HS04 - Unholy Awakening (2 page)

I looked down into the darkness again. The light could hardly penetrate more than ten or twelve feet, the shaft was narrow. And yet, it was solidly built, made of the same rough-hewn material as the section of the wall above the ground. I took up a fragment of a stone that must have shattered with last winter’s frost, and I dropped it into the well, listening until I heard it clatter on solid ground.

‘No water, as you said.’

‘And deep, sir. That’s why it is always covered.’

I turned my attention to a rope which was neatly coiled around the ratchet of the pulley. ‘This rope is new,’ I said. ‘If the well’s been dry so long, who changed the rope? And why?’

Gurt Schuettler swept his shapeless cap from his head, and ran a hand through his grey, uncombed hair. ‘Herr Ludvig, sir. A gentleman who once rented the house. He had a new rope bought, and climbed down there to see what he could find. The old one was made of twisted straw. It was rotted through, and would have broke with the weight of any man who was bold enough to risk it.’

‘When was this?’ I asked him.

‘Five or six years back, sir.’

‘And what did he discover down there?’

Schuettler chuckled to himself before replying. ‘Herr Ludvig had a theory, sir. He said the monks would rather throw out broken cups and plates than tell the Prior that they had broke his crockery.’

‘You helped Herr Ludvig, did you?’

‘Me and my brother pulled on the rope. He found no end of ancient bits and bobs.’

‘You’ll help us climb down in the same fashion,’ I said. ‘I’ll go first. Knutzen, you will follow me.’

Knutzen gaped at me, his eyes wide with apprehension.

‘Bring a lamp, Herr Schuettler.’

While Schuettler scurried off to find a lamp, his brother trailing behind him, Knutzen, Emma Rimmele and myself stood waiting by the well-shaft.

‘What brings you to Lotingen, ma’am?’ I asked.

Her lips pursed, but she did not answer immediately.

‘I hoped…’

She did not finish whatever thought was forming in her head.

‘Hoped, Fraulein Rimmele? For what, ma’am?’

‘To find some peace,’ she said at last. ‘My mother died quite recently. My father has still not managed to get over the tragedy.’

‘I am sorry to hear it,’ I said, thinking of my own dear son. ‘Duty requires it, of course, I’ll have to go down there and take a look. Still, I wouldn’t worry, there may be nothing to find,’ I assured her.

Her reply was a breathless whisper. ‘I hope you are right.’

As the brothers reappeared through a wicket gate, each carrying a lamp, I began to prepare for the descent. I took off my jacket, detached the rope from the handle of the bucket, prepared a sliding noose with a safety-knot, then pulled it tight around my waist.

‘Let me down slowly,’ I instructed them. ‘Release more rope as I call out for it. Then, lower a lamp. When I have reached the bottom, Knutzen, follow me down.’

I sat on the edge of the wall, and let my legs dangle into the shaft.

‘Do not let out rope unless I call for it,’ I warned Gurt Schuettler again.

‘Be careful,’ Emma Rimmele implored, concern written plainly on her face.

I turned about, resting my hands on the wall, taking the weight on my wrists, finding a sure grip with my toes, and began to slowly edge down into the void, moving carefully from stone to stone.

‘Rope!’ I shouted up whenever I needed more.

As slack rope came, I stretched further down and felt around for a toe-hold. It was easier than I had imagined. The walls were rough and irregular. The large blocks of stone had been hacked into cubes, then locked together by the downward thrust of their weight. They served as vertical stepping-stones, while the rope guaranteed my safety if my boots were to slip, which happened more than once as I moved down out of the light and into the penumbra, and finally into pitch darkness, proceeding ever deeper into the ground.

I took five or six more steps, and suddenly I was swinging wildly in space, feeling blindly for a wall that was no longer there. The sudden dead weight must have pulled the rope from the hands of the men above, and I began to fall. I had hardly opened my mouth to shout, when I hit the floor.

‘Herr Stiffeniis?’ Knutzen shouted.

I smiled, interpreting my secretary’s anxiety in my own fashion. If I broke my neck, his wages would be slow in coming.

‘Send down the lamp,’ I shouted, slipping the rope from my waist, letting go of it, watching as it spun up above my head like a receding noose. The circle of light above me was no larger than a dull silver coin.

I stood in total darkness, waiting for the lantern to arrive.

My eyes were useless, but my nose was not. I could smell damp mustiness. And some thing else, a smell of putrefaction, as if an animal had fallen down the well and died there. Last spring, I had been obliged to bury a rotting badger in my garden. This smell reminded me of it.

‘Watch out, sir!’

The lamp came down, casting a circle of light on the mossy stone walls.

At last, I held it in my grasp, undoing the knot, calling for the rope to be pulled up, and for Knutzen to come down. I raised the lantern and looked around, surprised by what I found. I was in a sort of a cistern, a chamber built of solid stone, which opened out laterally at the bottom of the shaft. More spacious than the largest bedroom in my house, the ceiling was barely five feet high. I looked behind me, saw my shadow stretching out on the floor, bending sharply upwards as it struck the wall. I turned to the right, and that was when I saw it.

White. Clenched tightly in a fist. A human hand.

I drew in a deep breath, then took some steps towards it.

The hand was attached to the body of a woman, lying face-down.

I wondered how her corpse had come to rest in that precise spot, which was not directly at the bottom of the shaft, as one might have expected. Had she been alive after such a fall, and crawled to the corner of the cistern before she died?

I heard a curse above me.

Knutzen was dangling and swaying, kicking his legs like a swimmer in the disc of light above my head. He had lost his footing. Heavier and older than myself, he must have been a severe trial on the strength of the brothers up on the surface. With a whooping cry, he fell the last few feet, breaking his fall as he banged against me, knocking me sideways like a skittle.

‘Are you in one piece?’ I asked him, catching my breath.

As I bent to help him up, offering my hand, I saw his face.

His eyes were fixed on the sight which lay behind me. His mouth gaped open. He had seen the corpse, though the feeble lantern flame made only a slight impression in the gloom.

‘Is she dead, sir?’ he asked in a whisper.

I picked up the lantern, moved close to the body, knelt down beside it, and laid the flat of my palm on the woman’s wrist. Her skin was very cold and damp. I felt her wrist, but there was no sensation of pulsing blood.

‘Dead,’ I confirmed.

There is nothing quite so awesome as a lifeless body. This corpse was slender, female, wider at the hips than at the shoulders. Her hair was long and black. It covered her neck, and hid her face. The exposed skin of her hands, arms and lower legs was pale and shadowy blue like glacier ice. She had lost one of her shoes. The sole of her left foot was lacerated. I took her hands in mine, one after the other, and examined the knuckles. They were scuffed and torn. She must have struck them against the rough stone wall as she fell.

‘Help me turn her over,’ I said.

Knutzen did not move.

‘Come here and help me, Knutzen!’ I ordered, hoping to shake him from his state of shocked and useless lethargy.

I slid my hands beneath her body, feeling the deadweight, the involuntary shifting of flesh as I began to prise her away from the ground, meaning to turn her onto her back. I wanted to see her face, hoping that I might be able to put a name to it – hoping, too, that I might not. She was unwieldy, as is every inanimate corpse.

Suddenly, she flipped over and slipped from my grasp.

Her body settled one way, and a sigh escaped from her lips. Her head rolled to the other side, lolling for a moment before it came to rest. I held the lantern up above her head. Her face was black with blood and damp earth. Fresh liquid like saliva began to ooze from the corners of her mouth and dribble down the sides of her face. Her nostrils were distended, flattened; the entire weight of her head had been resting on the tip of her nose. Her eyes were open wide, shimmering in the pale lantern-light like marrow-bone jelly.

Knutzen let out a whimper of fright.

‘Do you recognise her?’ I asked.

‘It’s…it’s the seamstress, sir,’ he whispered with a moan.

‘Do you know her name?’

‘Angela,’ he murmured. ‘Angela Enke of Krupeken…’

I checked to see if there was a wound, but I found none. The body seemed to be intact. Unharmed, apart from the fact that she was dead. I felt along her legs and arms for broken bones without result. I cradled her head in my hands – surprised at how heavy it was – shifting it gently this way and that, but I could find no evidence of any break in the neck. I pulled the matted hair away.

Two rivulets of blood were evident. Two wounds, half an inch apart, one above the other, along the line of the swollen artery in her neck. Like claw marks, they were deep where the incision had been made, shallower as the weapon had been ripped away. Her skin was blue, though the edges of the killing wounds were red and raw.

Two small circular holes…

Knutzen fell back. I heard the rasp of his breathing. He stared at the body, pushing himself frantically back against the wall, scrambling with his boots in the dust and dirt.

When he spoke, his voice was a hoarse growl.

‘You
know
who killed her, don’t you, sir?’

Emma Rimmele was watching me with fixed intensity.

‘There is a corpse down there,’ I announced. ‘A young woman.’

As I untied the rope from around my waist, her eyes flashed questioningly into mine. Her face was a mask of perplexity when she heard me ordering Knutzen to run to town for help.

‘We’ll need experienced men to bring the body up,’ I explained.

I knew that I would face far greater difficulties when the corpse was on the surface, but for the moment I preferred not to dwell on that.

‘You and I must talk,’ she said, her voice raw-edged and low.

Her eyebrows met in an upward-sweeping frown. Her bottom lip was a bright and tender red, as if she had been chewing it in torment. She was afraid, I could clearly see. I was not surprised by her reaction, however, but by her forwardness.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘They won’t be here for some time yet.’

I knew that I would have to question her in any case before the day was out.

‘Inside the house, if you please,’ she added, turning away, walking quickly back towards the porch.

‘Wait here,’ I told the Schuettler brothers. ‘Call me as soon as Knutzen returns.’

Then, I turned away and followed her along the gravel path.

Emma Rimmele was standing on the front step, waiting for me. As I came up to her, she pushed with her hand against the door, and walked inside, closing the door behind me the instant that I had entered the hallway.

It was dark and chill, the hall undecorated, except for a sweeping flight of wooden stairs which led to the floor above. The staircase was old in style and rough in its making. The wood they had used was black, each step irregular in its shape, sagging at the centre, steep in profile like a quarry roughly cut in the side of a mountain. Again, I wondered what had brought her there. She was not like the Schuettlers, rough peasants who were used to living in a crumbling ruin. Was this the best accommodation that she could find in Lotingen? Why had she rented such a dreary place so far from town?

An aura seemed to emanate from her person. Indoors, it was more intense. It was not cloying and persistent like a perfume, nor flat and lifeless like a distiller’s scent. It was more complex in its constituent parts than any chemist’s artifice could produce. One part was made of the damp earth and crushed grass which clung to the hem of her cloak. The greater part was sweet and aromatic, like strawberries growing wild in the woods. She might have been a sylvan goddess, who dwelt beneath the sun and the stars, eating nothing but the riches of bounteous Nature.

I breathed in deeply, and a vital energy seemed to reinvigorate me.

‘The day-room is upstairs,’ she said, racing ahead with the grace of a cat.

I was swept along and carried up the flight of stairs in her wake. Her hair was now piled up tightly on her head, and held in place with a shining metal brooch which was embossed with a figure – Medusa, as I later observed. She must have pulled her hair away from her face and clipped it up behind as she was staring into the depths of the well. As she passed before the leaded window on the staircase, it shimmered like a palette of autumn leaves – dark brown, auburn, gold, and every tint between.

At the top of the stairs there was a pale green door.

Though badly faded, it had once been decorated with golden garlands. Worms had left myriad holes in the wood. Pushing open the door with the heel of her hand, she strode to the centre of the room. I followed her in, hesitating on the threshold, looking around me, taking in my surroundings, noting the sober aspect of the grey stone floor, the vast emptiness of the room, the pretence of gentility in the powder-blue walls, a faded fresco on the ceiling – angels, pagan gods and birds in tangled flight together. The Prior’s furniture had long since been removed, sold perhaps, replaced with the barest necessities.

She gave me little time to look around.

‘Don’t stand there, sir,’ she said, a hint of raw impatience in her voice, glancing beyond my shoulder. ‘Please, close the door. My father’s sitting-room is on the other side of the corridor. I do not wish to disturb him, Procurator Stiffeniis.’

I turned away and closed the door with care.

‘Come closer, sir. There is no reason for us to shout,’ she said, taking a pace towards me, raising her hand to take me by the arm, stopping herself abruptly as she recalled who I was, and what I was doing there. ‘I will not tell him what has happened here today. You can be sure of that, sir.’

The room was bare, except for a settle, and a matching cupboard of the same dark wood. It was dominated by a large open fireplace set around with pale Dutch tiles. Blue figures on a flour-coloured ground. They must have represented saints. The fury of the peasants had been unleashed against the monks, not against the symbols of the religion which sustained them. That brand of vandalism came later, when the buildings fell into the hands of the king’s troops. There were bullet holes all over the room, pock-marks in the plaster, and all of the Dutch tiles were smashed and shattered. The soldiers had used the frescoes and the saints for target practice.

‘The men will soon be here to bring up the corpse,’ I warned her. ‘It won’t be easy to hide what has happened from your father, Fraulein Rimmele. I’ll need to question him, in any case. He may have heard or seen something.’

While I was speaking, Emma Rimmele had taken a pace or two towards the mullioned windows which looked out over the lawn and the well. She turned on me in a flash, pointing her forefinger at me as if it were an arrow she was about to let fly. She stared at me in silence. The pearls which dangled from her ears were the only animated things in that room. ‘Speak with him? What can my father tell you that I cannot?’

The windows in the room faced westwards. The incoming light should have been strong and bright, but two large trees had been planted close to the outer wall, and cast their leafy shadows into the room. It was not yet noon, but there it might have been late afternoon, or early evening. The patterns of the foliage fell on the grey stone floor like a shifting carpet.

I spread my arms wide, and appealed to her. ‘It must be obvious,’ I said. ‘I am a magistrate. I’ll have to question everyone who is living on the property. And that includes your father, unfortunately. There is a body at the bottom of your well, Fraulein Rimmele. The body of a young woman. She did not climb down there of her own free will.’

Her pointed forefinger sank down by her side. She covered her mouth with her left hand, closing her eyes, frowning as she said, ‘She was murdered, then? There is no doubt of it, I suppose?’

I recalled the words of Knutzen at the bottom of the well.

You know who killed her…

I had said nothing to contradict him. As I examined the wounds to her neck, had I seemed to share the truth of what he had said? Had my silence spoken louder than any words could, confirming what he believed?

‘No doubt at all,’ I said. ‘The killer struck…a wound to the neck…with something sharp. Having mortally wounded her, he tried to hide the body by throwing it into the well-shaft. And there she bled to death…’

‘Can you be so certain?’ she challenged. ‘Wouldn’t you say that the killer left her there on purpose because he wanted her to be found? He could have thrown the body in the Cut. Why place that tooth in the bucket, and remove the well-cover?’

‘We don’t know how the tooth arrived there.’

‘The tooth is hers, is it not?’

I did not reply. What could I say? I had not thought to open the dead girl’s mouth and check while making a cursory inspection in the gloom. And how could I explain the omission to her, except by saying that I had been as shaken and confused as my secretary, Knutzen?

She seemed to want no explanation, however. In her opinion, no other possibility existed. ‘It
must
be hers. It belongs to no-one here.’

With a rapid tug, she tore the clip from her hair, which tumbled down in a mass upon her shoulders. Equally rapidly, she pulled at the bow which held her cloak in place, kicking away the garment as it slid to the floor. She was like a grass snake shrugging off an old skin. The cambric blouse she wore was dyed a dark, rusty red. It might have been a man’s shirt, if not for the lace cuffs attached to the sleeves. She had turned the cuffs back at some point, exposing her forearms, perhaps to lean more easily on the rim and look down into the depths of the well. Her naked skin was the gold of Baltic amber. It contrasted sharply with the dark tint of her blouse, and even more so with the paler skin of her breasts, just visible where she had undone three or four buttons at the neckline. It was as if the sun had cut its way through the weave of her clothes and left its imprint on her body.

And yet, her face remained as pale as before.

Two seats had been cut into the stone on either side of the window. Perhaps the Catholic monks had sat there reading, taking advantage of the last rays of the sun in the failing light. They may have been sitting there, I thought, when the Lutheran hordes came to chase them from that place forever. Emma Rimmele let herself fall down on one of the stone benches, resting her back against the wall, gathering her gown in both hands, crushing it tightly in her joined fists. She looked out of the window, releasing her imprisoned dress, resting her elbows on her knees as she clasped her face in her hands.

She looked down, shook her hair out, and her profile was lost to my sight.

Beneath the gown, her legs appeared long. Her hands were nervous, energetic, constantly in movement. I could not find a trace of domesticity in her. Had those fingers ever sewn a hem, or darned a sock? The muscles of her hands and wrists suggested a life spent tugging at the reins, urging timid horses over stiles and fences. I had an impression of contained sensuality, and a tendency to dominate. This notion was reinforced by all her gestures, which were somehow masculine and brusque.

‘Sit here in front of me, Herr Magistrate,’ she invited with a wave of her hand towards the other window-seat. ‘I need to look into a human face, and feel compassion when you tell me what you saw down there. I saw no pity on the faces of the Schuettlers and that man of yours. I saw nothing at all,’ she said, ‘except for childish terror.’

I took my place on the opposite bench.

‘Nor can I expect anything else if my father is to be told…’

She looked up at me, her face a mask of concern.

‘Let me tell you about my father, sir. He is ill. In the mind, I mean. No physician has been able to follow the pattern of his thoughts for a long time now. Every time that I look into his face, whenever I try to speak to him, I have no idea what he is thinking. Can you believe that? No idea
who
he has become.’ She pressed her hands together, pushing them down between her knees once more, which caused the hem of her gown to rise. Her shoes were not the fashionable pumps that well-bred ladies generally favour. They were boot-like, tightly laced above her ankles. Except for the flat heel, they were the sort that a man might wear for walking in the country. And yet, her rapid steps had been quite silent on the tiled floor, while my metal-tipped shoes had set off an instant clicking and tapping as I followed her about. And even more oddly, I noticed that she wore no stockings. Her legs were as bare as the legs of a peasant woman who would rather work barefoot than consume her precious clogs.

‘Can you understand the burdens brought by such an inconstant state of mind?’

I could have answered, but I did not. I knew the ravages of old age. I had seen dementia take possession of the most rational man that the kingdom of Prussia has ever produced. Professor Immanuel Kant, the metaphysician, had been immune to every idle mental caprice, critical of every human frailty, throughout his long and profitable life. And yet, before the end, even Kant had become the opposite of himself. He had been trans formed into a different person. A creature lost in a world without rules, a world where rational thought no longer held dominion.

‘What does your father do?’ I asked.

‘What
did
he do,’ she corrected me gently. ‘Seeing him today, you’d not believe his story. Erwin Rimmele was once the owner of four merchant banking houses along the coast between Danzig and Tallin. Not a thaler escaped his attention. Numerous clerks kept the accounts which shipowners and rich merchants entrusted to his care. But then a shadow fell upon his mind. Not all at once, but slowly, imperceptibly. He became forgetful of names, of people that he had known a life time, and, worst of all, of transactions that he ought to have been following attentively. Finally, even words began to fail him.’ She flagged, and sighed out loud. ‘As you know, sir, in Prussia these days it is the mode to blame everything on Napoleon, but even the French invasion washed clean over my father’s head. He has lost his path in a mental fog, and there’s no finding his way out of the wood. He no longer recognises what was once familiar. He does not always recognise
me
! And this uncertainty terrifies him more than anything.’

I gave her a moment to collect herself before I spoke.

‘Why come to Lotingen, then? Why choose this house? This was a monastery once. Later, a military barracks. It…it hardly seems the sort of place to take up residence.’

Emma Rimmele looked up with dreadful seriousness, but she did not speak.

The leaves outside the window cast a greenish light across her features.

Suddenly, she shook her head and smiled.

I did not know where to look. If I expected demure femininity, she confounded me at every move. We might have been old friends. I could see quite clearly that she was upset, still frightened, though she would not resort to tears. Quite the opposite. She projected strength of character. There was nothing affected in her manner, no feigned timidity or manipulative use of a supposed female weakness. She did not appeal to masculine sympathy, nor seem to look for any grain of comprehension. She behaved towards me as one might towards a brother or a sister, confiding whatever came into her mind with candid directness.

‘My great concern,’ she went on, ‘is to avoid change. I try to keep him on the old, familiar paths, hoping that his memory will come back to him. If only for a moment. Just one,’ she said, holding up her index finger for emphasis. ‘A normal day would be a miracle, sir, and yet I dare to hope that miracles are possible. I set out purposely to find a house like this one in Lotingen. That is, a house as similar as possible to the house that we were forced to leave.’