A fear of dark water

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Fabel knew he was not going to get a warm welcome. He had phoned to arrange a meeting with Tanja Ulmen, the first of Fottinger’s alleged victims, and she had asked if they could do it on the telephone. She was happily married with children and living in Bad Bramstedt, a small town between Hamburg and Kiel. Her family knew nothing of the incident when she had been a student with Daniel Fottinger. This was part of a murder enquiry, Fabel had explained, so a telephone interview was not an option. The truth was that Fabel disliked anything getting between him and the reactions of the people he questioned. Tanja Ulmen reluctantly agreed to meet with him after she finished work. She was a teacher at the local high school, she explained. He had been slightly taken aback when Ulmen had insisted that he bring a female colleague.

It took forty minutes for Fabel and Anna to get to Bad Bramstedt and another ten to find the rest area off the 207 route to the west of the town. During the journey Anna had noticed Fabel checking his rear-view mirror more than usual.

‘Is it there again?’ she asked. ‘The four-by-four?’

‘No. I thought maybe it was… but no. Maybe I’m becoming paranoid in my old age.’

‘If you really think you are being tailed, especially with all of the crap that’s been going on with emails and texts going missing, then I think we should visit this Seamark International and get a few answers.’

‘It’s maybe nothing,’ said Fabel. ‘It could be coincidence or maybe I’ve mistaken two or three different cars as the same one. I want to be sure before we show our hand. Anyway, it’s not there now.’ He paused for a moment, then said uncertainly: ‘There’s something else, Anna. I mean, as well as the texts and stuff. I got a call last night. An anonymous call from someone who claims to know all about what happened to Meliha Yazar and Muller-Voigt.’

‘And you believe them?’ Anna sounded incredulous. ‘I mean, after everything else that’s been going on, don’t you think it’s likely to be the same lot playing games?’

‘I thought that, too. But, I don’t know, there was something about this call. He said they would find him and kill him and I believe he meant it. Maybe he is an ex-member or has some other kind of connection to them.’

‘So you are convinced it’s the Pharos Project behind this?’

‘More than that, Anna, I’m beginning to get an idea about what’s really happened. Look, there she is…’

It was the only car in the rest area: an elderly Citroen. The rest area was screened from the road by a thick curtain of trees and there was an even deeper wedge of forest to the other side. Frau Ulmen had insisted that they meet there: it was far enough out of town but close enough for her to get back home without causing too much suspicion.

‘I’ve told my children I’ve got shopping to do but I’ll be back in an hour,’ she said bluntly in greeting as she got into the back of Fabel’s car. ‘You said you wanted to talk to me about Daniel Fottinger?’ Fabel knew from the report that Tanja Ulmen was in her mid-thirties, but she had a weary look that would otherwise have made it difficult to guess her age on first sight. She had untidy blonde hair heaped on her head and held in place by a large wooden hair clasp patterned with a Celtic bow. Her clothes were baggy and vaguely bohemian. She looked every bit the eccentric art teacher, but Fabel knew that the subject she actually taught was information technology.

‘Yes, Frau Ulmen,’ said Fabel. ‘We’d like to talk to you about Daniel Fottinger. You know that he’s dead?’

‘Yes. I read about it in the papers.’

‘So you know how he died?’

‘Yes. Painfully. And I was glad. I hope it took him a long, long time to die.’

‘It did, I’m afraid to say,’ said Fabel. ‘I can’t imagine a worse way to go.’

‘So you’re here to accuse me of having something to do with it?’ Ulmen’s face was set hard. Defiant. Fabel guessed that she wished she really could feel good about Fottinger’s death, but could not.

‘No, Frau Ulmen. Why I asked to talk to you was because I’m trying to build up a picture of Fottinger. I wanted to ask you about what happened between you and him.’

‘Nothing happened between us. The bastard raped me.’

‘So why didn’t you pursue the case?’ asked Anna. ‘You do know that he went on to commit at least one more alleged rape?’

‘His father paid me “compensation”, as he put it. But before you think I was simply bought off, Old Man Fottinger made sure he employed a stick as well as a carrot. The Fottingers were filthy rich and very well connected. He made it very clear to me that things would go badly for me, very badly. They were peas in a pod, father and son.’

‘What do you mean, exactly?’ asked Anna.

‘They both thought that they could get anything they wanted, whenever they wanted. People didn’t matter to either of them.’

‘Please, Frau Ulmen,’ said Fabel. ‘It would be very helpful to me if you could tell me what happened with Fottinger.’

‘Daniel asked me out when we were both students in Hamburg. He was studying philosophy…’

‘Philosophy?’ Fabel was genuinely surprised. ‘I would have thought he would have studied some science or technological subject.’

‘Maybe he did later, but back then he was doing philosophy. And he was really into it. Anyway, Daniel asked me out. He was very charming and handsome, but there was something about him really gave me the creeps. So I said no. He couldn’t understand it. He simply could not wrap his mind around the fact that someone was denying him something he wanted. It was like it didn’t compute. That’s what I mean about him and his father being the same: neither of them could understand that the entire universe didn’t revolve around them.’

‘So he didn’t take no for an answer?’ asked Anna as gently as she could.

‘I was sharing a flat with some friends and he called around when they were out. He tried his lethal charm again, still not able to believe that someone could resist it. When that didn’t work he tried a more direct approach. A knife held to my throat.’

‘I know this is very difficult for you…’ began Anna.

‘No, it’s not. It was a long time ago and somehow I’ve managed to make it seem that it happened to someone else… make it a story, not part of reality. It was my way of coping and it worked. They say that every cell in your body is replaced every seven years or something like that. So I tell myself that what happened did not happen to this body, to the person I am now. But I never stopped hating him. Despising him for his arrogance.’

‘What I wanted to ask was how he behaved.’ Anna frowned at her own clumsiness. ‘I mean, the things an attacker says or does, the extra things, they can tell us a great deal about their state of mind.’

‘He just kept the knife at my throat. Otherwise he wasn’t violent. As his father made sure to point out, I didn’t have any bruises to show the police. No signs that I struggled for my virtue, as he put it, the old bastard.’ Ulmen looked through the passenger window for a moment, out to the dark green of the forest. ‘In a weird way, and I know this does sound really weird, but I don’t think Daniel thought for a second that he was doing anything wrong. I’ve thought about it a lot, over the years — doing what I said and imagining it was something you just read about happening to someone else… that makes it easier to be objective about it. Anyway, when I think back to the way he was, it was as if he didn’t really understand that I was there. You know, theory of mind or simulation or whatever psychologists call it. I think both father and son were sociopaths of some kind — I’m not being bitter, I really do believe that. I honestly think Daniel Fottinger didn’t understand that I had the independent consciousness to truly give or withhold consent.’

‘As if you weren’t really there?’ asked Fabel.

Tanja Ulmen stared at Fabel. ‘Yes. Yes, that’s exactly it,’ she said, animated for the first time during the conversation. ‘Like I wasn’t really there.’

On the way back to Hamburg, Fabel asked Anna for the address of the Turkish restaurant that Muller-Voigt and Meliha Yazar had dined in regularly.

‘Could you give them a ring and see if that waiter’s back from holiday?’ he asked her. ‘And if he is, could we talk to him when we get there?’

Anna phoned and confirmed to Fabel that the waiter would be waiting for them when they arrived.

‘Did you see the report that Tramberger, the Disaster Team guy, sent in?’ asked Anna. ‘It arrived this morning.’

‘What, from his Virtual Elbe thing? No, I haven’t had a chance yet.’

‘You should. According to his model, and he says he ran it several times, that torso was dumped three kilometres upstream, but right in the middle of the river, in the deep channel.’

‘From a boat?’

‘Looks like. He says we should get the pathologist to check for signs that it had been weighted. He thinks that whoever dumped it there did so because it’s the deepest part of the Elbe that far upstream. Fewer big vessels, more barges and less likelihood of it being churned up. His opinion is that the torso was meant to stay at the bottom and never be found. Makes sense, Jan. My guess is that the head and limbs are scattered along the bottom as well. Whoever did this really didn’t want her identified.’

The Ottoman Palace was a lot less grand than the name suggested, but it did have a certain style to it. No cliches or walls bedecked with tourist posters of Turkey. It was a simple eatery with subtle reminders, such as the colourful kilim tapestry on the wall, of the culture behind the cuisine. While they waited for Osman, the waiter who had regularly served Muller-Voigt and his date, Fabel had a good look around the restaurant. It would not have been Muller-Voigt’s normal type of place; it was a choice, whether Meliha’s or Muller-Voigt’s, that owed a lot to discretion.

A smallish man of about twenty-five or so, with russet-blond hair, brought his eager smile out of the kitchen. He introduced himself as Osman, and told Fabel he would happily do anything he could to help. Osman was one of those people whose exuberant good nature, no matter how hard you tried to ignore it, was infectious.

‘She had an Istanbul accent,’ Osman explained after Fabel had asked him what he could remember about Meliha. ‘She sounded well educated and I got the idea she was quite rich. Her clothes were expensive. She was a beautiful woman.’

‘But the owner here said he got the feeling that she didn’t like talking about herself.’

‘That’s for sure. Naturally, when a customer speaks to me in such perfect, beautiful Turkish, I ask where they are from. As soon as I asked her I really got the feeling that I’d done the wrong thing. It’s funny with customers. You learn to drop a topic quick sometimes. The last thing you want is a patron to feel uncomfortable,’ he said very earnestly.

‘And she was particularly sensitive about where she was from?’

‘I got that idea. When I asked, she said she was from Silviri, on the coast near Istanbul, but the shutters came down, if you know what I mean. So, like I said, I dropped it quick.’

‘Did they seem happy?’

‘Very. Especially him. They were a nice couple. Good together, if you know what I mean. There was a big age difference, of course, but they seemed to be totally into each other.’

‘Was there ever any interaction between them and anyone else? Did they ever bring any friends or guests to the restaurant?’

‘No. It was always just the two of them. I don’t even remember any other diners coming up to them and saying hello in passing. That was their usual table…’ Osman pointed to the furthest-away table at the back of the restaurant, at the end of the seating arc. It confirmed Fabel’s theory about the restaurant being chosen because it offered an element of anonymity: no one would pass that table to leave or go to the washrooms. Meliha and Muller-Voigt would have had to endure only Osman’s good-natured interruptions.

‘I want you to think very hard, Osman,’ said Fabel. ‘Was there anything, anything at all, out of the ordinary that you can recall about them?’

Osman frowned as he did exactly as Fabel had asked. After a moment he said: ‘No, I’m really sorry, but there was nothing. They were just a happy couple who seemed very involved in each other. I was so upset when I heard about Herr Muller-Voigt. I really wish I could do more to help…’

‘Thank you, Osman. You have been very helpful.’ Fabel smiled; he knew the young waiter really had done his best to remember any useful detail. Fabel thanked the owner of the restaurant and he and Anna headed for the door.

‘I was surprised she didn’t come in here more often,’ Osman said as they were leaving. ‘With her living so near.’

Both Anna and Fabel froze in the doorway. They stepped back in, letting the door close behind them.

‘You know where she lives?’ asked Fabel. Something like a small electrical current tingled in the back of his neck.

‘Well… yes. I guess. Unless she was just visiting, but it looked to me like she lived there.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Anna.

‘There’s an apartment building about three blocks away. I was passing it one day — my cousin lives in the next building — and I saw Frau Yazar go in through the main door, carrying groceries.’

‘Get your jacket…’ Fabel said to Osman and held the door open.

It took no longer than fifteen minutes of talking to her neighbours to establish that Meliha Yazar lived on the third floor of the building. It was a modern apartment building only three blocks, as Osman had said, from the Ottoman Palace.

Once they had established that they had found the right place, Fabel had sent Osman back to the restaurant, the young waiter beaming at the thought that he really had contributed something worthwhile. Fabel had been able to dispel Osman’s only concern that perhaps Meliha Yazar was in trouble with the police.

‘Not at all,’ Fabel had said reassuringly. ‘We’re trying to help Frau Yazar. You have helped Frau Yazar.’

Osman had gone back to work happy.

But it soon became clear that Meliha Yazar was not Meliha Yazar.

‘You mean Frau Kebir…’ said the young mother who had answered the door of the other apartment on the third floor, clutching a toddler to her flank. ‘I haven’t seen her for ages. Maybe a month. She does go away a lot. To do with her job, probably. I think she maybe goes back to Turkey.’

‘Do you know what her job is?’ asked Anna.

‘Couldn’t really say.’

‘And there’s been no one around the apartment for a month?’

‘I didn’t say that. She’s not been there for a month, but she was having some work done on the apartment. About three weeks ago there was a team of workmen in, after she had gone. It was okay, though, because she slipped a note under my door a couple of days before, just to warn me.’

‘I see,’ said Fabel. ‘Did Frau Ya- I mean Frau Kebir… did she leave you a key, by any chance?’

‘Oh no.’ The young mother bounced the restive toddler in her arms. ‘She was very quiet. Very private.’

Fabel thanked her and the young mother went back into her flat.

‘You know something, Anna?’ said Fabel as they stood outside the door of the apartment. ‘They’re not as good as their PR makes out.’

‘Who?’

‘The Pharos Project,’ said Fabel. ‘All this time I thought they had wiped out all trace of Meliha Yazar. But it wasn’t them all along. The phoney address she gave Muller-Voigt, her fake surname — nice move, that, I have to say: keep your first name in case someone you know from your past bumps into you in public — all that was her herself. She didn’t want any trace of Meliha Yazar.’

‘Some kind of scam? Is that what you’re saying she was into?’

Fabel shook his head. ‘No. Far from it. More like an undercover investigation.’

Anna stared at the solid-looking front door for a moment. ‘Do you want me to get an emergency warrant to enter?’ asked Anna.

In answer, Fabel swung a kick at the door. It took a second kick before the wood around the lock splintered and the door yielded.

‘We have reason to believe that the occupant of this dwelling is in danger,’ he said. ‘We don’t need a warrant.’

The front door opened onto a long hall. It was bright and immaculately clean and at its far end there was a large framed poster from which a handsome middle-aged man gazed back at Fabel with piercingly light eyes. The man wore an old-fashioned suit and had his thumbs rammed into the pockets of his waistcoat. There was an incredible sense of determination in the pale eyes, one of which was slightly out of alignment because, Fabel already knew, of a First World War shrapnel wound.

‘This is her apartment, all right,’ said Fabel, nodding towards the poster.

‘Who’s that?’ asked Anna.

‘Her icon. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The father of modern Turkey. Meliha Yazar — or Kebir or whatever her real name was — was seeking a new Ataturk. An “Ataturk for the Environment”, Muller-Voigt said. Come on. Let’s check this out.’

They moved from room to room. The flat was filled with books in Turkish, German and English. Literary classics, environmental tracts, geological and ecological textbooks. Fabel walked into the bedroom. The bed was made, everything was in perfect order as it had been throughout the apartment. Absolutely perfect order.

‘She was tidy, I’ll give her that,’ said Anna somewhere behind Fabel.

‘Too tidy,’ he said, picking up the three paperbacks that sat on her bedside table. ‘They’ve been through everything. Every corner. Every nook and cranny. My bet is that they photographed everything first and then put it all back when they’d gone through it. It’s nice work, I’ll give them that.’

‘The workmen her neighbour talked about?’

Fabel did not answer; instead he sifted through the paperbacks as if he were slowly shuffling cards. An English edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. A German edition of Der Richter und sein Henker by Friederich Durrenmatt. A copy of Silent Spring by Rachael Carson, again in English. He looked through them again. There was something significant about the mix of books, but he could not think what it was. He stepped out of the bedroom, the books still in his hands. By the time they had finished, the forensics team had arrived.

‘You been handling anything else I should know about?’ asked Holger Brauner, with a nod towards the books in Fabel’s hand.

‘You won’t get anything here, Holger,’ said Fabel. ‘Have a look around. What’s wrong with this picture?’

Brauner scanned the room, then turned back to Fabel and shrugged. ‘You got me… other than it’s a hell of a tidy place.’

‘Someone’s beaten us to it,’ said Fabel. ‘Real professionals. They’ve cleaned up behind themselves.’

‘I wish they’d turn over my apartment,’ said Anna. ‘It could really do with a spring clean.’

‘But that’s not all that’s wrong with this picture. You too, Anna. Notice something odd?’

They both looked around the room again. Anna frowned for a moment, then a look of enlightenment swept across her face.

‘Same as the last Network Killer victim?’

‘Exactly,’ said Fabel. Brauner made a confused face.

‘No computer…’ said Fabel. ‘No computer, no cellphone, no chargers, no memory sticks, not even an electronic calculator.’

‘So what are you saying?’ asked Brauner. ‘That the Network Killer has been here too?’

‘I can guarantee you it wasn’t the Network Killer, Holger. That’s one thing I’m certain about. It was someone else who turned this place over and took Julia Henning’s computer and cellphone. Someone who didn’t want us to know who the Network Killer was and what had happened to him.’

‘Now you’ve lost even me,’ said Anna.

‘All in due time,’ said Fabel. ‘In the meantime can you do the follow-up here? I want to get back to the Presidium. I need to talk to Fabian Menke about-’

He was interrupted by his cellphone ringing.

‘Hi, Jan, it’s Werner. You’re not going to believe this… we’ve got another body in the water. The Harbour Police have just notified us that they’ve fished a body out of the river near the mouth of the Peutehafen. They’re transferring it to Butenfeld.’ Werner used the police shorthand for the mortuary at the Institute for Legal Medicine, where the bodies of all sudden and suspicious deaths were taken.

‘I’ll be right there,’ said Fabel.