Wolf Hunt (22 page)

‘Herr Ober!
 Coffee, cream and patisseries!’ he ordered.

‘And some schnapps!’ added Lefine.

The waiter brought them everything straight away, smiling to himself as he imagined the look on their faces when he presented them with the bill ...

Luise finally arrived, accompanied by the two hussars whom Relmyer had ordered to protect Luise in this city full of soldiers. She did not reply to their greetings and put a piece of paper on the table in the middle of the cups and the crumbs.

‘Here are the names of several people who maintain the register of effective Austrian soldiers. There are thirty-two of them.’ 

THE days slipped by. Summer had succeeded spring, and the heat was becoming unbearable. The military climate, like a crystal goblet placed in the middle of the oven of these days of heat wave, was approaching the point at which it would explode into a titanic battle. Now Napoleon was spending his days reviewing his troops. By the same token he frequently inspected the bridges, worried that the Austrians might use their tactic of broken bridges that had been so successful at Essling. The bridges, impressive pieces of workmanship, were now all over the place, as though it had been necessary to build them ceaselessly in order to forget the constant collapse of the first ones. They linked the west bank of the Danube to the Isle of Lobau and to the neighbouring islands, and the islands to each other, weaving a sort of spiders web. Lampposts had even been installed on certain of the bridges, which were protected with landing stages on stilts upriver, fortifications loaded with cannon, troops, a flotilla of ten gunners and myriad little boats.

During this period Margont, Lefine, Relmyer, Pagin and Luise tried to find out a little more about the thirty-two suspects by questioning the reluctant Viennese prisoners. They hit so many obstacles that they gradually became discouraged. Relmyer was convinced that the assassin had tampered with the registers himself. So many names had been added that an accomplice would in the end have guessed what was going on, and who would agree to be associated with such ignominy? As a result, against Margont’s advice, he began to strike off the names of those who manifestly could not be the murderer. He treated them like suspects who had been cleared; he saw everything in black and white, with no grey areas. What’s more, if his hypothesis was not correct, there was a risk that their inquiry would fail, and Relmyer simply could not contemplate such a thing. He therefore persisted in hoping that one of the biographies and one of the descriptions tallied with what they knew about the assassin. And there was another problem. Their list of suspects was necessarily incomplete. Relmyer, knowing that, became more and more tense. The passage of time obsessed him, and at night he was on the verge of exasperation. According to him, no one was making progress fast enough. They met regularly in a cafe to review the situation, but even the cafe ambience no longer relieved their tension.

On 14 June, in Raab, Prince Eugene, won a great victory against Archduke John’s forces and his Hungarian reinforcements. On 24 June, he defeated the Austrians again, supported this time by the Croatians. So Prince Eugene found himself free to join Napoleon. A short time later, the first elements of his army could be seen arriving. Day after day Eugene’s divisions appeared. Each one was like a weight adding to Napoleon’s side of the scales, tipping the balance more and more in his favour.

On 30 June, everyone was once again seated round a table in a Viennese cafe. Luise revealed what she had learnt about the various names on the list, but whatever she was able to tell them, it was never enough to satisfy Relmyer.

‘In short, this Monsieur Liedel is married, has two children, brown hair and he lives in the Naglergasse,’ he said, starting to lose his temper. ‘Perfect. And so? We can’t go and see him because he serves in the Viennese Volunteer force and is stationed on the other side of the Danube. He might be our man but equally he might not. That’s the twelfth like that. They all work in the same ministry, they’re all in the same boat, and in any case no one wants to talk to us about them because we serve in the French army!’

‘Let’s search their homes for a portrait,’ proposed Lefine.

‘I’m not sure ...’ demurred Relmyer doubtfully.

Having your portrait painted was a costly habit of the aristocracy or the bourgeoisie: not everyone did it. There was also another, much more intractable problem.

‘If we act like that, I doubt well even get as far as the fifth house,’ warned Margont. ‘The inhabitants will complain about us, well be taken for looters, and shot. Perhaps with a little luck well only spend a few days in prison and well be released the day before the great battle ...’

I’d do it!’ Pagin defied him.

Relmyer thanked the young hussar with a tap on the shoulder. ‘Quentin is right. The confrontation is imminent, so the Emperor is being more respectful than ever to the Viennese.’

‘We’ll have to meet one of these men,’ repeated Margont for the nth time.

‘After all, they haven’t all joined the army or fled the capital,’ said Luise. ‘We must surely be able to lay our hands on one of them.’ Margont scanned the list. Relmyer had covered it with his minute, angry handwriting, adding information and ink stains.

‘Stop rereading the list endlessly!’ he exploded.

Margont’s forefinger indicated a name: Konrad Sowsky.

‘That one is crossed off!’ Relmyer declared angrily. ‘We’re not progressing fast enough: must you keep going back over the same things?’ As Margont’s forefinger was still indicating the man, he added: ‘That’s not our man, Sowsky is obese.’

‘Yes, I know that’s the reason you’ve struck him off,’ replied Margont. ‘But how obese is he?’

Relmyer stared at him as though he were mad. Luise intervened. ‘He must weigh much more than a hundred kilos. I was able to talk to his wife and to certain of his neighbours who described him to me. They told me that Sowsky moves with extreme difficulty and that he gets breathless very easily.’

Therefore it’s impossible that he’s our man,’ Relmyer repeated. ‘Just as it’s impossible that he serves in the Viennese Volunteer force and that he is with the Austrian army, contrary to what his wife claimed to you, Luise. No Volunteer battalion would accept an invalid into its ranks. He must have stayed in Vienna!’ 

THE house was small, squashed between two much larger buildings; an insignificant dwelling in a modest district. While Relmyer repeatedly hammered on the door, Margont turned to Lefine and Pagin.

‘Fernand, go and take a casual look round. You, Pagin, make sure none of the neighbours leave, otherwise one of them might attract the attention of the gendarmes. But no brutality!’

Finally the door was opened by an Austrian woman with black hair streaked with grey pulled back in a chignon. She stood in the doorway, barring entry.

Luise spoke to her softly: ‘Do you remember me, Frau Sowsky? Luise Mitterburg. I came the day before yesterday to ask you about your husband.’

‘He’s not here, I told you.’

‘I can vouch for these two officers.’

‘He’s here and we’re coming in,’ cut in Relmyer in an

uncompromising tone. ‘We would like to talk to him.’

Madame Sowsky gave in, seeing that it was useless to annoy the hussar any further by defending the lost cause of her lie ... Her husband was easy to find. He was sitting in the gloom in his bedroom, the coolest place in the house. As Margont’s eye fell on him, he felt immense pity. His wife was over forty years old, but how old was he? It was impossible to tell. His excessive fat stretched his skin, filling out the grooves of his wrinkles. His protuberant stomach was literally crushing him in his armchair, and his legs, swollen and reddened with oedema, were putting him on the rack. He must have weighed a hundred and eighty kilos.

‘He’s ill, like his father before him,’ sobbed his wife. ‘Shame on you! May God strike you down!’

‘We won’t stay long,’ Margont told her tactfully.

Relmyer stared at the suffering man. His own pain was just as intense, even if it was much less visible. It was a little like looking in a mirror - the body in front of him was a reflection of his spirit.

This bitter thought increased his aggression.

‘Herr Sowsky, I want to speak to you about the army registers,’ he announced menacingly in German.

The man smiled. ‘Your accent is impeccable. You’re Austrian?’ These few words were enough to exhaust him. His obesity was slowly strangling him, compressing his lungs. Relmyer was going to continue when Sowsky waved a languid hand.

‘It’s no use! I am a patriot, Monsieur, and you are a traitor. Torture me, kill me if you like - that will hardly be an effort for you as I’m already dead - but I will never talk.’

His face was becoming purple, the price of having spoken so many words. But Sowsky had something more to say. He raised his arm: ‘Long live Austria!’

His wife, in spite of her anguish, looked at them defiantly.

‘Do you know why he works at the Kriegsministerium? It’s because his health prevented him from becoming a soldier. You can cut me up in front of his eyes, he won’t say anything and I, I will shout at him to remain silent.’

Margont was disorientated by the turn of the conversation.

‘No one is going to torture anyone. The military registers have been falsified. Names have been added to the list of losses but the people added, young boys, have never served in the regiments in question. I’m talking about the Infanterie-regimenter 9, 20, 23, 29 and 49, and the Viennese Volunteer Chasseurs. We only want to know the name of the employee responsible for that.’

Sowsky said nothing, but his face, now attentive rather than stubborn, gave him away. The manipulation had been discovered and Sowsky knew about it. The seconds ticked slowly by, like the passing of time before a rolling coin falls on its side. The coin landed on the wrong side.

‘I won’t tell you anything. The affair was discovered weeks ago ...’ He had to pause to catch his breath. So the document that Relmy-er had searched so hard for in the Kreigsministerium did exist. However, Relmyer would never succeed in finding it. On the other hand, he was in the presence of someone who had read the letter or whatever it was that had been spoken of.

‘An inquiry has been started,’ went on Sowsky with difficulty. ‘It was interrupted by the war but, after the retreat of your army, the investigation will be taken up again.’

‘I’m sure there’s a suspect! What’s his name?’ shouted Relmyer. ‘I’ve forgotten.’

Obviously he was lying.

Relmyer tried to control himself. How far would he go in order to oblige the man to speak? To resolve his quest was he going to become a disgusting executioner like the murderer he was tracking? Margont spoke in measured tones. There was already enough tension in the room without adding to it.

‘Did you ask why these falsifications took place? Do you know what happened to the young men concerned?’

Sowsky did not answer. Yes, he had asked himself that question several times. Like all honest functionaries, cheating appalled him. ‘They were assassinated,’ continued Margont.

Relmyer did not move. Sowsky’s eyes turned away. He had not imagined anything so atrocious. He had thought that the young

men were rogues trying to escape justice by passing themselves off as war deaths.

Relmyer went over to him and murmured: ‘My name is Lukas Relmyer. Relmyer: that name was almost added to those other “errors”/

Margont held out the list of suspects. ‘Please tell us who he is/ Sowsky hesitated for a long time. Finally he spoke.

‘He’s not on your list. Because he was fired the very day it was discovered that he was behind the manipulations whose significance we did not know. He claimed he was innocent. After the end of the war, he will be summoned before a military tribunal. His name is Hermann Teyhern.’

‘What does he look like?’ Relmyer pressed him.

‘I never met him. I have only worked on the army registers for a short while/

‘Is he in the Viennese Volunteer regiment?’

‘All that I heard about him is that he lives in the village of Leiten.’ Relmyer thanked him and left precipitately. Now that they had the wolf’s den, the hunt could begin. 

RELMYER hastily assembled a new detachment of hussars, but this time they skirted round the forest.

The village of Leiten was on the top of a hill and slid towards a valley carpeted with fields. Teyhern’s house was set apart, isolated by a large wood. Relmyer and his men encircled it.

The vast stone building dominated a courtyard enclosed by a wall. All the shutters were closed, giving the place the appearance of a fortress. Relmyer took hold of the axe fixed to the saddle of his mount. He was going to smash in a window near the door, but Margont advised him to choose one at the back. Relmyer obeyed and attacked the shutters with force, creating a noisy shower of splintered wood.

When he went into the house, he was struck by a sharp anguish. The gloom reminded him of the forest in which he had almost been killed. He crossed the room in a flash, bumping into armchairs, not taking the time to accustom his eyes to the darkness,

and opened one of the other windows. He could not repress a cry. In the salon thus revealed hung the portrait of the man for whom he had been searching for so long. The painting, which was small, decorated one of the walls, in the midst of some landscapes.

The picture brought back the memory of his kidnapping. He allowed himself to believe that the man was standing in front of him. An abyss opened up inside him, but Relmyer refused to look away. It was another ordeal that he inflicted on himself, yet more training to reassure himself that he was ready. He walked up to the portrait, and stared at those motionless blue eyes, holding the gaze that seemed so lifelike.

The soldiers went through the house and its surroundings from top to bottom. But they found nothing. The absence of feminine clothes indicated that Teyhern was a bachelor. He owned two rifles displayed on a rack. The rooms were tastefully furnished: pictures, French furniture, marquetry chests, Turkish carpets, porcelain or crystal vases ... Relmyer went four times to the cellar, obsessed with the idea that a young boy was dying there, in a recess that they had not noticed. He tapped the walls to see if they concealed a hiding place, looked for a trap door leading to a second cellar, opened a barrel that contained only wine ...