HS03 - A Visible Darkness (29 page)

Pastoris refused to meet my eye.

He sat at his place, giving orders to his women in short sharp barks, showing the French soldiers by eloquent mime and gesture how to use the treadle, how to bring rough amber into contact with the whirring grindstone. He taught them to chip away marine deposits, turning the amber all the while, insisting that they keep it soaked with grease, and avoid over-working the parts where air-bubbles were present.

The Frenchmen watched the women work.

Now and then, the girls looked up, studying the concentrated expressions on the foreign faces, glancing back at their grinding-wheels as fear got the better of them. One question was written openly on their features.

What will happen next?

Only Hilde Bruckner worked alone. No Frenchman wanted to get too close to her. Pastoris busied himself about everything, explaining something to the French, chivvying the sad-faced women, making sure that all the amber went back into the sack that it had come from. He was purposely avoiding me, I decided. But sooner or later, I thought, he would be obliged to speak to me. A storm was coming on, the sky outside was the colour of sand. The air inside the hut was hot and heavy. The overcrowded, festering, unwashed bodies, the unremitting concentration which Hans Pastoris forced on the French, the intensity of the labour which was new to them, could not last forever. The soldiers would wish to stop, sooner or later. They would want to smoke and relax. I was waiting for this moment, and I meant to take advantage of it. Pastoris kept them at it for an hour, or more, but then Officer Ducros spoke out.

‘My men need a break,’ he said.

Hans Pastoris could only nod. The wheels stopped spinning. The soldiers trooped outside, and Ducros followed them. I took advantage of the interruption, walked across and cornered Pastoris. The ugly scrofula beneath his chin was physically trembling.

‘What will become of us, now?’ he hissed at me, before I could speak.

‘You knew les Halles was coming,’ I said. ‘It was only a question of when.’

‘You gave him the excuse,’ he snarled. ‘They wanted a Prussian, and that is what they got! Now, we’ll all be given the push. And a Prussian magistrate will sign the order!’

The women studied our lips, trying to make sense of what we were saying. No one left her place, fearing that she might never be allowed to return to it, perhaps. All eyes were on Pastoris. They were waiting for a word from their master which would signal the hope of survival, or the beginning of a painful exodus.

‘I did not order Adam’s arrest,’ I insisted. ‘The corpse of Ilse Bruen was found at the farm, together with a pile of bones that no one has been able to identify. Adam Ansbach was there, and les Halles refuses to look any further. He ordered the boy’s arrest.’ I lowered my voice. ‘But all is not yet lost. There might be an alternative solution. A plausible one, which would set Adam free. You must help me, Pastoris.’

The man looked up at me. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Amber was stolen from the church in Nordcopp some months ago. Two women, posing as runaway amber-gatherers, gave their names as Annalise and Megrete. I’ve been to the Round Fort, but I found no trace of them in the registers.’

Pastoris peered at me attentively.

‘What has a theft to do with the murders of Kati and Ilse, Herr Procurator?’

His sharp breath blew into my face. I had to resist the temptation to pull back.

‘What if those names were false?’ I said.

‘Kati and Ilse? Is that what you’re saying? You think that they stole the amber?’

‘Tanzig at the Round Fort says he’s seen no amber with insertions in a long time. Yet that is the amber that everyone wants. The girls know it. They must be smuggling lots of it out. But no one seems to know who comes, who goes. I’m going back to check the lists the French keep on the coast.’

I paused, expecting his reaction, but Pastoris did not say a word.

‘You were right,’ I went on, ‘the French
do
know what’s going on. The guards are a party to the smuggling. If Kati and Ilse went to Nordcopp using false names, then that is the end of it. But if they did not, Annalise and Megrete could be two more girls who have vanished, possibly murdered. Have you ever heard those names pronounced by your workers, Pastoris? I need to know it before I speak to Colonel les Halles.’

‘Is that your game, Herr Stiffeniis?’ The words bubbled angrily up from his throat. ‘See if you can get Pastoris into the shit, as well? Whose idea was this? The Colonel’s? I’ll give you Adam, if you give me Pastoris. Is that what he told you?’ His face was bright red. Veins stood out on his forehead. The swollen sac throbbed and pulsed beneath his chin with rage. ‘There’s not one drop of Prussian blood left in you,’ he said. ‘Can’t you see how low you’ve sunk, working for
them
?’

He spun away before I could reply, advancing on the women.

‘Back to work!’ he shouted. ‘This pause has lasted long enough.’

Ducros came in as these words were spoken.

‘You’d do well to stay, monsieur,’ the French lieutenant called from the door, inviting me to take note of the sky. A forbidding, black barrier masked the horizon. ‘A storm is brewing,’ he said.

I tried to sleep on a hard wooden bench, and set off for the coast before daybreak.

Without managing to speak to Pastoris again.

T
HE BOAT WAS
halfway to the barge.

The sky was growing darker by the moment.

The sea was a black mirror, which reflected my pessimism.

‘What time did the Colonel come out this morning?’ I asked the boatman.

‘Been here all night, monsieur,’ he replied.

‘Problems?’ I asked warily.

‘There’s nothing wrong with the
coq
,’ the boatman said. He thought on that for a while, then he added, ‘It’s the pump. Something must have blocked the suction pipe.’

The pump had drained the slime in the Ansbach pigsty perfectly, according to les Halles. Now, it was broken. I took a deep breath. Les Halles would not be in any sort of a mood to speak to me.

And yet, I had to face him.

I looked down at the register on my knees. It had cost me a great deal of effort to lay my hands on it. I had arrived at the gate an hour before, plastered with sand and mud. It had showered on and off all the way from Nordbarn. The muscles in my legs were taut and aching. I had to speak with les Halles, I announced. The guards on the gate had told me that it was out of the question. I threatened to report them to General Malaport. They looked at each other and decided that les Halles was a greater threat.

Impossible, monsieur!

Desperation led to inspiration. ‘I have news of a potential rebel attack on the
coq du mer
,’ I announced. ‘Try telling Colonel les Halles that you refused to let me through, if anything should happen!’

In fifteen minutes, I had got what I wanted. A rowing-boat to take me out to the barge. And a list of all the people who were present in the French camp: French soldiers and Prussian workers.

I glanced again at the lists.

That rowing-boat seemed fixed for eternity on the same spot. The water rolled against the clinkered boards as heavy as liquid quicksilver. No sound came from it.

I had made a promise to Spener as I opened that book and scanned the names. If I found the names of Annalise and Megrete in the French register, I would donate Kati Rodendahl’s amber to the church in Nordcopp to make up the loss which their theft had caused. I realised how ridiculous I had become. I was asking God
to intercede for something that I wanted. Was I becoming Catholic in my desperation?

On the first page were the names of Colonel les Halles, his officers and men.

Then, a longer list of all the women who were currently employed on the shore.

My name, and those of the French technicians, completed the roll.

I ran my finger down the women’s names.

No Annalise. No Megrete.

Next to the name of Kati Rodendahl someone had written the briefest of annotations.
Tué
. There was no reference to the date, place or manner of her murder. And as for Ilse Bruen, according to the French list, she was still alive.

Next to some of the names was a note to the effect that the girl had run away. In several cases, the list had been updated when the runaway had returned. No such information was reported in the case of Kati Rodendahl. The name of Edviga Lornerssen caught my eye. She had ‘run away’ twice, and ‘come back’ on both occasions. No details were provided of where she had gone, or why she had returned.

The list was a slipshod, hit-or-miss affair.

Did the absence of Annalise and Megrete signify that the names were false? Were Ilse Bruen and Kati Rodendahl the girls who had entered the church and committed the crime? And if they had stolen Spener’s amber, what had they done with it?

The boatman docked his oars.

The rowing-boat bumped gently against the side of the
coq du mer
.

Les Halles leant out over the side. ‘I was about to send out a search-party,’ he muttered. His voice was a harsh growl. It was the voice of a man who had worked all night, shouting orders into the face of a raging storm. And yet, I knew that he would find the strength to spit poison in my direction if he needed to.

‘You’ve brought your report about the killer, I suppose?’

I gripped the slimy rope-ladder and began to climb.

The Colonel stood back at the last moment and let me board.

He was not alone. Two of the engineers who had travelled up with me from Lotingen were resting on the taff-rail. They were as haggard and pale as ghosts. Their eyes sparkled like frightened children. He had worked them hard, that was obvious. But les Halles himself made the greatest impression on me. A bib and trousers cut in one piece hung from his shoulders. His chest was bare, his pale arms naked. On his head he wore a woollen bonnet that had taken on a strange dangling shape from all the rain it had absorbed during the night. In that rig he looked like a common labourer, a drudge who followed orders, rather than giving them.

Our eyes met.

He read my thoughts, I think.

And I caught a glimmer of something else. He did not wish me to see him in that state. His cheeks and forehead were streaked and black with oil, smoke and filth. His eyes were hollow red rings of exhaustion.

Defeat
, I thought. There was defeat in his eyes.

As combatants, we were well-matched. I had not slept, I was equally filthy, my own eyes would betray my tiredness. But I was the stronger. What ever my defeats had been, his failures had been worse. The silence aboard the barge was eloquent. I felt my heart lift.

He saw it, and his eyes flashed away from mine.

‘I have written no report,’ I said. ‘Nor will I do so until I have heard your explanations.’

‘Explain myself to
you
?’ he asked, his eyes flashing angrily. Again, I saw a trace of something unexpected.

Fear . . .

What fear could I inspire in Richard les Halles?

‘There are many questions regarding the running of this camp . . .’

‘Give over with your nonsense,’ he snapped, failing to hold my gaze. His eyes slid away to the top of the derrick, then glanced at the chimney of the steam machine. ‘A minor incident, but it can be resolved. The sea-bed here is not . . .
exactly
as I thought. The
coq
handles silt and pebbles well, but there are larger obstructions
down there. They are the problem. She sucked up everything for three hours, more. The amount of amber—quality amber—was quite prodigious . . .’

‘Then something went wrong,’ I reminded him.

‘A minor hitch,’ he replied, wiping the back of his hand across his brow. ‘The angle of inclination, perhaps. The rapidity of aspiration. The variable density of the silt. The size of the stones . . .’

He outlined the problems, and proposed possible solutions in a strange concoction of bold defiance, simmering anger and perplexed uncertainty. Was he telling me how he did his job? Was he trying to defend himself against accusations of incompetence which nobody, especially myself, had made against him?

‘It worked well enough in the pigsty,’ I conceded.

He took off his woollen hat, shaking it out, resettling it on his head again.

‘The pump was the quickest way . . .’ He did not finish the sentence, but shook his head, instead. Perhaps he thought that I had come to accuse him of destroying the scene of the crime again.

‘Nothing is what it seems in this foul country of yours, monsieur,’ he said. ‘The local soundings suggest that everything is sand down there. No one mentioned finding rocks and slate-like conformations. Of course, if I had been allowed to do the surveys for myself . . . I hope you’ll mention this fact to General Malaport?’

I thought I had misheard him.

Did he believe that I could be used to explain to General Malaport why the steam-pump had failed to function?

‘My report will speak of different things,’ I specified.

‘I’m sure it will,’ he said quietly, his eyes on the invisible horizon, as if he expected a British fleet to sail into sight at any moment. ‘Isn’t that why Malaport sent you here?’

‘I was sent to investigate a murder. Two, or four, as now seems probable,’ I said, wondering whether he had exhausted himself with relentless ambition.

‘Oh yes, murder!’ he exclaimed sarcastically.

Suddenly, he turned on his men. ‘We will pause until noon,’ he
ordered. ‘I wish to speak with Procurator Stiffeniis alone. The boat is waiting. Go ashore, get yourselves some breakfast, and a few hours’ sleep.’

The two men looked at each other, surprised at the generosity of this offer, then saluted and scrambled down into the waiting rowing-boat. They made no attempt to hide their haste to be away.

‘I’ll ring the bell when I need you,’ he called after them.

Then, he turned to me again.

‘I knew I’d have to keep a careful eye on you, monsieur,’ he said with undisguised acidity. ‘The murders needed solving. They sent a Prussian magistrate. What better way to keep a careful eye on
me
!’