A fear of dark water

Chapter Thirty-Three

The Kohlbrandbrucke was a sweeping arc of road bridge suspended from two 135-metre-high stanchions that gave the impression of inverted giant tuning forks. By the time Fabel got there with Werner, the uniformed branch had sealed off the bridge to traffic. He could see that about seven hundred metres beyond the police barricade a Thyssen TM 170 armoured car of the Polizei Hamburg’s MEK Mobile Deployment Commando was parked at an angle across the carriageway. A team of MEK officers, clad in black helmets and body armour, used the TM 170 for cover while training their weapons on the figure who stood on the parapet, looking down at the river. Fabel estimated that the armed man was roughly at the centre of the bridge, which meant there was a fifty-metre drop beneath him to the water.

‘I need to get up there,’ Fabel said to the uniformed Senior Commissar at the barrier, pointing to the armoured car. ‘With a bullhorn.’

Once Fabel and Werner were kitted out with body armour and helmets, two MEK officers led their crouching half-run to the TM 170, shielding them from the armed man on the bridge with Kevlar shields.

‘That’s all we need… tourists,’ said the senior MEK officer when the two murder detectives reached the TM 170.

‘How’s it going, Bastian?’ Fabel asked. ‘Shoot anyone I know recently?’

Bastian Schwager nodded towards the figure on the bridge. ‘What’s the Murder Commission’s interest in this bozo?’

‘We think he topped the guy fished out of the water yesterday. He’s some kind of eco-terrorist. But he’s also got some pretty major mental health issues. He’s potentially suicidal.’

‘If he waves that handgun in our direction once more, Jan, I’m going to have to save him the trouble.’

‘Listen, Bastian, this guy is a key witness,’ said Fabel. ‘I really need to talk to him. Can we get closer?’

‘And give him an easier target? I don’t think so. From what you’ve said, mental illness or no, he represents a threat to more than himself.’ Schwager sighed and pointed to the bullhorn. ‘Okay, use that and tell him we’re moving the armoured car closer so that you can hear what he has to say.’

‘Niels…’ There was a feedback whine and Fabel held the bullhorn a little further from his mouth. ‘Niels… this is Principal Chief Commissar Fabel of the Polizei Hamburg. I want to talk to you. I want to hear what you have to say, but I can’t from over here. I’m too far away. We’re going to move the armoured vehicle closer to you. No one is going to shoot you or try to grab you. I just want to talk. If you are agreeable, please raise your right hand.’

Niels shouted back something indistinguishable.

‘I can’t hear you, Niels. Raise your arm if it’s okay to move closer.’

The figure on the bridge remained motionless, the gun hanging loosely at his side, his gaze cast down towards the water fifty metres below.

‘Niels?’

The figure on the bridge parapet still did not move for what seemed an age. Then it half-heartedly raised its arm.

Bastian Schwager barked orders at those of his men within earshot, then into the radio. The TM 170 growled and rolled slowly forward, straightening up and moving slowly, the MEK team and Fabel and the other officers shielded by its flank. When it stopped, the sharpshooters took aim again at Niels, now only twenty metres distant.

‘Niels…’ Fabel called across to him once the armoured car’s engine had been cut. ‘I need you to come down from there. I want to talk to you about what has happened.’

Niels did not answer for a moment, his back still to Fabel and his gaze still downwards onto the river below.

‘Do you want to know something funny?’ Niels said at last. ‘I used to be afraid of the water. And of heights. That’s funny, isn’t it?’

‘Niels…’ Fabel kept his voice calm and even. ‘You need to put the gun down. You’re placing yourself in danger by having that thing in your hand. I want you to put it down.’

‘This?’ Niels raised the automatic and looked at it as if he had never seen a gun before. Fabel sensed the MEK team preparing to fire and held up a restraining hand. ‘I thought I’d already thrown it away. And that I’d thought I’d already thrown it away when I threw it away the last time. I don’t know if this is a gun. Maybe the first one was

… Anyway, I don’t need it any more.’ Niels opened his hand and let the gun tumble from his grasp. It clanked against the parapet and disappeared over the edge.

‘It did that the last time, too,’ he said.

Now that Niels represented a danger to no one other than himself, Fabel and the other officers moved around from behind the cover of the TM 170. Bastian Schwager ordered all but one of his sharpshooters to lower their weapons.

‘Okay, Niels, that was good,’ said Fabel. ‘Now I need you to step down from the parapet before you fall.’

‘No. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to stay here. You can see so much more from up high. I mean in every way. Don’t you think it’s funny? You know, what I said about how I used to be afraid of water and heights. Isn’t it funny that I’m up here, so high up, and above water? But I’m not afraid. How high up do you think I am?’

‘I don’t know. Fifty, fifty-five metres. Enough to make sure that you’re dead if you slip, so why don’t you come down from the parapet?’

Niels looked up from the water and out across to the city. ‘You know, it’s a crime that this bridge is closed to pedestrians. You get such a great view from here. But that’s the world we live in. The car is God.’ He paused, as if perturbed. ‘Or at least I think that’s the world we live in. I get confused. Maybe that’s the other place. I had it all straightened out in my head, but now it’s all muddled again about which is which.’

‘You’ve got muddled about a lot of things, Niels. You’re tired and confused. Why don’t you come with me and we can talk it all over? Get it all straightened out.’

‘I’m not going anywhere I don’t want to. And you would take me somewhere I don’t want to go, where I couldn’t see things I want to see or go places I want to go.’

‘Niels, why did you kill Daniel Fottinger?’

‘Who?’

‘The man who burned to death in the Schanzenviertel.’

‘Oh, him. I was told to. He was an enemy of Gaia.’

‘But he was working on projects, on technology to protect the planet.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ Niels said absently and shrugged his shoulders as he continued to take in the view from his vantage point. ‘He did things. Bad things. Things that would look bad for the movement.’

‘What kind of things, Niels?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He turned his attention back to the river below. ‘Do you think that the water is like a mirror? That there is actually an exact copy of our world underneath?’

‘No, Niels, I don’t. Who told you to kill Fottinger?’

‘The Commander. But he was told by the grey suits, I think. I do think that that’s the truth of it all.’ Niels sounded suddenly animated, as if he had solved some great puzzle. ‘No… it makes sense. All the feelings I have, about all of this not being real. Don’t you see? It isn’t real. The real world is on the other side of the water. It’s us who are under the surface.’ He nodded down towards the river. ‘The real world is down — I mean up — there…’

‘Niels, I need you to focus. Who are the grey suits? Who was it who gave your commander the order to kill Fottinger?’

It was as if Niels had not heard a word Fabel had said. He kept his focus on the distant surface of the water. ‘I didn’t see it before, but now it all makes sense. I always knew that this was just some kind of copy. That I’m just some kind of copy. The real world and the real me is there…’

Fabel sensed that Niels had tilted forward a little and something lurched in his gut. ‘Niels, listen to me… this is the real world. There’s nothing down there for you except death, trust me. Now, please, will you come with me so we can get this all straightened out?’

For the first time Niels turned his head to look directly at Fabel.

‘No, I think you’re wrong. I don’t blame you, because it is all very convincing, all very well recreated, but I don’t believe this is the real world. I do believe it’s on the other side of the water. I’ll just go and look…’

With that, Niels Freese took a step forward and disappeared from Fabel’s view.

The other officers ran to the parapet and leaned over. Fabel remained where he stood. He didn’t want to see Freese’s smashed body floating on the oily dark water of the Elbe. That way, part of him could believe that Freese’s wish had been fulfilled, and he was now in some other reality.

One that would be more kind to him. One where he could see things the way they really were.