His eyes snapped open and searched mine. I found myself nodding, and I hated myself for it, for giving him that measure of recognition. His voice had thickened, the words fighting their way from his throat as his breathing came fast and loose.
'When she passed out I took my pocket knife and cut her throat. Started on the left and drew it to the right. Like this. And then...the blood.'
His forefinger traced an arc of arterial blood spray as he closed his eyes again. Sweat beaded his top lip. His panting slowed. He straightened and when he grinned there was blood on his teeth, though whether he'd bitten his lip or his tongue, or whether my mind had conjured some fancy under the influence of his tale and too little sleep, I couldn't say.
'No more than three minutes, the whole business.' He took a handkerchief to his fingers as though trying to clean them. He smoothed back his hair and cleared his throat. 'Then I left the room and made off.'
I cleared my throat too, not trusting myself to speak clearly without doing so. 'And what about Gertrude Albermann?' I said.
He replaced his handkerchief in the breast pocket of his pinstriped jacket. 'You'll see.'
It seemed like he wanted to confess. Maybe if I took him through the motions he'd tell me about the Albermann girl. 'When did all this happen?' I drew a notebook and pen from my pocket.
'Summer. 1913. I was doing a lot of theft at that time. It was a Sunday evening, a feast day, about ten or eleven pm when I broke in. It was an inn on the Wolfstrasse, but then you know that. Nothing worth taking. No possessions, that is.'
'And the girl's name?'
'Christine, you fool, like I told you.'
'Christine who?'
He punched my arm. 'Stop playing with me, detective. Christine Klein, as you well know.'
'Is Gertrude still alive?'
'Who?'
'The Albermann child. If you are the Ripper then you're the one who took her, aren't you. Aren't you?'
'Oh I'm the Ripper all right, Thomas, I can assure you of that.'
I stepped in close and made fists of my hands. 'Then tell me where she is.'
Someone sneezed. I spun round. A plump man in a white gown dithered at the threshold, his small eyes rolling a lot of white my way. Had he overheard Kürten's confession? The choir had stopped singing and the organ had stopped bellowing. Whispers echoed in the nave in place of the music. And cutting through them, something like shouting outside the church. The cough and splutter of road traffic had ebbed away.
'Yes?' I had to stop myself shouting at the man.
'Is one of you gentlemen Detective Thomas Klein?' he asked through thick lips that turned down at each end of his mouth. He chewed on his tongue.
'That's me,' I said.
'There are some more policemen outside in the square,' the man said. 'A lot of them. And they're asking for you.'
'Ritter,' I said. It came out on the crest of a sigh. Gott in Himmel, not now. If anyone in this city had supernatural powers, it was him. Kürten inclined his head as though he understood the importance of the name.
'A friend of yours?' he said.
My turn to smile. I had to, otherwise I would have cried out in frustration. I seized Kürten's arm and said, 'Tell me where Gertrude Albermann is, now.'
'So fearsome, Thomas.' He was grinning. 'I'm glad you're the one to bring me in. And I hope you realise the awesome significance of this moment. You, Thomas Klein, finally bringing the Düsseldorf Ripper to heel. They'll write songs about you. Make moving pictures. Write novels. The Sancho Panza to my Don Quixote of death!'
'The Van Helsing to your Count Dracula more like,' I told him. 'Come on.'
I didn’t like that this arrest was going to be Ritter’s, but the sooner we got Kürten to headquarters the sooner we could get Albermann's whereabouts out of him.
We entered the nave, where over a dozen white-robed choristers had gathered between us and the exit. Several of them were just boys who were talking in the loud voices boys use when they know something dangerous might be about to happen.
'Are you the choir master?' I asked the chubby man who'd come to find me.
His chin merged with the trunk of his neck as he nodded. I pulled Kürten through the crowd to the door, forced him down on his haunches in the vestibule and shouted at the nearest choristers to clear a space away from the door. A few worshippers had got caught up in the crowd too.
I lay on my belly and pushed open the door a few centimetres. Blue-coated Schutzpolizei ringed the square. They'd cut off the traffic flow at each exit point and within their cordon the square was empty. Each blue coat I saw carried a bullet hose machine pistol, and most had them trained on the church door. Bayonets and truncheons hung at their belts. This was a full-on riot squad.
'Is that you, Thomas?' called a voice I recognised. Ritter had turned up after all, murder commission in tow no doubt, though I couldn't see any plainclothesmen from where I lay. 'Come on out!' he shouted.
I let the door swing shut and stood up. Kürten made to copy me but I shooed him down with a palm. This was a dangerous moment. In his eagerness to steal my collar and humiliate me, Ritter might not notice the civilians in the way. I had to get them clear.
'Choir master?' I shouted. The chubby man approached, his face full of panic. 'Do you have a spare gown?'
'Gown?' He frowned.
'Those things you're wearing, whatever they're called. Do you have a spare one?'
'In the back somewhere.'
'Get it.' He nodded but didn't move so I shouted: 'Now!'
He waddled off. I faced the rest of them and held up my hands for silence. The whispers died down.
'Okay ladies and gentlemen, I'm a policeman. This man here,' I pointed at Kürten, 'is a wanted felon.' Wide eyes focused on Kürten. He waved at them.
'Is it the Ripper?' a voice shouted. I didn't see who it was but I ignored them anyway.
'The choir master is going to lead you outside. Everyone put your hands on your heads and walk calmly, all right?'
'It must be the Ripper,' the voice said. 'Why else would they send so many armed men?'
The choir master returned with the spare gown. I took the garment from him and tore it in two, handing him the larger piece and keeping the smaller for myself. I pushed the church door open again and waved the white cloth out of the opening.
'Ritter?' I shouted. 'It's Klein here.'
'Always a pleasure, Thomas,' Ritter shouted back.
'Never mind that, Ritter. There are several innocent people in here. The choir master is going to lead them out into the square, and then I'll bring him out.'
'Yeah, bring who out?' the voice muttered behind me.
I turned back. 'Hands on your heads!' I growled. The younger choristers beamed as they complied. Some of the older ones did it more slowly. A couple of the worshippers didn't do it at all. I patted the choir master on the back and said, 'Now lead them out. Slowly. Wave the gown. Don't make any sudden moves, and do as they say.'
I held the door open and the choir master led the group into the square while Ritter shouted directions. The stragglers in the church vestibule glared at Kürten on the way out. I kept my eyes on them, just waiting for an upstanding citizen to lash out the way that upstanding citizens are wont to do. They disappointed me, though.
Several long minutes later, I was alone with Kürten. I lifted him back to his feet. He passed a hand through his hair and checked the knot in his neck tie.
'You look fine,' I said. I wanted to slap him.
'Do you think there are any press photographers out there?'
'You looking to create a police brutality situation here? Cause that's the way we're headed.'
He cocked an eyebrow at me. I was grimacing with the pain in my gut; I tried to get my face under control while I dragged him along and kicked open the door, waving the scrap of white gown with my free hand. The clouds had parted while I'd been inside and the sun shone in my eyes.
A burst of submachine gun fire drove bullets
into the stonework around the church door. I pulled Kürten to the ground with me. Something dug into my face, tore my cheek. Ritter shouted at the Schupo to hold fire and stiff leather soles double-timed it across the square.
They hauled me upright and cuffed my hands behind my back.
Ritter squared up to me, buck-toothed grin more pronounced than ever. His blue eyes squinted in the sun and he'd picked up some grey in his black hair since I'd seen him last, but he was still thin. It also looked like he was trying to grow a moustache – to cover those teeth? – though the limp fur blooming in patches over his top lip didn't seem to want to play along. His grin worried me and so did what he was carrying in his left hand. My satchel.
'Bucky,' I said with a nod – his nickname back when we'd been partners.
'Thomas,' he nodded back – studied formality, the only kind he could do.
'Was that wise, shooting at Kürten?' I said.
'What makes you think they were aiming for him?' Ritter said. He smashed his fist into my nose and the cartilage gave out.
2
They drove us to Mühlenstrasse HQ, took my belt, shoes, wallet and watch and threw me in a holding cell. The door clanged shut, shaking clumps of mould from the brick walls. I kicked a brown-stained bucket into the middle of the room. It swayed from side to side as I slumped on the hard wooden bunk lining one wall, rumpling the thin blanket beneath my buttocks.
This beef between Ritter and me, it was personal. Probably I shouldn't have slept with his wife, but she'd been the one who came on to me, after all. My mistake: Ritter had kept me off the murder commission despite my record and made sure I was kept in exile in a suburban police precinct at the arsch-end of nowhere. Meanwhile his Ripper investigation had achieved nothing in over a year. So yes, I'd wanted the collar. I'd wanted the glory. I'd wanted to rub Ritter's nose in his failure and prove to everyone else how full of shit he was. Was that so bad?
Well, perhaps it was. Give it some time and Ritter would send for me and then I would find out what form his revenge was going to take this time. But I couldn't forget that there was a lost five-year-old girl out there, maybe dead, maybe dying for lack of food or water or medical attention. We needed to find her, and soon.
I hoped that while Ritter was leaving me to stew he was sweating Kürten for all the information he could. I wasn't going to get anywhere by worrying though, and I needed sleep, so I took off my jacket and rolled it up. I placed this makeshift pillow at the furthest end of the bunk from the door and I lay on my side.
Warm sunlight blared in through a high barred window. My mind buzzed with the events of the day. My nose throbbed and my nostrils had filled with dried blood, making it hard to breathe. I tried sniffing hard a couple of times, but that dislodged the crusts that had formed and caused fresh blood to flow. Settling on my back made the blood drip down my throat so I went back to lying on my side and breathing through my mouth.
Later, a banging noise dragged me awake. I raised my head from my rolled-up jacket. It was still light outside, but only just. The sky through the bars was a deep blue. The wound in my cheek throbbed now, worse than my nose, and my head was pounding too. My mouth was dry and a sticky white residue clung to my lips.
A metallic rasp came from the corridor outside my cell.
'Hello?' I called out. Nobody answered. The hatch in the thick cell door was open.
I got off the bunk and staggered to the door. I gazed through the hatch. Darkness gazed back. I crept closer. Were those whispering voices I could hear out there? I put my eye as close to the hatch as I dared, trying to make out any movement beyond.
Just then, the light in my cell died and cool liquid splashed my face. I pressed my lips together before any of it got in my mouth: I hoped it was water but I wasn't up for taking any risks. I backed off, stumbled and fell, cracking my hip against the side of the bunk. I felt around for the blanket. My fingers found it and I used it to wipe my face. Laughter leaked through from the corridor. I wanted to go back and bang on that door, all night if need be, shout and scream and call them names. But that was what they wanted.
I settled back against the bunk. I counted silently and my breathing deepened. The pain in my head lost some of its intensity. Some time after that sleep found me again.
Banging, outside the cell door. The metallic rasp from my troubled dreams back to pull me awake. This was classic stuff to deprive me of sleep ahead of my upcoming interrogation. I opened my eyes as the cell light came on. I was ready for it this time; I'd fallen asleep with the blanket twisted around my head. I blinked until I could bear more of the light, then I cast off the blanket.
The door opened. Two Schupomen pulled me out of the cell and carried me up several flights of stairs. I lost count of how many floors we went up, but I recognised the second floor offices from when I'd worked at HQ, back when Ritter and I had been partners. The Schupo led me down a hallway painted in two-tone institutional grey. They locked me into an interview room which had the unremarkable look of interview rooms everywhere, consisting as it did of two cheap wooden chairs arranged either side of a chipped wooden card table.
I took the chair facing the door. It creaked under me, so I moved and took the one opposite. That creaked too, only this time I couldn't summon the energy to move again. The table wobbled when I leaned my elbows on it. Damn it, was that just wear and tear or had they shortened one of the legs on purpose? A breeze pushed its way through the open window and I shivered. This window was large, maybe four times the size of the one in my cell downstairs, but the bars outside were just as thick.
Ha, listen to me. My cell. They'd got me thinking I belonged there already. The thought made me laugh aloud. The ragged quality of the laughter made me laugh all the more until there were tears of pain dripping off my chin. I caught some of the tears on my tongue but the salty tang only increased my thirst. My stomach muscles ached like I'd just done a hundred sit-ups: tension, pure and simple, tightening me up. Even though I was familiar with this interrogation technique, it was starting to work. I'd have to watch that: maybe Ritter was going to go the whole hog and try for a charge of withholding evidence. He probably had enough on me for that.
The door opened. I resisted turning round to look. The door shut again. I thought whoever it was had left, as I didn't hear any footsteps. But then a man in plain clothes came into my line of sight and sat in the chair at the opposite side of the table. He'd left his jacket in another room, waistcoat hanging loose over a solid gut, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow exposing a red and green tattoo on his left forearm. He had unruly blond hair and a red patch along the left side of his jaw that looked to be a shaving rash. I didn't recognise him and he didn't introduce himself.
He took a cigarette from a silver case and lit it. He offered the case to me.
'Why am I here?' I said.
No response.
'Look, there's a five-year-old girl out there, missing, maybe dead. We don't have time to play Ritter's games.'
He just waved the case under my nose, the clown. Clearly, I would have to wait for the ringmaster.
'You don't have a cigar?' I said.
He scratched the side of his flat nose and shook his head. I took one of the little white tubes and he lit it for me. I gulped down as much smoke as it took to make my vision dance with purple and white lights. On the exhale the damn thing tasted of nothing.
'Can I have some water?' I croaked. 'Maybe something to eat?'
He looked me up and down and thought things over for a while before he said, 'I'll see what I can do.' He wasn't from the city. Not from Cologne either, though I couldn't place the accent.
He paused with his hand on the door knob as though unsure whether to say what was on his mind.
He went with: 'And I do read the papers, you know.'
Having thus informed me that he knew all about Gertrude Albermann, and that he cared just as much as I did, he left the room. I smoked my cigarette. I tried to take my time over it but it was all I had
to occupy me and it was gone before I knew it.
This time when the door opened I did turn around. Ritter stood smirking at me with his buck teeth, his arms full of items bearing evidence tags.
'Has Kürten said anything about the Albermann girl?' I said.
Ritter came and sat down. The overhead light lengthened the bags under his eyes and lightened the blue of his irises. It also made his top lip twinkle. I couldn't stop looking at his moustache. He noticed me looking, pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose. He took his time wiping it. There was a lot of silver in his five o'clock shadow.
The blond detective had followed him in and now stood in the corner by the window. His arms, I noticed, were empty. I hadn't expected him to bring me anything – it made more sense to make that conditional on the answers they wanted me to give – but that didn't do much to dampen my disappointment. My mouth felt drier than ever, to the point where I doubted I'd be able to talk for long. The plaster behind the blond detective was crumbling and spotted with black marks. More mould. Seemed like someone had blown the building's maintenance budget on the horses.
On the table Ritter laid out two plain brown envelopes, my notebook, and Kürten's bloody scissors. I didn't bother to read the labels on the envelopes. I knew what they would say.
'So how long exactly were you intending to hang on to this evidence before you recorded it and handed it in?' Ritter said.
'How long are you intending to torture me before you charge me or let me go?'
Ritter rubbed at the corner of his right eye and flicked the results in the direction of the window. He leaned back in the chair and put his feet up on the table. It wobbled and he put his arms out to steady himself like some tightrope walker. Guess that meant the short leg wasn't deliberate.
The Killing Of Emma Gross Page 2
