The television interview began, and Elizabeth was sitting in the Channel 8 news studio in a huge building built in the late 1920s and officially opened in 1931.
The woman in charge of make-up had her work cut out to make the detective look passable for the camera.
Elizabeth had interviewed serial killers before, but she couldn't deny that she was still nervous. The interview process itself was nothing new to her.
Nor was it new that in such cases, when the investigators got nowhere in their search for the murderer, the media were called in. It was known in England that the Times always asked the investigators to carry out raids on Friday evenings. This left enough time to write an excellent story for the Sunday Times.
What was new for Elizabeth, however, was that this interview was something personal for her. She wanted to catch the BodyCounter if only to get revenge on him. And those who took things personally were quicker to make mistakes. The detective had previously gone through the checklist in the BPD. And now she did it again in her head. The tip hotlines were set up, as were the intercept circuits.
Elizabeth looked at the cameras and took a deep breath.
Max Arellano, the presenter of A Great Story Teller, was sitting at a distance next to her on the couch. He was slim, with graying hair and alert eyes, dressed in a light blue shirt and dark blue suit. "So you work for the BPD in homicide?" he asked the detective after he had described her in broad strokes for the viewers at home by way of introduction. "A special unit?"
Elizabeth nodded with a furrowed brow. "We're attached to the homicide squad. Crimes against humans. Human offenses usually lead to the most abysmal crimes. Almost fifty detectives are working in Homicide."
Max nodded and crossed his legs. "And yours?"
Elizabeth licked her lips and raised her eyebrows briefly. "The team consists of specialists from three departments. The pathopsychology department, of which I am a member. Then, the operational case analysis department and the cybercrime department. We also have the Medical Examiner's office attached to us."
Max pulled down the corners of his mouth, impressed. "Sounds just like in the movies."
The detective smiled a little. "It is, in part."
"Let's move on to the man we're talking about today," Max continued. "The killer we're talking about preys on girls and adult women alike. Isn't it unusual for a murderer to hunt girls and women? And is that something new for you?"
"Yes and no." They had coordinated the questions so as not to go straight into media res and still have an excellent introduction to the TV show. "Serial killers usually hunt the victims they desire sexually. Most of the perpetrators are heterosexual men, so most of the victims are women."
"That was also the case with your previous cases, which were prominently in the media."
"In part, yes. The nameless man approached women on internet platforms with false identities and later murdered them."
"But hasn't he also murdered men?"
Elizabeth nodded slowly and crossed her legs. "That's right. He killed men, too, but only to better achieve his goal. He killed the women to make a sacrifice to his slain sister."
Max raised his eyebrows. "He killed the sister himself?"
"Yes. And he believed that his sister would forgive him through these sacrifices."
"That sounds like a cult ritual," Max remarked. "Are there more cases like this?"
Elizabeth felt her wedding ring discreetly. "Well, not as often as purse snatching. Fortunately. But we humans aren't as enlightened and rational as we think we are. Brain researchers say that our brains were last updated seventy thousand years ago. Even though I have no idea how to find that out. The fact is: as far as our brains are concerned, we're still living in the Stone Age."
"But not everyone kills women for their sister."
"Fortunately not. That's why we have to look closely," said the detective, gesturing with one hand. "Sometimes strange character traits show up in childhood. There was once a murderer who was caught as a child eating pieces of his deceased grandfather's ashes from the urn. For him, this was becoming one with the dead man, whom he wanted to have back. We also find such tendencies in the Catholic Eucharist the Lord's Supper, even if they are, of course, symbolic there. But the faithful consume the body of Christ. As for the boy who eats the ashes, this can later lead to him killing other people by proxy so that through their death, the grandfather can come back to life. Similar to what the Nameless One did to the women because he wanted his sister back."
Max furrowed his eyebrows. "That sounds very archaic."
Elizabeth nodded slowly and shifted her sitting position a little. "It is. Legion, an earlier case, a satanic ritual killer, also saw himself on a sacred sacrificial mission. Another case, we called him Guardian of the Death, was about vigilante justice. In addition, the perpetrator-victim relationship was far less clear here."
"A lot has been written about that," the presenter remarked. "It was said that the Guardian of the Death was both victim and perpetrator."
Elizabeth nodded again. "That was indeed the case." In her mind's eye, the large glass panel appeared with all the murderers she had hunted so far. With the Anagrammist, the Werewolf, the Nameless One, the Guardian of the Death, Legion, and many more ... and now she had the BodyCounter in her sights.
Max furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the detective closely. "Is it hard to put yourself in the shoes of these monsters? Because you have to understand them. And to catch them in the end."
She licked her lips again. "That's right. Our psychiatrist, in charge of case analysis, always says that to understand the monsters, you must walk in their bloody shoes for a while."
"Not forever?"
"For God's sake, no. Not forever. If you walked in their shoes forever, you'd eventually think and feel like the ones we hunt. And if you think and feel the same way as a serial killer, you'll eventually become one yourself."
"Do you ever doubt the state of this world?"
Elizabeth took a deep breath and nodded. "Of course, I do. I can't help it. But I think that's common to everyone who sees the world through more than rose-tinted glasses. Especially if they have a job like my colleagues and me and hunt the scum of the world. Even Shakespeare's Macbeth says that life is a story a madman tells."
"There's a sketch," said the presenter, turning to the large monitor behind the couch, where the sketch was now being shown. Then he looked at Elizabeth again. "At first glance, the perpetrator looks quite harmless."
Elizabeth smiled a little. He looks pretty harmless ... That should be interspersed. Being called harmless was undoubtedly not what the BodyCounter wanted. "It's often like that. Hannah Arendt spoke so aptly of the banality of evil. The reasons why people kill are often just as banal."
"Do you have any examples?"
"There are examples of all forms of crime: Willie Sutton, the most famous bank robber of all time, famously said. When asked why he robbed banks, he said: because there's money there."
"Which is undoubtedly true."
"Yes, but bank robberies are no longer worthwhile today. Most criminals have realized that."
"And a bank robbery is also far less bad than murder. At least when there's no hostage-taking."
Elizabeth nodded once more and frowned a little. "Exactly. But I'll give you another example: the serial killer Ed Kemper shot his grandmother with a shotgun. When the police wanted to know why he did it, he just said: I wanted to know what it was like to shoot Grandma. Or think of Silvio Renosto, who kidnapped, raped, and then killed little Tanner Dixon here in South Station a few years ago. When Silvio Renosto was asked why he murdered the child, he said, "It was squealing. And I had to work."
"Is this ... Banality --" Max searched for words momentarily. "... is this banality of motives a key to catching the killer?"
Elizabeth shifted in her seat and nodded. "Yes. Most murderers are ultimately very simple-minded. Even if they're sophisticated. Or at least pretend to be. They want to show the world how great and invincible they are. And they want to satisfy their urges. Since they can't do this in the normal way due to pathological disorders, they kill people. Torture them. They perform rituals. The execution is usually sophisticated. But the motive is often simple."
"But not everyone dissatisfied kills people straight away."
"No. For many, their activities are limited to porn and masturbation. At some point, they might go to a brothel. Or they climb onto balconies and look into women's living rooms. If he's courageous, he steals underwear from the wardrobe and keeps it as a fetish."
"And what does he want to achieve in the end?"
"What most murderers want to achieve. We once had a murderer, the werewolf, who raped and brutally killed women. He drove a tuned car, did bodybuilding, and wanted to be seen as a tough guy. But at heart, he was insecure. Just like the BodyCounter in the sketch looks unsafe. And he certainly is. Men like that need encouragement. But she doesn't get that. And when they don't get encouragement, they become exploratory murderers. Rapes women. Several times. Women with whom they normally never have a chance. They see everywhere what doesn't give them enough encouragement. If their mother hasn't given them enough encouragement, they look for the next best woman who reminds them of their mother and rapes her. Completely untruthful and arbitrary."
The mother. That was one of the most important cues for the killer. One of the red buttons you had to press to lure the killer out of hiding. And Elizabeth had already used the word mother several times.
Max looked at her closely. "Does the murderer want revenge on his mother? I'm asking because the mother fixation seems to be part of the repertoire of serial killers."
Elizabeth nodded. "It is. Take Psycho."
"Alfred Hitchcock's most successful movie. Norman Bates and his mother --" He nodded slowly. "Detective Rizzoli, that wasn't just fiction in Psycho?"
"Not at all. Psycho is a movie based on the novel by Robert Bloch. And Bloch had taken a close look at the story of Ed Gein from Wisconsin. Ed Gein did exist. He not only killed his mother but also other women to sew himself a woman's costume from their skin. He wanted to become a woman. And thus replace his mother. Silence of the Lambs is also based on Ed Geins."
Max frowned deeply. "So stories like that are more real than you first think?"
"Absolutely. They are," Elizabeth replied, feeling her wedding ring once more.
"Back to the murderer. What is his mother to him then?"
Elizabeth furrowed her brows. "The classic: saints and whores. It's an age-old theme. It comes up in literature, too."
"Oh yeah?"
The detective licked her lips. "Yes. In James Joyce, for example. But we're digressing too much here. Anyway, as a mother, she's supposed to be a saint to the murderer. He worships her for that because she's only there for him. But when she starts being a whore simply because she's having sex or loves her husband, he hates her. Because he feels dirty and used. That's why he killed the young girls and amputated their limbs."
Max slid forward a little in his seat. "You'll have to explain the connection in more detail."
Elizabeth cleared her throat. "He cut off the feet of one victim. Symbolically, so that the girl couldn't run to the men who would do dirty things to her, the killer cut off another victim's nose before she died. Men who want sex emit so-called pheromones, scents that attract women. Without a nose, the killer thinks, the woman can't fall for the men."
Max looked at her in amazement. "Does he think that, or is it a coincidence?"
"It can look like coincidence or an act of passion," the detective replied. "But subconsciously, this process follows a certain rationality. And we have to recognize that."
"All these things he does," said the presenter, "aren't they damn hard to do? I mean, without getting caught? Or without others getting suspicious?"
Elizabeth took a sip of water from a glass provided for her and nodded slowly. "Of course. For ordinary people like you and me, anyway. Because it's often beyond our imagination. I'm paid to adapt my imagination to the murderers, but I'm still always amazed. And shocked. We were talking about the BTK killer."
"Bin, Torture, Kill, right?" recalled Max.
"Exactly. He left a bloody trail through the Wichita area for thirty years and murdered more than a dozen women. At the same time, he was a board member of his church congregation."
"An exemplary Christian."
"He certainly was. He enjoyed tying people up or hanging them. Even himself. Sometimes --" Elizabeth thought for a moment. Identifying with the horrible BTK killer was supposed to boost the BodyCounter's self-confidence. Only to destroy it afterward and make him report to Channel 8 or the BPD. And set the record straight. "-- the BTK killer loved to hang himself from a tree in his hard-to-see backyard in the summer when his wife and kids weren't home. Not like he was strangled. Nevertheless, his wife found strange signs on him in the evening. Parts of his neck were tanned. But where the rope had been, everything was white."
Max pursed his lips. "And what did he tell his wife?"
Elizabeth lifted her shoulders. "These psychopaths always come up with an excuse. They're very good at it. They can disguise themselves perfectly. But back to the prostitutes."
"The prostitutes. The prostitutes are punished because they are prostitutes and not saints?"
"That's right. Many prostitutes have a so-called Electra complex. They don't feel betrayed by their mother but by their father. As prostitutes, they regain the control over men that they lost as children or teenagers."
"And our murderer has a mother complex," Max added. "So what do you call it, an Oedipus complex?"
Elizabeth nodded repeatedly. "Right, named after Oedipus, the tragic figure from Greek mythology who accidentally married his mother. Electra complex meets Oedipus complex. Two opposites that attract and whose union ends in disaster and murder. Because the victim meets the perpetrator."
Max cleared his throat. "We can't go into too much detail because of the airtime, but the killer abused some of the prostitutes. Even after --"
Elizabeth nodded again. "Even after death. Post mortem. He didn't dare approach them alive because of his inferiority complex. There are differences among the perpetrators. Some want the victim to feel their fear. For others, it's important to stage the whole thing."
"For example?"
"Some rape the women and get the husband out of the way beforehand because he might interfere or interfere. Some, on the other hand, want the husband to watch - involuntarily. For some, he is an obstacle; for others part of the show. You could say that the more a murderer dares to do, the more likely he is to attack the living and the more people he allows to participate. Involuntarily, of course."
"And our murderer has no confidence in himself. And can only abuse women after death ... abuse them?"
"That's how it is. Ultimately, he's a coward. An evil coward, but a coward."
That was the next broadside the murderer was to hear. If only because it was true. Because he was evil and a coward, Elizabeth fervently hoped that he saw this interview.
"You said he removed something from the dead prostitute... removed."
"Yes. One of the prostitutes was pregnant. He removed her embryo post-mortem." Elizabeth felt a burning pain in her heart as she said the words. She swallowed briefly and drank more of her water before continuing. "It was a symbolic abortion. By aborting the filthy child, he redeemed it, at least within his sick mind, from its fate of being born the child of a whore. For the murderer, death is better than life. And so he gives his son the fate he wants."
"Because he doesn't want to live himself?"
"Yes. Because he would rather be dead than alive. And preferably not born at all."
"And that's why he thinks he would be doing the embryo a favor if it wasn't born in the first place?"
"Yes. This murderer hates life. Freeing a prostitute's child from its future life is a kind of favor for him. He sees the child and thus sees himself. Defenseless in a world he didn't want to be in. That's one way of putting it." She paused for a moment. "But his hatred of prostitutes is still evident in the signature of his actions, the way he carries them out."
Max nodded slowly and took a sip of water himself. "You're alluding to the fact that he symbolically strangled a prostitute with her entrails?"
Elizabeth took a deep breath. "Yes. Also post mortem. Simply because with a living person, well, what can I say ... because with a living person, it would hardly be feasible. But the modus operanti of strangulation is a very personal way of killing."
The presenter furrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean by that?"
"It's usually used on victims that the perpetrator either knew or hated. Or both. And especially with those who have disappointed him beyond measure."
"And who also reminds him of his mother?"
"That's the last aspect. That's right. The prostitute dies on behalf of his mother, who left him alone. On the other hand, he also wants to impress his mother."
"Is that his need for recognition we were talking about earlier?"
"Exactly. Ultimately, he wants to show his mother he's a great guy. But he's not. And in the end, he knows that. And he also knows that his mother, whether she's still alive or not, will never believe it because she despises him for his weakness. And he knows that."
That was another move. Of course, Elizabeth knew Susann Quimby, Todd Quimby's mother, was still in prison. But making the killer think that his mother might find out about all he'd done, even if she didn't, and that she still thought he was pathetic, might help to draw the killer out even more. Because that's what she had learned from Katherine: you don't need to argue with logic with these psychopaths. They lived in their world.
"So he wants to impress his mother," Max concluded, "even if he hates her?"
The detective nodded slowly. "Yes. And the victims are actually in his proxy war. They're being killed because they're there. It's like someone who would eat hot food but then only eats what's in the fridge. He takes what's there." She paused for a few seconds. "He wants to impress others pathologically anchored much earlier in his history. The person he hates and adores at the same time. And that's his mother."
"Is it possible to detect something like this in time?" the presenter wanted to know. "So that it doesn't come to murder in the first place?"
Elizabeth furrowed her brow. "You can do that. With some psychopaths, it's called infantilism. They want to feel like a child again." She paused momentarily, wondering if she should say during the broadcast, but ultimately, she decided to. "Some people let themselves be diapered, preferably in dominatrix studios. Some are even particularly keen on defecating during the diaper process. And then being scolded."
Max made a face.
"To recognize the murderer's motive from there," she continued, "you talk about the modus operandi, the way he does something. Then there's the reason, the answer to why he does something."
"What's the difference between modus operandi and what he does?"
"Excellent question." She paused for a moment. "He does the modus operandi because it works. Killing prostitutes is easier than killing the chairman of a big financial firm. So if he wants to take revenge on women, he'd rather take the prostitute than the chairwoman."
Max pulled the corners of his mouth down and nodded slowly. "That's understandable. It's easier that way. Especially as there are hardly any female chairwomen in financial firms anyway."
"Not in the police either," Elizabeth replied. "But this choice of victim is one aspect of the modus operandi."
"And what he does?"
"The first thing he does because it works. The other, the murder, the post-mortem rape, the cutting out of embryos, that's what wouldn't be necessary to kill the women. But he does it anyway. Simply because he has to do it."
"It's for him --" Max began.
Elizabeth interrupted him with a raised hand. "The former is what needs to be done. It's partly practical thinking, too. The latter is a need for him."
Max leaned back and seemed to collect his thoughts for a moment. "So he wants to show his mother he's a great pike? By killing women?"
Elizabeth nodded in agreement. "That's right. On the one hand, to get back at his mother; on the other, to show his mother that he could kill her too. And to gain her favor. Because he's so strong and dangerous."
"To gain her favor by killing other women who are similar to his mother. And does that work with this murderer?"
"No," said the detective with a certainty in her voice that sounded as definitive as the doomsday trumpet. "He's an absolute terror to his victims. The Grim Reaper. The downfall." That was intentional to boost the killer's self-esteem before it was destroyed again in the next few sentences. "But actually, he's something completely different --" She paused, and Max let her finish just as agreed. "He's a coward. A scaredy-cat. He is scared of women. Especially of a woman --" She paused again. "He calls himself a BodyCounter, but he's still afraid of his mother. He's not the BodyCounter; he's the one who sheds tears. Like the teenager who secretly masturbates under the covers and is afraid of being caught by his mommy."
Max furrowed his eyebrows. "Masturbating?"
Elizabeth confirmed the question with a nod. "When masturbating and doing other things. I wouldn't be surprised --" She paused to savor the moment fully. The killer needed to hear this. If he listened to this, he had to come forward. Or they would never catch him. "I wouldn't be surprised if he ... went to bed earlier." She paused repeatedly. "Or still does."
Max got up from the couch, and she did the same before shaking his hand.
The TV show was over.
