The Pale Criminal

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Philip Kerr was born in Edinburgh in 1956 and lives in London. As a journalist he has written for a number of newspapers and magazines, including The Sunday Times and The Statesman. He is the author of the novels March Violets, The Pale Criminal, and A German Requiem (published together as Berlin Noir). He is also the author of Hitler’s Peace, A Philosophical Investigation, Dead Meat, Gridiron, Esau, A Five-Year Plan, The Shot, The Second Angel, and Dark Matter, and he has edited The Penguin Book of Lies and The Penguin Book of Fights, Feuds, and Heartfelt Hatreds.

To Jane

You tend to notice the strawberry tart in Kranzler’s Café a lot more when your diet forbids you to have any.

Well, lately I’ve begun to feel much the same way about women. Only I’m not on a diet, so much as simply finding myself ignored by the waitress. There are so many pretty ones about too. Women, I mean, although I could as easily fuck a waitress as any other kind of female. There was one woman a couple of years ago. I was in love with her, only she disappeared. Well, that happens to a lot of people in this city. But since then it’s just been casual affairs. And now, to see me on Unter den Linden, head one way and then the other, you would think that I was watching a hypnotist’s pendulum. I don’t know, maybe it’s the heat. This summer, Berlin’s as hot as a baker’s armpit. Or maybe it’s just me, turning forty and going a bit coochie-coo near babies. Whatever the reason, my urge to procreate is nothing short of bestial, which of course women see in your eyes, and then leave you well alone.

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