by Val McDermid
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“If you operate in the straight world and you don’t deliver what you promise, you maybe lose your job or your marriage, but mostly nothing truly terrible happens to you. But if you operate in our world and you let people down, sooner or later it costs you more than you’re willing to pay. You sell fake drugs on street corners and you’re going to take a beating, either from ripped-off customers or from other dealers. You double-cross your mates on a bank job and you’re looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life.
“Take Colin. If he did the dirty on one deal, chances are he did it on others too. And look what happened to him. Head blown off on a dirt track in the middle of the Essex marshes. Now, I don’t want that to happen to me, so when I do business with people, I do it honestly. And I expect the same from them.”
Tadeusz had drawn his arm back halfway through her speech. He was looking at her with a strange intensity, as if she was giving voice to his most deeply held beliefs. “You’ve obviously thought a lot about this,” he said.
“I’m a survivor,” she said simply.
“I can see that.”
“Look, Tadzio, I’m a smart woman. I could have made a reasonable living in the straight world. But I didn’t want to make a reasonable living. I wanted to make a lot of money. Enough money to stop when I was young enough to enjoy it. So I found a way to work outside the system. And I’m bloody good at it. I try not to mix with other criminals unless I have to, I cover my tracks and I deliver on my promises. Now, are we going to do business?”
He shrugged. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“On who killed Colin Osborne.” He raised his eyebrows.
She hadn’t expected that, and she was afraid her face showed how startled she was by the question. “What do you mean?”
“Colin’s death was very opportune for you. And nobody seems to know what exactly happened to him. No one has claimed responsibility. Usually, when one villain takes out another, they’re eager to capitalize on it. Respect, fear. You know how it works. So, Caroline, did you kill Colin?”
She didn’t know what the right answer was. He could be bluffing. He could know more than he was letting on, and this was a test to see how far she’d go to earn his good opinion. He might want her to be the killer, as evidence that she was prepared to be ruthless. Or he might be put off dealing with her if she claimed the kill, uneasy that her way of dealing with the competition might rebound on him in the worst way. “Why would I do that?” she stalled.
“To muscle in on his trade.”
She shrugged. “Why would I need to take that route? All I’d have to do would be to come to you with a better deal. I suspect you could supply enough bodies to keep us both happy.”
“You didn’t, though, did you? You didn’t come near me till Colin was well out of the way.” There was a hard edge to his voice now, and his eyes had lost their warmth. “That makes me suspicious, Caroline. That, and the fact you look so like Katerina. OK, Colin never met Katerina. But if he was halfway good at what he did, he would have checked me out. He would have seen photographs of Katerina at least. And then, when she died, maybe he thought this was the chance to set up some kind of sting using you to get to me. Only, you decided to eliminate the middle man.”
Carol was unnerved. He was wrong in almost every detail, but he was wrong in the right sort of way. Suddenly, they’d shifted from easy companionship to the edgy realm of suspicion. She didn’t know what to do.
She set her glass down and stepped away from him, folding her arms across her chest. “Let me off this boat.”
He frowned. “What?”
“I don’t have to listen to this shit. I came here in good faith to do business. I’m not going to stand here and take accusations of murder and conspiracy from you. Tell your man to let me off this boat, now. Unless you want me to start screaming?”
Tadeusz looked amused. “You’re overreacting.”
Carol let the flare of anger show in her face. “Don’t you dare patronize me. You’re just another gangster, Tadzio. You’ve got no right to come the moral high ground with me. I don’t have to account for anything to you. And I certainly don’t want to do business with somebody who thinks I do. This is a waste of my precious time. Now let me off the boat, please.”
He took a step back, clearly unsettled by the vehemence of her reaction. He said something to the helmsman, and the boat veered towards a narrow wharf where a couple of launches were moored. “Caroline, I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said as she moved to the side of the boat nearest the wharf.
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” The boat pulled alongside and, without waiting for the helmsman to tie up, Carol jumped ashore. “Don’t call,” she threw over her shoulder as she marched up the wharf towards a flight of stone steps. Her whole body was trembling as she reached street level. She checked that he wasn’t following her, then stepped to the kerb to hail a cab.
She hoped she hadn’t wrecked the operation. But she hadn’t been able to think of anything else to do. His suspicions had come out of a blue sky, and she’d allowed herself to sink into complacency, so she hadn’t been quick enough on her feet to talk him round. She sank back into the cab seat and prayed she’d got it right.
The small plane from Bremen to Berlin was configured with a single seat on one side of the aisle, which meant Tony could look with impunity at the crime scene pictures Berndt had handed him at police headquarters in Bremen. He took them out of the envelope with some trepidation. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing the mutilated corpse of a woman he had been acquainted with. There was always something bizarrely intimate about poring over photographs of the dead, and he didn’t want such familiarity with someone he had known in life.
In the event, it wasn’t as bad as he had anticipated. The harsh glare of the flash had made the images of Margarethe’s body impossible to connect with the lively woman he remembered. He studied the photos in detail, wishing he had brought a magnifying lens with him. To the naked eye, there seemed to be no significant differences between the body of Margarethe and Geronimo’s other victims. They were all laid out in similar fashion, their clothes cut away to form an improbable table cover beneath them, the incongruous wound left by the scalping almost identical.
He was about to give up his perusal of the photographs when something caught his eye. There was something odd about one of the ligatures that bound Margarethe’s limbs to the table legs. He peered harder, trying to make out the details. The knot looked different from the others.
Tony felt a faint surge of excitement. It might not seem much but, at this stage of an investigation, any deviation from the pattern carried potentially huge significance. And in this instance, it could be all the more important because this was the crime that had been interrupted. Under the stress provoked by that intrusion, Geronimo might have let his guard slip enough to provide a chink in his boilerplate security system.
He was in a fever of impatience to pick up his laptop and get back to Petra’s. Of course, the taxi from Tempelhof seemed to take forever, finding every traffic hold-up in central Berlin. He let himself into the empty flat and made straight for the study and Petra’s scanner. While he was waiting for his computer to ready itself, he took out the magnifying glass from his laptop case and studied the picture more closely. He went back through to the dining area and pulled out the other crime scene photographs. A few minutes with the magnifying glass and his heart rejoiced. He’d been right. All the knots on the ligatures appeared to be straightforward, common or garden reef knots, apart from the single exception in that one crucial Bremen photograph.
He returned to the study and plugged the scanner into his laptop’s USB port. Minutes later, he was looking at an enlarged and enhanced section of the key picture. Tony knew nothing about knots, only that this one was different from the others. He connected to the internet and linked to a search engine, typing in
onds, he had a list of websites devoted to the craft of knot-tying. The first site he tried offered him a link to an on-line newsgroup of knot enthusiasts. Tony logged on to the newsgroup and posted a message:
I’m a knot ignoramus, and I need some help in identifying a knot from a photograph, also info on where it’s likely to be used and by whom. Is there anyone out there that I can send the pic to as a JPEG file?
It would take at least a few minutes to get a response, always supposing there was a knot anorak on-line at this precise moment. To calm his urgent excitement, Tony went through to the kitchen and made himself a pot of coffee. For the first time in hours, he wondered how Carol was getting on. He remembered their tentative arrangement to meet at some point, but he didn’t know when he would be able to get away now he had the bit between his teeth.
When he got back to the desk, he sent her an e-mail, suggesting they meet later that evening. There was a message in his in-box from someone who signed himself Monkey’s Fist. Tony knew enough to recognize the name of a particular knot, and he opened the message with a glimmer of hope.
Hi, Knot Newbie. Send me your JPEG and I’ll see what I can do.
Within ten minutes, Tony was looking at a second message from his new correspondent.
Easy peasy, Newbie. It’s not a common knot, but it’s not really outré. This is a Buntline Hitch. It was traditionally used by sailors to tie a line to the bottom of a square sail. It’s basically a clove hitch tied around itself. It’s more secure than the more common two half hitches, but it has a tendency to jam under pressure. You wanted to know what sort of person would use it, right? Well, like I said, it’s a sailor’s knot. So I guess they’re the most likely people to use one…
Tie one on for me.
Monkey’s Fist.
Tony sat back and stared at the screen, his eyebrows lowered in concentration. After a few minutes, he got to his feet and scanned the bookshelves that lined one wall of Petra’s study. He found what he was looking for on the bottom shelf, along with other oversized volumes. Tony opened the atlas and thumbed through the pages. But there wasn’t enough detail for what he wanted.
Impatient, he turned back to the computer and the search engine. First, he looked at city plans of all the murder sites. Then he studied various physical maps of the countries where the murders had taken place. Finally, he disconnected from the internet and returned to his profile.
8. There is one crucial variation in the murder of Margarethe Schilling. We know the killer was interrupted in the commission of this crime, and any such variations therefore assume great significance since, under stress, we revert to what comes most naturally to us. In this instance, the deviation from pattern takes the form of the knot on the ligature binding the left ankle to the table. All other knots are simple reef knots, involving no specialist knowledge. But the odd one out is a bunt-line hitch, a relatively uncommon sailor’s knot.
It is worth noting that all the cities where the murders were committed have significant access to waterways. Heidelberg and Köln are on major commercial navigable rivers—the Neckar and the Rhine. Although Leiden is no longer a commercial port, it has an extensive canal network at its heart and is close to the convergence of several major routes at Rotterdam. Given my earlier conclusion that our killer can move around Europe with ease, and given his use of a knot that most lay people would have no knowledge of, I’m prepared to go out on a limb here and suggest that it is a strong possibility that the killer is a commercial sailor, perhaps a crew member on a barge. Of course, he may simply be someone with a nautical background who is employed in another area, but I think the combination of factors gives us a strong likelihood of him being a waterman.
Suggested action: I have no idea what records are kept of barge traffic, but I would recommend, if it is possible, that an attempt be made to ascertain whether any particular vessels were in the general area of all of these murders on the relevant dates.
Tony indulged in a moment of satisfaction. He had a good feeling about this. It was, he thought, finally getting somewhere. He didn’t know how far Petra and her Dutch friend would be able to take the case, given their limited resources. But at least he felt confident that he was pointing them in the right direction. He glanced at his watch. He had no idea when she’d be back, and he was feeling tired and grimy from his day’s travelling. He decided to head back to his own apartment, leaving a note for Petra asking her to call him when she had the chance. With luck, they could sit down later and thrash out what he’d gleaned so far. And if the gods were really smiling, she might have news for him too, if the Europol scheme had borne fruit.
Marijke frowned at the notes she’d made. Hartmut Karpf, the detective from Köln, had decided to call her directly as well as sending his initial notes via Europol because there were discrepancies between their two cases that he wanted to discuss. “I’ve spoken to my colleagues in Heidelberg and Bremen, and it’s not that I doubt we’re dealing with the same man,” he’d said. “But I thought you should know that I think we’re looking at a serious escalation here.”
“I appreciate you calling,” she’d said. “So, what exactly do you have?”
“You want the whole story?”
“Everything you have, from the beginning.”
The rustle of paper down the phone, then he spoke. “OK. Dr. Marie-Thérèse Calvet, aged forty-six. Senior lecturer in experimental psychology at the University of Köln. She didn’t turn up for work this morning, and her secretary couldn’t get a reply from her home number. She was due to give a seminar, so one of her colleague was enlisted to stand in for her. But the slides that accompanied the seminar were locked in Dr. Calvet’s office. So the colleague borrowed the master key from the janitor and let himself into her office. Dr. Calvet was lying naked and dead, tied to her desk.” Karpf cleared his throat. “Her colleague was not exactly helpful. He threw up all over the crime scene.”
“If it’s any consolation to you, it probably made no difference. This killer doesn’t leave us anything to work with in forensic terms,” Marijke said consolingly.
“I gathered as much. Our scene-of-crime officers were very disgruntled. Anyway, for the record, Dr. Calvet’s body was on its back, arms and legs spread out, each tied to a leg of the desk near the floor. Four standard reef knots, incidentally. Her clothes were underneath her, they’d been cut away once she was tied down. And it was obvious that her pubic hair had been cut away, along with the skin.”
“So far, this is all according to his pattern,” Marijke said.
“Except of course that this is the first time he has killed someone inside their university,” Karpf corrected her. “All the other victims were found in their homes.”
“That’s true,” Marijke said, mentally kicking herself for her stupidity. But at least now she knew she was dealing with a detective who was as sharp as this inquiry needed. “What else did you find?”
“I demanded an urgent postmortem. Dr. Calvet sustained two blunt trauma head wounds, at least one of which would have been enough to knock her out for a while. There were bruises to her throat consistent with manual strangulation.”
“That’s new,” Marijke confirmed.
“The cause of death, however, was drowning. A tube of some sort had been forced into her throat and water poured down it. As with the other cases, I believe. But the really significant difference here is that Dr. Calvet was raped vaginally before she was killed.”
“Oh shit,” Marijke breathed. “That’s bad. That’s very bad.”
“I agree. Killing’s no longer enough for him.”
There had been little more to say. Marijke had promised to send Karpf a full report on the murder of Pieter de Groot, and he had assured her that all the relevant material from his case would be sent immediately via Europol. The one thing Marijke hadn’t shared was what she was going to do next. She opened up her e-mail program and began to compose a message. Escalation could change a profile dramatically. Dr. Hill needed to know what
she had learned as soon as possible. Marijke might not know much about serial killers, but she did know that when anyone as controlled as this killer appeared to be losing it, life could become very cheap indeed.
27
The private room looked as if it had been modelled on a nineteenth-century hunting lodge. Wood panelling covered the walls, relieved only by heavy oils of rural landscapes. A stag’s head was mounted on one wall, a wild boar’s on another, the glass eyes glittering in the candlelight. A log fire blazed at the centre of an ingle-nook fireplace flanked by a pair of leather club chairs. In the middle of the room was a small circular table, blazing brilliant with crystal and silver and dazzling white napery. But it was all an elegant fake.
A bit like me, Carol couldn’t help thinking. She hadn’t expected to see Tadeusz again so soon after her abrupt departure from his boat. But within an hour of her return to the apartment, she’d opened her door to a bouquet of flowers so large it completely obscured the delivery woman. The card read, I’m sorry. My manners are atrocious. I’ll call you soon—please don’t hang up. Tadzio.
The relief was physical. Her shoulders dropped and her back muscles unclenched. She hadn’t blown it after all. Luckily, the reaction she’d invented had proved to be the correct one to disarm him. When he called, he managed to be graciously apologetic without grovelling. And so she’d agreed to his dinner invitation. She’d have liked to have talked strategy with Tony, but he was out of reach. She’d have to make do with a late-night debrief.
To reach the private room, they’d taken a lift to the seventeenth floor of one of the modern skyscrapers in Potsdamer Platz and walked through the reception area of a modern restaurant. Crossing the threshold had been an entry into another world. Carol couldn’t help a bubble of laughter escaping her lips. “It’s absurd,” she said.
Tadeusz beamed with delight. “I hoped you’d think so. I can’t take it seriously, but the food is exceptional, and I think it’s an experience one should have at least once.”