Then the second nightmare in which Deep Purple had again and again pushed his paw into the blood-gushing wound in his neck, pulling out one kitten after the other and hurling them like balls against the garage walls: a symbolic scene meaning that Deep Purple's children were unwanted, and showing what the killer would have done with them if they had been born. Moreover, the zombie had raved about epoch-making treatment methods, a further reference to those gruesome experiments of the past …
I remembered what the witness, Felicity, had said: "I couldn't understand what they were talking about. But there was one thing I thought I could detect again and again in what they said: the stranger spoke with great urgency, in words laden with significance, as if he wanted to convince the one he was talking to of something …"
By no means was the murderer a psychopath running amok, but an outwardly normal individual with a sense of fairness who had been quite ready to give his victims one last chance. He had explained the situation to them in advance, and asked them not to mate with members of the race that had been set aside for breeding. Otherwise they could mate with whomever they pleased. That means that he had never had anything personal against his victims. But they had not listened to him. As soon as the bewitching song of a female in heat of the "old and new" race resounded through the district, they could no longer control their sexual urges and could think of nothing but intercourse with the willing singer. In the process, however, they endangered the murderer's breeding program that had cost him so much effort to develop, and that was something he could never tolerate ...
"I think the guy who owns this joint does something with science. Mathematics, biology, parapsychology, who knows? …" That had been Bluebeard's conjecture about Pascal's owner's profession when he had taken me to the yuppie villa for the first time. Correct, Bluebeard! The guy's profession was biology, and he had had his idol, a revolutionary biologist and a pioneer of genetics, painted on the wall of his study: Gregor Johann Mendel. But what was Karl Lagerfeld's real name?
Just once, and it wasn't so long ago, Pascal had casually mentioned his name. I exerted myself, trying to remember my many conversations with Pascal. Countless bits of dialogue rushed through my mind until I finally dug out the right segment from the depths of my subconscious:
"Ziebold, my master, has prepared fresh heart …"
Pascal had mentioned his name after I had relayed my latest information to him about ten days ago, and it had led to a heated discussion.
Ziebold … Ziebold … Ziebold …
I knew the name.
"I 'kidnapped Ziebold from the institute. At first glance he seems to have completely mistaken his profession. His fashionable clothing, changed daily, and his foppish behavior seem more appropriate for a male model than for a scientist. But when he works an uncanny transformation overtakes him, because he works like one possessed …"
Ziebold was Preterius's right-hand man in the laboratory, and had had complete knowledge of all the animal experiments almost until the horrifying end. He had known Claudandus and about his unbearable suffering. He had sympathized with the poor fellow, and the bloodcurdling experiments might well have been the reason for his leaving:
"The rats are abandoning the sinking ship. Today, Ziebold bid us adieu. He got out of giving a plausible reason for his leaving. During the sad farewell interview we held in my office, the man spoke the whole time like a book of riddles ..."
"Felidae …" Pascal had whispered yearningly during our first encounter, and his gaze had been so strange, so dreamy. "Evolution has brought forth an astonishing number of living creatures. More than a million kinds of animals live on the earth today, but none of them compel as much respect and admiration as the Felidae. Although they only include about forty subspecies, absolutely the most fascinating creatures alive belong to their group. It may sound like a cliché, but they are indeed a miracle of nature!"
Pascal had devoted himself to the exhaustive study of his kind, and presumably of all other species and their origins as well. How had he acquired this knowledge?
Ziebold! As biologist and Mendel fan, the man must have had tons of literature on the scientific background of evolution and genetics.
Just as he had secretly manipulated his owner's computer behind his back, one day Pascal surely must have stumbled upon this scientific material and then studied it intensively ...
My third nightmare: I was wandering through the district, which had turned into a heap of ruins, as if there had been a nuclear war. The dismal landscape was overrun with gigantic pea plants. Pea plants! The vegetation that had been used to prove the laws of heredity on a scientific basis for the first time. And after a giant Mendel had brought back an army of brothers and sisters from the dead and forced them to dance blasphemously with his marionette control, he had more or less confessed his true identity:
"Plant hybrid experiments! Plant hybrid experiments! The essence of the matter is hidden in the pea!" That's what he had sung in a babble, telling me the title of his scientific treatise. I, however, had been unable to interpret the dreams, and had dismissed the unmistakable signs in these visions as night terrors. An unpardonable mistake, Francis!
Even Preterius's diary contained messages that the author, without being aware of it, had set down as vague innuendos: "Since they are primarily nocturnal, they are compelled to go out at midnight. Then the city belongs to them. It must be seen to
