The Pale Criminal (14 page)

‘This is Helene,’ Evona said, sitting down again. ‘Helene, sit down and tell the Kommissar about the man who tried to kill you.’

The girl sat down on the chair where Becker had been sitting. She was pretty in a tired sort of way, as if she didn’t sleep enough, or was using some sort of drug. Hardly daring to look me in the eye she chewed her lip and tugged at a length of her long red hair.

‘Well, go on,’ Evona urged. ‘He won’t eat you. He had that chance earlier on.’

‘The man we’re looking for likes to tie girls up,’ I told her, leaning forward encouragingly. ‘Then he strangles them, or cuts their throats.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said after a minute. ‘This is hard for me. I wanted to forget all about it, but Evona says that some schoolgirls have been murdered. I want to help, really I do, but it’s hard.’

I lit a cigarette and offered her the packet. She shook her head. ‘Take your time, Helene,’ I said. ‘Is this a customer we’re talking about? Someone who came for a massage?’

‘I won’t have to go to court, will I? I’m not saying anything if it means standing up in front of a magistrate and saying I’m a party-girl.’

‘The only person you’ll have to tell is me.’

The girl sniffed without much enthusiasm.

‘Well, you seem all right, I suppose.’ She shot a look at the cigarette in my hand. ‘Can I change my mind about that nail?’

‘Sure,’ I said, and held out the packet.

The first drag seemed to galvanize her. She smarted as she told the story, embarrassed a little, and probably a bit scared as well.

‘About a month ago I had a client in one evening. I gave him a massage and when I asked him if he wanted me to dial his number he asked me if he could tie me up and then get himself frenched. I said that it would cost him another twenty, and he agreed. So there I was, trussed up like a roast chicken, having finished frenching him, and I ask him to untie me. He gets this funny look in his eye, and calls me a dirty whore, or something like that. Well you get used to men going mean on you when you’ve finished, like they’re ashamed of themselves, but I could see that this one was different, so I tried to stay calm. Then he got the knife out and start to lay it flat on my neck like he wanted me to be scared. Which I was. Fit to scream my lungs out of my throat, only I didn’t want to scare him into cutting me right away, thinking that I might be able to talk him out of it.’ She took another tremulous drag on her cigarette.

‘But that was just his cue to start throttling me, him thinking that I was about to scream, I mean. He grabbed hold of my windpipe and starts to choke me. If one of the other girls hadn’t walked in there by mistake he’d have scratched me out and no mistake. I had the bruises on my neck for almost a week afterwards.’

‘What happened when the other girl came in?’

‘Well, I couldn’t say for sure. I was more concerned with drawing breath than seeing that he got a taxi home all right, you know what I mean? As far as I know he just snatched up his things and got his smell out the door.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘He had a uniform on.’

‘What kind of uniform? Can you be a little more specific?’

She shrugged. ‘Who am I, Hermann Goering? Shit, I don’t know what kind of uniform it was.’

‘Well was it green, black, brown or what? Come on, girl, think. It’s important.’

She took a fierce drag and shook her head impatiently.

‘An old uniform. The sort they used to wear.’

‘You mean like a war veteran?’

‘Yes, that’s the sort of thing, only a bit more — Prussian, I suppose. You know, the waxed moustache, the cavalry boots. Oh yes, I nearly forgot, he had spurs on.’

‘Spurs?’

‘Yes, like to ride a horse.’

‘Anything else you remember?’

‘He had a wineskin, on a string which he slung over his shoulder, so that it looked like a bugle at his hip. Only he said that it was full of schnapps.’

I nodded, satisfied, and leant back on the sofa, wondering what it would have been like to have had her after all. For the first time I noticed the yellowish discoloration of her hands which wasn’t nicotine, jaundice or her temperament, but a clue that she’d been working in a munitions factory. In the same way I’d once identified a body pulled out of the Landwehr. Another thing I had learned from Hans Illmann.

‘Hey, listen,’ said Helene, ‘if you get this bastard, make sure that he gets all the usual Gestapo hospitality, won’t you? Thumbscrews and rubber truncheons?’

‘Lady,’ I said, standing up, ‘you can depend on it. And thanks for helping.’

Helene stood up, her arms folded, and shrugged. ‘Yes, well, I was a schoolgirl myself once, you know what I mean?’

I glanced at Evona and smiled. ‘I know what you mean.’ I jerked my head at the bedrooms along the corridor. ‘When Don Juan’s concluded his investigations, tell him that I went to question the head-waiter at Peltzers. Then maybe I thought I’d talk to the manager at the Winter Garden and see what I could get out of him. After that I might just head back to the Alex and clean my gun. Who knows, I may even find time to do a little police work along the way.’

‘Where are you from, Gottfried?’

The man smiled proudly. ‘Eger, in the Sudetenland. Another few weeks and you can call it Germany.’

‘Foolhardy is what I call it,’ I said. ‘Another few weeks and your Sudetendeutsche Partei will have us all at war. Martial law has already been declared in most SDP districts.’

‘Men must die for what they believe in.’ He leant back on his chair and dragged a spur along the floor of the interrogation room. I stood up, loosening my shirt collar, and moved out of the shaft of sunlight that shone through the window. It was a hot day. Too hot to be wearing a jacket, let alone the uniform of an old Prussian cavalry officer. Gottfried Bautz, arrested early that same morning, didn’t seem to notice the heat, although his waxed moustache was beginning to show signs of a willingness to stand easy.

‘What about women?’ I asked. ‘Do they have to die as well?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I think that you had better tell me why I have been brought here, don’t you, Herr Kommissar?’

‘Have you ever been to a massage parlour on Richard Wagner Strasse?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘You’re a difficult man to forget, Gottfried. I doubt that you could have made yourself look any easier to remember than if you had rode up the stairs on a white stallion. Incidentally, why do you wear the uniform?’

‘I served Germany, and I’m proud of it. Why shouldn’t I wear a uniform?’

I started to say something about the war being over, but there didn’t seem like much point, what with another one on the way, and Gottfried being such a spinner.

‘So,’ I said. ‘Were you at the massage parlour on Richard Wagner Strasse, or not?’

‘Maybe. One doesn’t always remember the exact locations of places like that. I don’t make a habit of — ’

‘Spare me the character reference. One of the girls there says that you tried to kill her.’

‘That’s preposterous.’

‘She’s quite adamant, I’m afraid.’

‘Has this girl made a complaint against me?’

‘Yes, she has.’

Gottfried Bautz chuckled smugly. ‘Come now, Herr Kommissar. We both know that’s not true. In the first place there hasn’t been an identification parade. And in the second, even if there was, there’s not a snapper in the whole of Germany who would report so much as a lost poodle. No complaint, no witness, and I fail to see why we’re having this conversation at all.’

‘She says that you tied her up like a hog, nudged her mouth and then tried to strangle her.’

‘She says, she says. Look, what is this shit? It’s my word against hers.’

‘You’re forgetting the witness, aren’t you, Gottfried? The girl who came in while you were squeezing the shit out of the other one? Like I said, you’re not an easy man to forget.’

‘I’m prepared to let a court decide who is telling the truth here,’ he said. ‘Me, a man who fought for his country, or a couple of stupid little honeybees. Are they prepared to do the same?’ He was shouting now, sweat starting off his forehead like pastry-glaze. ‘You’re just pecking at vomit, and you know it.’

I sat down again and aimed my forefinger at the centre of his face.

‘Don’t get smart, Gottfried. Not in here. The Alex breaks more skin that way than Max Schmelling, and you don’t always get to go back to your dressing-room at the end of the fight.’ I folded my hands behind my head, leant back and looked nonchalantly up at the ceiling. ‘Take my word for it, Gottfried. This little bee isn’t so dumb that she won’t do exactly what I tell her to do. If I tell her to french the magistrate in open court she’ll do it. Understand?’

‘You can go fuck yourself, then,’ he snarled. ‘I mean, if you’re going to custom-build me a cage then I don’t see that you need me to cut you a key. Why the hell should I answer any of your questions?’

‘Please yourself. I’m not in any hurry. Me, I’ll go back home, take a nice hot bath, get a good night’s sleep. Then I’ll come back here and see what kind of an evening you’ve had. Well, what can I say? They don’t call this place Grey Misery for nothing.’

‘All right, all right,’ he groaned. ‘Go ahead and ask your lousy questions.’

‘We searched your room.’

‘Like it?’

‘Not as much as the bugs you share with. We found some rope. My inspector thinks it’s the special strangling kind you buy at Ka-De-We. On the other hand it could be the kind you use to tie someone up.’

‘Or it could be the sort of rope I use in my job. I work for Rochling’s Furniture Removals.’

‘Yes, I checked. But why take a length of rope home with you? Why not just leave it in the van?’

‘I was going to hang myself.’

‘What changed your mind?’

‘I thought about it awhile, and then things didn’t seem quite so bad. That was before I met you.’

‘What about the bloodstained cloth we found in a bag underneath your bed?’

‘That? Menstrual blood. An acquaintance of mine, she had a small accident. I meant to burn it, but I forgot.’

‘Can you prove that? Will this acquaintance corroborate your story?’

‘Unfortunately I can’t tell you very much about her, Kommissar. A casual thing, you understand.’ He paused. ‘But surely there are scientific tests which will substantiate what I say?’

‘Tests will determine whether or not it is human blood. But I don’t think there’s anything as precise as you are suggesting. I can’t say for sure, I’m not a pathologist.’

I stood up again and went over to the window. I found my cigarettes and lit one.

‘Smoke?’ He nodded and I threw the packet on to the table. I let him get his first breath of it before I tossed him the grenade. ‘I’m investigating the murders of four, possibly five young girls,’ I said quietly. ‘That’s why you’re here now. Assisting us with our inquiries, as they say.’

Gottfried stood up quickly, his tongue tamping down his lower lip, the cigarette rolling on the table where he had thrown it. He started to shake his head and didn’t stop.

‘No, no, no. No, you’ve got the wrong man. I know absolutely nothing of this. Please, you’ve got to believe me. I’m innocent.’

‘What about that girl you raped in Dresden, in 1931? You were in the cement for that, weren’t you, Gottfried? You see, I’ve checked your record.’

‘It was statutory rape. The girl was under age, that’s all. I didn’t know. She consented.’

‘Now let’s see, how old was she again? Fifteen? Sixteen? That’s about the same age as the girls who’ve been murdered. You know, maybe you just like them young. You feel ashamed of what you are, and transfer your guilt to them. How can they make you do these things?’

‘No, it’s not true, I swear it -’

‘How can they be so disgusting? How can they provoke you so shamelessly?’

‘Stop it, for Christ’s sake — ’

‘You’re innocent. Don’t make me laugh. Your innocence isn’t worth shit in the gutter, Gottfried. Innocence is for decent, law-abiding citizens, not the kind of sewer-rat like you who tries to strangle a girl in a massage parlour. Now sit down and shut up.’

He rocked on his heels for a moment, and then sat down heavily. ‘I didn’t kill anyone,’ he muttered. ‘Whichever way you want to cut it, I’m innocent, I tell you.’

‘That you may be,’ I said. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t plane a piece of wood without dropping a few shavings. So, innocent or not, I’ve got to keep you for a while. At least until I can check you out.’ I picked up my jacket and walked to the door.

‘One last question for the moment,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose you own a car, do you?’

‘On my pay? You are joking, aren’t you?’

‘What about the furniture van. Are you the driver?’

‘Yes. I’m the driver.’

‘Ever use it in the evenings?’ He stayed silent. I shrugged and said: ‘Well, I suppose I can always ask your employer.’

‘It’s not allowed, but sometimes I do use it, yes. Do a bit of private contracting, that sort of thing.’ He looked squarely at me. ‘But I never used it to kill anyone in, if that’s what you were suggesting.’

‘It wasn’t, as it happens. But thanks for the idea.’

I sat in Arthur Nebe’s office and waited for him to finish his telephone call. His face was grave when finally he replaced the receiver. I was about to say something when he raised his finger to his lips, opened his desk drawer and took out a tea-cosy with which he covered the phone.

‘What’s that for?’

‘There’s a wire on the telephone. Heydrich’s, I suppose, but who can tell? The tea-cosy keeps our conversation private.’ He leant back in his chair underneath a picture of the Fiihrer and uttered a long and weary sigh. ‘That was one of my men calling from the Berchtesgaden,’ he said. ‘Hitler’s talks with the British prime minister don’t seem to be going particularly well. I don’t think our beloved Chancellor of Germany cares if there’s war with England or not. He’s conceding absolutely nothing.