Free JF05 - The Valkyrie Song by Craig Russell

to admit she handled the whole thing very cleverly, even if she was way off with her conclusions. Basically, Achtenhagen gave the whole thing a feminist twist. Her take on it was that almost exactly one hundred years after Jack the Ripper, a female Ripper was doing pretty much the same thing in Hamburg. We’ve all heard the saying that Hamburg is the most easterly suburb of London … anyway, Achtenhagen exaggerated the similarities between the two cities. She also drew parallels between the cases: both involved the use of a surgically sharp blade, mutilation of the bodies and the removal of trophies. In the case of Jack the Ripper those trophies were sometimes the genitals; in the case of theAngel they were exclusively the genitals. Both series of murders took place in red-light districts: Whitechapel in London, the Kiez in Hamburg. And, of course, both series of murders seemed to be within the context of prostitute and client.’
    ‘The Angel was – is – definitely a prostitute?’ asked Werner.
    ‘It looks likely. Or pretending to be one. Anyway, Sylvie Achtenhagen turned this idea on its head; there was a hint that while Jack the Ripper represented the age-old repression and abuse of women, the Angel represented their liberation. Total crap, of course, but it captured the imagination. It came close to making the Angel a feminist icon. Achtenhagen managed to imply – very subtly, mind – that it was the victims who were the aggressors.’
    ‘And Sylvie Achtenhagen’s documentary was the first to describe the killer as “the Angel”?’ asked Anna.
    ‘Achtenhagen planned to make a name for herself with her hour-long TV special. She succeeded. But she also made a name for the killer. The “Angel of St Pauli” caught the public’s imagination and it stuck.’ Fabel threw the marker down onto the conference table. ‘What I resented about what Achtenhagen did is that it cemented the idea of a female avenging angel stalking the streets of Hamburg looking for male victims. While that is maybe the case, the truth is we have only one witness account of one of the victims being seen in the company of a youngish blonde prostitute shortly before the supposed time of death. Apart from that, for all we know the killer could have been a man. And the precision and method of the throat cut could suggest a military or even special-forces background. But Achtenhagen succeeded in closing the public’s eyes to anything other than an iconic female vigilante.’
    ‘I don’t know …’ Werner winced. ‘The castration thing. To kill another guy is one thing … but to slice off his todger. My money’s on it having been a woman …’
    ‘All right, settle down,’ Fabel said to suppress the laughterthat broke out. ‘Like I said, I think it’s more likely that the Angel was a prostitute. From what I’ve gleaned from the original case files, the Angel was suspected to be an Aileen Wuornos-type serial killer. A woman, abused as a child, who turned to prostitution and carrying out revenge killings against clients. But whether male or female and whatever her motives, the so-called Angel was very, very careful not to leave forensic evidence or to give any clue to his or her identity. And that makes me very doubtful about the Angel disclosing her identity to Westland as an announcement that she is rising from the ashes. Which brings me to what I think is our most likely prospect …’ Fabel slapped his hand onto the board next to the word COPYCAT.
    ‘The Angel of St Pauli exists as a concept, if perhaps not as a reality. A powerful concept that has maybe caught more than the general public’s imagination. I think it’s entirely possible that Westland’s murder is the work of the Angel by inspiration rather than execution. There are fundamental differences between his murder and the original killings: the killer didn’t carry out a post-mortem castration or take a trophy …’
    ‘That could simply be because she was