Berg equivocated. "If Volker's there, I'll let him know of my plans. If not, I'll leave a note."

"Be careful, Axel. The situation is still very tense, and it's hard to know friend from foe." Muller's thoughts traveled elsewhere. "This latest crisis can't last forever. This tug of war for power, this pulling and joggling . . . eventually the rope will simply snap!"

THE KOMMISSAR was last on Berg's list of people that he wanted to see. But the Fates thought otherwise, and Berg almost knocked down Volker as he dashed into the Ett Strasse station.

"I will infer from your civilian clothes that you are on your way home." Volker started to walk away. "It is good that you are finally learning to obey orders."

Berg refused to be intimidated. "We have to talk."

Volker spoke over his shoulder. "No, we need to get the city under control."

"The murders, Inspektor."

Volker stopped abruptly. "What do you mean?"

Berg knew that Volker was thinking of Margot. "A mother and daughter found dead in the park, sir."

"Ah . . . yes, of course." Volker resumed walking. "Later."

"I just came from the hospital, Herr Kommissar. Muller is indisposed, and Ulrich is suffering from a collapsed lung. I'm the only one who has worked this murder case from the start."

"And you've done a lousy job on it, haven't you?"

Volker opened his office door. Berg was not to be deterred and barged inside, shutting the door behind him. "I have leads, Herr Volker. I must do something before more women die."

Volker sat down at his desk and looked amused. "The tortured hero. My, you play the martyr well."

Berg said, "I owe it to my colleagues and the city to solve this case. And I will do it. I will make sure that whoever is behind these terrible events ends up in a very dark and scary place."

"Hear, hear, old man! Perhaps you'd like to start a party and lead a rally yourself."

"I would have more to say than that Austrian imbecile."

"No doubt!" Volker stifled a smile. "Go home."

"No, I'm not going home. I'm going to change into a fresh uniform, and then I am going out to visit the crime scene."

"Now?"

"Yes, now."

"It's as dark as sin outside. You'll see nothing."

"Then I'll go examine the bodies or visit the family."

A dumbfounded chuckle. "Axel, the city is a mess."

"I can manage alone."

Again Volker smiled. "Judging from tonight, I'm quite sure you can."

Berg took a deep breath. "So then, I have your permission."

Volker stared at him, at Berg's intense eyes piercing his brain as well as his soul. "I can't stop you, can I?"

Berg gave a sigh of relief, but then became wary. Was this another trap set up by Volker? Was there ever a trap? His fears were driving him more than a little mad. "I'd like Herr Professor Kolb to come along with me."

Volker laughed out loud in disbelief. "With the city in shambles, you want to drag out a cripple?"

"If he is willing. His scientific expertise along with his insights will help me immeasurably."

"He has Jewish blood in his veins, Axel. He will be a target for the punks. How is he to defend himself? By beating them off with his cane?"

"If he is anxious, I will not insist, but I think he will take the risk. I'll ride him to the scene in a Zweikraftrad. He can sit in the passenger seat."

"Very well, Axel, go ahead."

Berg was leery of Volker's uncharacteristic acquiescence. His thoughts drifted back to Margot, and to the person responsible for her death. Berg knew damn well why she had been slain. The poor girl had seen a Munich policeman murder two boys. She could no longer be trusted. Berg had to wonder if he'd be next.

"Thank you, sir. I will change into a uniform right now."

"Yes, yes. Just go. You're annoying me." As Berg was about to close the door behind him, he heard Volker cluck his tongue and whisper, "It's your funeral."

FORTY.

Kolb said, "I don't understand why I wasn't immediately called in to examine the death scene."

Berg took a deep breath and told himself to be patient. "The city has been in turmoil since the rally, Herr Professor. Maybe the police couldn't reach you."

"More likely, someone didn't want me touching a young German Madchen because of my Jewish blood."

It was not like Kolb to show irritation. "The Austrian wouldn't know your religion, Herr Professor."

Kolb touched his nose. "All he'd have to do is take one look at me." The old man was aware of what Hitler was capable of fomenting. He appeared nervous.

Berg tried to be soothing. "I can't tell you how chaotic everything was after the murders were announced."

"It's a pity," Kolb said. "I'm sure everything's cleaned up by now. It would have been much more helpful if I could have examined the crime scene before it was trampled on!"

"So shall we skip the park now and go back at daylight?"

"Yes, I think so. Let's go on to the pathology lab. I'd like to see the bodies before they are autopsied. Might as well salvage what we can!"

"Whatever you think, Herr Professor."

Kolb took in a deep breath and let it out. "I am churlish tonight."

"We are all quick-tempered." Berg blinked several times, hoping to blot out murderous images: a knife, his knife, penetrating skin. He couldn't rid his mind of foul thoughts . . . of a murdered mother and child . . . those too-real nightmares . . . the knife slicing through the soft tendons of their windpipes. Blood squirting outward and hitting him in the face.

They were only children. Evil children, but still just children.

The magnitude had yet to sink in. Right now, he had to concentrate on external monsters, not the one within. He had to remain focused if he were to root out a killer. Later would be the time for recriminations.

He pulled out the choke of the Kraftrad, turning the handle several times to get enough fuel into the motor. "Are you settled properly?"

"Yes, go ahead."

Kolb lived northwest of Schwabing in a third-floor one-room apartment on the outskirts of the city: a newer building where the electricity was wired inside the structure. The Professor often worked in poor light; maybe that was why his spectacles were so thick.

Now Berg was dragging him out of a comfortable bed to ask for his help. Slowly, he guided the Kraftrad into the street. "They live close to you . . . in Schwabing. That is, they did . . . the victims."

"But they were murdered in the Englischer Garten?"

"I don't know where they were murdered. The bodies were found in the Englischer Garten."

"Ah yes," Kolb said. "Have you any thoughts on this monster . . . this enemy of ours?"

"I have thought of nothing but him! Who the devil he is, where he comes from, his employment, what drives his deviance."

"And?"

"I have come up with very little. The clues that I have point to different people with different names, different occupations, and different nationalities."

"Pardon?" Kolb strained over the rumblings of the motorbike. "I can barely hear you."

Berg made a series of quick turns until he was on Ludwig Strasse, then pulled over next to the walkway and turned off the motor. The tree-lined street-a main north-south thoroughfare-was deserted and dark, electric streetlights turned off by order of the Oberburgermeister. Even the ubiquitous clanking of the streetcars had been stifled for the night. In the last two hours, a curfew had been imposed on the city. Any unauthorized person on the roads would be arrested immediately.

The stillness was eerie, but somewhat nostalgic, bringing back images of Berg's youth. On rare moments like this, he could almost touch his childhood, a time before there were motorcars and electricity everywhere, before modern invention intervened with the natural order of things. When he was a young child, he had often pretended to be sleeping, when in reality he lay in bed for hours just thinking. With his feather duvet wrapped tightly around his body, his nose cold from the frosted air, he had been careful not to move lest he wake up his two younger brothers sleeping beside him in their shared bed.

Back then, if he listened carefully, he could hear the whinnies emanating from the horse stables. The beasts had once ruled the city, pulling the police wagons, the streetcars, and the cabs. Now only the market vendors used the beasts to pull their wagons, and not even they so much anymore because the old horses clogged traffic, the motorists beeping and swearing at them, scaring the poor animals until they reared in protest. It wasn't that the motorcar was a bad thing; it was the motorcar operator who felt as if he owned the roadways.

So long ago it was, before a war had torn the world apart, before the city was rent by politics and its legions of armies. The Kommunist against the royalist. The Social Democrats against the German Workers Party. The Bavarian Workers against the German Democratic Party. And everyone against Hitler-or so they claimed, even though the Austrian's support seemed to keep growing.

It was all too much to fathom.

"I didn't say anything that profound." Berg turned off the scooter and bundled his scarf tightly around his neck. The air was wet and biting. "Nothing you haven't thought of yourself." He repeated what he had said about the killer while Kolb nodded agreement.

"And even the victims, Herr Professor. They are not all alike. The first was a bourgeois woman who lived in a six-room apartment on Widenmayer Strasse. She was married, expecting a child. The second woman was a visitor to the city, a Kommunist-or at least she flirted with Kommunismus-whose home was in Berlin. She was staying in a rented room in Giesing. Our third victim was an immigrant Jewess seamstress who lived near Gartnerplatz. Now we have these two new murders-a working-class woman and her daughter who lived just east of Schwabing.

"There is no consistency in any aspect-either with the type of woman, the wealth of the family, religion of the women, the geographical location of their homes, and even the time of day they were killed. The last two appeared to be slain in daylight, the first three under the cloak of darkness. It is maddening!"

"Interesting." Kolb stroked his beard. "From my point of view, they're very similar. All were young women, and so far all were strangled. The bodies were discovered in the Englischer Garten except in the case of Marlena Druer. But even she was found less than a kilometer away."

"I suppose it does depend how the case is regarded," Berg replied. "Still, finding bodies in the Englischer Garten or along the Isar doesn't exactly point to anything specific. The park is three hundred and seventy-five hectares of copses, woods, brush, and glades. I can't think of a better place to dump a corpse."

"That is true," Kolb said.

"Shall we proceed to the lab?"

"Before we do, what do you know about these latest victims?"

"Nothing at the moment. I certainly don't know how they were murdered if that's what you're asking."

"Do you know anything personal about them?"

"The woman was widowed. Her husband died four years ago from a leg infection-an old war wound, I think."

"Was the murdered little girl the woman's only child?"

"There is a surviving son."

Kolb said, "And now he is an orphan."

Berg slumped under the invisible weight pressing on his shoulders. Once again, he started the choke and guided the motorbike back onto the boulevard. He shouted, "The aunt's name is Renate Dehmel-a married woman with two children of her own."

"And the victim?"

"Edith Mayrhofer. She was forty. The little girl, Johanna, was six or seven."

"The surviving boy?"

"Ralph . . . ten. Aunt Renate was watching him because she has a son the same age. Edith had decided to take little Johanna for a walk . . . to take advantage of today's sunshine. When they were late to pick up Ralph, Renate became concerned. She decided to go look for them."

"Don't tell me she found them?" Kolb let out a gasp.

"I don't know if she found them or they were discovered by someone else, but an officer at the police station told me that she saw the corpses. It must have been terrible, especially because the little boy was there with her."

"Oh Gott, that is awful!"

"Just dreadful!"

Kolb said, "It would have been most useful to see the bodies as they were found."

"Usually, someone from the Mordkommission must sign off before the bodies can be removed. But because of the rally and subsequent rioting, the police had been diverted to Konigsplatz and Gartnerplatz."

Kolb said, "Once we visit the pathology lab, we will know more."

Berg said, "Afterward we can visit the crime spot. I'm certain that the police cordoned off the area with ropes."

"Yes, we can do that."