The Prussian Dispatch
An Excerpt from David Neilson’s first Sophie Rathenau historical thriller.
Sophie Rathenau, hunting a dissolute suspect through the backstreets of Mozart’s Vienna, gets out of her depth.
Dinner seemed far off as we passed the stone arches at the Cathedral. I could have lunch in nearby Schmauswaberl, with its cheap rejects from the Hofburg kitchen, but didn’t fancy a struggle with mother-fixated, penniless students. Maybe I should wait until they were back at lectures, in the happy instances where they had any, and in the meantime knock a few doors. We drew up at the other side of the Meat Market.
“I’m going into the Cat’s Climb,” I told Georg as I closed the carriage door. “I’ll catch up with you at the other end of the street.”
I almost thought Wallenstein nodded, but maybe he only wanted to shake a fly from his ear. He looked too proud to patronise, so I gave Tilly a clap instead. Georg picked up the reins, clopping the horses towards a gentler slope, while I climbed the broad steps to Jews’ Lane.
My one encounter with Sepp Granitz, my only lead until tomorrow’s handover, had convinced me that foresight was not his guiding principle. His need for money would be so acute that he’d be trawling through Zankl’s usual haunts. With any luck, he wouldn’t know Zankl was dead.
I was glad to be turning into the Cat’s Climb by the light of day; after dark, its red tiles were stalked by the ghost of a madwoman who thought she was a cat. The meowing alone would horrify. And I didn’t know where else to try, other than the city fleapits Sepp might hole up in. Which were almost as numerous as actual fleas.
I had Zankl’s place pinpointed in minutes; the Gaminger Court along the street, where it curved down towards the city walls. I might have guessed: another of his canny-renter, no-tax properties. No-one I spoke to knew Zankl by name, but tenants of his sort call attention to themselves.
The Gaminger Court pushed out from opposite sides of the street, meeting in the middle with tiled struts above and double arcades below. Outside the discreet shul on my right, an old man fed birds, tossing an arm every so often. Two women talked at the doorway beyond. A boy of six or so hopped along, his other leg crooked in the handlebar of a cart. As he tripped and fell on his face, his runaway cart tore past the young blond man climbing the hill toward me.
He was possessed of the recuperative powers of youth, those that permit you to drink all night and revive mid-morning, although his blue suit wouldn’t recover as soon as he had. There are days like this, I thought, when they stroll up and deliver themselves.
I smiled as Sepp headed obligingly for the left-hand entrance. He wouldn’t get away from me in there. A second before, my bag had felt like a bucket of pig’s trotters. Now it was light as goose feathers, and my pace quickened over the cobbles. I didn’t even worry that Sepp would turn around. He wouldn’t remember me, would he?
The women stopped talking as he vanished inside. I brushed past them into the gloom, closing the big door behind me.
Sepp clattered above me on the dark stairs. I grabbed the rail and pulled myself up the worn treads. There were windows on the stairwell, but not much light coming in: the opposite wings were too close for that. Sepp’s steps didn’t falter. He knew where he was going, though he didn’t know Zankl wouldn’t be here; he wouldn’t have come if he had. I heard his knock as I strode up to the second landing. The glimmer above told me there was a skylight. From halfway up to the attic I could see him waiting, forehead against the plaster. He kicked the bottom panel of the door with a sigh.
I was mere feet behind him, breathing hard, when the door opened. In the crack between door and jamb I glimpsed shadowy temples, a shaved head, and the dull gleam of eyes above a twisted nose.
It was the sheer height of those eyes that struck me. The man behind the door was taller than anyone I’d seen in years. Taller than Dschingis or anyone I knew from the Versailles, though this was one of their apartments. Now I was less sure that Sepp had killed Zuzanna, but I was certain the person behind that door would want to talk to anyone who knocked it.
I didn’t wait for Sepp to raise his head. I seized his cuff and tugged him grunting from the door. My broad hand and firm grip could be useful after all.
“Downstairs, now!”
The apartment door flew open. The man behind it wore a dark suit. He came out as I clacked down the top steps, dragging Sepp behind me with my bag swinging on my wrist.
“Move!”
I didn’t hear the apartment door close, only Sepp’s aimless steps thumping behind me. I all but fell on the second-floor landing.
“Come on!”
My voice was sharp and loud. Sepp didn’t feel drunk or hung over, but he was stumbling. The footfalls above me were heavy, slow, confident. Breath stabbed at my ribs as I thought about what would happen next.
I got to the ground floor and the longish corridor that led to the arcade outside.
The street door opened as I dragged Sepp toward it. Not always good to be right. Another member of the tall fraternity stood with the light at his back, hands deep in the pockets of his coat. An ideal garment for a winter journey to Königsberg or Warsaw, but not for Vienna in the spring. A tricorne kept his face in shadow.
The footsteps from above were louder now, maybe on the first floor, with a lot of weight on them. The features of the tall man facing me were cloudy against the light. He closed the street door with his hands behind him. Sensing the man from the attic near my back, I drew out my pistol and lifted it over my shoulder, so he could see it.
Behind me, the steps halted.
“I know you’re brave,” I said to the man in front of me, my breath racing, “but you don’t want a ball shot at your intestines. I am very afraid of you, and I’ll fire in another second. That coat may be heavy, but at this range it won’t protect you. If you’re fortunate, you’ll only take a few hours to die. Stand to the side now and open the door for me.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sepp’s face turned to mine. Light from the street door fell on his blond stubble and shone on the dazed white of his eye. He smelled somewhere between urine and rancid butter.
I levelled my pistol at the man in the coat. “Do it.” My voice was a high scrape. “Look at my hand shake. It’s going to decide for itself. I can tell, I’m used to it.”
The man stepped haltingly aside. Lifting the latch, he let it fall with a bang. Daylight glowed down the edge of the door. I didn’t blink.
“Keep your friend off,” I said. “If he makes me turn around, it’s you I’ll put a hole in. And throw that door wide.”
The man in the coat glared under his hat, but he thrust the door open. Girls passed in the shimmering air, not even looking in.
Sepp would have to go first. I didn’t like that, but I didn’t want this pair to nab him either. I switched places with Sepp and pushed him from behind. He grabbed the side of the door, glancing at the face that towered above his, and slid out.
I turned and backed into the street. The man in the coat shook his head.
“Shut the door,” I said. “Don’t come out.”
“Crazy cow.” A rasp of air across his throat. The door closed.
I watched it, my heart thudding, wondering when Georg would appear from the Danube end of the street. As my eyes flicked to the other arch, Sepp jerked, wresting his arm from my grip.
He dived for the upper arch. I could either follow him toward the shul or cover the door. But if I caught him again and the other two came out, I’d never hold them off.
Now the girls stared at the pistol in my outstretched hand. The small boy with the cart puffed beside them, his eyes big as cobblestones. I ignored them. I was a crazy cow, why shouldn’t I?
No one came out. When I heard a clop near the arcade, I lowered my pistol and ran to the other arch. Wallenstein came to a halt in front of me.
I pulled open the carriage door and screamed at Georg to move.
You can find David Neilson’s full novel, The Prussian Dispatch on Amazon, as well as the sequels Lay Brothers and Serene.
