The Stranglers Honeymoon

21

‘Inspector Baasteuwel from Wallburg. Am I speaking to Chief Inspector Reinhart?’

‘You certainly are. What did you say your name was? Baas-. .?’

‘. . -teuwel. I’m ringing in connection with that strangulation case last summer you were wondering about. I was in charge of it. We got nowhere, unfortunately — but that happens in the best of families.’

‘So they say,’ said Reinhart.

‘Incidentally, I know a pretty young cop in Maardam by the name of Moreno: I met her out at Lejnice last summer. Give her a kiss from me, assuming you haven’t cocked things up and let her slip through your fingers.’

Reinhart thought for a moment,

‘Baasteuwel?’ he said. ‘I do believe we’ve met. Are you small and ugly and smoke like a chimney?’

‘That’s me,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘An IQ of two hundred and ten, and the favourite of all the ladies as well. Where do you reckon we met?’

‘Wernerhaven, if I’m not much mistaken,’ said Reinhart. ‘Five or six years ago. A conference about the reorganization of the police force or some similar crap, I don’t remember exactly.’

‘Aha,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Yes, I forget the details as well. But I do remember this damned Kristine Kortsmaa case. A sad business. I spent an awful lot of time on it, in fact. . last June, it was, but we didn’t get anywhere. Which annoyed me no end, to tell you the truth.’

‘I’ve read about it,’ said Reinhart. ‘You don’t even have a suspect, is that right?’

‘Not a trace of one. The lady was found dead in her flat. Naked, strangled. As clear as day. She’d been out eating and dancing, picked up a bloke and took him home. There wasn’t even anything to suggest they’d had sex. . The bloody irritating thing is that there were loads of witnesses who saw them dancing at that restaurant. We even had a mock-up image of him to work with, but it didn’t help. Most irritating.’

‘What did he look like?’ asked Reinhart.

‘Quite tall, quite strong, according to what everybody said. About forty or just over, most of them thought. The colour of his hair varied between medium blond and coal black, and some people thought he had the beginnings of a beard. . Obviously it wasn’t easy to build up a good phantom image, but I can fax you the one we used, if you like. If you think there’s any point.’

‘Yes, please do send it,’ said Reinhart. ‘But I’ll keep it to myself for the time being, for safety’s sake. It would be silly to give the team preconceived ideas. I assume you checked back as well — cases similar to that one?’

‘Oh yes,’ sighed Baasteuwel, ‘you can bet your bloody life I did. I rooted around among a few dozen attractive women’s bodies. . Great fun, but no luck, of course. We drew another blank. This girl Kortsmaa had passed her exams the same week as it happened, by the way. Qualified as a physiotherapist after three years of studies — that’s why she was out celebrating. He gave her an excellent present, there’s no denying that.’

‘A lovely present,’ said Reinhart.

‘It would bring great satisfaction into my black copper’s soul if we can catch the bugger this time round, make no mistake about that. Assuming it’s the same swine, that is.’

‘It’s certainly a possibility, to say the least,’ said Reinhart. ‘We’ll do the best we can. Was there anything else?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Assuming you really do have all the documentation you say you have. . I’ve scraped together a few thousand wasted working hours, of course, and I can fax you documentation about those if you like.’

‘That’s not necessary,’ said Reinhart. ‘We’ve got more of such stuff than we can cope with already. But if we come across a light shining in the darkness, maybe we could meet and talk things over?’

‘There’s nothing I’d like better,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘And don’t forget to give that inspector a kiss from me.’

‘If I dare,’ said Reinhart, and hung up.

Ten seconds later Baasteuwel phoned again.

‘There’s one thing I forgot to ask,’ he said. ‘Have you any recent similar cases? I mean, he might have been busy between the Kristine Kurtsmaa case and the one we’re busy with now.’

‘It doesn’t seem like it,’ said Reinhart. ‘There’s nothing that’s been documented at least.’

‘That’s a pretty long gap,’ said Baasteuwel. ‘Over a year. But then, you never know how bastards like him operate — not until you meet them, at least.’

‘I’ve set my mind on meeting this particular bastard,’ said Reinhart. ‘I’ll be in touch as soon as I get a sniff of him.’

‘Good hunting,’ said Inspector Baasteuwel.

During the course of Thursday Ewa Moreno talked to seven persons in all that Rooth had dug out of Martina Kammerle’s somewhat worse-for-wear address book, and it was a pretty depressing operation.

All seven admitted that they knew what had happened, thanks to reports in the newspapers and on the television. All seven admitted reluctantly that they knew who Martina Kammerle was. All seven insisted that they were not close to the murdered woman in any way, and that they hadn’t seen her since her husband died four-and-a-half years ago.

Two of the seven were colleagues from one of the short periods when Martina had had some sort of job. Two were women she had met in hospital, one of them in Gemejnte, and the other out at Majorna. One was a man she had had a brief affair with eighteen years ago, one was a retired therapist she had visited three times, and the seventh was an old schoolmate who had been confined to a wheelchair for the last twenty years, and hadn’t seen Martina since they were in class seven together, he claimed.

Depressing, Moreno thought as she clambered into her car after visiting Martina’s former classmate out at Dikken. What the hell was the point of Martina Kammerle keeping an address book? Why all these names which must have been of no relevance whatsoever to her current life? It was as if she had listed them because it would seem bad if she hadn’t.

What an incredibly cheap life she must have led, Moreno thought.

Cheap? Where did that word come from? Surely a life couldn’t be cheap?

And she recalled once again those old maxims on the bedroom wall:

It’s better to regret what you have done, than what you never did. Give significance to your life.

What had Martina Kammerle’s and her daughter’s lives really been like? Did they have any significance at all, despite their seemingly having been immured in their own loneliness? Was there any sort of light that she hadn’t yet discovered?

Presumptuous questions, perhaps: but justified, beyond doubt. The seven people Moreno had interviewed had come up with absolutely nothing about the murdered woman’s life, and when she thought about the two teenagers covered in black make-up who had irritated her so much at Café Lamprecht the other day, she realized that. . Well, what did she realize, in fact?

Like mother, like daughter, perhaps?

Moreno sighed in despair and stopped for a red light at the Zwille-Armastenstraat crossroads. It was half past five, and traffic was racing pell-mell for the suburbs and housing estates. It had stopped raining, but a strong wind was now blowing in from the coast.

Light? Moreno thought. Meaning? In this grey city at this time of year? A presumptuous assumption. She shook her head and turned her attention back to the investigation.

Wanted notices in the newspapers and on the television had drawn a blank. No reaction whatsoever. A few pupils from the Bunge Grammar School had rung and said they knew who Monica Kammerle was, but they hadn’t seen her for ages. A girl from Oostwerdingen had said she was a friend of Monica’s when they were about ten; and a notorious, neurotic informer by the name of Ralf Napoleon Doggers had reported that he had seen both mother and daughter in mysterious circumstances in a churchyard at Loewingen only three days ago.

Martina and Monica Kammerle hadn’t exactly led their lives in the spotlight: that was obvious after just over a week’s investigations. But Moreno reminded herself that many lives looked worse from the outside than they did from the inside. That was something eleven years in the police force had taught her. Nevertheless, what was it that enabled these maltreated, abused, worn-out women to survive? There must be something, surely? Something to cling on to. Some sort of consolation, some kind of deceptive hope, because. . Well, what else could there be?

Otherwise there was not much else apart from Hamlet’s monologue, full stop.

Better the devil you know. .

In other words, the usual biological toughness, Keep Buggering On. She shook her head in disgust, and pulled up at another red light, this time in Palitzerlaan.

And there were always contradictions to be taken into account, of course. There were lives that seemed tolerable and normal when you contemplated them from the outside, but hidden inside them could be bottomless pits of darkness. Totally incomprehensible abysses.

Perhaps that’s the kind of murderer we’re looking for, it occurred to her. An apparently normal person who acts perfectly normally ninety-nine days out of a hundred, but then, when something snaps — or surges up inside him — can commit the most hair-raising acts? Yes, when she thought about that it seemed very plausible.

Or possible, at least. It could well be such a person behind these horrific acts: but then again, it could be somebody entirely different. It was risky to speculate too much, she knew that; but what else was there for her to devote here energetic brain to, for Christ’s sake? What?

And why was she so casually drawing these comparisons between Martina Kammerle and her own life? What was the point? She had a tendency — an increasingly clear tendency with every new case, in fact — constantly to see herself in relation to these poor people who were always involved. The victims and the warped lives they led.

Was she trying to make contrasts? To see herself as a shining light in contrast to their darkness? Was it as simple as that? Was it just that things could have been worse for her?

She decided that was how it had been to start with, perhaps. And it was natural enough, when she came to think about it. Vicarious suffering and all that. But that was no longer the case. Now it felt as if she were searching for some sort of common ground. A point at which she could identify with it all — with the suffering and the misery and the dark forces. At which she could understand the wretchedness of it all. Creep under its skin. Surely that was more like it?

But why? Moreno thought. Why am I doing this? Is it because I can’t find any significance in my own life? In this grey city in these grey times?

When she got out of the car outside her home in Falckstraat, she knew she was on the verge of a rhetorical question.

Jung was sitting at the computer.

It was not a situation he particularly enjoyed in normal circumstances, but Maureen had acquired a new computer so that she could do some of her work at home — and as it was standing on their shared desk in the bedroom, he thought he might as well run it through its paces and see what it was capable of. It was large, yellow and streamlined. Apparently worth over five thousand, if he had understood it rightly, and with a memory far in excess of that of a whole police force.

So it could no doubt be used in the interests of law and order.

That was what he had thought when he sat down in front of the monster half an hour ago, and that is what he was still thinking. And somewhat reluctantly he had to admit that the technology was quite impressive. The confounded thing was certainly practical!

It was half past ten by now, and he was alone in the flat. Maureen was on a two-day course connected with her work, and Sophie was sleeping over at her boyfriend’s place: his name was Franek, and it was beginning to look as if he was about to become her other half.

The flat was almost as new as the computer. Recently acquired, at least, and it was with a feeling of humble astonishment that Jung was beginning to accept that this was his home. His and Maureen’s new home. And Sophie’s, of course, who would soon be celebrating her twentieth birthday, was in her first year at university, and would no doubt fly the nest shortly. Any day now, if he had interpreted the signs correctly.

Four rooms and a kitchen in Holderweg. On the fourth floor with a view over the southern part of Megsje Bojs and Willemsgraacht. Newly refurbished with ceilings three-and-a-half metres high, and underfloor heating in the bathroom. And an open fire.

When he thought about it — and he did so almost all the time — he thought he was happy. That things had turned out so well in his life that he ought to find himself a god and thank Him on his bare knees. All that, and Maureen as well!

Plus a super-computer for use at home whenever the mood took him. Such as now. Such as this November evening, sitting at home in the darkness with the rain pattering against the window panes and Lou Reed whispering quietly on a CD in the background.

Benjamin Kerran. That was his opening move. The only name he had left to investigate. The only one remaining from the forty-six he had started with.

A name that had frustrated him and his colleagues, as there was no such person in Maardam according to their enquiries that afternoon. Not in the whole surrounding area either. And not even — assuming Rooth was right in what he claimed shortly before they shut down for the day at the police station — not even in the whole damned country!

It had taken Jung some time to venture out into the Internet, and more time before he realized what he needed to do in order to set up a search. He had no luck at all, using the first of the programs he tried. Just a number of faulty hits, in which the surname — usually wrongly spelled — was right, but not the first name. But then, when he worked out how to use a more powerful program, it suddenly turned up on his screen.

Benjamin Kerran.

Ha! Jung thought. Let nobody come and tell me I don’t know how to handle computers.

He leaned forward and began reading. In increasing astonishment — rapidly increasing, as it was only a matter of a couple of lines.

Benjamin Kerran was not a living person. Nor a dead one, come to that. He was a literary character. Fiction. Evidently.

Created by an English author by the name of Henry Moll, according to what it said on the screen. Jung had never heard of him, but when he carried on clicking he discovered that this Moll had written a number of little-known travelogues at the beginning of the twentieth century. Plus a series of even less well known crime novels — yes, it actually said ‘even less well known’.

And it was in one of those novels that this character Benjamin Kerran appeared.

In a book with the bizarre title Strangler’s Honeymoon, to be precise. First published (and no doubt for the only time) in London in 1932, by a firm called Thurnton amp; Radice. As far as Jung could gather, Benjamin Kerran was a sort of leading character — a serial killer, one of the very early ones, who prowled around in the badly lit areas of the capital strangling prostitutes wholesale, in accordance with instructions given to him by voices addressing him from inside his head, in accordance with some sort of perverted divine ordinance.

Jung stared at the screen.

What on earth could this mean? He read the text one more time.

Could it be anything other than pure coincidence?

He went into the living room and switched off the CD. Could Martina Kammerle have read Strangler’s Honeymoon?

That seemed implausible. There had not been many books in the flat in Moerckstraat, but the ones that were there were in Monica Kammerle’s bookcase. The girl had evidently read quite a lot.

But an obscure crime novel from the thirties? Henry Moll?

Hardly credible, Jung thought and returned to the computer. And even if she had read it, why should she write down the name of this literary murderer in her notebook?

No, the link was too implausible, he decided. It must be pure coincidence. A coincidence and a hit in over-informative cyberspace where almost anything at all could happen. Where no end of strange knowledge was stored, and where the most hair-raising cross-fertilizations could take place.

A name without a telephone number in a missing girl’s notebook, and a fictitious English murderer?

No, thought Jung. There are limits after all, even to what these computers are capable of.

He switched off the computer and went to bed.

But the name Benjamin Kerran persisted in the back of Jung’s mind, and when he woke up in the middle of the night, a few hours later, he knew immediately why he had dreamt of those strangled women and those narrow, crowded streets in Covent Garden and Soho where he had spent a week on holiday with Maureen a couple of years earlier.

And as he stood there on the warm bathroom floor, having a pee, he decided he would tell Rooth what he had hacked his way through to that evening.

After all, you never know.