JF04 - The Carnival Master (43 page)

They watched as Ansgar crossed the street towards the entrance of Andrea’s apartment building.

‘I think we should have a word …’ said Fabel, his hand on the door handle. They had just got out when a knot of revellers swamped the car. Tansu and Fabel struggled to get through but one large lady grabbed Fabel and planted a kiss on his lips, to the cheers of her companions.

‘Let me through,’ shouted Fabel. ‘Police!’

Still he struggled through the knot of revellers. He saw that Ansgar had turned in his direction. A scared recognition registered on his face. Shit, thought Fabel, he’s going to run. ‘Herr Hoeffer!’ he called over the shoulder of an obese Snow White who stood in his way. Hoeffer turned and ran towards the far end of the street. Fabel and Tansu shoved their way through the crowd.

‘Stay here,’ shouted Fabel. ‘Call for back-up but stay and watch Andrea.’ He tore off down the street after Hoeffer. He rounded the corner only to be faced with a throng of revellers. He stopped in his tracks and scanned the crowd. It was only because Ansgar was hatless and in everyday clothes that he caught sight of him pushing a path through the mob. Fabel sprinted after him but collided with the same wall of flesh. He barged his way through and was
met with the occasional jeer as he roughly shoved revellers out of his way.

‘Police!’ he shouted repeatedly into the faceless throng. He felt immersed in communal madness. Fabel rammed into something solid. He looked up to see a two-metre-plus tall, 120-kilo ballerina with a beard. The ballerina grabbed Fabel by the neck of his jacket.

‘What’s the rush?’ boomed the ballerina’s baritone. ‘You trying to spoil everyone’s fun?’

Fabel didn’t have time for explanations and slammed his knee into the ballerina’s tutu and the grip on his jacket was released. He broke through the crowd and caught sight of Ansgar running around the next corner. The cold air seemed to sear Fabel’s lungs as he sprinted to the corner and around into the next street. He thought about radioing in but, without Tansu, he had no idea where he was. Suddenly he found himself in a dark, quiet side street. It was only wide enough to allow cars to park along one side, leaving clearance for a single stream of one-way traffic. Fabel stopped. He had seen Ansgar run into the street and had closed the gap enough to be sure that the chef hadn’t had time to make it to the far end. He was here somewhere. Hiding. Fabel walked slowly down the roadway, checking between the parked cars.

‘Give it up, Herr Hoeffer,’ he called breathlessly. ‘We know who you are and we’ll track you down sooner or later. All I want to do is talk to you.’

Silence.

‘Please, Herr Hoeffer. This will do you no good …’

A dark figure rose from between two parked cars, about ten metres further down the street.

‘I didn’t mean any harm …’ Ansgar’s voice was high and pleading. ‘I didn’t. She let me do it before. I just wanted to do it again … I’m sick …’

Fabel moved closer. Slowly. Reaching into his belt, he removed his set of handcuffs. ‘We can talk about it, Herr Hoeffer. I want to talk about it. To understand. But you need to come with me. You understand that, don’t you?’ Fabel eased between the parked cars. There was a flash: a glint of sharp steel as Ansgar took something from his coat pocket. Fabel reached for his gun which was not there. As a visiting officer from another city’s force, Fabel was unarmed. Ansgar held the blade in front of him, shaking.

‘I’m sick,’ he repeated. ‘A pervert. I don’t deserve to live … I can’t stand this chaos …’ The blade flashed in the dim street light as it arced first upwards, then down – towards Ansgar’s abdomen. Ansgar was hurled off his feet as Fabel slammed into him. The impact threw Ansgar against the wall and the knife fell with a clatter.

‘No, you don’t,’ said Fabel as he turned Ansgar onto his belly and twisted his arms behind him, clasping the handcuffs shut. ‘I’ve lost one already that way.’

‘So who’s our killer?’ asked Scholz. ‘I am seriously fucking confused. We have positive proof that it was Lüdeke who raped Vera-cum-Andrea in ’ninety-nine, yet now we find Ansgar Hoeffer loitering outside her apartment and he’s ready to make a confession.’

‘A confession to what, we don’t know yet,’ said Fabel.

‘Well, I think we can hazard a guess … The search of his apartment has turned up this pile of goodies.’ Scholz indicated a cardboard evidence box on his desk. ‘And we’ve done a quick check of his computer. Three guesses what his favourite website is?’

‘
Anthropophagi?
’

‘In one,’ said Scholz.

Fabel looked through the contents of the evidence box. A few magazines, DVDs, older VHS tapes. Fabel read some of the DVD titles, all of which were variations on a theme:
Flesh-Eating Zombie Women
,
Cannibals of Lesbos
,
Food for the Demon Women
.

‘What’s up?’ asked Scholz. ‘Seen something you want to borrow?’

‘There’s something wrong here. Doesn’t fit. Let’s go talk to him. In the meantime, I think Tansu should stay outside Andrea Sandow’s place, just until we hit midnight. Have you updated her on what’s happened?’

‘Yep … she says this better not interfere with her going to the party …’

Fabel looked Scholz up and down. ‘By the way,’ he said, with a grin. ‘I think you should maybe think about changing out of your skirt before we question him …’

Fabel found himself feeling genuinely sorry for Ansgar Hoeffer. He sat in the interview room pale and sad, his cheek bruised from its encounter with the wall that Fabel had rammed him into.

‘Why were you outside Andrea Sandow’s apartment?’ asked Scholz.

‘I wanted to see her. I needed …’ He let the thought die.

‘Needed what?’ asked Fabel.

‘I have this thing …’

‘About cannibalism?’ asked Scholz. Ansgar looked up, surprised.

‘How did you know?’

‘Don’t be stupid, Ansgar,’ said Scholz. ‘You know what this is all about. You know why you’re here. And anyway, we’ve seen your dirty-film library.’

‘I didn’t think I was doing anything illegal …’ Ansgar looked at the detectives pleadingly.

Scholz was about to say something but Fabel cut him off. Everything fell into place.

‘Ansgar,’ said Fabel urgently, ‘do you know who Vera Reinartz is?’

‘No …’

‘I didn’t think you would. But you know Andrea Sandow?’

‘I only know her as Andrea. Andrea the Amazon. I hadn’t seen her since it happened. Then, the other week, just by chance … so I followed her. Found out where she worked. Where she lived.’

‘When did you first meet her?’

‘I only met her the once. Three years ago. I hired her through an escort agency.
À la Carte
. I paid her …’

Scholz exchanged a look with Fabel.

‘You paid her. What did you pay her to do, Ansgar?’

‘I can show you …’ Ansgar stood up, loosened his belt and turned sideways so that Fabel and Scholz could see as he eased his trousers and shorts down to expose his buttock.

Tansu sat in the car and watched the lit window of Andrea’s apartment. She was bored and could think of a dozen better ways to spend Women’s
Karneval Night. But this was what she had become a policewoman for: to watch and protect. It gave her comfort that whether it was Lüdeke or Hoeffer who was the killer, the chances were that the streets were safe tonight. Andrea would be safe tonight.

Something, someone passed across the window. Tansu gave a small laugh. She was imagining things. She could have sworn it had been … No, that was mad. The light went out. Tansu picked up her radio. No. There was nothing to report. What she had thought she had seen didn’t make sense. Andrea was probably just turning in, hoping to put Women’s Karneval Night behind her. Tansu decided to check it out anyway.

The street was still thronging with people and Tansu dodged round clumps of revellers to reach the entry of Andrea’s apartment building. She buzzed up and waited a minute for a reply that didn’t come. She was just about to buzz again when a group of partygoers came down the stairs. Tansu caught the door before it swung shut behind them and made her way up the stairwell.

Tansu knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked louder.

‘Andrea!’ she called through the closed door. ‘Andrea! It’s Commissar Bakrac from the Criminal Police. Let me in!’

Again no response, but this time Tansu heard sounds from inside the apartment. Her heart began to pound: what if she had really seen what she thought she’d seen at the window? She unholstered her service automatic, clicked off the safety and held it pointed to the ceiling. ‘Andrea … I think you are in danger. I’m coming in.’ Tansu stepped back and
took a deep breath. She swung her boot at the door. Then again. The lock splintered and the door flew open. She could see along the apartment’s hall but the rooms off it lay in darkness. She debated about taking precious seconds to call for back-up. But Andrea could be dead by then. She edged along the hall, her back pressed against the wall. She knocked a hanging photograph from its hook and it crashed onto the floor. Tansu glanced down and saw that it was a picture of a young woman: pretty, with long brownish hair and a floaty summer dress. Vera, before she had made a mess of her body with weightlifting and steroids. Before she had become Andrea. Before that bastard Lüdeke had screwed her up.

‘Andrea?’ Tansu swung into the door frame of the first room, sweeping the darkness with her gun. Nothing. But she had heard Andrea in the apartment. She had heard
someone
. She stepped quickly back into the hall. The door to the next room was closed. She reached forward for the handle, but the door swung suddenly open and a figure took two strides into the hall and slammed straight into Tansu. The Clown’s sudden appearance stunned her for the fraction of a second it took him to grab the wrist of her gun hand. She staggered back but the Clown’s grip remained vice-tight. He slammed her hand hard against the door jamb again and again until her grip yielded and her gun clattered to the floor. Tansu swung her free fist at the Clown’s painted head but he blocked it with a rock-hard forearm. She struggled fruitlessly to free her other hand. The Clown snatched her by the throat and rammed her against the wall with terrific force. The impact winded Tansu and she struggled to refill her airways. The Clown
slammed his fist into her belly, just below the diaphragm, robbing her of the meagre air she had clawed back into her protesting lungs.

The Clown let go of her throat for a moment and Tansu felt something being looped around her neck. And as he tightened the ligature, all Tansu could do was stare into his face.

His grotesque clown face.

Fabel and Scholz ran along the corridor and took the lift to the car pool.

‘It’s going to be like driving through sludge,’ explained Scholz. ‘We’ll take one of the big MEK vans and go with lights and sirens. Hopefully the Red Sea’ll part for us.’ Scholz tried again to raise Tansu. Nothing. ‘There are units in the area on their way as well. You knew, didn’t you? How did you know?’

‘About Ansgar? The porn was all wrong. There are two types of vorarephile – the ones who fantasise about eating another human being and the ones who fantasise about being eaten. Those are much more common. All the DVDs we seized from Hoeffer’s place were about women eating men. And now we have the connection between the rape and the murders. Not a link. Cause and effect. I just hope we get there in time …’

Tansu punched and kicked at her attacker, but she knew that her strength was failing. She focused all her concentration, all her effort into one decisive
action. She jabbed the straightened fingers of her free hand into the Clown’s eye. He clutched his eye and the pressure around her throat eased. She swung her foot and hit the clown in the belly. He staggered back and Tansu aimed a kick at his groin but caught the top of his thigh. She tore the ligature from her neck. A man’s tie, just as she’d expected. She threw herself along the hall’s floor and reached for where her gun had fallen. Suddenly she felt as if the building had collapsed on her and realised that the Clown had thrown himself onto her back, winding her for a second time. He spun her round and clasped his hands around her throat. But he didn’t squeeze. Instead he yielded to the pressure of the muzzle of Tansu’s service automatic, jammed into the flesh beneath his jaw.

‘Just give me a fucking excuse,’ Tansu said through tight-clenched teeth. ‘After what you’ve done to all those women. Where’s Andrea?’

There was the sound of boots running up the stairs and the door of the apartment flew open. Uniformed officers poured into the cramped hall and grabbed the Clown, forcing him to the floor and handcuffing his hands behind his back.

Tansu stood up and composed herself. ‘I asked you, where is Andrea?’

‘That is Andrea …’ Tansu turned to see Fabel and Scholz in the hall. She looked down at the Clown. The male physique. The hard-set jaw.

‘I don’t believe it …’

‘It’s true,’ said Scholz. ‘That’s why we didn’t find any semen at the murder scenes.’

‘She killed all those women?’

‘All of them. But the first woman she killed was herself. Vera Reinartz.’

They stood back as the uniformed officers hauled Andrea to her feet. She stared at them with empty eyes, the only expression her painted smile. The officers led her out of the flat.

‘That was the connection between the rape and the murders. Like I said to Benni: cause and effect. Lüdeke raped Andrea and subjected her to his perversion, biting her repeatedly. She hated herself, or rather herself as Vera, and she mimicked Lüdeke’s attack on her. Except she took it further. She took flesh from each victim and ate it. A little extra twist she picked up after her encounter with Ansgar Hoeffer.’

‘It was Jan who figured it out,’ said Scholz. ‘We came rushing to your rescue, but from what I hear you didn’t need rescuing.’

‘It was a close call,’ said Tansu, rubbing her throat.

‘You need to see a doctor?’ asked Fabel.

‘No – I need to see a barman. But I suppose we’ll have to get some paperwork sorted out first.’