Part 16 (2/2)

'My men would have searched for her,' he'd say. 'They would have checked the farm and sty before the pigs consumed the body. By coming to us, that boy is playing the innocent. He is attempting to lay a trail which leads away from himself.'

I turned again, but could not rest.

The possibilities seemed to multiply endlessly in my mind. Unlike les Halles, I did not even have a working hypothesis. And how could I establish facts and interpret clues, when every witness added his own dose of fear and hate to the equation?

Was Magda Ansbach right when she said that amber corrupted everyone who came into contact with it? I had been on the coast for two nights only, but I had already been seduced by the beauty of it, fascinated by its legends and its mysteries. My head was a jumble of confused thoughts, and unwanted images. I was unable to concentrate on what was essential, incapable of putting aside what was not.

Helena and the children came to visit me, then.

I crushed the image immediately.

I had no desire for sweet distracting thoughts. It was not my family that I ought to be thinking of, but the woman whose body had been thrown to the pigs, abandoned in the slime and the filth. Her ravaged body had become an integral part of the mess. I could smell the vileness on my hands, clothes and hair. Even so, I realised, I had been prepared for it in a way. The same revolting sights and smells were everywhere in Lotingen.

Only the clouds of flies were missing . . .

And yet, there were flies hovering around the body. Despite the salty humidity of the sea air, which ought to have driven them off. In Lotingen that corpse would have attracted flies more quickly than a jar of honey. How many days would it take three flies to consume that human body?

I turned over, facing the wall for the hundredth time, but still I saw the corpse. The dark islands of congealed blood, the holes the ravenous swine had torn in her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and stomach, the cruel ripping of the flesh from her face, the bones which gleamed in the lantern light . . .

G.o.d give me peace!

I prayed, but I did not ask for the balm of sleep. I begged for the black void of unconsciousness. When the investigation was completed, I would find rest. When the killer had a name. When I had written my final report for Colonel les Halles. For Colonel Claudet. For General Malaport. For Napoleon himself . . .

Revered Emperor, the missive began to write itself in my brain, your interests in the amber from the Baltic Sea are now entirely safe. In payment for this ser vice, I beg you, sire, to order that the streets of Lotingen be cleaned, the mountains of filth removed, and, with them, the flies which plague our lives, bringing nuisance and epidemics. Do it, sire, as I have done your business, removing with my own hands the stolen French amber hidden in the secret parts of the human corpses which infested the northernmost sh.o.r.es of your vast Baltic . . .

Our Baltic Sea. Our Baltic amber.

Somehow, the tail of my hair had worked its way around my throat like a rope that was intent on strangling me. I pulled my right hand from my left armpit and was about to s.h.i.+ft it away- My wrist was suddenly crushed against my larynx.

Strong fingers pressed flat against my mouth, preventing me from crying out.

I felt hot breath on my ear.

'Do not shout, Herr Magistrate, or they'll find themselves another corpse!'

A shadow hovered over me. Darker than the gloom which reigned in the cabin. Those cold fingers hampered my breathing; that strong wrist was capable of snapping my neck.

'Will you speak quietly? Nod once, and I'll let you up.'

I pushed my head up off the straw mattress.

The pressure began to relax. The fingers slid away from my lips, resting lightly against my cheek. The shadow s.h.i.+fted, as I gasped for air. A little harder, I would have been dead.

'How did Ilse die?'

Had I ever heard such pain in so few words?

'Please, let me sit,' I hissed.

The shadow made no attempt to stop me, and I caught my first glimpse of the a.s.sailant. Moonlight or mist had turned the window a dull grey. Perfectly framed by this pale screen, the shadow took on the shape of a human profile skilfully cut with scissors from black paper. It was not the length of her hair, nor the curve of the shoulder, that told me that my attacker was a woman. It was the way in which she retreated as I levered myself onto my elbows. A graceful retreat as I advanced, making room for my legs to slide down from the cot and touch the floor.

'Who are you?' I asked.

The reply was so low, I could hardly hear the words.

'One of those that the killer is hunting. Just tell me what he did this time.'

A great weight seemed to slide from my shoulders as I tried to paint a picture of the revolting compound of human blood and animal filth that I had seen in Nordbarn earlier that night. Indeed, I felt strangely soothed as I shared the horror with another person.

The shadow did not say a word until I had finished.

'But the pigs did not kill her,' she said at last, as if stunned by what I had told her.

'No, it was not the pigs.'

Again, she was silent for some moments.

'Do you know who did it?' she asked.

'I have no idea.'

Time stretched out in heavy silence. On the sh.o.r.e down below, I heard the waves break gently on the pebbles, the slow rattling as the brine drained back to meet the next onslaught. When she spoke again, her voice seemed gentler. A child would be soothed by such a voice as it spun the web of tales intended to hasten sleep. I might have been lulled, were it not for the things that she said.

'What did he rip out this time?'

'I . . . I cannot say,' I whispered helplessly.

'There isn't much you seem to know, sir. How are you going to stop him chopping up the rest of us?'

'What is your name?' I asked.

'Do you want to tell les Halles?'

'G.o.d, no! It is only that . . . well, you know who I am.'

'Do you have a candle?' she asked me. 'I want to see your face.'

I remembered the taper that I had stubbed out before coming to bed, and dropped down on my knees, feeling about on the floor with my hands. I brushed against her foot, then found what I was looking for, together with the flint-box.

'If the colonel is up, he may see . . .'

'Light it, sir,' she chided. 'He went to bed as soon as you left him. He's been working like the Dev il to night. His little engine won't do what he wants.'

I heard her giggling in the dark.

How many emotions had swept over her since she entered my cabin? Violence, certainly. I had felt the strength in her arms and fingers, convinced that she was going to smother me. Anxious concern, as she quizzed me about the fate of her friend. Great calm, as she listened to what I had to tell her. Irony, as she revealed that she knew too well the dangers faced by herself and the other women on Nordcopp sh.o.r.e. Now, mirth. The coq du mer was playing up.

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