The Basel Killings

by Hansjörg Schneider

  At nine Casali came in, sat down at an empty table and waited. Hunkeler went over.

  “Delighted to see that you have time,” he said.

  “Any time for you,” Casali said. “How’s business?”

  “Business is bad. That’s why I’m here. Perhaps you can help me.”

  “You’re a state official with a permanent post, nothing can happen to you. At most you’ll be suspended, isn’t that right?”

  He lifted the espresso the waiter had brought to his lips and emptied it.

  “We of the red-light district are entrepreneurs. We are dependent on the economic situation, and that’s poor. We suffer from the fear of AIDS, we suffer from Eastern European imports. Fresh goods, stunningly beautiful students who want to earn enough to pay their university fees. They come in on a tourist visa, work here for three months, don’t register, don’t pay taxes and ruin the market. If one of our ladies insists on a condom she’s just laughed at. And then you come here to cry on my shoulder. What’s that all about?”

  He blew a speck of dust off his left cuff, in which there was a diamond.

  “Where did you get that?” Hunkeler asked.

  Casali raised his eyes and looked at him astonished, disbelieving. “My God, you’re really something,” he said softly. “I wonder why I’m wasting my time with you.”

  “Sorry,” Hunkeler said, “it just slipped out. That was really stupid.”

  Casali thought for a moment. A vertical line appeared on his forehead. “I have heard,” he said, “that they fished an Albanian out of a pond in the Petite Camargue Alsacienne. He’d been stabbed. What’s the truth about that?”

  “I heard about that as well but I don’t know any more about it.”

  “So what have you been doing all this time? Perhaps you know that the Albanian drugs mafia is penetrating the redlight district. They’re the worst kind of crooks.”

  “But you’re a crook yourself, aren’t you?” Hunkeler tried to smile as sweetly as he could.

  “That question should be pointless, actually, shouldn’t it? But I will tell you one thing. Although I’m not a pimp, I do look after my two establishments. I protect the ladies who work here. I also protect the customers, otherwise the business would be ruined. I will not tolerate these Albanian swine here. I know how to deal with them. That’s something you should be aware of, Inspector.”

  He got up and was about to leave the table. Hunkeler grasped his arm, holding him back. Casali tore himself away, a thin purple vein appearing on his temple.

  “Don’t you ever touch me again,” he said, almost inaudibly. Then he sat back down. “Ask me your questions.”

  “If you kill me, I will stay with you for ever,” Hunkeler said. “Until now you’ve always claimed you didn’t know who that was addressed to. Did you hit Barbara Amsler?”

  Casali lowered his eyes so that his black eyelashes stood out. Not a muscle in his face moved, he didn’t seem paler than usual. Despite that, it was suddenly a different face, a face of wax, of stone. He took out a cigarette, lit it with his silver lighter, blew out the smoke.

  “Why do you want to know that? Is that not my private business?”

  “I just can’t get inside the woman’s head. I’d like to understand who she was. Why she became a tart. Why she wrote such terrible things.”

  “You find those things terrible?”

  “Yes.”

  Now a trace of colour appeared in the man’s face again. Something like scorn. “I assume,” he said, “you grew up in comfortable circumstances.”

  “It was OK. More or less. I skedaddled to Paris fairly early on.”

  “With enough money in your pocket to rent one of those cosy little garrets, yes?”

  Hunkeler nodded, that was true.

  “You see,” Casali said, “we of the red-light district are a particular kind of people. Nobody who’s not one of us will ever understand us. I’m not talking about the methods by which thousands of girls from Asia or Eastern Europe are forced into prostitution. I’m talking about clean work, about honest business.”

  “I can’t imagine that Angel and Maria became whores of their own free will.”

  “Have you ever been to the Caribbean?”

  “No,” Hunkeler said.

  “You should go there sometime. Then you’d see that on the islands prostitution has a very different status from over here. There the whores aren’t despised, they’re respected. They play an important part in society. That’s also the case in Spain, as in other countries where the most valuable dowry a bride can bring is her virginity. Angel and Maria were already whores when they came here. They came because they can earn more over here. When they go back home they’ll be rich women.”

  A likely story, Hunkeler thought cynically, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Barbara Amsler was different. She was Swiss, from Schinznach Dorf, as you know. She had an unbelievable, insatiable longing for love. Her early life had been very difficult. She always had a runny nose, lived in institutions and homes, was beaten, kicked. I don’t like talking about myself, but I will say this. It was like that with me. I’ve never known my mother.”

  This Casali had a strange face. Always pale and controlled. And yet curiosity could change to coldness, coldness to scorn, scorn to sorrow.

  “When a woman comes in through the door here,” he said, “I can tell from the very first look whether she’s got what it takes to be a whore or not. I couldn’t tell you how I know that, but I can see right away what her attitude to love is. Whether she loves love, whether she hates and despises love. Whether she loves or despises herself. Some women prostitute themselves because they hate themselves. Others so that they can despise men. They’re not doing it out of love but out of hate. There are a few who, despite everything, find their great love. They want to debase themselves in the eyes of that love by prostituting themselves with other men. And they are the best whores. As it happens, the same is also true of the men who work in the red-light district. They too hate themselves, despise themselves. That’s why they strut about so proudly. They deck themselves out with pearls and diamonds. They behave in an ice-cold manner. But if their beloved dies, they howl like a lonely wolf on a cold polar night. Even if no one can hear it.”

  He sat there at the table, suddenly slumped, very small, staring at his hands beside each other on the table. He swallowed once. Then he put his hand in his jacket pocket, took out some nail scissors and trimmed his left-hand thumbnail, carefully and precisely. Putting the scissors away again, he looked at Hunkeler out of grey, hard, old eyes.

  “I’ll tell you this just once. I’m telling you because I want to help you. Barbara’s words of farewell were addressed to me. I think that with her death my life is over. She was the flower in my life, the rose. I don’t want to live without her, it’s too dreary. But there is one thing I will promise you. I won’t let one of those bastards get away with strangling my beloved. If you don’t find the murderer, I will.”

  He sat there a while longer, expectant. When Hunkeler said nothing, he got up and went over behind the bar.

  Hunkeler went down the stairs to the men’s room, stood at the urinal, put his hand against the wall and leaned his head on it. He stood there like that for a while and thought. Should he believe what he’d just heard, that she had been his great love? Had she really been the love of his life? Was a guy like Casali even capable of that? Wasn’t it all simply about a commodity called sex, which earned Casali a fortune? And what was all that about a clean business? Hadn’t he already seen Polish girls in the Singerhaus?

  There was one thing, however, that did seem credible: Casali’s threat to find Barbara Amsler’s murderer himself. And not because Casali’s life had been destroyed by Barbara’s death, but because his business was under threat. Hunkeler was still assuming Casali was a pimp. And a pimp who cannot guarantee the safety of his whores loses credibility. Casali certainly would not lack the means of finding the murderer, he’d proved tha
t several times already. He’d often been quicker and better informed than Hunkeler himself.

  He went back up the stairs. Up there, right beside the bar, was the landlady, a woman with the figure of the Mother Goddess of Malta and the face of a girl. She was always sitting there, keeping an eye on the whole of the area.

  “Please come over and sit with me for a moment,” she asked.

  Hunkeler sat down.

  “I’m still waiting for the guy who went out with Barbara that night to appear again. I’d recognize him right away, even with a different toupee, and I’d call you immediately, I’ve got your phone number. I wouldn’t be happy if Casali were to approach him himself. This is a respectable bar, I want everything to be right and proper. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

  “If I could prove,” Hunkeler said, “that Casali uses violent means to coerce his girls, I could take action against him.”

  The landlady gave him a truly sweet smile. “Casali is a good manager. He has everything here under control. You don’t find people like that very often. That’s why I pay him so well. Please just leave it be.”

  Hunkeler stood up. He gave the woman a slight bow, surprising even himself. He went across to the two writers.

  The pensioner returned with the black whore. He tried to kiss her on the lips again. She pushed him away and went behind the bar. He sat down at the table beside it and ordered a large beer. He drank it, slowly, in one go.

  The barroom had filled up by now. Tarts from the Caribbean, from Thailand, few Europeans. Men over forty, some of Hunkeler’s age and older.

  The lounge was full as well. People from Lesser Basel across the river, store assistants with their friends, Swiss from other cantons, playing cards. There was no festive atmosphere; they had Monday morning on their minds.

  At half past eleven Angel arrived. She was so beautiful that the eyes of all the men followed her as she disappeared into the barroom. Hunkeler had nodded to her, but she had paid no attention to him.

  “I know one more,” he said. “It’s by Rainer Brambach and is called ‘Salt’.

  “We need each other. We are

  the salt of the earth,

  salt, more precious than gold, more necessary,

  a single syllable, white contained in the cellar,

  lost in the Atlantic,

  in our bread, in our tears, in our sweat

  before birth or any other way, any other place,

  we need each other, salt of the earth, salt.”

  “I was there,” Federspiel said, “when he wrote that poem. We were in a bar, there was a salt cellar on the table. Brambach was looking at it all the time, as if spellbound. Then I had to go for a quick pee. When I came back, he’d written it down. In a brief moment, in one brief, precise moment, because the salt cellar was on the table.”

  Hunkeler got up and went into the barroom. Whores were sitting on high stools at the bar. The throng of men was packed round them. Caribbean music could be heard, no one was making a fuss.

  Only one person appeared to be drunk, an oldish, nondescript man who was standing beside Angel. Not tall, not short, not fat, not thin, with strangely bushy black hair. He was bawling the Caribbean song of the island in the sun, though without being able to speak English correctly. His hand went down Angel’s low-cut neckline, he slowly grasped her breast. Angel laughed, a vulgar screech such as Hunkeler would not have thought possible from her. She undid his tie, opened his shirt and stroked his right nipple.

  That was going too far for Hunkeler. He pushed his way through the men, using all his strength to get beside her, and tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Fuck off,” she said, “viejo. Estoy trabajando.”

  It sounded sharp and nasty. He looked closely at the made-up face, the purple eyeshadow, the flaky light-coloured powder, he smelled her sweat. What a disgusting guy, playing with Angel’s breasts in public. Why did she allow it? And what was that about his hair?

  He put his hand out, grabbed the man’s shock of hair and pulled – he had a toupee in his hand. A bald head appeared from underneath it. Angel let out a screech, the man picked up his beer glass and smashed it on the bar so that he was holding a sharp, pointed weapon in his hand.

  “Bastard,” he said, “you’re not getting my Angel. I’ll smash your face in.”

  Hunkeler drew back, his fists raised, ready to fight. But Casali shot between them, an ice-cold look in his eyes and a sharp knife in his hand.

  “Off you go,” he said, “or I’ll call the police. Is that what you want?”

  “He’s got a toupee,” Hunkeler said, “like the murderer. Only black, not grey.”

  “Nonsense,” Casali said, “that’s not him, it’s someone else. Clear off, or there’ll be trouble.”

  Hunkeler looked at beautiful Angel, who was rearranging her décolleté and staring at him, full of hate. He looked at the baldy, who was clutching the bar with one hand. The other was still holding the broken glass. Hunkeler threw the toupee on the floor and left.

  Outside he tried to calm down. What had been going on in there, why had he lost control like that? Had he actually fallen in love with Angel during that night, was he jealous? Nonsense, he knew that she had slept with him on Casali’s orders. Had he believed Barbara Amsler’s murderer was standing in front of him? That was a piece of bullshit too, he knew he couldn’t allow himself to treat any one of the prostitutes’ customers as a suspect. Why then had he lost his cool?

  Because he couldn’t stand all this waiting, that was why. This sitting around and lying around, this waiting for something that didn’t come.

  He could only hope that neither Casali nor the bald man would call the police. Neither of them would, of that he was almost sure. Not Casali, because he wanted to keep order himself. Nor the bald man, because he’d want to keep his visit to the brothel secret.

  Now Inspector Hunkeler was grinning cheekily to himself once again. He’d nearly had a fight in the Klingental, he thought, at his age. It had almost been a duel, with bare fists against sharp glass.

  He went down a lane to the Rhine, the water was gliding past, dark in the light of the street lamps. He would find him, the guy, of that he was sure.

  At two in the afternoon on Monday, 17 November, Hunkeler went into the Burgfelder Pharmacy. As always when he entered that kind of store, he felt embarrassed. He hated the smell, he hated the medicaments on offer, he hated the white doctors’ coats worn by those who worked there.

  A young assistant came up to him, a serious expression on her face. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I would very much like to speak to Frau Hermine Mauch.”

  “I’m afraid she’s not available at the moment.”

  She looked him straight in the eye and for a moment Hunkeler felt the appraisal of a surgeon who decides on life or death. Astonishing how quickly they learn that, he thought, and already he was stuttering a little.

  “I have…” he said, then hesitated. “I have problems with my prostate.”

  “Do you have a doctor’s prescription?”

  “No, unfortunately not.”

  “Then I would recommend pumpkin seeds. They contain an active agent that will not cure your ailment but will certainly alleviate it.”

  “What does that mean? If I feel the need to pass water there’s only one kind of alleviation. I have to pee.”

  She remained unmoved, went behind the counter and brought out a bag of pumpkin seeds. “You take a teaspoon of them every evening before going to bed.”

  “Perhaps I’ll eat them with a knife and fork. I hope that won’t reduce their alleviation effect.”

  She entered the price on the till and he paid.

  “Goodbye,” she said.

  “I would very much like to speak to Frau Hermine Mauch.”

  “I’m afraid she’s not available at the moment.”

  “Do you want me to turn the store upside down?”

  She almost lost her composure. She probably felt lik
e crying. But she stood her ground and pointed to the door. “That’s the way out.”

  Then Hermine came in from the back. She looked superb. Her ivory face was even paler than usual, her look even cooler. The white doctor’s coat gave her a dignity that immediately crushed any resistance.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I want to invite you to dinner. Out in Alsace.”

  “You know I’m in mourning.”

  “That’s the very reason why I’m inviting you.”

  She lowered her eyes, wondering what to do.

  “I’ve given you all the information I have to give,” she said. “Herr Madörin advised me not to talk to you.”

  “Advised? Or did he forbid it?”

  She put her beautiful, slim hand to her neck, those delicate, slender fingers. There was a ring on one of them, and in the ring was a pearl.

  “Where do you want to take me?” she asked.

  “To the Piste du Rhin, outside Village Neuf. It’s by the Rhine dam. If the fog isn’t too thick, you can see the lights of the ships going past.”

  She took her hand down and tried a smile. “Right, pick me up at half past seven.”

  Once outside he went up Colmarerstrasse. He grinned at his awkwardness in dealing with the assistant. He would certainly have been able to buy twice as many pumpkin seeds for half the price in a department store. Moreover, he hadn’t actually wanted to buy any pumpkin seeds. But that was just the effect of the white coats. Give them a sore finger and they’d have your whole hand off.

  He stopped at the cheese store and looked in. He could see delicious things lying around in there, around a hundred kinds of cheese, a few carefully cut slices neatly set out. Eat cheese, my son, he thought, and you’ll stay healthy. He went in and bought a piece of cheese from Mont-Soleil and some sheep’s cheese from the Franche-Comté. Then he went into Hauser’s news agency next door.

  Hauser was sitting at his laptop, writing.