Ice Cold (16 page)

Mitzi Zimmermann gave the handbag to Frau Hertl, who opened it and looked inside at once. She was very surprised, because Kathie’s belt was in the handbag. The belt that went with her dress. Apart from her belt the bag contained only a couple of
scraps of paper. Nothing to help us any further.

Even as she left, Frau Hertl turned to Mitzi and impressed it on her that if the child, if her Kathie came back, she should go to Frau Lederer, and she would get money there for the journey home. She had seen to that. Mitzi mustn’t forget. She was to tell Kathie to come back home.

Then we went on from Mariahilfplatz to the tram stop in Ludwigstrasse. The poor woman seemed very downcast. I felt so sorry for her, I didn’t know what to do, how to comfort her. On the way to the tram stop she told me she thought her daughter had been to an inn. An acquaintance from Wolnzach had heard she’d been seen there and told her about it. The place was known as Soller’s, and she’d like to go to it. She didn’t want to leave any stone unturned. Did I know where the inn was, and had I ever been to it myself?

So I went to Soller’s with her. First we looked in at the Metzgerbräu beer cellar. Kathie’s mother asked about her there too, but we didn’t find her or anyone who could help us.

We had no luck at Soller’s either. No one there had seen Kathie.

Now we didn’t know where else to look for Kathie, so we went to the Grüner Hof inn. Frau Hertl had left her luggage there, and we left her daughter’s
case full of clothes, which we’d been carrying around with us all this time. We left the umbrella and the handbag there too. Then we went to the railway station.

Frau Hertl said the man she knew in Wolnzach had also told her that he’d seen Kathie here at the station last Sunday, and she seemed to be waiting for every train coming in. Kathie must have been there almost all day, because Frau Hertl’s friend had seen her when he arrived, and then later, when he took the train home, she was still there.

On the way to the station Frau Hertl said she had to do a little shopping here in Munich. Could I go with her, she asked, so that she wouldn’t be all alone? She didn’t want to go on her own. So I went with her.

I accompanied her from the station to Paul-Heyse-Strasse. Frau Hertl went into a draper’s shop there. Hofmann is the name of the business. She wanted to buy some dress material. I waited for her outside the shop. After about half an hour she came out again, and said the woman in the shop had told her Kathie had been there, and Frau Hofmann thought Kathie was working as a maid for a lawyer now. She, Frau Hofmann, had given Kathie the address herself. The lawyer’s wife was a good customer of hers. So Frau Hertl was sure that the girl
who went into the shop was Kathie. The Hertl family had been buying fabric from the Hofmann shop for years, and the girl had mentioned her name too. That gave Frau Hertl hope, and Frau Hofmann had been kind enough to telephone the lawyer and ask after Kathie. But she’d never been there.

Then I went back to the Grüner Hof with Frau Hertl. We took the dress material she had bought there, and put it with the rest of her luggage. After that I went with her to the police station that deals with such things, and she reported Kathie missing.

I can’t say any more. I’ve already told you all I can remember.

The passer-by, a woman, will tell the police later that the girl was standing with her back to the rotunda grating. She was looking in the direction of Sonnenstrasse. She, the passer-by herself, was standing at the tram stop. First she didn’t notice the girl at all. Only when she heard her voice did she notice, and look her way.

‘I’ve only been in Munich for a week.’

The girl was small, slightly plump. Sixteen or maybe eighteen years old, wearing a green coat. Later, the woman would recognize the coat at once, at the police station.

‘I’m not going with you. I don’t want to.’

The girl’s hat, more of a cap really, didn’t hide her face.
There was something pale round the hat, maybe a ribbon. The passer-by couldn’t tell in the light from the street lamp; the couple were standing outside the place where the light fell. But she was able to say, later, that there had been something light round the girl’s face. However, she couldn’t confirm with complete certainty that the hat they showed her was the one the girl had been wearing.

‘I’m new here. I don’t know my way around.’

The man leaned a little way over to the girl as he talked to her, in a muted voice that no one else could hear. You could guess at what he was saying only from the way he moved and held himself.

Curious now, the passer-by watched the couple. The man was twenty-five, maybe younger. ‘He was dressed like a driver, plus-fours, dark socks, a leather jacket, the kind of thing truck drivers wear.’

The girl’s voice dropped too. The passer-by heard only a little laugh. When the tram came she got on it. As she boarded the tram, she looked at the couple.

The girl had taken the man’s arm. They were walking quickly towards the hospital complex. The woman watched until she lost sight of them.

Interrogation of Josef Kalteis, continued

– What do I like to do best? I like cycling around. I look at the countryside. And the women too, of course.

– Yes, I fancy women. What kind of a man would I be if I didn’t look at them?

– If I haven’t been out of doors in a long time I can’t stand it no more. I have to get out, I have to walk around, or even better ride my bike. I get quite worked up then, all restless. Everything seems so cramped, I have to get out of doors.

– Well, then I ride my bike about and look at the women. I like brunettes best, smart brunettes. And I like a nice fat arse. I don’t fancy them too thin. No, I don’t fancy Skinny Lizzies at all. What does a girl need to have? Nice knockers, yes, but a good arse even more than nice knockers. So’s you’ve got a good handful to hold on to.

– When you’re cycling, well, all the women are coming your way. Their skirts keep riding up as they cycle along. Then you can see their undies. I like that, nothing wrong with that, is there? They do it on purpose. They dress for cycling specially so as their skirts will ride up and anyone can see their undies. Their undies and the way their thighs rub together, that gets me all worked up. But that’s what they want, they want it. You take my word, they want you to grab them good and hard. They like it, that’s what women want.

– Sometimes I follow one on my bike. Look at her arse rubbing back and forth on the saddle, think how it’d be if she was sitting on top of me. Rubbing back and forth on me.

– Just cuddling and that, no, it don’t do anything for me, I like a girl to fight back, twist and turn. It’s only when I have to hold her good and hard with all my strength I really like it. Having to grab her and hold her there. That’s what women want.

– My wife, she don’t really enjoy it till it gets a bit rough. They want to be a bit scared, that’s what makes it fun. You take my word for it.

(The public prosecutor places a brown cardboard box on the table in front of Kalteis. He takes a photograph out of the box.)

– I never seen that girl.

– Why are you showing me this photo? Why put the girl’s picture in front of me? I never seen the girl in my life. I can’t remember this girl.

– What do you mean, some woman saw me with the girl? Well, could be I saw her once. Let’s have another look at the photo. What did you say she’s called? Hertl? I can’t remember.

– Yes, could be I once met a girl at the Oktoberfest what looked something like this. What’s her first name, then? Kathie?

– You can always meet girls on the Wiesn. Maybe I did once meet a Kathie on the Wiesn.

– OK, I admit I knew the girl. I met her at the Oktoberfest.

– She was standing by the roundabout. Smiled at me. I liked her right away. So I went over to her and talked to her. Then we went on the chairoplane together and the ghost train. I put my arm round her in the ghost train. She didn’t mind. She went along with me right away, she was willing. That’s how it seemed to me, she fancied it. After a while I asked if she liked nature, if
she’d go out with me, somewhere out of Munich.

– I don’t remember when, not now. I think it was still light when I asked her. Can’t remember now.

– We left the Wiesn, we went for a walk. Went through the city. I don’t know all the streets by name, can’t tell you exactly where. We went to Thalkirchen.

– Then she wanted a cuddle while we was walking. That don’t interest me much, to be honest, cuddling a girl. I don’t get nothing out of it. Never did interest me. But I went along with her just because I wanted to have it off with her.

– I wanted to have it off, that’s why we went further out.

– Nothing wrong with that, is there? Nothing wrong with meeting a girl at the Oktoberfest and going out of town to have it off with her. What’s the matter with that?

– The girl knew what I wanted or she wouldn’t of come with me. We cuddled a bit because that’s what she fancied. Yes, then I grabbed her a bit harder. That’s what I fancy myself, and she liked it too.

– That’s what spices it up for me, it has to be a bit rough, a bit of violence in it. If the girl goes all coy, if she resists …

– She liked it, she went along with me. Went along
with me fucking her. Afterwards I’ll have taken her back to Munich. What else would I have done?

(The public prosecutor puts newspaper cuttings about the murder of Katharina Hertl in front of Kalteis. Newspaper cuttings found in the suspect’s apartment.)

– What’s this about? I kept those newspaper stories because I knew the girl. And then you read next day about how she’s dead. You keep these things, that’s only natural. Anyone would do it, bet you’d do it too!

– Why didn’t I say what I knew? Can’t remember no more. I guess I was scared you’d pin it on me.

(The public prosecutor places a mummified piece of tissue with hair on it in front of Kalteis. It was found with the newspaper story and other such finds in an old stove in the suspect’s loft.)

– What’s that? What’s that supposed to be?

– I’ve no idea what it is.

(The public prosecutor tells Kalteis that on forensic examination the find has proved to be
part of a vulva with the pubic hair still on it. According to the forensic investigators, the mummified piece of tissue can be related to a series of other such finds taken from dead women. In addition, Kalteis’s fingerprints are on the container in which the item was found.)

– Where did you get all this? What’s this all about?

(Kalteis looks incredulously at the finds. The public prosecutor describes precisely where they were found, in an old disused stove in the loft belonging to Kalteis’s apartment. The public prosecutor goes on to ask the suspect why he cut the girl’s vulva out while she was still alive.)

– I never did! That’s a lie! She was dead! Dead! Listen, she was dead!

– Listen, will you help me if I tell you everything? Will you help me? It wasn’t me, it’s something driving me. I can’t do nothing about it, it makes me do things, I have to go out, I have to find something …I can’t resist it. Will you help me?

– I went out with that girl. She just cuddled. That don’t do a thing for me.

– I didn’t feel nothing. So I took her where we wouldn’t be disturbed. Out there you can go up hill and down dale, there’s plenty of places you can be alone.

– That’s why I took her out there. Then I grabbed hold of her, tore her knickers off. I knocked her down and tore her knickers off. I held her by the throat with one hand.

– She fought back, but that’s what she wanted, I mean, she went out there with me.

– All I remember is, I knocked her down and stuck it in her.

– She didn’t move no more after that. Didn’t move. She lay there, she didn’t move. I guess I’d held my hand too hard round her throat. She didn’t move.

– It was the first one died on me. I wasn’t myself when I grabbed her. It wasn’t till after I’d come I noticed she wasn’t moving no more. I was trembling all over, because she just lay there, wasn’t moving no more. I was so worked up, she’d fought back so hard, that really got me going, I was beside myself. The whole thing was really good …

– I can’t remember what happened afterwards, not now. I wanted to clear her away so as nobody would find her. Clear her out of the way.

– I went to the old millstream. It was kind of a branch of the old millstream. I tied her hands and feet together. I threw her in. I tied a stone to her too, so she’d sink. Then I went back to Munich, I don’t remember what I did then.

– Where did I get the wire? I had it in my pocket. Why did I put it in my pocket? I don’t remember no more.

– Afterwards I had a funny feeling. Kind of a tingling. I couldn’t get no rest. What did I do with her before I put her in the water? I can’t remember.

– Only that I wasn’t myself. I felt a little ashamed. Because she’d died in my hands, but after a while I wanted it again. Wanted that feeling again.