4.

Two Days After the First Murder: Saturday, 20 August 2005.

10.00 a.m.: Pöseldorf, Hamburg

Fabel knew it was something big as soon as he heard his boss, Criminal Director Horst van Heiden, on the phone. The fact that he was calling Fabel at home was enough on its own to start alarm bells ringing: that van Heiden had broken into his Saturday to make the call made it really serious. Fabel had not got back to his apartment until three a.m. and he had lain awake in the dark for another hour trying to banish from his exhausted brain the images of two mutilated heads. Van Heiden’s call had woken him from a deep sleep. It therefore took Fabel a few seconds to rally his sleep-scattered mental resources and make sense of what van Heiden was telling him.

It seemed that the murdered man from the previous night, Dr Gunter Griebel, had been one of those obscure members of the scientific community who tend not to dominate public imagination, or even attention, but whose work in some recondite scientific realm could totally change the way we live our lives.

‘He was a geneticist,’ explained van Heiden. ‘I’m afraid science is not my thing, Fabel, so I can’t really enlighten you about what exactly it was that Griebel did. But apparently he was working in an area of genetics that could have monumental benefits. Griebel documented all his research, of course. But according to experts, even with that the result of Griebel’s demise will be that an entire area of research – very important research – will be put back ten years.’

‘And you don’t know what that area was?’ asked Fabel. He understood when van Heiden said that ‘science was not his thing’. Nothing was Criminal Director van Heiden’s thing other than straightforward police work: and the more bureaucratic side of police work at that.

‘They did tell me, but it was all in one ear and out the other. Something to do with genetic inheritance, whatever that means. All I do know is that the press are already getting very steamed up about it. Apparently the details of the method of killing have been leaked to the media – this whole scalping thing.’

‘It didn’t come from one of my team,’ said Fabel. ‘I can guarantee that.’

‘Well, someone leaked it.’ Van Heiden’s tone suggested he was not entirely convinced by Fabel’s assurance. ‘In any case, I need you to move fast on this one. Griebel was clearly a major loss to the scientific community, and that means there will be political flak to contend with. Added to that is the minor political celebrity of the first victim.’

‘Obviously, I’m dealing with this case as a priority,’ said Fabel, not disguising his irritation that van Heiden obviously felt the need to give him a nudge. ‘And that has nothing to do with the status of the victims. If they had been down-and-outs I would be treating the case with the same urgency. The focus of my concern is that we clearly have two murders close together in commission where the disfigurement of the corpses indicates a psychotic agenda.’

‘Just keep me updated on progress, Fabel.’ Van Heiden hung up.

Fabel had told Susanne he would be working half the night so she hadn’t come round to his place. They met for lunch in the Friesenkeller near the Rathausmarkt, Hamburg’s main city square. Despite Susanne being the psychologist who would work with Fabel on profiling the killer, they didn’t discuss the case: they had an unspoken rule of keeping their professional and personal relationships very separate. Instead they chatted idly about their holiday on Sylt, about going back for Lex’s birthday, and about the forthcoming election.

After lunch, Fabel headed into the Presidium. He had scheduled a meeting with his team, calling everyone in from their weekend. Holger Brauner and Frank Grueber came into the conference room shortly after Fabel had arrived: Fabel was pleased to see that the two most senior forensics officers had both taken the time to attend. Brauner had two forensic-trace collection bags with him, making Fabel hopeful that something of value had been retrieved from the second murder locus.

The inquiry board was quickly set up, with photographs of the two victims: photographs taken in life and those taken in death at the scenes. Maria had written a brief biography of each victim. Despite them being roughly the same age, there was no evidence that their paths had ever crossed.

‘Obviously, Hans-Joachim Hauser had enjoyed an element of public recognition in his time.’ Maria indicated one of the photographs on the board. It had been taken in the late 1960s: a young, girlish Hauser was stripped to the waist and his long wavy hair hung down to his naked shoulders. The photograph had been intended to look natural but was contrived; posed. Fabel realised that the young and arrogant Hauser had been making a statement, a reference, with this photograph: it was deliberately redolent of the image that Fabel had seen in Hauser’s apartment, the one of Gustav Nagel, the nineteenth-century environmental guru. There was a cruel irony in the contrast between the cascade of dark hair in the photograph of the youth and the image beside it, of the dead, scalped, middle-aged Hauser.

‘Gunter Griebel, on the other hand,’ continued Maria, moving across to his side of the board, ‘seemed to have actively sought to avoid the limelight. The acquaintances we have spoken to, including his boss whom I got on the phone, all say that he even hated having his photograph taken for periodicals or at university events. So it would appear that the killer was not motivated by envy of Hauser’s fame.’

‘Is there any suggestion that Griebel might have been gay?’ asked Henk Hermann. ‘I know that he had been widowed recently but, with the first victim being openly homosexual, I wondered if we may have a sexual or homophobic motive here.’

‘There’s absolutely nothing that we’ve found so far to suggest anything like that,’ said Maria. ‘But we’re still checking into the victims’ respective backgrounds. And if Griebel was a closet gay then he will of course have been secretive about it and we may never find out for sure.’

‘But you’re right, Henk … it is a line of inquiry that we should follow up.’ Fabel was keen to encourage the positive contribution from his newest team member. He joined Maria over by the board and studied the details of the two men; the photographs of them in life and in death. The only live picture of Griebel was a blow-up from some kind of staff group shot. He stood stiffly between two white-coated colleagues, his awkward stance and tense expression clearly communicating his discomfort at being photographed. Fabel focused on the grainy detail of the same long, narrow face with the precariously balanced spectacles that had stared at him from beneath an exposed dome of skull. Why was Griebel so ill at ease in front of a camera? Fabel’s train of thought was broken when Holger Brauner spoke.

‘I think we should talk about the forensic evidence recovered,’ said Brauner. ‘Or rather the lack of it. That’s why Herr Grueber and I came along. I think this will interest you.’

‘When you say lack of forensic evidence, I take it you’re referring to the first killing – where Kristina Dreyer destroyed anything evidential?’

‘Well, that’s the thing, Jan,’ said Brauner. ‘It’s true of both crime scenes. The killer seems to know how to eliminate his forensic presence … except for what he wants us to find.’

‘Which is?’

Brauner placed the two evidence collection bags on the conference table. ‘As you say, Kristina Dreyer destroyed any traces at the first scene, except for this single red hair.’ He pushed one bag forward across the table. ‘But I suspect that there was nothing for her to destroy. We have been able to recover nothing from the second scene either, and we know that was fresh and untouched. It is practically impossible for someone to occupy a space without leaving retrievable forensic evidence. Unless, that is, he or she goes to considerable lengths to conceal their presence. Even then, they would have to know what they were doing.’

‘And our guy does?’

‘It would appear so. We only found one piece of trace evidence that we cannot allocate to the scene or the victim.’ Brauner pushed the second bag across the table. ‘And it is this … a second hair.’

‘But that’s good,’ said Maria. ‘If these hairs match, then surely that means that we have evidence to link the two murders. And a DNA fingerprint. Obviously the killer has slipped up.’

‘Oh, the two hairs match, all right,’ Brauner said. ‘The thing is, Maria, that this hair is exactly the same length as the first hair. And there is no follicle at the end of either. Not only are they from the same head, they were cut from it at exactly the same time.’

‘Great …’ said Fabel. ‘We’ve got a signature …’

‘There’s more …’ said Frank Grueber, Brauner’s deputy. ‘The two hairs were indeed cut from the same head at the same time – but that time was somewhere between twenty and forty years ago.’