A Philosophical Investigation: A Novel

  Table of Contents

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Praise for Philip Kerr and A Philosophical Investigation

  “A stunning novel... convincing... frightening ... Philip Kerr puts an end to the myth that all the best crime fiction is written by women.”

  — Ruth Rendell, author of Not in the Flesh

  “One of the more imaginative thrillers in quite a while. ... Combines teleological speculations with nitty-gritty futuristic police work.”

  — The Wall Street Journal

  “The brainiest thriller to come along in years ... raising questions about knowledge, proof, and reality in unnervingly dramatic contexts.”

  — Kirkus Reviews

  “Terrific ... A nifty novel, to describe and dream about.”

  — John Leonard, National Public Radio

  “Set in an early twenty-first-century London of Orwellian squalor, this is a crime novel with a twist.... An unusual and intellectually stimulating thriller.”

  — Library Journal

  “Best described as a suspense writer’s suspense novel — an impressive tour de force that is likely to be regarded as a classic among the cognoscenti.”

  — The Wichita Eagle

  “Philip Kerr’s ingenuity is unquestionable.... This is probably the crime story of the year for computer buffs, amateur philosophers, and would-be time travelers.”

  — London Review of Books

  “Clever, tightly plotted, well written and full of good jokes ... the sort of crime writing in which ideas really dazzle and move the reader.”

  — The Times Literary Supplement (London)

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Philip Kerr is the author of many novels, including six featuring Bernie Gunther — If the Dead Rise Not, A Quiet Flame, The One from the Other, and the Berlin Noir trilogy (March Violets, The Pale Criminal, and A German Requiem) — and several bestselling children’s books. He lives in London and Cornwall with his family.

  For Jane

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus 1992

  First published in the United States of America by Farrar, Straus, Giroux 1993

  Published in a Plume edition 1994

  Published in Penguin Books 2010

  Copyright © Philip Kerr, 1992 All rights reserved

  Excerpts from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “The Waste Land” in Collected Poems

  1909-1962 by T. S. Eliot, copyright 1936 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., copyright © 1964,

  1963 by T. S. Eliot,

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product

  of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PLUME EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Kerr, Philip.

  A philosophical investigation /Philip Kerr.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-40423-2

  1. Serial murders-England-London-Fiction. 2. Policewomen — England — London — Fiction.

  3. Twenty-first century — Fiction. 4. London (England) — Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6061.E784P49 1994

  823’.914 — dc20 93-27543

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means

  without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only

  authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy

  of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  FOR MORE FROM PHILIP KERR, LOOK FOR THE

  A Quiet Flame

  It’s 1950 and Bernie Gunther is on the run. Falsely accused of being a war criminal, he has booked passage to Buenos Aires. But once there he finds himself drawn into a horror story that rivals everything he has tried so hard to leave behind, with crimes that stretch back to Berlin in 1932. It’s not so far-fetched that the cases might be linked: after all, the scum of the earth has been washing up on Argentine shores — state-licensed murderers and torturers — so why couldn’t a serial killer be among them?

  ISBN 978-0-14-311648-6

  The One from the Other

  Germany, 1949. Berlin and Vienna have become too dangerous for Bernie Gunther and he has moved on to Munich to reestablish himself there as a private eye, cleaning up the Nazi backgrounds of well-to-do locals and helping fugitive war criminals flee abroad. While the work fills him with disgust, it’s a simple job until the wife of an infamous war criminal hires Gunther to investigate her husband’s disappearance. In postwar Germany, nothing is simple — nothing is what it appears to be.

  ISBN 978-0-14-311229-7

  Berlin Noir

  March Violets; The Pale Criminal; A German Requiem

  This fast-paced volume includes all three books of Philip Kerr’s classic Berlin Noir Trilogy, featuring ex-policeman Bernie Gunther. With every case he tackles, Gunther finds himself sucked further into the grisly excesses of 1930s Nazi subculture, as he uncovers a legacy that makes the wartime atrocities look lily-white in comparison.

  ISBN 978-0-14-023170-0

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM PENGUIN

  Hitler’s Peace

  Autumn 1943, Tehran: Since Stalingrad, Hitler has known that Germany cannot win the war. Realizing that the unconditional surrender FDR has demanded will leave Germany in ruins, Hitler has put out peace feelers. (Unbeknownst to him, so has Himmler, who is ready to stage a coup in order to reach an accord.) At the center of this high-stakes game of double-dealing is Willard Mayer, an OSS operative who has been chosen by FDR to serve as his envoy and whose beliefs will be put to the ultimate test.

  ISBN 978-0-14-303695-1

  The best that I could write would never be more than philosophical remarks; my though
ts were soon crippled if I tried to force them on in any single direction against their natural inclination. - And this was, of course, connected with the very nature of the investigation. For this compels us to travel over a wide field of thought criss-cross in every direction.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations (Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe, Basil Blackwell 1958)

  There will be time to murder and create,

  And time for all the works and days of hands

  That lift and drop a question on your plate...

  T. S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

  1

  ‘THE UNFORTUNATE VICTIM, twenty-five-year-old Mary Woolnoth, was found naked in the basement of the offices of the Mylae Shipping Company in Jermyn Street, where she had worked for three years as a receptionist, her face beaten in with a claw hammer.

  ‘So severe was the beating that her lower jaw was broken in six places, and almost all of her porcelain-capped teeth pounded loose. Disintegrated fragments of the woman’s skull and brain tissue were scattered in the neighbourhood to an extent that was consistent with their newly-acquired momentum. Having recovered the murder weapon it is possible to construct an equation which gives us the kinetic energy of the blow: this is found by multiplying the mass of the weapon by the square of the velocity and dividing the result by two. Using the kinetic energy of each hammer blow, the cranial depth of each fracture, and the angle of depression, the computer has calculated that the killer stands 1.82 metres tall and weighs approximately 85.72 kilograms.

  ‘The poor woman’s red silk suspender belt was tied tight around her neck although by this stage she was already dead. A Simpson’s store carrier bag was later pulled over the victim’s head covering her ruined features from view. Possibly this took place prior to intercourse.

  ‘Using a Christian Dior Crimson Lake lipstick from the victim’s handbag, the killer wrote some four-letter abuse onto her bare thighs and stomach. Immediately above the pubic line was written the word “FUCK”, while on the underside of her thighs and buttocks was written the word “SHIT”. Across each breast was written the word “TIT”. Last of all the killer drew a happy smiling face onto the white plastic carrier. I say “last”, because there was evidence of the lipstick having crumbled more during this drawing.

  ‘The unhappy victim’s vagina contained traces of a latex-based spermicidal compound consistent with the killer wearing a condom prior to intercourse. He was no doubt mindful of the need to avoid DNA profiling. The said spermicidal compound is of a type most used by the RIMFLY brand of prophylactic, commonly used by homosexuals because of its greater strength. In past years we have also found that this is also the average rapist’s favourite condom for the same reason.’

  Jake opened the file on the table in front of her to examine the photographs. Before looking at them she took a deep breath that she did her best to conceal from the four men, three of whom were detectives, seated around the conference table with her. Her small sham of equanimity was unnecessary, as one of the other detectives did not bother to examine his file of photographs at all. Jake thought this was unjust. A man could always say something about how it was too close to lunch to spoil a good appetite and nobody would mind. There were, however, no such easy excuses for her. Jake felt quite certain that if she didn’t look at the photographs now they would say it was because she was a woman. No matter that she had already seen the body when first it had been found. With the exception of the detective who declined to look at the pictures, they had all seen the body.

  The fourth man at the table, a scenes-of-crime officer whose name was Dalglish, continued with his oddly sympathetic exposition.

  ‘You will note the poor girl’s right leg folded underneath the left leg, the handbag placed carefully by the right elbow, and the spectacles laid a short way distant from the body.’

  Jake glanced briefly at each one of the numerically-arranged photographs, a series of white bodies on the low damp ground. The curious arrangement of the legs put her in mind of a Tarot card: the hanged man.

  ‘The contents of the carrier bag were laid carefully on the ground. These included a silk-rayon-mix skirt and a bottle of synthetic perfume, both purchased in the store; and a copy of a novel by Agatha Christie, purchased from the Mystery Bookshop in Sackville Street, Piccadilly, and still in its paperbag. The title of the book was The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. But we won’t hold that against her.’

  ‘Who? Mary Woolnoth or Agatha Christie?’

  Dalglish looked up from his notes and glanced around the table. Unable to determine who it was who had spoken he pursed his lips and shook his head slowly.

  ‘Right then,’ he said finally. ‘Who’ll open the bidding?’

  After a short silence, the detective seated on Jake’s right, the one who had made the remark, raised a grimy forefinger.

  ‘I’d like to claim this one,’ he said tentatively. ‘For a start there’s the killer’s M.O. - ’ He shrugged as if nothing else needed to be said about it.

  Dalglish started typing onto his laptop computer. ‘You’re the - ?’

  ‘Hackney Hammerer,’ said the owner of the grimy forefinger.

  ‘All right,’ said Dalglish thoughtfully. ‘That’s one for the Hackney Hammerer.’ But a second detective was already shaking his head.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ he said to the first detective. ‘Look, Jermyn Street is well off your man’s patch. Miles away. No, this is one of mine, I’m quite sure of it. This woman was a receptionist, right? Well we all know that the Motorcycle Messenger has already killed several receptionists and I don’t think that there can be any reasonable doubt that this Mary Woolnoth is his latest victim.’

  Dalglish typed again. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you’re claiming her as well then.’

  ‘You bet I am.’

  The first detective was pulling a face.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re claiming her, really I don’t. The Messenger always uses a blade. That’s his M.O. So why should he suddenly start using a hammer? That’s what I’d like to know.’

  The second detective shrugged and looked out of the window. The wind gusted violently against the glass and for once Jake felt glad to be in a meeting at New Scotland Yard.

  ‘Yes well why should the Hammerer suddenly decide to move up west? Just answer me that.’

  ‘Because he probably knows we’ve got the whole of Hackney under surveillance. If he so much as bangs his own thumb over there we’ll have him.’

  Jake decided that it was time for her to speak.

  ‘You’re both wrong,’ she said firmly.

  ‘I suppose you’re going to claim this as one of yours,’ said the second detective.

  ‘Well of course I am,’ she said. ‘It ought to be obvious to an idiot that this is the work of the Lipstick Man. We know he preys on girls who wear red lipstick. We know he uses their lipsticks to write abuse on their bodies. We know that for whatever reason, he’s careful always to put the handbag by the right elbow, and that he uses RIMFLY condoms. Of course I’m claiming Mary Woolnoth.’ She shook her head with irritation. ‘I just can’t believe the way you’re fighting over this girl, like she was some kind of prize. Jesus, you should hear yourselves, really you should.’

  The first detective looked up from trying to thumbnail some of the dirt off his forefinger and shook his head back at her. ‘When did the Lipstick Man ever use a hammer to kill his victims? When did he ever put a bag over their heads? Never. That’s my man’s M.O.’

  ‘And when has this Hammerer ever so much as indicated that he even knows how to write - let alone with a lipstick?’

  ‘Maybe he read about it in the papers?’

  ‘Oh come on,’ said Jake. ‘You know better than that. All special features of a killer’s modus operandi are held back from the papers for precisely that reason.’

  Anticipating some further argument from the second detective, Jake turned to face him, and added, ‘The fact that this girl happen
ed also to be a receptionist is purely coincidental.’

  ‘It may be convenient for you to look at it that way, Chief Inspector Jakowicz,’ he said. ‘But if you’ll think about it for just a minute longer you’ll remember what you’re so often telling the rest of us. Multiples tend to pre-select a type of victim to murder and then stick with it. Whereas the M.O. can vary a great deal, depending on the killer’s level of confidence, which is itself a factor of how many people he’s killed.’

  ‘I don’t think you can ever properly define a type of victim by profession,’ argued Jake. ‘Her age and physical appearance are what count most of all. And for what it’s worth, I’ve never been all that convinced by your theory that the Messenger is predisposed to kill only receptionists. As I recall, one of his early victims was an office cleaner. Moreover he has never attempted to penetrate any of them, with or without a condom.’

  Jake felt herself flush with anger. She made a fist and tried to hold on to her temper. The fact that Mary Woolnoth had once been a beautiful young woman with her whole future in front of her seemed to have escaped her two colleagues. She stared balefully at the third detective, the one who had declined to examine Mary Woolnoth’s forensic photographs and who, until now, had remained silent.

  ‘What about you?’ she snapped. ‘Are you in the game or not? You’d better put up now, or keep out.’ It was indeed, she considered, like some ghastly game of poker.

  The man raised his hands in surrender.