“Nice area you described, with all the houses and so on.” She snorted with contempt. “You’ll also find some charming neighbors there. All line-toeing Teutons of racially pure blood. You naïve idiot! Have you never heard of the Kameradschaftssiedlung in Zehlendorf, the SS housing colony? Wherever you look, everyone is a member of the SS. That’s where they live out their petit bourgeois ideals with their families. If you ask me, I wouldn’t lift a finger for these people.”
Oppenheimer sighed. “I know, I know, but what else am I to do?”
“It doesn’t look like you can stall them much longer with your cemetery visits.”
“Well, at least they’re including me in their plans, for the time being,” he reassured himself. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t have summoned me for Monday morning.”
“In any case—what’s that arse-faced guy’s name again? Vogler? He at least seems to have given you security clearance. No wonder you have an escort on your heels now. Did you find anything strange in the postmortem?”
“Yes, indeed. The number of injuries. I noticed that straightaway when we found the body. But I couldn’t explain it.”
“Let’s take a look at the process, shall we? First, he drives nails into the victim’s head. That looks a lot like sadism to me. But the question is, why does he mutilate the woman after he’s killed her?”
“Yes, and then he even deposits her in a public location, a site where she had to be found.” Hilde wanted to say something, but Oppenheimer waved her off. “I know. Of course he wanted her to be discovered. That’s the only possible explanation. Hmm, when I think of it, the stone, the spread legs … it’s almost as if he”—he searched for the right word—“as if he had orchestrated it all.”
“What reason could we envisage for someone not making a dead body disappear but rather putting it on prominent display?”
Oppenheimer mulled this over for a moment. Then he laughed, a little embarrassed. Even before he spoke, he knew that his answer was wrong. “The simplest solution would be that the murderer’s superego is resisting the acts. The perpetrator wants to be caught so that someone can stop him from carrying out more murders.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, stop talking rubbish!”
“I expected that reaction,” Oppenheimer replied with a broad grin. “But even if we don’t go with that—just the fact that he arranged the body in a certain way suggests that he wants to communicate something.”
“There’s just one flaw in your theory,” Hilde pointed out. “If someone wants to communicate something, then there must be someone specific to receive that communication. The fact that the air raid warden found the body was more or less a coincidence. It could just as well have been someone else. Who arrived after that?”
“SD, SS, the crime officers with their special vehicle, and finally me,” Oppenheimer replied.
Hilde thought for a moment. “Could it be that he wanted to communicate with you? With the investigators?”
Oppenheimer knitted his brows. This thought was disturbing because it created a direct connection between him and the perpetrator. “Possibly,” he admitted to Hilde. “If you think about it, it is possible.”
“Do you know what I first thought of when you described the place the body was found? It wasn’t Großmann. He mutilated his bodies so that one wouldn’t be able to identify them and so they could be disposed of more easily. This doesn’t apply to our case.”
Oppenheimer nodded. “I know. Then there’s still Kürten. That had also occurred to me, but the parallels only go so far.”
“That may be. What differences are there to the Düsseldorf Vampire? Kürten choked some of his victims. Our woman, however, was strangled.”
Oppenheimer nodded. “Kürten drank the blood and raped the victims,” he mumbled. “Neither can definitively be proved in this case. Kürten didn’t hide the victims but simply left them lying at the crime scene. He wanted to get away quickly and didn’t care if they were found. That would be difference number one. But in our case, the scene of the crime and the place where the body was found were not identical.”
“Are there indications yet where the crime was actually committed?” Hilde asked.
“As far as I can gather, they’re still groping in the dark.”
Hilde stared into her glass, lost in thought. “Another difference, of course, are the wounds. The injuries inflicted by Kürten were directly connected to the act of killing or the acting out of his sexual urges. Stab wounds, head traumas, vaginal tearing. But the way he wielded the knife was quite amateurish. In actual fact, that guy was nothing more than a boring little slasher.”
“His victims wouldn’t have thought that,” Oppenheimer said reproachfully. “But you’re right; the cuts are difference number two. Kürten tended to injure his victims with his stab wounds. When he cut someone’s throat, the execution varied. In our case, the cuts are precise and clean. We can work with this information. Who apart from a doctor would be able to do that? Hmm. A butcher, of course. That would be the most obvious.”
“Then we’d end up back with Haarmann and Großmann. Both were butchers. Most mass murderers have a past of carrying out violent acts on animals or were arsonists. Quite a few of them were both.”
Oppenheimer paused. He had thought of something. “Have you ever noticed how many potential sex offenders there are?”
“Maybe that’s the price we have to pay for having a steak on our plate.”
“After I’d had to write the minutes of Großmann’s interrogation, I wasn’t able to eat any meat for ten months,” Oppenheimer remembered. “And I still don’t particularly like it.”
“You’re perfectly adapted to our war-torn society. No more meat until after the ultimate victory. Until then, turnips and potatoes will have to do.” Hilde chuckled to herself, but quickly grew serious again.
Oppenheimer asked, “Have you had an idea?”
“No,” Hilde replied slowly, “I’m just thinking of Kürten. Do you remember what happened when they found all those naked bodies of women and children around the Düsseldorf area? There was a mass panic. And when those underground murders occurred here in Lichtenberg a couple of years ago, it was a similar situation; things got to a critical point—and there weren’t even any bombs falling at that time.”
Oppenheimer nodded. “It’s no wonder that the SS showed up so quickly this time. They don’t know how people are going to react when they find out about a murder like this.”
“Haven’t you realized that we live in the land of smiles? No? Then you should listen to the propaganda. There must be no crime in an untainted racial community. Maybe the press can be muzzled, but the party is powerless against rumors. Frightened people are capable of a lot. Maybe that would be the final straw.”
“Hang on a minute—there haven’t been any indications yet that we’re dealing with a mass murderer; otherwise, we would have found more bodies by now. But yes, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m helping the system if I catch the murderer.” Oppenheimer sighed dejectedly.
Hilde shrugged. “The way things look, you’re not going to get out of this situation. Your only option would be to leave Germany, but to achieve that, you’d have to be Harry Piel or, better yet, Houdini. The borders have been hermetically sealed off, and now that the invasion is imminent, even more so.”
“First, there’s a murder to be solved,” Oppenheimer argued.
Hilde had to smile. “That’s typical of you, you workaholic.”
Oppenheimer pondered for a while and then said, “No, I don’t think the comparison between Großmann and consorts is going to get us anywhere.”
With that, he went over to the gramophone and raised the tone arm. The Prague symphony stopped. Oppenheimer carefully inserted the record back in its sleeve and rearranged it in the collection. “I think I’ll head off. It’s late.”
When Hilde handed him the obligatory cigarettes, she asked, “What shall we do now? Will you be able to come again even though
you’re being followed?”
“Give me a couple of days. I’ll think of something to lay a false trail so they don’t get suspicious. I’ll be back with new information next Sunday. You can count on it. You know, when I think about it, maybe we could actually solve the case together.”
Oppenheimer looked at the cigarettes in his hand. With a longing sigh, he carefully put them in his cigarette case and let it snap shut. The time had come to make sacrifices.
8
MONDAY, MAY 15, 1944–TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1944
Inge Friedrichsen had occupied a small attic room. Mrs. Korber stood in the doorway while Oppenheimer inspected the room. He could sense the landlady watching his every move. As the resolute woman clearly had no intention of leaving his side, he thought he might as well question her in the process.
“Who lived in this room originally?”
“My nephew,” Mrs. Korber answered. “Theo. He’s at the front right now, and I thought he wouldn’t mind if I rented out his room until the ultimate victory.”
Oppenheimer noticed the matter-of-fact way in which Mrs. Korber used the phrase ultimate victory. There was no irony in the way she said it. She seemed to believe in it like a law of nature. Oppenheimer had anticipated something like this when he’d spotted a small altar in a corner of the living room, with an artfully bound copy of Mein Kampf lying in front of a replica painting showing Adolf Hitler in a shining suit of armor, of all things. Despite it all, Oppenheimer doubted that Mrs. Korber had ever actually read Hitler’s book. Even among his most zealous followers, there were very few who voluntarily did that. Similar to a dusty family Bible, the work was more of a devotional object used to show your disposition than reading material that you perused to uplift yourself.
Oppenheimer let his gaze roam across Inge Friedrichsen’s room, which was dominated by the pitch of the roof. Although there was a window in the dormer, the daylight was not enough to illuminate the room.
“May I?” Oppenheimer asked and switched on the light. A bare bulb drove away the shadows. The room contained nothing more than a bed, a huge wardrobe, a chair, and a bedside table. Almost nothing showed that a woman had lived here. Everything was utilitarian; the only decorative items were two framed photographs on the wall. One depicted a young man in uniform. The second showed the same young man among his friends, raising his glass to the camera.
“Your nephew?” Oppenheimer asked and pointed toward the pictures.
Mrs. Korber nodded. “The boy is going to the aeronautical college. He needed frontline experience to apply.”
“Where did Ms. Friedrichsen keep her things?”
“I allowed her to use the right-hand side of the cupboard and the bedside table.”
Oppenheimer opened the cupboard and looked at the contents. It was not much, only two pairs of shoes, three blouses, which Ms. Friedrichsen had evidently altered, and a heavy winter coat, which she had clearly bought before the spinning-material directive came into force.
“How long had she been living here?”
Mrs. Korber thought for a moment. “It must be about ten months now. She moved in last July, I think.”
“Where did she come from? Did she have any friends or relatives in Berlin?”
“I don’t think she had any relatives here. At least she never spoke of them. She came from somewhere near Hannover. She always went out in the evenings, although I kept telling her that it wasn’t suitable behavior for an unmarried woman. Well, that’s what happens.”
“When did she leave the house on Friday?” Oppenheimer sat down on the bed and looked through the bedside table.
“Early in the morning. She didn’t come back here again. She often did that at the weekends, said that she was with a girlfriend. A likely story…”
“So you didn’t see Ms. Friedrichsen again after that?”
“Only when she was already dead.”
Oppenheimer looked at Mrs. Korber sharply, but then he remembered the morgue assistant’s report. “You mean when you identified your tenant?”
Mrs. Korber swallowed hard and nodded.
“Where did Ms. Friedrichsen work?”
“She worked for a liquor retailer, as far as I know. Ücker or something like that.”
“Ücker? Never heard of them. Well, my colleagues will find that out.”
Vogler’s people had already searched Inge Friedrichsen’s flat on Saturday. However, Oppenheimer wanted to check for himself to make sure that nothing had been overlooked. There was an empty water bowl on the bedside table, and next to it, an alarm clock. In the drawer, he found a playbill like the ones that had been available in cinemas everywhere until recently. He flicked listlessly through the pages. At the front was an ad for Immensee, featuring Carl Raddatz and Kristina Söderbaum, who was nicknamed “the Reich Floater” because she often embodied tragic heroines who all found a watery death in the end. Next in line was the ad for I Entrust You with My Wife, with the hugely popular actor Heinz Rühmann in the lead role, Melody of a Great City with Werner Hinz and Hilde Krahl, and then many more that Oppenheimer didn’t bother looking at.
Although most of the films were just a few months old, the photographs looked like archaeological findings from a bygone era, which had been lively and happy and had nothing to do with reality. In between the images of beautiful, happy people, Oppenheimer came across a picture folder. When he opened it, he was looking at Inge Friedrichsen’s face.
Sometimes it was a shock to see photos of people whom one had only seen as a corpse. Through the pictures, the anonymous dead changed into real people and could no longer be perceived as an abstract problem. It was only now that Oppenheimer was able to understand the complete extent of the tragedy of this case.
Inge Friedrichsen didn’t pay attention to the camera but was smiling down at a baby that seemed to be just a few days old. Her gaze shone with pride and disbelief at the miracle she cradled in her arms. Oppenheimer had seen this gaze several times in his life. It was unmistakable. Lisa had had it during the first few days following the birth of their daughter. Inge Friedrichsen had to be the mother of this baby.
“Where is the child?” Oppenheimer asked.
Mrs. Korber didn’t seem to understand. “What do you mean?” she stammered.
“Ms. Friedrichsen’s child. Where is it?”
“I say!” she called out indignantly. “She was not married! She can’t have a child. At least, I know nothing about it. If she had told me about such a thing, I would never have let her live here! This is a reputable house!”
Oppenheimer saw Inge Friedrichsen in a new light. From now on, she was a woman with a story—and a secret.
* * *
Hoffmann was already waiting for Oppenheimer when he emerged from Mrs. Korber’s house. As soon as Hoffmann saw him, he swung himself onto his motorbike, ready for another nightmarish journey through the obstacle course that had once been the streets of Berlin. Oppenheimer mustered the sidecar without enthusiasm and thought for a moment. It was only lunchtime, but without the address of the ominous liquor retailer where Inge Friedrichsen had worked, he couldn’t do much right now. He also had an urgent job to do that the SS shouldn’t find out about.
“Thank you. I won’t need you anymore today,” he said to Hoffmann. Magnanimously, he added, “Enjoy the rest of your day. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Hoffmann stared at him through his motorbike goggles without saying a word, raised two fingers to his leather cap in a farewell gesture, and started his engine. You weren’t expecting that now, were you? Oppenheimer thought when he saw his driver disappear. He was sure that Hoffmann or one of his colleagues would be back shortly to observe him. So time was of the essence. He had to get to Big Eddie and talk to him; otherwise, his plan was worthless.
Ten years ago, when he’d still been with the force, he would have known immediately where to find the little thug. Oppenheimer sincerely hoped the Berlin underworld had not changed since then.
Hurrying through Pank
ow in the direction of the borough Prenzlauer Berg, he realized to his relief that it wasn’t hard to find his way, even though the streets looked different due to the gaping holes and the bombed houses.
The small corner pub he wanted to pay a visit to was still there. As usual, the lunchtime rush was on. Oppenheimer saw many new faces among the guests, but Corpulent Carl still staunchly manned the bar. And yet, time had not failed to leave its mark on him either. His impressive twirled whiskers had disappeared; instead, his face was now embellished by the narrow mustache that Reich Chancellor Hitler, in his sideline job as a fashion icon, had made popular throughout the entire German nation. The big paunch the landlord used to carry with him had also disappeared. Maybe the fact that he had halved his body weight was down to rationing, but the hollow cheeks made Oppenheimer think he might have some stomach-related issues. Carl was in the process of polishing a beer glass and looking around the room. When he saw Oppenheimer, he paused.
“What can I get you, Inspector?” he asked when Oppenheimer approached the bar. Carl had intentionally raised his voice. As if by command, several of his guests left the premises when they heard the word inspector.
“I need to talk to Eddie.”
“Eddie? Never heard the name in my life.”
It was the same old game. In the company Carl and Eddie kept, you only gave a policeman a direct answer if it could not be avoided. Oppenheimer didn’t know why, but today, he took perfidious delight in this verbal grandstanding.
“Don’t make out you’re even dumber than you are,” he snapped back. “I know he’s a regular here. Tell me where he is, or I’ll come back with a police battalion and take the place apart.”
The threat didn’t seem to bother Carl in the slightest. However, he had satisfied the etiquette of the underworld sufficiently by not obeying a policeman without putting up some resistance and now didn’t bother messing around anymore. In his broad Berlin dialect, he said, “Ah, you mean E-Edward, Inspector? Yes, I think I have seen him here today. But I’ve no idea if he’s still here.” Suddenly, he shouted over Oppenheimer’s shoulder across the room, “Hey, Paul, can you take a look and see if E-Edward is around?”
Germania: A Novel of Nazi Berlin Page 9
