Page 55 of Anatomy of a Killer
Some did, yes. Most, however, were shocked into silence. Do you have siblings?
No, I’m an only child.
Would you have liked some?
No, basically. . . It was okay as it was. I always had lots of friends.
So did I, believe it or not. And yet I never felt as if I belonged.
Because you felt different?
Sort of, yes. There were things I began thinking of at an early age. Things that kept me awake some nights.
Certain. . . fantasies?
No. No, not fantasies, that sounds so. . . no, that sounds all wrong. Just like the word ‘excited’ you used earlier. Surely you know I never touched any of the girls inappropriately.
You just killed them.
But I didn’t deprive them of their dignity. On the contrary, I gave them meaning. And they gave meaning to me.
A meaning that was otherwise missing from your life.
Yes, that’s exactly right. Tell me, have you read the files on the murder cases?
Of course, several times. Why do you ask?
I’ll let you mull this over until the next time we meet.
What, no, hold on! Are you going to send me home? Now?
What was your favourite subject at school?
My er. . . German. German and PE, I’d say.
I see.
I see? What now?
Now go home and have a think.
Ann
Schergel, 28 December 2017
It’s as if I’ve been catapulted back in time, back to the basement where Eva is lying like that, on a cold floor, in her own blood. How sure I was she must be dead, but she was alive, thank God, she was alive. It must be exactly the same now. A horrendous sight, a shock that momentarily clamps the blood vessels in my body and brings everything to a standstill. But it looks worse than it is. Kerstin Seiler isn’t dead. She’s lying there, blood everywhere, as if her body were floating on a lake, blood on her clothes and smeared all over her stiff face. The meat hook in the side of her neck. Jakob kneeling over her, checking for a pulse, while I remain in the doorway, just trying to stay on my feet. There’s no reason to collapse now because he’s just about to look at me and say she’s alive.
But she needs help, of course, she needs immediate help. Frantically I feel for my mobile and call an ambulance. Now Jakob does look at me and just shakes his head. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean; I yell down the phone– Schergel, butcher’s, a woman with a serious neck wound, ‘Please come quick!’
Jakob gets up. From the knees downwards his trousers are red, just like his hands that have been touching the body.
Me: ‘They’re on their way.’ Him: ‘It’s too late.’ I refuse to believe it; Ican’tbelieve it. Because this is just like it was with Eva. I want to check myself, I want to go over to Kerstin, lay her head in my lap and tell her everything’s going to be fine, the ambulance is on its way. Jakob doesn’t let me; he holds me firmly with his bloody hands until I calm down. Then he takes me out of the cold store, back to the dark, chilly corridor, back through the shop, back outside. We leave red footprints behind. The tiles will have to be hosed down.
Disbelief. (Ann, 10 years old)
Disbelief feels like when you walk across a frozen lake and then you suddenly break the ice and it’s like your paralised with shock and cold, even your brain. You can’t understand what’s happening and that’s why you forget you have to move and hurry away from the crack or you’ll end up under the ice and drown. That’s why disbelief is a very dangerous feeling, you must’nt stand there in disbelief too long or you’ll die.
I open the curtains in room 113. People have gathered outside the butcher’s, bringing candles. I strain to see if Nathalie’s there. I’ve been thinking of her a lot over the past few hours. Kerstin’s death will hit her hard– a painful blow to the stomach, a cruel fist in her face. I know this as if I knew her, and I sort of do in a funny way. I felt it when she hugged me.
