Philip Kerr - A Philosophical Investigation

‘Crime is common,’ she said. ‘Logic is rare.’

‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ he demanded. ‘Or shall I just call you an ambulance?’

‘It is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.’ She pointed not to the Mystery Bookshop, which Chung felt might have better suited her cryptic remark, but to the donerkebab restaurant next door. A man was writing some prices onto the inside of the window with what looked like a piece of red crayon. The name above the door was Parmenides.

‘Would you mind very much if we ate Greek rather than Chinese?’ she said.

‘Not at all. So long as you tell me what the hell you’re up to.’

‘Certainly, but let’s get off the street. He mustn’t see us yet.’ She led him into the doorway of a nearby tailor’s shop. ‘The man in the restaurant window is called Kyriakos Parmenides,’ she explained. ‘But his Lombroso-given name is William Shakespeare.’

‘He’s VMN-negative?’

Jake nodded. ‘A few weeks ago, Wittgenstein followed him to St James’s Church, back there, where he planned to shoot him. But Parmenides scared him off and while he was making his escape, Wittgenstein left behind his A-Z of London. This contained the addresses of all his potential victims who lived here.

‘Parmenides found it lying in a church pew where Wittgenstein had been sitting. Well then, after a while, he realised the significance of the book, and like a good citizen handed it into the police.

‘But consider this, Yat: Parmenides works next door to a bookshop from where, one hour before she was horribly murdered, Mary Woolnoth bought a paperback novel. When Wittgenstein attempted to shoot Parmenides, he was sitting in a church that’s not twenty metres from the office where Mary’s naked body was found. The killer wrote on her body with a red lipstick. And he was left-handed.’

Jake leaned out of the doorway and nodded at the restaurant window.

‘And there he is, also left-handed, writing a menu on his windowpane with what looks like a piece of red lipstick.’

Chung nodded. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said.

‘Jessie Weston, the girl he killed before Mary Woolnoth, was also a murder mystery novel fan. I can’t prove it yet, but I wouldn’t mind betting that she also bought a book in that shop. Which is where he saw her. I wouldn’t mind betting that all the murdered girls came down this street at some time or another prior to their deaths.’

‘It’s an interesting hypothesis,’ agreed Chung. ‘But it all sounds a bit circumstantial.’

‘If I’m right, it should be easy enough to push him out into the open.’

‘What have you got in mind?’

‘Are you carrying a gun?’

‘Of course. I’m a copper, aren’t I?’

‘All right, here’s what I want you to do. Go in there and order something to eat. I’ll follow you in a couple of minutes. But when I do, act like you’d never seen me before.’

Chung crossed the road and went inside the restaurant.

Jake walked towards the Mystery Bookshop.

A free-standing display card in the window announced that four leading crime writers were in-store to sign copies of their latest novels. As she came through the door, Jake glanced briefly at the names and then the matching men and women who were seated at a long table behind large stacks of their new books. She recognised none of them. Each author stared hopefully at Jake as she swept by their table. Only she wasn’t planning to buy anything. She wasn’t even going to so much as look at a book.

Jake smiled at the idea of these four self-important crime writers sitting there like a panel of television pundits, forgotten by the general public and largely ignored by the shop’s other customers, while next door a real-life multiple killer was about to be provoked into betraying himself.

She found what she was looking for in front of those few shelves which were a temporary home to post-modernist crime novels.

The woman was a tall, strong-looking brunette, wearing a tight denim shirt and skirt. Jake’s eyes caught the curve of her bare breast between the pearl buttons. Bright red lipstick gave her a cheap, tarty appearance.

‘Recognise me?’ Jake asked in lowered tones.

The WPC glanced at Jake uncertainly, glanced outside and then nodded.

‘What’s your name?’

‘WPC 548 Edwards,’ said the woman.

‘Where’s your surveillance team, Edwards?’

‘They’re outside, ma’am, in a blue van.’

‘Are you wearing a wire?’

The WPC nodded.

‘Good. So everyone can hear me now. This is Chief Inspector Jakowicz speaking. I’ve reason to believe that the man we’re looking for, the Lipstick Killer, works in the kebab restaurant next door.’

WPC Edwards frowned. ‘That figures, ma’am,’ she said quietly. ‘I was in there the other day, buying a cup of coffee, and one of those fellows behind the counter gave me the weirdest look.’

‘Have you a red lipstick on you?’

The WPC nodded, rummaged in her shoulder bag and then handed it over.

‘WPC Edwards and myself are going next door now,’ Jake explained to her hidden audience. ‘There’s a Detective Sergeant Chung who’s already in there. Your orders are these: be ready for him outside if he tries to make a bolt for it.’

‘What are you planning to do, ma’am?’

‘You’ll see.’

Jake led the way past the table of unsigned books and their self-pitying authors, and out of the shop. She paused as she caught sight of the blue surveillance van and, as if on cue, the passenger’s window slid down to reveal the face of Detective Inspector Ed Crawshaw. He made a thumbs-up sign. Jake nodded back at him and, followed by the WPC, turned into the kebab restaurant.

It was the smell of olive oil she noticed first. Then Chung seated quietly in a corner, studiously chewing his way through a large and well-stuffed pitta-bread.

Parmenides’s hospitable smile faded a little when he recognised that one of the two customers standing in front of his stainless-steel counter was Jake. On a shelf behind him stood a large bottle of the Sacred Oil Company’s extra-virgin olive oil.

‘Hello, Chief Inspector,’ he said nervously. ‘What can I do for you?’ He glanced at WPC Edwards, swallowed hard, and added: ‘Have you caught this fellow yet? The one who followed me?’

‘Not yet, no,’ said Jake. She tilted her head sideways, towards the WPC. ‘Actually I just met an old friend of mine, in the bookshop next door, and we thought we’d come in here for a coffee.’

Parmenides seemed to relax a little. He pointed at one of the Formica tables ranged along the mirrored wall. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring them over. Cappuccino? Espresso?’

‘Two cappuccinos, I think,’ said Jake.

The Greek bowed slightly and set about the operation of the machine.

The two women seated themselves on opposite sides of a table. Jake paid no attention to Chung. Instead she picked up a copy of the Evening Standard which had been left on a chair, and laid it on the table. As soon as he had turned his back to the tables Jake produced the lipstick and wrote the name ‘MARY’ in large red capital letters onto the cream-coloured table top. She then covered this with the newspaper.

After a couple of minutes the Greek came over bearing the two coffee cups. Smiling he bent forward to lay them down and at the same time Jake pulled away the newspaper to reveal Mary’s name.

Belshazzar could not have looked more shocked. Parmenides’s face drained of colour. First his jaw dropped, then the two coffees. He turned and ran towards the door, snatching a long knife from off the counter top as he went, with Jake, WPC Edwards and Chung in close pursuit.