Cay Rademacher - The Murderer in Ruins

‘That would have been Station 22,’ Stave said. ‘If you didn’t know it, I guess that means you don’t live around here.’

The witness hesitated for a few second. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I live in one of the Nissen huts along the Eilbek canal.’

Stave made a note of the address. A looter who had decided to check out a new area, he decided. But he said nothing. He found Anna von Veckinhausen imposing, even a little intimidating. Such self-assurance. She came from another world. There was just the trace of an accent in her voice, but where did it come from? Obviously not from Hamburg or the north of the country. Maybe somewhere in the east? ‘So, you found the body, ran down Lappenbergs Allee to the police station. Have you witnesses to that?’

She gave him a confused look and said nothing.

‘The people you asked for directions to the police station – do you know who they were? Did you take a note of their names?’

‘What do you mean?’ she said indignantly, but still in a quiet voice. ‘Are you treating me as a suspect?’

Stave smiled, though he knew that right now the grimace on his face would be taken the wrong way. ‘Just routine,’ he said.

She threw her head back and looked him in the eye. Challengingly. ‘They were just anonymous figures. Men with hats and their collars turned up, women with headscarves and hats. All of them hurrying along in the cold. I didn’t get any names and couldn’t even tell you what they looked like.’

Stave made another note in his book. ‘And what about before, when you found the body? Did you touch it?’

‘What sort of questions are you asking me? I come across a naked man’s body, what do you think I might have touched?’

‘You knew straight away he was dead?’

‘I’ve seen a few corpses lying in the snow, if that’s what you mean. I could tell immediately…’

Stave didn’t ask when and where she’d seen corpses lying in the snow. ‘Do you know how he died?’

Anna von Veckinhausen shook her head. ‘No? How did he?’

The chief inspector ignored her question, just made another note. His fingers had turned to ice. He found it hard to write, the words barely legible. He knew that he was making the witness nervous. But then she should be nervous, he told himself. ‘Did you notice anything else? Anything about the body? Anything lying near it?’

She shook her head. She’s bitterly cold too, Stave thought.

‘And what about immediately before you found it? When you didn’t know what you were about to come across in the ruins? Did you see anything suspicious, anything along the path? A person? A noise?’

‘No. Nothing.’

Quick answer. Too quick. Suddenly Stave was certain there was something she was hiding from him. Should he take her into head office for questioning? Maybe threaten her with a looting charge? He hesitated. His experience was that most of the time witnesses told what they knew. Sometimes you just had to give them a bit of time and they would turn up at the police station and add to their statement. And if it turned out that Anna von Veckinhausen wasn’t one of those he could always interrogate her again. That meant see her again.

That’s all you need, making a fool of yourself, Stave told himself, immediately banishing the thought. ‘You can go,’ he told her. He gave Anna von Veckinhausen a piece of paper with his office telephone number scribbled on it. ‘If anything else should come to mind, ring me.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, folding the piece of paper carefully and putting it in the pocket of her coat. She suddenly looked drained.

Once upon a time Stave would have ordered a patrol car to take the witness home. But not nowadays with the shortage of vehicles and fuel rationing. ‘G’bye,’ he said to her. He intended it to be friendly but the way it came out it sounded more like a threat.

‘Why did you let her go?’ Maschke asked as they watched Anna von Veckinhausen disappear behind another heap of rubble. He and MacDonald had come over to Stave who had given them a brief rundown of his conversation.

‘There’s no reason to suspect her,’ he said defensively.

‘She was in the vicinity of the second murder,’ Maschke came back at him, ‘And she lives in the Nissen huts up by the Eilbek canal, not all that far from where the first victim was found.’

Stave sighed. He had thought of that too, but didn’t want to mention it. ‘In the case of the first murder, she’s just one of thousands living in the area. And today she reported it to the police herself.’

‘I can’t say I see her as someone used to strangling people with a garrotte,’ MacDonald interjected.

‘I can,’ Maschke said.

‘Let’s leave our colleagues here to clear up,’ Stave said wearily. ‘Czrisini will want the corpse. We should go back to headquarters and think this through.’

‘Not so fast, gentlemen, give me five minutes.’

The massive figure in the long dark overcoat, big hat and black leather gloves was Cuddel Breuer. Stave hadn’t seen him arrive.

‘Sorry I couldn’t get here earlier,’ their boss said, ‘but I had a meeting with the mayor. Goddamn this cold,’ he muttered, though he didn’t exactly look as if he was freezing.

‘I’ll have the spot guarded,’ said Stave, after giving his report. ‘One of the uniformed officers will stay here overnight. I hope he doesn’t freeze to death. Tomorrow when it’s light we’ll do a proper search of the area.’

The chief nodded, then looked up at the three detectives. ‘So, what do you think? Is it the same killer?’

It was the question Stave had been dreading. He thought carefully before answering. ‘We will keep all avenues of investigation open,’ he began. ‘There are some indications that it is the same killer – or killers, we haven’t ruled out that possibility. But a few of the clues don’t quite fit the first murder.’

Breuer said nothing, just stood there looking at him.

‘It just isn’t possible that in a city like Hamburg two people can be murdered without anybody missing them,’ Stave said defensively. ‘It would help us if we could find the link between the murderer and his victims.’

What if there isn’t one?’

‘Then it’s going to be difficult,’ he admitted. ‘If we’re really dealing with a killer who chooses his victims at random, then his modus operandi is unpredictable. In the one case he kills a young woman, in the other an old man. One attack in the east of the city, one in the west. In the one case the victim does nothing to defend herself, in the other he has to beat the old man up first.’

‘So what do I tell the mayor in the morning?’ Cuddel Breuer could have been inviting Stave to a picnic.

‘Ask him not to come to any hasty conclusions. It’s a difficult case. We’re going to need some time.’

Breuer scratched his head and sighed. ‘I know, I know. But Hamburg is blocked in by the ice. Coal supplies will only last another few days. We have very little food left. People are freezing to death every day. It’s not easy for the mayor to keep control of the city. Time is the one thing he doesn’t have.’

‘In that case the most important thing is to maintain public order,’ Stave blurted out.

Breuer smiled. ‘Indeed. Nobody wants to shout this thing from the rooftops. I shall advise the mayor simply to ignore it. For the moment.’

He touched the brim of his hat, turned round and was gone.

‘Fuck!’ Maschke muttered, as soon as the chief was out of hearing range.

But he wasn’t fooling Stave. He could sense an undertone in Maschke’s voice, an undertone he didn’t like: Schadenfreude.

They trundled back to headquarters in MacDonald’s jeep without speaking. The dim yellow light of the headlamps made the building facades and piles of rubble seem like the stage set for an Expressionist silent movie. Stave wouldn’t have been surprised if from the corner of his eye he’d seen the bat shape of Nosferatu perched on some ruin, pointing at him with an outstretched claw-like finger. Pull yourself together, man, he told himself. It wasn’t a vampire he was looking for, but a normal-looking human being with a garrotte or piece of wire in his pocket. Someone who felt no compunction about killing a young woman or an old man.