The Pale Criminal by Philip Kerr Page B

blue book between our two glasses.
    â€˜This book is by Carl Berg, a forensic pathologist who had the opportunity of studying Kurten at length following his arrest. I’ve met Berg and respect his work. He founded the Diisseldorf Institute of Legal and Social Medicine, and for a while he was the medico-legal officer of the Düsseldorf Criminal Court. This book, The Sadist, is probably one of the best accounts of the mind of the murderer that has ever been written. You can borrow it if you like.’
    â€˜Thanks, I will.’
    â€˜That will help you to understand,’ she said. ‘But to enter into the mind of a man like Kurten, you should read this.’ Again she dipped into the bag of books.
    â€˜Les Fleurs du mal,’ I read, ‘by Charles Baudelaire.’ I opened it and looked over the verses. ‘Poetry?’ I raised an eyebrow.
    â€˜Oh, don’t look so suspicious, Kommissar. I’m being perfectly serious. It’s a good translation, and you’ll find a lot more in it than you might expect, believe me.’ She smiled at me.
    â€˜I haven’t read poetry since I studied Goethe at school.’
    â€˜And what was your opinion of him?’
    â€˜Do Frankfurt lawyers make good poets?’
    â€˜It’s an interesting critique,’ she said. ‘Well, let’s hope you think better of Baudelaire. And now I’m afraid I must be going.’ She stood up and we shook hands. ‘When you’ve finished with the books you can return them to me at the Goering Institute on Budapesterstrasse. We’re just across the road from the Zoo Aquarium. I’d certainly be interested to hear a detective’s opinion of Baudelaire,’ she said.
    â€˜It will be my pleasure. And you can tell me your opinion of Dr Lanz Kindermann.’
    â€˜Kindermann? You know Lanz Kindermann?’
    â€˜In a way.’
    She gave me a judicious sort of look. ‘You know, for a police Kommissar you are certainly full of surprises. You certainly are.’

7

Sunday, 11 September
    I prefer my tomatoes when they’ve still got some green left in them. Then they’re sweet and firm, with smooth, cool skins, the sort you would choose for a salad. But when a tomato has been around for a while, it picks up a few wrinkles as it grows too soft to handle, and even begins to taste a little sour.
    It’s the same with women. Only this one was perhaps a shade green for me, and possibly rather too cool for her own good. She stood at my front door and gave me an impertinent sort of north-to-south-and-back-again look, as if she was trying to assess my prowess, or lack of it, as a lover.
    â€˜Yes?’ I said. ‘What do you want?’
    â€˜I’m collecting for the Reich,’ she explained, playing games with her eyes. She held a bag of material out, as if to corroborate her story. ‘The Party Economy Programme. Oh, the concierge let me in.’
    â€˜I can see that. Exactly what would you like?’
    She raised an eyebrow at that and I wondered if her father thought she wasn’t still young enough for him to spank.
    â€˜Well, what have you got?’ There was a quiet mockery in her tone. She was pretty, in a sulky, sultry sort of way. In civilian clothes she might have passed for a girl of twenty, but with her two pigtails, and dressed in the sturdy boots, long navy skirt, trim white blouse and brown leather jacket of the BdM — the League of German Girls — I guessed her to be no more than sixteen.
    â€˜I’ll have a look and see what I can find,’ I said, half amused at her grown-up manner, which seemed to confirm what you sometimes heard of BdM girls, which was that they were sexually promiscuous and just as likely to get themselves pregnant at Hitler Youth Camp as they were to learn needlework, first aid and German folk history. ‘I suppose you had better come in.’
    The girl sauntered through the door as if she were