The Basel Killings

by Hansjörg Schneider

  Hunkeler turned to the second page and scanned a longish article by Hauser. It ended with three questions: “Are the Basel police stuck in their own sleaze? Who will be the fourth victim? When will heads finally start to roll?”

  “As expected,” Hunkeler said. “That snoop Hauser’s not going to let an opportunity like this go begging. At least it doesn’t have a photo of Eva Căldăraru.”

  “Because they haven’t got one. Otherwise it would be there.”

  “I don’t believe they haven’t got one. They usually get everything they want. They could have had a picture of the Gypsies’ caravans in it. But they didn’t do that either.”

  “At the very least they’re making a political statement out of it: Zurich against Basel. The vigorous metropolis against the dozy, sleazy provincial town.”

  “Obviously. And they’re right about that.”

  “But Suter won’t enjoy reading that. Nor the senior prosecutor.”

  He sat down on the swivel chair in the corner and folded his arms.

  “Suter had a talk with me,” he said. “He asked me if I gave you the information.”

  “He didn’t get that from me.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I admitted it. He went very pale, was very dejected.”

  “I had to have the information,” Hunkeler said. “There was no other way.”

  “I know. He told me that Barbara Amsler’s mother’s details also had an FA. And he told me it means Federal Archives. Apparently the files of the Children of the Road are there.”

  He paused for a while. Then he spoke, his voice very quiet.

  “I’m wondering what’s so sensational about someone coming from a family of Travellers. My grandmother on my mother’s side was called Moser and she was Yenish too. I was very fond of her.”

  “Don’t start crying now. The whole business is sad enough.”

  Lüdi nodded.

  “What made you think of Garzoni?”

  “I was up at the Allschwil nature reserve a few days ago. There’s a little bench by the pond there. There was a pumpkin seed on the ground.”

  “Have you still got it?”

  “No. I ate it. This morning I was at the urologist’s. Garzoni was in the waiting room. He gave me a handful of pumpkin seeds.”

  “At least you’ll still have those?”

  “No, Edi ate them all.”

  “Who’s Edi?”

  “The landlord of the Sommereck. I bought pumpkin seeds in three different stores. We compared them, they all look the same.”

  “Have another look. Perhaps you’ve still got one.”

  Hunkeler felt in his right-hand jacket pocket. He found two seeds.

  “There you are. I got these from Garzoni.”

  “Good. We’ll compare them with those we found at the crime scene outside the Cantonal Bank. Perhaps that will give us something.”

  “OK. But we say nothing about Garzoni at the meeting. It’s still too soon.”

  Once Lüdi had left, Hunkeler called the Federal Archives in Bern and asked for Frau Hebeisen. He had to wait several minutes before he was put through to her.

  “Hebeisen.”

  “Peter Hunkeler here. I’m an inspector with the Basel CID. I assume Suter, the state prosecutor, has already spoken to you.”

  “Oh yes. I had a call this morning. There’s a huge amount going on here, you know. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.”

  “What’s keeping you so busy? The files aren’t going to run away.”

  Silence. Hunkeler waited. Then her voice had changed, had lost its Bernese charm.

  “What is this about?”

  “What it’s about is the fact that here in Basel we’re looking for someone who strangles people and slits open one of their earlobes. The files of the first victims are marked FA. We know that these documents are in the Federal Archives. The third victim is called Eva Căldăraru and she’s a Romanian Gypsy.”

  “I read about that. It’s incredible that something like that can happen in the old humanist city of Basel.”

  “I would like to have the files of three people: Barbara Amsler, born 1971; Bernhard Schirmer, born 1940; and Thomas Garzoni, born 1941.”

  “I won’t be able to give you any information on Barbara Amsler,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because she’s too young. No new cases from the aid organization were accepted after 1971.”

  “Then please look under her mother, Rosa Minder.”

  There was a pause. She was presumably thinking.

  “Why Thomas Garzoni?”

  “Because his files are also marked FA.”

  “I’m sure you will know,” Frau Hebeisen then said, “that we are only allowed to issue the files to those directly involved. And only while respecting the privacy of third parties. That means that certain names are blacked out.”

  She was a tough cookie, but presumably she had to be. Hunkeler tried to adopt as friendly a tone as possible.

  “I know. And naturally I accept that. But I would ask you to bear the following in mind: firstly, it looks as if we’re dealing with a serial killer. Secondly, the FA mark appears to play a decisive role.”

  “Right. If it looks as if it’s a murder suspect, then I assume I will have to release the files. When can you come to Bern?”

  “I can’t come to Bern,” he said. “I’m needed urgently here. I’m asking you to come to Basel, and as soon as possible.”

  “Is it so urgent?”

  He gave no answer to that.

  “If you insist,” she said. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I’m suggesting we meet tomorrow, Thursday, at midday in the Birseckerhof restaurant. That’s on Heuwaage, five minutes’ walk from the station.”

  “Right. I’ll be there.”

  Shortly before five he got a cup of coffee from the cafeteria and went with it to the meeting, which involved the restricted group. Suter was there, Dr Ryhiner, Dr de Ville, Haller, Lüdi, Madörin and, as a guest, Füglistaller, the head of the Basel Rural District CID. Hunkeler went straight over to Madörin and shook his hand. Madörin gave a brief nod, apparently pleased by the gesture, then went on sitting there, looking crestfallen.

  At five Suter opened the meeting. He was sad, he said, deeply moved. That morning he’d been to see Eva Căldăraru in Bruderholz Hospital. He’d seen her lying there in an induced coma, attached to a respirator. And he wished to take this opportunity to express his profound sympathy to the whole family. The main cause of his sadness was not the anti-Basel reporting of the Zurich gutter press, he was used to that by now. It was the awful deed itself through which a young, innocent life had been almost extinguished. It was absolutely necessary to ensure that there wasn’t a fourth victim. He was asking all of those gathered together in the group to devote their every effort to that common goal and be sure to set aside any rivalries that might exist.

  He thanked Detective Sergeant Madörin for the great commitment he had shown in the Bernhard Schirmer case. Such commitment had been necessary in that case, even though it had turned out to be a false trail. At least now that was something they knew. And at least a gang of drug dealers had been broken up, even if it had not yet been possible to apprehend the guilty parties.

  Furthermore, he was asking them not to pass on the things that were being discussed there. It was absolutely necessary to ensure that old wounds in recent Swiss history would not be opened up again.

  Then Füglistaller took the floor. He read out a report by the Basel District specialist in forensic medicine, which said that Eva Căldăraru’s injuries had only been life-threatening for a brief while, that by now it had been possible to stabilize her condition. However, it was highly likely that she would have to spend a few more days in an induced coma. After that, though, it would presumably be possible to discontinue the artificial respiration.

  As far as the forensic evidence was concerned, it was not possible to say anything precise at the moment. In part
icular, it was impossible to give any precise information as to the means used to strangle the victim. They had to be patient on that, the victim’s return to a stable condition naturally took priority. They could at least say that no traces of a struggle were found on the victim’s body. The attack had been sudden and the victim taken by surprise. In all probability her earlobe had been cut open with a small pair of slightly curved nail scissors.

  As far as forensics were concerned, Füglistaller went on, very few facts had been established. Nothing had come from the divers. As for the tracks in the snow, a few prints had been obtained. However, the snow on the path round the bank had already been stamped down, either by joggers or by the police who had been called in. Naturally there had been a wide-ranging search of the whole area. No traces indicating a struggle had been found.

  It was impossible to say where the culprit had attacked his victim. According to her mother’s statement, Eva had liked to spend time close to the water, so it at least seemed highly likely that the attack had taken place near the side of the pond.

  There was also very little available as far as witness statements were concerned. Probably of great importance was Eva’s statement that the man had had a shock of red hair. That was quite striking. She had clearly spoken not of red hair but of a shock of red hair. This could indicate that the perpetrator had worn a red wig in order to make himself unrecognizable. He was laying great emphasis on that detail because, according to the statements of some of the ladies in the Klingental, the man who had strangled Barbara Amsler might have worn a toupee. What’s more, a number of the people living in the caravans had stated that several times an oldish jogger with striking blonde hair had been on the keep-fit course, always at nine in the morning. Blonde wasn’t the same as red, but firstly the time fitted precisely, and secondly it could have been the same man wearing a blonde wig several times, the red wig just the once.

  Several witness statements were about the Căldăraru family’s dog Kaló, all agreeing that the dog had growled in a striking way when the blonde jogger ran past. The dog had gone with Eva to the pond shortly before the crime. Sometime later, clearly after the deed, it had come back with its tail between its legs. It was therefore entirely possible that Kaló knew the perpetrator.

  Very little had been learned from the man who had found Eva Căldăraru and pulled her out of the water. He had been entirely concentrating on saving the young woman and hadn’t paid attention to anything else.

  That was all the information he could give them. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very much. With the little they knew it would presumably be very difficult to draw up a profile of the offender that was in any way precise. This might be made easier with a comparative analysis of the Amsler and Schirmer murder cases. The parallels were striking. And their colleague Hunkeler was going to say something about that now.

  Hunkeler was as brief as possible. There were indeed several parallels between the Amsler, Schirmer and Eva Căldăraru cases. Firstly the strangulation, secondly the slitting of the left ear, thirdly the wearing of a wig the murderer might well have used to disguise himself. Fourthly, it was particularly notable that all three victims came from Traveller families. The perpetrator was therefore possibly a person who had something against Travellers, the Yenish, Gypsies and the Sinti. There was therefore a definite suspicion that a man was going round Basel who had pronounced and carried out his own death sentence on Travellers, marked them out by slitting their ears and was actually trying to wipe them out. This was putting it strongly, he was well aware of that. But it was justified. As his esteemed colleagues were perhaps aware, Children of the Road had been established in 1926. This so-called aid organization had the aim of wiping out not these people themselves, but their travelling way of life. To that end over six hundred Yenish children had been torn away from their parents and put in homes or with settled families. Tomorrow at lunchtime he was meeting a woman from the Federal Archives, where the files of the above-mentioned aid organization had been deposited. He hoped his discussion with her would bring some light into the darkness in which they were all groping for clues. He couldn’t say any more about that for the moment, apart from reminding them that the police had to do everything to protect the Travellers wherever they were, as the perpetrator would doubtless continue with his work. He would definitely have read in the newspaper that his most recent victim was still alive. He would come back and try again. That was the law of all serial offenders. If they were able to stop, they would never have started at all.

  There was silence in the room for a while. They were all thinking over what they’d just heard. It was a quietness of concentration, it was clear to everyone that the team would once more have to work together as a unit.

  In the corridor de Ville came over to Hunkeler and took his arm. “Mon Dieu, you talked well, Hünkelé,” he said. “I’d no idea Switzerland had had its own problems with Travellers.”

  “No,” Hunkeler said, “Switzerland hasn’t had problems with Travellers. It’s had problems with itself. Because it can’t stand its own foreignness.”

  “Comme partout, hélas. People can’t stand their own smell. By the way, I have compared the pumpkin seeds. They’re all alike as two peas. You can’t use them to prove anything, so you’ll have to find another clue.”

  *

  At nine that evening Hunkeler went down Mittlere Strasse, heading for the town centre. The föhn had relaxed its grip, it had become colder again. It was overcast.

  In one of the little front gardens he saw a rose bush with three open yellow flowers. They’d survived the recent frost, perhaps it hadn’t been that cold in the town. He wondered whether to cut one off and take it with him. He didn’t bother.

  He went past the university library, where two thousand years of philosophy were stored. From Heraclitus to Plato, from Spinoza to Kant. He had read something of those men, he’d listened to lectures there on the light of knowledge, on tolerance. But things were just as de Ville had said. People couldn’t stand their own smell, which was why they couldn’t stand the smell of others either.

  On Petersplatz he heard two screech owls. They were up there in the elms, perhaps a hundred yards from each other. He wished he could understand their language, the way Francis of Assisi had been able to. But how could he understand the language of the birds when he couldn’t even understand the language of his fellow human beings? And then there were pitch-black crows perched up there. They probably wanted to sleep during the night and regarded the screeching owls as troublemakers.

  He went down Totengässlein to the Hasenburg and looked in through the large front window. He saw a few people he knew in there, drinking pals from earlier when they could still make a night of it without batting an eyelid. He would have liked to join them and forget the sadness for a while. But he continued on his way to the Singerhaus and went up to the first floor.

  There was nothing on that evening. Apart from a naked woman on the dance floor, nothing was moving. Three men were at a table with an ice bucket, Angel and Maria la Guapa at the bar, Casali beside them.

  Hunkeler sat down at the little table in the corner and ordered a glass of Bordeaux from Ismelda. They didn’t have any, only a local red from Maisprach. Hunkeler was happy with that.

  The dancer had gone, the music had stopped. Only the spotlight continued to turn. Then Casali came over to his table.

  “What can you do,” he said, “it’s Monday, and in November there’s not much going on here anyway. I could just as well close the place.”

  He waited to see if Hunkeler would say anything. But he remained silent.

  “I understood what you meant,” Casali said, “a week ago yesterday over there in the Klingental. The guy was indeed repulsive. But we can’t always choose our customers. Naturally, I didn’t report it.”

  Hunkeler nodded. Casali blew a speck of dust off his left cuff; he had a ruby in it today.

  “Sometimes, as you know, we have to put up with a police officer, witho
ut them even paying. Which is against our business philosophy. But beggars can’t be choosers.”

  What was up with the guy? Was he trying to provoke him? That wasn’t so easy with Hunkeler, who was quietly taking a sip of Maispracher.

  “By the way,” Casali said, “word has got round that there’s a man at work who’s strangling women. It’s said that he likes hanging around in the red light district. I read that in the Zurich rag. He’s said to wear a red wig sometimes.”

  “That’s wrong. It’s not there. And it’s not in the Basler Zeitung either.”

  “Then I suppose I must have dreamed it.”

  Casali smiled his subtle smile. He took out a cigarette and clicked his lighter on.

  “I just wonder what’s actually going on. It’s completely unacceptable for a man to strangle a woman and throw her into a pond. We men are here to protect women. Or do you see things differently?”

  “I’m wondering,” said Hunkeler, “what you know and what you don’t. Where did you get that about the red wig?”

  “So it is true.” Casali shook his head in disgust. Then he stubbed out his cigarette. “That’s what I wanted to know.”

  “Just be careful what you do, Casali. Private revenge is not allowed. Tell me what you know.”

  The music started up again, a lady appeared on the dance floor once more. Strangely enough, she was wearing a dirndl, which she began to take off.

  “I don’t know,” Casali said, “what problems the men here in Greater Basel have. We have a decent range of things on offer, night after night. It works across the river in Lesser Basel, the men there have normal reactions. In Greater Basel they’re clearly too inhibited. They’ve got enough money to spend the night in bed with one of our ladies. But they prefer to go round in a red wig and slit earlobes open.”

  “But the guy who killed Barbara Amsler approached her in Lesser Basel. Or was that not the case?”