The Dark Meadow (6 page)

Even then I knew I wasn't going to stay on in the police, and a few months later, even before the case came to court, I chucked it all in, like I said. No one never asked about my snack, no, why would they?


Oh, I almost forgot one thing. When I was out there with my bike, old Zauner's wife arrived. I told her very sternly not to go into the house, I said she'd better sit down outside for the time being. It wouldn't be long, I said, and it wasn't. Then our CID colleagues had to tell her that her daughter was dead and her grandson too. No, she didn't get to hear of it from me, not that I can remember.


Afra had left home, and then she came back again. That was around the end of the war. He hadn't asked what brought her back, and when she told him about the baby she was going to have he still didn't say anything at first. Even if he didn't think it right that she had no father for the child. But as the months went on his anger grew and grew, and he gave vent to it. He ranted and raged. However, none of the quarrelling did any good. In time, he came to think that Afra and Theres were in league behind his back. They would laugh at him, hide things so he couldn't find them, just to work him into a white-hot fury.

It simply wasn't true. He could remember everything. All the stories from the old days. It was only sometimes
he couldn't think of a thing, and that was only when he really wanted to remember it, but that was normal at a certain age. He got cross or angry only when something didn't come back to his mind at once, and Afra and Theres thought he was getting peculiar because of that.

*

He sat down on the plank bed, and waited, and all at once he felt sure that this time, too, they'd let him go after eight weeks.

‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me …'

From the evidence of Detective Superintendent Ludwig Pfleiderer, now retired, eighteen years after the events concerned


Criminal Investigator Hecht took on the case at the time. He always came down hard on capital crimes.
Hecht
being the word for a pike as well as a surname, we always used to call him ‘the pike in the carp pond'. That speaks for itself.


He was a tough one – when he heard we had a case of murder or manslaughter, he scented blood, you couldn't get him off the case.


He didn't want anyone else with him when he talked to a defendant. Hecht would disappear with the man into a little cell, and
he didn't come out until he had a confession. And they all confessed to him.


I can see him before me to this day, the way he always grinned from ear to ear once he had that confession. He'd put it down on the desk in front of me and say, ‘Herr Pfleiderer, Herr So-and-so has confessed.' And that was it.


His methods were successful, and a successful man is always right. No one asked about the rules and regulations, we let a few things pass in Hecht's case. It wouldn't do any more these days, but right after the war … We were glad of every competent colleague we could get who didn't have a cloud over him, and I'm afraid you can't ask Hecht now – he's been dead five years. A heart attack, just three weeks after he took retirement. He fell over and that was that.


Two women stand among the graves near the entrance to the graveyard. Theres almost passed them before she noticed them. Automatically, without intending to, she looked their way. The women moved even closer together, trying to hide behind the gravestones. They looked to old Theres like big black crows. She didn't need to hear their voices to know what they were whispering to each other. ‘Look, her over there, that's Zauner's wife.'

‘Ooh, how she slinks over the graveyard! Fancy her daring to come here on a day like this!'

‘The old man killed Afra on account of that bastard child.'

‘Went with a Frenchman, Afra, didn't she? And then her own father killed her. It's a sin and a shame.'

‘But you never know, maybe there was more to it. Old Zauner was locked up once before, under the Nazis. Once a convict always a convict, that's what they say.'

‘That story about the Frenchman, I know all about that. Heard it from my sister-in-law who married over in Polzhausen, that's where Afra worked as a waitress.'

‘There's bad blood in that family.'

Theres went on, acting as if she hadn't seen the two women. Since the terrible thing happened the villagers put their heads together when they saw her coming. It wasn't the dead that you had to fear, it was the living.

They had all turned up for the funeral. The whole graveyard had been full, she had never seen so many people all at once before. They had been standing on the graves and even the graveyard wall. Everyone wanted to cast a glance at the new grave. And they had all hoped that Johann would be there as well.

‘Old Zauner the murderer.'

But they hadn't let him come home for the funeral, which was just as well. He wouldn't have understood, just as he didn't understand so much else going on around him recently. Every day she went to the graveyard, and she went to church on Sunday, and once a month they let her
visit Johann. Every time she saw him she was more frightened than ever; he was only a shadow of his former self. He often didn't even recognize her now when she visited him. And when Theres began talking about Afra and the child, it seemed to her that he didn't know who she meant. To her, that state of mind was intolerable, for it meant taking her daughter and her grandson away from her for a second time.

*

Zauner's wife pushed the watering can down into the water in the stone trough with both hands. She watched air bubbles rise from the inside of the can. At first she had meant to stay away from the procession on All Saints' Day, but then she had gone after all. She had waited right at the back, and hadn't gone to stand by the grave until the last people had left after the procession round the churchyard.

She took the heavy watering can out of the water and went back along the rows of graves to Afra's. The gravel crunched at every step she took. She put the can down beside the grave, broke off the faded stems of the flowers, put them aside and watered the rest. Then she filled the font with holy water. She put her hand in her jacket pocket and was going to take out the candle to be lit for Afra's soul, when she heard a voice.

‘Giving them a drink to moderate the torments of purgatory, are you?'

Theres turned. Hetsch was standing behind her.

‘Oh, you gave me such a fright! What are you doing, still here? The procession is over. Why aren't you at the inn with the others?'

Theres took the candle out of her pocket.

‘Maybe there's something driving me on? Like those poor souls supposed to walk over the graves tonight?'

‘What do you mean by that?' The old woman gave him an enquiring look.

‘Didn't you ever hear about it, Frau Zauner? Tonight, folk can see who the dead will come to take away next year. Or maybe it's just a guilty conscience keeps me on the move, same as you. You did see me out there on the day it happened, didn't you?'

‘I didn't see anyone. I was out and about all day.' Theres was about to turn away, but Hetsch had a firm hold on her arm.

‘But you were there, at least you were there first thing, I heard the noise.'

‘No such thing. I was in Einhausen, Hetsch. Or that terrible thing would never have happened.'

Hetsch let go of her and stood there, his fingers fumbling with his jacket. He was looking past her at the
gravestone, and suddenly he looked small and thin, although she didn't even come up to his shoulder. All the assertiveness he liked to show was gone.

‘I always liked seeing Afra, and that day I wanted to know. I wanted to know if she'd bend or break. I thought I'd stay until she said yes, but then it all turned out differently and I went away.'

‘If you saw anything, Hetsch, you must tell the police.'

Hetsch straightened up. It was as if a different man were suddenly standing in front of her.

‘I didn't see anything. But I wanted to tell you I really did like Afra a lot. I honestly did.'

Then he turned and walked away. Theres stood there watching him go until his figure was lost in the twilight. Finally she took out her matches and lit the candle she was holding.

I shouldn't have gone out that day, she thought. He's right, it's my guilty conscience drives me here. I place the eternal light here for you so that the little one won't be afraid in the night. When you needed me, Afra, I wasn't there.

When Theres walked back to the churchyard gate past the rows of graves, it was dark, and only the lights burning on the graves lit the churchyard up a little.

She thought of what Hetsch had said about the dead, and how they would come looking for the one who was to follow them in the coming year. But the only person Theres saw walking over the graves that evening had been Hetsch himself. She made the sign of the cross.

‘God have mercy on his soul.'

From the evidence of the police officer Hermann Irgang, now retired, eighteen years after the events concerned


There's something else I'd like to say here. Our investigations at the time weren't confined to Johann Zauner as the possible murderer. We kept our eyes open, we looked in all directions, even though the father had behaved very strangely from the first.


The war was only two years ago, so there were all kinds of odd characters drifting about. Many people came out from the city wanting to barter something: clothes and pictures in exchange for butter, eggs and sausage. Now and then there were some who might have frightened you, they were going around in such a ragged state. Of course we
looked carefully at that sort, because we'd heard that there were two young journeymen roaming the countryside at that time. And when some people said they'd also been seen on Zauner's farm, of course we pricked up our ears, and we did all we could to find them.


At the time it wasn't so easy to find an itinerant. In addition, we didn't have names, just the fact that they were two young fellows and they'd been sleeping in a hay barn the night before the murder.


I couldn't have sworn to it that we were really going to find them, but we did manage to get on their trail.


Unfortunately it soon turned out that we'd gone to all that trouble for nothing, because they weren't able to give us any information. They did make statements saying they'd passed the house, but with the best will in the world they couldn't say whether it had been that particular day or a day or so earlier. And they couldn't tell us anything else that might have helped with our inquiries.


I don't remember now who it was that questioned them, it ought really to be in the files, but once everyone knew old Zauner had confessed the records probably weren't written up. People weren't as particular about such things then as they are today.


The suspect had confessed, and the young fellows couldn't tell us anything useful about the crime, so we just let them go again. What else could we have done? There wouldn't have been any point in questioning them again, we had no legal handle against them, and if a man hasn't seen anything then he hasn't seen anything, and no amount of questions are going to change that.


At the time the news that Zauner had confessed was going around like wildfire, but even without a confession everything pointed to him from the start. It wasn't just the endless quarrels with his daughter, his odd behaviour – he had scratches on his arms that he couldn't explain to us, as his family doctor said at the time. I can't say
whether he was also examined by a doctor from the courts. We really didn't take the easy way out; in the end he was the only possible murderer.


‘So what titbits have been coming your way?'

Dr Augustin drew the stack of cards from the middle of the table towards him to deal new cards to his fellow players.

‘I'll tell you, never fear. Maybe it was Max? He took a critical attitude, anyway.'

Josef Loibl, sitting opposite him, grinned mischievously at Augustin.

‘You two can't beat us now, you're all tensed up!'

Then he called over Augustin's head to the waitress at the bar. ‘Bring me another half, Roswitha, with a beer-warmer if you have one around.' And turning to the rest of the card players, he added, ‘Believe it or not, cold beer gives me heartburn. Specially when I drink it before lunch.'

‘Ah, you're one of the delicate sort, can't even digest a proper beer in the middle of the morning.'

Dr Augustin had dealt the cards. He picked up his own hand and arranged the cards in it.

‘Augustin, pull yourself together or I'm not playing cards with you any more. Public prosecutor or not, sometimes you're a real know-it-all,' replied the man he had addressed, and then, in a conciliatory tone, ‘But seeing I'm not that way myself, would you like to bid? Then I'll say what's trumps.'

Roswitha Haimerl brought the half that Loibl had asked for, exchanged the full glass for his empty one, and made her mark on the beer mat.

‘Any of the rest of you gentlemen like something to drink? Then I won't have to keep scurrying back and forth.'

‘Hey, you're in a bad mood today, Roswitha. Never mind, can you bring me a lager, and I like mine cold,' replied one of the other card players, his eyes twinkling at her.

‘You expect a body not to be cross if she has to keep running around for every half litre?'

Roswitha Haimerl turned and went over to the bar.

‘I'll bid if you like. Makes no difference to me, you two are going to lose anyway. I'll bid seven,' said Dr Augustin.