The cosmetics assistant in the department store on Hohe Strasse was a little puzzled as to why her customer seemed so unsure about what went with her colouring, but a few minutes later Maria, who had always been conservative with her make-up, had a bag full of strong colours in eyeshadow, blusher and lipstick. The next store she went to, she described exactly the make-up she had just bought and claimed that she’d been wearing those shades for years and she wanted something completely different.
Before she found the next shop, she had to stop a couple of times to take the page she had torn from the telephone directory from her pocket and check the address against her street plan of Cologne. It was about lunchtime and, although her belly felt swollen to her from her unaccustomed breakfasting, she had a light lunch of soup and bread in the restaurant across the street. Maria now felt totally bloated and imagined her stomach distended, but she fought back the urge to make herself sick. It was all part of the plan.
It was a middle-aged and clearly gay man who took her through the selection of wigs. Maria told him that she was an actress and was always looking for something to change her look. It was clear that the salesman had doubts about her story, but she explained that she often had to supply her own wigs and costumes. It was, she explained, a very specific form of acting she did, mainly for the DVD market. The salesman smiled knowingly, and took her through a range of styles, short and long, brunette, blonde and redhead. Maria bought five wigs, which delighted the salesman, although she was horrified at the cost.
‘We could always put one back…’ suggested the salesman tentatively.
‘No… it’s fine. I’ll take them all.’
Maria called into another couple of clothes stores on her way to the hotel and arrived back in her room laden with shopping bags. She drew the curtains and stripped naked, standing with all the lights on in front of the mirror. She had been dreading this moment, knowing that after eating two meals in one day for the first time in months she would see how hideously bloated and fat she would have become. But she didn’t. For so long Maria had been used to regarding her naked form with loathing, seeing the flesh swollen and fat. But not this time. It was as if her decision to become someone else had shifted her perspective and she was looking at someone else’s body. So much damage. Maria had always been shapely, but slim. Now, after months of binging, purging and weeks of semi-starvation, Maria’s body looked emaciated. Her ribs showed through the skin and her thighs seemed thinner than her knees. Her upper arms were stick-thin and the knife scar beneath her shrunken breasts contrasted pink against her pale, lifeless skin. Her face, beneath its new crown of near-black, short-cropped hair, looked gaunt and drawn. What had she done to herself?
She dismissed the thought: she would separate herself from the flesh of which she was composed. Her body would now simply be a canvas that she could use to create a dozen different Marias. The idea had been there when she had woken up: she had wished she could have brought in Anna to help her with the surveillance. Well, she could: by making herself into Anna and anyone else she chose to be. As the thought had evolved from an idea to a strategy to a plan, Maria had rediscovered a sense of resolve and direction. Instead of trying to dissolve into the background with her grungy clothes, she would become other people.
10.
Oliver drank his coffee and gazed at the blank white-tiled wall opposite him. But he wasn’t seeing anything. Instead his mind dwelt on what had happened in the hotel room. It had been five days now and he had heard nothing. But he knew it would take the police some time to trace him, if ever. He had been extremely careful in his planning; in ensuring that his tracks were covered. She had made so much fuss, so much noise. She had known what he had wanted, that he had special needs: so why had she started to scream? Why did the stupid sluts always scream when they knew all along what he had to do to them? Oliver had had no choice other than to shut her up before someone in the hotel heard her.
He took another sip of coffee. No. He had nothing to worry about. He would never use that escort agency again and he would lie low for a while. And if he needed to exercise that deliciously dark side of his nature, then he would travel to another city.
Oliver drained his cup. He pulled on surgical gloves of a particularly heavy latex and snapped the cuffs around the sleeves of his protective gown. He went through the door and into a room flooded with a cheerless, harsh luminescence from neon strip lights. The steel tray was already set out with all the blades and tools he would need.
The taint hung faint but growing in the air. Oliver knew the causes of it, understood the science behind it: the smell of cellular degradation escaping from the large open wounds, the pooling of stagnant blood in livid blotches in the lowest points, the odour leeching out through the skin. But no matter how scientific the explanation or professional the understanding, it was still quite simply the smell of death. He took a deep breath, picked up a large-bladed scalpel and held it poised for a moment as he looked down on the corpse, already split with large gashes, before him.
CHAPTER FIVE
25-26 January
1.
There was no such thing as a slow day at the Speisekammer and Ansgar Hoeffer always arrived at the restaurant early for his shift. He was the Head Chef and saw his duties extending beyond when he officially clocked on and off. It was, after all, his reputation that had been behind the Speisekammer’s growing success. The restaurant was doing the best trade it had known in its ten-year history. When Ansgar had first taken over the kitchen the Speisekammer had closed on Wednesdays. Now it did brisk midweek business for both lunches and evening meals. People came from across the city and beyond to savour Ansgar’s fusion cuisine which combined the best of German dishes with influences as varied as Thai, French and Japanese. And that was quite an accomplishment in Cologne: there were thirty or more world-class restaurants in the city. Even the delicatessen attached to the Speisekammer was benefiting from what Ansgar had done to elevate the restaurant’s reputation amongst Cologne’s discerning diners. Not that this had gone unnoticed or unrewarded. Ansgar was amongst the highest-paid chefs in Cologne and the owners, Herr and Frau Gallwitz, had even talked about making him a partner. Ansgar had responded positively but cautiously to this suggestion: he had enough common sense to realise that the Gallwitzes’ offer was as much motivated by sound commercial acumen as by any fondness for Ansgar who, even by his own admission, was a rather cold and distant man whose entire passion seemed concentrated on food. Everyone knew that if Ansgar moved to another restaurant, the greater part of the clientele would move with him.
Ekatherina, the Ukrainian sous-Chef, was waiting with breathless anticipation when Ansgar arrived. She hadn’t changed into her whites yet and was still wearing her crop-top T-shirt. The T-shirt accentuated the swell of her breasts and her midriff was exposed: Ansgar tried not to look at the stud that pierced through the flesh of her navel. She looked up at him with her pale blue Ukrainian eyes that sparkled even brighter with morbid excitement.
‘Have you heard about the Biarritz?’ she asked in her heavily, sexily accented German. Ansgar shook his head. He knew of the Biarritz, but it was in the Gulaschsuppe league: tourists and business-lunch specials.