The Murderer in Ruins Read online

  ‘Especially as they’ve had rather a lot on their hands over the past few years,’ Maschke added. ‘Insofar as the hospitals are still standing and the doctors still alive.’

  The chief inspector shot his colleague a warning glance. It was irritating enough to have an officer from the occupation forces in the investigation group. But there was no need to provoke him.

  But MacDonald gave no indication he had even noticed. ‘And what if the doctors can’t help us?’

  ‘We’ll bring out posters with photographs of the victim and put them up around the city. Even if that might be a bit…’ Stave hesitated, searching for the right word, ‘…indelicate,’ he finished the sentence rather lamely.

  The Brit raised an eyebrow questioningly, so Stave explained: ‘One way or another we need to do something to get some leads from the population in general. It’s possible that somebody knew the victim; in fact it’s highly likely. And I don’t want the citizens of Hamburg to find out by chance that there is a murderer out there. That could cause unrest.’

  ‘That’s why I’ve been seconded to the investigation,’ MacDonald said with disarming openness. ‘The British authorities are also keen to see this investigation concluded as quickly and discreetly as possible.’

  ‘I understand,’ Stave coughed, and put out the cigarette he had only half smoked, something noted with amazement by Maschke who had long since smoked his down to his fingertips. ‘We don’t have a lot to go on,’ he acknowledged, ‘just some very basics.’ He was reassured to see that the British officer was sitting up straight in his chair, paying keen attention. Maschke on the other hand just sat staring at the glowing tip of Stave’s cigarette lying in the ashtray. He knows what’s coming, Stave guessed.

  ‘Well-kempt appearance, clean hands with no marks, good skin, well enough fed – our victim is hardly working class, and I also doubt if she’s arrived with some column of refugees from the east over the past few weeks. Nor do I think she’s a DP. Their bodies usually bear traces of their previous…’ Once again he found himself looking for the right word. ‘…difficulties.’

  ‘Difficulties?’ MacDonald queried.

  Stave sighed. There was no point beating about the bush. Not in a team of investigators, least of all when they were investigating a murder like this.

  ‘No tattooed concentration camp number,’ he explained. ‘Apart from the scar from her operation, our victim bears no signs of having been beaten, kicked or severely undernourished. Obviously it’s possible she could be Polish or Ukrainian brought into the Reich to work. Maybe she was allocated to some farmer somewhere in Schleswig-Holstein or Lower Saxony or to some factory. And then, come 1945, she decided it was better to remain here as a DP than to go back to a home in the hands of Uncle Joe Stalin. But as we’ve noted, her hands are not those of a worker.’

  ‘The daughter of some well-to-do household,’ MacDonald speculated. All of a sudden it seemed the officer was enjoying the investigation, Stave thought to himself.

  ‘Possibly. But daughters who’ve disappeared from well-to-do households tend to be reported as missing fairly soon. Of course, it’s perfectly possible that someone will report her missing in the next few hours. But if we don’t receive such a report by tonight, then at least we won’t have to make a painful trip out to some villa in Blankenese.’

  ‘So who could the victim be?’

  ‘A “nightingale of the street”,’ Maschke suggested, having finally given up his anguished concentration on Stave’s smouldering cigarette.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not an expression I know from my German lessons,’ MacDonald admitted.

  Maschke laughed out loud. ‘A hooker. A whore. A woman of easy virtue. A pros-ti-tute. That’s why I’m part of the team, isn’t it?’

  Stave nodded. He was coming to understand why so many officers didn’t like Maschke. ‘She could be taken for one, superficially,’ the chief inspector reluctantly admitted. ‘The circumstances of death too; there are certainly grounds enough to take Maschke’s usual customers to task.’

  ‘Sorry, what does that mean?’

  ‘It means we’re off to the Reeperbahn,’ Stave said, with a sour smile.

  MacDonald gave a gleeful grin. ‘My colleagues down at the Officers’ Club won’t believe I got to do that in an official capacity.’

  ‘Always worth winning a war,’ Maschke said under his breath. Softly enough that Stave wasn’t sure the Brit had understood him.

  ‘I have to warn you, Lieutenant, that the gentlemen on the Reeperbahn won’t exactly be delighted to see us. And, I’m afraid, nor will the ladies.’

  Then he called his secretary in. ‘We need copies of the photograph. Just the victim’s head, enough to be recognisable. And not too grisly, if possible.’

  ‘How many?’ Erna Berg asked, looking at the British officer rather than Stave.

  So much for my authority, Stave said to himself. ‘A dozen for Inspector Müller of uniform. He should get a few officers together to send round the hospitals and stick the photo under the nose of every surgeon they can find. The vitamin had an appendectomy and maybe one of the gentlemen will recall performing the operation. Then one more copy for the print works. We need 1,000 posters,’ he hesitated for a second, then changed his mind and said, ‘no, make it just 500. I’ll do the words later. Tell the relevant people on the beat police that we’ll need their men to put up posters the day after tomorrow. And I’ll need a further three copies for these two gentlemen and myself.’

  ‘Consider it done, boss,’ Erna Berg said and hurried out.

  MacDonald watched her go and then, when he saw Stave was looking at him, made a show of looking all around the room. ‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ he said.

  Stave gave him a long smile. Then he took a stub of pencil and a sheet of paper from his desk drawer and said, ‘Right, I’m going to write the wording for the poster. We’ll meet up outside the main entrance in half an hour. To take a stroll down the Reeperbahn.’

  Exactly 29 minutes later Stave was standing in the entrance hall by the huge doors. He was hungry and cold, and there were a thousand things he would rather do than question a load of pimps and whores.

  MacDonald was already waiting for him. Much to Stave’s annoyance, Maschke came running down the steps two minutes late, his coat flapping behind him. He wondered what his colleague from the vice squad had been doing for the past half hour.

  When they got outside, MacDonald turned to Stave and in astonishment asked, ‘But where’s your car?’

  ‘Petrol is rationed for the police too, Lieutenant. We usually go on foot or take the tram. It’s only a stroll from here to the Reeperbahn.’

  ‘If I’d known, we could have used my jeep,’ MacDonald said, clicking his tongue in sympathy.

  ‘Oh yes? We’d have driven down the Reeperbahn from whorehouse to whorehouse in a British jeep,’ Maschke grunted, ‘with every British patrol saluting us.’

  Stave shook his head in annoyance. Then he handed each of them a photograph of the victim, still reeking of chemicals.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  He pulled up his coat collar. It was now early afternoon and he hadn’t had anything to eat since his miserable little breakfast. An icy wind was still whistling through the ruins. Stave felt like he was being beaten up by it. MacDonald on the other hand, in his pressed uniform and rosy pink cheeks, looked as if was going out for a pleasant afternoon stroll – which, Stave supposed, he probably was. Maschke had his second English cigarette clamped between his lips and walked a few paces behind, as if he wasn’t with them.

  On the dirty wall of an apartment building were yellow posters, some as big as blankets. ‘Military Government – Germany/Law No. 15’ Stave read as they walked past. Bilingual proclamations of the occupation. As a matter of routine, Stave scanned them. There was nothing new. Posters like these, a few handwritten notes, chalk scribbles on bare wall. These are the newspapers we’ve earned for ourselves, Stave thought. The actual local press
appeared just once or twice a week, a few thin sheets; there wasn’t enough paper for more. He’d heard that a German radio station was going to be allowed to start up in the coming weeks. The newsreels in the cinemas depended on film supplied by the British or the Americans.

  How else could you reach ordinary citizens other than by putting things up on walls? The military government stuck their proclamations all over buildings or on the few Plakatsäule advertising columns that had survived: new rations, curfew extensions, new laws – no German could say he hadn’t known And the Germans themselves, out of necessity, copied their new masters: posted notices up on the brick walls seeking information about missing relatives, swap offers, looking for accommodation. And we police join in, Stave thought, with our photos of criminals and murder victims on our ‘wanted’ posters.

  They had got as far as Heiligengeistfeld, a vast, filthy square with no shelter from the freezing winds. Two giant bunkers stood out against the sky, massive heaps like temples of some ancient, extinct and dark religion. A makeshift sign indicated that the ground floor of the bunker housed the editorial of ‘Northwest Magazines’. On the other bunker was another sign, only slightly larger, which read, ‘Scala’. Underneath was the current programme: 1001 Women. The bunker now housed a revue theatre, boasting a thousand seats and skimpily dressed girls in fantasy costumes made out of coloured cellophane. Stave found an establishment of the sort in a place like this particularly perverse. At the moment, however, it was totally deserted.

  Even Hamburg’s amusement mile was a ghost town at present. The light was fading but nobody had electricity for neon signs. Several of the bars and clubs had been bombed: the Panoptikum, the Volksoper and the Café Menke all lay in ruins. Barkeepers had set up shacks made of planks of wood and salvaged tiles amidst the rubble, tawdry dens in which men who still hadn’t had enough of shooting could practice their skills firing crossbows at wooden targets. But nobody was out to try their luck right at this moment.

  There were, however, a lot of people about; men, women, children, washed-out coats strolling about apparently aimlessly on the street at the corner of Reeperbahn and Hamburger Berg, wandering around in circles, looking up at the sky. Black marketeers. As the three investigators approached, the crowd drifted away from them, as if they carried the plague. Stave cursed under his breath: it’s that bloody British uniform. On his own he could have wandered around unnoticed. But under the circumstances he could only watch as bottles of schnapps or cartons of cigarettes disappeared beneath coats while women and children turned their backs and a few lads disappeared down the alleyways. The only ones who actually came up to them were two young girls, about 18, Stave reckoned, not even proper adults. Blond, polecat furs around their necks, easy smiles, only a few dozen metres away, coming straight towards them.

  The chief inspector walked a few paces down the Reeperbahn, more out of sorts than ever. The David police station had survived unscathed, to the annoyance of Hamburg pimps. The Zillertal had survived the hail of bombs, as had a few other establishments, Onkel Hugos Speisrestaurant, the Alcazar and a few dozen metres further towards Talstrasse, the Kamsing, Hamburg’s only Chinese restaurant, which even these days offered fiery soups and exotically spiced rice, though from God knows what ingredients. But the thought of the Kamsing made Stave feel hungry. He made a decision.

  ‘There’s no point in this,’ he told the other two. ‘The streetwalkers will come up and talk to us, but everybody else clears off.’

  ‘Better than the other way round,’ MacDonald said, smiling at the two girls.

  I’m going to lose it with him here in broad daylight, if I don’t take care, Stave thought.

  ‘We’ll split up,’ he ordered. ‘Lieutenant, you and I will go into the local establishments and quiz the clientele. Maschke, you stay out on the street and question the girls and their pimps. We’ll meet up in two hours in the David police station.’

  At least that way he was getting the British officer out of the limelight. He was fed up with everybody staring at them. MacDonald would stick out just as much in the bars and strip clubs, but nobody can do a runner quite so easily there. Maschke could question the girls and pimps more inconspicuously by himself. It also meant he would have to spend a couple of hours freezing outside while Stave and the Englishman could at least warm themselves up, going round the bars and clubs. Stave smiled to himself for the first time in hours.

  They nodded farewell to Maschke, then turned to walk away, before the two blondes got to them. One of the girls gave them a disappointed look, the other seemed as if she wanted to shout something a lot less friendly at them. But then both opened their eyes wide.

  ‘Bonjour mesdemoiselles,’ Maschke purred. ‘Vous avez la bonne chance de trouver un vrai cavalier.’

  Stave realised the girl had recognised him as being from the vice squad. Too late, darling. And he wondered on the side where his colleague had learnt to speak such good French. He watched as Maschke pulled out his police ID and shoved it under the girls’ noses. The he dragged MacDonald over to the door of the Zillertal and pushed it open.

  The air was stale with the sour aroma of old, cold tobacco, cheap schnapps and cabbage soup. Most of the tables were empty. At one four old men with red faces sat with water glasses containing some clear liquid. Two tired-looking girls at the next table were pretending not to hear the suggestive comments being made towards them, preferring to warm their skinny hands on steaming enamel bowls of cabbage soup. There were two young men at a table to the rear of the room, in expensive overcoats – from before the war certainly – and good shoes. They were smoking American cigarettes and glanced briefly at Stave and MacDonald, then turned away, whispering to one another. Black marketeers.

  The landlord was at the bar. He wasn’t old yet, but he had been fat once and now the skin of his cheeks sagged in folds. He quickly removed a few unmarked bottles from the counter, and hid them in a flash. The sale and distribution of alcohol was strictly regulated, but everybody knew that the barkeepers of St Pauli offered smuggled or home-made schnapps as ‘mineral water’.

  Not my problem, Stave told himself, and went up to the landlord, who was looking even paler than he had done when they came in.

  He pulled out his ID, then held the photo of the dead girl in front of his face: ‘Ever seen her before?’

  The man looked at him, then at the ID, and then MacDonald, as if he hoped the latter might save him. But the Brit was no longer smiling; he was staring back at the man coldly, Stave realised. Like a hangman, he thought to himself, and suddenly wondered if it wasn’t just because of MacDonald’s good German that he had been delegated to the investigation. Perhaps he had other skills. Eventually the landlord gave up hoping and turned his concentration to the photo, looking slightly ill, then shook his head.

  ‘Don’t know her. Who is she?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Stave said, turning away.

  ‘Let’s ask the lads with the cigarettes,’ he whispered to MacDonald. ‘But keep an eye on the two ladies supping away at their soup. We don’t want them to do a runner on us.’

  ‘What if they go to the ladies’?’

  ‘You go with them.’

  Stave had reached the table at the back of the room. The two black marketeers still had their backs to him, even though they had obviously noticed him long ago.

  Stave pulled up a chair without asking them and sat down. MacDonald stayed standing a few steps behind him.

  Eventually the chief inspector looked the two lads in the eyes: they were clean-shaven, well fed, with hard eyes and sarcastic smiles on their faces. Lads barely 20 years old, but they had already seen everything thanks to the war. Murderous brats. Stave had to suppress the urge to arrest them then and there. Instead he just pulled out, as before, his ID and the photo, showing both to the pair of them.

  ‘Do you know this young lady?’ he asked politely.

  For a second or two, the pair were so taken aback that the grins fell from their faces. They exp
ected different questions from a policeman: about cigarettes, money, medicines; the usual interrogation faced by black marketeers. Stave watched them visibly relax.

  ‘No,’ the taller one said, adding, ‘sorry.’

  His companion took a few seconds longer, but he too then shook his head. ‘Not one of the girls on the Reeperbahn, that’s for sure, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘A customer, perhaps?’ He didn’t need to add, on the black market.

  The two of them quickly exchanged glances, then decided they would answer the question properly: ‘It’s not all that easy to remember faces, if you know what I mean,’ the taller one said. ‘So I can’t be 100 per cent certain, but I don’t think I’ve seen her.’

  ‘She was certainly pretty,’ the other one remarked, as if that had anything to do with it.

  Stave closed his eyes. He believed the two black marketeers, and also the landlord – this wasn’t going well. ‘Thanks,’ he said amicably. As he got to his feet he realised how tired he was. He would have preferred to stay there, drinking a round or two with the two of them. Absurd.

  ‘We’ll ask the girls, then we’re out of here,’ he told MacDonald.

  ‘What about the boozers over there?’

  ‘Fine, you go talk to four heroes. I’ll talk to the girls.’

  ‘I’d have preferred it the other way around,’ whispered MacDonald, but he gave a little smile and walked over to the men with the glasses of ‘water’.

  ‘What’s up then, Master of the Watch?’ the older of the two asked as Stave came over.

  She’s been watching me, he thought, and knows I’m no punter. Smart girl. He studied the girls for a moment or two. The older girl grinned cheekily back at him, the younger looked embarrassed. They were early or mid-twenties. About the same age as the murder victim.

  ‘Your colleague there looks keen,’ the older one said, pointing towards the window.

  Stave followed her gaze and spotted Mashcke towering over some elderly miserable-looking prostitute.