Craig Russell - The Carnival Master

‘I’m pretty certain I am right,’ said Fabel. ‘I also think you have a very valid point about the killer having experience of cutting flesh. A surgeon, or a butcher or slaughterman…’

‘He doesn’t muck about, does he? Knows what he’s doing.’ Benni leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. ‘Is it true you’re English? You don’t have an English accent. Someone told me they call you the English Commissar…’

‘I’m half-Scottish,’ said Fabel. ‘Half-Frisian.’

‘My God,’ laughed Benni. ‘That’s a thrifty combination. Bet you don’t get your round in too often!’

Fabel smiled. ‘Did you have any strong suspects? The file seemed devoid of anyone you particularly had your eye on.’

‘Nope. It was a real bugger. Women’s Karneval Night is mad. Like so much of Karneval. People running about demented, little bastards being conceived all over the place. Anonymity is part of the whole thing. You can lose your identity and do things that you otherwise wouldn’t do. It’s the perfect environment for topping somebody.’

‘I see.’

‘But that’s a theory I have about this case. About anonymity and doing things that you wouldn’t normally do. I told you on the phone that I’m pretty sure that this guy is a local. Well, I also think that he may be Joe Normal the rest of the year. Karneval is all about letting go. We always say that we Cologners are more sane than everyone else the rest of the year because we go mad during Karneval. Maybe our chum has got this pervy thing going on that he keeps wrapped up in his pants all year, and he needs Karneval to let it loose.’

‘That’s actually pretty good psychological profiling,’ Fabel laughed. ‘Although again I would normally couch it in more technical terms.’

‘Anyway,’ continued Benni. ‘Even the divorce courts take a lenient view of Karneval behaviour. Adultery on Rosenmontag is considered to be excusable… that you’re not really guilty of it the same way you would be the rest of the year. And, of course, there’s the Nubbelverbrennung… the fire of atonement at the end of Karneval in which all the sins committed during the Crazy Days are burned. What if our guy believes he has an excuse for doing what he does just because it’s Karneval?’

‘More than that, I think there is a deeply misogynistic element to these murders. He hates women.’

‘You don’t say…’ Scholz smiled wryly.

‘Okay… you worked that out. Both victims were reasonably slim, but had a tendency to be heavier around the hips and backside. I think that may be his selection criterion. Particularly given the fact that he removes flesh from that part of the body.’

‘So why is he selecting them?’ asked Scholz. ‘Is it because he feels sexually attracted to that body shape, or is it simply because he’s picking out the best cut of beef?’

‘Both,’ said Fabel. ‘Let me tell you something about cannibalism

…’

He shouldn’t have visited the website again. Now the hunger burned in him and he could not bear to look in Ekatherina’s direction. He could tell she had picked up on a tension in the kitchen and she obviously thought she or her work had somehow displeased him, which made matters worse because she now sought every opportunity to speak with him. But Ansgar could not bear her presence. However, within the confines of the kitchen, close proximity, even brushing against each other, was unavoidable. Sometimes she was so close that he could smell her.

Ansgar felt cursed. He wished that he were like other men, normal men. It would be all so uncomplicated. She would let him fuck her. Or not. But the sweetly obscene images, the dangerous, delicious fantasies, would not plague him. Ansgar’s work didn’t help, either. To see Ekatherina handle meat, split a joint with a cleaver, trim the fat from it with a knife, fillet a breast of chicken, pulling apart yielding flesh; all these simple, innocuous acts became an erotic torment for Ansgar. But what tormented him most of all was the forbidden, dangerous, ineffable idea that maybe, just maybe, he might actually be able to fulfil his fantasy. That he might be able to do what he wanted with Ekatherina.

As his mind wandered so did his eyes. They fell on Ekatherina. They caressed every inch of her voluptuous, curving figure. Then his stare found hers. She was looking directly at him. And smiling.

As if she knew.

The restaurant to which Scholz took Fabel was in Dagobertstrasse, in the Altstadt area of Cologne. It was housed in the ground floor of an elegant gable-ended building.

‘What do you recommend?’ asked Fabel.

‘This place has quite a reputation. A new chef came in a year or so ago and has worked wonders. And they’re starting their Karneval menu… but I suppose you’ll want fish,’ said Benni, frowning as he searched the menu. ‘We’re big on meat dishes here…’

‘Believe it or not,’ said Fabel, with a smile, ‘we do eat things other than fish in the North.’

‘And we eat fish here. Did you know that Cologne used to be the biggest fish market in Germany? Because of the Rhine running through it like a sort of medieval motorway. It was a distribution centre for the whole of central Germany. Okay, then, how about the ragout of lamb with figs? It’s very good here. And what do you fancy – a nice Rhine wine or an even nicer Kolsch beer?’

They agreed on a bottle of Assmannshausen Spatburgunder red and placed their order.

‘It’s nice here,’ said Fabel. The restaurant lay beneath a white plastered vaulted ceiling and arched double doors looked out onto the street. He could see that it had started to snow a little more earnestly.

‘Yeah…’ Scholz surveyed the restaurant appreciatively. ‘Yeah… it’s not bad. Cologne is packed with cool places to eat. Almost any type of cuisine in the world. Even vegetarian. We’re a big conference and convention city now and we get all kinds of rich business types. I like this place, but sometimes I like to go somewhere a bit more… well, basic, I suppose you’d say. I like my food well cooked, not well designed if you know what I mean. You said you were going to tell me all about cannibalism,’ said Scholz. ‘Sounds like something you know a thing or two about.’

The waiter came with the wine and Scholz asked Fabel to taste it. He obviously expected Fabel’s knowledge of wine to be greater.

‘That’s very nice,’ said Fabel and the waiter filled both glasses. ‘To be honest, I did a bit of boning up on it before I came down,’ said Fabel.

Scholz shook his head. ‘I still can’t wrap my mind around it. Why would someone get off on eating someone else?’

‘Human sexuality is a very complex thing, Benni. I’m sure you’ve dealt with enough weird cases to know that. There are perversions that revolve around fantasies about eating a sexual partner or being eaten by one. Our mouths are secondary sexual organs. You could almost say that oral sex is a type of cannibalistic behaviour.’

‘We obviously date different types of women…’ Scholz grinned.

‘Anyway, there are several forms of cannibalism. Motives for it, if you like. But anthropologists and psychologists break it down into two main groups: ritual and nutritional cannibalism. In nutritional cannibalism you have straightforward epicurean cannibalism – people who eat human flesh simply for the taste of it or for the experience… but without getting a sexual kick out of it. By far the most common form of nutritional cannibalism is for survival, when there’s no other food source available. For example, I was reading about the Holodomor before I came down here: the forced starvation of Ukrainians by the Soviets in the nineteen-thirties. Food became so scarce that cannibalism became relatively common.’