Craig Russell - The Carnival Master

Andrea pulled herself to her maximum height, drawing in her abdomen and flexing her shoulders. ‘I suppose you think this is being unfit?’ she laughed.

‘As a matter of fact, I do. You have already done serious harm to your internal organs. The regular dehydration alone will have done God knows what to your liver and kidneys. My guess is, Frau Sandow, that you have used testosterone as the base of a steroid stack. But given your pronounced vascularity,’ he said, pointing to the veins bulging on her forearms and biceps, ‘my guess is that you thought you could get away with using boldenone. The bad news is that boldenone has a detectable half-life of nearly six months.’

‘What you don’t know,’ Andrea smiled masculinely, ‘is that I am infinitely more knowledgeable about human physiology than you imagine. Like I said, you won’t find anything in those tests. And what if I have taken steroids in the past? It should be legal. It’s part of what we do, like a high-protein diet.’

The doctor and the nurse headed towards the door. Dr Gabriel turned and shook his head mournfully. ‘You are a disgrace to your namesake, Frau Sandow. And I am hoping that Eugene Sandow is no direct ancestor of yours. His vision for this sport was to replicate the ethos of classical gymnasia. To achieve perfect symmetry and balance. To shape – not to misshape. What people like you have done is to take a great sport and turn it into a freak show. As I said, the organising body will notify you of the test results.’

Andrea was left alone with Maxine, who placed an arm around her huge shoulders. ‘Don’t you worry about it, love,’ she said in English. ‘You’ll pass these tests, no problem. What was that old guy going on about, anyway?’

‘Nothing,’ said Andrea and smiled. ‘Nothing at all. Let’s go out on the town tonight, just like you said.’

But deep down inside the dark fire roared. She thought of the pompous little doctor and, worst of all, that snotty cow of a nurse standing there silent, reproachful and so submissive. They were so sure of themselves. But what they didn’t know was that she was as smart as she was strong. There would be nothing to find in the sample.

She would go out on the town tonight with Maxine. But soon, very soon, she was going to have to release the heat of her anger.

While Scholz went into the kitchen to get himself a beer and make Fabel a coffee, Fabel laid the photographs of both victims side by side on the coffee table: images in life and in death.

‘I was talking to this anthropologist before I came down here,’ he called through to the kitchen. ‘He was an expert on the ideal of female beauty through the ages. Not so much what is beautiful but what we regard as beautiful. There was a time when these two women would have matched that ideal perfectly: slightly pear-shaped, slim upper body with a little flesh around the hips and belly. Right up until the First World War, in fact. Then came the flapper, then the hourglass, then the skinny.’

‘So what’s your point?’ Scholz emerged from the kitchen and handed Fabel his coffee.

‘These women had the wrong shape for today. They might have wanted to do something about it.’ Fabel started to rummage through the files.

‘What are you looking for?’ asked Scholz.

‘Gym memberships, diet clubs… any hint that they were considering cosmetic surgery… liposuction, that kind of thing.’

‘But there was nothing really wrong with them…’ Scholz joined the search. ‘I mean, their shapes weren’t that unusually heavy around the backside.’

‘You would be amazed at what lengths women are prepared to go to over the slightest flaw.’

Ten minutes later they had assembled a selection of options, all for Sabine Jordanski. She went to a private gym twice a week, took regular beauty treatments at the salon, went swimming every Wednesday when she had the afternoon off. There was nothing at all for Melissa Schenker.

‘There has to be something.’ Fabel ran his hands through his hair.

‘Maybe Melissa Schenker wasn’t so obsessed with her shape,’ said Scholz. ‘She spent her life in her own little electronic universe where what she looked like didn’t matter. A world without form.’

‘Okay.’ Fabel read more of Melissa’s file. ‘What’s this… The Lords of Misrule?’

‘Her biggest hit. A role-playing computer game she developed. Very complicated. Apparently she was working on a sequel to it when she died.’

There was an image of the game’s cover. Three mythological types – a warrior, a priestess and some kind of warlock – stood on a mountain, a fantasy landscape swirling around them.

‘ The Lords of Misrule…’ Fabel read the English title aloud again. ‘The world turned upside down. The Days of Chaos. The Fool Made King. It’s all very Karneval. Maybe this is where our connection lies. Melissa spent so much of her time in an electronic world, maybe that’s where she crossed paths with our killer and Sabine Jordanski.’

6-9 February

Ansgar lay in Ekatherina’s bed and watched her sleep contentedly. Their lovemaking had been dramatic, violent, almost frenzied. Ekatherina had clearly taken it as the release of Ansgar’s pent-up passion for her. She was, of course, in part correct: he had been totally consumed by her flesh and had stood breathless before her nakedness, but what she hadn’t realised was that it had been only part of his passion that had been released.

The sex had been good for him. Or at least as good as any normal sexual activity could be for him. But, as he lay in the half-dark, looking at the shadowy sweep of Ekatherina’s hip, he felt the frustration of someone who had enjoyed an appetising starter yet had been denied the main course. But that first step had been taken. They were now intimate. Perhaps, just perhaps, in time he might be able to fulfil his darkest fantasy with her.

It was Sunday morning and Ansgar’s day off. Ekatherina left for her shift. She told him he could spend the day in her apartment and they would have Sunday night together. When she returned after her shift, tired, flushed from the heat of the kitchen and her skin shiny with sweat, Ekatherina said she would shower before coming to bed. Ansgar told her not to bother and the passion of the night before returned, redoubled.

They breakfasted the next morning on orange juice, coffee and bread rolls filled with a meat paste that Ekatherina said had come all the way from Ukraine. Sitting there at Ekatherina’s breakfast table, Ansgar felt suddenly melancholy. He saw himself as if through the window of the flat: sitting with a pretty girl several years his junior, breakfasting together like a normal contented couple. What pained him most was the fact that at that exact moment he was contented.

They agreed to arrive separately at work and to keep their daytime relationship professional, but Ansgar could tell that Ekatherina was going to have very great difficulty in keeping this new romance to herself. He kissed her goodbye and headed up to the wholesalers on An der Munze to pick up some stuff they were low on in the restaurant.

The gloom of the last few days had lifted and the winter sun hung bright and low in the sky. Ansgar felt good. It seemed impossible for the darkness within him to surface into the brightness of the day, added to which he had, for the first time in years, a sense of normality. Of living a life as others lived theirs.

Ansgar took a taxi across the Zoobrucke and picked up his car. He was very fussy about where he sourced his meat for the restaurant and never bought main ingredients from the wholesalers, but he did stock up on everything else there. It was handy for the restaurant and they always delivered his orders accurately and on time, which was important to Ansgar and his unyielding desire for order in his kitchen.