Sabine Jordanski had been a cheerful, uncomplicated girl who had not demanded much from life. Fabel bit into the salami roll and looked at the scene-of-crime photographs again. Sabine’s heavy, white buttocks lay exposed. The excised trench in the right buttock stood out with violent vividness against the paleness of the skin. Scholz had been right: the killer had executed his butchery with a swift precision. There was no raggedness, no tentative first cuts. This guy had known what he was doing. Fabel suddenly realised that he was chewing a mouthful of salami while looking at images of a mutilated corpse. In that moment the reasons he had sought escape from the Murder Commission crystallised. What had he become?
Fabel closed the file, finished his hurried lunch and headed back out onto the autobahn towards Cologne.
5.
Ansgar’s expression was one of anguish. He sat, knowing what he was going to do but trying to persuade himself that he was not going to do it. He knew he had times of weakness. Times like this, when he had half an hour to spare before he started his shift at the restaurant.
As he had sat down in front of the computer, Ansgar had told himself that he wouldn’t visit the website again. He had promised himself that the last time he had been on it. And the time before that. But his computer’s screen glowed malevolently, opening up a window on another reality for Ansgar. A way into abandonment and chaos.
Ansgar let his fingers hover above the keyboard. He could still walk away. He could switch off the computer. He struggled so hard to keep the chaos within himself contained. Karneval was coming. And during Karneval… well, everybody let themselves go. But this little screen was dangerous: it allowed the chaos within to connect with a greater, wider chaos. Ansgar realised that this didn’t satisfy his hunger. It sharpened it. Turned it ravenous.
His fingers trembled with delicious anticipation, disgust, fear. He typed in the website address and gave an anguished cry as the images opened out before him. The women. The flesh.
The biting teeth.
6.
The first thing that struck Fabel about Criminal Commissar Benni Scholz’s office was how untidy and disordered it was. The second thing was the large dummy head that sat in the corner. Fabel found himself looking at it involuntarily, as he tried to work out exactly what it was. He decided it was some kind of moose.
‘I cannot tell you how pleased I am that you could come,’ said Scholz, beaming as they shook hands. Scholz was about ten years younger than him, Fabel reckoned, and about ten centimetres shorter. But what Scholz lacked in height he made up for with a stocky, muscular frame. ‘I see you were admiring the bullhead for our Karneval outfit. I’m organising it this year.’
‘Oh…’ said Fabel, suddenly enlightened. ‘It’s a bull! I thought it was a moose…’
Scholz scowled at the dummy head and muttered something that Fabel couldn’t hear but thought might have been ‘Fuck.’ Scholz let his scowl go. ‘Please, Principal Chief Commissar, take a seat.’
‘Call me Jan,’ said Fabel. ‘We are colleagues.’ There was something about the ebullient Scholz that Fabel found immensely likeable. Fabel also resented him a little, in the same way that he resented his brother Lex for being so at ease with strangers, for being so laid back about life. It was then that it clicked what it was he liked about Scholz: he reminded him of a younger Lex.
‘Okay… Jan,’ said Scholz. ‘I’m Benni. Have you eaten?’
‘On the way down.’ Fabel’s expression commented on the quality of his repast.
‘Oh… okay. I thought I’d take you out to a typical Cologne restaurant tonight, if you’re up for it?’
‘Sure…’ said Fabel. ‘But maybe we should see how we get on going over this case…’
‘Oh, we’ll have time…’ Scholz made an expansive gesture. ‘It helps me to think. Eating, I mean. Can’t think on an empty stomach, I always say.’
Fabel smiled.
‘Talking of which,’ continued Scholz, ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said about our guy being a cannibal. You know something… I think maybe you’re right. It was something that was suggested before. To be honest, we’ve tried to play down the angle, just in case the press get hold of it.’
‘I’m pretty certain I am right,’ said Fabel. ‘I also think you have a very valid point about the killer having experience of cutting flesh. A surgeon, or a butcher or slaughterman…’
‘He doesn’t muck about, does he? Knows what he’s doing.’ Benni leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. ‘Is it true you’re English? You don’t have an English accent. Someone told me they call you the English Commissar…’
‘I’m half-Scottish,’ said Fabel. ‘Half-Frisian.’
‘My God,’ laughed Benni. ‘That’s a thrifty combination. Bet you don’t get your round in too often!’
Fabel smiled. ‘Did you have any strong suspects? The file seemed devoid of anyone you particularly had your eye on.’
‘Nope. It was a real bugger. Women’s Karneval Night is mad. Like so much of Karneval. People running about demented, little bastards being conceived all over the place. Anonymity is part of the whole thing. You can lose your identity and do things that you otherwise wouldn’t do. It’s the perfect environment for topping somebody.’
‘I see.’
‘But that’s a theory I have about this case. About anonymity and doing things that you wouldn’t normally do. I told you on the phone that I’m pretty sure that this guy is a local. Well, I also think that he may be Joe Normal the rest of the year. Karneval is all about letting go. We always say that we Cologners are more sane than everyone else the rest of the year because we go mad during Karneval. Maybe our chum has got this pervy thing going on that he keeps wrapped up in his pants all year, and he needs Karneval to let it loose.’
‘That’s actually pretty good psychological profiling,’ Fabel laughed. ‘Although again I would normally couch it in more technical terms.’
‘Anyway,’ continued Benni. ‘Even the divorce courts take a lenient view of Karneval behaviour. Adultery on Rosenmontag is considered to be excusable… that you’re not really guilty of it the same way you would be the rest of the year. And, of course, there’s the Nubbelverbrennung… the fire of atonement at the end of Karneval in which all the sins committed during the Crazy Days are burned. What if our guy believes he has an excuse for doing what he does just because it’s Karneval?’
‘More than that, I think there is a deeply misogynistic element to these murders. He hates women.’
‘You don’t say…’ Scholz smiled wryly.
‘Okay… you worked that out. Both victims were reasonably slim, but had a tendency to be heavier around the hips and backside. I think that may be his selection criterion. Particularly given the fact that he removes flesh from that part of the body.’
‘So why is he selecting them?’ asked Scholz. ‘Is it because he feels sexually attracted to that body shape, or is it simply because he’s picking out the best cut of beef?’
‘Both,’ said Fabel. ‘Let me tell you something about cannibalism
…’
7.
He shouldn’t have visited the website again. Now the hunger burned in him and he could not bear to look in Ekatherina’s direction. He could tell she had picked up on a tension in the kitchen and she obviously thought she or her work had somehow displeased him, which made matters worse because she now sought every opportunity to speak with him. But Ansgar could not bear her presence. However, within the confines of the kitchen, close proximity, even brushing against each other, was unavoidable. Sometimes she was so close that he could smell her.
Ansgar felt cursed. He wished that he were like other men, normal men. It would be all so uncomplicated. She would let him fuck her. Or not. But the sweetly obscene images, the dangerous, delicious fantasies, would not plague him. Ansgar’s work didn’t help, either. To see Ekatherina handle meat, split a joint with a cleaver, trim the fat from it with a knife, fillet a breast of chicken, pulling apart yielding flesh; all these simple, innocuous acts became an erotic torment for Ansgar. But what tormented him most of all was the forbidden, dangerous, ineffable idea that maybe, just maybe, he might actually be able to fulfil his fantasy. That he might be able to do what he wanted with Ekatherina.