kidney with a chair-leg. A couple of times men I knew from the old days stopped me in the corridor to say hallo, and how sorry they were to hear about Bruno. But mostly I got the kind of looks that might have greeted an undertaker in a cancer ward.
Deubel, Korsch and Becker were waiting for me in my office. Deubel was explaining the subtle technique of the cigarette punch to his junior officers.
'That's right,' he said. 'When he's putting the nail in his guzzler, you give him the uppercut. An open jaw breaks real easy.'
'How nice to hear that criminal investigation is keeping up with modern times,'
I said as I came through the door. 'I suppose you learned that in the Freikorps, Deubel.'
The man smiled. 'You've been reading my school-report, sir.'
'I've been doing a lot of reading,' I said, sitting down at my desk.
'Never been much of a reader myself,' he said.
'You surprise me.'
'You've been reading that woman's books, sir?' said Korsch. 'The ones that explain the criminal mind?'
'This one doesn't take much explanation,' said Deubel. 'He's a fucking spinner.'
'Maybe,' I said. 'But we're not about to catch him with blackjacks and brass knuckles. You can forget all your usual methods cigarette punches and things like that.' I stared hard at Deubel. 'A killer like this is difficult to catch because, for most of the time at least, he looks and behaves like an ordinary citizen. And with none of the hallmarks of criminality, and no obvious motive, we can't rely on informers to help us get on his track.'
Kriminalassistent Becker, on loan from Department VB3 Vice shook his head.
'If you'll forgive me, sir,' he said, 'that's not quite true. Dealing with sexual deviants, there are a few informers. Butt-fuckers and dolly-boys, it's true, but now and again they do come up with the goods.'
'I'll bet they do,' Deubel muttered.
'All right,' I said. 'We'll talk to them. But first there are two aspects to this case that I want us all to consider. One is that these girls disappear and then their bodies are found all over the city. Well, that tells me that our killer is using a car. The other aspect is that as far as I am aware, we've never had any reports of anyone witnessing the abduction of a victim. No reports of a girl being dragged kicking and screaming into the back of a car. That seems to me to indicate that maybe they went willingly with the killer. That they weren't afraid. Now it's unlikely that they all knew the killer, but quite possibly they might have trusted him because of what he was.'
'A priest, maybe,' said Korsch. 'Or a youth leader.'
'Or a bull,' I said. 'It's quite possible he could be any one of those things.
Or all of them.'
'You think he might be disguising himself?' said Korsch.
I shrugged. 'I think that we have to keep an open mind about all of these things. Korsch, I want you to check through the records and see if you can't match anyone with a record for sexual assault with either a uniform, a church or a car licence plate.' He sagged a little. 'It's a big job, I know, so I've spoken to Lobbes in Kripo Executive, and he's going to get you some help.' I looked at my wristwatch. 'Kriminaldirektor Mnller is expecting you over in VC1 in about ten minutes, so you'd better get going.'
'Nothing on the Hanke girl yet?' I said to Deubel, when Korsch had gone.
'My men have looked everywhere,' he said. 'The railway embankments, the parks, waste ground. We've dragged the Teltow Canal twice. There's not a lot more we can do.' He lit a cigarette and grimaced. 'She's dead by now. Everyone knows it.'
'I want you to conduct a door-to-door inquiry throughout the area where she disappeared. Speak to everyone, and I mean everyone, including the girl's schoolfriends. Somebody must have seen something. Take some photographs to jog a few memories.'
'If you don't mind me saying, sir,' he growled, 'that's surely a job for the uniformed boys in Orpo.'
'Those mallet-heads are good for arresting drunks and garter-handlers,' I said.
'But this is a job requiring intelligence. That's all.'
Pulling another face, Deubel stubbed out his cigarette in a way that let me know he wished the ashtray could have been my face, and dragged himself reluctantly out of my office.
'Better mind what you say about Orpo to Deubel, sir,' said Becker. 'He's a friend of Dummy Daluege's. They were in the same Stettin Freikorps regiment.'
The Freikorps were paramilitary organizations of ex-soldiers which had been formed after the war to destroy Bolshevism in Germany and to protect German borders from the encroachments of the Poles. Kurt 'Dummy' Daluege was the chief of Orpo.
'Thanks, I read his file.'
'He used to be a good bull. But these days he works an easy shift and then pushes off home. All Eberhard Deubel wants out of life is to live long enough to collect his pension and see his daughter grow up to marry the local bank manager.'
'The Alex has got plenty like him,' I said. 'You've got children, haven't you, Becker?'
'A son, sir,' he said proudly. 'Norfried. He's nearly two.'
'Norfried, eh? That sounds German enough.'
'My wife, sir. She's very keen on this Aryan thing of Dr Rosenberg's.'
'And how does she feel about you working in Vice?'
'We don't talk much about what happens in my job. As far as she is concerned, I'm just a bull.'
'So tell me about these sexual-deviant informers.'
'While I was in Section M2, the Brothel Surveillance Squad, we only used one or two,' he explained. 'But Meisinger's Queer Squad use them all the time. He depends on informers. A few years ago there was a homosexual organization called the Friendship League, with about 30,000 members. Well, Meisinger got hold of the entire list and still leans on a name now and then for information. He also has the confiscated subscription lists of several pornographic magazines, as well as the names of the publishers. We might try a couple of them, sir. Then there is ReichsFnhrer Himmler's ferris-wheel. It's an electrically powered rotating card-index with thousands and thousands of names on it, sir. We could always see what came up on that.'
'It sounds like something a gypsy fortune-teller would use.'
'They say that Himmler's keen on that shit.'
'And what about a man who's keen on nudging something? Where are all the bees in this city now that all the brothels have been closed down?'
'Massage parlours. You want to give a girl some bird, you've got to let her rub your back first. Kuhn he's the boss of M2 he doesn't bother them much. You want to ask a few snappers if they'd had to massage any spinners lately, sir?'
'It's as good a place to start as any I can think of.'
'We'll need an E-warrant, a search for missing persons.'
'Better go and get one, Becker.'
Becker was tall, with small, bored, blue eyes, a thin straw-hat of yellow hair, a doglike nose, and a mocking, almost manic smile. His looked a cynical sort of face, which was indeed the case. In Becker's everyday conversation there was more blasphemy against the divine beauty of life than you would have found among a pack of starving hyenas.
Reasoning that it was still too early for the massage-trade, we decided to try the dirty-book brigade first, and from the Alex we drove south to Hallesches Tor.
Wende Hoas was a tall, grey building close to the S-Bahn railway. We went up to the top floor where, with manic smile firmly in place, Becker kicked in one of the doors.
A tubby, prim little man with a monocle and a moustache looked up from his chair and smiled nervously as we walked into his office. 'Ah, Herr Becker,' he said.
'Come in, come in. And you've brought a friend with you. Excellent.'
There wasn't much room in the musty-smelling room. Tall stacks of books and magazines surrounded the desk and filing cabinet. I picked up a magazine and started to flick through it.
'Hallo, Helmut,' Becker chuckled, picking up another. He grunted with satisfaction as he turned the pages. 'This is filthy,' he laughed.
'Help yourselves, gentlemen,' said the man called Helmut. 'If there's anything special you're looking for, just
