The Carnival Master

12.

While Scholz went into the kitchen to get himself a beer and make Fabel a coffee, Fabel laid the photographs of both victims side by side on the coffee table: images in life and in death.

‘I was talking to this anthropologist before I came down here,’ he called through to the kitchen. ‘He was an expert on the ideal of female beauty through the ages. Not so much what is beautiful but what we regard as beautiful. There was a time when these two women would have matched that ideal perfectly: slightly pear-shaped, slim upper body with a little flesh around the hips and belly. Right up until the First World War, in fact. Then came the flapper, then the hourglass, then the skinny.’

‘So what’s your point?’ Scholz emerged from the kitchen and handed Fabel his coffee.

‘These women had the wrong shape for today. They might have wanted to do something about it.’ Fabel started to rummage through the files.

‘What are you looking for?’ asked Scholz.

‘Gym memberships, diet clubs… any hint that they were considering cosmetic surgery… liposuction, that kind of thing.’

‘But there was nothing really wrong with them…’ Scholz joined the search. ‘I mean, their shapes weren’t that unusually heavy around the backside.’

‘You would be amazed at what lengths women are prepared to go to over the slightest flaw.’

Ten minutes later they had assembled a selection of options, all for Sabine Jordanski. She went to a private gym twice a week, took regular beauty treatments at the salon, went swimming every Wednesday when she had the afternoon off. There was nothing at all for Melissa Schenker.

‘There has to be something.’ Fabel ran his hands through his hair.

‘Maybe Melissa Schenker wasn’t so obsessed with her shape,’ said Scholz. ‘She spent her life in her own little electronic universe where what she looked like didn’t matter. A world without form.’

‘Okay.’ Fabel read more of Melissa’s file. ‘What’s this… The Lords of Misrule?’

‘Her biggest hit. A role-playing computer game she developed. Very complicated. Apparently she was working on a sequel to it when she died.’

There was an image of the game’s cover. Three mythological types – a warrior, a priestess and some kind of warlock – stood on a mountain, a fantasy landscape swirling around them.

‘ The Lords of Misrule…’ Fabel read the English title aloud again. ‘The world turned upside down. The Days of Chaos. The Fool Made King. It’s all very Karneval. Maybe this is where our connection lies. Melissa spent so much of her time in an electronic world, maybe that’s where she crossed paths with our killer and Sabine Jordanski.’