The Alphabet Murders

by Lars Schutz

  ‘My brother was a few years older than me,’ began Jan. Speaking about him in the past tense did not bode well, thought Rabea. ‘When I turned eighteen, he was already working for our father’s logistics company. He had a wife and child and had started renovating our parents’ house for his family.’

  When he raised the cup to his mouth, the trembling of his hand made it shake too.

  ‘A car accident. On my birthday, of all days. Gero died on the scene. After that I couldn’t take it here anymore. Didn’t even go to the funeral. I just wanted to get out.’ He forced the words out from between his teeth, avoiding her gaze.

  Rabea leant back and put down her fork. She’d lost her appetite. ‘Do you want to tell me any more?’

  She sensed that wasn’t everything. Jan might be good at reading other people, but he’d always been an open book. He’d told her only part of the truth – if that.

  He was kneading his hands. ‘It was the middle of December, and the streets were like they are now. Slippery. Unpredictable.’

  The way he spoke, it sounded like he’d been at the wheel himself.

  ‘Anyway, I understand your behaviour better now.’ Rabea drew herself up. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ He waved his hand. ‘It’s all so long ago. It’s just that the past has a nasty habit of sticking to you like glue.’

  ‘What’s your relationship like with your family?’

  ‘Non-existent. When they needed me most, I bolted.’

  If it hadn’t been for their difference in rank – and dozens of other reasons – Rabea would have simply given him a hug. That tall, fragile, profoundly sorrowful man.

  ‘My brother was always the popular one. With girls, with teachers, everyone. I almost felt some people wished I’d died instead.’

  ‘If it’s affecting you like this, then ask them to take you off the case.’

  He shook his head vehemently. ‘We’re already in too deep. And I’d be running away, again. I’ve got to face up to it all.’

  ‘Okay.’ She reached out her hands a few centimetres. Towards his. Then, catching herself, she pulled them back. ‘Köllner just texted. They’re headed for Tugba Ekiz’s apartment. We’re supposed to join them. Only if you’re up to it, of course.’

  ‘Hey, hey, hey, you don’t need to handle me with kid gloves.’ Throwing back his head, he gulped down the rest of his espresso. ‘I’ll be all right. I’m good at sorting these things out for myself.’

  That was probably the biggest lie of all, thought Rabea.

  28

  As darkness fell, Rabea and Jan were entering Horressen, where Tugba Ekiz had lived. During the journey Rabea had described her conversation with the sister.

  Jan was certain. A literature teacher from Montabaur. It fitted the story the Alphabet Killer was telling. It fitted the way he thought. This had to be the same person.

  ‘Feeling any better?’ enquired Rabea once more.

  ‘We’ve all got to function.’

  Since their chat in the café, she’d been looking at him differently. Before, there had been curiosity and sometimes even admiration in her gaze – at least, he thought he’d glimpsed the latter during an attack of megalomania. Now all he saw in her eyes was concern. It should be the other way around, he thought, feeling horribly macho at the idea.

  He’d revealed only a little of the truth, but already even that seemed too much.

  *

  Jan parked the Mercedes in a space outside the building. As he slid the key out of the ignition, he took a moment to get a feel for the environment in the isolation of the car. Quiet suburb, upper middle class. People kept to themselves.

  A few neighbours had furnished their windowsills with pillows and were observing proceedings. Some were even standing in groups on the pavement. This would certainly provide the residents of this Montabaur suburb with something to gossip about for years to come.

  What sometimes depressed him even more than the crime scene was the quiet, empty rooms of the victim. Imagining all the things they’d planned for their lives which might never happen now.

  It was never the past that ran you down.

  It was what remained behind.

  An infernal thundering noise made him jump. Stüter was standing at the back of the Mercedes, beating wildly on the roof with his fist. With the other hand he beckoned them out.

  ‘Has he finally blown a fuse?’ groaned Jan.

  Rabea only rolled her eyes.

  ‘Good to see you too,’ said Jan, climbing out of the vehicle.

  ‘Spare me the platitudes. We found something.’

  Rabea cocked her head. ‘What do you have?’

  ‘Just come!’ He marched ahead, down the main corridor. Jan and Rabea struggled to keep pace. Along the way they nodded to Köllner, who was questioning a young couple – probably neighbours.

  The stairwell smelled of citrus cleaning fluid, cooking fat and cold cigarette smoke – the typical melange common to more or less every German block of flats.

  After slipping into plastic overalls, they stepped inside the life of Tugba Ekiz.

  Instantly, Jan was besieged. Stimuli danced across his field of view like the ultraviolet spots you get when you rub your eyes.

  The smell of bolognaise sauce was still hanging in the air, although the crime scene technicians had long since flung open all the doors and windows. Photos stuck to the wardrobe in the hall, Tugba with her mother and sister. Among them were a few yellowing images of her as a young girl with a bald man, probably her father.

  Jan ignored Stüter and Rabea, who had already gone further into the house, and stepped closer to the wardrobe. Among the photographs hung a printout with Turkish words in a florid script, and beneath it the name of a tattoo studio. Had Tugba had the words tattooed on her? Could there be a connection to the studio?

  ‘Grall, where’ve you got to?’ Stüter’s voice reached his ears.

  The living room wasn’t exactly reticent about the story it had to tell. It was a simple, archetypal story. The story of a lost struggle.

  A shattered glass on the laminate flooring. Dried red wine on the sheepskin rug. Torn women’s clothing scattered around a scratched, flecked area, like elements of a ritual circle.

  ‘Looks almost like the aftermath of a rape,’ commented Anita, who’d been waiting for them.

  ‘No, no, no,’ disagreed Jan. ‘He was after a different kind of satisfaction. Those are flecks of ink on the floor, aren’t they?’

  Stüter nodded. ‘Odds are it’ll be fountain-pen ink again.’

  Jan crouched down, pointing at a radiator underneath the window overlooking the back garden. Cable ties. ‘He trussed her up like he did with Zanetti, so he could tattoo her in peace. Then he took her.’

  ‘But why tattoo the letter onto her here?’ asked Rabea. ‘He risked being discovered the whole time.’

  ‘Satisfaction,’ repeated Jan. ‘For him the tattooing is part of the act. It excites him. He let go of his inhibitions, he couldn’t help it. He had to do it. Right here.’

  ‘Now we get to the interesting part,’ said Anita, sitting down on the chaise longue – beige, like the other furniture in the room – with a sigh. As always when she was stressed, she pulled a face and moved her head in jerks. ‘Neither the front door, the garden door nor the windows were forced. How did he get in?’

  Jan’s gaze fell on the open DVD case of The Notebook. ‘Tugba’s sister didn’t mention a lover or a boyfriend. That means she wasn’t going to watch the film with a man, but most likely alone or with a female friend.’

  ‘You’re saying she wasn’t expecting anybody?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘If there are no signs of forced entry, then she probably let him in,’ said Rabea. She’d closed her eyes, but the lids fluttered. Her mind was racing.

  ‘He could have made something up. A simple lie,’ said Stüter.

  Jan sat cross-legged in the centre of the group, tracing his fingers along the grain
of the laminate. ‘Or – and this would turn everything on its head – Tugba knew the killer.’

  29

  A plastic cup of tap water and a bowl of soggy oatmeal in sour milk. Tugba’s tormentor had given her nothing else.

  Her first meal in days. She gulped down the oatmeal in a few bites. Instantly her empty, shrunken stomach rebelled. She retched but was able to keep herself under control.

  She sipped her water, leaning her head against the brick wall. No more pictures had been added to his wall. She still had time. And time, at the moment, was the only currency she valued.

  Nihal or one of her friends would have gone to the police ages ago. They’d be looking for her. They’d be on her tormentor’s trail.

  Why her, of all people? Because she taught literature? Was that the only reason?

  He’d seemed familiar. That face – she knew it from somewhere. Otherwise she wouldn’t have opened the door. But where did she know him from? Who was he?

  Try as she might, she couldn’t remember.

  All of a sudden, she heard the clumping of his booted footsteps.

  Was he taking the plastic crockery away already?

  Hastily she emptied her cup. Her constricted throat made it hard to swallow.

  He came towards her cage. Again, those eyes, which burned like the tattoo on her back.

  There was something in his hands.

  Her lips trembled. The next letter.

  But he didn’t go up to his wall – instead, he shoved it through the wooden boards, and it landed with a slap on her quilt. It was an exercise book with a red pen tucked inside.

  ‘Work!’ he whispered.

  Before she could reply, he was climbing back up the ladder.

  This time he left the bulb on.

  Confused, Tugba crawled towards the book. It was a small-format exercise book, the kind normally used in primary school classes. She opened it.

  Her eyes flitted across the pages. Again and again, the same words, etched in a scrawl between the lines: house, house, house, house . . . cat, cat, cat, cat . . . car, car, car, car . . .

  It had to belong to a child in Year One.

  She slid her fingers over the pen. Was she supposed to go through the book and correct it? Give the whole thing a mark? Maybe her tormentor had a child and was trying in this perverse way to teach the alphabet.

  Tugba put the book aside and began to unscrew the pen.

  She had a much better idea for what to do with it.

  30

  4th December, evening

  ‘I saw you on the television,’ said Miriam, smacking her lips. ‘You seem to be pretty stressed out down there. It’s turning into something out of Seven or Silence of the Lambs.’

  Jan stretched out on his hotel bed and pressed the phone to his ear. ‘Everything okay with you? Those guys been giving you any more trouble?’

  ‘Nah, it’s all chill,’ she replied. ‘They don’t know where your house is.’

  ‘True. What are you eating? You been raiding my fridge again?’

  ‘Think I’m an idiot?’ she replied, munching indignantly. ‘You’ve got nothing but some random vegetables and bits of tofu in there. I ordered a pizza.’

  Jan rolled his eyes. ‘You mean artichokes, kohlrabi and top-quality smoked tofu.’

  ‘Ugh, tofu’s tofu whether it’s smoked or not. All that veggie crap’s got nothing on a decent salami pizza with a cheese-stuffed crust.’

  ‘Such a picky eater. How long are you staying, then?’

  ‘I just want to give things another few days to settle. That cool?’

  ‘Fine. I’ve got no idea how long I’ll be stuck here, anyway.’

  She took another noisy bite of pizza. ‘Okay, then have a great evening – and don’t drink everything in the minibar.’

  ‘Haha. Me and the minibar.’

  She groaned. ‘Yeah, that was the joke.’

  ‘I know. Good night, Anarchist.’

  ‘Don’t call me that!’

  He hung up with a grin and put the phone on the bedside table. The conversation with Miriam had done him good. She grounded him. He’d been planning to go to the restaurant and see Tamara again, but he was simply too exhausted.

  He drank the last sip of the Coke he’d taken from the minibar and shut his eyes, thinking about their hypothesis in Tugba’s apartment. Was the killer one of her—?

  A soft knock at the door. Jan blinked, wiping away a thread of saliva. Had he been asleep for ten minutes or several hours?

  He unwound himself from the bedclothes. Who wanted something from him now? Was it Rabea? Or somebody from the hotel?

  ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  Tamara’s voice.

  His heart skipped a beat. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Open the door,’ she said. ‘I’m not here to kill you.’

  He opened it. Although he was wearing only a vest and jeans, he didn’t bother putting anything else on. If you go around knocking on hotel doors in the middle of the night, you have to reckon with sights like that.

  Tamara wore a hotel dressing gown. Her hair was loose, making her red locks look even more overwhelming.

  ‘You didn’t come to the restaurant.’ There was no accusation in her voice.

  ‘I think the bags under my eyes are justification enough. Tough day.’

  ‘I can’t say the same of mine,’ she said. Without waiting for an invitation, she walked into his room. ‘I spent most of it in the spa.’

  ‘I could do with that myself right now.’

  She took a step towards him and leant forwards.

  ‘What about this instead?’ she whispered.

  Her fingers slid across his chest, down his belly and onto his hips. She smelled of some kind of aloe vera massage oil, combined with the slight scent of cigarettes.

  Her touch paralysed him. Still half-befogged with sleep, he was in shock. It was all happening so quickly.

  Without resisting, he let himself be pulled towards the bed.

  ‘You’re one of the tidy ones, eh?’ she observed, glancing at his neatly folded clothes and at the desk, which was organised to clinical perfection.

  ‘Everything else might be spiralling out of hand, but at least I want control over my room.’

  ‘You’re going to lose that too.’ Her hands wandered over his chest, warmly caressing his skin.

  ‘Isn’t this going a bit too—?’

  She silenced him with a kiss, nibbling at his lower lip and slipping her tongue into his mouth.

  Then she pressed him gently down onto the mattress.

  31

  The rustling bedclothes dragged Jan out of sleep.

  Tamara had sat up and was putting on her slippers.

  His ran his index finger down her back, following her spine. ‘You’re leaving already?’

  She turned to him with a grin. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll put your money on the bedside table.’

  ‘Now I really feel used,’ he laughed, pinching her side. ‘I’ve never had the honour of being someone’s holiday fling before.’

  ‘That’s too bad – you acquitted yourself pretty well.’ She pulled the dressing gown back on.

  ‘How long are you actually staying here?’ he asked, his head resting on his fist.

  ‘Until Thursday. I’m only two doors down. Number 102.’ She winked. ‘In case you’re ever in the mood for a trip to the spa.’

  He rubbed his eyes. ‘This was all a bit quick. Is it always like that with you?’

  ‘Not always. But I know what I want. And how to get it.’

  She stood up and pulled back the curtain a crack, her eyes vigilant as she gazed down at the wildlife park. The pale moonlight made her skin gleam.

  ‘I’m not a relationship person,’ she said. ‘Tried often enough, failed often enough. But this sort of thing is fun. How about you?’

  ‘Similar.’

  ‘But you’re a man.’

  He chuckled. ‘No,
I’m just Jan. Sometimes I’m so absorbed in human psychology, so preoccupied with all the ricochets our brains produce that I can do without all that at home. All I want is to be alone.’

  He searched for a reaction in her face. Had it sounded like inner strength, or merely sad?

  ‘You took the words right out of my mouth,’ she replied, drawing back the curtain. ‘Somehow I never got over my very first boyfriend. Sounds silly, eh? Back then I was still a naïve little girl. Maybe that was why we fell in love so intensely. So intensely that even then I knew we wouldn’t last long.’ She crouched down in front of the minibar and took out a bottle of Glenfiddich.

  ‘What happened?’ Jan sat up.

  ‘That’s a fiasco best left to another evening. And this is on the house, right?’ She twirled the tiny bottle of whisky. ‘Let’s treat ourselves to some alone time.’

  She left the room, but she wasn’t leaving him alone. His head was whirling with too many questions. For the first time since arriving in Westerwald, the case had been pushed into the background. Crossing his arms behind his head, he shut his eyes and enjoyed her warmth, which he could still feel underneath the bedclothes.

  32

  5th December, morning

  ‘There was a woman at breakfast kept winking at you,’ said Rabea. ‘Anything going on there?’

  She noticed with amusement that Jan quickened his pace. Her question seemed to have provoked a subconscious instinct to flee.

  ‘That’s private, my dear,’ he murmured to himself.

  She could barely understand him above the deafening noise in the playground at Mons Tabor High School.

  Break time. A classic object-lesson for any amateur psychologist. The formation of social groups, outsiders’ attempts to break in, couples frantically groping each other. A symphony of glances and gestures, gossip and giggles, snubs and genuine friendships.

  You had to dive into the stream of signals. That’s how Jan had put it once, in his typical, slightly muddled style. Here, amid the microcosm of the playground, she understood the meaning of his words.