JF02 - Brother Grimm (38 page)

‘Who’s Dorothea Viehmann?’ Werner stood beside Fabel, looking up at the enlarged image of the letter.

‘She was an old woman whom the Grimms found – or, more correctly, whom Jacob found,’ answered Fabel. ‘She lived outside Kassel. She was a famed storyteller but refused to relate any of them to Jacob Grimm, so he sat outside a window and eavesdropped as she told the stories to the children of the village.’

Werner made an impressed face. Fabel turned to him and smiled.

‘I’ve been improving my mind.’

The rest of the team had, by now, assembled and there was a buzz of chatter as they gathered around the new piece of evidence. Fabel called for their attention.

‘This tells us nothing we don’t already know. The only additional information we will be able to get
from this is whatever further psychological insight Frau Doktor Eckhardt can gain from its content.’ Susanne would not be back from Norddeich until the next day, but Fabel had already arranged to send a copy over to her at the Institut für Rechtsmedizin, and he planned to call her later at his mother’s to read the contents to her and get an initial reaction.

Henk Hermann put his hand half up, as if in a classroom. Fabel smiled and nodded and Hermann self-consciously withdrew it. ‘He’s signed himself “Märchenbruder”,’ Hermann asked. ‘What does that mean: Fairy Tale Brother?’

‘He obviously feels strongly connected to Weiss. But there may be some other significance. And I know the ideal person to call to find out.’

‘The ideal person,’ said Werner, ‘would be the killer himself.’

‘And that,’ said Fabel grimly, ‘might just be exactly who I am going to ask.’

Weiss answered the phone after two rings. Fabel assumed that he must have been in his study, working. Fabel explained how they’d discovered a letter sent to Weiss through his publishers, and that it had clearly come from the killer. Weiss had no recollection of having seen the letter and listened in silence as Fabel read its contents to him.

‘And you’re convinced he’s talking about these killings?’ Weiss asked when Fabel was finished.

‘I am. It’s the same person, all right. Is there anything in what he says that may be significant? The mention of Dorothea Viehmann, for example?’

‘Dorothea Viehmann!’ Weiss’s tone was cynical. ‘The font of German folkloric wisdom at whose feet
Jacob Grimm worshipped. And so would your misguided psycho, obviously.’

‘And he shouldn’t?’

‘What is it about we Germans? We’re constantly searching for an identity, to find out who we are, and we invariably end up with the wrong bloody answer. The Grimms venerated Viehmann and took her versions of German fairy tales as gospel – almost literally. But Viehmann was her married name. Her maiden name was Pierson. French – Dorothea Viehmann’s parents were expelled from France for being Protestants, Huguenots. The stories she told were, she claimed, German stories she’d heard from travellers on the road to and from Kassel. The truth is that many of the stories she passed on to the Grimms were French in origin from her own familial background. The same stories that Charles Perrault recorded in France a century or more before. And she wasn’t the only one. There was the mysterious “Marie” who was credited with passing on “Snow White”, “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Sleeping Beauty”. Wilhelm’s son claimed that it was an old family servant woman. It turned out to be a wealthy young society lady called Marie Hassenpflug, also from a French family, who had been told the stories by her French nannies.’ Weiss laughed. ‘So the question is, Herr Fabel: is Sleeping Beauty Dornröschen or is she
la belle au bois dormant
? And is Red Riding Hood Rotkäppchen or is she
le petit chaperon rouge
? Like I say, we continually seek the truth about our identity and, without fail, we totally screw it up. And we usually end up relying on foreign observers to define who we are.’

‘I don’t think this psycho is going to split patriotic hairs over this.’ Fabel didn’t have time for another sermon from Weiss. ‘I just want to know if
you think there is any significance in him mentioning Viehmann’s name.’

There was a short silence at the other end of the phone. Fabel imagined the massive author in his study, with its rich, dark wood absorbing the light. ‘No. I don’t think there is. His victims have been of both sexes, right?’

‘Yes. He seems to be an equal-opportunity killer.’

‘The only significance I can see in him mentioning Dorothea Viehmann is that the Grimms really did see her as an almost unique source of ancient wisdom. And they seemed to think that women were the flame-keepers of the Germanic oral tradition. If your killer was focusing on women, especially old women, then maybe I might have seen some connection.’ Again there was a short silence at the other end of the phone. ‘There is one thing about the letter that does bother me. Really bothers me. It’s the way he signed himself off.’

‘What – “dein Märchenbruder”?’

‘Yes …’ Fabel sensed an unease in Weiss’s voice. ‘“Your Fairy Tale Brother.” As you probably know, Jacob died four years before Wilhelm. Wilhelm gave an impassioned eulogy at Jacob’s funeral. He called him his Märchenbruder … his Fairy Tale Brother. Shit, Fabel, this maniac thinks he and I are in this together.’

Fabel drew a deep breath. There had been a partnership behind the killings all along. And Weiss had been the other partner. The only thing was Weiss hadn’t known about it.

‘Yes, Herr Weiss. I rather think he does.’ Fabel paused. ‘You know how you have your theory of making fiction real? About allowing people to “live” in your stories?’

‘Yes – what about it?’

‘Well, it looks as though he’s written you into his.’

Fabel hated the mortuary.

He hated being present at autopsies. It was not so much the natural physical revulsion to gore, although that played its part by churning nauseatingly somewhere between his stomach and his chest; it was more the inexplicability of how a human being, the centre of its own vast and complex universe, suddenly became just so much meat. It was the very inanimateness of the dead – the sudden, total and irrevocable destruction of personality – that he hated to face. In every murder case, Fabel sought to keep something of the victim alive in his mind, as if he or she were still living but in some other, distant room. To him they were wronged people for whom he sought some kind of justice, as if it were a debt to the living. Even visiting the scene of death, or reviewing photographs of the fatal injuries didn’t seem to detract from that sense of a person. But, for Fabel, watching someone’s stomach contents being soup-ladled into a weighing dish turned a person into a corpse.

Möller was on form. As Fabel entered the post-mortem exam room, Möller regarded him with his
practised disdainful expression. He was still in his blue autopsy coveralls and the disposable pale grey plastic apron had traces of smeared blood on it. The stainless-steel autopsy table was empty and Möller was almost absent-mindedly hosing it down with its attached spray head. Something hung in the air, however. Fabel had discovered long ago that the dead haunt not with their spirits, but with their odours. Möller had clearly only just concluded his journey through the mass and matter of what had once been a human being called Bernd Ungerer.

‘Interesting,’ Möller said, idly watching the water swirl pink as it washed away the traces of blood towards the drain. ‘Very interesting, this one.’

‘How so?’ asked Fabel.

‘The eyes were removed post-mortem. The cause of death was from a single knife blow to the chest. Classic, really – under the sternum at an upward angle and straight into the heart. Your gentleman gave the knife a twist, clockwise, almost forty-five degrees. That, effectively, devastated the heart and the victim would have been dead within seconds. At least he didn’t suffer much and wouldn’t have known anything about the eyes being removed. Which was done manually, by the way. No evidence of an instrument having been used.’ Möller switched off the spray and leaned on the edge of the table. ‘There were no defensive wounds. None whatsoever. No nicks or cuts on the hands or forearms and there is no other evidence of trauma. Or of a pre-mortem struggle or fight.’

‘Meaning that our victim was taken totally by surprise or that he knew the murderer, or both.’

Möller straightened up again. ‘That’s your area, Herr Hauptkommissar. I report the facts, you draw
the conclusions. But there are quite a few other things about this gentleman that you may find interesting.’

‘Oh?’ Fabel smiled patiently, resisting the temptation to tell Möller to get on with it.

‘For a start, Herr Ungerer was prematurely grey and dyed his hair dark – unlike our own dear Chancellor, of course. But it was what I found under the scalp that interested me more. Your killer didn’t exactly cut Herr Ungerer’s life short. He merely beat the grim reaper to it by a few months.’

‘Ungerer was ill?’

‘Terminally. But he may well have been unaware of it. There was a large glioma in his cerebrum. A brain tumour. Its size would suggest that it had been growing for some time and its location would lead me to think that the symptoms could have been misleading.’

‘Can you tell if he was he being treated for it?’

‘No, not that I can see. There was no evidence of anti-cancer treatment in the system – nor of cortisone, which is normally prescribed in such cases to relieve the swelling of brain tissue. Most importantly, there was no evidence of surgery, and that is the first line of defence against this type of tumour. I need to get a full hystology on the glioma, but it looks to me like an astrocytoma – a primary tumour. And because it was a primary tumour, there would have been nothing elsewhere in the body to flag up to his doctor that there might be a problem. Brain tumours are more often secondary to cancers elsewhere in the body, but not this baby. And, here’s a scary thought for you, he was the right age for it. Middle-aged men are the most likely to get these high-grade aggressive primary tumours.’

‘But surely he must have had symptoms … headaches?’

‘Probably, but not necessarily. Brain tumours have nowhere to go. It’s the one part of the body totally encased by bone, so as the tumour grows so does the pressure inside the skull and on the healthy brain tissue. It can cause severe headaches that get worse when one lies down, but not always. But, as I told you, the position of Herr Ungerer’s tumour, despite it being reasonably fast-growing, was such that the damage was being done gradually. And that means the symptoms may have been more subtle.’

‘Such as?’

‘Personality changes. Behavioural changes. He might have lost his sense of smell – or suddenly have smelled pungent odours that were not there. He might have had pins and needles down one side of his body, or frequently felt nauseated. Or, conversely, another common symptom can be sudden vomiting without any warning nausea beforehand.’

For a moment Fabel thought over what Möller had told him. He remembered what Maria had said about her conversation with Frau Ungerer, how she had described Ungerer’s change of personality. About how his sexual appetite had become insatiable; how a faithful, loving husband had become a lascivious lecher and serial adulterer. How he had become ‘Bluebeard’. When Fabel had heard that, along with Maria’s description of the ‘forbidden’ basement and the chest within, he had felt ice crystals form in his veins. Another fairy-tale link, except ‘Bluebeard’ was a Perrault story, French, but it did have a German, Grimm equivalent in ‘Fitcher’s Bird’. This killer knew Ungerer. Or, at least, he knew enough about him to recognise him as a perfect
choice to fit with his insane Grimm-story-driven theme.

‘Could it have manifested itself in the victim’s sexual behaviour?’ He outlined to Möller what they knew about Ungerer’s dramatic change.

‘It could have,’ said Möller. ‘If there was a change as dramatic as that which you’ve described, then I would say it isn’t coincidental with the tumour but almost certainly consequential. We think that sex is a physical thing. It’s not. In the human animal it’s all up here.’ Möller tapped his temple with his forefinger. ‘Change the brain’s structure or chemistry – and the victim’s tumour would have most likely changed both – and all kinds of personality and behavioural changes take place. So yes, it is entirely possible that it turned your sexually moral, married, family-orientated man into a lecherous wolf.’

As he drove back to the Präsidium, the April sun shone cheerfully upon Hamburg. The city looked bright and fresh and eager for the summer to come. But Fabel saw none of this. All he was aware of was the dark, menacing presence of a psychotic who killed and mutilated in a search for some kind of twisted literary or cultural verity. He was close. So close, Fabel could almost smell him.

Lina Ritter decided, as she struggled into the costume, that she was getting too old for this. She
was
too old for this. It had been her career for nearly fifteen years now and, at thirty-four, enough was enough. After all, this was a game for younger women. She was being forced more and more to ‘specialise’: to cater for the more bizarre and exotic tastes of specific clients, and the role of a dominatrix had suited her age better. And anyway, there was no fucking involved most of the time: you got to order some fat businessman about for half an hour, whack him on the arse if he was too slow following your instructions and then tell him how bad he was and how angry you were as he jerked himself off. It paid reasonably well, the health risks were fewer and her clients, as their punishments, often did all her housework for her. Tonight would be harder work, however. The guy who had booked her had given her a wad of cash in advance. Then he had made his appointment for tonight, with precise instructions that she must wear the outfit he brought for her. She knew, from this ridiculous bloody costume, that she wasn’t going to be the dominant partner this time and had resigned herself to having to fuck the big guy.