The Killing of Emma Gross (2 page)

She covered her mouth with a gloved hand. Her white-haired companion hissed something about manners. Ah, bad manners, a true crime against society. Never mind the abduction and possible murder of a five-year-old girl. No, never mind small matters like that.

I smiled and touched my hat brim, got to my feet. I dropped a pile of coins next to my cup and struck out across the square.

Of course I'd known the name of the Albermann child: I'd read the same story two hours earlier. I was about to meet the man who might have abducted her.

***

I scanned the street in front of the church door three times to be sure, but no one was there who matched the description I'd been given. I took a deep breath and pushed my way inside.

Sunlight filled the church, diffused and softened through two rows of tinted windows. Sweet spices hung on the still air. The door banged shut and a man hunching in the nearest chair turned and tutted. I tracked his gaze to the top of my head and removed my hat.

A choir of voices floated above the rumble of organ accompaniment. Deeper voices, then higher, then both together for several bars. I wasn't familiar with how and when Catholics prayed so I scanned the service times listed in the vestibule. The Eucharist should have finished by now, and there were no further services scheduled until after five pm. Must've been choir practice. I recognised the tune, but not its title or the composer. The music smothered the sounds of street traffic from outside, but only the way that smog smothers an industrial town. The car engines and horse hooves were still there underneath, nagging at my senses.

I walked between varnished pews and marble columns to the pulpit. Halfway up the walls, marble and gilt gave way to black brick that went the rest of the way to the domed ceiling and swallowed what natural light made it up there. I circled the nave, passing open chapels and a cluster of curtained confessional booths. No sign of him among the loners or small groups huddled in prayer; my stomach muscles cramped, drawing a gasp through my clenched teeth. Maybe Kürten and his wife knew nothing about the missing child and they'd just been playing me for a fool.

As I was about to come full circle to the tower where I'd come in, I glanced into the last chapel. Through the widely-spaced bars, a man knelt at an iron frame of small votive candles arranged before a solid marble altar. He touched a match to a candle wick, blew out the flame and dropped the smoking match onto a mound of at least a dozen others. His hair shone like oiled gold where the light caught it. He matched the victim's description of Kürten, from the neat parting combed into the hair to the bland symmetry of his facial features and the pencil-line moustache. I entered the chapel and stood behind him.

'Are those for all the people you say you've killed?' I said, nodding at the spent matches.

He turned to me. His eyes were supposed to be blue, but there they reflected the wine-bottle green of the chapel windows. He smiled and gestured at the stock of unlit candles. 'I fear there are not enough here for all of them,' he said.

He got to his feet and brushed dust from the creases in his dark suit. Behind him, a splash of red drew my eye: a fire bucket filled with sand huddled next to the altar.

'You got my wife's message, then,' he said. 'I was beginning to wonder.'

I'd got the message all right. The woman who'd delivered it had been a shivering mess of smudged eye make up and traces of snot gumming her upper lip by the time she'd unburdened herself in my office. And she hadn't been a looker to start with.

I stepped forward, ID in hand. 'Peter Kürten, I'm arresting you on suspicion of the rape of Maria Butlies on the evening of Wednesday the 14
^th
May.'

'For a rape?' He giggled. The sound bounced off the walls and I was glad of the choir for cover.

Despite Frau Kürten's statement, I had a hard time believing this was the Ripper. The damn woman had only been repeating what her husband had told her, after all, when he'd confessed to her. She might have felt duty bound to believe him but I didn't.

He raised an eyebrow. 'You're alone?'

I didn't respond.

'No pistol?' he said. 'No hand cuffs? You can't think me much of a threat.'

'Do you intend to be?' I said. In truth, I was annoyed that I'd left my equipment satchel at my apartment. Along with my diverse powders, plates and test tubes, the satchel held Maria Butlies' statement, a letter she'd written to a friend describing her rape, my set of cuffs, and a pair of blood-caked scissors I'd picked up while searching Kürten's home.

'Mind if I see that?' Kürten held his hand out for my ID. I came closer but kept hold of the document as he read it. 'Thomas Klein?' The words came out as a breathless whisper. His sea-green eyes moistened. He clasped his hands together and glanced past the altar to the glittering mosaic of some bearded saint on the wall behind it. 'Oh this is too good! You are a cousin? Her brother, perhaps? Christine was my first, you know.'

I wanted to ask who Christine was but I knew better than to interrupt.

He grabbed my shoulder. There was a scar on his right cheek. None of the Ripper's surviving victims had mentioned that, but then it was so small I'd noticed it only now, up close. It probably wasn't the first thing a girl recalled about being raped or stabbed. The scar didn't put him out of the running.

'Her blood...it...gurgled, and dripped on the mattress. Spattered my hand.'

He showed me the hand, splaying the fingers for me.

'My God, she must have been only – what? – ten years old at the time. She bit my hand when I throttled her, the little minx.' He smiled at the memory and closed his eyes. He moved his hand from my shoulder and aped the act of throttling, his cheeks darkening. A lock of thick hair came loose from its pomade and dangled over his creased forehead, nostrils flaring above his thin moustache. 'So when she stopped struggling I penetrated her. Her genitals, I mean. With my fingers, you understand?'

His eyes snapped open and searched mine. I found myself nodding, and I hated myself for it, for giving him that measure of recognition. His voice had thickened, the words fighting their way from his throat as his breathing came fast and loose.

'When she passed out I took my pocket knife and cut her throat. Started on the left and drew it to the right. Like this. And then...the blood.'

His forefinger traced an arc of arterial blood spray as he closed his eyes again. Sweat beaded his top lip. His panting slowed. He straightened and when he grinned there was blood on his teeth, though whether he'd bitten his lip or his tongue, or whether my mind had conjured some fancy under the influence of his tale and too little sleep, I couldn't say.

'No more than three minutes, the whole business.' He took a handkerchief to his fingers as though trying to clean them. He smoothed back his hair and cleared his throat. 'Then I left the room and made off.'

I cleared my throat too, not trusting myself to speak clearly without doing so. 'And what about Gertrude Albermann?' I said.

He replaced his handkerchief in the breast pocket of his pinstriped jacket. 'You'll see.'

It seemed like he wanted to confess. Maybe if I took him through the motions he'd tell me about the Albermann girl. 'When did all this happen?' I drew a notebook and pen from my pocket.

'Summer. 1913. I was doing a lot of theft at that time. It was a Sunday evening, a feast day, about ten or eleven pm when I broke in. It was an inn on the Wolfstrasse, but then you know that. Nothing worth taking. No possessions, that is.'

'And the girl's name?'

'Christine, you fool, like I told you.'

'Christine who?'

He punched my arm. 'Stop playing with me, detective. Christine Klein, as you well know.'

'Is Gertrude still alive?'

'Who?'

'The Albermann child. If you are the Ripper then you're the one who took her, aren't you. Aren't you?'

'Oh I'm the Ripper all right, Thomas, I can assure you of that.'

I stepped in close and made fists of my hands. 'Then tell me where she is.'

Someone sneezed. I spun round. A plump man in a white gown dithered at the threshold, his small eyes rolling a lot of white my way. Had he overheard Kürten's confession? The choir had stopped singing and the organ had stopped bellowing. Whispers echoed in the nave in place of the music. And cutting through them, something like shouting outside the church. The cough and splutter of road traffic had ebbed away.

'Yes?' I had to stop myself shouting at the man.

'Is one of you gentlemen Detective Thomas Klein?' he asked through thick lips that turned down at each end of his mouth. He chewed on his tongue.

'That's me,' I said.

'There are some more policemen outside in the square,' the man said. 'A lot of them. And they're asking for you.'

'Ritter,' I said. It came out on the crest of a sigh.
Gott in Himmel
, not now. If anyone in this city had supernatural powers, it was him. Kürten inclined his head as though he understood the importance of the name.

'A friend of yours?' he said.

My turn to smile. I had to, otherwise I would have cried out in frustration. I seized Kürten's arm and said, 'Tell me where Gertrude Albermann is, now.'

'So fearsome, Thomas.' He was grinning. 'I'm glad you're the one to bring me in. And I hope you realise the awesome significance of this moment. You, Thomas Klein, finally bringing the Düsseldorf Ripper to heel. They'll write songs about you. Make moving pictures. Write novels. The Sancho Panza to my Don Quixote of death!'

'The Van Helsing to your Count Dracula more like,' I told him. 'Come on.'

I didn’t like that this arrest was going to be Ritter’s, but the sooner we got Kürten to headquarters the sooner we could get Albermann's whereabouts out of him.

We entered the nave, where over a dozen white-robed choristers had gathered between us and the exit. Several of them were just boys who were talking in the loud voices boys use when they know something dangerous might be about to happen.

'Are you the choir master?' I asked the chubby man who'd come to find me.

His chin merged with the trunk of his neck as he nodded. I pulled Kürten through the crowd to the door, forced him down on his haunches in the vestibule and shouted at the nearest choristers to clear a space away from the door. A few worshippers had got caught up in the crowd too.

I lay on my belly and pushed open the door a few centimetres. Blue-coated
Schutzpolizei
ringed the square. They'd cut off the traffic flow at each exit point and within their cordon the square was empty. Each blue coat I saw carried a bullet hose machine pistol, and most had them trained on the church door. Bayonets and truncheons hung at their belts. This was a full-on riot squad.

'Is that you, Thomas?' called a voice I recognised. Ritter had turned up after all, murder commission in tow no doubt, though I couldn't see any plainclothesmen from where I lay. 'Come on out!' he shouted.

I let the door swing shut and stood up. Kürten made to copy me but I shooed him down with a palm. This was a dangerous moment. In his eagerness to steal my collar and humiliate me, Ritter might not notice the civilians in the way. I had to get them clear.

'Choir master?' I shouted. The chubby man approached, his face full of panic. 'Do you have a spare gown?'

'Gown?' He frowned.

'Those things you're wearing, whatever they're called. Do you have a spare one?'

'In the back somewhere.'

'Get it.' He nodded but didn't move so I shouted: 'Now!'

He waddled off. I faced the rest of them and held up my hands for silence. The whispers died down.

'Okay ladies and gentlemen, I'm a policeman. This man here,' I pointed at Kürten, 'is a wanted felon.' Wide eyes focused on Kürten. He waved at them.

'Is it the Ripper?' a voice shouted. I didn't see who it was but I ignored them anyway.

'The choir master is going to lead you outside. Everyone put your hands on your heads and walk calmly, all right?'

'It must be the Ripper,' the voice said. 'Why else would they send so many armed men?'

The choir master returned with the spare gown. I took the garment from him and tore it in two, handing him the larger piece and keeping the smaller for myself. I pushed the church door open again and waved the white cloth out of the opening.

'Ritter?' I shouted. 'It's Klein here.'

'Always a pleasure, Thomas,' Ritter shouted back.

'Never mind that, Ritter. There are several innocent people in here. The choir master is going to lead them out into the square, and then I'll bring him out.'

'Yeah, bring who out?' the voice muttered behind me.

I turned back. 'Hands on your heads!' I growled. The younger choristers beamed as they complied. Some of the older ones did it more slowly. A couple of the worshippers didn't do it at all. I patted the choir master on the back and said, 'Now lead them out. Slowly. Wave the gown. Don't make any sudden moves, and do as they say.'

I held the door open and the choir master led the group into the square while Ritter shouted directions. The stragglers in the church vestibule glared at Kürten on the way out. I kept my eyes on them, just waiting for an upstanding citizen to lash out the way that upstanding citizens are wont to do. They disappointed me, though.