Swallow had never experienced anything like the cold as he disembarked at the Hook of Holland. It penetrated his greatcoat and the heavy tweed suit underneath, chilling his limbs and torso. It seeped through his fleece-lined gloves to numb his fingers. The freezing dry air from the North Sea cut into his face and neck and ears.
There had been no Paris. And he had not stopped in London, hurrying instead by cab from the Holyhead train terminus at Euston to Paddington, from where the night express to Harwich departed. He had been travelling for eighteen hours when he boarded the packet for the Hook. But at least there was a decent dining mess, and he was glad of a hot stew and two pints of ale.
Mallon’s clerk, Jack Burton, had been brutally direct when he went to collect his tickets, his travel letters and his cash advance.
‘I’m saving the ratepayers nearly two quid on your estimate,’ he told Swallow with unconcealed satisfaction. ‘I made some inquiries and this way is a lot cheaper. And it’s faster, so I’m doing better on accommodation as well. You can forget about Paris and Cologne I’m afraid. It’s straight across to the Low Countries, and then a train to Hamburg and another to Berlin. Less than seventy-two hours in all from Dublin. Bloody amazing, when you think about it.’
Swallow was prepared to acknowledge that Burton’s research was impressive. He did not particularly care about missing London. He had seen most of the sights a year ago when he had escorted the East End criminal Teddy Shaftoe there on his way to the Tower. But he was disappointed about not going to Paris. The new wonder of modern engineering, Gustave Eiffel’s tower, was to open in the springtime, so it was still off limits to visitors. But to view it soaring skywards over the city would have been something.
The train from the Hook to Hamburg was warm at least. Steam pipes carrying heat from the engine were set down low along the carriage walls, favouring passengers seated next to the windows. To his considerable satisfaction, Swallow had persuaded Mallon’s parsimonious clerk to place him in first class for this section of the journey, so the seating was comfortable.
There was just one other passenger in the carriage: a man, perhaps in his thirties, with a black moustache, swaddled in a heavy frieze coat with a dark wide-brimmed hat. Swallow reckoned him for a business type, perhaps a commercial traveller, but since he never spoke, declining to respond to Swallow’s ‘good morning,’ he could hazard no guess as to his nationality. As the train rattled and swayed across the darkened flat countryside, he nodded off into a fitful sleep.
At the frontier he was shaken to wakefulness by a diminutive Prussian customs inspector, accompanied by a uniformed and helmeted policeman. Swallow reckoned they both smelled of drink.
‘Papers bitte.’
He opened the Home Office travel letter with which Mallon’s clerk had provided him. He had requested that it should not detail his occupation or the reason for his travel. He held it up to the inspector.
‘Ah, Englander. Auf geschäft? On business?’
Swallow nodded.
‘Yes. On business.’
‘Your destination?’
‘Berlin.’
The official cocked his head to one side.
‘The nature of your business? Your exact destination?’
The tone was hostile. Swallow could smell the alcohol distinctly now.
‘I’d rather not say. Private business.’
He could see the inspector’s face redden angrily in the dawn light.
‘You will answer,’ the man barked, jabbing a finger towards his uniformed companion, ‘or it becomes a matter for the police.’
‘I have shown you my travel letter,’ Swallow answered quietly. ‘It is quite in order.’
‘I will not ask again,’ the inspector hissed. The policeman’s right hand moved towards his holstered pistol.
Suddenly, the man who had been sitting silently opposite since the train had departed the Hook rose from his seat to place himself between Swallow and the pair.
He thrust a black, leather-covered wallet in front of the inspector’s face.
‘Ja, das ist eine Sache für die Polizei. Ich bin ein Offizier der Kriminalpolizei.’
Swallow had not understood the language, but it was clear enough what was going on. The inspector took a step back and bowed slightly.
‘Apologies, mein herr. Ich wusste nicht. I did not realise. . . .’
Swallow’s rescuer winked at him under his brimmed hat as the two moved awkwardly to the door, bowing again in unison. He held his hand out, smiling.
‘Pfaus. Berlin Kriminalpolizei. I’m sorry you were bothered by those two stupid drunks.’
He resumed his seat across the carriage. Swallow could not conceal his surprise.
‘You’re Pfaus? Then you know who I am.’
‘Of course, Mr Joseph Swallow. You may call me Johann. I believe that is not inappropriate given the equivalence in our ranks. Or we can address each other by rank.’
His English was perfect. The accent, Swallow thought, had an American trace.
‘Well, Johann, or Kapitän Pfaus, this is a bit of a surprise.’
Pfaus grinned again. He removed his hat and stretched his legs as if he had decided to relax, his identity having been revealed.
‘My superiors decided we couldn’t have a senior British police officer coming to make a visit without taking care of him on his journey.’
Swallow smiled back.
‘So are you travelling with me to protect me or to keep me under observation?’
Pfaus grinned again. He drew a flat pewter flask from the pocket of his greatcoat, unscrewed the top and held it out.
‘Here, have some good Prussian schnapps as a welcome. Protection or observation? Both, of course. We can’t allow an English detective to wander across the country as he pleases, can we?’
Swallow drank from the flask. The fiery schnapps caught at the back of his throat.
‘I’m not English; I’m Irish.’
Pfaus downed a long swallow from the schnapps and handed the flask to Swallow again.
‘English, Irish . . . no difference.’ He chuckled. ‘My colonel distrusts all foreigners. When he knew that I had invited you to come to Berlin he told me you would be my responsibility. Anyway, you work for the Queen of England, yes?’
‘Actually she’s the Queen of a united kingdom. Ireland is one of four countries in that kingdom,’ Swallow explained patiently. ‘She’s also Empress of India, although I suppose that isn’t very relevant to my business here.’
Pfaus chuckled again as Swallow knocked back another draught of schnapps.
‘You could be a spy, my colonel thinks, so I was not to reveal myself any sooner than was necessary. Are you a spy, Mr Swallow?’
Now Swallow grinned.
‘I’d be called worse by some of my own countrymen. No, Johann, Kapitän Pfaus, I’m just a policeman trying to solve a brutal crime that took place in my city. And I’m hoping that your . . . guest, as you call him, Mr Michael James Carmody, the man you told me about in your telegram, might be able to help me.’
‘Tell me about the crime.’
‘Murder. A young girl of eighteen years named Alice Flannery, beaten to death as she walked home at night from her place of employment two months ago. She was a waitress in a restaurant called the New Vienna. Owned and operated by a countryman of yours, as it happens.’
‘You take very seriously the murder of a waitress? Is that usual in your country?’
It was an extraordinary question, Swallow thought. Yet, he realised, the murder of Alice Flannery was not a matter of great import to his own masters in the Upper Yard of Dublin Castle. Perhaps in Germany there was more honesty about what was important and what was not.
‘Well,’ he answered slowly, ‘it may not be important to everyone. But it’s important to me and to my colleagues in the police. And it may be linked to other crimes as well.’
‘I think I understand,’ Pfaus said. ‘And this man, Carmody, is he a suspect? He has a record of violence.’
‘Let me put it this way . . . he’s not off the list of possible suspects. He left Dublin immediately after the murder. And as I told you, he worked in the same restaurant as the murder victim.’
Pfaus nodded.
‘It’s far from conclusive, but professionally I’d take the same view. He must at least be a suspect.’
He paused.
‘I appreciate that you may not want to share all your information with me since the murder is in your jurisdiction and not mine. But if you can tell me more about these cases I may be able to help you.’
‘There’s no reason why I shouldn’t tell you what I know. You’ve been generous enough to offer your assistance. Dublin is generally a safe city for women. It’s well policed, and it’s very rare for any female to be molested or troubled. But there’s been a series of attacks in the past two months. Two women are dead, and another has been badly injured.’
‘I have heard, of course, about these so-called Ripper murders in London,’ Pfaus said. ‘They appear to have baffled even the famous detectives of Scotland Yard. I did not realise there were similar cases in other British cities.’
‘I’m not suggesting there’s any similarity between our cases in Dublin and those in London,’ Swallow said. ‘Dublin is a very different kind of place from London. And it’s not British, like I told you; it’s Irish.’
Pfaus shrugged.
‘Very well. But you believe there is a link between these attacks in Dublin?’
‘We don’t know. We haven’t got very far in identifying a definite suspect. There are a number of possibilities, but nothing that one could bring a charge on.’
‘So where does the Kriminalpolizei’s guest, Mr Michael James Carmody, fit into your inquiries?’
Swallow took another shot of Schnapps.
‘I don’t have any reason to connect him to any crime other than the case I’ve described, the murder of the young waitress called Alice Flannery. She was the first to be attacked. I’ve told you her employer is a man who is from Berlin. His name is Stefan Werner. Does that name mean anything to you?’
Pfaus shook his head.
‘The name is not familiar to me. Of course, Werner is not an unusual name. There are probably thousands of them in Berlin. What happened to the young woman?’
‘She walked home from the restaurant late at night, and some person or persons attacked her in a dark laneway not far from her home. She was badly beaten, but it seems that she fought back as best she could. She was found by two soldiers returning to barracks nearby. They brought her to the hospital, but she died a few hours later. The cause of death was injuries to the head, possibly inflicted by a heavy wooden stake that was found nearby.’
‘I presume you’re satisfied the soldiers weren’t involved?’ Pfaus said. ‘They’d be on my list of suspects.’
‘Naturally it was one of our first lines of inquiry,’ Swallow told him. ‘But it was clear very quickly that they were telling the truth when they said they came upon her as they returned to their barracks.’
‘So is Carmody a suspect? What’s his connection?’
‘That’s what I’m here to find out. We checked out all the listed employees at the New Vienna. There was the possibility that some of her fellow workers might have been involved. Carmody’s name was not included in the list of employees given to us by the restaurant. But after I received your telegram I revisited the place and they confirmed that he did in fact work there for a time. He was a troublemaker. He threatened to kill another kitchen worker, and according to Werner he stole money from the office.’
Pfaus nodded.
‘Ah, I see. I think I understand a little more now. Did the owners of the restaurant tell you why they did not have his name on the list of employees?’
‘They said they don’t keep details of casual workers. And in reality, it seems, that’s the practice in the hotels and restaurants in Dublin.’
Pfaus grinned.
‘They wouldn’t get away with that in Berlin, I promise you. The German Empire is strong and prosperous. One of the reasons is that our administration systems are very thorough. Your Mr Carmody had to be registered to work. That is how we knew who he is and where he came from.’
‘Your intelligence system must be very thorough,’ Swallow said.
Pfaus nodded.
‘So,’ he said, ‘will you tell me about the other cases?’
‘A young girl of about the same age, in this instance a fishmonger, was attacked and very badly injured in what looks like a similar attack a few nights later in another part of the city, perhaps twenty to thirty minutes’ walk from the first crime. She has survived, but she can tell us little beyond saying that her attacker was a big man. Again, we can’t identify any motive.’
‘And the other crime?’ Pfaus asked.
‘Somewhat different. A young prostitute was killed in the city centre in her room. A policeman saw a tall, well-built fellow running from the scene. And we may have identified a motive. It seems she had come into possession of some money, and some petty criminals may have known about it. As I said, random violence against women is rare in Dublin, so we’re keeping an open mind about possible connections.’
‘But you’ve got no connection for this Carmody to any of these crimes except the murder of the waitress?’
‘That’s true,’ Swallow conceded. ‘So tell me, Johann, what sort of man is he?’
‘Uneducated but not unintelligent, I would think. I’ve interrogated him myself. He gives very little away. He doesn’t frighten easily. Now it seems he thinks he has some information to trade, so he is, how would you say, a bit cocksure of himself.’
Swallow smiled again.
‘Your English is excellent, Kapitän Pfaus. Learned in America, I think?’
‘Thank you,’ Pfaus nodded. ‘Yes, you have a good ear, Detective Inspector Swallow. I was raised in the Bronx, New York City. My wife, Elena, she is American but of German parentage also. My parents had emigrated from Prussia. Then when my father inherited a small business from his uncle, the family returned to Berlin. I was a United States citizen until I became a policeman, when I had to choose to be a German.’
‘Do you think you made the right choice in that?’ Swallow asked.
Pfaus smiled.
‘I understand your question. You English think that your systems of government and law are superior to everywhere else. You think of your police as servants of the community rather than the instrument through which government keeps order. Well, that’s just one viewpoint you know.’
He proffered the flask again.
‘There’s a little left,’ he grinned. ‘You finish it.’
Swallow drained the last of the schnapps.
‘I’ve already told you. I’m not English. I’m Irish. And the Irish people certainly don’t think of the police as the servants of the community, or whatever phrase you’ve used. They actually are the means by which the government keeps order. If you can call it order. The police are not popular in Ireland.’
Pfaus looked puzzled.
‘But in New York all the police are Irish. Sure, they have to deal with troublemakers. But they’re respected, and it’s considered an honour to have a son or a brother in the police department. In truth, the New York police department wouldn’t function without the Irish.’
Swallow smiled ruefully.
‘It’s a bit more complicated than that in Ireland, Johann. In fact, it’s a lot more complicated.’