The Pale Criminal (23 page)

‘No, I wanted to tell you about the problem I have, which is that I am under a certain amount of pressure from Goebbels and his Muratti hacks that this case you are working on be given publicity. I’m not sure how much longer I can stave them off.’

‘When I was given this case, General,’ I said, lighting a cigarette, ‘I was against a ban on publicity. Now I’m convinced that publicity is exactly what our killer has been after all along.’

‘Yes, Nebe said you were working on the theory that this might be some sort of conspiracy engineered by Streicher and his Jew-baiting pals to bring down a pogrom on the heads of the capital’s Jewish community.’

‘It sounds fantastic, General, only if you don’t know Streicher.’

He stopped, and thrusting his hands deep inside his trouser pockets, he shook his head.

‘There is nothing about that Bavarian pig that could possibly surprise me.’ He kicked at a pigeon with the toe of his boot, and missed. ‘But I want to hear more.’

‘A girl has identified a photograph of Streicher as possibly the man who tried to pick her up outside a school from which another girl disappeared last week. She thinks that the man might have had a Bavarian accent. The desk sergeant who took an anonymous call tipping us off where exactly to find the body of another missing girl said that the caller had a Bavarian accent.

‘Then there’s motive. Last month the people of Nuremberg burnt down the city’s synagogue. But here in Berlin there are only ever a few broken windows and assaults at the very worst. Streicher would love to see the Jews in Berlin getting some of what they’ve had in Nuremberg.

‘What is more,
Der Stürmer’s
obsession with ritual murder leads me to make comparisons with the killer’s
modus operandi.
You add all that to Streicher’s reputation and it starts to look like something.’

Heydrich accelerated ahead of me, his arms stiff at his sides as if he were riding in the Vienna Riding School, and then turned to face me. He was smiling enthusiastically.

‘I know one person who would be delighted to see Streicher’s downfall. That stupid bastard has been making speeches all but accusing the prime minister of being impotent. Goering is furious about it. But you don’t really have enough yet, do you?’

‘No, sir. For a start my witness is Jewish.’ Heydrich groaned. ‘And of course the rest is largely theoretical.’

‘Nevertheless, I like your theory, Gunther. I like it very much.’

‘I’d like to remind the general that it took me six months to catch Gormann the Strangler. I haven’t yet spent a month on this case.’

‘We don’t have six months, I’m afraid. Look here, get me a shred of evidence and I can keep Goebbels off my back. But I need something soon, Gunther. You’ve got another month, six weeks at the outside. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, what do you need from me?’

‘Round the clock Gestapo surveillance of Julius Streicher,’ I said. ‘A full undercover investigation of all his business activities and known associates.’

Heydrich folded his arms and took his long chin in his hand. ‘I’ll have to speak to Himmler about that. But it should be all right. The Reichsfuhrer hates corruption even more than he loathes the Jews.’

‘Well, that’s certainly comforting, sir.’

We walked on towards the Prinz Albrecht Palais.

‘Incidentally,’ he said, as we neared his own headquarters, ‘I’ve just had some important news that affects us all. The British and French have signed an agreement at Munich. The Führer has got the Sudeten.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘A miracle, isn’t it?’

‘Yes indeed,’ I muttered.

‘Well, don’t you understand? There isn’t going to be a war. At least, not for the present time.’

I smiled awkwardly. ‘Yes, it’s really good news.’

I understood perfectly. There wasn’t going to be a war. There wasn’t going to be any signal from the British. And without that, there wasn’t going to be any army
putsch
either.

The Ganz family, what remained of it following a second anonymous call to the Alex informing us where the body of Liza Ganz was to be found, lived south of Wittenau in a small apartment on Birkenstrasse, just behind the Robert Koch Hospital where Frau Ganz was employed as a nurse. Herr Ganz worked as a clerk at the Moabit District Court, which was also nearby.

According to Becker they were a hard-working couple in their late thirties, both of them putting in long hours, so that Liza Ganz had often been left by herself. But never had she been left as I had just seen her, naked on a slab at the Alex, with a man stitching up those parts of her he had seen fit to cut open in an effort to determine everything about her, from her virginity to the contents of her stomach. Yet it had been the contents of her mouth, easier of access, which had confirmed what I had begun to suspect.

‘What made you think of it, Bernie?’ Illmann had asked.

‘Not everyone rolls up as good as you, Professor. Sometimes a little flake will stay on your tongue, or under your lip. When the Jewish girl who said she saw our man said he was smoking something sweet-smelling, like bay-leaves or oregano, she had to be talking about hashish. That’s probably how he gets them away quietly. Treats them all grown-up by offering them a cigarette. Only it’s not the kind they’re expecting.’

Illmann shook his head in apparent wonder.

‘And to think that I missed it. I must be getting old.’

Becker slammed the car door and joined me on the pavement. The apartment was above a pharmacy. I had a feeling I was going to need it.

We walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. The man who opened it was dark and bad-tempered looking. Recognizing Becker he uttered a sigh and called to his wife. Then he glanced back inside and I saw him nod grimly.

‘You’d better come in,’ he said.

I was watching him closely. His face remained flushed, and as I squeezed past him I could see small beads of perspiration on his forehead. Further into the place I caught a warm, soapy smell, and I guessed that he’d only recently finished taking a bath.

Closing the door, Herr Ganz overtook and led us into the small sitting-room where his wife was standing quietly. She was tall and pale, as if she spent too much time indoors, and clearly she had not long stopped crying. The handkerchief was still wet in her hand. Herr Ganz, shorter than his wife, put his arm around her broad shoulders.

‘This is Kommissar Gunther, from the Alex,’ said Becker.

‘Herr and Frau Ganz,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid you must prepare yourselves for the worst possible news. We found the body of your daughter Liza early this morning. I’m very sorry.’ Becker nodded solemnly.

‘Yes,’ said Ganz. ‘Yes, I thought so.’

‘Naturally there will have to be an identification,’ I told him. ‘It needn’t be right away. Perhaps later on, when you’ve had a chance to draw yourselves together.’ I waited for Frau Ganz to dissolve, but for the moment at least she seemed inclined to remain solid. Was it because she was a nurse, and rather more immune to suffering and pain? Even her own? ‘May we sit down?’

‘Yes, please do,’ said Ganz.

I told Becker to go and make some coffee for us all. He went with some alacrity, eager to be out of the grief-stricken atmosphere, if only for a moment or two.

‘Where did you find her?’ said Ganz.

It wasn’t the sort of question I felt comfortable answering. How do you tell two parents that their daughter’s naked body was found inside a tower of car tyres in a disused garage on Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse? I gave him the sanitized version, which included no more than the location of the garage. At this there occurred a very definite exchange of looks.

Ganz sat with his hand on his wife’s knee. She herself was quiet, vacant even, and perhaps less in need of Becker’s coffee than I was.

‘Have you any idea who might have killed her?’ he said.

‘We’re working on a number of possibilities, sir,’ I said, finding the old police platitudes coming back to me once again. ‘We’re doing everything we can, believe me.’

Ganz’s frown deepened. He shook his head angrily. ‘What I fail to understand is why there has been nothing in the newspapers.’

‘It’s important that we prevent any copy-cat killings,’ I said. ‘It often happens in this sort of case.’

‘Isn’t it also important that you stop any more girls from being murdered?’ said Frau Ganz. Her look was one of exasperation. ‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it? Other girls have been murdered. That’s what people are saying. You may be able to keep it out of the papers, but you can’t stop people from talking.’

‘There have been propaganda drives warning girls to be on their guard,’ I said.

‘Well, they obviously didn’t do any good, did they?’ said Ganz. ‘Liza was an intelligent girl, Kommissar. Not the kind to do anything stupid. So this killer must be clever too. And the way I see it, the only way to put girls properly on their guard is to print the story, in all its horror. To scare them.’

‘You may be right, sir,’ I said unhappily, ‘but it’s not up to me. I’m only obeying orders.’ That was the typically German excuse for everything these days, and I felt ashamed using it.

Becker put his head round the kitchen door.

‘Could I have a word, sir?’

It was my turn to be glad to leave the room.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said bitterly. ‘Forgotten how to boil a kettle?’

He handed me a newspaper cutting, from the
Beobachter.
‘Take a look at this, sir. I found it in the drawer here.’

It was an advertisement for a ‘Rolf Vogelmann, Private Investigator, Missing Persons a Speciality’, the same advertisement that Bruno Stahlecker had used to plague me with.

Becker pointed to the date at the top of the cutting: ‘3 October,’ he said. ‘Four days after Liza Ganz disappeared.’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time that people got tired waiting for the police to come up with something,’ I said. ‘After all, that’s how I used to make a comparatively honest living.’

Becker collected some cups and saucers and put them on to a tray with the coffee pot. ‘Do you suppose that they might have used him, sir?’

‘I don’t see any harm in asking.’

Ganz was unrepentant, the sort of client I wouldn’t have minded working for myself.

‘As I said, Kommissar, there was nothing in the newspapers about our daughter, and we saw your colleague here only twice. So as time passed we wondered just what efforts were being made to find our daughter. It’s the not knowing that gets to you. We thought that if we hired Herr Vogelmann then at least we could be sure that someone was doing his best to try and find her. I don’t mean to be rude, Kommissar, but that’s the way it was.’

I sipped my coffee and shook my head.

‘I quite understand,’ I said. ‘I’d probably have done the same thing myself. I just wish this Vogelmann had been able to find her.’

You had to admire them, I thought. They could probably ill-afford the services of a private investigator and yet they had still gone ahead and hired one. It might even have cost them whatever savings they had.

When we had finished our coffee and were leaving I suggested that a police car might come round and bring Herr Ganz down to the Alex to identify the body early the following morning.

‘Thank you for your kindness, Kommissar,’ said Frau Ganz, attempting a smile. ‘Everyone’s been so kind.’

Her husband nodded his agreement. Hovering by the open door, he was obviously keen to see the back of us.

‘Herr Vogelmann wouldn’t take any money from us. And now you’re arranging a car for my husband. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it.’

I squeezed her hand sympathetically, and then we left.

In the pharmacy downstairs I bought some powders and swallowed one in the car. Becker looked at me with disgust.

‘Christ, I don’t know how you can do that,’ he said, shuddering.

‘It works faster that way. And after what we just went through I can’t say that I notice the taste much. I hate giving bad news.’ I swept my mouth with my tongue for the residue. ‘Well? What did you make of that? Get the same hunch as before?’

‘Yes. He was giving her all sorts of meaningful little looks.’

‘So were you, for that matter,’ I said, shaking my head in wonder.

Becker grinned broadly. ‘She wasn’t bad, was she?’

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me what she’d be like in bed, right?’

‘More your type I’d have thought, sir.’

‘Oh? What makes you say that?’

‘You know, the type that responds to kindness.’

I laughed, despite my headache. ‘More than she responds to bad news. There we are with our big feet and long faces and all she can do is look like she was in the middle of her period.’

‘She’s a nurse. They’re used to handling bad news.’

‘That crossed my mind, but I think she’d done her crying already, and quite recently. What about Irma Hanke’s mother? Did she cry?’

‘God, no. As hard as Jew Suss that one. Maybe she did sniff a little when I first showed up. But they were giving off the same sort of atmosphere as the Ganzes.’

I looked at my watch. ‘I think we need a drink, don’t you?’

We drove to the Cafe Kerkau, on Alexanderstrasse. With sixty billiard tables, it was where a lot of bulls from the Alex went to relax when they came off duty.

I bought a couple of beers and carried them over to a table where Becker was practising a few shots.

‘Do you play?’ he said.

‘Are you stretching me out? This used to be my sitting-room.’ I picked up a stick and watched Becker shoot the cue ball. It hit the red, banked off the cushion and hit the other white ball square.

‘Care for a little bet?’

‘Not after that shot. You’ve got a lot to learn about working a line. Now if you’d missed it–’