Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

‘That is noted,’ said Arthur Nebe, writing. ‘Your predecessor is, in my opinion also, an incompetent.’

‘The girl’s vagina was undamaged and not penetrated,’ continued Illmann. ‘However, the anus gaped wide, permitting the passage of two fingers. Tests for spermatozoa proved positive.’

Somebody groaned.

‘The stomach was flacid and was empty. Apparently Brigitte ate apfelkraut and bread-and-butter for lunch before going to the station. All food had been digested at the time of death. But apple is not easily digested, absorbing water as it does. Thus I would put this girl’s death at between six and eight hours after she ate lunch, and therefore a couple of hours after she was reported missing. The obvious conclusion is that she was abducted and then later killed.’

I looked at Korsch. ‘And the last one please, Herr Korsch.’

‘Lotte Winter,’ he said. ‘Aged sixteen, of German parents. Disappeared 18 July 1938, her body found 25 August. She lived in Pragerstrasse, and attended the local grammar school where she was studying for her Middle Standard. She left home to have a riding lesson with Tattersalls at the Zoo, and never arrived. Her body was found inside the length of an old canoe in a boathouse near Muggel Lake.’

‘Our man gets around, doesn’t he?’ said Count von der Schulenberg quietly.

‘Like the Black Death,’ said Lobbes.

Illmann took over once again.

‘Strangled,’ he said. ‘Resulting in fractures of voice box, hyoid, thyroid cornua and alae, indicating a greater degree of violence than in the case of the Schulz girl. This girl was stronger, being more athletically inclined in the first place. She may have put up more of a fight. Suffocation was the cause of death here, although the carotid artery on the right side of her neck had been slashed. As before, the feet showed signs of having been tied together, and there was blood in the hair and nostrils. Undoubtedly she was hanging upside down when her throat was cut, and similarly her body was almost drained of blood.’

‘Sounds like a fucking vampire,’ exclaimed one of the detectives from the Murder Commission. He glanced at Frau Kalau vom Hofe. ‘Sorry,’ he added. She shook her head.

‘Any sexual interference?’ I asked.

‘Because of the disagreeable odour, the girl’s vagina had to be irrigated,’ announced Illmann to more groans, ‘and so no sperm could be found. However, the vaginal entrance did show scratch marks, and there was a trace of bruising to the pelvis, indicating that she had been penetrated – and forcibly.’

‘Before her throat was cut?’ I asked. Illmann nodded. The room was silent for a moment. Illmann set about fixing another roll-up.

‘And now another girl has disappeared,’ I said. ‘Is that not correct, Inspector Deubel?’

Deubel shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He was a big, blond fellow with grey, haunted eyes that looked as though they had seen too much late-night policework of the kind that requires you to wear thick leather protective gloves.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘Her name is Irma Hanke.’

‘Well, since you are the investigating officer, perhaps you would care to tell us something about her.’

He shrugged. ‘She’s from a nice German family. Aged seventeen, lives in Schloss Strasse, Steglitz.’ He paused as his eye nicked down his notes. ‘Disappeared Wednesday, 24 August, having left the house to collect for the Reich Economy Programme, on behalf of the BdM.’ He paused again.

‘And what was she collecting?’ said the count.

‘Old toothpaste tubes, sir. I believe that the metal is -’

‘Thank you, Inspector, I know what the scrap value of toothpaste tubes is.’

‘Yes, sir.’ He glanced at his notes again. ‘She was reported as having been seen on Feuerbachstrasse, Thorwaldsenstrasse, and Munster Damm. Munster Damm runs south beside a cemetery, and the sexton there says he saw a BdM girl answering Irma’s description walking there at about 8.30 p.m. He thought she was heading west, in the direction of Bismarckstrasse. She was probably returning home, having said to her parents that she would be back at around 8.45. She never arrived, of course.’

‘Any leads?’ I asked.

‘None, sir,’ he said firmly.

“Thank you, Inspector.‘ I lit a cigarette, and then held the match to Illmann’s roll-up. ’Very well then,‘ I puffed. ’So what we have are five girls, all of them about the same age, and all of them conforming to the Aryan stereotype that we know and love so well. In other words, they all had blonde hair, naturally or otherwise.

‘Now, after our third Rhine maiden is murdered, Josef Kahn gets himself arrested for the attempted rape of a prostitute. In other words, he tried to leave without paying.’

‘Typical Jew,’ said Lobbes. There were a few laughs at that.

‘As it happened, Kahn was carrying a knife, quite a sharp one at that, and he even has a minor criminal record for small theft and indecent assault. Very convenient. So the arresting officer at Grolmanstrasse Police Station, namely one Inspector Willi Oehme, decides to turn a few cards and see if he can’t make twenty-one. He has a chat with young Josef, who’s a bit soft in the head, and what with his honey-tongue and his thick knuckles, Willi manages to persuade Josef to sign a confession.

‘Gentlemen, here I’d like to introduce you all to Frau Kalau vom Hofe. I say “Frau”, as she’s not allowed to call herself a doctor, although she is one, because she is very evidently a woman, and we all know, don’t we, that a woman’s place is in the home, producing recruits for the Party, and cooking the old man’s dinner. She is in fact a psychotherapist, and is an acknowledged expert on that unfathomable little mystery that we refer to as the Criminal Mind.’

My eyes looked and licked at the creamy woman who sat at the far end of the table. She wore a magnolia skirt and a white marocain blouse, and her fair hair was pinned up in a tight bun at the back of her finely sculpted head. She smiled at my introduction and took a file out of her briefcase and opened it in front of her.

‘When Josef Kahn was a child,’ she said, ‘he contracted acute encephalitis lethargica, which occurred in epidemic form among children in Western Europe between 1915 and 1926. This produced a gross change in his personality. After the acute phase of the illness, children may become increasingly restless, irritable, aggressive even, and appear to lose all moral sense. They beg, steal, lie and are often cruel. They talk incessantly and become unmanageable at school and at home. Abnormal sexual curiosity and sexual problems are often observed. Post-encephalitic adolescents sometimes show certain features of this syndrome, especially the lack of sexual restraint, and this is certainly true in Josef Kahn’s case. He is also developing Parkinsonism, which will result in his increased physical debilitation.’

Count von der Schulenberg yawned and looked at his wrist-watch. But the doctor was not deterred. Instead she seemed to find his bad manners amusing.

‘Despite his apparent criminality,’ she said, ‘I do not think that Josef killed any of these girls. Having discussed the forensic evidence with Professor Illmann, I am of the opinion that these killings show a level of premeditation of which Kahn is simply incapable. Kahn is capable only of the kind of frenzied murder that would have had him leave the victim where she fell.’

Illmann nodded. ‘An analysis of his statement reveals a number of discrepancies with the known facts,’ he said. ‘His statement says that he used a stocking for the strangulations. The evidence, however, shows quite clearly that bare hands were used. He says that he stabbed his victims in the stomach. The evidence shows that none of them was stabbed, that they were all slashed across the throat. Then there is the fact that the fourth murder must have occurred while Kahn was in custody. Could this murder be the work of a different killer, someone copying the first three? No. Because there has been no press coverage of the first three to copy. And no, because the similarities between all four murders are too strong. They are all the work of the same man.’ He smiled at Frau Kalau vom Hofe. ‘Is there anything you wish to add to that, madam?’