sang a solo the Hitler Youth song at seven o'clock. The girl's father works as an engineer at the Arado Aircraft Works in Brandenburg-Neuendorf, and was supposed to pick her up on his way home, at eight o'clock. But the car had a flat tyre and he was twenty minutes late. By the time he got to the studios Christiane was nowhere to be seen and, supposing that she had gone home on her own, he drove back to Spandau.
When by 9.30 she still hadn't arrived, and having contacted her closest friends, he called the police.'
Korsch glanced up at Illmann, and then myself. He smoothed the vain little moustache and turned to the next page in the file that lay open in front of him.
'Zarah Lischka,' he read. 'Aged sixteen, of German parents. Disappeared 6 July 1938, body found 1 August, down a drain in the Tiergarten, close to the SiegessSule. The family lived in Antonstrasse, Wedding. The father works at the slaughterhouse on Landsbergerallee. The girl's mother sent her down to some shops located on Lindowerstrasse, close to the S-Bahn station. The shopkeeper remembers serving her. She bought some cigarettes, although neither one of her parents smokes, some Blueband and a loaf of bread. Then she went to the pharmacy next door. The owner also remembers her. She bought some Schwarzkopf Extra Blonde hair colourant.'
Sixty out of every hundred German girls use it, I told myself almost automatically. It was funny the sort of junk I was remembering these days. I don't think I could have told you much of what was really important in the world other than what was happening in the German Sudeten areas the riots, and the nationality conferences in Prague. It remained to be seen whether or not what was happening in Czechoslovakia was the only thing that really mattered after all.
Illmann stubbed out his cigarette and began to read his findings.
'The girl was naked, and there were signs that her feet had been bound. She had sustained two knife wounds to the throat. Nevertheless there existed strong indications that she had also been strangled, probably to silence her. It is likely that she was unconscious when the murderer cut her throat. The bruising bisected by the wounds suggests as much. And this is interesting. From the amount of blood still in her feet, and the crusted blood found inside her nose and on her hair, as well as the fact that the feet had been very tightly bound, it is my finding that the girl was hanging upside down when her throat was cut.
Like a pig.'
'Jesus,' said Nebe.
'From my examination of the case notes of the previous two victims, it seems highly probable that the same modus operandi was applied there too. The suggestion made by my predecessor that these girls had their throats cut while they lay flat on the ground is patently nonsense, and takes no account of the abrasions to the ankles, or the amount of blood left in the feet. Indeed, it seems nothing short of negligent.'
'That is noted,' said Arthur Nebe, writing. 'Your predecessor is, in my opinion also, an incompetent.'
'The girl's vagina was undamaged and not penetrated,' continued Illmann.
'However, the anus gaped wide, permitting the passage of two fingers. Tests for spermatozoa proved positive.'
Somebody groaned.
'The stomach was flacid and was empty. Apparently Brigitte ate apfelkraut and bread-and-butter for lunch before going to the station. All food had been digested at the time of death. But apple is not easily digested, absorbing water as it does. Thus I would put this girl's death at between six and eight hours after she ate lunch, and therefore a couple of hours after she was reported missing. The obvious conclusion is that she was abducted and then later killed.'
I looked at Korsch. 'And the last one please, Herr Korsch.'
'Lotte Winter,' he said. 'Aged sixteen, of German parents. Disappeared 18 July 1938, her body found 25 August. She lived in Pragerstrasse, and attended the local grammar school where she was studying for her Middle Standard. She left home to have a riding lesson with Tattersalls at the Zoo, and never arrived. Her body was found inside the length of an old canoe in a boathouse near Muggel Lake.'
'Our man gets around, doesn't he?' said Count von der Schulenberg quietly.
'Like the Black Death,' said Lobbes.
Illmann took over once again.
'Strangled,' he said. 'Resulting in fractures of voice box, hyoid, thyroid cornua and alae, indicating a greater degree of violence than in the case of the Schulz girl. This girl was stronger, being more athletically inclined in the first place. She may have put up more of a fight. Suffocation was the cause of death here, although the carotid artery on the right side of her neck had been slashed. As before, the feet showed signs of having been tied together, and there was blood in the hair and nostrils. Undoubtedly she was hanging upside down when her throat was cut, and similarly her body was almost drained of blood.'
'Sounds like a fucking vampire,' exclaimed one of the detectives from the Murder Commission. He glanced at Frau Kalau vom Hofe. 'Sorry,' he added. She shook her head.
'Any sexual interference?' I asked.
'Because of the disagreeable odour, the girl's vagina had to be irrigated,' announced Illmann to more groans, 'and so no sperm could be found. However, the vaginal entrance did show scratch marks, and there was a trace of bruising to the pelvis, indicating that she had been penetrated and forcibly.'
'Before her throat was cut?' I asked. Illmann nodded. The room was silent for a moment. Illmann set about fixing another roll-up.
'And now another girl has disappeared,' I said. 'Is that not correct, Inspector Deubel?'
Deubel shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He was a big, blond fellow with grey, haunted eyes that looked as though they had seen too much late-night policework of the kind that requires you to wear thick leather protective gloves.
'Yes, sir,' he said. 'Her name is Irma Hanke.'
'Well, since you are the investigating officer, perhaps you would care to tell us something about her.'
He shrugged. 'She's from a nice German family. Aged seventeen, lives in Schloss Strasse, Steglitz.' He paused as his eye nicked down his notes. 'Disappeared Wednesday, 24 August, having left the house to collect for the Reich Economy Programme, on behalf of the BdM.' He paused again.
'And what was she collecting?' said the count.
'Old toothpaste tubes, sir. I believe that the metal is '
'Thank you, Inspector, I know what the scrap value of toothpaste tubes is.'
'Yes, sir.' He glanced at his notes again. 'She was reported as having been seen on Feuerbachstrasse, Thorwaldsenstrasse, and Munster Damm. Munster Damm runs south beside a cemetery, and the sexton there says he saw a BdM girl answering Irma's description walking there at about 8.30 p. M. He thought she was heading west, in the direction of Bismarckstrasse. She was probably returning home, having said to her parents that she would be back at around 8.45. She never arrived, of course.'
'Any leads?' I asked.
'None, sir,' he said firmly.
Thank you, Inspector.' I lit a cigarette, and then held the match to Illmann's roll-up. 'Very well then,' I puffed. 'So what we have are five girls, all of them about the same age, and all of them conforming to the Aryan stereotype that we know and love so well. In other words, they all had blonde hair, naturally or otherwise.
'Now, after our third Rhine maiden is murdered, Josef Kahn gets himself arrested for the attempted rape of a prostitute. In other words, he tried to leave without paying.'
'Typical Jew,' said Lobbes. There were a few laughs at that.
'As it happened, Kahn was carrying a knife, quite a sharp one at that, and he even has a minor criminal record for small theft and indecent assault. Very convenient. So the arresting officer at Grolmanstrasse Police Station, namely one Inspector Willi Oehme, decides to turn a few cards and see if he can't make twenty-one. He has a chat with young Josef, who's a bit soft in the head, and what with his honey-tongue and his thick knuckles, Willi manages to persuade Josef to sign a confession.
'Gentlemen, here I'd like to introduce you all to Frau Kalau vom Hofe. I say Frau, as she's not allowed to call herself a doctor, although she is one, because she is very evidently a woman, and we all know, don't we, that a woman's place is in the home, producing recruits for the Party, and cooking the old man's dinner. She is in fact a psychotherapist, and is an acknowledged expert on that unfathomable little mystery that we refer to as the Criminal Mind.'
My eyes looked and licked at the creamy woman who sat at the far end of the table. She wore a magnolia
