For their next appearances the dancers appeared as sensuous maidens from a Balinese temple; flirtatious señoritas in much abbreviated Spanish dresses; and half-naked savages on an undiscovered Pacific isle, who writhed and tumbled in a glorious pattern of bare legs, pert bottoms, slender brown stomachs and bouncing breasts. In their most spectacular number, each girl was dressed in diaphanous pyjamas and placed in her own extravagantly draped and quilted bed, so that the whole stage looked like some extraordinary dormitory, with the beds all arranged in tiers, so that we could see each pretty little maiden as she slept. Then, while the band played an instrumental version of ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ (given an appropriately Germanized arrangement so as to erase any taint of American Judaism), one particularly beautiful and long-legged dancer came to the front of the stage and performed a graceful series of semi-gymnastic movements: cartwheels, handstands and various bends and stretches, much to the audience’s delight.

  Sabine seemed just as entranced by the girls’ extravagant costumes, intricate hairstyles and painted faces as I was. She examined each passing body with the cool, appraising eye that attractive young women apply to their peers and potential rivals. When the show had ended and we were standing in line to collect our coats from the bespectacled grandmotherly lady with a great bun of silver hair atop her head who ran the cloakroom, Sabine insisted on asking me which girl had been my favourite. She was almost disappointed to discover that my recollection of the individual dancers was really quite sketchy, whereas she could describe them all with precise detail and a full account of each one’s distinguishing features.

  ‘I wish the S-Bahn witnesses were as observant as you,’ I said. ‘We’d have caught the killer long ago!’

  ‘Well I’m very glad that other detectives aren’t as unobservant as you,’ she replied. ‘You don’t seem to have noticed a thing.’

  ‘That’s because I was only thinking of you,’ I said, collecting our coats and handing the woman a tip. Having quickly put on my coat, I held up Sabine’s and as she was standing just in front of me, slipping her arms into its sleeves, I told her: ‘There wasn’t a single girl up there who was nearly as lovely as you.’

  ‘Don’t be mean,’ she said, turning round and waving a finger at me. ‘You’re just teasing me.’

  She was right, I had been, or at least I thought I had. Now, though, I looked at Sabine and then, quite seriously, replied, ‘No, I’m really not teasing. I absolutely mean it.’

  She linked her arm through mine as we walked out under the theatre awning and on to Lutherstrasse. She’d done the same, of course, as we had left her lodgings. But this time she nestled her body appreciably closer to mine.

  16

  Despite the public announcements that we were rethinking our strategy, Zach was still guarding the stations and putting plainclothes detectives on to the trains themselves to mingle with the passengers and keep an eye out for suspicious behaviour. Exactly as he had planned, no details of their operations were given to the S-Bahn authorities, but it must have been obvious to any of the railway staff – and all the more so to anyone whose evil intentions might have made him especially watchful – that there were often policemen aboard their trains. Even in civilian clothes we tend to have a certain air about us. Lüdtke’s hope was that their presence, and the fact that it was unpredictable, might have some deterrent effect on our killer.

  One of the methods Zach employed was to assign female officers to act as bait, like the tethered goats used in India to attract a hungry tiger. This was a task that demanded extreme courage from the women concerned, since they were obliged to travel unaccompanied and to sit whenever possible alone in a carriage. Men were always posted in adjacent carriages to either side, but no one could guarantee that in the event of an attack they would be able to come to the rescue of their female colleague in time. It was for this reason that the first ‘tethered goats’ used on the trains had been male officers in female dress. That experiment had soon been abandoned, since the killer would have had to have been blind not to spot that these were no ordinary ladies. There was thus no alternative but to use the real thing.

  One night an officer called Helga Schwab was on duty, alone in a carriage near the rear of a late-night train. On the infamous stretch between Rummelsburg Depot and Karlshorst she saw a man dressed just as the killer’s surviving victims had described: in a dark, loose-fitting uniform jacket with a cap pulled low over his eyes. He’d come in through the connecting door at the very far end of the carriage from where she was sitting. Schwab turned her head away from the man, but kept him under observation out of the corner of her eye as he slowly walked down the aisle towards her. He looked to right and left as he went, very clearly making sure that she was the only passenger aboard. Schwab felt that paralysis that can strike even the bravest soul at moments of great fear. She had to fight to regain her self-possession as her pulse raced and the first prickles of sweat broke out on her skin. She told herself to remain calm and vigilant.

  Yet she had every reason to be fearful. For I wasn’t the only man who had marked this date in his diary for a special night out. The S-Bahn murderer had gone hunting. And once again he was taking the No. 3 line.

  17

  The Scala Theatre was destroyed in the early hours of 23 November 1943, in the very same air raid that also did for the original KaDeWe. By then the war had decisively turned against us and the best that one could hope to eat in any restaurant anywhere in the Reich was a watery, tasteless soup to start with, followed by some colourless agglomeration of gristle and sinew that might once have belonged to a living creature. Next to that, the early months of 1941, however drab they may have seemed when compared with life in peacetime, were like a veritable age of plenty.

  When we arrived at Borchardt, once again passing from the cold, bleak blackness of the street outside to the warmth and brilliance of the restaurant’s interior, we were led to a cosy little table beside one of the marble columns that supported the ceiling. The waiter moved the table to allow Sabine to slide on to the red banquette beyond it. The banquettes acted as low partitions, dividing the room into small, intimate sections, and they were topped with brass handrails, so that as I settled on to my wooden dining chair I was uncomfortably reminded of an S-Bahn carriage.

  Sabine must have seen something change in my expression, for she at once asked: ‘Is anything the matter?’

  ‘No, it’s nothing,’ I said. ‘I just thought of something to do with the case. But don’t worry, we are certainly not discussing that for a single second.’

  We ordered a meal that had seemed to symbolize the promise of what our new German empire and its allies might offer us when the war was through: Norwegian lobster on Italian noodles, washed down with French champagne. Both of us handed over our ration cards so that the necessary coupons could be removed. When the first drinks had been poured and I’d offered a toast to Commissar Lüdtke – ‘For bringing us together’ – I made a request to Sabine: ‘I have now told you twice how beautiful you look tonight. I think it’s only fair that you should tell me why you think I’m handsome.’

  She giggled and toyed with the stem of her champagne glass. ‘What makes you think that I do?’

  ‘Because you told me one afternoon at Alex. And I always remember vital evidence.’

  ‘Oh, and why is this so vital? I’m sure your opinion of yourself is already good enough without me having to make it any better.’

  I nodded thoughtfully. ‘I admit, I’m aware of my abilities in certain areas.’

  ‘I’m sure!’ Sabine laughed again. This time she was just as ready to tease as me.

  ‘But … but,’ I emphasized, ‘not all areas. So yes, I think I’m a damn good police officer – or that I’ll become one, anyway. I’m confident in my intelligence, my hard work, all those boring, but necessary qualities. But I’ve never thought of myself as good-looking.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Sabine, sounding quite intrigued. ‘Then what do you think you look like?’

  ‘Normal!’ I honestly couldn’t think of a better answer. But I tried to expand it a little. ‘Neat, tidy, respectable … I don’t know. It’s not something I really think about.’

  ‘Why not? I don’t believe I’m especially vain, but I can’t imagine not thinking about my appearance.’

  ‘That’s because you’re a woman. To a man, it’s just not important. My priority is my work. So long as my appearance is acceptable to my superiors, that is all that matters.’

  ‘But it does matter to you,’ Sabine pointed out. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me about it.’

  Some men do not like to be challenged by a woman. Personally I enjoy it. I like to be kept on my toes and I am arrogant enough to believe that I’ll always come out top in the end. So now I laughed and admitted, ‘Touché! All right then, I suppose this seems like a new thing to me – that someone could see me as more than just a good student or a good worker: that maybe they could see the real person underneath.’ I paused, realizing that I might be revealing more of myself than I’d intended. ‘Sorry, I am becoming sentimental.’

  ‘Really, Georg, there is no need to apologize.’

  As ridiculous as it may seem, that was the first time that she’d ever called me by my first name. We both seemed to realize it at the same time and Sabine became a little flustered.

  ‘I’m sorry … I didn’t mean to be forward. I hope you do not mind me calling you Georg.’

  ‘Of course not … Sabine.’

  She smiled. ‘My friends call me Biene.’

  ‘Then Biene it will be, because I very much want us to be friends.’

  I poured some more champagne and we both took our time to sip it. It had, I think, been evident that there was something between us from the moment I saw her in that dingy living room, but we had both been acting as if we hadn’t really noticed what was happening. Now, though, it was coming out into the open, this tricky negotiation between a man and a woman that happens on the way to love.

  The food arrived and gave us another excuse not to do anything but enjoy it and make appreciative small-talk about the wonderful luxury of eating lobster. I didn’t know it at the time, but it would be a decade, at least, before I consumed a meal that even came close to the sheer pleasure of this one. At the time, however, my only concern was the very real possibility that I’d be surviving on stale bread and water for the rest of the month: the evening had so far cost me the best part of three weeks’ wages.

  Biene was the first to start the conversation again. ‘I don’t understand why people have not thought of you as more than a student or a worker. Surely you must have had other girls in your life … all those beauties in your little black book!’

  I smiled and raised my hands a little off the table in a gesture of mock surrender. ‘I confess, I might have been exaggerating a little when I told you about them.’

  She responded with mock outrage. ‘So the beauties of Berlin aren’t all in a rage of jealousy, thinking about the mysterious seductress Fräulein Tietmeyer? I’ve been lied to by a policeman! I’m shocked!’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t lying to you in an official capacity.’

  ‘Very well then, tell me the truth. Have you had other girls in your life?’

  Sometimes the most serious questions are delivered in the most casual manner. In love as in police work, that can be how you obtain the most honest answers.

  ‘I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you mean,’ I replied. ‘I have certainly had girlfriends, even if they don’t fill a whole book. But have I truly fallen in love or had anyone fall in love with me? No, I don’t think that I have.’

  Biene frowned: ‘How terrible to reach the age of twenty-eight without knowing love. No wonder you want to hear nice things from me. Let me see, then, what can I tell you?’ She looked at me thoughtfully, and with such a serious expression that I had to turn away from her gaze. ‘You are an attractive, handsome man. You are good and tall, which helps. You have nice eyes and strong even features, too. You look determined and full of purpose, just as a man should. If you were an actor you would be the leading man. If a woman loved you, you would be her hero.’

  She sat back in her chair. ‘There! I have been sitting here flattering you, which is not at all what is supposed to happen. You are the gentleman and you are supposed to be flattering me. So I am not going to say another word, and you are going to say wonderful things about me.’

  ‘That would be my great pleasure,’ I assured her. But before I could even start my sweet-talking there was a commotion at the restaurant’s front door. The driver was standing there, talking to the maître d’. They both looked across at our table then the maître d’ scurried over to our table.

  ‘Excuse me, Assistant Commissar,’ he said, ‘but I have an urgent message for you from Commissar Lüdtke. He says you are to return to headquarters at once. There has been a development in the case.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I replied. ‘Please may I have the bill at once.’

  The maître d’ paused. ‘Please excuse my presumption, sir, but would the Commissar be referring to the S-Bahn case?’

  ‘Yes, that is correct.’

  ‘Then please, accept the meal with the compliments of the house. Everyone in the city is praying for your success. All we ask is that you catch this evil man.’

  ‘That’s very kind. Rest assured we will do our very best.’

  So that was one piece of good news. But as I escorted Sabine from the restaurant, I was very much afraid that I was not about to hear another.

  18

  Helga Schwab had been told that the killer was believed to be posing as a ticket inspector, lulling his victims into a false sense of security and then attacking them when their guard was dropped. She waited for him to approach her, tensing her muscles so that she was ready to leap from her seat and evade his attack just long enough to allow help to arrive.

  Closer he came. All her instincts, as a woman and a police officer, told Schwab that this was the man. Although he affected a relaxed attitude, he seemed to be repressing a much more keyed-up, jumpy, almost feverish personality. Had she not known the things this man was capable of she wouldn’t have been particularly alarmed, for he was at most medium height, and – though the loose jacket and poor light made it hard to be sure about this – lightly built. But this was a man who had strangled, stabbed and bludgeoned his victims to death. He posed a deadly threat. Schwab knew that his weapon had to be hidden on him somewhere. At all costs, she dared not lose sight of his hands, for she would only have a fraction of a second to react to his first aggressive move.

  He was only a couple of metres away now, and as she looked up at him she forced her expression into a nervous, ingratiating smile.

  He paused for a second, weighing her up. He took a step more towards her …

  And then, without any warning, he was backing away, muttering: ‘Excuse me, madam,’ and hurrying towards one of the sets of doors at the far end of carriage. It took Schwab a moment to work out what was happening and then she realized that the train was slowing. They must be entering Karlshorst station. She knew there were some of Zach’s men posted among the waiting passengers on the platform, but how would she spot them? Stations, like the trains, were lit so faintly that it was impossible to make out any more than the vague outlines of individual people. As the train slowed to a halt Schwab got up, trying to remain as casual as possible so as not to alarm her suspect. They were both standing by separate sets of doors as they began to slide apart.

  The moment they were even fractionally open, the man in the S-Bahn uniform had slipped through them, darted on to the platform and was making his way between the passengers trying to board the train, moving with a quick, nervy stride that was halfway between walking and running, dodging between the wrought-iron pillars that supported the wooden-beamed roof. The dim blue bulb inside the train cast a faint, spectral half-light over the edge of the platform and Schwab could just see the man’s cap getting further way from her as she tried to press her way through the people all around her.

  She tried to remember who was on duty at Karlshorst that night. A name came to her and she called it out: ‘Brandt!’

  A torch switched on a few metres away. It shone in her direction and she had to screw up her eyes as the beam hit her face. She jabbed a finger down the platform and shouted again: ‘In the uniform! He’s getting away!’

  Brandt swung his torch in the direction Schwab was pointing and caught sight of the suspect. He appeared to be heading for a set of stairs that ran down from the platform, which stood on a raised viaduct, ten metres or so above street-level. About a dozen other passengers who had just left the train were doing just the same thing. One or two of them were looking around in alarm, sensing that something was wrong. In the carriage next to the one Schwab had just left, one of the detectives who was supposed to be standing guard over her had realized that she was now on the station and was trying to make his way off the train. But he was too late. The doors were closing again. The train was about to pull out.

  Schwab had reached into her handbag and found her own torch. She shone it towards Brandt and he pointed towards the stairs. She nodded in acknowledgement. The two torch beams swung across the platform like searchlights, back towards the suspect …

  And he had gone. Vanished into thin air.

  Brandt and Schwab were standing alone on the fast-emptying platform. Brandt shouted over the noise of the departing train: ‘Police!’

  The people on the stairs stopped as one and turned to face him. Brandt pointed his torch at them. Schwab was still sweeping hers from side to side, hoping to catch sight of the suspect.

  ‘Has anyone seen a man in a uniform?’ Brandt called out. ‘Black jacket, black cap. He was on the platform, right here, a moment ago!’