The Cipher

Chapter 9-1

Ten hours later, two men stood in the cold, grey mortuary staring down at the recently deceased body of Max Dobos. One was a criminal investigation officer with the Austrian police; the other was a senior British diplomat from Her Majesty"s Embassy.

“Whoever did it to him knew exactly what they were doing,” said the Austrian police officer.

Cecil Rowlands nodded his aging, shaggy head in agreement. Even to someone as untutored in forensics as he was, he could see the range of defensive wounds on the forearms of the corpse. Not to mention the butchering of the poor wretched devil"s throat. Nasty.

Vienna was a village, a big village certainly, but a village nonetheless, and everybody knew someone who knew someone. As the SIS Head of Station in Vienna, it was good old Cecil"s business to know the people in the know. People like Inspector Krupp, who took a monthly stipend from him.

Rowlands had been on a long weekend break, his first in many months; Thursday through to Sunday. The call to his private line when it came on the Saturday evening had ripped him away from what he hoped was going to be a quiet weekend of fishing, drinks and one of Joyce"s pre-Christmas dinner parties. Joyce, his wife, did so love putting a party together. The evening phone call had put paid to that little luxury and he knew the moment he had heard Inspector Johan Krupp"s voice that his weekend was going to be ruined. Joyce would be furious with him for days over this.

He had arrived at the hospital and been whisked down to the mortuary by a police sergeant, only to find Johan Krupp, doyen of the Viennese police waiting for him. Krupp was tall and grey with a bad suit and a habit of flicking ash from his cigarillos onto the floor whenever he had things on his mind. A thing he did now, despite being in the confines of the mortuary.

“So Inspector, what made you think that this man is connected to us?” asked Rowlands.

Krupp stared down at the floor. Catching his meal ticket out was something that didn"t sit well with him. “I found one of your Embassy telephone numbers hidden in his sock. Didn"t know what it was at first, it was only when I ran it through the reverse telephone directory files that it was flagged as the British Embassy. I thought I"d better let you know before the security police got wind of it.”

Rowlands smiled. “It"s much appreciated Johan, and don"t worry, there"ll be something extra in the pot this month for you and your good lady. You did the right thing.”

“Thank you Herr Rowlands.”

Rowlands frowned. “In his sock, I wonder why he had it hidden there.”

“Well, there were signs that his body had been searched before the killer fled. Obviously he either didn"t think to search the feet, or else he was disturbed.”

The body of Maximilian Dobos lay naked underneath a thin cotton shroud and over sheet that reached up to his tortured neck. Rowlands could see the beginnings of the "Y" shaped pathology scar that ran from his left ear, down the torso to the abdomen.

The body had been found by a cleaner on her way to work in one of the municipal buildings. The elderly woman had noticed a shoe lying along the path that led to the adjacent alley. A quick glance around and she discovered track marks in the muddy verge, where the victim had been dragged before being concealed under an old carpet. Thirty minutes later the police were on the scene in the form of Inspector Krupp and his team of detectives. It was now a murder scene and Krupp and his men had control from here on in.

The deceased had been taken in a sealed body bag to the Vienna General Hospital and the unknown man"s details had been recorded and then he had been placed in a locked fridge until the resident pathologist was ready to conduct his investigation. An hour later the post-mortem began with Krupp attending. It wasn"t the first that he had been forced to sit through, wouldn"t be his last either, but nevertheless it wasn"t an experience that he looked forward to at any time.

The corpse had been weighed, measured and photographed. Next came the washing process, before what Krupp called, the "butchery" started. He made himself scarce and decided to take a look at the man"s clothes and possessions. It was starkly uninteresting. Normal clothes, virtually empty wallet, identity card, cheap watch. The items of a single man and nothing more. A dead end. He started again, this time more thoroughly moving through each item of personal belongings until on his second pass which turned the gloves inside out and then the socks, he found something. There it was. It was nothing more than a small piece of paper with a series of smudged numbers written on it. Krupp stared down at it for what seemed an age. It could be everything or nothing, he decided. But there was something familiar about the number, something that connected with him.

He excused himself, said he would return, then made his way back to Police Headquarters to check something. Just a hunch, but hunches in his experience had a way of turning into definitive clues. A quick flick through several contact files and confidential reverse telephone directories confirmed his suspicion.

He sat back in his office chair, lit one of his cigarillos and made the phone call to the home address of the Right Honorable Cecil Rowlands of the British Embassy in Vienna, the British resident spy and Krupp"s confidant, friend, and paymaster.

* * *

“So, how long had he been dead before he was found?”

Inspector Krupp flicked through the pathology report that he had attached to his clipboard. “The pathologist suggests between six to twelve hours. So he died sometime around eleven o clock last night. It could be a few hours either way, but last night definitely.”

“And the weapon?”

“A very sharp straight edged knife. No sign of that, most probably dumped in the river. Whoever did it certainly wanted to finish him. The wounds on the arms were put there to make it look like a robbery gone wrong. It buys the killer time to escape. He obviously thinks that we"re all idiots on this force and will waste our time pulling in all the known robbers.”

“Is there any suggestion that this was a black market thing? Chaps falling out about sugar or tobacco or what have you?” asked Rowlands, determined to rule out as many possibilities as he could before his thoughts turned to espionage.

anyKrupp shook his head. “Max Dobos wasn"t known to us, but it"s certainly possible. Maybe he crossed someone he shouldn"t, but it must have been big for them to send this kind of message. Our underworld usually just resorts to beatings. Did you know him?”

The question caught old Rowlands off guard, but being a professional he did what he always did on such occasions; he dug deep into his trouser pocket, rummaged around, fished out an old handkerchief and began to clean his spectacles. Yes, for old, dependable Cecil Rowlands it was a tactic that had bought him time on many occasions.

He peered in close to examine the chasm that had once been the dead man"s throat; he squinted, and then stood back up to his full height. “No. I didn"t know him,” he murmured, and then quickly moved the analysis onwards. “So; we know the cuts to the arm were committed post-mortem. What"s the order of play regarding the rest of the wounds?”

Krupp shrugged and glanced at the report. “The first wound, we believe, was a stab to the throat, which caught him on the left side. That"s probably the one that would have killed him; it"s certainly the most lethal. Then multiple stab wounds to the kidneys and surrounding internal organs from the rear. The butchering of the throat, that was done as a supplementary strike, and in my professional opinion, was totally unnecessary. It was just the killer showing off.”

“And making sure the job was done in case he didn"t get a second chance,” said Rowlands.

Krupp nodded, silently admitting to himself that could have been the case.

“Anything at his home? The poor fellow must have had something to his name.”

“Nothing of any use to us, he seemed to live a frugal life. A shabby apartment, a cooker, a radio, a bed, a phone. No money, no frivolity it seems. We"ll keep digging, but…” Krupp"s words tapered off, and he shrugged his shoulders, resigned to the fact that this would probably be a dead-end case.

Rowlands was sure the Inspector would keep digging. He was a good man, a good detective, but sometimes, certain cases have a habit of coming up against a brick wall when leads fizzle out. That was something that the police and the spies had in common. “What will happen to him now Johan?”

Krupp winced, as if these matters were of no concern to him. “There will be a simple burial courtesy of the state probably by the end of the week. If anything else comes up, I"ll let you know.”

Rowlands thanked him and made his way out of the mortuary. From behind him, he heard the hushed tones of Inspector Krupp. “And you can, of course, rely on my discretion Herr Rowlands. We guardians of decency must stick together through thick and thin in these perilous times.”

* * *

Cecil Rowlands called home. He didn"t like to think of Joyce hanging around, waiting for him to turn up, especially after all the effort she had made with the dinner party he had to miss out on. “No darling, I"m still at the hospital and will probably have to go to the office from here. You go on to bed, get some rest and poor you, having to deal with the Radleys" and Herr Marks all on your own. You"re a trooper, I"ll make it up to you I promise,” he cooed down the phone.

With his domestic problem – if not totally resolved – at least contained, he made his way down to his car and drove the ten-minute journey at that time of night to the Embassy.

The British Embassy was an ornate fifty room villa located on Reisnerstrasse and had once been the summer residence of Prince Metternich. Rowlands waved his way past the guard on the gate, said hello to the night duty officer manning the front desk and climbed the stairs to his private sanctum at the rear of the building on the second floor. These offices were only accessible, via a multi-deadlocked steel door, to the officers of SIS.

His first port of call was the file registry room. He worked quickly and expertly, removing several buff folders before taking them to his office. He sat at his desk, placed the folders and files in front of him and opened up the confidential agents list for the Vienna station. He flicked through a few pages until he came to the "D"s".

His finger moved down the page until he came to the entry for "Dobos, Maximillian" and read through the brief biographical details of the agent and his contact tradecraft.

Name: Dobos, Maximillian

Name: Dobos, Maximillian

Agent: CH41/V

Agent: CH41/V

Details: Born 1914. Hungarian, confidence trickster and low-level source. Used mainly in Soviet deception operations and for routine surveillance/security operations with Vienna Station. Outsourced to other friendly intelligence agencies when required.

Details: Born 1914. Hungarian, confidence trickster and low-level source. Used mainly in Soviet deception operations and for routine surveillance/security operations with Vienna Station. Outsourced to other friendly intelligence agencies when required.What followed was the man"s last known address and what method was used for him to communicate directly with the station. Then Rowlands noticed a small tick in the "communiqué" chart. It was dated the previous day. So Dobos had in some way attempted to communicate with the station over the past day or so. Rowlands closed the ledger and made his way to the station"s communications section in the next room. He unlocked the secure door with his personal key, went straight to the main desk and looked through the pending file of communiqués.