messy. And takes up too much time.’
‘But if she is the original Angel, or if she’s a true copycat, she would feel — I don’t know — unfulfilled if she didn’t emulate the ritual of the original killings.’
‘Okay,’ said Fabel. ‘So what you’re saying is that we had a revenge killer the first time round and now we’ve got someone pretending to be a copycat?’
‘There’s something else that bothers me. Women are in the main less violent than men, agreed?’
‘Agreed.’
‘That is reflected across all aspects of behaviour, including, ironically, serial killers. Less than fifteen per cent of all violent crime is committed by women. And only one in six serial killers is a woman. Of those, the vast majority use non-violent means — poisoning, more than anything else. And if they do use violence, then it tends to be smothering or strangulation. Wuornos, of course, used a gun. But the point is they don’t tend to slash, stab or bludgeon victims to death, which male serial killers do. Both the murders in the late nineties and the recent killings are extremely violent and bloody.’
‘And also highly efficient,’ said Fabel.
‘The efficiency fits the pattern. The violence doesn’t.’
‘I had a call from Ulrich Wagner, the guy at the BKA who’s helping me coordinate the setting-up of the Super Murder Commission thing. He told me that a woman has escaped from the secure state mental hospital in Mecklenburg. I’ve listed her officially as a possible for these murders. Her escape and her activities before being committed were those of a highly organised killer. On top of which she belongs to the fourth group of female serials. She’s insane. And that means all bets are off. Oh, by the way, she castrated three victims.’
‘That makes her a fit for the first series of murders. Not this.’
‘Exactly. And she was confined to the hospital for the whole duration of the first series.’
‘I can see why she may be a front runner. But there’s still something about the violence of these attacks that doesn’t fit with a female serial.’
‘So what are you saying? That we’re looking for a man dressed as a woman?’
‘No, Jan,’ said Susanne. ‘I’m not saying this isn’t a woman. But has it never occurred to you that we might not be dealing with a serial killer at all?’
‘As a matter of fact it has,’ said Fabel. He contemplated his wine, swirling it in the glass. ‘This doesn’t make any sense, I know, but bear with me… You know Jens Jespersen’s death?’
‘Of course — that’s the whole reason why Karin Vestergaard is here, isn’t it?’
‘Quite. Well, I have this feeling that his death is in some way connected with all this.’
‘But there’s no similarity, surely…’
‘I’ve been a policeman for a long time, Susanne, and one thing that I’ve learned to be suspicious about is coincidences. Wherever I see a coincidence, there tends to be a connection. And I find it one hell of a huge coincidence that Jespersen was down here looking for a female killer and we just happen to have one running around St Pauli.’
‘But we’re talking about two completely different types of killer.’
‘Are we?’ said Fabel. ‘Karin Vestergaard said that before she and Jespersen busted Goran Vuja i c six years ago he talked about this contract killer called the Valkyrie. He said she had been very effective at taking out her targets. She made some look like accidents, others like suicides or natural causes. What if Jake Westland and Armin Lensch weren’t victims of the Angel of St Pauli or the Angel Part Two…’
‘What? They were victims of a contract killer? Then why all the symbolism? Why did she tell Westland she was the Angel?’
‘Think about it. That’s exactly what she did — she told him to tell us. She injured him to exactly the right degree for him to deliver his message before he died. It doesn’t sound like an amateur, does it?’
‘So you think we’ve got someone hiding in plain sight?’
‘I think it’s a possibility. The Angel is maybe really the Valkyrie. She wants us to believe she is killing at random.’
Susanne was lost in thought for a moment. ‘There is something else that’s been bothering me…’ she said eventually. ‘And it confuses things even more. As you know, one other thing that differentiates male and female serial killers is the duration of their activities. Male serials, on average, are active for less than five years. Sometimes for only a matter of months. Female serial killers are active over a much longer period. Ten, fifteen years. Longer, maybe. It doesn’t fit with the first spate of killings.’
‘You’re saying those killings are suspect, too?’
‘Yes. But I’m not suggesting it’s the same killer. Yet another massive difference between male and female serial killers is the motive. Of the four kinds we discussed, the profit motive is by far the most common. So, if you’re right and these recent killings are the work of a professional contract killer, whether she’s a serial killer or not is simply a matter of semantics.’
10
Turning the shower-tap selector to cold, she let the chill water run over skin that protested by bristling into goose bumps. Sylvie Achtenhagen stood in the shower, arms braced against the wall, palms flat against the wet porcelain tiles. Her body was firm and youthful, and she knew it would remain so for some time to come, but, at thirty-nine, she was also aware that time was slowly and insidiously turning up the pressure on her. Where would she be in ten years’ time? By then, she would be competing with younger women. She would always be looking over her shoulder. Watching for someone taking away everything that she had worked so hard to build. Someone like her.
Someone who would make the news to find it.
When she could no longer bear the cold and she felt fully alert, Sylvie switched off the shower, wrapped the hotel bathrobe around her, went through to her hotel bedroom and twisted the top off a gin from the minibar. She was staying in one of the older Berlin hotels. It had a worn and weary grandness and the rooms had the old double doors: the inner door opening into the room, the outer opening into the hall. The windows too were the old, robust type. It all gave the hotel a feeling of belonging to an earlier age. And of being more than a little institutional.
After adding tonic to the gin Sylvie flopped down onto the vast bed and started to go through the information she had got from Wengert, the star-struck clerk at the BStU commission for Stasi files. Once she had eliminated the people who had died in the intervening period, she was left with a list of a dozen names, all connected in some way to Drescher. But, as Wengert had said, the connections could be coincidental. Drescher, or someone else with an interest, had made sure the main files were not to be found. Yet Sylvie knew that, somewhere among these dozen names, was the lead she was looking for. And, just maybe, one of them was Siegfried, the ex-Stasi scum who had sent her the photographs and Drescher’s name. She took out her notebook and transferred the four most likely names to it. She had addresses for two, a partial address for another and just a town for the fourth. She would see how easy it would be to track them down. The easier they were to find, the less likely it would be that they were Siegfried.
She had just taken out her Baedeker to check some of the addresses when her cellphone rang.
‘Hi, it’s Ivonne. I’ve got more information on Norivon, the company the latest St Pauli victim worked for.’
‘Anything interesting?’
‘Not really. It couldn’t be more boring, in fact. Norivon is an environmental waste-management company. They help companies comply with federal and EU regulations regarding waste. They make it go away, basically. But I got some new info through the contact I have in NeuHansa. She said that Armin Lensch, the guy who got wasted, was a grade-one arsehole and universally despised. Ambitious bastard, apparently, and didn’t mind treading on toes to get ahead. He was responsible for dealing with companies within the NeuHansa Group and had a reputation as an ass-kisser when it came to management.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Oh yes — this is the good bit. His little excursion into the Reeperbahn was a regular occurrence. He would go in with a bunch of others from work — none of whom could stand him, by the way — and get completely pissed and even more obnoxious than usual. Anyway, the night he was killed, he had a run-in with the law. Two plain-clothes
