Brother Grimm

by Craig Russell

  In the city of Lübeck there was a beautiful and wealthy widow, whom I shall call Frau X. Frau X had herself borne no child, but found herself the guardian of Imogen, her late husband’s daughter by a previous marriage. Imogen was every inch a match for her stepmother’s beauty but, of course, possessed a wealth that in her stepmother diminished daily: youth. Now it must be made clear that not I nor anyone else had the slightest reason to believe that Frau X was envious of Imogen, or was in any other way ill-disposed towards her. Indeed, Frau X seemed to be most solicitous and affectionate towards her ward and treated her as if she were her own child. But this is an inconsequence: it sufficed that I had found a beautiful stepmother and daughter, one of the most common motifs in the fairy tale. As Imogen was not dark of hair, I could not use her to re-enact Snow White, but she did have lustrous golden hair about which I believe she was quite vain. I had found my Rapunzel! I ensured that I had no contact with either Frau X nor Imogen which might incriminate me in the future and set about planning the execution of my re-enactment.

  Over the preceding months, I had acquired large quantities of laudanum, which I obtained in small increments by visiting various physicians on my travels with a specious complaint of sleeplessness. I again noted my subject’s movements and selected the best opportunity to strike. Imogen took a walk each day in the wooded park to the north of the town. Being a young lady of some breeding, she was always accompanied by a female companion. I neither know nor care about the identity of Imogen’s chaperone, but she was the type of dull, homely companion that women of beauty habitually choose to contrast with their own pulchritude. I found myself loathing the companion for the preposterousness of her headgear: a ridiculously cheerful bonnet which, one can only assume, she chose in the mistaken belief that it mitigated the homeliness of her features.

  There was a stretch of path where the two walkers were temporarily concealed from others in the park (on this particular day, the unpromising sky had deterred many from promenading) and which fortuitously allowed an exit from the park completely concealed by trees. I approached the women from behind and let swing, with some relish, at the companion’s ludicrously ornamented head with a heavy iron bar I had secreted in my cloak. I was in such a rush to subdue Imogen that I could only take the most passing satisfaction in the manner in which I had forced the ridiculous bonnet of the companion through her smashed skull. Imogen began to scream, however, and I was forced to deliver a sharp jab to her jaw. This concerned me greatly, because any damage to her beauty would compromise the success of my re-enactment. I picked her up and carried her into the trees, just far enough to be out of sight. Then I dragged the dead companion into the woods. A pool of blood had gathered about her ugly head and smeared on the paving as her bonnet separated from her shattered cranium and grey matter spilled forth. I am thoroughly ashamed to admit that I uttered a rather foul curse as I dragged her from view. Gathering some well-leaved branches, I returned to try to sweep up the mess, but succeeded only in spreading the stain further. I knew I could not avoid discovery of the companion’s body – most likely imminent discovery – but that concerned me not: what I had to achieve was the swift removal of Imogen from the park without detection. I had left a hansom carriage at the far side of the woods and I hoisted Imogen over my shoulder and carried her with what haste my burden and the terrain would permit. Imogen had begun to stir by the time I placed her in the interior of my carriage and I quietened her by forcing some laudanum down her throat.

  I had dressed as a coachman and, after securing Imogen in the cabin, I climbed atop the hansom and made my departure from the scene in an unhurried manner. I had succeeded with my abduction without being observed. Indeed, it was by great fortune that the companion’s body was not found within minutes, as I had feared, but much later that day, when a search had been undertaken by townsfolk concerned for the safety of the missing ladies.

  Prescient of the need for a place of some concealement, I had secured separate lodgings in Lübeck from those of my brother: a small house on the outskirts of the city. After dark-fall I bundled Imogen, to whom I shall henceforth refer as ‘Rapunzel’, into the house and carried her down to the basement. There I bound her securely, applied some more laudanum, and gagged her lest she rouse sufficiently in my absence to alert some passer-by with her screams.

  I then joined my brother for a rather splendid meal of vension ‘direkt von der Jagd’. I allowed myself a moment of amusement at the idea of consuming flesh ‘straight from the hunt’ when I had come ‘straight from the hunt’ myself. I found, however, that when I thought of the bounty of flesh my chase had yielded, I experienced a manly disturbance and placed the thought from my mind.

  On returning to the lodgings, I found my beautiful Rapunzel had stirred from her slumbers. Rapunzel or Sleeping Beauty? The quandary had occurred to me before: these tales are essentially variations, rather than separate stories. In both, my brother had insisted we ‘civilise’ the account somewhat, having Sleeping Beauty awoken by a kiss. In the original we had found, she is actually discovered deep in her hundred-year slumber by a married King, not a Prince, who knows her carnally, several times, while she sleeps. It is only after she gives birth to twins and one, attempting to suckle, sucks the splinter from her thumb that she is awoken from her enchanted slumber. Again, with the Rapunzel tale, the young Princess in her tower is not so chaste as later versions, including that which we recorded, would suggest. A veil is again drawn over how Rapunzel comes by two children after her trysts with the Prince. Therein lies a morality of an earlier time, when Christian values held less or no sway. Both Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty, in their original forms, bear children from liaisons non-marital …

  Fabel put the book down. He remembered what Heinz Schnauber had said about Laura von Klosterstadt’s secret pregnancy and abortion. If the killer was following either authentic, original versions of the fairy tales or Weiss’s book, then it added to her ‘suitability’ as a victim. But it had been a closely guarded secret: if the killer knew about it then he must have had some intimate knowledge of the von Klosterstadt family. Or he must have been the father. Fabel read on.

  In the interests of verisimilitude to the fable, I therefore was compelled to violate my Rapunzel, but only once she was asleep. She looked at me with pleading eyes which made her singularly unattractive. When I removed her gag she began to plead for her life. I found it interesting that, being a woman of breeding, she did not seek to plead for her virtue, which I sensed she would have surrendered freely were it to assure her survival. I made her drink more laudanum and the tranquillity and beauty of her face and form were restored. Once I had removed her clothing I became intoxicated with the beauty of her body and I admit to having indulged in her flesh several times as she slept. I then placed a silk cushion gently over her face. There was no bitter last struggle for life and she gave up her spirit.

  Again Fabel broke from the book, this time to pull out the von Klosterstadt autopsy report: far from exhibiting any signs of sexual trauma, there were indications that Laura might have been celibate for some time. He returned to Die Märchenstrasse.

  The following night I returned to the park and laid my Rapunzel beneath the ornamental tower at its centre. The moon shone brightly and illuminated her beauty. I brushed out her lustrous hair, which shimmered like white gold in the moonlight. I left her there, my Rapunzel, for others to find and recall the old tales.

  I had considered my re-creation complete, and was well satisfied with it. It came as a great and welcome surprise when it emerged some days later that Frau X had become the subject of rumour and speculation about her role in her stepdaughter’s death. Such was the suspicion – though none was felt officially – that not only was her social standing amongst the elite of Lübeck completely destroyed, the woman was often assaulted with jeers from the common folk when she appeared on the street. Proof positive not only that the prejudice of the peasant lives on in the so-called civilised world, but also of the essentia
l truth of these old tales.

  Fabel closed the book, leaving his hand to rest on its cover as if he expected it to yield more through osmosis. He thought beyond the glossy cover, the publisher’s commercial product beneath his hand, to the moment of creation. He imagined the menacing bulk of Weiss hunched over his laptop, the too-black eyes glittering, in that light-absorbing study of his. He pictured the wolf/werewolf sculpture, probably crafted by Weiss’s insane brother, caught in its silent snarl as Weiss committed his serial murders on paper.

  Fabel stood up and pulled on his Jaeger jacket, switching off his desk light. Hamburg sparkled at him through his office window. Out there one and a half million souls slept, while others explored the night. Soon. The next killing, Fabel knew, would be soon.

  45.

  11.00 a.m., Monday, 19 April: Altes Land, southwest of Hamburg

  Fabel waited.

  He was beginning to feel that almost drunk sensation that comes with too little sleep. He could have done without the early-hours drive back to Hamburg from Norddeich. Susanne had decided to stay with Gabi and his mother, making the most of her two days off before taking the train back on Wednesday.

  The killer was stretching them. They now had so many concurrent murders to deal with, forensics to process and interviews to conduct that Fabel had given Maria total control of the Ungerer murder inquiry. It was not a decision that had sat easily with him. He valued Maria above all the members of his team, perhaps even above Werner. She was a startlingly intelligent woman who combined a methodical approach and an eye for detail with speed. But he still was not convinced she was ready for this. Physically, she was fit. She had even been given a clean bill of health psychologically. Officially. But Fabel could see something in Maria’s eyes that he hadn’t seen before. He couldn’t specify it, but it bothered him.

  Unfortunately, at the moment, he had no choice but to hand the Ungerer case file over to Maria. There were lots of compromises being made: he had Anna back on duty, even though she could no longer hide the winces of pain if something rubbed against her injured thigh; he had Hermann working full-time in the Mordkommission, despite him not being fully KriPo-trained; and he had two Sexual Crime SoKo members drafted in to bolster his team.

  Still Fabel waited. There were two things that he could have predicted on his drive to the Altes Land: the first was that the von Klosterstadts weren’t the type to answer their own door, the second was that they would keep him waiting. The last time he had been here, the rawness of Laura’s death had ensured him an immediate audience. This time, the blue-business-suited butler who answered the door conducted him to a reception hall in which he had now sat for twenty minutes. Half an hour was his limit. Then he would go looking for them.

  Margarethe von Klosterstadt emerged from the drawing room that Fabel had been in during his last visit. She closed the doors behind her: clearly, this interview was going to be conducted in the hall. He stood up and shook hands with her. She gave a polite smile and apologised for keeping him waiting; the smile and the apology both lacked sincerity. Frau von Klosterstadt wore a dark navy suit which emphasised her narrow waist. The expensive, high-heeled cream court shoes tensed her calf muscles and Fabel again had to push from his mind how sexually attractive he found her. She indicated that he should sit again and she took the seat next to him.

  ‘What can I do for you, Herr Kriminalhauptkommissar?’

  ‘Frau von Klosterstadt, I have to be frank with you. There are elements to this inquiry that lead us to believe that your daughter’s death may have been the work of a serial murderer. A psychotic. Someone who has a twisted, perverted perspective. Part of that perspective means that details of his victims’ lives – specifics that may seem remote or insignificant to us – take on an especial meaning.’

  Margarethe von Klosterstadt arched one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows inquisitively, but Fabel could detect nothing more than patient politeness in the glacial eyes. Fabel paused for a heartbeat before continuing.

  ‘I have to ask you about your daughter’s pregnancy and subsequent abortion, Frau von Klosterstadt.’

  The patient politeness disappeared from the pale blue eyes; an Arctic storm welled up somewhere deep within them but did not, yet, break through.

  ‘What, might I ask, leads you to ask such an offensive question, Herr Kriminalhauptkommissar?’

  ‘You don’t deny that Laura had an abortion?’ Fabel asked. She did not answer but held him in her steady gaze. ‘Listen, Frau von Klosterstadt, I am making every effort to deal with these matters as discreetly as possible, and it would be much easier if you were to be direct with me. If you force me to, I will get all kinds of warrants to go stomping about in your family’s affairs until I get to the truth. That would be, well, unpleasant. And it could be more public.’

  The Arctic storm now raged and rattled against the panes of Margarethe von Klosterstadt’s eyes, yet still did not break through. Then it was gone. Her expression, her perfect poise, her voice remained unchanged, yet she had surrendered. Something she was clearly not used to. ‘It was just before Laura’s twenty-first birthday. We sent her to the Hammond Clinic. It’s a private clinic in London.’

  ‘How long before her birthday?’

  ‘A week or so before.’

  ‘So it was almost exactly ten years ago?’ Fabel’s question was more to himself. An anniversary. ‘Who was the father?’

  There was an almost imperceptible tensing of her posture. Then a smile flickered across her lips.

  ‘Is that really necessary, Herr Fabel? Do we really need to go into all of this?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Frau von Klosterstadt. You have my word that I will be discreet.’

  ‘Very well. His name was Kranz. He was a photographer. Or rather he was an assistant to Pietro Moldari, the fashion photographer who launched Laura’s career. He was a nobody then, but I believe he’s done rather well for himself since.’

  ‘Leo Kranz?’ Fabel recognised the name immediately. But he didn’t associate it with fashion shoots. Kranz was a well-regarded photojournalist who had covered some of the world’s most dangerous war-zones over the last five years. Margarethe von Klosterstadt read the confusion in Fabel’s face.

  ‘He gave up fashion photography for press work.’

  ‘Did Laura have anything to do with him? Afterwards, I mean.’

  ‘No. I don’t think they had been particularly involved. It was an unfortunate … episode … and they both put it behind them.’

  Did they? wondered Fabel. He remembered Laura’s austere, lonely villa in Blankenese. He doubted very much if Laura von Klosterstadt had left anything of her sadness behind her.

  ‘Who knew about the abortion?’ he asked.

  Margarethe von Klosterstadt didn’t answer for a moment. She regarded Fabel silently. Somehow she managed to sprinkle just enough disdain into that look to make Fabel feel uncomfortable, but not enough for him to actually confront her. He thought idly of Möller, the pathologist, who always tried to achieve this level of arrogant haughtiness: in comparison, he was a clumsy amateur; Frau von Klosterstadt was world-class at it. Fabel wondered if she practised on the servants.

  ‘We’re not in the habit of sharing details of our family affairs with the outside world, Herr Fabel. And I am certain that Herr Kranz had absolutely no interest in making his involvement widely known. As I say, it was a family matter and it was kept within the family.’

  ‘So Hubert knew about it?’

  Another frosted silence, then: ‘I didn’t feel that was necessary. Whether Laura told him or not, I don’t know. But I’m afraid they were never close as brother and sister. Laura was always distant. Difficult.’

  Fabel kept his expression blank. It was clear who had been the favoured child in this family. He remembered the contempt with which Heinz Schnauber had spoken about Hubert. Two things had become clear to him: first Heinz Schnauber really was the closest thing Laura had known to family, and second, this interview was going to yield not
hing. And it was going to yield nothing because, once again, he was asking questions of an acquaintance, not a mother. He looked at Margarethe von Klosterstadt: she was elegant, classically beautiful and one of those women whose age only seemed to intensify their sexiness. In his mind, he overlaid the image of Ulrike Schmidt, the prematurely aged occasional prostitute and regular drug user, whose skin and hair had dulled. Two women who were so different they could have belonged to different species. But one thing united them: their profound lack of knowledge of their own daughters.

  Something dull and heavy dragged at Fabel as he made his way back to his car: a leaden, gloomy sadness. He looked back at the vast, immaculate house and thought of a little girl growing up there. Isolated. Dislocated from any sense of real family. He thought of how she had escaped this gilded prison merely to build one of her own, high on the Blankenese banks of the Elbe.

  Fabel had to admit that her killer could not have made a more appropriate choice for his fairy-tale princess. And he felt certain now that her killer, at some point, must have had some kind of contact with her.