A fear of dark water

Chapter Twenty-Five

The next morning, before making his first call, Fabel dropped by the Jensen Buchhandlung, down in the Arkaden by the Alster. Otto Jensen was Fabel’s closest friend, closer even than Werner. It was a friendship unsullied by professional interests. Fabel had been at university with Otto and they had remained close, even if Otto had not, to start with, approved of Fabel’s becoming a police officer. ‘A waste of a fine mind,’ he had said. Repeatedly. Fabel had known since he had been a boy that he was smart; that he had a good brain. But when he had met Otto Jensen at university, he had recognised a mind that worked on a completely different level. Otto was the person to whom Fabel would go to discuss anything he found confusing or arcane. Whatever it was, Otto would know something about it. But Fabel also knew that Otto was completely, spectacularly devoid of the kind of common sense needed to conduct a normal day-to-day life. The success of his bookshop was entirely due to Otto’s wife, Else.

Fabel waited while Otto served a customer. From a distance, Fabel suddenly saw a middle-aged balding man with tired eyes. It saddened Fabel, who every time he thought of his friend had the image of a tall, gangly, clumsy youth with long, lank blond hair. It was, Fabel realised, exactly the same mental mechanism that had temporarily wiped out the fact of Dirk Stellamanns’s death: you kept a concept of a person in your head that never seemed to age; that was fixed at the time you first really got to know them.

‘What’s this?’ asked Otto when Fabel came up to the counter. ‘A raid?’

‘Don’t sweat,’ said Fabel. ‘There isn’t a law against being a smart-arse. Yet. As soon as there is, I’ll put you at the top of the most-wanted list. Actually, I wondered if you had time for a coffee? I wanted to pick your brains.’

Otto asked one of his staff to take over and led Fabel to an area set out with sofas. There was a coffee machine in the corner and, surrounded by books, the two old friends sat down and engaged in the obligatory introductory small talk. Then Fabel ran through all he knew about the Pharos Project and their ideas of Consolidation, simulated realities and the removal of mankind from the biosphere.

‘I just don’t get it,’ said Fabel when he had finished. ‘The Pharos Project is supposed to be an environmental group, yet they are obsessed with the idea of simulated reality. Other than this bizarre claim that simulated reality allows mankind to take itself out of the environment and therefore save it… which, by the way, I don’t get: why save something that you want to escape from? Anyway, apart from that, I just don’t understand the connection.’

‘Well, you’re wrong, Jan. The two ideas have always sort of gone together. Way back at the end of the nineteenth century, some of the world’s leading geologists — Eduard Suess, Nikolai Fyodorov, Vladimir Vernadsky and a host of others — came up with both ideas and saw them as inextricably linked. A couple of them actually posited that the biosphere was itself nothing but a simulation.’

‘Yeah…’ Fabel made a sceptical face. ‘Those crazy Russians…’

‘No, Jan, you shouldn’t be so dismissive. There were some ideas in there that are now part of mainstream thinking. Way back then, Vernadsky believed that the greatest force in shaping the geology of the Earth was the human intellect. Some geologists today think we should be calling this age the Anthropocene instead of the Holocene, because we have changed the planet so much.’

‘And what about this idea of simulated reality that the Pharos Project bangs on about so much?’

‘Well, going back a little further, Fyodorov, who had influenced Vernadsky, actually believed that in the distant future mankind would develop a “prosthetic society”. No more ageing or death. He also thought we’d go on to achieve some kind of super-singularity — and bear in mind that he came up with this stuff in the 1890s — where we would be able to replicate absolutely any quantum brain state, meaning everybody who has ever lived would be brought back to life. The quantum Resurrection. All of a sudden atheist science becomes religious prophesy.’

‘But it’s mad,’ protested Fabel. ‘How could you simulate an entire world?’

‘You’re an old technophobe, Jan. It would scare the pants off you if you saw what games designers can do now. Hyperreal simulated worlds. And anyway, don’t you realise that creating a simulated reality is the easiest thing in the world? We all do it… every time we dream. When we’re dreaming, we think we’re experiencing reality. How often have you had a dream and, after you’ve woken up, you’ve had to work hard at remembering what really happened and what happened in the dream?’

Fabel thought about how vivid his dreams had been over the years, when the dead would walk again and point accusing fingers at him for not catching their killers; or the nights when he sat in his father’s study talking to Paul Lindemann, the young police officer who had been shot dead while on an operation organised and run by Fabel.

‘Do you know that there really are quite a few respected scientists who believe that it is actually unlikely that any of this

…’ Otto indicated their surroundings with a sweep of his arms ‘… is real? That everything we experience is a highly sophisticated simulation.’

‘I’d rather die than live a lie,’ said Fabel.

‘Why? What difference does it make? This is all you have ever experienced. This is your reality. It really doesn’t matter if it’s a reality outside or inside a simulation. Maybe that’s who God is… a systems analyst. How’s that for a depressing thought?’

‘But this is real, Otto.’

‘Reality is just what’s in your head, Jan. You should read Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard. Or get a copy of Fassbinder’s Welt am Draht. Or even Jungian psychology — ask Susanne

… although I always think of her as Freudian…’ Otto said with an exaggerated leer. ‘We are programmed by our surroundings, by signs and symbols. Someone says the word “cowboy” and we think of John Wayne, even though the real cowboys were small, almost jockey-like because their horses had to carry them twelve hours a day. The truth isn’t out there.’

‘You know, Otto, I could give you the Pharos Project’s phone number if you want…’

‘Yeah, very funny. I’m quite happy with my reality, thank you.’ Otto suddenly became serious. ‘But I do know something about the Pharos Project, Jan, and none of it’s good. Terrorising the families of ex-members, harassing anyone who criticises them. You watch yourself with these people.’

Fabel drained his coffee cup. ‘I’m going. You make my head hurt, do you know that, Otto?’

‘Maybe that’s my entire raison d’etre. See you, copper.’

Fabel drove across town and parked over the street from the Schanzenviertel cafe. Before visiting Otto, he had spent the day going through all the evidence to date on the Fottinger case and had decided he was prepared enough to start talking to witnesses. It was something he always did, as a matter of course: Fabel never relied on witness statements. It was not that he did not trust the officers who took the statements to ask the right questions, it was more that reading them in a report removed the human dimension: sometimes it was not what a witness said, but more how they said it; the million little tells and tics that could reveal a doubt, an insecurity, a prejudice.

He headed into the Schanzenviertel feeling strangely upbeat. Maybe it was the weather. For the first time in weeks, it really did feel like there was a hint of spring in the early evening air. Fabel often thought about the effect the weather had on his moods and the idea reminded him of what Muller-Voigt had said about Man’s connection to his environment, and how we had lost sight of it.

As he crossed the street, Fabel saw that two of the cafe’s four large plate-glass windows had been filled in with plywood panels; the wood of the frames around the plywood was blackened. He guessed that the intensity of the heat from the blazing car had caused the windows to shatter.

When he walked in, he noticed that only three out of the cafe’s more than twenty tables were occupied. ‘Quiet in here this evening…’ he said to the waiter as he held up his police identification. The waiter, who had been bent over a table, made a show of being unimpressed and shrugged. The Schanzenviertel was a part of Hamburg where people were generally not impressed by the police. It was not that the quarter was populated by criminals, more that there was an instinctive disregard and distrust of the police in a part of the city famed for its alternative views. It did not bother Fabel. In fact he rather appreciated it: a touch of idiosyncrasy and a healthy disregard for authority was what made Hamburg Hamburg, after all.

‘Funny, that,’ said the waiter, returning to the work of tidying and wiping the recently vacated table. ‘We thought that putting flambeed client on the menu would bring them in in their droves.’ He straightened up wearily. Fabel saw that he was older than he had first thought. Tall and thin with a lean, deeply lined face and dressed in a way that would have looked better on him a decade before. ‘I take it that’s why you’re here?’

‘Did you know the victim?’ Fabel referred to his notebook. ‘Daniel Fottinger?’

‘Like I told the other cops, he was a regular. He came here every Wednesday, same time and met the same woman. They would have lunch, then go off together.’

‘What do you mean, go off together?’

The waiter sighed. ‘They’d arrive in separate cars, but after they’d eaten they’d go off together in her car. I always noticed that the big Merc convertible sat outside for a couple of hours, then would disappear mid or late afternoon. I actually often thought that he was taking a bit of chance, with all these car-burnings around here and all. But I never imagined it would happen in broad daylight right outside our door. Or that the poor bastard would end up torched himself.’

‘What do you know about him?’

‘What I know about all of my customers: what they order, what they drink, what they leave as a tip. He wasn’t the small-talk type.’

‘Yet he came here often?’

‘What can I tell you? Some customers are easy to get to know. He wasn’t.’

‘But you must at least have had some impression of him… the kind of person he was.’

The lanky waiter gave a small laugh. ‘How can I put it? He didn’t have a lot of personality going on there, and what there was was all arrogant asshole. Every time he came in and sat down was like it was the first time. You know what I mean: I’d serve him every time he came in, but he’d make out like he didn’t know me from Adam. Some customers can be like that. They treat you as if you don’t really exist or matter as a human being, like you simply exist for their convenience.’

‘The woman?’

‘She wasn’t as bad. At least she talked to you; acknowledged you as a person. She’s a real looker and I couldn’t quite work out what she was doing with him. I mean, he seemed pretty one-dimensional to me.’

‘So you had them pegged as a couple?’

‘Yeah. But not married, though. And not business or colleagues. It was obvious they had some kind of regular thing going. When you’ve served tables as long as I have, you get to tell the nature of the visit, the agenda behind the lunch, if you know what I mean. But there was something about them didn’t gel.’

Fabel raised an eyebrow.

‘Oh, I don’t know…’ The waiter renewed his efforts on the tabletop and his irritation at being disturbed. ‘They fitted in some ways… him rich, her cute… but it was just that he seemed so… I don’t know… so dull. I tell you, if I had a woman who looked like that across the table from me, I wouldn’t spend so much of my time playing with my electronic toys.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He was always texting or taking calls on his cellphone. There was one time they were in here that he sat half the time working on his laptop. Sometimes I think it wasn’t the excellence of our cuisine that brought him here. More our free WiFi. But I tell you, his girlfriend was getting pretty pissed off with it. I reckon she was on the point of giving him the elbow.’

‘And you could tell this just from waiting table?’ Fabel had not intended his question to sound patronising but the lean waiter’s face clouded.

‘Maybe if you cops were forced to work as waiters for six months you’d be better at sizing people up. Everybody is becoming more and more detached from each other, from reality. All of this technology shit. Me, I run this place because I get to watch people. Live in the real world.’ He looked at Fabel disdainfully. ‘Take you… you’re a cop but I can tell from the way you dress and the way you talk to people that you like to think you’re different from the rest. That jacket you’re wearing — English-cut, tweed — it’s not the usual anonymous semi-corporate two-hundred-euro suit the Hamburg Kripo always seems to wear. I’d say you’re not all that comfortable with being a cop and you like to think you’ve got a little more going on up here.’ He tapped his forefinger against the side of his head. ‘You’re trying really hard to fit in by not fitting in. But what do I know, huh? I just wait tables.’

‘Okay,’ said Fabel. ‘So you’re the Great Observer, the ultimate people watcher. I get it. You told the officers that you noticed one of the arsonists before the attack. I don’t suppose your people-watching skills could extend to giving me a decent description of him?’

‘I saw him, all right. He was hanging around across the street, under that tree…’ The waiter tutted when he realised the view of the tree was obscured by the plywood. ‘Anyway,’ he said philosophically, ‘he was over there. To start with I thought he was a junkie. He was kinda hopping from one foot to the other, fidgeting, sort of, and checking and rechecking that big black holdall he was carrying.’

‘Would you recognise him again?’

‘Doubt it. He was wearing a sort of woolly hat that he pulled down as a mask when he torched the car. I did think I noticed something. I didn’t mention it to the other cops because I only thought of it afterwards…’

‘Yes?’

‘A limp. I’m pretty sure the guy had a limp. Or at least there was something stiff about the way he walked.’

‘Thanks,’ said Fabel.

The skinny waiter shrugged and went back to cleaning tables.

Fabel’s next visit was in Harvestehude. An impressive Wilhelmine building faced with white stucco tried to hide behind a screen of manicured shrubs and trees. Fabel found the name he was looking for and rang the bell.

‘Polizei Hamburg…’ he said into the entry system in answer to the crackling voice. ‘I’d like to speak to you, Frau Kempfert.’

‘Let me see your ID,’ the voice said. ‘There’s a camera above the entryphone.’

Fabel held his card up to the bulbous electronic eye and there was a harsh buzzing and a click. He pushed open the heavy door and made his way up an ornately tiled stairwell to the apartment building’s third floor. An attractive, dark-haired young woman eyed him suspiciously from her doorway as he approached.

‘I told the other officers all I know.’

‘You know, Frau Kempfert, everybody always says exactly that same thing. But I like to hear it all for myself. And, you never know, something might always come back to you. Do you mind?’ Fabel nodded towards the apartment behind her.

‘No…’ Unsmiling, she moved to one side to admit him. ‘Come in.’

The young woman led him along the long hall into a corner lounge. It was huge and bright with French windows that opened out onto a small balustraded balcony. Fabel guessed from what he had seen on the way in that the flat probably consisted of this room, one, maybe two bedrooms, a kitchen-diner and a bathroom. The architecture was typical Harvestehude: echoing a more formal and elegant age with high ceilings, huge windows and the odd bit of ostentation in the plasterwork. The flat was not big, thought Fabel, but it would still be pricey. The furnishings and artwork were brightly coloured to contrast with the white walls. It all suggested a sophisticated sense of taste.

Victoria Kempfert dropped into a huge red armchair and made a perfunctory gesture towards the sofa, indicating that Fabel should sit. I get it, he thought, I’m taking up your time. Fabel had learned to be suspicious of people who overstated how much of an inconvenience it was to have to talk to the police. Generally speaking, if someone had lost their life, witnesses were only too willing to give you their time. They were helping you make sense of an often senseless death; doing that, for most people, was a way of restoring the universe’s natural balance.

‘You usually came back here after your lunchtime meetings?’ asked Fabel. ‘You and Herr Fottinger, I mean.’

‘Yes. We came back here and fucked.’ She held Fabel in a defiant gaze, her eyebrows arched.

‘I see,’ said Fabel matter-of-factly, noting it down in his notebook. ‘And where did you and Herr Fottinger fuck? In the bedroom or here, where I’m sitting?’

Victoria Kempfert’s expression darkened even more. She was clearly bursting to say something but, for the moment, she could not find the words.

‘Listen, Frau Kempfert,’ said Fabel. ‘I know that you have had a terrible experience, and you’ve made your distaste for police officers clear. But I’ve been a murder detective for a long, long time. There is very little that this world has left to throw at me that could shock me, so petulance and adolescent language isn’t going to set me back on my heels. But if you want, we can keep the conversation at that level. How often did you and Herr Fottinger fuck here?’

She dropped her eyes. She was a beautiful woman. Strong features and a mane of thick, dark hair. Not unlike Susanne. And very much, he realised against his will, his type.

‘Daniel and I would come here every week — every Wednesday — after lunch. We’d see each other maybe one other time during the week, depending on our schedules. He was away a lot.’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry if I was being… it’s just that after seeing that, seeing what happened to him…’ She bit her lip and something in her eyes hardened again. It was clear that she was determined not to cry.

‘I do understand,’ said Fabel, more gently. ‘Did the police officers you spoke to give you details of victim support?’

‘I don’t need counselling, Herr Fabel. I’ll get over it. Eventually.’

‘Did you see the attackers?’

‘No… yes… I mean I didn’t know they were the attackers then. The bastards just stood and watched Daniel burn. To start with I thought they were just passers-by like everyone else, then I saw they had ski masks or something on. Over their faces. I didn’t even know it had been an arson attack to start with. I didn’t know what had happened.’

‘Was there anything you particularly noticed about them?’

‘Other than the ski masks? Nothing. I was too busy watching Daniel. And then… Why would someone do that?’

‘What I need to establish is if they had intended to do what they did. A lot of expensive cars get torched in the Schanzenviertel. It could be that that was their sole intention.’

‘I don’t know…’ Kempfert said slowly, her eyes unfocused as if replaying the scene in her head. ‘It was the way they waited. Watched. One in particular.’

‘That could be a sign that they were shocked by the consequences of their actions.’

Kempfert shook her head vigorously. ‘That’s the thing… You asked if there was anything I particularly noticed. Well, just before he jumped on the back of the motorbike and they made off, I could have sworn the guy in the ski mask… I could have sworn he was laughing. You don’t do that if you are shocked by the consequences of your action.’

‘No… probably not. But, believe it or not, it can be the result of shock. Or psychological conditions. Paradoxical laughter.’

‘There was nothing paradoxical about it. That bastard was laughing at what he had done.’

Fabel regarded her for a moment.

‘How long had you been seeing Herr Fottinger?’

‘A couple of months. Maybe three. It was all coming to an end, though.’

‘You knew he was married?’

‘He made no secret of it. I made no secret of the fact that I didn’t care. We met through business. I design websites and I’d done some work for his company. But that had stopped months before our relationship started. He hired someone else. Then, about ten, twelve weeks ago, I met him at a business event. You know, the usual rubber-chicken dinner with flow charts and Powerpoints for dessert.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ said Fabel. ‘Not my natural environment, as it were. So that’s when you started to see him?’

‘About a week or so later he phoned me and asked me to lunch. We started to see each other each week, but it was becoming… tiresome.’

‘In what way tiresome?’

‘On the face of it, Daniel was charming and interesting. But there was something missing. It was like he was all veneer and nothing beneath. I know this sounds weird, but even when we were intimate it was like he was on his own. In fact, there were times it became unpleasant. It was like I didn’t exist for him in any real way. That’s mad, I know. But that’s why there was no future for us.’

Fabel thought about what she had said; it was almost exactly how the waiter had described Fottinger. ‘What do you know about Herr Fottinger’s business?’

‘Just what I found out through working on its website. Environmental technologies. Daniel was involved in all types of carbon-capture technology. He was supposed to be involved with this GlobalConcern Hamburg summit — you knew that, didn’t you?’

‘I’d heard.’ Fabel paused for a moment. ‘What about Frau Fottinger? Was there ever any suggestion that she knew about her husband’s relationship with you?’

‘What? Hell hath no fury? No, I don’t think Kirstin Fottinger paid for someone to torch Daniel’s car because she knew about us. Trust me, she’s not that engaged.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘In some ways she was very like Daniel, but more so, if you know what I mean. Daniel’s wife was the real environmental freak. And I mean extreme. She’s a strict vegan and believes that we should make zero impact on the planet. She got involved in some group with weird ideas. I mean really weird ideas. Daniel was involved with them too, but not in the same way she was. I think she dragged him into it to start with. The sad thing is I think that at one time, not so long ago, Daniel really loved her. The way he put it to me was that she simply disappeared… faded away. I don’t think he would ever have got involved with me if she hadn’t gone all weird. The funny thing is I sensed the same thing happening to Daniel. He was fading away. Becoming weird.’

‘Group? What kind of group?’ asked Fabel, although he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

‘More of a cult,’ said Kempfert. ‘They call themselves Pharos, or something.’

Fabel nodded slowly, looking down at his notebook. A deliberate movement to conceal from Victoria Kempfert the significance of what she had just told him.

‘You say he was involved with this group too, but not to the same degree?’

‘Well, yes. But, from what I could gather, they didn’t believe in degrees of involvement. You had to give yourself totally to Pharos. It creeped me out a bit. More than a bit. Daniel was a bright guy. He had great ideas but didn’t have the money to back them up. His wife was loaded, though. She bankrolled him to start with but he built up his business to become a leader in the field. The price he had to pay was to become a member of Pharos. He used to joke about it.’ Kempfert frowned. ‘Then he stopped. In fact, he stopped joking about anything much.’

‘He changed?’

‘He was changing. I told him to get out while he could. I could tell that a big part of him really wanted to, but every time I met him it was like that part of him was getting smaller. As if a little more of his personality — a little more self-will — had been sucked out of him. That’s what I meant when I said it was all getting tiresome.’ She paused. ‘Listen, Herr Fabel, I wasn’t that much into Daniel. Even at the start. It was fun — he was fun — to begin with, but then it all got a little tired. And the weird stuff with this group that he and his wife were involved with.’

‘You wanted out?’

‘I told him at lunch. Right before that happened to him. Can you imagine how that makes me feel?’

‘You weren’t to know, Frau Kempfert. How did he take it?’

‘Well. So well, in fact, I could have let it damage my ego. It was as it he didn’t care. Actually, more like he was relieved.’

As Fabel crossed the street to his car, he did not need to turn to know that Victoria Kempfert was watching him from her window. She had been all prickles; defiant to the point of hostility. It was, he knew, part of the denial process that followed a trauma such as the one she had experienced. But there was more to it. There was something she had wanted to tell Fabel but had been too unsure or afraid to voice. Instead she had ring-fenced it with verbal barbs. He took his cellphone out and hit the speed dial for the Murder Commission, before realising that this was the replacement phone and did not have the number stored. It took him a moment to recall it and key it in: the irony of technology making life easier was that you forgot how to do things for yourself. He got hold of Anna Wolff.

‘Anna, I need you to run a couple of checks for me. And I need them quickly.’

‘Okay, anything for our number one suspect. The last time you had someone checked they ended up dead.’

‘When this is over, Commissar Wolff, I’m going to have you transferred to Buxtehude where the highlight of your week, of your month, will be a bicycle theft.’

‘Oh no!’ she said with mock horror. ‘That’s too far away from Billwerder prison. I’ll never get to visit you. Who do you want checked out?’

‘The guy who was burned in that arson attack in the Schanzenviertel. Daniel Fottinger. And the woman who was with him, Victoria Kempfert.’

‘Okay. You heading back in?’

‘I’ll be in later. I’ve got another house call to make.’ Fabel used his remote to unlock his BMW and slid in behind the driver’s seat. He checked his rear-view mirror. Yes. Still there. ‘Anna, there’s one more thing I need you to run through the computer. And keep this to yourself. I’m being followed. A new VW four-by-four. A Tiguan, I think. It’s been popping up in my rear-view mirror all day. I suspect it’s either one of ours or a BfV team. I just want to make sure.’

‘Shit… you don’t think anyone really suspects…’

‘I doubt it,’ said Fabel, ‘but they’re maybe keeping tabs on me just to keep things straight, as Criminal Director van Heiden would say.’

‘Index number?’

Fabel strained to make it out in the rear-view mirror and read it out to Anna.

‘Give me a couple of minutes,’ she said.

Hamburg’s architecture tells you in a very discreet, decorous way that this is a city where some serious money is made. Daniel Fottinger’s house lay where Nienstedten became Blankenese and somehow managed to scream massive wealth quietly. It was set in four hectares of some of the most expensive real estate in Germany. Given the business Fottinger had been in, Fabel had expected it to be the same kind of ultra-modern zero-carbon set-up as Muller-Voigt’s house in the Altes Land. Instead it was an elegant white aristocratic nineteenth-century villa with green shuttered windows and a double-storey aviary-cum-conservatory on its east side. Its grounds were laid out like an English park, its lawns punctuated by century-matured oaks.

It was not at all what Fabel had expected. But what he had expected was that Fottinger’s widow would not be alone. He was right.

At first, given the grandeur of the surroundings, Fabel assumed that the stocky, impeccably neat man with the shaven head and the goatee beard who opened the front door to him was the butler. But it was apparent from his tailoring and demeanour that this was no manservant. He showed Fabel into a huge, bright drawing room. Another, younger, man stood over by the far wall, next to a grand piano. He too was wearing a business suit, but his was grey and not of the same quality. The younger man was made distinctive by the contrast between his pale complexion and his extremely dark, short hair.

The only other person in the room was a woman of about thirty-five sitting on a rosewood settee. She was slim, with shoulder-length wavy hair of a vibrant auburn brushed back from her delicately modelled, pale and lightly freckled face. She wore a simple, black, sleeveless dress that clung to her slim figure in a way that only the most expensive fabrics could and her poise was so perfect that she gave the impression of sitting on the settee without actually touching it.

Fabel’s first impression of Kirstin Fottinger was that she was made of fine china.

In terms of attractiveness she was the equal of Fottinger’s mistress, but hers was a totally different type of beauty. Where Victoria Kempfert was the kind of woman men desired, Kirstin Fottinger was like a fragile, beautiful, expensive object to be collected and preserved. And there was something about her, thought Fabel, that made her seem otherworldly.

‘I’m glad you could make time to meet with me, Frau Fottinger,’ he said. ‘I know you must be in shock after what has happened.’

She smiled a polite porcelain smile. The truth was that she did not seem to Fabel to be in a state of much shock at all, and less grief. Perhaps it was a forced composure that had temporarily robbed her of expression.

‘Frau Fottinger has taken something to help. A mild sedative prescribed by her doctor,’ said the older man who had led Fabel into the drawing room.

‘And you are?’ Fabel turned to face him fully.

‘Peter Wiegand. I’m a friend of the family. I was also a business associate of Daniel’s.’

‘Peter Wiegand? You’re the deputy leader of the Pharos Project, aren’t you?’

‘I have worked with Dominik Korn for close to thirty years. My principal role is Vice President and Director of Operations of the Korn-Pharos Corporation. But yes, I am also active in the Pharos Project. Both Kirstin and her husband are members of the Project, so I am here to lend my support and comfort at this difficult time.’

‘I see.’ Fabel looked pointedly at the other man.

‘Oh, sorry…’ said Wiegand. ‘This is Herr Badorf. He is our chief of security for the group. I felt, given the violent circumstances of Daniel’s death, that I should bring him along.’

‘For the group?’ Fabel spoke directly to Badorf. ‘Does that mean for the Korn-Pharos Corporation or for the Pharos Project?’

‘I am not a member of the Project,’ said Badorf. Fabel noticed he had a southern accent. Swabian, he reckoned. ‘I work for the Korn-Pharos group of companies. Believe it or not, Principal Chief Commissar, one is not obliged or even pressured to join the Project just because one works for the Corporation.’

‘I see,’ said Fabel again. But he remembered what he had read in Menke’s file on the Project; the rumours about the Consolidation and Compliance Office, which sounded as if it had something to do with mergers and business etiquette but which was actually the secret police of the Pharos Project. As Fabel looked at Badorf he was pretty sure he was in the presence of a Consolidator. And a senior one at that. Fabel had had to phone ahead to arrange this meeting and he had known that, in doing so, he was giving the Project the opportunity to have someone present to coax the right responses from Kirstin Fottinger.

Fabel turned to the newly widowed redhead. ‘Frau Fottinger, I wonder if I might speak with you in private…’

‘I would rather that Herr Wiegand and Herr Badorf remained here. Herr Wiegand has been a great support to me.’

‘As you wish. May I?’ Fabel indicated the armchair opposite Frau Fottinger. It had been worth the attempt, but Fabel had known there was no way he would have been allowed to question Fottinger’s widow without someone from Pharos being present. She nodded and he sat down.

‘I know this is a very painful subject, Frau Fottinger, but were you aware of the relationship between your husband and Victoria Kempfert?’

‘I knew nothing about any such relationship until told about it after Daniel’s death.’ Her answer actually sounded rehearsed.

‘Do you know Victoria Kempfert?’

‘We have never met.’

‘Do you have any idea why someone would want to harm your husband, or kill him?’

‘I was led to believe Daniel’s death was an accident…’ It was Wiegand who spoke. ‘Well, not an accident, but I thought the intent of the attackers had been to set fire to the car while Daniel was inside the cafe.’

‘Frau Fottinger?’ Fabel ignored Wiegand’s interruption.

‘No. Not on a personal level. Daniel was not the kind of person to make enemies. But it’s possible that some groups would view him with some distrust, because of the company’s activities.’

‘Such as?’

‘Fottinger Environmental Technologies is a leader in sea-based carbon-capture technology. And Daniel was a key mover and organiser behind the GlobalConcern Hamburg summit.’

‘Why would anyone object to carbon capture?’

‘It’s the way we do it. Daniel perfected a more efficient way of iron seeding.’

‘Iron seeding?’

‘Perhaps I can explain,’ said Wiegand. ‘It was in this area that Herr Fottinger’s company cooperated with the Korn Corporation. Iron seeding is exactly how it sounds: it involves seeding deep ocean with iron dust.’

‘For what purpose?’ asked Fabel.

‘Put simply: to trap atmospheric carbon dioxide at the bottom of the ocean. The theory has been around for a time and there have been trials — with mixed results. I would guess that even officers of the Polizei Hamburg are aware that the main danger we face on the planet is the increase of CO 2 in the atmosphere, leading to catastrophic global warming. The two main causes are emissions into the atmosphere and deforestation, which is reducing the Earth’s biosphere’s ability to process carbon dioxide. What do you know about plankton, Herr Fabel?’

‘Whales eat it. That’s about it.’

‘There are two types of plankton: phytoplankton and zooplankton. Effectively, phytoplankton is microscopic plant life, zooplankton is microscopic animal life. The principle of iron seeding is that the iron dust seeded into the ocean acts as a fertiliser. It causes an explosion in the population of phytoplankton. And phytoplankton, because it’s plant based, employs the process of photosynthesis: it absorbs carbon dioxide and releases oxygen back into the atmosphere. In fact, even as it stands, a huge percentage of the planet’s “breathing” is done by phytoplankton. The theory is that by increasing the volumes of phytoplankton in the ocean, we can take up the slack created by a reduction in rainforest and other large vegetation on land. In many of the tests, there have indeed been massive increases in the levels of phytoplankton. The process of photosynthesis also creates organic materials, sugars, which cause the phytoplankton to sink out of the light and into the dark levels of the ocean, effectively locking up the carbon in the sea floor. The irony is that this dead plankton would, over geological time, eventually become mineral oil.’

‘So why isn’t everyone running out to do this?’ asked Fabel.

‘There is a problem. Put crudely, plants make oxygen, animals make carbon dioxide. Zooplankton, which creates CO2, also lives in the sunlit levels of the ocean, and it feeds on phytoplankton. That has meant that in some of the iron-seeding trial areas, the zooplankton has increased in equal proportion to the phytoplankton. It threatens to neutralise the benefit of iron seeding. That is why, with some segments of the eco-protection community, iron seeding remains a controversial topic. Some see it as a danger, not a remedy.’

‘Enough to earn Herr Fottinger enemies who are willing to kill?’

Wiegand shrugged. ‘You’re the policeman, Herr Fabel.’

‘If this iron seeding is so controversial, why were you and Fottinger Environmental pursuing it?’ asked Fabel. He became aware that he was not questioning the person he had come to question, but allowed himself to be deliberately diverted for the moment.

‘Because if we can iron out the problems, if you’ll pardon the pun, then the benefits are potentially enormous. It could literally save all our lives. The other reason is that Daniel’s researchers are close to developing potential fixes. They are adding elements to the mix that would speed up the process, causing the phytoplankton to sink much faster. Zooplankton cannot survive below three hundred metres, so if we can drop greater amounts of phytoplankton below that level after photosynthesis but before the zooplankton has a chance to feed on it, then we have our solution.’

‘I see. Do you have rivals… competitors in this area?’

Wiegand laughed. ‘No one who would kill to get ahead. The environmental-technology industry does not work that way. The planet always comes before the profit.’

Fabel turned his attention back to Kirstin Fottinger. He ran through the usual questions, establishing as detailed a chronology of the dead man’s movements as possible. When Fabel was finished, he went through what he had been told.

‘Going by what you have told me, Frau Fottinger,’ he said, ‘your husband spent — in fact, both of you regularly spent — upwards of six hours an evening on the internet or otherwise using computers?’

‘That’s correct,’ she said blankly, the porcelain face devoid of any hint that such behaviour should be considered odd. ‘It was part of his work and who he was. Who I am, as well. We both liked to remain connected.’

Fabel nodded and let it go, but made a mental note to discuss with his team the possibility of getting a warrant to examine Fottinger’s computers. No, it would be futile. By the time the Polizei Hamburg’s experts got into the computers, the Pharos Project’s even better experts would have removed anything that might have proved embarrassing for the cult.

‘Your husband knew Berthold Muller-Voigt quite well, I believe.’

‘Not well. Naturally, they encountered each other frequently.’

‘But Herr Muller-Voigt was a director of Fottinger Environmental Technologies…’

‘A non-executive director. Berthold’s function was one of adviser.’

‘I would have thought that that would create a conflict of interest for him as Environment Senator.’

‘He lodged it with the Senate as a declared interest. In any case, our company does not operate in the Hamburg area. There are no contracts to be awarded or the like.’

‘But you do understand that I have to examine any connections between your husband and Senator Muller-Voigt?’

‘Do you really think there’s a connection?’ asked Wiegand. ‘They died under different circumstances, didn’t they? Poor Daniel’s death may not even have been intended and, from what I’ve read, Berthold was murdered by someone he had let into his home.’

Fabel turned to Wiegand and held him in his stare for a moment. The agenda behind the last remark was clear: Wiegand knew, somehow, that Fabel had been in Muller-Voigt’s house shortly before he died.

‘I don’t know if there is a connection or not,’ said Fabel. ‘Yet. I take it you knew Berthold too.’

‘As a matter of fact, I did. Obviously our paths crossed because of our mutual involvement in environmental affairs.’

‘I see,’ said Fabel. ‘Did you ever meet his partner? Meliha Yazar?’

‘I can’t say I did,’ said Wiegand, with nothing to read on his face.

‘Frau Fottinger?’

‘The name is not familiar,’ she said. ‘I thought that Berthold was not exclusive with anyone. He had a reputation as a ladies’ man, as I’m sure you’re aware.’

Fabel thanked Kirstin Fottinger, expressed his sympathy for her loss once more, and took his leave of her. He knew he was a character leaving a stage: nothing about the interview had been natural or spontaneous. There was nothing more to find out here. As he had on the way in, Peter Wiegand made sure to act as Fabel’s escort as the detective left.

‘Your society intrigues me, Herr Wiegand,’ said Fabel as they reached his car. ‘Tell me, do you really believe in the Consolidation? That you can all be uploaded onto a mainframe?’

‘Herr Fabel, every religion, every belief system, has a central tenet that is open to a multitude of interpretations. Whatever the belief system, some adherents will hold that tenet to be literal, some to be figurative. In any case, for all I know all of this…’ He made a sweeping gesture with his arm to indicate the house’s parklike gardens, the trees and everything beyond. ‘Maybe all of this is the Consolidation. Maybe this isn’t true reality and we’re all just self-aware programs in a post-human generated environmental model. But if this is reality, and I firmly believe that it is, then it is coming to a close if we do not do something radical, and do it quickly.’ He paused and looked at Fabel as if assessing him. ‘You are welcome to visit us, Herr Fabel. Have you seen the Pharos, our headquarters here, out on the coast at Horne? In fact, it’s not very far away from Berthold Muller-Voigt’s house. And I believe you have been there.’

‘No, I can’t say I have seen the Pharos,’ said Fabel, refusing to take the bait.

‘Then you should come! It really is an exceptional piece of architecture. The Pharos is built as an extension to an existing nineteenth-century lighthouse. The entire building projects out over the water. We even have sections of glass flooring where you can look down at the sea, twenty metres below.’ He handed Fabel a card. ‘Please visit us, Herr Fabel. We are open to all, even to policemen. But I would ask that you ring first so we know when to expect you. The only other thing I would ask you to bring is an open mind.’

‘So you can close it?’

‘Despite what your colleagues from the BfV may have told you, we are not a cult. We are an environmental-action group.’

‘I have to say,’ said Fabel, ‘I don’t fancy the idea of being suspended above the sea.’

‘You have a fear of water, Herr Fabel?’

‘No… not a fear. I was brought up in Norddeich. I have a healthy respect for it.’

‘The only water I fear,’ said Wiegand, suddenly less affable and more serious, ‘is dark water. Do you know what the albedo effect is? Albedo is the reflectivity of a surface to the sun’s rays. Polar ice reflects the sun’s rays and prevents sea warming. The more ice, the cooler the sea, the more stable the climate. The higher the ratio of dark water to white ice, the faster the planet heats up. Every year there is less and less ice at the poles and more and more dark water. I want you to understand, Herr Fabel, that whatever you think of me or the Pharos Project I am genuinely afraid of the cataclysm that awaits us and genuinely committed to doing all I can, using every weapon at my disposal, to prevent it happening. We are not playing a game here. This is a battle to survive.’

Fabel nodded thoughtfully. He was actually thinking about how far Wiegand would go, and what weapons he was prepared to use. But Fabel had also read that Wiegand’s personal wealth could be counted in billions, rather than millions; there was a profit to be made out of any apocalypse.

‘Maybe I will pay you a visit, Herr Wiegand,’ he said. He looked at the card Wiegand had handed him. It had the same stylised eye motif as the poster he had passed on the way to the airport. ‘Sometime soon.’

Once he was in his car, Fabel switched his cellphone back on. It rang almost immediately. It was Anna Wolff.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘This is interesting. I ran a check on those names and I’ve got the details on that plate you ran… if that car really is following you, then it’s not one of ours and it’s nothing to do with the BfV. It’s registered to Seamark International, which, I am told, is a private maritime security company.’

‘What? Why the hell is a private security company following me?’

‘Do you want me to send someone to their offices to get some answers?’

‘No, not yet. I don’t want them alerted to the fact that I’m onto them. If I see the same car on my tail again I’m going to have them pulled over. One thing you could do for me is to check out this Seamark International. I’d put a month’s wages on it turning out to be some kind of subsidiary of the Korn-Pharos Corporation. What about the names I gave you to check?’

‘Victoria Kempfert is as clean as a whistle. No convictions or arrests, no contact of any significance with the police. But it’s Daniel Fottinger who makes things much more interesting. He would appear to have been someone who didn’t take “no” for an answer. An accusation of sexual harassment last year lodged by a female employee, and two accusations of rape. One when he was still a student and the second in 1999. All three accusations were dropped as soon as the police investigated. It would appear that Fottinger’s daddy had the kind of wealth to make unpleasantness disappear… and, of course, so did Fottinger junior, later.’

‘Now that is interesting.’

‘There’s more. Fottinger’s parents put him in a fancy hospital in Bavaria after the student-days incident. A psychiatric hospital. I’ve asked for a court order to get his records. I thought you’d want them. I don’t know how relevant any of this is, but I thought there might be a chance that someone was exacting revenge.’

‘Well done, Anna.’ Fabel thought about what she had told him. ‘Get me the names and addresses of the victims, would you? I’d like to talk to them. Or at least one of them.’

‘Sure, Chef, but you’ll have to give me some time. I’m in the Commission but I’ll be mobile in ten. I’m going out to see the disabled guy you talked to, Johann Reisch. Two officers are going to check out his computer, one from Tech Section, the other from Cybercrime. By the way, they’re none too pleased with you. They say that the delay in examining his computer means he could have erased a lot of evidence.’

‘Reisch isn’t our man, Anna. And that’s good old-fashioned police instinct, not technology.’

‘Well, the problem is that they’re out at Reisch’s right now and can’t get an answer. And Reisch was expecting them. They arranged a time with him on the phone.’

‘That doesn’t sound good, Anna. Reisch is pretty much housebound. Get a uniformed unit to go out with you. If you get no answer, force the door. I’m on my way now. In fact, hold fire until I get there. And see if you can get a number for his carer. Shit, I’ve forgotten her name…’

‘Rossing… I’m already on it. See you there.’