Фолькер Кучер - The Silent Death

Lange knew what was expected of him and let Rath take the initiative. Briefly listing what they had found in the flat, including the dog, he reported on the meagre results of Saturday afternoon’s telephone calls. ‘She had few friends in the city, if any,’ he concluded. ‘The last person to have seen her alive appears to have been her caretaker, who isn’t too concerned about what’s going on around him. That was on Tuesday evening. Yesterday we found her dead in Kosmos, a disused cinema in Weissensee, as part of a search action that I…’

Böhm interrupted. ‘That’s not relevant, Herr Rath. Thank you for your contribution.’ Rath sat down.

‘Now we come to the corpse,’ Böhm continued. ‘Everything seems to point to the same perpetrator as with Vivian Franck. That, or the first murder has inspired a copycat, thanks to the press. Again we find ourselves with an actress, evidence of an injection, and a corpse in a disused cinema. It also seems likely that Fastré has had her vocal cords removed.’

Since Böhm wasn’t saying anything new, at least not for those who had been in Weissensee yesterday, Lange fetched an apple from his briefcase, polished it on his sleeve and bit into it so loudly that Böhm interrupted his report. ‘ Bon app é tit ,’ he said, and everyone laughed. Lange went red.

Rath looked at the apple, and some memory was aroused, some image that refused to let him alone, until suddenly he knew what had been on his mind this whole time. The fruit bowl in Jeanette Fastré’s flat that had been plundered by a hungry dog. Apples, oranges and a nondescript fruit with furry brown skin, which only revealed its bright green flesh and little black seeds when cut open. The one thing Kirie hadn’t bitten into. ‘Yangtao!’ he cried out.

‘Pardon me?’ Böhm said. ‘Was that a sneeze, Herr Rath? Or was there something you wanted to say?’

A few colleagues laughed. Böhm was in a humorous mood.

‘I just realised something,’ said Rath. ‘A possible link that I still don’t quite understand.’

‘Are you going to share it with us?’

‘It could be a coincidence…’ Rath cleared his throat. ‘So,’ he said. ‘It concerns yangtao, the Chinese gooseberry, an exotic fruit. I ate it myself for the first time a few days ago in a Chinese restaurant, when we were asking after Vivian Franck. Just in front of where she got out of the taxi – probably her final taxi ride.’

‘And?’

‘The staff didn’t recognise her photograph, but they did recognise Betty Winter.’

‘It’s not unusual for actresses to visit exotic restaurants.’

‘I think there were a few yangtao in the fruit bowl at Jeanette Fastré’s flat. Perhaps Kronberg’s people should check it out.’

‘I don’t have to tell you, I hope, that the Winter case doesn’t have the slightest bit in common with the other two cases.’

‘Betty Winter was an actress.’

‘That was enough for the press to establish a correlation, but not us.’

‘But now there is a second correlation,’ Rath said. ‘The fact that Fastré’s fruit bowl contained the same exotic fruit found in Betty Winter’s stomach. On top of that, Winter frequented a Chinese restaurant located at the same intersection where Vivian Franck was picked up by her probable killer.’

‘So, we should start looking for a triple murderer amongst Berlin’s Chinese population? Or what are you trying to say?’

Böhm got a laugh or two, but Gennat cut him short. ‘Leave it, Böhm. Herr Rath is not wrong: that is indeed highly unusual. We may not know, yet, what we can conclude from it, but we should keep the information at the back of our minds and, at the very least, verify where these yangatang-things…’

‘Yangtao,’ Rath said.

‘…where they can be obtained in Berlin. If you could take care of that, Inspector Rath?’

Rath could think of more exciting assignments, but nodded all the same. Gennat having taken his side and put an end to Böhm’s mockery was compensation enough.

They were spared Kronberg’s report today. The head of ED had already visited the Fastré flat with his people and had only given Böhm a preliminary summary, which the DCI himself had read out. The ED team still hadn’t analysed a number of clues. It was certain, however, that there was no evidence of a break-in, just as with the Luxor. If they could narrow down the list of key owners and see whether there was any overlap between the two cinemas, it would be a step in the right direction. Otherwise, the man who had planted the corpses must be a champion burglar capable of cracking complex security locks, which seemed unlikely.

They had found numerous fingerprints, but hadn’t even begun analysing them. They were still right at the start, and faced with a giant riddle.

‘We might have another lead in the Franck case,’ Böhm said. ‘The stranger who picked her up on Hohenzollerndamm – Oppenberg, her producer, knew about it because he hired a private detective when Franck was still a missing person case. Inspector Rath, have you spoken to the detective in the meantime?’

Shit!

‘Not yet, I’m afraid. I just haven’t got around to it, especially since we are now investigating another fatality and…’

‘…you have failed to do your job again…’

‘It’s all right, Böhm.’ Gennat had interrupted Böhm for a second time. ‘Herr Rath can still look into it. For the time being, there are more important things. Let’s use our imaginations instead.’ He looked round the room. No one was laughing anymore. ‘We’re not dealing with an ordinary killer here. So, think about what kind of person it could be.’ It was so still you could hear the clock on the wall ticking. ‘Why,’ Gennat continued, ‘does someone plant the bodies of actresses in old cinemas after making them up as if for a film shoot – and removing their vocal cords?’ Again, Gennat looked round the room. ‘Does anyone have any suggestions? If so, please feel free to share them, no matter how strange. They might just help us track the perpetrator down.’

‘A pervert!’ Brenner cried without raising his hand. ‘He fucked the women… I mean engaged in sexual intercourse with them, then killed them. And, to prevent them screaming: wham! Away with their vocal cords.’ He gestured towards his throat. A few colleagues nodded their agreement.

‘We still don’t have any indication that a sexual crime has been committed,’ Böhm objected. ‘We don’t even know if he actually kills them, or, at least, how he does it. Nor is it clear if the second corpse’s vocal cords are missing yet.’

‘Then he used a French letter,’ Brenner grumbled.

‘We shouldn’t rule anything out so long as we lack the relevant exclusion criteria,’ Gennat said, and Böhm, who was about to make another objection, closed his mouth before saying anything.

Lange raised his hand. ‘Perhaps it’s an act of revenge, or sabotage. Film types waging war on one another, with the help of the underworld.’

Gennat made a few notes.

‘The whole thing is staged,’ Rath said, inwardly thanking Charly for the tip. ‘Someone’s trying to tell us something – us, or more likely, the public.’

‘Tell us what?’ Gennat asked.

Rath shrugged his shoulders. ‘That’s precisely what we have to find out. If we know that, it could lead us to the perpetrator.’

‘If that is so, then perhaps we should wilfully misunderstand him,’ Lange suggested. ‘How about we inform the press that a dangerous sex offender is on the loose, someone who has it in for attractive film actresses?’

Gennat shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re probably right, Herr Lange. We might provoke him that way, but we wouldn’t have any control over the consequences. We would most likely trigger another killing, and no one here can answer for that.’