Филип Керр - Metropolis

I slipped the banknote into a paper bag and carried it back to the murder wagon before returning to the top of the stairwell. I left Weiss speaking to Körner and then descended the stairs to where Ernst Gennat was now giving the corpse the benefit of his many years’ experience in homicide. His torch was all over the ground around the body like an anteater’s nose. Her head was covered with blood and she looked like she’d fallen downstairs and cracked her skull. Her clothes were good quality and her stockings were made of silk; her discarded grey cloche hat was from Manheimer on Oberwallstrasse and resembled a steel helmet that hadn’t worked.

‘Rigor’s set in,’ said Gennat. ‘I figure she’s been dead about twenty-two or twenty-three hours. Like killing a seal pup.’

‘How’s that?’

‘She comes down here in front of him, he batters her with his hammer, one powerful blow, breaks her neck, and before she’s even hit the ground he’s got his blade out and is preparing to take her pelt. Start to finish maybe as little as sixty seconds.’

‘Christ, that’s fast.’

‘That’s because he takes no pleasure in it. This much is obvious. If he did there would be more evidence of him going into a frenzy. Sometimes when a killer actually gets up the courage to kill, it opens the floodgates and he inflicts multiple stab wounds. But this girl’s skirt hasn’t even been lifted and as far as I can see there’s not a mark on her body. So this is not about sex, Gunther. It’s not even about killing. It’s all about that trophy. The hair. Her scalp.’ Gennat paused. ‘Find something in her handbag, did you?’

I told him about the banknote.

‘A ten’s what he’d have given her to go with him somewhere,’ he said. ‘Down here. Just enough to silence any misgivings she might have. And more than enough to blow him.’

‘That’s what I figured. Only maybe he worried about that banknote. And came back to see if he could retrieve it. Which is why he ransacked her handbag.’ I lowered my voice. ‘And here was me thinking that it was one of Körner’s men who did that.’

‘It doesn’t mean that Körner’s boys didn’t pinch some stuff from her bag. The police from Sophie-Charlotte-Platz have always had a reputation for unofficial taxation, if you know what I mean. You notice they were careful to leave her ID so as not to have the trouble of the legwork needed to put a name to her face. Look, it’s a nice theory you have there, Gunther. About the banknote. Now see if you can prove it. Perhaps you can find something else out there that could have come from her handbag. A lipstick or a powder compact. A purse or a set of keys. Then, when you’ve done that, go to the Kakadu and see if anyone remembers her. Not forgetting some of the other girls on Wittenbergplatz. Maybe they’ll have seen her with someone. Hopefully someone with the word murderer chalked on his back.’

‘Right you are, sir.’ I started back up the steps, with the beam from my torch straight ahead of me. Something white reflected light back at me; I leaned over to take a closer look. It was an ivory cigar holder.

‘I doubt that could have come from her handbag, don’t you?’

Gennat leaned towards the cigar holder and picked it up on the end of his Pelikan. He cursed loudly.

‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ he said.

‘That the killer smokes cigars?’

‘It means we have found an important clue at three of the murder scenes. A cuff link. A pound note. And now this.’

‘You believe the killer is playing games with us?’

‘I’m beginning to think so. Christ only knows how much police time Reichenbach was obliged to waste on the idea that the killer might be a Freemason.’

‘Of course, they might all be genuine, those clues. He really could smoke cigars, wear Freemason cuff links and have a pocket full of foreign currency.’

‘Sure, why not? If it helps you to believe that a little mouse will pay you a nice shiny penny if you leave a tooth on your bedside table, then go right ahead. But I think Winnetou’s playing us for fools. It’s always been my experience that clues are like wine; they need a bit of time to grow in stature. Clues only look like clues in stories. But I’m smelling a rat because my nostrils are more sensitive to rats than yours. The question is why? Why tease us like this? It looks very premeditated.’

‘He wants to waste our time. Doubles back like a fox to throw us off the scent. Surely that’s got to be a good thing for him.’

‘Looks that way. To my mind that banknote looks like the real clue here. Now go and back it up.’

I stalked around the courtyard with my torch, staring at the ground like a heron. From time to time I glanced up at the surrounding windows, some of which were occupied by interested onlookers. Nothing like a murder to bring Berliners out of their pigeonholes. A few of them shouted to me but I couldn’t hear what was said and even if I had, I wouldn’t have answered.

Close to the stairwell was a solitary tree that had seen better days; at the base of the tree was a hole; I pushed my arm in up to the elbow and quickly found a leather wallet that matched the dead girl’s Hulbe handbag. There was no money in it but there was a bus ticket and a photograph of Eva Angerstein. She was pictured standing on Potsdamer Platz in front of the famous traffic-light clock. Behind her you could see the equally famous Haus Vaterland on Köthener Strasse, which would have been exactly the kind of place a half-silk like Eva would have plied her trade. She was wearing a little navy cloche and a loose blue dress, which she had raised with one hand just enough to show off her red garter: a provocative pose for laughs, it looked like. It was the first time I’d got a proper look at her face. She was pretty, with a Cupid’s-bow mouth, dark hair and a nice smile. Someone’s daughter, I thought; someone’s sister, perhaps; and now someone’s victim.

I had another feel around inside the tree and came up with a lipstick. I put the lipstick in a paper bag and the photograph in my pocket. Then I brought the evidence back to the murder wagon, told Bernhard Weiss where I was going, and said I might get back before they left, and if not, I’d catch them in the morning. Then I set off for the Kakadu, a five-minute walk away, in the hope that someone there would remember her.

But nobody did.

Over every dining table was a caged cockatoo that was supposed to squawk for the bill when you tapped the glass with a knife, and probably I’d have been better off asking the birds for information for all the help I got. But on my way out I got lucky when I asked the hat-check girl if she recognized the girl in the photograph. She said she did, and even mentioned another girl she’d been with for part of the previous evening. Her name was Daisy and she was an American and the hat-check girl thought I’d probably find her in the small lounge, which I’d forgotten existed.

The lounge was full of cosy corners with lots of little fireplaces and sofas and chaises longues and couples getting to know each other, some of them quite intimately; fortunately for me, Daisy wasn’t one of these. She was easily distinguishable from the other women in the Kakadu: American women always looked better-dressed than German women. She was sitting on her own, drinking champagne, and, seeing me out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at her watch impatiently as I approached. She was slender, small-breasted and good-looking, probably in her twenties, and quite sure of herself, the way girls are when they have plenty of money. The wristwatch told me that much; it was all jade and diamonds and she probably couldn’t have cared less what time it was.

‘Daisy?’

‘I’m waiting for someone, Fritz,’ she said. ‘And he’ll be here any minute, so don’t bother sitting down.’