Craig Russell - The Carnival Master

‘Ah, well… it’s not as easy as that, Herr Littger.’ Scholz made an I’d like to help but… face. ‘You see, if I do this through the proper channels and you blab to your clients, or even if the press get a hint that your company is part of this investigation, then God knows who’s going to find out about it before we’re ready. I am prepared to give you my word that no one will know where the information came from.’

‘You know something, Herr Scholz?’ said Littger. ‘I don’t believe you have a warrant.’

Scholz’s smile disappeared and his expression clouded. ‘You want to put me to the test?’

‘No one finds out about this?’

‘Not unless Tons-of-Fun out there or any of your other employees blab. But they don’t need to know that we have had this discussion.’

Littger leaned over the table and typed something on the cordless keyboard.

‘This is it,’ he said. ‘Peter Schnaus is the guy’s name. That’s his address. It’s in Buschbell, a part of Frechen.’

‘Okay,’ said Fabel. ‘I think we’ll pay Herr Schnaus a call. I take it we can rely on your discretion? I’d be most annoyed if Herr Schnaus knew in advance of our visit. In the meantime, could you put up the Anthropophagi site for us? There are a few questions I’d like to ask.’

Littger shrugged and typed the address into the wireless keyboard. The site appeared. ‘What does Anthropophagi mean?’ he asked as the site loaded.

‘It’s Greek,’ said Scholz. ‘It means cannibals. In some folklore it refers to headless men, with their eyes and mouths in their chests, who feed on human flesh.’

‘Nice…’

Fabel took charge of the mouse and navigated the site. There was a picture gallery, a forum and a section devoted to classified advertisements.

‘You see this shit?’ asked Scholz.

‘Yep,’ said Fabel. ‘Weird stuff, isn’t it?’

‘Well… yeah… but I expected to see all kinds of sick porn. But it’s just weird. The only thing I could see that could by any stretch of the imagination be deemed erotic was a series of badly doctored pics of some tart in a bikini being swallowed whole by a fish.’

‘That, believe it or not, is pornography for these people. It’s a fetish called vorarephilia. They get off by fantasising about eating someone or being eaten. The picture you described is what’s called soft vore as in soft core. It shows a human or an animal being consumed whole, without blood. Hard vore is when it involves the cutting or ripping of flesh with lots of bloodshed. Believe it or not – and this is pretty hard to believe – there are vorarephiles who get off watching nature programmes. You know, lions tearing antelopes apart and eating them.’

Scholz shook his head. ‘Shit… like I said to you before, I sometimes can’t imagine how the hell people get to a place like that, where their idea of sex is so fucked-up.’

‘I honestly believe that this kind of crap on the Internet feeds it. It gives them a place to exchange their fantasies and to convince each other that they’re not abnormal. Sadists, paedophiles, rapists all do exactly the same thing,’ said Fabel. Littger shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘nothing to do with me’. Fabel clicked onto the classified ads section. ‘This is what we want… yes, here it is.’ He read one of the ads out loud.

‘“Love Bites”… nice title, huh? “Love-hungry predator seeks submissive prey for voreplay. Must not be fat, but should have a bottom ample enough to sink one’s teeth into. Genuine replies only. No professionals, only enthusiastic pears ripe for the eating. Apply to Lovebiter, Box AG1891”.’ Fabel turned to Littger. ‘You have any way of tracing who placed this?’

‘Only an IP address, and that could be for anywhere. He may even have used a cybercafe or a WiFi hotspot. And you can’t trace him through his credit card – he had to pay for the ad but there’s no secure credit-card facility built into the site. Advertisers have to send hard copy in to the PO box number listed, along with sufficient funds to pay for it.’

‘So this guy Schnaus may have the details of whoever placed the ad?’ asked Scholz.

‘Not necessarily. The advertiser could have paid by money order or might even have sent cash. But what Schnaus will be able to provide is the access password to get into the virtual mailbox for all the replies he got.’

‘We’ve got to find “Lovebiter”,’ Scholz said to Fabel. ‘He lives in the same dark place as our guy. He may be connected to him.’

‘He may even be him,’ said Fabel.

Tansu was waiting for them when they got back to the Presidium.

‘Productive day?’ she asked Fabel. He ran through what they had found out while Scholz went into his office to check his messages and e-mail.

‘He’s going to be in a really bad mood for the rest of the day,’ said Tansu. ‘The police Karneval committee is going ape because the float is so behind schedule.’ Fabel looked through the glass into Scholz’s office and grinned. The Cologne detective was standing talking on the phone, his free hand intermittently running through his hair or gesturing to the empty room.

‘Listen, Tansu,’ said Fabel. ‘While we have the chance, I wondered if I could ask you a favour…’

‘Certainly, Herr Chief Commissar,’ she said, and smiled wickedly.

‘This is it,’ said Tansu. They had been to the home address Tansu had got for Vera Reinartz and there had been no one home. ‘This is her business.’

Fabel looked across at the cafe. It looked bright and warm in the dull winter street. ‘What’s the name she uses now?’ he asked Tansu.

‘Sandow… Andrea Sandow.’

As they entered the Amazonia Cafe, Fabel smiled to himself at the sight of one of the waitresses. She could certainly be described as an Amazon. At first, Fabel wondered if the waitress was in fact a man in drag. She was massively built, with muscles bulging on her exposed arms and straining at the material of her T-shirt, yet her make-up was heavily applied and the platinum blonde of her hair was as synthetic as the bronze of her midwinter tan. He found himself wondering where she would fit in with the theories of female beauty that Lessing, the anthropologist-cum-art historian, had expounded.

‘Excuse me,’ Fabel asked the waitress, ‘I’m looking for Andrea Sandow… I believe she owns this cafe?’

‘I am she.’ The Amazon pulled herself to her full height and regarded Fabel coldly with her brilliant blue eyes. ‘What can I do for you?’

Fabel found himself speechless. He thought of Vera Reinartz, the pretty if mousy girl in the photographs; of the bright medical student always reluctant to have her photograph taken.

‘Frau Sandow,’ Tansu intervened. ‘Can you confirm that you were originally known as Vera Reinartz?’

The mascaraed eyes narrowed in the masculine face. ‘What’s this all about?’

Fabel took in the cafe. There were about a dozen customers scattered around the tables. ‘Listen, we’re police officers… is there somewhere private we could talk?’

‘Could you cover for me for a minute or two, Britta?’ Andrea turned back to the three detectives. ‘We can talk in the kitchen.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying, Frau Sandow, you’ve undergone a considerable change,’ said Fabel. He eased sideways to allow Tansu and Scholz to follow him into the kitchen. Andrea Sandow, as Vera Reinartz was now called, was a good head shorter than Fabel, shorter even than Tansu, yet her physical presence seemed to dominate the cramped kitchen. ‘I wouldn’t have recognised you from your photographs.’

Andrea smirked. ‘That wasn’t a considerable change. It was a metamorphosis. Complete and irreversible. Now, what is it you want?’