Page 13 of Nothing Watching

“She left after a late class and socializing was finished. So we found out during our questioning of her classmates. She was the only one who walked that way, to the U-Bahn. Nobody knows why she turned along the side road, but they suggested it might have been a shortcut, with the storm threatening,” Fischer explained in her precise, accented English.

“So she also walked down a side route?” Juliette asked.

That was starting to point to a behavioral trait of this killer. Perhaps he didn’t stalk the victims themselves, but rather, used the quiet streets as his hunting ground, waiting for a woman on her own to appear at the right time.

But then, why were the two victims both American? Was that just coincidence?

She turned the theories over and over in her mind, as Fischer drove along the exact route that Iris had taken.

“Here is where she was found,” Fischer said. “We understand that since she left the university after eleven p.m., she must have encountered the killer here at about eleven fifteen. There is a bar nearby. Perhaps you saw it before we turned the corner? A couple left the bar at eleven forty p.m. and walked this way. It was still raining heavily. They found her dead in the street. There was nobody in sight. It was called in to us as a possible mugging that had gone wrong, but when police arrived, they found her belongings were all still on her person.”

Juliette took this all in, grateful for the details.

As she drove past, Fischer indicated the U-Bahn station.

“She would have caught the train there. We will now drive the route to her student accommodation.”

She set off, bypassing the station and joining the main road. Juliette couldn’t help feeling a flash of excitement as the route led them past the tall, pillared Brandenburg Gate, topped by the sculpture of Victoria—the Roman goddess of victory—driving a chariot pulled by four horses.

If they hadn’t been on the trail of a murderer, Juliette could have spent an hour admiring this landmark. There was something about the classical symmetry of the ornate pillars, and the vivid motion of the horses, that spoke to her soul.

But there was no time for sightseeing. They had a killer to catch, and in any case, it wasn’t a long drive. Fischer headed past the sculpture, turned left and then right, and wove her way into the narrow streets of a bustling area of Berlin, packed with apartment buildings, where the citizens lived and worked.

As they pulled up outside Iris’s student accommodations, Fischer turned to her and Wyatt.

“We spoke to her housemates yesterday, but they did not see anything out of the ordinary. They had last seen her on the morning of her death, as she left for class. We have checked her laptop and phone, but there is nothing to suggest that she was being followed or threatened.”

“We’ll ask again,” Juliette said, and Fischer nodded. “I hope one of them might have remembered something in the ensuing time. It is certainly possible, and something we have experienced before now.” She paused. “Once we have introduced you to the housemates, we will call for another car and be on our way. We’ll be in the central police station, and can assist you at any time. For now, we are going to be working on the public warning.”

“What’s that going to include?” Juliette felt very grateful that this would be issued today.

“I had to fight with my boss about it,” Fischer explained, making a rueful face.

“Why?” Juliette asked, concerned.

In a lower voice, Fischer continued, “Our chief of police does not want to acknowledge this is an emergency. He is new, and I believe he is a relative of someone higher up. He is looking to prove that he is already making a difference to crime levels, despite his lack of experience.”

Her voice was loaded with meaning, and Juliette picked up the problem immediately. This was someone who’d been appointed through connections. This boss was incompetent, and more concerned with reputation management and fudging the stats than with warning the public that a killer was at large. Not an easy situation, and she felt sympathy for Fischer, as well as respect that she’d been willing to explain it.

“Anyway,” Fisher continued, “I won this battle. We are going to say that all women must be cautious and should not walk alone after dark, especially in quieter areas of central Berlin. We have arranged a media conference in an hour’s time, and we’ll also call all the hotels and guesthouses that we can manage to. And we will deploy all available police to patrol the city center tonight.”

“Thank you,” Juliette said.

The student digs proved to be an apartment building, where, remembering her time in Berlin, Juliette guessed that the already small rooms would have been sectioned even smaller, providing postage-stamp-size spaces to be rented at a premium.

And nobody cared, because apartments like this were so central, so close to the university and all the activity. There might only be space for a single bed and a mini desk in each room, but those rooms were like gold.

Juliette and Wyatt followed Fischer up the stairs to the apartment where Iris had lived with her three housemates. The three of them were sitting together on a faded blue couch in the living room, which was only big enough for two couches, but which had a tiny balcony and a gorgeous view over the city.

Quickly, in German, Fischer thanked them for making themselves available for this second police interview. Then she stepped aside and said, in English, “Please continue. We will be leaving you from here.”

“Thank you,” Juliette said. The three of them squashed onto the couch opposite, and she took a look at the three student housemates. All were in their early twenties. All looked shocked and frightened.

“I am so sorry this has happened,” she said. “I know the police have spoken to you, but I wanted to get an idea of what Iris’s life was like, if she had any particular friends she socialized with, any problems.”

The young red-haired woman in the middle of the three spoke first, in a Scandinavian accent.

“I probably knew her best, because we did a lot of the same classes. I was at the university on the night she was murdered but I went home earlier as I wasn’t up to date with my assignments and she was, so she stayed to speak to the others and socialize.”

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