn. Unfortunately, Lavedrine is not available.'

He glanced at Claudet, then turned to me again.

'I've been looking through your file. Even before Lavedrine came to Lotingen, you were chosen for your investigative skills by the late Professor Kant himself. Konigsberg, 1804, I think it was?'

I nodded, accepting the remark as the compliment he intended it to be, wondering whether he would be equally impressed by the case I had been working on more recently. One thing was clear: a murder hunt was on the cards. I felt a flutter of excitement. But an instant later, remembering the horror of the case which I had had to face the year before with Serge Lavedrine-the ma.s.sacre of the Gottewald family-I felt less sure of myself. I would be obliged to cooperate with the French, but this time I would be working on my own.

'I am grateful for the faith that you express in my regard, sir,' I replied, 'but I cannot help you unless I know a little more. Who has been murdered? How was the crime committed? And why will French interests be threatened if the killer continues to go unpunished?'

Malaport slumped back against the chair, as if each question was a punch.

'You are correct, Herr Stiffeniis,' he said. He sat in moody silence, considering I knew not what, then he turned to his fellow-countryman. 'Leave us alone, Claudet. You have other things to do, no doubt.'

The most powerful man in Lotingen garrison glared at the most powerful man in northern Prussia. Then, the lieutenant-colonel saluted and strode stiffly out of the room, casting a black look at me. As the door closed more loudly than was necessary, General Malaport cast his tired eyes on mine.

'You know the Baltic coast, I think? You know what goes on up there.'

I sat up straighter. 'Many things, sir. Fis.h.i.+ng, smuggling . . .'

'Important French interests, remember.'

'The docks and harbours, then. Trade and the English blockade . . .'

'Amber,' he interrupted me in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. 'Amber is what interests the emperor.'

Amber had been on everyone's lips for a year. One night, a month or two before, a paper had been pinned to the door of Lotingen cathedral, and to the doors of many other churches in the canton. A melodramatic gesture, but an effective one. Luther's ghost was walking the streets at night, the people said. He was pinning up his lamentations, trying to incite good Prussians to revolt against the foreign thieves. 'THEY ARE RIPPING IT OUT,' the t.i.tle screeched. A rough drawing ill.u.s.trated the theme: a large chunk of Baltic amber cut in the shape of a human heart. The Prussian eagle was imprisoned inside the resin, like a dead fly. And a threat. 'FRANCE MUST PAY!'

I had been surprised by the motive for such anger. There were a thousand more important things that the French had ripped from Prussian hands. Our pride. Our liberty. Our independence. But then I thought of the ancient amber necklace that my mother had worn on every important occasion in Ruisling. The handles of our best knives and forks were amber inlaid with silver. So was the candlestick on my bedside table. The mouthpiece of my father's pipe, the handle of my pocket-knife. If one had made an inventory of the Stiffeniis estate, there would have been a thousand items, large and small, which were decorated with amber from our Baltic sh.o.r.es. The portraits of my ancestors hanging up in the library were framed in sculpted amber. The paintings had faded, but the amber was as bright and fresh as the day it had been polished and set. Its very permanence seemed to highlight the weakness of the flesh that those ostentatious frames contained.

'France has plans for the amber industry,' he said.

He did not say what those plans might be, though I could guess. Was there one crucial event in the history of my country-the financing of a war, the purchase of new cannons, new s.h.i.+ps, new horses, swords and pikes-which had not been paid for with amber from the Baltic Sea? Was there a single item representing the wealth, the history and the culture of Prussia in the collections of other nations that did not contain a piece of amber? Was it any surprise that the French were interested?

'A corpse was found in Nordcopp yesterday morning,' General Malaport went on. 'A young woman. One of the amber-workers. She may not have been the first to die. Nor will she be the last, I fear.'

'What makes you think that she was murdered, sir?' I asked. 'Gathering amber on the sh.o.r.e is not the safest way to live. The waves of the Baltic Sea . . .'

Malaport's hand came down flat on the desk, but there was no anger in the gesture.

'Waves do not butcher bodies,' he said. 'You'll be in a better position to judge when you have examined the corpse for yourself. What is happening in Spain has not gone unnoticed here in Prussia. I want to know whether Prussian rebels are involved.'

Helena's frightened voice echoed in my mind. The words that she had p.r.o.nounced on the beach. Despite censors.h.i.+p of the papers, news from the Spanish peninsula was on everyone's lips. The fact that it was supposed to be kept a secret made it all the more disturbing. The Spanish guerrilla were getting the best of the emperor's finest. And though we might admire their courage, we quaked at their methods. Was it possible that men who wore the Cross of Christ around their necks could strike in such a manner? They went from bad to worse-hamstringing horses first, then the men who rode them. And the revenge that the French extracted was even more horrendous. There had been a ma.s.sacre in Santa Maria del Cruz. One hundred Spanish women and children had been hanged. The peasant guerrilla might go home victorious one day, but they would find no one to welcome them. Their cooking-fires had been extinguished for ever.

'Nothing of the sort will happen here,' I had promised Helena.

She had been silent, never once taking her eyes off mine.

'Can you be certain, Hanno?' she had said at last. 'You think you know the French. But do you know your countrymen? I am more afraid of what our rebels may do. There will be no end to it. That's all I know.'

Had Helena been right?

'You are a magistrate, sir,' General Malaport emphasised. 'By helping us, you may protect the less hot-headed of your countrymen . Innocent people are bound to suffer if violent repression of a rebellion is necessary.'

Did he understand the risks of the situation in which he was placing me? Did he know how many Prussians had been murdered by their neighbours as they walked home after speaking to a Frenchman?

General Malaport smiled thinly. 'I know what you are thinking, Stiffeniis,' he said. 'I'll order Claudet to set a close watch upon your family here in Lotingen while you are away.'

He rose without a word, walked to the window, and gazed out over the market square. He was even shorter than I had estimated. Round and bloated above the waist, his legs were thin and curved like carriage-struts. There was nothing palpable which denoted authority in his physique, yet something had induced Napoleon to hand the man a general's baton. I could only pray that it was his intelligence.

He turned abruptly and stared at me.