Cay Rademacher - The Murderer in Ruins

‘Shit!’ Stave blurted out.

‘On account of the particular potential political and psychological influence on the population,’ his boss continued without commenting. ‘It’s an official request. I’m also seconding an officer from the vice squad to work with you, under your command, obviously.’

‘From the vice squad?’

‘The victim was naked,’ Breuer reminded him.

‘Who?’

‘Inspector Lothar Maschke. He immediately volunteered.’

‘Not exactly my lucky day,’ Stave grumbled.

Breuer smiled and called to his secretary, ‘Please show the two gentlemen in.’

The first man was wearing the greenish-brown uniform of a lieutenant in the British army. Stave guessed him to be in his mid-twenties, though his bright, almost rosy countenance and short blond hair made him look even younger. Not very tall, wiry in build, with the sprightly step of a sportsman. Stave wondered what it was about the uniform, perfectly ironed but worn just a bit too casually, and the expression on the man’s face, though friendly and obliging, that gave him the air of being ever so slightly blase?

‘Lieutenant James C. MacDonald of the British administration in Hamburg, Public Safety Branch,’ was how Breuer introduced him.

The officer saluted briskly in greeting, leaving Stave, who had no idea of a military salute, not knowing what to do with his hand. MacDonald smiled for a second then reached out his right hand to shake Stave’s. ‘Pleased to meet you, Chief Inspector.’

He spoke German with just a slight British accent, but Stave suspected that the pronunciation was MacDonald’s only weak point in the language. I wouldn’t be surprised if he can write reports in German better than many of my colleagues, he thought. Aloud he just said, ‘Welcome to CID, Lieutenant.’

The second man followed the Brit into the office rather hesitantly. Stave put him at around 30, tall, lanky, in a rather tatty civilian suit that was far too broad for him. He had reddish-blond hair and a thin little moustache. The second and third fingers of his right hand were yellow with nicotine and his movements were a little twitchy – a chain smoker who couldn’t get his hands on enough cigarettes.

Stave nodded to him. Inspector Lothar from vice. He already knew him. Maschke was not long out of police academy, and he had already managed to fall out with most of the people in CID although nobody could quite say why. Stave reckoned he had grown the moustache to try to make himself look older. And he had joked about Maschke in private because he still lived at home with his mother. A policeman! And in the vice squad at that!

‘Gentlemen,’ Breuer said, rubbing his hands together. ‘I can’t wait to see your results.’

‘Shall we go over to my office?’ Stave suggested.

He nodded in farewell to his boss and directed the other two men down the corridor. Just what I needed, he thought to himself resignedly, lagging behind as they walked by the dim light of the 15-watt bulb.

Stave’s own office was bright. The window looked out on to the Musikhalle, and the ruins beyond it. Stave’s old wooden desk looked as if it was swept and dusted on a regular basis. He was particular about putting everything away in the desk drawers, and every case file was duly annotated and kept in a huge metal cabinet.

Erna Berg came in and gave him a large cardboard file with a sheet of paper in it: the new murder report.

The chief inspector introduced the two men to his secretary. Maschke just nodded but MacDonald reached over to shake her hand.

‘Nice to meet you,’ he said.

Stave was amazed to see his secretary blush.

‘I’ll bring in another chair,’ she said, just a touch too quickly.

‘Let me,’ said MacDonald, springing to his feet and bringing in another chair from the outer office. Erna Berg smiled at him. Stave nodded at her, indicating she should leave them and shut the door behind her. Then he thought of Margarethe and how he had been when they first met: that mixture of enthusiasm and embarrassment. And suddenly he felt envious of the young British officer. Stuff and nonsense. He banished thoughts of all women, except for one: the naked corpse.

‘Sit down,’ he said formally. ‘I’ll give you an overview.’

The chief inspector methodically went over the basics of the case: the naked body with an appendix scar, the strangulation marks on her throat, the spot where the corpse was found, the two street lads, the questioning of the bunker-dwellers and the overall lack of leads. When he had finished, MacDonald took out a packet of English cigarettes and offered them around. Stave and Maschke hesitated, as if each was waiting for the other to react first. Then the chief inspector shrugged, and gratefully accepted the cigarette. In reality he had given up smoking but it was clear that Maschke had been waiting to see if Stave, now his boss for the duration of this investigation, was willing to take a gift from a former enemy. The vice squad inspector lit up and sucked so greedily on it that MacDonald, with a smile that was sarcastic and polite at the same time, forced a second on him.

‘So, what do we do now?’ he asked. ‘I’m a soldier, not a policeman,’ MacDonald added. ‘My experience is war, not murder investigations.’

Maschke coughed so loudly that a cloud of blue smoke poured from both his nose and mouth.

Stave forced himself to smile. ‘The more we know about the victim, the more we find out about the killer,’ he began. ‘Often the murderer and victim know one another. So first of all we’ll try to identify the victim. We’ll cut her open.’

‘We?’ said MacDonald, no longer smiling.

‘A pathologist will do it,’ Stave reassured him, smiling genuinely for the first time himself. The shocked naivety of his question had all of a sudden made the young Brit seem more likeable. Some soldier you are if you’re frightened of the dead. ‘We’ll just get the autopsy report. Then, hopefully, we’ll know a bit more – ideally the time of death. But I doubt there’s any pathologist in the world who could identify her.’

‘Save for the doctor who performed the appendectomy,’ Maschke interjected.

‘Yes,’ Stave said. ‘That’s a possibility. We’ll order up some copies and send them out to Hamburg hospitals. Perhaps somebody will identify her. On the other hand an appendix operation is routine and it’s not likely that any doctor or nurse would remember.’

‘Especially as they’ve had rather a lot on their hands over the past few years,’ Maschke added. ‘Insofar as the hospitals are still standing and the doctors still alive.’

The chief inspector shot his colleague a warning glance. It was irritating enough to have an officer from the occupation forces in the investigation group. But there was no need to provoke him.

But MacDonald gave no indication he had even noticed. ‘And what if the doctors can’t help us?’

‘We’ll bring out posters with photographs of the victim and put them up around the city. Even if that might be a bit…’ Stave hesitated, searching for the right word, ‘…indelicate,’ he finished the sentence rather lamely.

The Brit raised an eyebrow questioningly, so Stave explained: ‘One way or another we need to do something to get some leads from the population in general. It’s possible that somebody knew the victim; in fact it’s highly likely. And I don’t want the citizens of Hamburg to find out by chance that there is a murderer out there. That could cause unrest.’

‘That’s why I’ve been seconded to the investigation,’ MacDonald said with disarming openness. ‘The British authorities are also keen to see this investigation concluded as quickly and discreetly as possible.’