The Werewolf of Bamberg (37 page)

“I’d make him talk,” Jakob grumbled as he stomped ahead through the narrow lanes, which were already in the shadows on this autumn afternoon. Despite his grumpy reply, Jakob was glad that Bartholomäus was coming along—not only because he really did have a better chance of learning something from the ragpicker if his brother came with him, but also because he still felt rather moved by the earlier confession in the forest. As young children, he and Bartholomäus had played together a lot; they’d practiced beheadings using carrots hung on strings, they’d run through the forest with wooden swords, and they’d watched when their father took down the huge executioner’s sword and polished it on a large grindstone with a leather strap. Jakob had never loved his younger brother—they were too different—but there was still a bond between them, even now, after all the years. Their fight in the forest had shown Jakob once again that one can’t run away from one’s own family.

You take them in, no matter what.

Since those days, he’d visited Bartholomäus only once before in Bamberg. That was during the Great War, when Jakob was a sergeant under General Tilly. He’d learned by chance that a certain Bartholomäus Kuisl was the executioner in Bamberg, and since the army was passing near the city, he wanted to make sure that this Bartholomäus was actually his brother. Their conversation was short and gruff, because while Jakob had expected something like an absolution for running away, there was no forgiveness, and he felt his younger brother had cut ties with him.

But that wasn’t the main reason their parting had been unfriendly. It all went back to their grandfather, Jörg Abriel, the most famous and most feared of all the hangmen in the German Reich.

Jakob had told Bartholomäus that he’d burned Abriel’s magic books shortly after he left, without knowing how much those books had meant to his brother. Bartholomäus had reacted with horror and revulsion on hearing that Jakob had simply consigned the family’s most valuable heritage to the flames.

What Jakob had really done with them, Bartholomäus would never know; Jakob had sworn to take that secret with him to the grave.

Bartholomäus had never forgiven his older brother for the destruction of their heritage, and ever since then, Jakob had looked down condescendingly on his younger brother, who was earning good money in Bamberg but cared little for the wisdom and logic of medicine. Instead he had decided to seek salvation in ancient
grimoires
, books of black magic.

They’d parted ways, but then Jakob had become a hangman himself and, out of necessity, sent his son Georg to serve Bartholomäus as an apprentice. Suddenly he himself couldn’t tell right from wrong.

“When we’re with Answin, let me do the talking,” Bartholomäus said, putting an end to Jakob’s dark musings. “He’s a little peculiar. It must have something to do with his job.”

“The man is a ragpicker,” Jakob replied. “What’s so peculiar about that?”

“Well, you have to understand that Answin doesn’t just collect rags. The Regnitz washes ashore all kinds of filth, which he has to fish out. A lot of things get stuck in the millwheels and weirs that otherwise would have settled to the bottom of the river and disappeared forever.” His face darkened as they walked through the busy alleys. “Every year there are at least a dozen corpses among them. Some are suicides—people who’ve suffered some tragedy and jumped in the river—and many are people who were robbed and murdered. The city guards go to visit Answin regularly. He’s not just a ragpicker but a corpse fisher, and he makes good money doing it.”

Jakob frowned. “How does he do that?”

His brother stopped and pointed down at the river that wound its way between some warehouses and markets like a black, stinking ribbon. Behind it were the cathedral mount and the other hills.

“Often, the victim’s relatives are looking desperately for the corpse in order to give it a decent burial,” he explained. “Answin is their last hope. For each corpse he fishes out, he demands three guilders, and rich people pay even more. He’s fair, even with his corpses.”

By now, they’d reached the bend in the river that separated the old and the new parts of the city. The city hall lay nearby on the right, and on the left were the piers and jetties, with boats tied up and bobbing in the current in the last light of day. Jakob remembered leaving the knacker’s wagon there almost a week ago when he and Bartholomäus were on their way to city hall. Two rowboats sat on jacks in an open shed near the piers. Next to one of them, a filthy-looking man with matted, flaming-red hair was applying caulk to some holes in the hull with a spatula.

“Good day, Answin,” Bartholomäus said.

The ragpicker raised his head, and Jakob could see he was blind in one eye, with black scabs covering the encrusted tissue. With his good eye he regarded the two suspiciously.

“Who’s the guy with you?” he asked cautiously. “I’ve never seen him before.”

“My brother, who’s come all the way from Schongau. He’s here for the wedding.”

Answin grinned. “For the reception that is probably not going to happen, according to everything I hear. Too bad, I would have fished a few nice clothes out of the river for myself.”

“So you could come to my party stinking like an old catfish?” Bartholomäus laughed. “Perhaps it’s just as well it will probably be a smaller crowd.” Then he turned serious. “But I’m not here to make small talk with you. I came to ask about the corpse you found in the river. Is it still here?”

“That councilor?” Answin nodded. “Of course. He’s not going to run away.”

Now that Jakob was standing right next to him, he noticed that the ragpicker had an old, familiar smell about him—not very strong, but nonetheless overlaying everything.

The smell of rotting corpses.

“I informed the city guards some time ago, but so far no one has taken the trouble to stop by,” he said. “Apparently they’ve got their hands full. Chief Lebrecht has looked pretty damned upset recently. I’d like to know what his problem is. Well, whatever.” He snorted. “Just this noon, a few guys tried to drown some poor fellow over in the harbor, and now the guards are checking some tips they got concerning this damned werewolf.” The ragpicker lowered his voice and looked around carefully with his one eye. “The whole city is one huge hornet’s nest. If this doesn’t stop, I’ll have a lot more corpses to fish out of the river.”

“Can we have a look at him?” Bartholomäus asked.

“Sure, sure.” Answin put the bucket of tar on the floor and walked down to the river. “He hasn’t gotten any better, though. If the guards don’t come soon, he’ll start falling apart.”

They followed him to the shore where a dock led out into the water, then walked over moldy, rotten planks to a place where there was a sort of wooden tub alongside the dock, hammered together out of rough boards. Something in it was bobbing up and down, and Jakob at first took it to be a bunch of rags. He had to look twice before realizing it was a corpse floating facedown. The body was clothed in a wet, black overcoat that was moving slowly back and forth in the water.

“I use this tub for keeping eels, and sometimes a dead body,” Answin explained. “Both of them keep better in cold water. Why are you interested in this corpse, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s a long story, Answin,” said Bartholomäus, winking at him. “I’ll tell you some other time—who knows, perhaps over some fine pastry at our wedding reception, if we ever have one.”

“Mmm, pastry, delicious. I like it most of all with lingonberries.” The ragpicker licked his lips. The sight of the corpse, and the foul stench rising from the tub despite the cool river water, seemed not to trouble him. He looked at Jakob curiously as he climbed down a slippery ladder to the tub and tugged at the corpse’s overcoat until the body finally turned over on its back. Cold eyes, like those of a dead fish, stared up at the hangmen.

Jakob cringed. The dead man was at least seventy years old, his gray hair curled in the water like seaweed, and the skin was white and bloated. His trousers, jacket, and shirt were in shreds, his right hand was missing, and Jakob could see that the fish and crabs had already started nibbling on the body. But that wasn’t what horrified him so much.

It was the signs of torture visible all over the man.

He couldn’t help but think of the woman’s leg he had examined in the guard station, which had also showed evidence of torture. Bartholomäus, standing on the dock alongside him, seemed also to have noticed the wounds. He gasped, sucking the air in through his teeth.

“Good Lord, all kinds of torture were used on this person,” he said, nodding partly in disgust and partly in recognition. “His fingernails were pulled out, there are burn marks on his torso, both legs are missing, an arm wrenched out. Whoever did this knows how to inflict pain. Do you think they chopped his hand off while he was still alive?”

Answin laughed softly. “I have to admit, at first I thought you were the one who did it,” he said, turning to Bartholomäus. “It looks a hell of a lot like the work of an executioner, and the only one I know is you.”

“The work of an executioner, indeed.” It was the first time Jakob had spoken. Carefully, he unbuttoned the dead man’s shirt, trying not to think about the sickly sweet, fishy odor.

“It’s hard to say how long he’s been in the water,” he mumbled, thinking it over. “But judging from the decomposition, it can’t have been very long. I don’t see any clear cause of death—it’s possible he simply died as a result of the torture.” Gently, he began removing the man’s overcoat. The shirt underneath was in shreds.

“Look at this,” Bartholomäus said suddenly, pointing. “The welts on his back. They come from a leather whip, without question. People call that
the Bamberg torture
, because it’s mainly used here.” He shrugged. “I myself prefer to hang the bastards up by their wrists, tie stones to their feet, then hoist them up. That’s the old way.”

“So our werewolf is a real expert,” Jakob said softly. “Where do you think he learned that?”

“Well in any case, he had a lot of practice,” Bartholomäus replied. “If this madman is responsible for all the missing and the dead, this here would be his seventh victim. How many are yet to follow?”

Jakob turned away from the horribly mangled corpse and looked at Answin.

“Exactly where did you find this body?” he asked.

The ragpicker scratched his nose. “This one got tangled in the waterwheel of a paper mill.” He pointed to the north. “You know, the mill on the right branch of the Regnitz not far from St. Gangolf, outside the city walls.”

“Aha! I thought it had come ashore here on the left branch of the river,” Bartholomäus chimed in.

“No, it didn’t, and it surprised me, too, because most of the corpses have been found on the left branch, where there are far more mills for them to get caught in.”

“Hmm.” Jakob frowned. “That means the perpetrator dumped the body outside the city, somewhere along the right branch of the river. But why did he do that? After all, according to the servant, Thadäus Vasold was attacked by the werewolf in the middle of town. That’s what Simon told me. So this monster took him out of Bamberg. Why?”

Again, Jakob turned to the ragpicker. “Didn’t you find any other parts of the corpse in the water?”

Answin shook his head. “Only a leg and an arm. The second leg was lying in a huge pile of garbage near the river. Some children found it while they were playing.”

“If it was so near the river, it’s possible it was in the water earlier and some dog picked it up and took it there.” Kuisl ground his teeth, thinking. “Where did you find the arm and the leg?”

Answin pointed to the north again and the right branch of the river. “They were entangled in the pillars of the bridge. There are a few shallow places and islands in the middle of the river, where it’s easy for things to get hung up. I told the guards right away.” He picked at his teeth, looking bored. “But there wasn’t much to see—clearly, animals had been chewing on them, and limbs had been ripped off, probably by wolves or who knows what.”

Jakob poked at the corpse one last time, and it turned around slowly in the water. Then he climbed up the ladder again to the pier.

“First, a few body parts, and now a torso,” he said when he got back up on the dock, “and all of them found in the north branch of the river. Somebody must have disposed of them there, then the fish and other animals did the rest.” He nodded, still lost in his thoughts. “I myself have also fished people out of the Lech who committed suicide. If they get tangled in the weirs or are found by wild animals, it can easily happen that only parts of those poor souls are ever found. There’s nothing magical about that.”

“You’re forgetting the victim’s hand.” Bartholomäus pointed down at the corpse again. “I heard that was found in front of widow Gotzendörfer’s house, so clearly the hand didn’t come from the water. And didn’t you find an arm in Bamberg Forest when you were coming to town?”

“That was on the bank of a smaller river. The whole area there is crisscrossed by brooks and rivers, as far as I can see, so it’s possible the arm was dumped somewhere else and drifted there.”

“And Vasold’s hand in front of widow Gotzendörfer’s house?”

Jakob spat into the dark water. “If you ask me, somebody intentionally put it there to cause a panic. And they succeeded.”

Bartholomäus frowned. “But who would do something like that? And why?” He kicked a rotted post. “Damn it, this all reminds me of the witch trials back then. I didn’t arrive here until just after the old hangman’s sudden disappearance, but according to what I heard, everybody was afraid, just like now.”

“Just like now . . .” Jakob stared into the distance with a furrowed brow. “Just like now,” he repeated.

He was about to say something else when the sound of marching feet was heard coming down one of the side streets, and moments later about a half dozen city guards appeared. At the head of the group was the commander of the guard, Martin Lebrecht, who looked even more bleary-eyed than the last time they’d met, in the guard station. When he recognized the two hangmen, he stopped, surprised, and removed his helmet.