Craig Russell - The Carnival Master

‘Not yet,’ she said firmly and pushed him away. ‘Tell me about them…’

‘I hurt them.’ Oliver felt the rage surge in him. ‘I really fucking hurt them and now I’m going to hurt you, you fucking slut!’ he screamed at her. ‘You’re just a tease and a whore, but now I’m going to teach you a real lesson. I’m going to bite you and fuck you and if you’re not quiet I’ll kick the shit out of you.’ He lunged at her, swinging his fist into the side of her face.

The blow didn’t connect. There was a sharp pain on the inside of his forearm where she had blocked the blow, followed by an agonising explosion in his groin as her knee slammed into it. The rage changed to confusion and then to fear as he realised that she had twisted his arm round behind him and slammed him against the wall. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t see much either, with his cheek pushed hard into the wall. There were other noises. Crashes. Shouting. The room filled with dark figures. They had guns. There were other hands on him now. Handcuffs. Suzi spun him around. She pushed the thick copper coils of hair from her face.

‘Now, Hans… now I’ll tell you my real name. Just like I promised. It’s Tansu Bakrac. Criminal Commissar Tansu Bakrac. And you, you perverted piece of shit, are under arrest.’

As they led him out of the flat, Oliver noticed that the doors off the hall were now open. Empty rooms. No furniture. That was where all the other police had been waiting; that was why she had led him directly into the bedroom: it was all a masquerade. They had probably recorded every word he had exchanged with ‘Suzi’ since they met in the hotel.

There were two other plain-clothes police officers waiting in the hall. Of course, Oliver knew the shorter dark-haired one who now looked at him in shock. ‘Suzi’ turned to the taller, blond-haired officer whom Oliver had not seen before and grinned.

‘That was some favour you asked…’

‘What’s up with you, Benni?’ Fabel asked as the uniformed officers led ‘Hans’ out to the waiting police cars. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘Shit…’ said Scholz, his expression still one of shock. ‘Bloody hell…’

‘What’s up?’ Tansu’s triumphant grin gave way to a frown.

‘Don’t you know who that is? You’ve just arrested Herr Dr Oliver Ludeke.’

‘The forensic pathologist?’

‘One and the same. Now the crap is really going to hit the fan.’

‘A forensic pathologist…’ said Fabel. ‘Someone who would be an expert at excising an exact quantity of human flesh.’

Scholz had led the questioning but had asked Fabel to partner him. Not that it had done any good. Fabel’s dislike of Oliver Ludeke had been instant and intense. He knew that he would have felt the same disdain for Ludeke if he had met him at a cocktail party instead of as the chief suspect in an inquiry into two, and potentially three, horrific and brutal murders. Ludeke had refused to answer any questions at all and had only been vocal in complaining about his unjustified detention.

‘I don’t need a weatherman to tell me that there’s a shitstorm heading our way,’ said Scholz to Fabel after they had terminated the interview. ‘He’s already been in touch with his lawyer – and you can bet the first calls his lawyer’s made have been to the State Prosecutor and the Police President. We’ve got to nail him quick.’

‘So you’re convinced he’s our man? Even though you know him personally?’

Scholz snorted. ‘ Especially because I know him personally.’

‘You don’t like him?’ asked Fabel.

‘Oliver Ludeke is good-looking, charming, rich, clearly highly intelligent, has a highly paid, prestigious job and is regularly seen in the company of a string of beautiful women. Of course I hate the bastard. But putting that aside, there are a whole lot of other reasons why I’ve never liked Herr Dr Ludeke. He’s an arrogant son of a bitch. No – more than that. He has this way about him… I don’t know, it’s difficult to explain. He doesn’t fit in Cologne. I know that doesn’t make sense but class means nothing here. Karl Marx was from Cologne, but he said he could never start the international revolution here… it would never catch on in a city where the labourer and the factory manager drink in the same pub. Take the other state forensic pathologists: great guys to work with. Great guys to get pissed with. But Ludeke looks down his nose at you every time you speak to him.’

‘So you’re saying he’s a good suspect because he’s a snob?’

‘Snobbery doesn’t come close, Jan. With Ludeke it’s more like we are all lower forms of life. It doesn’t take a stretch for me to see him as someone who believes others have been put on this Earth to provide him with what he wants out of life. And that would fit with a sexual predator who doesn’t give a damn about inflicting pain on those he uses to fulfil his needs. Or even killing them.’

‘He’s certainly the strongest suspect we’ve got so far. But if he’s as connected as you say he is, then we’re going to have to move quick to prevent him walking. What’s the situation with a warrant to get a DNA sample?’

‘Tansu’s chasing the State Prosecutor’s office,’ said Scholz. ‘We should get one in a couple of hours or so.’

‘Okay,’ said Fabel. ‘Let’s have another go at chummy.’

‘Oh shit…’ said Scholz, looking over Fabel’s shoulder. Fabel turned to see a heavy-set man in his fifties coming along the corridor towards them. Fabel recognised the attitude of authority about him. When he reached them Scholz introduced Fabel to Cologne’s Police President, Udo Kettner.

‘This is an awkward situation, Benni,’ said Kettner. ‘Potentially very embarrassing. You don’t seem to have a lot to go on.’

‘He was about to attack Tansu,’ said Scholz.

‘You’ll find that difficult to prove.’

‘We have it on tape,’ said Fabel.

‘What you’ve got on tape, Herr Fabel, could be construed as entirely consistent with the nature of the advertisement he placed. He’s going to argue that the manner of his arrest amounts to entrapment. Added to which, he can claim that he did nothing wrong other than, as an unmarried man, meeting a young woman to explore a mutually consensual sexual encounter.’

‘I smell lawyer talk,’ said Scholz.

‘They’re on the way in…’ Police President Kettner said wearily. ‘I got a call within thirty minutes of Ludeke being arrested. They’re going to challenge the legitimacy of the arrest and the set-up behind it.’

‘So what do we do?’ asked Scholz.

Kettner grinned. ‘Ludeke’s lawyers aren’t the only ones who can use a phone.’ He handed Scholz a document. ‘I thought a little leaning on the State Prosecutor’s office might speed things up. Here’s your warrant to obtain DNA. But for Christ’s sake, Benni, make sure you do everything by the book.’

Fabel, Tansu and Scholz sat in Scholz’s office. The latest ‘bull’ head watched them from the corner. Scholz contemplated it dourly.

‘We have only eight days until Women’s Karneval Night,’ he said. ‘I hope to God Ludeke is our guy. If that DNA doesn’t check out then we’re screwed.’

‘Even if it does,’ said Fabel, ‘it only ties him into the rape and battery of Vera Reinartz. He’s clearly a sexual sadist with a cannibalism fixation, but without a confession or other corroborating evidence we’ll never get him for the murders. And given Ludeke’s arrogance and the hourly rate he’s paying his lawyers, we’re never going to get a confession.’

‘Forensics have turned up nothing. His office and apartment are both clean,’ said Scholz glumly. ‘The annoying thing is that the very weapon he’s used to slice chunks out of his victims may well be right under our noses. I’ve never had a suspect whose job it’s been to cut up human beings. It’s a forensic nightmare. If only Vera Reinartz or Andrea Sandow or whatever she wants to call herself had kept just one of those bloody letters.’