Severts’s smile was as wide as his long narrow face would permit. He was not dressed in the same way as he had been on site in the HafenCity: he wore corded trousers, a rough tweed jacket with unfashionably narrow lapels and a checked shirt, open at the neck and with a dark T-shirt underneath. But while the style of his clothing was nominally more formal than it had been on the site, the earth-toned colour scheme remained the same. Severts’s office was bright and spacious but cluttered with books, files and archaeological objects. A vast picture window flooded the room with light, but only afforded a view of another wing of the university.
The archaeologist asked Fabel to take a seat. As he did so, Fabel was surprised that there was something about Severts’s dress, his office, the accoutrements of his trade that stimulated a small, sad envy in him. For a moment Fabel considered how he had so very nearly followed a similar path; how his passion had been European history and how as a student he had already rolled out the map of his future and plotted out the route of his career. Then there had been a single, senseless act of intense violence, the shock of the death of someone close to him at the hands of a stranger, and all the expected landmarks had been erased from his landscape.
Instead of becoming an investigator of the past, he became an investigator of death.
On the wall behind Severts’s desk a large map of Germany detailed all the major archaeological sites in the Federal Republic, the Netherlands and Denmark. Next to it was a huge poster. The image was striking: it was of a dead woman, lying on her back. She was wearing a hooded woollen cloak bound tight around her long, slim body. The hood was capped with a tall feather and the woman’s long red-brown hair was centre-parted. The skin of her face and that of her legs, which could be seen between the fringe of her cloak and her fur moccasins, had the same papery look as the HafenCity corpse, but had stained darker.
‘Ah …’ Severts noticed that the poster had caught Fabel’s attention. ‘I see you are captivated by her too … The love of my life. She possesses a unique ability to capture men’s hearts. And to bewilder us – she has done more than her fair share of setting everything we believed about Europe on its head. Herr Fabel, allow me to introduce a true woman of mystery … the Beauty of Loulan.’
‘The Beauty of Loulan,’ repeated Fabel. ‘Loulan … where is that, exactly?’
‘That is the thing!’ Severts said animatedly. ‘Tell me, where do you think she is from? Her ethnicity, I mean?’
Fabel shrugged. ‘I’m assuming that she’s European, from her hair colour and features. Although I suppose the feather gives her a native North American look.’
‘And how old do you think my girlfriend is?’
Fabel looked closer. The woman had clearly been mummified, but she was much better preserved than any of the bog bodies he had seen. ‘I don’t know … a thousand years … fifteen hundred at most.’
Severts shook his head slowly, his beaming smile still in place. ‘I told you she was a woman of mystery. This mummified body, Herr Fabel, is over four thousand years old. She is nearly two metres tall, her hair colour in life was either red or blonde. And as for where she was discovered … there’s the mystery and the intrigue.’ He walked over to a filing cabinet and pulled out a thick box file.
‘My family scrapbook,’ explained Severts. ‘Mummies are a passion of mine.’ He sat down at his desk and flicked through the file’s contents, all of which seemed to be large photographs with yellow notes attached to each with a paper clip. Then he handed Fabel a large glossy print. ‘This gentleman is from the same part of the world. He is known as Cherchen Man. I was going to show you him anyway, because he is rather pertinent to the case of the mummified body down by the Elbe in HafenCity. Take a look. This man has been dead for three thousand years.’
Fabel looked at the photograph. It was astonishing. For a moment the policeman became once more the student of history and he felt the old butterflies-in-the-stomach excitement that he experienced when a window into the past opened. The man in the picture was perfectly preserved. The similarity with the HafenCity corpse was astounding, except that the man in the picture, dead for three millennia, had even preserved his skin tone. He was fair-skinned and his hair was a dark blond. He had a neatly trimmed beard and his full lips were slightly parted, twisted up in one corner to expose perfect teeth.
‘Cherchen Man was preserved because he lay undisturbed for three thousand years in an anaerobic environment. The process of mummification is exactly the same as the body in the HafenCity. Both represent a moment in time seized and kept perfect for us to look into.’
‘It is amazing …’ said Fabel. He studied the man again. It was a face he could have encountered that same day, in modern Hamburg.
‘We talk about the distant past.’ Severts seemed to have read Fabel’s thoughts. ‘But although he lived three thousand years ago, that only represents one hundred-odd generations. Think about it: such a small number of people, father and son, mother and daughter, separate this man from you and me. Herr Brauner told me that you studied history, so you’ll understand what I mean when I say that we are not as separated from our histories, from our pasts, as we like to think. But there’s more to this gentleman. Like the Beauty of Loulan, Cherchen Man was tall, over two metres in height. He would have been about fifty-five when he died. As you can see, he was fair-haired and fair-skinned.’
Severts leaned forward. ‘You see, Herr Fabel, none of us are who we think we are. Both the Beauty of Loulan and Cherchen Man are among a number of incredibly well-preserved bodies found in the same area with the same cultural indicators. They wore multicoloured plaid, similar to Scottish tartans, they were all tall and fair. And they all lived, between four thousand and three thousand years ago, in the same part of the world. You see, Herr Fabel, Cherchen and Loulan are both in modern China. These bodies are known as the mummies of Ürümchi. They’re from the Tamir Basin in the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. It is an arid area and these bodies were buried in extremely dry, extremely fine sand. It is said that the Chinese archaeologist who uncovered the Loulan woman wept when he looked upon her beauty. Their discovery caused quite a stir, and the Chinese authorities and archaeological establishment are very much opposed to the premise that Europeans migrated to and occupied the region four millennia ago. Uyghur lies where the Turkic and Chinese ethnicities collide and Turkic nationalists have claimed the Beauty of Loulan as a symbol of their hereditary right to occupy the region. However, these mummies are no more Turkic than they are Chinese. These people were culturally Celts. Perhaps even Proto-Celts. DNA tests on the mummies carried out in 1995 proved once and for all that they were Europeans. They had genetic markers that linked them to modern-day Finns and Swedes, as well as some to people living in Corsica, Sardinia and Tuscany.’
‘Of course,’ said Fabel. ‘I recall reading something about the discoveries. If I remember correctly, the Chinese government did all they could to play down the finds. It challenged their sense of ethnic singularity as a nation.’
‘And we all know the dangers of that kind of mentality,’ said Severts. ‘As I said, none of us are who we think we are.’ He swivelled his chair around and again looked up at the picture of the mummified woman. ‘Whatever the debate that surrounds them, the Beauty of Loulan and Cherchen Man are part of our world now. Our time. And they are here to talk to us about their previous lives. Just as your mummy in the HafenCity has something to say about his much nearer time.’ Severts pointed to the photograph in Fabel’s hands of the three-thousand-year-old man. ‘Despite the vast difference between the times they lived in, there is very little difference in the state of preservation of your mummy and Cherchen Man. If we hadn’t uncovered him, “HafenCity Man” could also have lain undisturbed for three thousand years. And he would have emerged unchanged from his rest. He would have looked exactly the same … obviously we can use dating technology to establish rough timescales but, generally speaking, we often depend more on the artefacts and the immediate excavated environment to establish the exact time to which a body belongs. Which brings me back to our twentieth-century mummy.’ Severts reached into his desk drawer and took out a sealed plastic bag. It contained a small black wallet and a pocket-sized piece of what looked like dark brown card.
Fabel took the bag and opened it. The card was folded into a small booklet form. On the front was the eagle and swastika emblem of the Nazi regime.
‘His identity card,’ said Severts. ‘Now you have a name for your body.’
The identity card felt dry and brittle in Fabel’s hands. Everything seemed to be different shades of the same brown, including the photograph. He could, however, make out the unsmiling face of a young blond man. Adolescence lingered in the face, but the harder angles of manhood were becoming apparent. Fabel was surprised that he recognised him instantly as the body by the river.
Karl. The face Fabel was looking at now, the face he had looked down on in the HafenCity site was that of Karl Heymann, born February 1927, resident in Hammerbrook, Hamburg. Fabel read the details again. He would have been seventy-eight. Fabel found the fact difficult to comprehend. Time had simply stopped for Karl Heymann, sixteen years old, in 1943. He had been condemned to an eternal youth.
Fabel examined the leather wallet. It too had lost any suppleness and its surface was like coarse parchment under the detective’s fingertips. Inside were the remains of some Reichsmark notes and a photograph of a young blonde girl. Fabel’s first thought was that it was Heymann’s sweetheart, but he could just discern a common look. A sister, perhaps.
Fabel thanked Severts and, as he rose to his feet, handed him back the photograph of Cherchen Man. As Severts opened the box file to replace the picture, another image caught Fabel’s eye.
‘Now there’s someone I know …’ Fabel smiled. ‘An East Frisian, like myself. May I?’
Fabel removed the photograph. Unlike the other mummies, the face was almost completely skeletonised, with only intermittent patches of brown leathery skin stretched across the fleshless bone. What made this mummy remarkable was the fact that his full, thick mane of hair, along with his beard, had remained completely intact. And it had been his hair that had given him his name. Because, although this mummy was officially known by the name of the Frisian village near to which he had been uncovered in 1900, it had been his mane of vibrant, strikingly red hair that had captured the imagination of archaeologists and public alike.
‘Yes indeed,’ said Severts. ‘The famous “Red Franz”. Or more correctly, Neu Versen Man. Magnificent, isn’t he? And from your neck of the woods, you say?’
‘More or less. I’m from further north in Ostfriesland. Norddeich. Neu Versen is on the Bourtanger Moor. But I’ve known about Red Franz since I was a kid.’
‘Now he’s a perfect example of what I was saying about these people having a second life – a life in our time. He’s currently touring the world as part of the “Mysterious People of the Bog” exhibition. He’s in Canada at the moment, if I’m right. But he highlights what Franz Brandt said to you down at the HafenCity about the different types of mummification. He is a bog body and totally different from the Ürümchi bodies. All his flesh has rotted away and only his skin remains, toughened and tanned by the bog’s acids into what is basically a leather sack containing his skeleton. But it’s his hair that’s amazing. Obviously it wasn’t that colour originally. It has been dyed by the tannins in the bog.’
Fabel stared at the image in his hands as he listened to Severts. Red Franz, the corona of his red hair flamebursting from his skull, his jaw gaping wide, seemed to scream out at Fabel. The hair. The dyed red hair.
Fabel felt a chill run down his spine.
Maria asked Werner if he could cover for an hour or so. However, while she asked she was already standing up and taking her jacket from the back of her chair, making it more of a statement than a request. Werner pushed his chair back from his desk, which faced Maria’s, and leaned back, looking at her appraisingly.
‘He’s not going to be happy if he finds out …’ Werner rubbed his bristly scalp with both hands.
‘Who?’ Maria said. ‘Find out what?’
‘You know what I’m talking about. You’re off to sniff around this Olga X case, aren’t you? The Chef has made it clear that you’re to drop it.’
‘I’m just doing what he asked me. I’m going over to Organised Crime to brief them on the background. Will you cover for me or not?’
Werner responded to the aggressive edge in Maria’s voice by shrugging his heavy shoulders. ‘I can handle anything that comes in.’
It depressed Maria each time she saw it.
This structure had once contained a purpose. At one time people had spent their working days here, had eaten their lunches in the canteen, had chatted with each other or had discussed productivity, profits, wage rises. This wide single-storey building in Altona-Nord had been a factory once: a small one, probably engaged in light engineering or something similar, but now it was a bleak, empty shell. Hardly any of the windows remained intact; the walls were scarred by patches of missing plaster or punctuated by graffiti; the floors were thick with powdery plaster dust and piles of rubble or litter.
It was an unlikely venue for love.
But this building provided somewhere for the ‘lower end’ of Hamburg’s prostitution business to conduct its trade: mostly heroin- or other drug-dependent girls who undercut the prices of the more appealing Herbertstrasse and other Kiez hookers. The girls who worked down here were volume traders: turning over as many tricks as fast as possible to feed their habits or their pimps’ wallets. The evidence was there, starkly presented in the bleak daylight: used condoms lay scattered across the filthy factory floor.
Olga X had not been a drug user. The post-mortem had established that. Olga had been driven to sell her body in this sordid, squalid place by some other compulsion.
Maria walked across the large void of the main part of the factory, stopping a few metres short of the corner. Ironically, it was clean and empty: the forensic team who had attended the scene had removed every piece of rubble for examination. That had been three months ago, and it seemed that this particular corner had been avoided by the girls who brought their clients here. Perhaps they felt it was jinxed. Or haunted. Only one item had been added: a small posy of wilted flowers sat forlornly in the corner. Someone had left it as a pathetic remembrance of the life that had been snuffed out there.
Maria remembered the corner the way it had been when she had first seen it. As if her mind had photographed and filed the scene, it always came perfect and complete to her recollection. Olga had not been a big girl. She had been slightly built and light-boned and had lain in a tangle of legs and arms in this corner, her blood and the dust of the floor mixed in a dull, gritty paste. Maria had never let murder scenes get to her the way her male colleagues did. But this killing had got to her. She had not really understood why seeing the fragile remains of an anonymous prostitute had caused her sleepless nights, but the thought had come to her more than once that it might have had something to do with the fact that she herself had so very nearly become a murder victim. The other thing that had stung her about this girl’s death was the way Olga had been cheated. Most of the murders that the Polizei Hamburg Murder Commission investigated belonged to a certain milieu: the hard-core drinkers and drug users, the thieves and the dealers, and, of course, the prostitutes. But this girl had been forced into this world. What had seemed the promise of a new life in the West with a proper job and a brighter future had been a sham. Instead Olga, or whatever her real name had been, had handed over her own cash, probably all the money she had or could scrape together, to sell herself unknowingly into slavery and a sordid, anonymous death.
Maria knelt down and examined the wilted posy. It wasn’t much, but at least someone had recognised that a person, a human being with a past, with hopes and dreams, had lost her life here. Someone had cared enough to lay the flowers here; and now, after a lot of discreet asking around, Maria knew who that someone was.
She straightened up when she heard the echoing slam of the door at the far side of the factory, followed by the sound of footsteps.
‘This is highly irregular, you know.’ Dr Minks led Fabel into his consulting room and gestured towards the leather chair in a vague invitation for Fabel to be seated. ‘I mean, I will not compromise patient confidentiality, as you will already understand.’ Minks crumpled into the seat opposite Fabel and regarded the Chief Commissar over the top of his glasses. ‘Normally I would not discuss a patient without a warrant being issued, but Frau Dreyer has assured me personally that she is happy for me to discuss any aspect of her condition or treatment with you. I have to say that I am not as comfortable with the situation as she seems to be.’
‘I understand that,’ said Fabel. He felt strangely vulnerable sitting in the chair facing this odd little man in a creased suit. Fabel realised that he was seated where he would be were he a patient of Dr Minks; he felt more than a little ill at ease. ‘But I have to tell you that I do not believe that Kristina Dreyer is guilty of anything other than destroying valuable forensic evidence. Even that is not something that we are likely to pursue. It was clearly a product of her mental state.’
‘But you have my patient in custody,’ said Dr Minks.
‘She will be released today. I can assure you of that. However, she will be subject to further assessments of her psychological health.’
Minks shook his head. ‘Kristina Dreyer is my patient and I say she is perfectly fit to be released into the community. Your criminal psychologist made a request for my assessment, too. I sent it off to her this morning. By the way, I was surprised to hear that your criminal psychologist was Frau Dr Eckhardt.’
‘You know Susanne?’ Fabel asked, surprised.
‘Obviously not as well as you do, Chief Commissar.’
‘Dr Eckhardt and I are …’ Fabel struggled for the right words. He was annoyed to feel a flush of heat in his face. ‘… Involved with each other personally as well as professionally.’
‘I see. I knew Susanne Eckhardt in Munich. I was her lecturer. She was an uncommonly bright and insightful student. I’m sure she’s a great asset to the Polizei Hamburg.’
‘She is …’ said Fabel. He had mentioned to Susanne that he was going to meet Minks, and he puzzled for a moment over why she had not mentioned that she knew him.
‘Actually, she doesn’t work directly for the Polizei Hamburg. She’s based at the Institute for Legal Medicine here in Eppendorf … she is a special consultant to the Murder Commission.’
There was a pause, during which Minks continued to study Fabel as if he himself were a patient needing assessment. Fabel broke the silence.
‘You were treating Kristina Dreyer for her phobias, is that correct?’
‘Strictly speaking, no. I was treating Frau Dreyer for a constellation of psychological problems. Her irrational fears were merely the manifestation, the symptoms of these conditions. A key element of her treatment was to develop strategies to help her lead a relatively normal life.’
‘You know the circumstances in which Kristina Dreyer was found – and about her claim that she felt compelled to clean up the murder scene. I have to ask you directly: do you think that Kristina Dreyer would have been capable of committing the murder of Hans-Joachim Hauser?’
‘No. I am not normally in the business of conjecture about where my patients’ mental states may lead them, but no. I can categorically state that, like you, I believe Kristina’s account and that she did not murder Hauser. Kristina is a frightened woman. That’s why I’m treating her here at my Fear Clinic. When she killed before, it was because her fear became amplified to an extent that you or I cannot fully comprehend. It gave her a strength beyond anything one would expect from a woman of her stature. She responded to a direct and immediate threat to her life after a period of sustained abuse. But, there again, you know this already, don’t you, Herr Fabel?’
‘Thank you for your opinion, Herr Doctor …’ Fabel rose to go and waited for Minks to uncrumple himself from his chair. Instead the psychologist remained seated and held Fabel in his soft but steady gaze. There was nothing to read in Minks’s expression, but Fabel sensed that he was weighing up his next words carefully. Fabel sat down again.
‘I knew Hans-Joachim Hauser, you know,’ Minks continued. ‘Your murder victim.’
‘Oh,’ Fabel said, surprised. ‘You were friends?’
‘No … God, no. It would perhaps be more correct to say that I used to know him. Years ago. I’ve met him a couple of times since, but we didn’t really have much to say to each other. I never really cared for the man.’ Minks paused. ‘As you know, I treat the causes and effects of fear here. Phobias and the conditions that cause them. One of the main things I teach my patients is that they must never let their phobias shape their personalities. They must not allow their fears to define who they are. But, of course, that is not true. It is our fears that define us. As we grow up we learn to fear rejection, failure, isolation or even love and success. I’ve become an expert in analysing people’s backgrounds from the fears they manifest. You, for example, Herr Fabel … I would guess that you come from a typical provincial North German background and you’ve lived in the North all your life. You have the typical North German approach: you stand back from things, think them over thoroughly before you speak or act. Then you need the reassurance of having your observations or actions confirmed by someone else. You fear the false step. The error. And the consequences of that false step. That is why you needed the comfort of me confirming your view of Frau Dreyer.’
‘I don’t need you to approve my theories, Herr Doctor.’ Fabel failed to keep the edge out of his voice. ‘All I need are your views on your patient. And, actually, you’re wrong. I haven’t lived in North Germany all my life. My mother is Scottish and I lived in the UK for a while as a child.’
‘Then the mind-set must be similar.’ Minks shrugged somewhere in the crumpled fabric of his jacket. ‘Anyway, we all have fears and those fears tend to shape how we react to the world.’
‘What’s this got to do with Herr Hauser?’
‘One of the most common fears we all have is that of exposure. We all have sides to our personalities that we dread being revealed to the world. Some people fear, for example, their past. The different person they used to be.’
‘Are you saying that Hauser was such a person?’
‘It is probably hard for you to believe, Herr Fabel, but I was once something of a radical. I was a student in 1968 and was very much part of all that went on at that time. But I am happy with everything I did and who I was back then. We all did things then that were perhaps … ill-advised … but it had a lot to do with the ardour of youth and the excitement of the time. But what’s most important is that we changed things. Germany is a different country because of our generation and I’m proud of the part I played. Others, however, are perhaps not so proud of their actions. It was back in sixty-eight that I first encountered Hauser. He was a pompous, self-important and incredibly vain youth. He was particularly fond of holding court and passing off all kinds of borrowed ideas and bons mots as his own.’
‘I don’t see how that is relevant. Why does that give a man reason to fear his own past?’
‘It does seem harmless, doesn’t it? Stealing the thoughts of others …’ Minks was now so sunken into the chair that it was as if he had studied the art of repose all his life, but some distant brilliance burned behind the soft eyes that remained focused on Fabel. ‘But the point is whose thoughts did he borrow … whose clothes did he take as his own? The thing about an exciting and dangerous time is that the excitement can make one blind to the danger. One is seldom aware that among the people one knows at such times are those who are themselves dangerous.’
‘Dr Minks, do you have something specific to tell me about Herr Hauser’s past?’
‘Specific? No. There’s nothing specific I can point to … but I can indicate the direction. My advice to you is that I think you should engage in a little archaeology, Herr Chief Commissar. Do some digging in the past. I’m not sure what you’ll find … but I’m sure you’ll find something.’
Fabel regarded the small man in the armchair, with his wrinkled suit and wrinkled face. No matter how hard he tried, Fabel could not imagine Minks as a revolutionary. He thought about pushing the psychologist further, but it would be a useless effort. Minks had given as much away as he ever would. Cryptic though he was, Minks had clearly been doing his best to give Fabel a lead.
‘Did you also know Dr Gunter Griebel?’ asked Fabel. ‘He was murdered in the same way as Hauser.’
‘No … I can’t say I did. I read about his death in the papers, but I didn’t know him.’
‘So you know of no connection between Hauser and Griebel?’
Minks shook his head. ‘I believe Griebel and Hauser were contemporaries. Maybe your archaeology will reveal that they shared a past. Anyway, Herr Chief Commissar, you have my opinion about Kristina. She is quite incapable of the kind of murder that you’re investigating.’
Fabel rose and waited for Minks to stand up. They shook hands and Fabel thanked the psychologist for his help.
‘Oh, by the way,’ said Fabel as he reached the door, ‘I believe you know one of my officers. Maria Klee.’
Minks gave a laugh and shook his head. ‘Now, Herr Fabel, I may have allowed you some latitude because I had Kristina Dreyer’s permission, but I’m not going to compromise patient confidentiality by confirming or denying knowledge of your colleague.’
‘I didn’t say she was a patient,’ said Fabel as he stepped through the door. ‘Just that I believed that you knew her. Goodbye, Herr Doctor.’
As the footsteps grew louder Maria drew back into the corner where a young woman had been beaten and strangled to death. Despite most of the disused factory’s windows being broken, the air in the corner hung still and warm and heavy around Maria. A woman appeared at the doorway and looked around anxiously before entering. Maria stepped out of the shadows and the woman spotted her, then, reassured, made her way across the factory with renewed confidence.
‘Is not possible for me to stay long …’ she said in greeting as she approached Maria. Her voice was thick with an Eastern European accent and she spoke with the grammar of someone who has learned German on the street. Maria guessed she was no more than twenty-three or twenty-four, but from a distance she had looked older. She was dressed in a cheap, brightly coloured dress that had been taken up so that the hem just covered the tops of her thighs and no more. Her legs were naked and her shoes were high-heeled sandals that fastened around the ankle. The dress was of a thin material that clung to her breasts and clearly outlined her nipples. It was held up by thin straps, and her neck and shoulders were exposed. The whole outfit was intended to convey some kind of brash, available sexiness. Instead its colour compared discordantly with the girl’s pale, bad skin and combined with her bony shoulders and thin arms to make her look sickly and somewhat pathetic.
‘I don’t need you to stay long, Nadja,’ answered Maria. ‘I just need a name.’
Nadja looked past Maria towards the corner of the disused factory. The corner in which she had placed the flowers.
‘I told you before, I don’t know what her real name was.’
‘It’s not her name I’m after, Nadja,’ said Maria in an even tone. ‘I want to know who put her on the street.’
‘She didn’t have a pimp. Not a single one, anyway. She was new to the group.’
‘The group?’
‘We all work for the same people. But I’m not going to tell you who. As it is, they would kill me if they knew I was talking to you at all.’
Maria took hold of Nadja’s hand and held it palm up. With her other hand she stuffed some fifty-Euro notes into it and closed Nadja’s fingers around the cash.
‘This is important to me.’ Maria held Nadja’s gaze with her pale blue-grey eyes. ‘I’m paying you for this information. Not the police.’
Nadja opened her fist and looked at the crumpled notes. She pushed them back towards Maria. ‘Save your money. I didn’t agree to meet you to get money from you. Anyway, I can make more than this in a couple of hours tonight.’
‘But you won’t get to keep it, will you?’ Maria made no move to take the money back. ‘How did you come to know Olga?’
Nadja laughed emptily and shook her head. Every movement seemed electrified by fear. She paused to light a cigarette and Maria saw that her hands trembled. She tilted her head back and forced a jet of smoke into the thick, warm air. ‘You think that your money means anything? I used to think that money was answer to all evils. And I thought that Germany was where I could make money. And this is how I ended up. But I take your money. And I take it because I have to prove that every second I out of their sight I earning for them.’
Nadja took three fifty-Euro notes and handed the rest back to Maria. ‘The girl you call Olga. She not Russian, she from Ukraine. She brought here by the same people who brought me.’
Maria felt the thrill of a suspicion being confirmed. ‘People traffickers?’
There was a noise from somewhere outside the building, near the main doors. Both women turned and watched the door for a moment before continuing their conversation.
‘You should know this,’ said Nadja. ‘Things have changed in Hamburg. Before there used to be only two types of whore: the girls that work the Kiez in St Pauli – you even get university students up there making extra cash – and the junkies who do it to get drugs. These girls very bottom of the business. Now you got something new. Us. The other girls, they call us the Farmers’ Market … we brought in from East like cattle and sold off. Most girls from Russia, Belarus or Ukraine. Many also from Albania and a few from Poland and Lithuania.’
‘Who runs the Farmers’ Market?’
‘If I tell you, you go looking for them. Then they work out who tell you about them and they kill me. But they torture me first. Then they kill my family. You no idea what these people like. When they bring girls in they start by raping them. Then they beat them and say that they kill our families back home if we not earn good for them.’
‘And this is what happened to you?’
Nadja didn’t answer, but a tear began to trace the outline of her nose before she swept it away with a brisk movement of her hand.
‘And they did it to the girl you call Olga. She trusted them. They told her they had a good job for her in West. She trusted them because they were Ukrainian like her.’
‘Ukrainians?’ Maria felt a tightness in her chest: as if her body were clenching around her old wound. ‘Did you say the people behind the Farmers’ Market are Ukrainians?’
Nadja looked nervously out towards the factory door. ‘I must go now …’
Maria stared hard at the skinny young prostitute. ‘Does the name Vasyl Vitrenko mean anything to you?’
Nadja shook her head. Maria suddenly scrabbled in her bag. She produced a head-and-shoulders colour photograph of a man wearing a Soviet military uniform.
‘Vasyl Vitrenko. Maybe you’ve heard it in connection with the people who are farming these Eastern European girls? Could this man be the person in charge?’
‘I would not know. I don’t recognise him. I give my money to different man.’
‘Are you sure you’ve never seen him?’ Maria held the photograph closer to Nadja’s face and her voice became infused with urgency. ‘Look at his face. Look at it.’
Nadja examined the picture more closely. ‘No … I’ve never seen him before. It is not a face to forget.’
The tension seemed to evaporate from Maria’s posture. She looked down at the photograph in her hands. Vasyl Vitrenko stared back at her with emerald eyes that were as cruel and cold and bright as the centre of hell.
‘No …’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose it is.’
Dirk Stellamanns had been a uniformed officer when Fabel had first joined the Polizei Hamburg. Dirk was a large, amiable bear of a man with a ready smile. It had been from Dirk that Fabel had learned all the things about being a policeman that you did not learn in the State Police School: the subtleties and the nuances, the way to walk into a room and read the situation and assess the dangers with your first scan.
Dirk Stellamanns had been on the beat in St Pauli, based in the famous Davidwache station. With two hundred thousand people passing every weekend through the two square kilometres of bars, theatres, dance clubs, strip joints and, of course, the notorious Reeperbahn, it was a beat where the policeman’s most effective weapon was his ability to talk to people. Dirk had shown Fabel how you could defuse an explosive situation with a few well-placed words; how someone who seemed destined for arrest could be sent on their way with a smile on their face. It all depended on how you dealt with things. Fabel had been in awe and more than a little envious of Dirk’s verbal skills. He was well aware of his own strengths as a policeman, but also of his weaknesses: sometimes Fabel knew that he could have got more out of a suspect or a witness if he had only handled them a bit better.
Dirk had been there when Fabel and his partner had been shot. A botched robbery by members of a terrorist group had left Fabel seriously wounded. Fabel’s partner had not survived. Franz Webern, twenty-five years old, married for less than three years, father of an eighteen-month-old son, had lain in the street outside the Commerzbank and had shuddered with cold as the warmth of his blood slipped from him and bloomed dark on the pale asphalt.
It had been the darkest day of Fabel’s career. It had ended with him standing wounded on a pier down by the Elbe, facing a seventeen-year-old girl armed with political clichés and an automatic handgun which she refused to lower.
She refused to lower the gun … Fabel had repeated the phrase like a mantra over the years in an attempt to somehow ease the intolerable burden of the knowledge that he had taken her life; that he had shot her in the face and head and she had tumbled like a broken doll into the dark, cold water. Dirk had been there for Fabel. Every day, whenever he had been off duty. As soon as Fabel regained even the vaguest, most tenuous grasp of consciousness, he had been aware of Dirk’s quiet, solid bulk sitting by his hospital bed.
There were some bonds, Fabel had learned, that, once forged, cannot be broken.
Now Dirk was retired from the police. He had been running this snack cabin down by the harbour for three years. And Fabel came here at least once a fortnight; not because he particularly appreciated Dirk’s variation on the Currywurst but because both men felt the need for the aimless, meaningless, trivial banter that rippled on the surface of their friendship.
But sometimes Fabel needed to go deeper. Whenever there was a case that got under his skin, a murder with the power to shock him even after all his years of dealing with death – it was not to Otto Jensen, his best friend with whom he had much more in common, that Fabel would go. It would be to Dirk Stellamanns.
Dirk’s snack stall was an extension of the man’s already huge personality. It was bright and scrupulously clean and surrounded by a scattering of chest-high tables capped with white parasols. Dirk, his large frame protesting at the tight wrapping of his immaculately white chef’s tunic and apron, beamed a smile when he saw Fabel approach.
‘Well, well … I see you have had your fill of the overpriced eateries of Pöseldorf …’ Dirk spoke to Fabel in Frysk. Both men were East Frisian and had always communicated with each other in the distinctive language of the region: an ancient mix of German, Dutch and Old English. ‘Can I get you some real food?’
‘A Jever and a cheese roll will do fine,’ said Fabel, smiling desolately. He always ordered the same thing when he came down here at lunchtimes. Again he found himself irritated by his own predictability. He took a sip of the crisp, herby East Frisian beer.
‘You look your usual cheery self.’ Dirk leaned forward, his elbows on the counter. ‘What’s up?’
‘Did you read about the Hans-Joachim Hauser killing?’
‘The Hamburg Hairdresser thing?’ Dirk pursed his lips. ‘Hauser and some scientist fellah. You on that?’
Fabel nodded and took another sip of beer. ‘It’s a doozy. God knows how the press got the details, but they’re pretty much accurate. This guy really has been taking scalps.’
‘Is it true he dyes them red?’
Fabel nodded again.
‘What’s all that about?’ Dirk made an incredulous face. ‘God knows I’ve seen a lot of things in my time, but there’s always some sicko who’ll come up with something new to surprise you. This guy must be a complete psycho.’
‘So it would appear.’ Fabel examined his beer glass before taking another sip. ‘Thing is, he doesn’t take his trophies away with him. He pins them up for everyone to find.’
‘A message?’
‘That’s what I’ve begun to wonder.’ Fabel shrugged. Despite the sunshine, he felt a chill deep inside. Maybe it was the beer. Or maybe it was the unthawed splinter of unease that had remained with him ever since he’d seen the photograph of Neu Versen Man: Red Franz, whose hair had been dyed vivid red by a thousand years of sleep in a cold, dark moor.
‘But why does he do it?’ Fabel posed the question more to himself than to Dirk. ‘What is the significance of the colour red?’
‘Red? It’s the colour of warning, isn’t it? Or political. Red is the colour of revolution, the old East Germany, communism, that kind of crap.’ Dirk paused to serve a female customer. He waited until she was out of earshot before continuing. ‘Wasn’t Hauser on the fringes of all of that stuff back in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies? Maybe your killer has something against Reds.’
‘Could be …’ Fabel sighed. ‘Who knows what goes on in a mind like that? I was talking to someone this morning who suggested that I should be looking at Hauser’s past. Specifically his political past. Maybe even more than I would normally with a case like this. But I don’t remember any suggestion that Hauser was involved in anything approaching “direct action”.’
‘You never know, Jan. There’s a lot of people in top political jobs now who have skeletons in their cupboards.’
Fabel sipped his beer. ‘I’ll look into it, anyway … God knows I need a straw to clutch at.’
Maria sat on the sofa and held her empty wine glass above her head, waggling it as if ringing a bell. Frank Grueber came through from the kitchen and took it from her.
‘Another refill?’
‘Another refill.’ Maria’s voice was flat and joyless.
‘Are you okay?’ Grueber had been in the kitchen, placing the dishes from the meal he had cooked into the dishwasher. Despite being thirty-two, Grueber retained the look of a schoolboy. He had his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, exposing his slender forearms, and his thick dark hair flopped over his brow, which was furrowed in a concerned frown. ‘You’ve had quite a bit already …’
‘Tough day.’ Maria looked up at him and smiled. ‘I’ve been looking into the background of that young Russian girl who was murdered three months ago.’ She corrected herself. ‘Ukrainian girl.’
‘But I thought you got someone for that?’ Grueber called through from the kitchen. He re-emerged with a glass of red wine, which he placed on the table in front of Maria before sitting down on the sofa next to her.
‘I did … we did. It’s just that she hasn’t got a name. Her own name, I mean. I want to give it back to her. All she wanted was a new life. To be somewhere and someone else. God knows, at times I can sympathise with that.’ Maria took a long draw on her Barolo. Grueber rested his arm on the back of the sofa and gently stroked Maria’s blonde hair. She gave a weak smile.
‘I’m worried about you, Maria. Have you seen that doctor again?’
Maria shrugged. ‘I’ve an appointment this week. I hate it. And I’ve no idea if he’s doing any good. I don’t know if anything would do any good. Anyway, let’s change the subject …’ She gestured towards the large antique sideboard that sat against the living-room wall. ‘New?’ she asked.
Grueber sighed while still stroking her hair. ‘Yes … I bought it at the weekend.’ His tone made it clear that he was reluctant to change the subject. ‘I needed something for that wall.’
‘Looks expensive,’ said Maria. ‘Like everything …’ She swung her wine glass to indicate the room and the house generally.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Grueber.
‘What for?’
‘For being rich. You can’t choose the life you’re born into, you know. I didn’t ask to have wealthy parents any more than other people ask to be born into poverty.’
‘Doesn’t bother me …’ Maria said.
‘Doesn’t it? I make my own way, you know. I always have.’
Maria shrugged again. ‘Like I said, doesn’t bother me. It must be nice to have money.’ She took in the room. The decor was tasteful and clearly very expensive. Maria knew that Grueber owned this large two-floor apartment outright. It was the lower part of a massive villa in the Hochkamp area of Osdorf. She suspected that he also owned the other part of the house, which was rented out. On its own, the apartment represented a seriously valuable piece of real estate: Maria could only guess at the value of the villa as a whole. Hamburg was Germany’s richest city and Grueber’s parents, Maria knew, were rich even by Hamburg standards. What was more, Frank Grueber was their only child. He had once explained to Maria that his parents had all but given up hope of having a child. As a consequence, Grueber had grown up in a world where all he wanted was lavished on him. And now he stood to inherit a fortune and obviously already had considerable financial resources at his disposal. Why, Maria had often wondered, would you pick the career of a forensic scientist when you could choose to do anything you wanted?
‘Having money doesn’t guarantee you happiness,’ said Grueber.
‘That’s funny.’ Maria gave a small, bitter laugh. ‘Not having it guarantees unhappiness …’ She found herself thinking again of Olga X, and Nadja, and the dreams they must have had of a new life in the West. For Olga, Grueber’s apartment would probably have been the embodiment of her dream; a little piece of which, in her naivety, she would have thought achievable through hard work in a German hotel or restaurant. Maria always imagined Olga’s background in the same way: a stereotype of a small village on a vast steppe, with hefty babushkas in black headscarves carrying huge, heavily laden baskets. And always she imagined a fresh-faced, smiling Olga gazing expectantly westwards. Maria knew that it was more likely that Olga had come from some grey, depressed post-communist metropolis, but still she couldn’t shake the cliché from her head.
‘You’re a good man, Frank,’ said Maria, smiling. ‘Do you know that? You’re kind, you’re gentle. A decent person. I don’t know why you bother with me with all of my hang-ups. Life would be so much simpler for you if you weren’t involved with me.’
‘Would it?’ said Grueber. ‘It’s my choice. And I’m happy with it.’
Maria looked at Grueber. She had known him for a year now. They had been involved for six months, yet they still had not had sex. She looked at his large blue eyes, his boyish face and the thick mop of black hair. She did want him. She put down her glass and leaned forward, cupping her hand behind his head and pulling him towards her. They kissed and she pushed her tongue into his mouth. He slipped his arm around her and she could feel the heat of his body on hers.
‘Let’s go to the bedroom,’ she said, standing up and leading him by the hand.
Maria undressed so quickly that she lost a button on her blouse. She didn’t want the moment to pass; she didn’t want this window of normality suddenly to slam shut. She lay on the bed and pulled him onto her. She hungered for him so much. Then she felt Grueber on top of her, pressing against her. She felt his body on hers and suddenly felt stifled, choking. A wave of nausea came over her and she wanted to scream at him to get off her, to stop touching her. She looked up at the gentle, boyishly handsome face of Frank Grueber and felt a deep, violent revulsion. Grueber saw that something was wrong and eased back. But Maria closed her eyes and pulled him towards her. Through her closed lids she imagined that another face looked down at her and the revulsion was gone.
Maria kept her eyes closed and, as Frank Grueber penetrated her, she kept her disgust at bay by bringing another face to mind: an angular and cruel face. A face that looked at her with loveless, cold, green eyes.