The Blood-Dimmed Tide (20 page)

Sinclair allowed his eye to stray to the window where darkness had already fallen. Lights in the buildings across the river showed only faintly. The mist that had been gathering all day was thickening into fog.

Bennett went on, ‘It appears the German police have had a number of cases similiar to ours under investigation for some time. Nebe doesn’t say how many, but reports that they cover a two-year period starting in late 1929…’ He looked up and caught Sinclair’s glance once more. ‘Yes. Quite. That fits the period of Vane’s posting to Germany.’

The chief inspector was silent. He felt no sense of triumph, only sympathy for his superior, whose ordeal was just beginning.

‘Nebe didn’t know, until he learned from Vienna, that we had comparable cases under review here.’ The assistant commissioner had turned his attention back to the telegram. ‘He suggests that our two police forces should cooperate in this “exceptional matter” – that’s a quote – and says he’s dispatched an officer to London “to inform you fully on the investigation being carried out in Germany and to offer any assistance he can”. Considerate of them, in the circumstances. My God, I wonder how much they know. How much they’ve guessed.’ Bennett shook his head despairingly. ‘This man’s on his way. He’ll be in London tomorrow.’

He laid the telegram forms aside. Shutting his eyes, he rested his chin on his hands and sat like a statue, unmoving, for some time. As the silence lengthened, Holly cast a questioning glance at Sinclair, who put a finger to his lips and shook his head.

Bennett opened his eyes. ‘I owe you an apology, Chief Inspector.’

‘Not at all, sir. I’m as shocked as you are.’ Even as he made the required response, Sinclair was uncomfortably aware of how closely Philip Vane fitted at least one of the imagined portraits sketched for him by Dr Weiss during their discussion at Highfield. A man protected by his position, able to cover his tracks.

The assistant commissioner straightened in his chair. ‘Let’s turn to practical matters. On no account should Vane’s name be allowed to get out until we’ve had a chance to talk to him. Do we agree on that?’

‘Wholeheartedly, sir.’

‘You say he’s abroad?’

‘I was told he was away on government business. I didn’t inquire further. He’ll be back next week.’

‘Good. By then we’ll have heard what our German colleague has to tell us and know better where we stand. But we’d better brace ourselves for the worst. It may well be that responsibility for these crimes lies at the door of a senior government official, and that among his victims are nationals of a country to which he was accredited. Needless to say, it’s not a situation we’ve ever had to deal with before. But deal with it we must. Gentlemen…’

Bennett stayed in his chair, but raised a weary hand in farewell as the other two rose to leave. Pausing at the door, Sinclair looked back and saw him start to leaf through the telegram forms again. He was struck by how much the assistant commissioner’s face had aged in the past quarter of an hour.

‘Krim… Krimin…?’

Arthur Holly squinted at the piece of white pasteboard Sinclair had just handed him. Although it was only a little past two o’clock, the lights in Bennett’s office, including his green-shaded desk lamp, were all switched on. Outside, the blanketing fog pressed up against the windowpanes, reducing what little illumination came from the sky to a dull, uniform glow, the colour of dishwater. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since their last gathering.

‘Krim-in-al…?’ Holly scowled. The word he was struggling with – kriminalinspektor – was one he had not encountered before and he was having difficulty working his way through the seemingly endless syllables.

‘He’s a German police inspector, Arthur.’ Sinclair came to his rescue. ‘A copper, just like us.’

Holly snorted, unimpressed. Since their last meeting the day before he’d had second thoughts on the wisdom of permitting any foreigner to share their deliberations on so delicate an issue – doubts which he’d expressed to Sinclair in private a little while earlier. The fact that their visitor was a German – or ‘hun’, as the chief super preferred to put it – only made matters worse.

‘Probs… Prost…’ Now he was struggling with the name. ‘Probst! That’s it. Hans-Jo… Hans-Joa?’

‘Hans-Joachim Probst! For pity’s sake, Chief Superintendent!’ Bennett’s patience snapped. He’d been on edge all morning.

‘Thank you, sir.’ Unruffled, Holly rose and returned the card to his superior’s blotter. It had arrived a few minutes before, dispatched from the reception desk with the news that its owner was waiting in the lobby below. Bennett had ordered him to be shown upstairs to his first-floor office immediately.

Nebe’s emissary was late – they’d been expecting him all morning – but through no fault of his own. Fog in the channel had delayed ferry sailings, and when Sinclair telephoned Victoria station it was to learn that the Berlin train would not be arriving until after one o’clock. At twenty minutes past the hour Inspector Probst had rung to announce his arrival. Forgetting that the fog would also reduce the speed of taxis to a crawl, Bennett had sent for Holly and Sinclair at once and the three of them had been sitting in his office twiddling their thumbs ever since.

Observing the assistant commissioner now, Sinclair took note of his troubled glance and pale aspect. He wondered what kind of night Sir Wilfred had passed. His own had been far from tranquil. No policeman could contemplate the arrest of a senior government official without trepidation: one, moreover, who had entree to the highest social circles in the land. Given the terrible charges that might soon have to be laid against Philip Vane, the case had all the hallmarks of a nightmare in the making. It would have to be watertight. On that score the chief inspector had no illusions. The backlash from a botched prosecution would be swift and merciless. And of the three of them, the assistant commissioner had the most to lose.

There was a light tap on the door. Bennett’s secretary put her head in. ‘The German gentleman’s here, sir.’

‘Show him in, please, Miss Baxter.’ Bennett rose, and the other two followed suit. As their visitor entered, the assistant commissioner came around his desk and offered him his hand. ‘Inspector Probst?’

‘Sir Wilfred!’ They shook hands, Probst accompanying the action with a stiff bow. He was in his late thirties, with fair, curling hair that receded from a high forehead. Slight of build, he wore a suit of an old-fashioned cut and a shirt with a high, stiff collar. Both his manner and appearance had struck Sinclair as being fussy and schoolmasterly until the two men were introduced, when the chief inspector found himself looking into a pair of eyes as cool and watchful as his own, yet not without a trace of humour in their blue depths.

Alerted, he observed their visitor closely as Bennett ushered him to the conference table. The initial impression of stiffness and formality the inspector had given was soon dispelled. In fact, considering that he had just made a long, tiring journey and had now to handle a difficult brief before strangers – and in a language not his own – Probst’s self-possession was remarkable. While the others seated themselves around him he calmly undid the straps of his briefcase and took out a thick file, tied with black tape, which he laid on the table before him.

‘Before we begin, Inspector – may I offer you some refreshment? Coffee? Tea? Something to eat, perhaps?’ Bennett had taken the head of the narrow oak table and placed Holly and Sinclair on one side of him, facing Probst. Far from composed himself, the assistant commissioner fidgeted nervously in his chair, glancing out of the window into the fog, as though seeking inspiration there, in contrast to their visitor, who unhurriedly ordered the papers in his file as he waited for the proceedings to start.

‘Thank you, Sir Wilfred. I had lunch on the train. A glass of water will be sufficient.’ With a smile and a nod Probst reached for the carafe that stood on the table and poured himself a tumblerful.

‘May I say at the start how relieved I am to find that you speak our language so fluently.’ Unwilling to come to the point, the assistant commissioner continued to seek an excuse to prevaricate. ‘Otherwise, I’m afraid I should have had to send for an interpreter, something I would much rather not do, given the circumstances.’ He cast a significant glance at the inspector, perhaps hoping to learn in advance whether the shocking discovery made by the Yard’s representatives was already known to their colleagues in Berlin. Probst’s discreet nod in response, however, shed no light on the matter, one way or the other.

‘You are kind to compliment me on my English, Sir Wilfred, but the credit must go to a lady in Berlin, a Miss Adamson, from Durham. For years I used to visit her twice a week, and it’s thanks to her that I’m familiar with the works of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, all of which I read to her from cover to cover. A pleasure for me, you may be sure, but perhaps not for poor Miss Adamson, since they appeared to be the only books she used for this purpose and she had many pupils.’

Sinclair noticed, with amusement, that it was their visitor who was endeavouring to put his hosts at their ease.

‘But you might be interested to know where I first learned the language,’ Probst went on. ‘It was in a prisoner of war camp. Quite early in the war – it was in 1915 – I was blown sky high… that is the correct term, is it not, “sky high”?’ His blue eyes twinkled. ‘I awoke to find myself in a British field hospital and spent the rest of the war in a camp near the city of Carlisle, learning not only English but basket-weaving and bricklaying, as well. Rarely have I spent my time more usefully, before or since.’

This long discourse seemed to have had the desired effect on Bennett, Sinclair observed. The assistant commissioner sat with his chin cupped in his hand, listening attentively. A glance at Holly, on his other side, revealed a different picture. Apparently the sight of a foreigner – and a hun, at that – spouting the King’s English with such aplomb had taken the chief super unawares. Sheer disbelief was stamped on his blunt features.

Bennett resettled himself in his chair. ‘To business, then.’ He turned to Probst. ‘Herr Nebe informed us in his telegram that you have been investigating a series of murders in Germany that may well be linked to similiar crimes under inquiry here. We should be very interested to hear about those, and anything else you have to tell us.’

Probst dipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘I have come armed with all the relevant information, Sir Wilfred. The murders I’m about to describe have a distinct “signature”, one you may find familiar. Should that be the case, we are ready to offer any assistance we can in bringing this man to justice. I speak not only for my superiors in Berlin, but for the Bavarian police as well.’

‘The Bavarian police?’ Bennett was taken aback.

‘Yes, two of the murders I’m talking about were committed there. The other four were in Prussia. They took place in a period of a little over two years between December 1929, and April of this year, since when there have been none reported: none, that is, until we received word of your inquiry to the international commission.’

‘So there have been six in all?’ The assistant commissioner was still coming to terms with the grim figure.

‘Six, yes… though there may have been more.’ Probst lifted his glance to theirs.

‘Why do you say that?’ Holly spoke up.

‘For two reasons, Chief Superintendent. Firstly, this murderer hides the bodies of his victims afterwards, or attempts to. Our belief is he aims to leave a cold trail – to be well away by the time the body is found. So it may be there are other corpses still awaiting discovery.’ Probst shrugged. ‘Are there young girls missing, then, you ask me? Children unaccounted for? Sadly, the answer is yes, but the reasons for this are many, and not necessarily connected to this or any other criminal case.’ The inspector paused, his brow creasing in a frown.

‘I’m sure you’re all aware that my country has been through difficult times since the war ended. First, there was the collapse of our currency, next the Depression. We have had reparations to pay. All this is reflected in our political situation. German society has been disrupted, and one effect has been the breaking-up of families. We have seen begging… young people cast out on the streets. I need not go on. If this man was seeking victims unlikely to be missed he could hardly have chosen a better hunting ground than Germany in recent years.’

‘Yes, quite, Inspector…’ Bennett stirred uneasily beneath the Berlin policeman’s cool, unaccusing gaze. ‘But could you not give us some details about these murders? We need to decide whether they resemble our own cases.’

‘I believe they do.’ Probst’s reply was prompt. ‘Even from what little we have gleaned from your inquiry to Vienna, it seems almost certain we are dealing with the same killer. But I will let you decide this, Sir Wilfred.’ While he was speaking the inspector had produced a pince-nez of antique manufacture from his lapel pocket, which he donned now as he consulted the papers from his file, the gold-rimmed lenses, perched on the bridge of his nose, lending further colour to his schoolmaster’s air and making him seem older than he was.

‘The victims in Germany have all been young girls, aged between ten and thirteen. None had reached puberty. Rape and strangulation occurred in each case and were followed by an assault on the victim’s face in which, according to our pathologists’ findings, the same weapon, or an identical one, was used by the killer.’

‘A hammer, would that be?’ Sinclair put the question in a low voice.

‘Yes, an ordinary stonemason’s tool.’ Probst looked up. ‘It is the same with the victims here? Your query to the commission was not specific on that point.’

Before Sinclair could respond, Bennett intervened. ‘Our conclusions are very similar to yours. I think we can say there’s every likelihood we’re looking for the same man. We have two cases under investigation here. More of those later. Continue, if you would…’ He caught the chief inspector’s eye.