by Philip Kerr
He nodded, seeming to agree with me, and moved on to another issue.
“Some politicians don’t think much of our clear-up rate. What do you say to that, lad?”
“They should come and meet some of our clients. Maybe if the dead were a bit more talkative they’d have a fair point.”
“It’s our job to hear them all the same,” said Gennat. He shifted his enormous bulk for a moment and then stood up. It was like watching a zeppelin get airborne. The floor creaked as he walked to the corner turret window. “If you listen closely enough you can still hear them whisper. Like these Winnetou murders. I figure his victims are talking to us, but we just haven’t understood what language they’re speaking.” He pointed out the window at the metropolis. “But someone does. Someone down there, perhaps coming out of Hermann Tietz. Maybe Winnetou himself.”
Weiss finished his telephone call and Gennat came back to the meeting table, where he lit his own pungent cigar. By now there was quite a cloudscape drifting across the table. It reminded me of gas drifting across no-man’s-land.
I was too nervous to light a cigarette myself. Too nervous and too respectful of my seniors; I was still in awe of them and amazed that they wanted me to be part of their team.
“That was the ViPoPra,” said Weiss.
The ViPoPra was the police president of Berlin, Karl Zörgiebel.
“It seems that the Wolfmium light-bulb factory in Stralau just blew up. First reports say there are many dead. Perhaps as many as thirty. He’ll keep us posted.
“I would remind you that we are agreed not to use the name Winnetou when we’re referring to our scalping murderer. I think it does those poor dead girls a grave disservice to use these sensationalized names. Let’s stick to the file name, shall we, Ernst? Silesian Station. Better for security that way.”
“Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again.”
“So welcome to the Murder Commission, Gunther. The rest of your life just changed forever. You’ll never look at people in the same way again. From now on, whenever you stand next to a man at a bus stop or on a train, you’ll be sizing him up as a potential killer. And you’d be right to do so. Statistics show that most murders in Berlin are committed by ordinary, law-abiding citizens. In short, people like you and me. Isn’t that right, Ernst?”
“Yes, sir. It’s rare I ever meet a murderer who looks like one.”
“You’ll see things every bit as bad as the things you saw in the trenches,” he added. “Except that some of the victims will be women and children. But we have to be hard. And you’ll find we tend to make jokes most people wouldn’t find funny.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you know about these Silesian Station killings, Gunther?”
“Three local prostitutes murdered in as many weeks. Always at night. The first one near Silesian Station. All of them hit over the head with a ball-peen hammer and then scalped with a very sharp knife. As if by the eponymous Red Indian from Karl May’s famous novels.”
“Which you’ve read, I trust.”
“Show me a German who hasn’t and I’ll show you a man who can’t read.”
“Enjoy them?”
“Well, it’s been a few years—but yes.”
“Good. I couldn’t like a man who didn’t like a good western by Karl May. What else do you know? About the murders, I mean.”
“Not much.” I shook my head. “Chances are the killer didn’t know the victims, which makes him hard to catch. It may be the instinct of the moment that drives his actions.”
“Yes, yes,” said Weiss, as if he’d heard all this before.
“The killings do seem to be having an effect on the number of girls on the streets,” I said. “There are fewer prostitutes about than there used to be. The ones I’ve spoken to tell me they’re scared to work.”
“Anything else?”
“Well—”
Weiss shot me a quizzical look. “Spit it out, man. Whatever it is. I expect all my detectives to speak frankly.”
“Just that the working girls have another name for these women. Because they were scalped. When the last woman was murdered I started hearing her described as another Pixavon Queen.” I paused. “Like the shampoo, sir.”
“Yes, I have heard of Pixavon shampoo. As the ads would have it, a shampoo used by ‘good wives and mothers.’ A bit of street corner irony. Anything else?”
“Nothing really. Only what’s in the newspapers. My landlady, Frau Weitendorf, has been following the case quite closely. As you might expect, given how lurid the facts are. She loves a good murder. We’re all obliged to listen to her while she brings us our breakfast. Hardly the most appetizing of subjects, but there it is.”
“I’m interested: What does she have to say about it?”
I paused, picturing Frau Weitendorf in her usual vocal flow, full of an almost righteous indignation and hardly seeming to care if any of her lodgers were paying attention. Large, with ill-fitting dentures, and two bulldogs that stayed close to her heels, she was one of those women who liked to talk, with or without an audience. The long-sleeved quilted peignoir she wore at breakfast made her look like a grubby Chinese emperor, an effect that was enhanced by her double chins.
Besides Weitendorf, there were four of us in the house: an Englishman called Robert Rankin who claimed to be a writer; a Bavarian Jew by the name of Fischer who said he was a traveling salesman, but was probably a crook of some kind; and a young woman named Rosa Braun who played the saxophone in a dance band but was almost certainly a half-silk. Including Frau Weitendorf, we were an unlikely quintet, but perhaps a perfect cross section of modern Berlin.
“As for Frau Weitendorf, she would say something like this: For these girls who get their throats cut, it’s an occupational hazard. When you think about it, they were asking for it, really. And isn’t life cheap enough without risking it unnecessarily? It wasn’t always like that. This used to be a respectable city, before the war. Human life stopped having much value after 1914. That was bad enough, but then inflation came along in 1923 and made our money worthless. Life doesn’t matter so very much when you’ve lost everything. Besides, anyone can see this city has grown too big. Four million people living cheek by jowl. It isn’t natural. Living like animals, some of them. Especially east of Alexanderplatz. So why should we be surprised if they behave like animals? There are no standards of decency. And with so many Poles and Jews and Russians living here since the Bolshevik revolution, is it any wonder these young women go and get themselves killed? Mark my words, it will turn out to be one of them who killed these women. A Jew. Or a Russian. Or a Jewish Russian. You ask me, the tsar and the Bolsheviks chased these people out of Russia for a reason. But the real reason these girls get killed is this: The men who returned from the trenches came back with a real taste for killing people that needs to be satisfied. Like vampires who need blood to survive, these men need to kill someone, anyone. Show me a man who was a solider in the trenches who says he hasn’t wanted to kill someone since he came home and I’ll show you a liar. It’s like the jazz music that those Negroes play in the nightclubs. Gets their blood up, if you ask me.”
“She sounds positively awful,” said Weiss. “I’m surprised you stay in for breakfast.”
“It’s included in the room price, sir.”
“I see. Now tell me what this awful bitch says about why the killer scalps these women.”
“Because he hates women. She reckons that during the war it was the women who stabbed the men in the back by taking their jobs for half the money, so when the men came back, all they found were jobs paying joke wages or, more likely, no jobs at all because the women were still doing them. That’s why he kills them and why he scalps them, too. Pure hate.”
“And what do you think? About why this maniac scalps his victims.”
“I think I’d want to know more of the facts before
I speculate, sir.”
“Humor me. But I can tell you this much: None of the scalps have been recovered. Therefore we have to conclude he keeps them. He doesn’t seem to favor any particular hair color. We might easily conclude he kills in order to claim the scalp. Which begs the question: Why? What’s in it for him? Why would a man scalp a prostitute?”
“Could be a weird sexual pervert who wants to be a woman,” I said. “There are lots of transvestites in Berlin. Maybe we’ve got a man who wants the hair to make a wig.” I shook my head. “I know, it sounds ridiculous.”
“No more ridiculous than Fritz Haarmann cooking and eating the internal organs of his victims,” said Gennat. “Or Erich Kreuzberg masturbating onto the graves of the women he’d murdered. That’s how we caught him.”
“When you put it like that, no, I suppose it isn’t.”
“We have our own theories why this man scalps his victims,” said Weiss. “Or at least Dr. Hirschfeld does. He’s been advising us on this case. But I’d still welcome your ideas. Anything. No matter how outlandish.”
“Then it comes back to simple misogyny, sir. Or simple sadism. A wish to degrade and humiliate as well as to destroy. Humiliation is easy enough to inflict on a murder victim in Berlin. I’ve always believed it’s unspeakable that this city continues the practice of allowing the general public to come and inspect the corpses of murder victims at the city morgue. For anyone who wishes to ensure his victims are humiliated and degraded, you need look no further than there. It’s time the practice was stopped.”
“I agree,” said Weiss. “And I’ve told the Prussian minister of the interior as much on more than one occasion. But just as it seems something is going to be done about it, we find ourselves with a new PMI.”
“Who is it this time?” asked Gennat.
“Albert Grzesinski,” said Weiss. “Our own former police president.”
“Well, that’s a step in the right direction,” said Gennat.
“Carl Severing was a good man,” said Weiss, “but he had too much on his plate, what with having to deal with those bastards in the army—the ones already training in secret for another war. But let’s not get too carried away with Grzesinski. Since he’s also a Jew, it’s fair to say that his appointment isn’t likely to meet with universal enthusiasm. Grzesinski is his stepfather’s name. His real name is Lehmann.”
“How come I didn’t know that?” asked Gennat.
“I don’t know, Ernst, since they tell me you’re a detective. No, I’d be very surprised if Grzesinski lasts long. Besides, he has a secret his enemies are bound to exploit before long. He doesn’t live with his wife, but with his mistress. An American actress. You shrug, Bernie, but it’s only the Berlin public who are allowed to be immoral. Our elected representatives are not permitted to be truly representative; indeed, they are forbidden to have any vices of their own. Especially when they’re Jews. Look at me. I’m virtually a saint. These cigars are my only vice.”
“If you say so, sir.”
Weiss smiled. “That’s right, Bernie. Never accept anyone’s word for their own recognizance. Not unless they’ve already been found guilty.” He wrote a note on a piece of paper and pressed it on the blotter. “Take this to the cashier’s office. They’ll give you a new paybook and a new warrant disc.”
“When do I start, sir?”
Weiss pulled at his watch chain until a gold hunter lay on the palm of his hand.
“You already have. According to your file, you have a few days’ leave coming up, is that right?”
“Yes, sir. Starting next Tuesday.”
“Well, until then you’re the Commission’s weekend duty officer. Take the afternoon off and acquaint yourself with the Silesian Station files. That should help you stay awake. Because if anyone gets murdered in Berlin between now and Tuesday, you’ll be the first on the scene. So let’s hope for your sake it’s a quiet weekend.”
* * *
—
I CASHED A CHECK at the Darmstädter and National Bank to tide me over the weekend and then walked over to the enormous statue of Hercules; muscular and grumpy, he carried a useful-looking club over his right shoulder and except for the fact he was naked, he reminded me a lot of a beat copper who’d just restored order to some east-end drinking den. Despite what Bernhard Weiss had said, a bull required more than just a warrant disc and a strong word to close a bar at midnight; when Germans have been boozing all day and half the night, you need a friendly persuader to help you bang a beer counter and command their attention.
Not that the children leaning over the edge of the fountain paid Hercules much attention; they were more interested in the coins that had been tossed into the water over the years and in calculating the huge fortune that lay there. I hurried past the place and headed toward a tall house on the corner of Maassenstrasse with more scrollwork than a five-tier wedding cake and a top-heavy balcony facade that put you in mind of Frau Weitendorf herself.
I had two rooms on the fourth floor: a very narrow bedroom and a study with a ceramic stove that resembled a pistachio-colored cathedral and a marble-topped washstand that always made me feel like a priest when I stood in front of it to shave and wash myself. The study was also furnished with a small desk and chair, and a squarish leather armchair that creaked and farted more than a Baltic sea captain. Everything in my rooms was old and solid and probably indestructible—the sort of furniture the Wilhelmine manufacturers had intended to last at least as long as our empire, however long that might have been. My favorite piece was a large framed mezzotint of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; Hegel had thin hair, hammocks under his eyes, and what seemed to be a very bad case of wind. I liked it because whenever I had a hangover I looked at it and congratulated myself that however bad I felt I couldn’t feel as bad as Hegel must have felt when he’d sat for the man laughingly known as the artist. Frau Weitendorf had told me she was related to Hegel on her mother’s side and that might have been true except that she also informed me Hegel was a famous composer, after which it became clear she meant Georg Friedrich Händel, which made her story seem a little less likely. To maximize her rental income her own room was on the upper-floor hallway, where she slept behind a tall screen on a malodorous daybed she shared with her two French bulldogs. Practicalities and the need for money outweighed status. She might have been the mistress of her own house, but she certainly never saw any of her lodgers as slavishly subordinate to her will, which was quite Hegelian of her, I suppose.
The other lodgers kept themselves to themselves except at mealtimes, which was when I got to know Robert Rankin, the good-looking, cadaverous Englishman who had the rooms underneath mine. Like me he’d served on the Western Front, but with the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and after several conversations we realized we’d faced each other across a stretch of no-man’s-land during the Battle of Loos, in 1915. He spoke near-perfect German, probably on account of the fact that his real name was von Ranke, which he’d been obliged to change during the war for obvious reasons. He’d written a novel about his experiences called Pack Up Your Troubles, but this had proved unpopular in England and he was hoping to sell it to a German publisher just as soon as he had translated it. Like most veterans, myself included, Rankin’s scars were mostly invisible: he had weakened lungs from a shell blast at the Somme, but more unusually he’d been electrocuted by a field telephone that had been hit by lightning and this had left him with a pathological fear of using any telephone. Frau Weitendorf liked him because his manners were impeccable and because he paid her extra for cleaning his room, but she still called him “the spy” when he wasn’t around. Frau Weitendorf was a Nazi and thought all foreigners were not to be trusted.
I arrived back at the house with the briefcase full of police files and crept quickly up the stairs to my room, hoping to avoid anyone who might be at home. I could hear Frau Weitendorf in the kitchen talking to Rosa. Most recently Rosa was playing her
tenor sax at the upmarket Haller-Revue on Friedrichstrasse, which was the classiest of all the titty shows in Berlin, with a casino and VIP sections, and a very good restaurant. But there were lots of reasons to dislike the place—not least the number of people crowded into it, many of them foreigners—and the last time I’d been there I’d promised myself and my wallet that I’d never go again. I was certain that when she finished playing her sax Rosa wasn’t above earning extra cash on the side. Once or twice I had returned very late from the Alex to find Rosa sneaking a client upstairs. It was none of my business and I certainly wouldn’t have told “the Golem”—which was what all the lodgers called Frau Weitendorf, on account of the fact that she wore a large stiff yellow wig that resembled a large loaf of bread and was exactly like the monster’s in the horror movie of the same name.
The fact was, I had a soft spot for Rosa and hardly felt qualified to judge her for trying to earn a bit more. I could have been mistaken, but eavesdropping on the stairs one day I gained half an idea that Frau Weitendorf might have been trying to set Rosa up with one of her friends from the Nollendorfplatz Theater, where, as she never tired of telling us, she’d once been an actress—which meant that the Golem was probably doing a bit of pimping on the side.
In fact, after the inflation of 1923, nearly everyone, including a lot of cops, needed a little back-pocket business to help make ends meet, and my landlady and Rosa were no different from everyone else. Most people were trying to make enough to get by, but it was never enough to get ahead. I knew plenty of cops who sold drugs—cocaine wasn’t actually illegal—illicit alcohol, homemade sausage, foreign currency, rare books, dirty postcards, or watches lifted from the bodies of the dead and the dead drunk they found in the streets. For a while I supplemented my own wages by selling the odd story to Rudolf Olden, a friend at the Berliner Tageblatt. Olden was a lawyer as well as a journalist and, more important, a liberal who believed in free speech; but I stopped when Ernst Gennat saw me talking to him in a bar and threatened to put two and two together. Not that I’d ever have given Olden any sensitive information; mostly it was just tips about Nazis and communists in Department 1A, the political police, which was supposed to be staffed by cops who were free of any party allegiances. For example, I gave Olden some notes I took of a speech Commissioner Arthur Nebe gave at a meeting of the Prussian Police Officers’ Association, the Schrader-Verband. And while Olden didn’t mention Nebe by name, everyone at the Alex knew who was being quoted in the paper.
