'What can I do for you, gentlemen?' she asked with reserve.
'Herr Wacker will explain.'
There wasn't much to be explained. The US Army had requisitioned the entire Onkel Tom quarter from the shopping street to the Fischtal. All tenants of apartments and proprietors of shops must move out within two days.
'What about the books here and my furniture at home? I live at Number 47 Wilskistrasse.'
'If you can get the books taken away by the day after tomorrow that'll be all right. You can take only your clothes and other personal items from your apartment,' Herr Wacker told her.
And mind you hurry, Fraulein,' the lieutenant snapped.
'Looks as if you're not much better than the Reds,' Jutta fired back at the two Americans.
'I'm sorry,' the older man apologized.
The District Office will find you accommodation,' Herr Wacker said, raising his hat.
Troops from the US Engineers had already begun putting up tall posts and erecting a barbed-wire fence several kilometres long around the Onkel Toms Hiitte quarter.
Jutta was upset. She had thought everything was going to be better now. A new life would begin. The word 'future' would mean something again. And now these Americans had nothing better to do than drive humiliated and starving people away from the last few things they possessed.
She went to bed to shut out the ugly truth. Warm night air moved the curtains. The sheets were cool. In her mind's eye she saw faces. Jochen, little Didi, the appalling Drechsel, old Frau Mobich. They were all dead. And what about me? she asked herself in the dark. afraid. Am I not dead too?
CHAPTER NINE
HEADLIGHTS CUT THROUGH the darkness. With a grunt of annoyance, the killer dropped his victim and disappeared into the night. John Ashburner jumped out of the jeep. He knelt down beside Jutta, loosened the cattle chain and put the back of his hand to her carotid artery, desperately seeking her pulse. A motorbike started up nearby.
'I was a long way off,' she murmured, her eyes closed.
'You're back now,' he said, overjoyed. Very carefully, he picked her up and carried her to the jeep.
Dr Mobius examined the purple strangulation marks on her neck. 'They won't leave any trace,' he assured her. 'You were lucky. Thirty seconds longer and you'd be on the autopsy slab like the others. I'm going to keep you in until tomorrow. Your blood pressure is right down — not surprising, with the shock you had. Nurse Dagmar will get you into bed.'
The lanky figure of John Ashburner stood in the background. He had taken her straight to the nearby Waldfrieden hospital, and spent an anxious half-hour waiting until he was called into the examination room. 'Can I talk to her, doctor?'
'Two minutes.'
'There's nothing to talk about,' said Jutta defensively as he sat down on the side of the bed. 'You can talk to your wife.'
'Ethel? Sure. About our divorce. That's why she's here. She wants to marry this Jesse Rollins. She thinks you're very nice, by the way. Maybe a bit too impulsive.'
'Like this?' she said, flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him.
Nurse Dagmar appeared in the doorway. 'Could you get your car to shut up? It's yelling its head off, disturbing the patients.'
'See you tomorrow, darling. Goodnight, nurse.'
Ashburner hurried out to his jeep. Sergeant Donovan's voice was echoing from the loudspeaker. 'Call in, boss, for God's sake! Its bloody urgent.'
He was disappointed. She'd granted him nothing but a brief rattle in the throat, and then she withdrew before he could possess her. Spoilsport, he thought, feeling injured. He leaned his motorbike up against the kerb somewhere and patted the tank as if it were a horse's flank. It had helped him to get that persistent inspector out of the way. Now it was no more use to him. Feet dragging, he made his way home. In the kitchen, he carefully peeled himself an apple and bit into it. 'Too sour,' he muttered disapprovingly.
Glass splintered. Suddenly the large pane in the French window leading from the kitchen to the garden was shattered. Bewildered, he saw the inspector clambering clumsily through the window frame. Klaus Dietrich had broken off a plank of wood from a fence somewhere, and was using it as a crutch.
'I should have seen it days ago. Your secretary handed it to me on a plate, never suspecting, and I didn't notice. "The boss marked the other four with a cross too," she said. The other four cards in the card index, making five in all, right? And with that cross on the fifth card you were anticipating Jutta Weber's death. Only the killer could know she'd be the next victim.'
Chalford picked up the knife on the kitchen table. An unfortunate mistake, inspector. I assumed you were a burglar. so then I stabbed you.' Hand raised, he made for Dietrich.
Dietrich shifted his weight to his sound leg. He could keep his balance for only a few seconds, but it was enough. Putting his full weight into it, he brought the piece of wood down against the back of his attacker's knees. Chalford collapsed. The inspector swayed and fell to the ground beside him.
And we'll take care of the rest.' Captain Ashburner, followed by Sergeant Donovan, climbed into the kitchen, crunching over shards of broken glass. He helped Dietrich up and found him a chair. The sergeant handcuffed Chalford and hauled him up by his collar.
'Take him to the station and lock him up. And don't take your eyes off him for a second,' Ashburner told his sergeant. 'Inspector, you'd better rest for a little. Meanwhile I'll take a look around here.'
Klaus Dietrich was exhausted. He had caught the killer. He felt neither triumph nor satisfaction; he was just glad to have done the job. Back to the security services firm, he thought with mild humour.
'Inspector, take a look at this,' Ashburner said. Dietrich reached for the plank of wood and hauled himself up by it, breathing heavily. Ashburner had forced open the cupboard in the study next door. Behind them, someone screamed in horror. Chalford's housekeeper was staring past them at the open cupboard. A washing line was stretched across its interior, with four pairs of bloodstained panties hanging from it.
Inge Dietrich had accompanied her husband to the hospital, the OskarHelene-Heim. He needed a new prosthesis. They waited until it was his turn.
'We've impounded the black-marble obelisk from Chalford's desk. A genuine Barlach, he used to tell visitors. There's no doubt that he used it to torture his victims.'
'Oh, be quiet, Klaus, I don't want to hear about it.' Inge went to the reception desk. 'Will it be much longer?'
'Your turn will come in due course,' the nurse told her.
She sat down again. 'What will happen to Chalford?'
'There is no Curtis S. Chalford. Only Kurt Kalkfurth, the trainee butcher, who was murdering women in Onkel Toms Hutte before the war. The Americans will be happy to hand him over to the German judicial system.'
And his mother?'
'Martha Kalkfurth is as guilty as her son. She's known he's a pathological killer since he committed his first murder in 1936. She could have prevented all those other deaths by turning him in. Instead, she bribed an employee in the American consulate to grant him an emigration visa. Shortly before the outbreak of war, Kurt Kalkfurth disappeared. His mother spread the story that he'd volunteered for the Motorcycle Corps and fell during the invasion of Poland. She paid for her infatuation with a stroke and the paralysis that followed it. I'm sure she was secretly hoping he'd come home sometime, because in spite of her physical disability she looked after his motorbike and kept it hidden all through the war.'
'You've questioned her?'
'She can't talk any more. A second stroke, the day before yesterday. But she confirmed my accusations by blinking her eyes — that's all she can still move.'