JF05 - The Valkyrie Song (39 page)

‘It’s fine – it really wasn’t too bad. It’s my pride that’s taken the bruising.’

‘What, because you were beaten up by a woman?’ They found a place over by the window and reasonably distant from the majority of occupied tables.

‘Because I mishandled the whole situation. What have you got?’

Susanne dropped her notebook with a thud onto the canteen table. She looped a stray lock of raven hair behind her ear, slipped on her glasses and started to flick through her notes.

‘She’s a psychopath. That’s for sure. But, whatever else has been going on, she’s not a serial killer. Köpke insists that she could not be responsible for any of the other killings.’

‘That’s not right – she had escaped from the hospital before Jake Westland and Armin Lensch were killed. And Jespersen, too. She could well have committed those murders. The only thing she’s in the clear for is the original Angel killings.’

‘No, no – that’s not what Köpke means. Margarethe may well have been available to commit those other murders, but Köpke is certain that she was focused exclusively on killing Drescher. She would have no compunction about killing others, but she saw herself as being on a mission. The only other people she would have murdered would have been anyone who stood in the way of her killing Drescher.’

‘Maybe she found out that Jespersen was on Drescher’s trail,’ said Fabel between mouthfuls.

‘Isn’t that pretty unlikely? Anyway, let me summarise what Köpke told me: Margarethe Paulus is a psychopath, but it’s difficult to decide whether she’s a primary or a secondary psychopath. Primaries tend to be born that way or are genetically predisposed to psychopathy, whereas secondaries are made that way by experience, environment or as the result of drug abuse, et cetera. Margarethe clearly went through a neurological trauma as part of her childhood brain surgery. Maybe her psychopathy is iatrogenic, the adverse side effect of medical intervention. But it’s hard to tell – psychopathy only really begins to manifest itself in adolescence. We’re all
egocentric as kids: it goes with the territory. But whereas we mature and get an idea of ourselves as social beings, psychopaths don’t. The scary thing is that there’s a good chance that one in every hundred of the population are psychopaths.’

‘You’re kidding …’

‘No joke. And a lot more are borderline. We’ve all known someone who is totally egomaniacal. The husband who dumps his wife of twenty years along with his kids without a second thought. Or the business boss who sacks loyal workers without a twinge of conscience … A lot of people we consider self-centred arseholes are often psychopathic. They have a piece of their make-up missing. The majority of psychopaths in society manage to fit in and never become involved in criminal or overtly antisocial behaviour.’ Susanne took a sip of her coffee. ‘You know we were talking about Irma Grese, the Bitch of Belsen? Well, maybe that’s a perfect example of someone who could have gone through life and had a perfectly normal existence. That’s the danger, Jan, that when someone like Hitler comes along he can tap into that one per cent of the population. When you have a core of people who are incapable of feeling guilt or remorse, and who possess absolutely no capacity for pity or compassion or empathy for other human beings, you can persuade them to do almost anything.’

‘And Margarethe is one of those people?’

‘Not quite. There’s nothing borderline with Margarethe. Köpke says she’s a true sociopath and, quite unusually, she’s suffering from a dissocial personality disorder, rather than an antisocial personality disorder.’

‘What’s the difference?’ asked Fabel.

‘Mainly that she can function, or seem to function, more normally. Dissocial sociopaths don’t get into trouble to the same degree – delinquency, criminal behaviour, that kind of thing – as the antisocial type. And they’re better at disguising
their behaviour. She won’t have sought out opportunities to act antisocially, but she will act without pity to get or do whatever she wants. The main thing is she has absolutely zero empathy for other human beings. She is simply incapable of simulation … imagining that other people have feelings or even the same kind of consciousness as she does.’

‘Ideal for a professional assassin,’ said Fabel.

‘Not really. As you’ve experienced yourself, the typical individual with full dissocial personality disorder has an extremely low violence threshold. So does an antisocial, for that matter. If everything she has claimed about the Stasi training is true – and bear in mind all sociopaths are inventive, compulsive liars – then her trainers would no doubt have identified her instability and dropped her from the programme. Another trait of the disorder, unfortunately for Drescher, is the tendency to pin the blame or responsibility for their failures on others. Combine that with a tendency towards obsession, and you’ve got the ultimate stalker from hell. Köpke believes that in Margarethe’s case there’s co-morbidity with another personality or even a schizoaffective disorder … or maybe it’s to do with the neurological damage done in childhood. Something that makes her even more focused and obsessive. Her belief that her sister exists, and the way she allows the sister to speak and act through her, isn’t psychopathic, it’s psychotic. Delusional. In Margarethe we have something extra going on in the mix: sociopathy with a twist.’

Fabel looked through the window, out across the treetops. The sky was heavy and grey. ‘Do you think the other so-called Valkyries will be similar? Sociopaths, I mean?’

Susanne shrugged. ‘To take human life for money doesn’t show a lot of empathy for others. But sociopaths are egomaniacal, narcissistic and extremely impulsive. I’m guessing that these women who were trained as professional assassins had a high degree of self-discipline and were willing to subordinate
their will to that of others. But that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. The opposite, in fact.’

‘I don’t want you sitting in on the interview, Susanne,’ said Fabel. ‘You can watch from the other room through the CCTV.’

‘That’s no good, Jan. I need to be able to observe her closely. And I want to be able to ask her questions. Surely you will have her restrained this time?’

‘Okay … but if she kicks off again, you leave right away. I’ll have extra bodies in there with us.’

Susanne’s perfect porcelain smile had a hint of wickedness about it. ‘I don’t know, Jan … you’re going to have to learn to deal with your fear of women or I’m going to end up a permanent chaperone.’

Fabel, Susanne and Anna Wolff were seated in the interview room before Margarethe Paulus was brought in. Karin Vestergaard, Werner and others from the Murder Commission team were in the connecting room, watching on closed-circuit TV.

When Margarethe was brought in by two uniformed officers, her wrists braceleted in Speedcuffs, her strong, attractive face was as impassive as it had been before.

‘Sit down, Margarethe.’ Fabel indicated the floor-fixed chair. One of the officers unfastened her Speedcuffs, only to use them again to fix her right hand to the metal securing loop on the table. A tall woman of about forty took the seat next to Margarethe. She was Lina Mueller, the state-appointed attorney.

‘This is Frau Doctor Eckhardt,’ said Fabel, gesturing towards Susanne, ‘from the Institute for Judicial Medicine. She is a criminal psychologist and she has spoken to Dr Köpke, who of course you know. Frau Doctor Eckhardt will have some questions for you. You will have already spoken to Frau Mueller, who is here to represent your interests.’

‘I don’t need a lawyer,’ said Margarethe. Again it was a simple statement of fact, made without resentment or anger.

‘We feel you should have one present,’ said Anna. ‘It’s your right.’

Margarethe didn’t respond, in voice or expression.

‘What is your name?’ asked Fabel.

‘I am Margarethe Paulus.’

‘But you told Herr Fabel earlier that you were Ute Paulus,’ said Anna.

‘You are confusing me with my sister,’ said Margarethe. ‘Ute is my sister’s name.’

‘Where is your sister right now?’ asked Susanne.

Margarethe gazed at the small, reinforced-glass window. ‘My sister is resting. She is waiting for me.’

‘Where is she waiting?’ asked Susanne. Margarethe remained silent. Inanimate.

‘Margarethe,’ said Fabel, changing tack. ‘There are a number of killings that have taken place in Hamburg since you escaped from the hospital. I would like to ask you what you know about them. Do you understand?’

‘I have an IQ of one hundred and forty,’ said Margarethe. ‘Dr Köpke has probably already told you that. There is not a question you are capable of asking that I would be incapable of understanding.’

‘Okay, Margarethe. I’m impressed, if it’s important to you that I am impressed. Let’s start with the most recent murder. Robert Gerdes.’

‘You know by now that Robert Gerdes was not his real name. It was Georg Drescher. And it wasn’t murder, it was an execution. I told your colleagues when I phoned that I had executed Drescher.’

‘So it was you who tortured and killed him? It wasn’t your sister?’ asked Susanne.

‘We both did. Ute tracked him down and found him. She kept her promise. She promised me she would make it all
right for me, and she did. But when we killed him we acted together. We were one.’

‘Why the torture?’ asked Susanne. ‘All that terrible pain. What did he do to you to have deserved that?’

Margarethe sat mute. Fabel repeated Susanne’s question, but it was as if Margarethe could not hear him. Fabel had years of experience of silences in interviews: he had learned to read them, interpret them. Sometimes a suspect’s refusal to speak said more than their answers. This was different. It wasn’t a silence, it was a complete shutting down of all responses. He knew then with absolute certainty that Margarethe would answer only those questions that suited her. He just hoped that he would get enough from her to start putting what had happened into some kind of understandable context.

‘A week ago,’ Fabel broke the silence. ‘A young man called Armin Lensch was murdered in the Kiez district of Hamburg. His belly was sliced open with a blade. What can you tell me about that?’

‘I can tell you nothing about it. It had nothing to do with me. I didn’t kill him.’ Margarethe’s frighteningly blank expression suggested a complete lack of guile. Of emotion. Of anything.

Fabel placed the
srbosjek
, still cased in a clear plastic evidence bag, on the table. He kept a firm hold on the bag, just outside her reach.

‘Did you use this on Armin Lensch? Is this what you sliced open his belly with?’

‘I’ve never seen that before,’ Margarethe said, looking at the weapon without interest. ‘And I wouldn’t use that for slicing open a gut. That’s for cutting throats.’

‘If you haven’t seen that before,’ said Fabel, leaning forward, ‘then how do you know how it’s used?’

‘I’ve never seen your car, but if I did I would know how to drive it. And I know that that is called a graviso knife.
Or a
srbosjek
. It was used by Croat
Usta
e
. It’s very simple but highly effective. But it’s not an assassin’s weapon, particularly. This is for killing large numbers of people. Although I have to say that used expertly, it would silence and kill a single meeting efficiently.’

‘Meeting?’ asked Susanne.

‘That’s what we call them,’ said Margarethe. ‘A meeting is when the agent and the target encounter each other and the mission is executed. We call them meetings because there should be no engagement with the target prior to execution, making the meeting the first and final encounter. We also call the target a meeting.’

Fabel placed a second evidence bag on the table. It contained the automatic that Dirk and Henk had found.

‘Is this yours?’ he asked.

‘I’ve never seen it before,’ she said.

‘It was retrieved from your apartment. Again, there is a Croatian connection.’

‘I know. It’s a Croatian PHP MV-9 automatic. It’s about eighteen years old. It was a model developed in a rush for use in the Independence War.’

‘Okay,’ said Fabel. ‘Once again I’m impressed by your encyclopaedic knowledge of weapons and assassination techniques. But your knowledge of this weapon could come simply from the fact that it is yours. That you had it ready to use if your drugging of Drescher didn’t work out as planned.’

Again an empty stare. Margarethe was attractive. Her features perfectly proportioned. But there was still something about the way she looked at him that reminded Fabel of the photographs he had seen of Irma Grese. The same void in the eyes and expression. He had no way of knowing if Margarethe was lying to him. After nearly twenty years as an investigator of murders, of conducting interviews like this, he found himself lost in a strange country, completely without any recognisable landmarks.