The Pale Criminal

by Philip Kerr

  ‘Two other victims, then,’ I admitted.

  ‘But surely that’s just a coincidence. Listen, I can tell you that I’ve thought of doing it myself, you know, paying someone to look for my daughter. After all, you still haven’t found a trace of her, have you?’

  ‘That’s true. But it may be more than just a coincidence. That’s what I’d like to find out.’

  ‘Supposing that he is involved. What could he hope to gain from it?’

  ‘We’re not necessarily talking about a rational person here. So I don’t know that gain will come into the equation.’

  ‘Well, it all sounds very dubious to me,’ she said. ‘I mean, how did he get in touch with these two families?’

  ‘He didn’t. They got in touch with him after seeing his newspaper advertisement.’

  ‘Doesn’t that show that if he is a common factor, then it’s not been through his own making?’

  ‘Perhaps he just wants it to look that way. I don’t know. All the same I’d like to find out more, even if it’s just to rule him out.’

  She crossed her long legs and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Will you do it?’

  ‘Just answer this question first, Kommissar. And I want an honest answer. I’m tired of all the evasions. Do you think that Emmeline can still be alive?’

  I sighed and then shook my head. ‘I think she’s dead.’

  ‘Thank you.’ There was silence for a moment. ‘Is it dangerous, what you’re asking me to do?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then I agree.’

  Now, as we sat in Vogelmann’s waiting-room in his offices on Nürnburgerstrasse, under the eye of his matronly secretary, Hildegard Steininger played the part of the worried wife to perfection, holding my hand, and occasionally smiling at me smiles of the kind that are normally reserved for a loved one. She was even wearing her wedding-ring. So was I. It felt strange, and tight, on my finger after so many years. I’d needed soap to slide it on.

  Through the wall could be heard the sound of a piano being played.

  ‘There’s a music school next door,’ explained Vogelmann’s secretary. She smiled kindly and added: ‘He won’t keep you waiting for very long.’ Five minutes later we were ushered into his office.

  In my experience the private investigator is prone to several common ailments: flat feet, varicose veins, a bad back, alcoholism and, God forbid, venereal disease; but none of them, with the possible exception of the clap, is likely to influence adversely the impression he makes on a potential client. However, there is one disability, albeit a minor one, which if found in a sniffer must give the client pause for thought, and that is short-sightedness. If you are going to pay a man fifty marks a day to trace your missing grandmother, at the very least you want to feel confident that the man you are engaging to do the job is sufficiently eagle-eyed to find his own cuff-links. Spectacles of bottle-glass thickness such as those worn by Rolf Vogelmann must therefore be considered bad for business.

  Ugliness, on the other hand, where it stops short of some particular and gross physical deformity, need be no professional disadvantage, and so Vogelmann, whose unpleasant aspect was something more general, was probably able to peck at some sort of a living. I say peck, and I choose my words carefully, because with his unruly comb of curly red hair, his broad beak of a nose and his great breast-plate of a chest, Vogelmann resembled a breed of prehistoric cockerel, and one that had positively begged for extinction.

  Hitching his trousers on to his chest, Vogelmann strode round the desk on big policeman’s feet to shake our hands. He walked as if he had just dismounted a bicycle.

  ‘Rolf Vogelmann, pleased to meet you both,’ he said in a high, strangulated sort of voice, and with a thick Berlin accent.

  ‘Steininger,’ I said. ‘And this is my wife Hildegard.’

  Vogelmann pointed at two armchairs that were ranged in front of a large desk-table, and I heard his shoes squeak as he followed us back across the rug. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture. A hat stand, a drinks trolley, a long and battered-looking sofa and, behind it, a table against the wall with a couple of lamps and several piles of books.

  ‘It’s good of you to see us this quickly,’ Hildegard said graciously.

  Vogelmann sat down and faced us. Even with a metre of desk between us I could still detect his yoghurt-curdling breath.

  ‘Well, when your husband mentioned that your daughter was missing, naturally I assumed there would be some urgency.’ He wiped a pad of paper with the flat of his hand and picked up a pencil. ‘Exactly when did she go missing?’

  ‘Thursday, 22 September,’ I said. ‘She was on her way to dancing class in Potsdam and had left home – we live in Steglitz – at seven-thirty that evening. Her class was due to commence at eight, only she never arrived.’ Hildegard’s hand reached for mine, and I squeezed it comfortingly.

  Vogelmann nodded. ‘Almost a month, then,’ he said ruminatively. ‘And the police–?’

  ‘The police?’ I said bitterly. ‘The police do nothing. We hear nothing. There is nothing in the papers. And yet one hears rumours that other girls of Emmeline’s age have also disappeared.’ I paused. ‘And that they have been murdered.’

  ‘That is almost certainly the case,’ he said, straightening the knot in his cheap woollen tie. ‘The official reason for the press moratorium on the reporting of these disappearances and homicides is that the police wish to avoid a panic. Also, they don’t wish to encourage all the cranks which a case like this has a habit of producing. But the real reason is that they are simply embarrassed at their own persistent inability to capture this man.’

  I felt Hildegard squeeze my hand more tightly.

  ‘Herr Vogelmann,’ she said, ‘it’s not knowing what’s happened to her that is so hard to bear. If we could just be sure of whether or not–’

  ‘I understand, Frau Steininger.’ He looked at me. ‘Am I to take it then that you wish me to try and find her?’

  ‘Would you, Herr Vogelmann?’ I said. ‘We saw your advertisement in the Beobachter, and really, you’re our last hope. We’re tired of just sitting back and waiting for something to happen. Aren’t we, darling?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, we are.’

  ‘Do you have a photograph of your daughter?’

  Hildegard opened her handbag and handed him a copy of the picture that she had earlier given to Deubel.

  Vogelmann regarded it dispassionately. ‘Pretty. How did she travel to Potsdam?’

  ‘By train.’

  ‘And you believe that she must have disappeared somewhere between your house in Steglitz and the dancing school, is that right?’ I nodded. ‘Any problems at home?’

  ‘None,’ Hildegard said firmly.

  ‘At school, then?’

  We both shook our heads and Vogelmann scribbled a few notes.

  ‘Any boyfriends?’

  I looked across at Hildegard.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I’ve searched her room, and there’s nothing to indicate that she had been seeing any boys.’

  Vogelmann nodded sullenly and then was subject to a brief fit of coughing for which he apologized through the material of his handkerchief, and which left his face as red as his hair.

  ‘After four weeks, you’ll have checked with all her relations and schoolfriends that she hasn’t been staying with them.’ He wiped his mouth with his handkerchief.

  ‘Naturally,’ Hildegard said stiffly.

  ‘We’ve asked everywhere,’ I said. ‘I’ve been along every metre of that journey looking for her and found nothing.’ This was almost literally true.

  ‘What was she wearing when she disappeared?’

  Hildegard described her clothes.

  ‘What about money?’

  ‘A few marks. Her savings were untouched.’

  ‘All right. I’ll ask around and see what I can find out. You had better give me your address.’

  I dictated it for him, and added the te
lephone number. When he’d finished writing he stood up, arched his back painfully, and then walked around a bit with his hands thrust deep into his pockets like an awkward schoolboy. By now I had guessed him to be no more than forty.

  ‘Go home and wait to hear from me. I’ll be in touch in a couple of days, or earlier if I find something.’

  We stood up to leave.

  ‘What do you think are the chances of finding her alive?’ Hildegard said.

  Vogelmann shrugged dismally. ‘I’ve got to admit that they’re not good. But I will do my best.’

  ‘What’s your first move?’ I said, curious.

  He checked the knot of his tie again, and stretched his Adam’s apple over the collar stud. I held my breath as he turned to face me.

  ‘Well, I’ll start by getting some copies made of your daughter’s photograph. And then put them into circulation. This city has a lot of runaways, you know. There are a few children who don’t much care for the Hitler Youth and that sort of thing. I’ll make a start in that direction, Herr Steininger.’ He put his hand on my shoulder and accompanied us to the door.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hildegard. ‘You’ve been most kind, Herr Vogelmann.’

  I smiled and nodded politely. He bowed his head, and as Hildegard passed out of the door in front of me I caught him glancing down at her legs. You couldn’t blame him. In her beige wool bolero, dotted foulard blouse and burgundy wool skirt, she looked like a year’s worth of war reparations. It felt good just pretending to be married to her.

  I shook Vogelmann’s hand and followed Hildegard outside, thinking to myself that if I were really her husband I would be driving her home to undress her and take her to bed.

  It was an elegantly erotic daydream of silk and lace that I was conjuring up for myself as we left Vogelmann’s offices and went out into the street. Hildegard’s sexual appeal was something altogether more streamlined than steamy imaginings of bouncing breasts and buttocks. All the same, I knew that my little husband fantasy was short on probability since, in all likelihood, the real Herr Steininger, had he been alive, would almost certainly have driven his beautiful young wife home for nothing more stimulating than a cup of fresh coffee before returning to the bank where he worked. The simple fact of the matter is that a man who wakes alone will think of having a woman just as surely as a man who wakes with a wife will think of having breakfast.

  ‘So what did you make of him?’ she said when we were in the car driving back to Steglitz. ‘I thought he wasn’t as bad as he looked. In fact, he was quite sympathetic, really. Certainly no worse than your own men, Kommissar. I can’t imagine why we bothered.’

  I let her go on like that for a minute or two.

  ‘It struck you as perfectly normal that there were so many obvious questions that he didn’t ask?’

  She sighed. ‘Like what?’

  ‘He never mentioned his fee.’

  ‘I dare say that if he thought we couldn’t have afforded it, then he would have brought it up. And by the way, don’t expect me to take care of the account for this little experiment of yours.’

  I told her that Kripo would pay for everything.

  Seeing the distinctive dark-yellow of a cigarette-vending van, I pulled up and got out of the car. I bought a couple of packs and threw one in the glove-box. I tapped one out for her, then myself and lit us both.

  ‘It didn’t seem strange that he also neglected to ask how old Emmeline was, which school she attended, what the name of her dancing teacher was, where I worked, that sort of thing?’

  She blew smoke out of both nostrils like an angry bull. ‘Not especially,’ she said. ‘At least, not until you mentioned it.’ She thumped the dashboard and swore. ‘But what if he had asked which school Emmeline goes to? What would you have done if he’d turned up there and found out that my real husband is dead? I’d like to know that.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have.’

  ‘You seem very sure of that. How do you know?’

  ‘Because I know how private detectives operate. They don’t like to walk right in after the police and ask all the same questions. Usually they like to come at a thing from the other side. Walk round it a bit before they see an opening.’

  ‘So you think that this Rolf Vogelmann is suspicious?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Enough to warrant detailing a man to keep an eye on his premises.’

  She swore again, rather more loudly this time.

  ‘That’s the second time,’ I said. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Why should anything be the matter? No indeed. Single ladies never mind people giving out their addresses and telephone numbers to those whom the police believe to be suspicious. That’s what makes living on one’s own so exciting. My daughter is missing, probably murdered, and now I have to worry that that horrible man might drop round one evening for a little chat about her.’ She was so angry she almost sucked the tobacco out of the cigarette paper. But even so, this time when we arrived at her apartment in Lepsius Strasse, she invited me inside.

  I sat down on the sofa and listened to the sound of her urinating in the bathroom. It seemed strangely out of character for her not to be at all self-conscious about such a thing. Perhaps she didn’t care if I heard or not. I’m not sure that she even bothered to close the bathroom door.

  When she came back into the room she asked me peremptorily for another cigarette. Leaning forwards I waved one at her which she snatched from my fingers. She lit herself with the table lighter, and puffed like a trooper in the trenches. I watched her with interest as she paced up and down in front of me, the very image of parental anxiety. I selected a cigarette myself, and tugged a book of matches from my waistcoat pocket. Hildegard glanced fiercely at me as I bent my head towards the flame.

  ‘I thought detectives were supposed to be able to light matches with their thumbnails.’

  ‘Only the careless kind, who don’t pay five marks for a manicure,’ I said yawning.

  I guessed that she was working up to something, but had no more idea of what it could be than I had of Hitler’s taste in soft-furnishings. I took another good look at her.

  She was tall – taller than the average man, and in her early thirties, but with the knock-knees and turned-in toes of a girl half her age. There wasn’t much of a chest to speak of, and even less behind. The nose was maybe a bit too broad, the lips a shade too thick, and the cornflower-blue eyes rather too close together; and with the possible exception of her temper, there was certainly nothing delicate about her. But there was no doubting her long-limbed beauty which had something in common with the fastest of fillies out at the Hoppegarten. Probably she was just as difficult to hold on the rein; and if you ever managed to climb into the saddle, you could have done no more than hope that you got the trip as far as the winning-post.

  ‘Can’t you see that I’m scared?’ she said, stamping her foot on the polished wood floor. ‘I don’t want to be on my own now.’

  ‘Where is your son Paul?’

  ‘He’s gone back to his boarding-school. Anyway, he’s only ten, so I can’t see him coming to my assistance, can you?’ She dropped on to the sofa beside me.

  ‘Well I don’t mind sleeping in his room for a few nights,’ I said, ‘if you really are scared.’

  ‘Would you?’ she said happily.

  ‘Sure,’ I said, and privately congratulated myself. ‘It would be my pleasure.’

  ‘I don’t want it to be your pleasure,’ she said, with just a trace of a smile, ‘I want it to be your duty.’

  For a moment I almost forgot why I was there. I might even have thought that she had forgotten. It was only when I saw the tear in the corner of her eye that I realized she really was afraid.

  18

  Wednesday, 26 October

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Korsch. ‘What about Streicher and his bunch? Are we still investigating them or not?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But until the Gestapo surveillance throws up something of interest to us,
there’s not a lot we can do in that direction.’

  ‘So what do you want us to do while you’re looking after the widow?’ said Becker, who was on the edge of allowing himself a smile I might have found irritating. ‘That is, apart from checking the Gestapo reports.’

  I decided not to be too sensitive about the matter. That would have been suspicious in itself.

  ‘Korsch,’ I said, ‘I want you to keep your eye on the Gestapo inquiry. Incidentally, how’s your man getting on with Vogelmann?’

  He shook his head. ‘There’s not a lot to report, sir. This Vogelmann hardly ever leaves his office. Not much of a detective if you ask me.’

  ‘It certainly doesn’t look like it,’ I said. ‘Becker, I want you to find me a girl.’ He grinned and looked down at the toe of his shoe. ‘That shouldn’t be too difficult for you.’

  ‘Any particular kind of girl, sir?’

  ‘Aged about fifteen or sixteen, blonde, blue-eyed, BdM and,’ I said, feeding him the line, ‘preferably a virgin.’

  ‘That last part might be a bit difficult, sir.’

  ‘She’ll have to have plenty of nerve.’

  ‘Are you thinking of staking her out, sir?’

  ‘I believe it’s always been the best way to hunt tiger.’

  ‘Sometimes the goat gets killed though, sir,’ said Korsch.

  ‘As I said, this girl will have to have guts. I want her to know as much as possible. If she is going to risk her life then she ought to know why she’s doing it.’

  ‘Where exactly are we going to do this, sir?’ said Becker.

  ‘You tell me. Think about a few places where our man might notice her. A place where we can watch her without being seen ourselves.’ Korsch was frowning. ‘What’s troubling you?’

  He shook his head with slow distaste. ‘I don’t like it, sir. Using a young girl as bait. It’s inhuman.’

  ‘What do you suggest we use? A piece of cheese?’

  ‘A main road,’ Becker said, thinking out loud. ‘Somewhere like Hohenzollerndamm, but with more cars, to increase our chances of him seeing her.’