Eternal

9.

Twelve Days After the First Murder: Tuesday, 30 August 2005.

10.30 a.m.: Police Presidium, Hamburg

Fabel phoned Markus Ullrich, the BKA officer, from his office in the Murder Commission. Ullrich sounded surprised to hear from Fabel, but there was no sense of the BKA man being guarded in his response.

‘What can I do for you, Chief Commissar? Is this about Frau Klee?’

‘No, Herr Ullrich, it isn’t.’ The truth was that Fabel did want to pursue the issue with Ullrich, but now was not the time. Fabel was looking for a favour. ‘You will remember that Criminal Director van Heiden asked about the case I’m working on? The so-called “Hamburg Hairdresser”?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Someone has suggested that I should be looking more closely into the history of the victims. Specifically that there may be some skeletons in the closet dating back to their days as student activists – or later, during the years of unrest. Both were politically active to varying degrees. And I thought that if there were any suspicions about them…’

‘… That we at the BKA would have them on file – is that it?’

‘It’s just a thought…’ Fabel went on to outline what they knew to date about both victims.

‘Okay,’ said Ullrich. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

After Fabel hung up he went through to the main Murder Commission office and spoke to Anna Wolff. He gave her the details from the Second World War identity card of the HafenCity mummy.

‘Could you get on to the state archives and see if we can dig anything up? I’d like to find out if there is any surviving next of kin we should notify.’

Anna looked at the information Fabel handed her and shrugged. ‘Okay, Chef.’

Fabel did the rounds of his officers to get updates on progress. The two scalping murders had eclipsed everything else and Fabel was glad that the Kiez brawl killing was the only other continuing case, because it was a comparatively easy one to tie up. Fabel often caught himself thinking like that: grateful that the violent ending of another human’s life was conveniently straightforward and therefore less demanding on his team’s resources. He hated the forced callousness of being an investigator of the deaths of others.

‘Still nothing on the phone accounts of either victim,’ Henk Hermann anticipated Fabel’s question. ‘We’ve found no numbers that cannot be accounted for.’

Fabel thanked Henk and made his way back to his office. It still nagged at Fabel. He had a gut instinct that the victims had known their killer.

11.45 a.m.: Schanzenviertel, Hamburg

The room was filled with the rich, sweet smell of incense. The blinds were drawn and the room was illuminated by the soft, dancing light of two dozen candles.

Beate Brandt sat with her eyes closed, one hand resting on the forehead and the other on the chest of her client. Her hair was long, cascading over her shoulders, just as it had when she was eighteen. But the glossy, sensual lustre with which it had once ensnared men’s hearts had faded over a decade ago. Now it was more grey than black and its sheen had been replaced by a dry coarseness. Similarly, Beate’s dark beauty, which she had inherited from her Italian mother, had faded. The strong bone structure and the fineness of her features remained, but the skin in which they were wreathed had become creased and wrinkled, as if someone had stored a fine painting carelessly.

‘Breathe deeply…’ she said to the client, who she reckoned was about the same age as her own son and who lay on his back, his eyes closed tight. ‘We are travelling back. Back to a time beyond life but before death. Only once we confront the life that has gone before can we experience rebirth.’

She pressed down on her client’s forehead. Her fingers were covered with large rings, some of which bore astrological symbols. Her client had pale, flawless skin and she compared the smooth perfection of his brow with the wrinkles on the back of her hand and the thickening of her once-slender fingers. Why, she thought, do our bodies age, yet inside we feel exactly the same as we did half a lifetime ago?

‘Go back…’ Her voice was just above a whisper. ‘Go back to your childhood. Do you remember? Then back further. Further back…’

Beate had always struggled to make ends meet. Or, more correctly, she had struggled to make ends meet while maintaining a low profile. She had hated the idea of becoming a small-time capitalist but hated the idea of working for someone else even more. Beate also had to think of her son. She had done her best to make sure that he never wanted for anything. As a single mother, it had been difficult for her. And, of course, there had always been the added difficulty of how deeply someone would look into her history when she applied for a job. She had started off with a small fashion business in the Viertel, but, as time went on, it became clear that Beate’s idea of Schanzenviertel chic was out of step – a decade out of step – with what customers were looking for. After the shop had closed, she had struggled to find something that she could do to earn money. Then she came up with the Rebirthing concept. Beate knew it was all nonsense. Some part of her, deep down inside, found the idea of reincarnation attractive – plausible, even – but the whole ‘Rebirth Induction’ thing was a pile of crap. She ought to know: after all, it had been Beate who had invented it.

She looked down at the client lying on the floor. He was a regular and had been coming for three months. Since Hans-Joachim and Gunter’s murders she had taken the decision to see no new clients. No strangers. The deaths had shocked her. Frightened her. After all, although their paths had not crossed in twenty years, Hans-Joachim had lived only a couple of streets away.

Now Beate would admit only those clients whom she had dealt with for some time. She had even tried spinning a new thread of ‘group therapy’ so that she would see more than one client at a time. But because of the intimately personal nature of her ‘treatment’, her clients were reluctant to participate in group sessions. Beate’s most inspired idea had been to set up a website through which she could conduct on-line consultations. She had even bought some software which let people type in their dates and places of birth and receive an outline of a likely past life. And all paid for through a secure on-line credit card system. No risk, no outlay, all profit.

At the heart of Beate’s business was an essentially simple idea: that everyone had lived before, several times, and that there had to be a key to unlocking those past lives. Of course, with an exponentially growing global population, for everyone to have had a past life was a statistical impossibility. Beate, who had studied applied mathematics at the Universitat Hamburg, knew that only too well. But there had been a time, long ago, when she had been prepared to suspend her disbelief in the name of something bigger. Furthermore, the world today was full of people seeking something to make sense of their existence; or wanting to seek refuge in some other truth, some other life: anything that offered them something less banal than their everyday existences. So Beate, the atheist, the rationalist, the mathematician, had established herself as a New Age guru who helped people rediscover their past lives. She had learned the basic principles of hypnotism, although she doubted that she had ever successfully hypnotised a client. It was more likely that they deluded themselves that they were in a hypnotic state so that they could believe the nonsense they spouted about a past life; could believe that it came from somewhere deeper than simply a mixture of imagination, wish-fulfilment and something they had probably read somewhere once. But to cover herself she had talked about ‘guided meditation’, placing the onus on the client for their own hypnosis.

But the original concept had been flawed: Beate had learned very quickly that once she had helped a client to uncover one ‘past life’ the client went away happy – and a source of income walked out of the door. She had realised that she needed to add another dimension to her ‘therapy’: something that would prolong the course of treatment. It was then that she came up with both the idea for the website and the concept of ‘Whole Person Rebirth’. The principle was that to be ‘complete’ one had to uncover all one’s past lives, combine them with one’s current existence and to then undergo a ‘rebirthing’ where one became whole and put behind everything in the past and began anew. A true new life.

The irony was not wasted on Beate. Here, in this room within her apartment, she spouted a home-grown mixture of New Age claptrap and psychobabble about reincarnation and rebirth. Like the others in the group, she had reinvented herself, putting distance between herself and her past life. Unlike some of the others, however, Beate had chosen to keep as low a profile as possible. Whereas some of the group had clearly felt immune to discovery, she had sought anonymity. But it seemed that keeping a low profile offered no protection. Hans-Joachim Hauser had always been a self-promoting, self-important egotist; but she had guessed that Gunter Griebel, like her, had chosen to live his life as unnoticed as possible. Yet someone had noticed.

She cast a glance at the wall clock. This session seemed to be taking for ever. The young patient was convinced that he had multiple past lives to uncover, yet claimed there was some obstacle in the way, something he could not navigate around. Beate sighed patiently and tried to ease him through the years, through the centuries, to discover who and when he had been before.

Sometimes she felt like screaming in the faces of her clients that it was all a sham, a fraud; that there was nothing to uncover other than their own inadequacies and failure to come to terms with the fact that this world, here and now, was all there was to life. It always amused Beate that, in uncovering their past lives, most of her clientele displayed the same lack of chronological and technical accuracy as the average historical-romance novelist. Many clients were middle-aged women who fulfilled some fantasy by remembering a past life as a beautiful courtesan, a voluptuous village maid or a fairy-tale princess. Few ‘past lives’ involved the plagues, diseases, famines and extreme poverty that had been commonplace throughout history.

But this young man was different. He had approached the whole process with earnestness. From the very beginning he had spoken with conviction about his need to visit a previous life. It was as if he were seeking some form of truth. A real past. A real life.

The one thing that Beate could not deliver.

‘Can you see anything yet?’ she asked.

The young man furrowed his broad, pale brow in concentration. Beate had noticed how attractive he was from their first meeting. And she had had the strangest feeling that she had known him from somewhere. At one time, she could have had him. At one time, she could have had any man. Any thing. The world had rolled itself out before her, wide and fresh and clean, waiting for Beate’s footfall. Then it had all turned to dust.

‘I see something,’ he said hesitantly. ‘Yes, I see something. A place. I am standing in front of a large building and I am waiting for something or someone.’

‘Is this in this lifetime, or a time before?’

‘Before. It was before.’

‘Describe the building.’

‘It is large. Three storeys high. It has a wide front with several doors. I am standing outside it.’ The young man kept his eyes closed, but suddenly there was a great urgency in his voice. ‘I see it. I see it all so clearly.’

‘What do you see?’ Beate glanced again at the wall clock. If he had seen into a previous life, then it had better be a short one or he would be paying for an extra hour.

‘Two lives. Three lives, counting this one. It is all so clear to me and I see each one as if I were remembering yesterday.’

‘Three lives, you say?’

‘Three lives, but one life. A continuum. Death was not the end: it was merely a brief interruption. A pause.’

That, thought Beate, I have got to remember. ‘A continuum with death as a brief interruption.’ Brilliant. I can use that. ‘Go on,’ she urged her young client. ‘Tell me about your first life. Is that when you stood outside this large building?’

‘No… no, that was the second time. That was the time before.’

‘Tell me about your first life. Where are you? Who are you?’ Beate struggled to keep the impatience from her voice.

‘It’s not important. My first life was simply preparation… I was being readied.’

‘When was this?’

‘A millennium ago. Longer. I was sacrificed and laid in the bog. Under the muddy water. Then they laid hazel and birch branches over me and weighted them with stones. It was so cold. So dark. Ten hundred years in the dark and cold. Then I was reborn.’

‘As whom were you reborn?’

‘Someone…’ The client’s frown deepened. ‘Someone… you knew.’

‘ I knew you?’ Beate looked down on her client and studied the face. His eyes remained closed. For some reason his claim had disturbed her. It was all nonsense, of course, but she thought back again to their first session. To begin with she had thought she recognised him, that she knew him from somewhere. But then she realised that he merely reminded her of someone else, someone whom, at that time, she could not quite identify.

‘I am there now. The building. I can see it clearly…’ The young man ignored her question. He opened his eyes and looked up towards the ceiling, but his gaze was fixed on somewhere, sometime else. ‘It’s a railway station. I can see that now. I am standing at a railway station. It is a small station but the building behind me is large and old. In front of me, beyond the opposite platform, the land is empty and flat. There is a wide river…’

He fell silent for a moment and an expression of intense concentration spread across his features. Then he shook his head.

‘Sorry…’ He looked at her directly for the first time since the session began. He smiled apologetically. ‘It’s gone.’

‘You said you knew me in this previous life.’

Her client spun his legs around and sat up on the edge of the therapy bench. ‘I dunno… it was just a feeling I got. I can’t explain it or anything.’

Beate considered his words for a moment. Then she looked at her watch. The hour was up.

‘Well, maybe we can pick up where we left off with our next session.’ She checked her diary and confirmed the date and time. Her client rose and put on his jacket. ‘I think the session has done you good this week,’ she said. ‘You look more relaxed than you have since you first started to come here.’

‘I am more relaxed.’ He smiled as he walked to the door. ‘I feel as if I’m approaching a very special, very peaceful state of mind. The Japanese have a name for it…’

‘Oh?’ Beate held open the door for him. Her noon appointment would be there at any moment.

‘Yes,’ he said as he left. ‘They call it zanshin.’

12.40 p.m.: Winterhuder Fahrhaus, Hamburg

The cafe at the Winterhude ferry point was reasonably close to the Police Presidium. Fabel often used it as somewhere he could gather his team to discuss a case less formally: a change of scene, away from the Murder Commission. When Markus Ullrich had called Fabel that morning, Fabel had suggested that they should meet at the Fahrhaus cafe.

Fabel arrived early and ordered a coffee from the waiter who knew him as a regular customer but had no idea that he was a murder detective. Fabel liked the fact that most people would never think of him as a policeman, and he never volunteered the information freely. It was as if he had two identities. Two separate lives occupying two separate Hamburgs: the city he lived in and loved, and the city he policed. He often wondered if, even after all this time, he belonged in the profession. He was good at his job, he knew that, but each new case, each new cruelty inflicted on one human being by another, chipped away at him. Not for the first time, Fabel was lost in thought about what might have been, who he might have been, had he not taken the decision to join the Polizei Hamburg. And all the time he was aware of Roland Bartz’s business card in his wallet: a ticket back to a normal life.

He snapped out of his reverie when he spotted the squat form of Ullrich coming down the steps to the cafe. The BKA man was dressed in a dark business suit with a dark shirt and tie and carried a small executive attache case. He could have been coming to sell Fabel insurance. Fabel thought back to his meeting with Professor van Halen, the business-suited geneticist: it seemed as though the whole world was becoming ‘corporate’.

‘Thanks for doing this,’ he said as he shook Ullrich’s hand. ‘I just thought there was an off chance that you might have something on file about either or both of the murder victims, given their backgrounds.’

The two men sat down and further conversation was suspended while the waiter came over and took their orders.

‘I’ve some interesting stuff for you, Herr Fabel.’ Ullrich held the attache case across his lap and patted it, as if hinting at treasures hidden within. Then, very deliberately, he set the case down on the floor beside him in a clear ‘for later’ gesture. ‘We have quite a bit to discuss, but before we do I just wanted to clear the air about the situation with Maria Klee… I hope you didn’t think that I was being too hard on her. But she did compromise a major operation.’

‘I would have much preferred it if you had discussed the matter with me first, instead of going directly to Criminal Director van Heiden.’

Ullrich shrugged. ‘I didn’t really have the opportunity to deal with it that way. The operation’s commanders – especially, I have to say, those from the Polizei Hamburg’s LKA Six – were incensed that Frau Klee was trampling all over their case. It has been a highly sensitive operation.’

‘But for God’s sake, Ullrich, you know how intimately my team were involved with the Vitrenko investigation.’

‘That was a previous case. I’m sorry, Fabel, but life moves on. We are dealing with the threat Vitrenko presents now. And it’s much bigger than the Polizei Hamburg can handle alone. We had officers from the BKA, from LKA Six, from the Federal Border Police, from the Cologne Police organised-crime squad… a hell of a lot of man-hours went into the operation. I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to you about it personally, but there was a lot of politics involved too. I just wanted you to know that I wasn’t deliberately going over your head…’

‘Fair enough,’ said Fabel.

‘Anyway…’ Ullrich lifted his briefcase. ‘I did what you asked and did a bit of checking into your two murder victims.’

‘And?’

‘And, although the connections are vague, there are too many coincidences – in my opinion, anyway – to suggest that your so-called Hamburg Hairdresser is making random selections. As you suspected, there were Hamburg LKA and Federal BKA intelligence files on Hans-Joachim Hauser. He was very active all the way through to the nineteen eighties. I thought it would be of interest to you. Just as background. I had a copy made of the file…’ Ullrich reached into his briefcase and pulled out a thick file which he laid on the white-painted surface of the metal cafe table. There was nothing on the buff-coloured cover to hint at what lay within. Fabel was about to pick up the file when Ullrich laid his hand flat on it. ‘Please don’t mislay it. Even if it is a copy, it would be most embarrassing. There’s not a lot in there that would surprise you, Herr Fabel. But this is where it gets interesting…’ He laid a second file on top of the first. ‘Your second victim also had a BKA file back then.’

Fabel leaned forward. ‘Griebel was under surveillance?’

‘I thought that would intrigue you.’ Ullrich smiled. ‘On the surface there’s no direct connection that I can see between Hauser and Griebel, other than, as you said, that they were at the Universitat Hamburg at roughly the same time and they were both politically active, if to different degrees. But the thing that’s most interesting is that both men later fell under general suspicion of being figures in the so-called RAF-Umfeld.’

‘Griebel too?’ Fabel was familiar with the term: ‘RAF-Umfeld’ referred to the vague general network of supporters who had provided assistance, often financial or logistical, for the Red Army Faction/Baader-Meinhof gang and other terrorist organisations.

‘Griebel too,’ confirmed Ullrich. ‘As you know, all through the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, anarchist terror groups in Germany were sustained by these networks. To begin with there was the “Schili” or the “chic left” who were mainly middle-class liberals who funded the activities of the anarchists. The Schili were mainly left-wing lawyers, journalists, university lecturers and the like who coughed up money to support the “direct-action” activities of the anarchists… until that “direct action” moved on from “walk-ins” on posh restaurants, daubing slogans on government buildings and posing naked for the press, to kidnap, murder and bombings. The activists became terrorists and it all became too much for the trendy left. It really sorted the wheat from the chaff, and the terrorist groups ended up with a hard core of helpers who were deployed in roles where they did not actually break the law.’

‘I know,’ said Fabel. ‘The so-called “legals”.’

‘Exactly. But as well as the “legals” there was a nationwide network of sleepers. These people could be called on to break the law to finance or support the activities of the main terror group, maybe even to carry out a high-profile assassination… but, on the surface, they led normal lives and did not draw attention to themselves. The terrorist groups often picked people who had never been connected officially with the protest movement or with any type of political activity.’ Ullrich gave the files a nudge towards Fabel. ‘In there, you’ll see that Hans-Joachim Hauser was suspected of being a “legal”: he was openly in support of the “cause”, but did not break the law. Herr Dr Griebel, on the other hand, was considered a possible sleeping agent…’

‘And they were suspected of being tied in with the Red Army Faction?’

‘That’s the thing. As you know, there was a fair amount of cross-fertilisation between groups – the Socialist Patients’ Collective, the Revolutionary Cells, Rote Zora and the Baader-Meinhof gang – and there was also a fair amount of freelance activity, for want of a better word. And I know that you yourself encountered one of these splinter groups early in your police career.’

Fabel nodded curtly. Ullrich was clearly referring to the 1983 Commerzbank shootings carried out by Hendrik Svensson’s Radical Action Group – in the course of which Franz Webern had been killed and Fabel had been wounded and forced to take a life to save his own. Fabel did not like the idea that the BKA man probably had, sometime, run a check on him. But there again, he told himself, that was the business Markus Ullrich was in.

‘You will remember,’ continued Ullrich, ‘after the Stammheim prison suicides of Meinhof, Baader, Ensslin and Raspe in nineteen seventy-six and nineteen seventy-seven, German domestic terrorism lost its focus and became very fragmented – which actually made our job more difficult. It also resulted in a steeply increased level and intensity of violence. The truth is that Hauser and Griebel were both low-priority subjects… and there was never any suggestion of a connection between them. They did share common acquaintances – but, there again, so would anyone involved even marginally with that scene. There is something else about Griebel.’

‘Oh?’

‘I noticed that his file was recently updated. He was looked at again only a couple of years ago, in fact. I get the feeling it had to do with his field of research. Why his particular speciality was of interest I couldn’t tell you, but our counter-terrorism people felt the need to run another check on him. But again, low-priority stuff. Anyway… happy reading.’

‘I really do appreciate you doing this for me,’ Fabel said as their lunches arrived.

‘You’re welcome. All I would ask is that if the political backgrounds of your murder victims turn out to be a positive lead, please do let me know. It may be that there is a dimension to this case that may interest us. And Herr Fabel…’ Ullrich looked uncertain, as if weighing up whether to say what he had to say or not.

‘Yes?’

‘Be careful. As you’ll see from the files, some of the figures who were subject to our scrutiny in the past have become important people today. All you need to do is look at Gerhard Schroder’s government cabinet. A Foreign Minister who has admitted to street violence and an Interior Minister who was a defence attorney for the Baader-Meinhof gang.’ Ullrich was referring to Joschka Fischer who had been ‘outed’ when Bettina Rohl, the daughter of Ulrike Meinhof, had released to the press photographs of Fischer assaulting a police officer, and to Otto Schily, who had represented the terrorists early in his legal career. ‘And there are others with big ambitions much closer to home…’

‘Like Muller-Voigt?’

‘Exactly. If you find yourself going down this line of inquiry, watch your back.’

Fabel gave a grim laugh. ‘I’m not worried about political flak,’ he said. ‘I’m well used to that by now.’

‘Political flak isn’t all you have to worry about…’ Ullrich said. ‘I can’t believe that the so-called sleepers who were put in place back then believe in any of that crap now, but they have been living their normal lives for two decades. I’m sure some of them are quite prepared to go to any lengths to protect themselves. Like I said: be careful.’

7.30 p.m.: Poseldorf, Hamburg

Fabel spent the afternoon reading the BKA files. Everything was as Ullrich had described it: Hauser and Griebel had inhabited the same landscape, had followed similar paths, had known the same people, but there was no evidence to suggest that those paths had ever crossed. Still, logic suggested that it was not impossible that at least they knew of each other. And just because no contact had been established by the security services it did not mean that they had in fact never met.

Susanne was working late at the Institute for Legal Medicine, so Fabel returned home alone. His lunch with Ullrich meant that he still had no appetite to speak of, so he took a sandwich and a bottle of Jever through to the living room and set them on the coffee table next to his laptop and the files. He sat for a moment sipping his beer and looking through his picture windows out over the Alsterpark and the wide expanse of Alster, whose water glittered gently in the early evening light. It was a scene that should have put him at peace, but something he could not quite identify nagged at him. Fabel was an orderly man: he needed balance in his universe; logic in the mechanics of his life. And, as with most orderly men, this necessity came from his fear of the chaos that often raged within him. It had scared him to see the same paranoia displayed at its most extreme in Kristina Dreyer. The tenuous connections and the broad coincidences that surrounded the two murder victims offended his need for order. When he looked at them from a distance, he could perceive a network of interconnecting threads, but when he drew close it all fell apart like a spider’s web in the wind.

Fabel heard the sound of the door of his flat being opened and Susanne’s voice announcing her arrival. She came in and in a gesture of exaggerated exhaustion flopped down into the sofa next to Fabel, dumping her keys, bag and cellphone next to her. She kissed Fabel.

‘Tough day?’ he asked.

Susanne nodded wearily. ‘You too?’

‘More confusing than anything. Let me get you a glass of wine…’ When Fabel came back from the kitchen he went on to explain about his meeting with Ullrich and the information in the files. ‘Do you think I’m barking up the wrong tree with this? The personal histories of the victims, I mean?’

‘Frankly… yes.’ Susanne’s voice was tinged with tired irritation. Fabel was breaking their unspoken rule against talking about work during their free time together. ‘You’re overcomplicating this. Think it through. Look at the disfigurement of the bodies. The killer’s small rituals, including pinning up the scalps as a display. It’s the work of a psychopath. You see a significance in the background of the victims, but they share a similar background because they’re roughly the same age. It could be as simple as your killer having a psychotic hostility to middle-aged men. And the mutilation of the bodies has psychosis written all over it. Think about politically motivated murder… nine times out of ten we’re talking about assassination: a bomb planted in a street, a bullet through the head.’

Fabel sipped his beer. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said and rose from his chair. ‘Anyway, I’ll go and fix you something to eat.’

7.40 p.m.: Schanzenviertel, Hamburg

Stefan Schreiner loved the Schanzenviertel. It was, for him, the most energetic, most varied, most vibrant part of Hamburg. His apartment was here. As was his beat.

Schreiner had been a Commissar in the uniformed branch of the Polizei Hamburg for seven years and he had been patrolling the Schanzenviertel for the last four of those years. Schreiner prided himself on being in tune with the Schanzenviertel: he was known by shopkeepers, by residents, even by those who peddled the occasional bit of dope, as a laid-back and easygoing street cop. But it was also known that, while he was willing to turn the odd blind eye where it did no harm, Stefan Schreiner was an honest, dedicated and efficient police officer.

The same could not be said of the officer with whom he had been teamed for the back shift: Peter Reinhard had the blue shoulder pips of a Polizeimeister, and was therefore Schreiner’s subordinate. Schreiner reckoned that Polizeimeister was as far as Reinhard would ever get in the Polizei Hamburg. He watched his junior officer walk back to the car from the snack stand, a plastic-lidded paper coffee cup in each hand. Reinhard was a huge man who spent a disproportionate amount of time lifting weights in the gym and there was more than an element of swagger in the way he moved. It wasn’t a good idea to swagger in the Schanzenviertel if you were a cop, thought Schreiner. He had spent so much time building bridges here and Reinhard was not the kind of partner he liked to be seen with.

Reinhard squeezed into the passenger seat of the silver and blue Mercedes patrol car and handed Schreiner one of the coffees. As he did so, he smoothed down his blue tie and shirt front, making sure he had not spilled anything on them.

‘These new uniforms are cool, aren’t they?’ he said.

‘’Spose so.’ It was not an issue that had occupied Schreiner much. The Polizei Hamburg uniforms had changed over the previous year from the traditional green and mustard to a dark blue.

‘They remind me of American uniforms…’ Reinhard paused. ‘N – Y – P – D…’ He pronounced the initials the English way. ‘The old ones were crap – they made you look like you were a forestry warden.’

‘Mmmm…’ Schreiner was only half listening. He sipped his coffee and watched a cyclist approach down the narrow street. Schreiner suddenly thought how much better it would be to patrol the quarter on a bike. It was done in other parts of the city. He would ask about it. The cyclist drew closer. The other advantage would be that there would not be room for Reinhard on a bike.

‘I just think that these are more like police uniforms…’ Reinhard seemed content to carry on the discussion with himself. ‘I mean, blue is the international colour for police…’

The bicycle passed the patrol car and Schreiner nodded to the cyclist, who ignored him. It was not uncommon in the Schanzenviertel for locals to be wary of the police, even hostile towards them. There was still a hangover from more radical days when the police were seen as fascists by the average Viertel dweller.

‘Shit!’ Suddenly Schreiner was galvanised into action. He thrust his coffee towards Reinhard to hold, splashing some on his junior officer’s precious blue uniform shirt. Schreiner threw open the car door and stepped out.

‘Just a minute! Stop!’ he called after the cyclist, who looked over his shoulder at the policeman and responded by peddling hard away from him. Schreiner jumped back into the patrol car, slammed the door and gunned the engine. He took off from his standing start so violently that more coffee slopped over Reinhard’s shirt.

7.40 p.m.: Poseldorf, Hamburg

‘What I don’t get,’ said Fabel as he placed a plate of pasta in front of Susanne, ‘is why did the BKA reinvestigate Griebel recently? Surely there is no significant national interest to be protected in Griebel’s research?’

‘You said he was an epigeneticist?’ Susanne took a mouthful of too-hot pasta and made a fanning movement in front of her mouth with her hand before continuing. ‘What kind of work was he involved in?’

Fabel gave her a breakdown of all he knew, and the little that he understood, about Griebel’s work. ‘Some of the other stuff he was involved in – you know, all this inherited-memory stuff – sounds a bit, well, unscientific to me.’

‘Not really,’ said Susanne. ‘An amazing amount of the DNA that is passed from one generation to the next has no known use: while the human genome was being mapped it revealed that more than ninety-eight per cent of our DNA is so-called “junk DNA”… or, to give it its proper name, “non-coding”.’

‘What do you think this DNA is for?’

‘God knows. Some scientists believe that it’s the accumulated defences against retroviruses. You know, all the bugs that we’ve fought off throughout our history as a species. Others believe that some of it has specific functions that we simply don’t understand. One theory is that we inherit instinctive behaviours through it, even that it contains genetic memories. That actual experiences from an ancestor can be passed on to his or her descendants.’

‘It all sounds a bit unlikely to me.’

‘It’s not really my field, of course.’ Susanne shrugged. ‘But I have come across it. There’s a theory that some irrational fears or phobias owe their origins to genetic memory stored in this so-called junk DNA. A fear of height, for example, becoming encoded because some ancestor was traumatised by either falling or witnessing the death of someone else falling. Just as we can develop a fear of fire, claustrophobia, et cetera, because of some trauma in our own direct experience, it could be that those phobias that seem to have no direct source may have been inherited.’

Fabel thought of Maria and her fear of being touched because of the trauma she had experienced. It chilled him to think that such fears could be passed on from one generation to the next.

‘But surely this is all speculation?’ he said.

‘There are a lot of things that cannot be explained by normal chromosomal inheritance. Lactose tolerance, for example. We shouldn’t be able to drink the milk of other species. Yet in all those cultures in which the herding and farming of cattle, goats, yaks and the like was common, we developed a tolerance for drinking the milk of livestock. But each generation did not need to redevelop that tolerance – it simply passed on once it was gained. And that cannot be explained by natural selection or the passing on of congenital DNA. There must be some other mechanism for genetic transference.’

Fabel’s expression was one of a man contemplating things he did not fully understand. ‘What about memories? Do you think it’s possible for them to pass down from one generation to the next?’

‘Honestly… I don’t know. For me, the main problem is the totally different and separate processes at work. Memories are neurological phenomena. They’re all to do with synapses, brain cells, the nervous system. DNA inheritance is a genetic process. I don’t understand what biomolecular mechanism could be at work to imprint one on the other.’

‘But…?’

‘But instinctive behaviour is a difficult thing to explain, particularly the more abstract forms of instinct that have nothing to do with our origins as a species. Of course, psychology has been through the whole thing with Jungian psychology, which simply took these theories far too far, but there are simple common experiences that I find intriguing.’

‘Such as?’

‘When we were on Sylt you told me how the first time you visited the island you felt you’d known it all your life. It is a relatively common psychological… experience, I suppose you would call it. For example, a farmer who has never been out of Bavaria, far less Germany, finally takes a foreign holiday – in Spain, say. But when our reluctant virgin-tourist who has never expressed any interest in Spain arrives in some remote mountain town, he experiences an unaccountable feeling of familiarity. He instinctively knows where to go to find a castle, the old part of town, a river, et cetera. And once he is home in Oberbayern, he suffers from this strange form of homesickness.’

‘This is common?

‘Reasonably. There are several studies under way at the moment into the phenomenon. We’re not talking about some kind of extended deja vu, mind you. These people have specific knowledge of a place they have never visited before in their life.’

‘So what does it mean? Some kind of evidence of reincarnation?’

‘A lot of people have taken it as such. Which is, of course, nonsense, but you can understand the logic… or lack of it, if you know what I mean. But some serious psychologists and geneticists believe that it may be evidence of some kind of inherited or genetic memory. But, like I said, I cannot see how the neurological or psychological phenomenon of memory can become transferred and imprinted on the physical biomolecular structure of DNA. I tend to think that these experiences come from information that has perhaps been picked up in pieces over a lifetime of reading, watching television documentaries, and so on. All scattered throughout the subconscious but brought together by some single point of recognition. For example, our Bavarian farmer sees the church steeple when he dismounts from the bus. He has this weird deja vu-type feeling of familiarity because his subconscious is putting that image together with a scattered jigsaw of bits of information.’

‘But some other scientists, like Gunter Griebel, believe it’s something to do with this DNA soup that we all carry around with us.’

‘Yep. For example, maybe our Bavarian farmer had a distant forefather who lived in that area of Spain and he has inherited ancestral memories of it. And, of course, there is another phenomenon that we all experience. That feeling that you’ve met someone somewhere before even though you’re meeting them for the first time. It’s not just their appearance that seems familiar, but their personality too. Or the way we take an instant like or dislike to someone, with absolutely no basis for our prejudice. It’s a favourite notion cited by reincarnationists, that a group of individuals are bound together through all their incarnations. And that we recognise them as soon as we meet them again in a new life.’

Fabel went to the fridge and took out another bottle of Jever. ‘And what’s the scientific theory behind this phenomenon?’

‘God, Jan… that depends on your perspective. As a psychologist I could point to dozens of psychological factors that stimulate a false sense of recognition, but I know that there are some wild theories about it. The fact is that every person on this planet is related: no matter how far-flung we are, we all share a common genetic ancestor. The world today has a population of about six and a half billion. But if we go back only three thousand years, to roughly the time of those mummies in western China that you told me about, there would only be, what… less than two hundred million people worldwide. We are all just variations on the same themes, over and over again. So it is more than conceivable that the same configuration of features is repeated with the same personality type. We all tend to associate certain features with certain personalities and prejudge people by their looks. We say someone looks intelligent, or friendly or arrogant, based on their features and on our experience of people with a similar appearance. And sometimes when we meet people for the first time we feel we’ve met them before because we’re putting together a composite picture of a number of people who looked similar and who had similar personalities.’ Susanne took a sip of her wine and shrugged. ‘It’s not reincarnation. It’s coincidence.’

7.42 p.m.: Schanzenviertel, Hamburg

It should have been an unequal contest: a Mercedes patrol car against an ageing bicycle. But the Schanzenviertel was a warren of narrow streets, lined by parked cars, and Stefan Schreiner was forced to accelerate and brake in short, ineffective bursts. As he negotiated the obstacles and the corners in pursuit of the cyclist, his partner Peter Reinhard struggled to replace the plastic lids on the coffee containers and put them into the car’s cup-holders.

‘Would you mind telling me what the hell is going on?’ Reinhard had found a paper towel and was dabbing at his coffee-soaked shirt front.

‘That bike…’ Schreiner stayed focused on his quarry. ‘It’s stolen.’

They were now in a one-way street, again lined with parked cars, allowing no opportunity to turn. The cyclist clearly realised that he had the police at a disadvantage and stopped suddenly, forcing Schreiner to brake hard. But before the policemen had time to get out of the car, the cyclist had squeezed between two parked vehicles, mounted the pavement and was heading back the way they had come. Schreiner slammed the patrol car into reverse and, twisting round in his seat, drove back up the street as fast as its width and congestion would allow.

‘What?’ Reinhard said incredulously. ‘I get soaked in coffee for the sake of a stolen bike?’

‘Not just any stolen bike.’ Schreiner paused as he swung the Mercedes, tail first, out into Lipmannsstrasse. He took off after the cyclist again with a screech of tyres. ‘The person it was stolen from was Hans-Joachim Hauser. This could be his killer.’

The cyclist had lost the advantage of parked cars restricting the speed of the police car and again he mounted the pavement. Reinhard leaned forward in his seat, forgetting all about the coffee spilled on his uniform shirt. ‘Then let’s get the bastard.’

Schreiner could tell that the cyclist knew the Viertel well. He made a sudden left turn, swinging into Eifflerstrasse, heading against the flow of traffic on the one-way street and forcing Schreiner to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting an oncoming Volkswagen. Schreiner leaped from the car and raced along the pavement after the cyclist, Reinhard hard on his heels and the curses of the VW driver in his ears. The cyclist was getting away; he looked back over his shoulder at the policemen, grinning and raising a fist in a gesture of defiance. It was short-lived: oblivious to the chase on the pavement, the driver of a parked car swung open his door and its edge caught the passing bike, sending it crashing into the wall of one of the buildings. By the time the cyclist had rolled over onto his back, clutching his bruised knee, the two policemen had caught up with him and towered over him, their handguns trained on his head.

‘Stay on the ground!’ Reinhard shouted at the stunned bicycle thief. ‘Stretch your hands out above your head.’ The cyclist did exactly as he was told.

‘Okay… okay…’ he said as he gazed at the firearms pointed at him. ‘I admit it, for Christ’s sake… I stole the fucking bike!’

9.10 p.m.: Police Presidium, Hamburg

It was clear to Fabel that the pale-faced, blond-haired young man sitting in the Murder Commission interview room had nothing to do with Hans-Joachim Hauser’s murder. Leonard Schuler had the look of an animal caught in headlights. And from what Fabel had read of Schuler’s record as a petty criminal, he simply did not fit as Hauser’s killer.

Fabel hung back, leaning against the wall by the door. He let Anna and Henk lead the interview.

‘I don’t know anything about any murder,’ Schuler declared, his stare darting from one police officer to the other as if seeking confirmation that they believed him. ‘I mean, I heard about that guy Hauser getting killed, but until I was arrested I didn’t even know it was his place that I took the bike from.’

‘Well.’ Anna smiled. ‘The bad news for you is that you’re all we’ve got at the moment. Herr Hauser chained his bike up when he got home about ten p.m., then his cleaner finds him missing his hair at nine a.m. the following morning. There’s only one person we can place anywhere near him between those times. You.’

‘But I wasn’t anywhere near him,’ protested Schuler. ‘I didn’t set foot inside the apartment. I just saw his bike and I stole it.’

‘When was this?’ asked Henk.

‘I reckon about eleven. Eleven-thirty. I’d been drinking with friends and I suppose I’d had a bit too much. I was walking along the street and I saw the bike. And I thought, well, why walk when you can ride? It was just a prank. A joke. It was chained up, but I was able to prise the lock open.’

‘With what? From what we can gather, Herr Hauser was pretty fond of that bike and I would guess he had a reasonably sturdy security chain on it.’

‘I had a screwdriver with me…’ Schuler paused. ‘And a pair of pliers.’

‘Do you normally go out for a drink with your pockets full of tools?’ Henk threw a plastic evidence bag onto the table with a clatter. ‘This is what was found on you when you were arrested tonight

… Screwdriver, pliers, hacksaw blade and – this is really interesting – a couple of pairs of disposable latex medical gloves. I can’t work out whether you’re a twenty-four-hour joiner or a moonlighting surgeon.’

Schuler once more looked from Henk to Anna and back, as if hoping that they would give him an idea what to say.

‘Listen, Leonard,’ Henk continued. ‘You have three convictions for breaking into private dwellings and one for car theft. That’s why you did a runner when the patrol car tried to stop you. Not because you were worried about being caught on a stolen bike – you could have claimed that you’d found it dumped. You were out looking for an apartment to do over. Just the same as you were the night you stole the bike. I find it difficult to believe that you didn’t think it worthwhile to have a little look-see to find out if there was anything else worth nicking.’

‘I keep telling you… I didn’t go anywhere near Hauser’s apartment. I was a bit pissed so I nicked the bike. For Christ’s sake, do you think I would have held on to it if I had topped the owner?’

‘Good point…’ Fabel moved over from the door. He pulled up a chair next to Schuler and leaned his face close in to the young man. When he spoke it was with a quiet, deliberate menace. ‘I want you to listen to me, Leonard. I want you to understand something very clearly. I hunt people. In this case I am hunting a very particular man… like me, he is a hunter of other men. The difference is that he stalks them, he finds them, and then he does this to them…’ Fabel looked across to Anna and snapped his fingers impatiently. She handed him the file with the scenes-of-crime photographs. Fabel took one from the file and held it so close to Schuler’s face that the young thief had to pull back from it. When Schuler focused on the image, his expression contorted with disgust. Fabel snapped the photograph away and replaced it with another. ‘Do you see what my guy does? This is the person who interests me, Leonard. This is who I am after. You, on the other hand, are a worthless piece of shit that I am only taking the time to wipe off my shoe.’ Fabel leaned back in the chair. ‘I believe that it is important to establish a sense of perspective in these things. I just want you to understand that. You do understand that, don’t you, Leonard?’

Schuler nodded his head silently. There was a heartbeat’s pause.

‘I also want you to understand this.’ Fabel laid the photographs of both victims face up on the table’s surface. As with all scenes-of-crime photographs the colours were camera-flash stark and vivid. The dead-stare eyes of Hans-Joachim Hauser and Gunter Griebel gazed out towards the ceiling from beneath their ravaged heads. ‘If you do not convince me, within the next two minutes, that you are telling me the absolute truth… do you know what I’m going to do?’

‘No…’ Schuler tried to sound as though Fabel had not rattled him. He failed. ‘No… what will you do?’

Fabel stood up. ‘I will let you go.’

Schuler gave a confused laugh and looked across at Anna and Henk, both of whom remained expressionless.

‘I will let you walk out of here,’ continued Fabel. ‘And I will make sure that it is public knowledge that you are our principal witness to this murder. I might even allow one of the less scrupulous local newspapers to feel that they have tricked your name and address out of me. Then…’ Fabel gave a small, cruel laugh. ‘Oh, then, Leonard my boy, then you won’t ever have to worry about us again. Like I said, I don’t hunt small fry like you. But I can use you as bait.’ Fabel leaned close to Schuler once more. ‘You don’t understand this man. You could never even begin to think in the same way. But I can. I have hunted so many killers like him. Too many. Let me tell you, they don’t see or feel the world in the same way we do. Some of them don’t feel fear. Honestly. Some – most of them, actually – kill just to watch what it is like for another human being to die. And quite a few of them savour each death in the same way the rest of us would enjoy a fine wine or a good meal. And that means they like to make the experience last. To relish every last second. And trust me, Leonard… if my friend here believes that you might lead us to him, that you maybe saw him without him seeing you, it won’t cost him a thought to hunt you down and kill you. But he doesn’t just kill. Just imagine what it must feel like to be tied to a chair while he slices you up and tears your scalp from your head. And all that pain, all that horror, would be the very last thing on earth that you would experience. An eternal moment. Oh no, Leonard, he won’t just kill you. He’ll take you with him into hell first.’ Fabel stood up and extended an arm towards the door. ‘So, Leonard, do you want me to release you

…?’

Schuler shook his head determinedly. ‘I’ll tell you everything. Everything I know. Just make sure my name doesn’t get out.’

Fabel smiled. ‘That’s a good boy.’ He turned to Anna and Henk as he made his way to the door. ‘I’ll leave this to you…’

Fabel poured himself a coffee when he got back to his office. He sat down at his desk, hung his jacket over the back of his chair and checked his watch. It was now nine-thirty. Sometimes Fabel felt that there was no refuge from his work: that it had the ability to reach out to him no matter where he was or what time of day it was. Fabel was annoyed with himself that he had discussed the case with Susanne during their time off together, even if it had only been about Griebel’s work. He even regretted taking home the files that Ullrich had given him. But something nagged relentlessly at Fabel about the second victim and he could not put his finger on it. It was like not being able to locate a tiny stone in your shoe, yet feeling it with every step.

Fabel reached into his desk and took out a large sketch pad from the drawer. He flipped it open at the page on which he had begun to map out the Hamburger Hairdresser case. It was a process that Fabel had repeated so many times before, with so many cases: a perversion of the creative function for which the sketch pads were intended. Fabel mapped out the profiles of sick and twisted minds, of death and pain. He thought back to what he had said to Schuler: all bluff, of course, but it bothered Fabel how true it was when he said that he was a hunter of men; someone who found it increasingly easy to enter the mindset of the men he hunted.

Again Fabel found himself wondering how it had come to pass that he had ended up here, up to his elbows in the blood and filth of others. This life had crept up on him. There had been definite, discreet steps along the way. The first had been the murder of Hanna Dorn, his girlfriend at university. He had not really known her that long or that well, but she had been a significant figure in his landscape. And she had been taken from it, suddenly and violently, by a killer who had chosen her as a victim, completely at random. Fabel had been as much confused as grief-stricken, and as soon as he had graduated he had joined the Polizei Hamburg. Then there had been the Commerzbank shoot-out. Fabel – the pacifist Fabel who had for his national service elected for Civilian Duty, driving ambulances in his native Norden rather than opting for a shorter conscription period in the armed forces – had been forced to do that which he had always promised himself he would never do. He had taken a human life. Then, during his time at the Murder Commission, each new case had chipped away at him, reshaping him into someone he had never thought he would become.

Sometimes Fabel felt that he was wearing someone else’s life, as if he had picked up the wrong coat from a restaurant cloakroom. This was not what he had planned for himself at all.

He gazed down at the sketch pad, not seeing it for the moment but trying to look into another life. Not, this time, into the mind of a killer or into the life of a murder victim, but into a life that should, that could, have been his. Maybe that was what Fabel had become: a victim of murder himself.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet. He took out the slip of paper with her telephone number on it that Sonja Brun had given him, and Roland Bartz’s card, and laid them on the desk. A new life. He could pick up the phone, make two phone calls and change everything. What would it be like, he wondered, to have small worries? Not to have to make life-or-death decisions? He looked at the phone on his desk for a moment, imagining it as a portal to a new life. Then he sighed and put the scrap of paper and the business card back into his wallet before turning his attention again to the sketch pad.

Two victims in a single day. No solid leads and little to connect them. One a flagrant attention-seeker, the other practically a recluse. The only common theme that Fabel could discern, other than the suggestion of political radicalism in their youth, was the way they seemed to exist only in reflection. Hauser had sought to establish himself as an environmental guru and significant figure on the Left, only to become a footnote in the biographies of others. Griebel had seemed to exist only through and for his work, even when his wife had been alive.

Earlier, Fabel had written Kristina Dreyer’s name on the page, looped it with a highlighter pen and linked it to Hauser’s. He crossed it out. He had also linked Sebastian Lang’s name to Hauser’s. Fabel had not interviewed Lang personally, but Anna had assured him that Lang’s alibi was solid. A question mark indicated the older man who Anna had said had been seen with Hauser in The Firehouse. Could that have been Griebel? There were so few clear pictures of the camera-shy scientist in life, and the mortuary photograph of him with the top of his head sliced off did not help with identification. Fabel made a note to have Anna take an artist’s impression of Griebel down to The Firehouse to see if any of the staff recognised him.

There was a knock on the door and Anna Wolff walked in, as usual without being invited. Henk Hermann followed her.

‘Thanks for softening up Schuler,’ said Anna, in a tone that left Fabel unsure of whether she meant it or not, as she sat down opposite him. ‘It was difficult to get him to shut up, he’s so scared of the bogeyman you threatened to unleash on him.’

‘Anything useful?’ asked Fabel.

‘Yes, Chef,’ said Henk. ‘Schuler admitted he was cruising the area on foot, checking out likely apartments and houses. According to him it was only a half-hearted reconnaissance… apparently he does his best work in the wee small hours when the occupiers are asleep, but the Schanzenviertel is a clubby and pubby type of area so he thought he might find a few empty flats at that time of evening. Anyway, he hadn’t had any luck and had nearly been caught once by a householder, so he had decided to call it a night. It was on his way home that he noticed the bike chained up outside Hauser’s apartment and he thought “Why not?” The interesting thing is he said he wanted to check the apartment out, just in case, so he went around to the back where there’s a small courtyard with access to the lounge, bedroom and bathroom windows. He says he didn’t take it any further because he could see that the occupier was at home.’

‘He saw Hauser?’

‘Yep,’ said Anna. ‘Alive. He was sitting in the lounge drinking, so Schuler decided to settle for the bike.’

‘But the main thing is that Hauser was not alone,’ said Henk. ‘He had a guest.’

‘Oh?’ Fabel leaned forward. ‘Do we have a description?’

‘Schuler says that Hauser’s guest was sitting with his back to the window,’ said Anna. ‘Schuler was keen to get out of the courtyard in case he was spotted, so he didn’t pay much attention to either of the men. But, from what he said, one of them was definitely Hauser. Schuler described the other man as younger, maybe early thirties, dark hair and slim.’

‘Doesn’t that description fit with the guy who discovered Kristina Dreyer cleaning up after the murder?’ said Fabel.

‘Sebastian Lang… It does, doesn’t it?’ Anna grinned. ‘I have a photograph of Lang that I’ve been using when I’ve been asking around about Hauser.’

‘Lang gave you a photograph voluntarily?’ asked Fabel.

‘Not exactly.’ Anna exchanged a look with Henk. ‘I borrowed it from the crime scene. Technically, it was the property of the deceased. Not Lang’s.’

Fabel let it go. ‘Did you show the photograph to Schuler?’

‘Yep,’ said Anna. ‘Inconclusive, I would say. Schuler says that it could be the same guy – the colouring is the same and, roughly, so is the build. But he didn’t get a close enough look at Hauser’s guest to make a positive identification. Nevertheless, I think we should pay Herr Lang another visit. I’d like to have another look at that alibi.’

‘This time,’ said Fabel, ‘I think I’ll come along too.’

10.35 p.m.: Eimsbuttel, Hamburg

It was after ten-thirty by the time Fabel, Anna and Henk knocked on the door of Sebastian Lang’s apartment. Lang lived on the second storey of an impressive building in Ottersbekallee, only a few minutes from Hans-Joachim Hauser’s Schanzenviertel apartment. Fabel had never met Lang before: he was a tall man in his early thirties, very slim, with a pale complexion, pale blue eyes and dark hair. His appearance certainly fitted the rough description of the man Schuler had seen in Hauser’s apartment. Lang’s face was perfectly proportioned, yet instead of making him handsome the perfection of his features seemed to feminise him. A ‘pretty’ boy was how Maria had described him. The other thing that was remarkable about Lang’s face was its lack of expression, and when he stood to one side with a sigh to allow the officers to enter there was nothing in the mask of his face to reveal the extent of his annoyance.

He directed Fabel, Anna and Henk into the lounge. Like its occupier, the flat was immaculately presented, with not a thing out of place. It was as if Lang made the minimum possible impact on his living environment. He had clearly been reading when Fabel and the others arrived and he had set the book down, neatly, on the coffee table. Fabel picked it up. It was some kind of political history of post-war Germany, open at a chapter on German domestic terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s.

‘You a student of history, Herr Lang?’ asked Fabel.

Lang took the book from Fabel’s hands and closed it, placing it back into the space it had left in Lang’s tidily arranged bookshelf.

‘It’s late, Herr Chief Commissar, and I don’t really appreciate being pestered at home,’ Lang said. ‘Would you please tell me what this is all about?’

‘Certainly, Herr Lang. And I do apologise for disturbing you in the evening, but I assumed you’d be only too willing to answer any questions that might take us closer to understanding what happened to Herr Hauser.’

Another sigh. ‘You’re trying my patience, Herr Fabel. Of course I want to help catch Hans-Joachim’s killer. But when the police turn up mob-handed at my door after ten in the evening, I assume that there is more to their visit than just checking a few facts.’

‘True…’ said Fabel. ‘A witness has come forward. He saw someone in Herr Hauser’s apartment on the night of his murder. Someone who fits your description.’

‘But that’s impossible.’ Still the protesting tone in Lang’s voice did not translate into any animation of his features. ‘Or, at least, it is possible that someone like me was there. But it was not me.’

‘Well,’ said Anna, ‘that is something we have yet to establish.’

‘For God’s sake, I gave you full details of where I was that night

…’ Lang walked over to a bureau by the door and opened a drawer. He turned back to the officers with something in each hand. ‘Here is my ticket stub for the exhibition I attended. See, it’s dated for that Thursday. And here…’ He gave the stub to Fabel. In his other hand was a pen and notebook. ‘Here are the names and telephone numbers again of the people who can and will confirm that they were with me that night.’

‘You came home about one, one-fifteen in the morning, you say?’ Fabel passed the stub to Anna.

‘Yes.’ Lang folded his arms defiantly, ‘We – I mean my friends and I – went for a meal afterwards. I’ve already given her’ – he nodded in Anna’s direction – ‘the name of the restaurant and the waiter who served us. We left the restaurant about a quarter to one.’

‘And you came home alone?’

‘Yes. Alone, Herr Fabel. So I can’t provide an alibi after that.’

‘That may be immaterial, Herr Lang,’ said Fabel. ‘All the indications are that Herr Hauser died between ten and midnight.’

Fabel thought he detected something disturb Lang’s impassive expression, as if pinning a time to Hauser’s ordeal and death had made it more real.

‘Your relationship with Herr Hauser was not exclusive?’ asked Anna.

‘No. Not on Hans-Joachim’s side, anyway.’

‘Do you know of anyone else he might have been involved with?’

For a moment Lang looked confused. ‘What do you mean involved? Oh

… oh, I see. No. Hans-Joachim had countless flings, but there was no one… well, I was his only companion.’

‘What did you think we meant when we asked you if he was involved with anyone else?’ asked Fabel.

‘Nothing, really. I just wasn’t sure if you meant privately or professionally. Or politically in Hans-Joachim’s case. It’s just that he was very, well, strange about his associations. He got a bit drunk one night and lectured me about not getting involved with the wrong group of people. About making the wrong choices.’

Fabel looked across to where Lang had replaced the book on the shelf. ‘Did Herr Hauser ever discuss the past with you? I mean his days as an activist, that kind of thing?’

‘Endlessly,’ Lang said wearily. ‘He would rant on about how his generation had saved Germany. How their actions back then shaped the society we live in now. He seemed to think that my generation, as he would put it, was screwing the whole thing up.’

‘But did he ever say anything about his activities? Or his associates?’

‘Oddly enough, no. The only person he tended to go on about was Bertholdt Muller-Voigt. You know, the Environment Senator. Hans-Joachim hated him with a vengeance. He used to say that Muller-Voigt believed that he could be Chancellor one day, and that was what all this “Lady Macbeth” crap with First Mayor Schreiber’s wife was all about. Hans-Joachim said that Muller-Voigt and Hans Schreiber were cut from the same cloth. Shameless opportunists. He had known them both at university and had despised them even then – particularly Muller-Voigt.’

‘Did he ever discuss the allegations made against Muller-Voigt in the press by Ingrid Fischmann – all that stuff about the Wiedler kidnapping?’

‘No. Not with me, anyway.’

‘Did Herr Hauser have any contact with Muller-Voigt? Recently, I mean.’

Lang shrugged. ‘Not that I know of. I would have thought that Hans-Joachim would have gone out of his way to avoid him.’

Fabel nodded. He took a moment to process what Lang had told him. It did not add up to much. ‘You are probably aware that another man was killed in the same way, within twenty-four hours of Herr Hauser’s death. The man’s name was Dr Gunter Griebel. Does that name mean anything to you? Did Herr Hauser ever discuss a Dr Griebel?’

Lang shook his delicately sculpted head. ‘No. I can’t say that I ever heard him mention him.’

‘We spoke to the staff at The Firehouse,’ said Anna. ‘They told us that Herr Hauser was sometimes seen drinking and talking with an older man, about the same age as him. Would you have any idea who it might have been?’

‘Sorry. I wouldn’t,’ said Lang. ‘Listen, I’m not being obstructive or awkward or anything. It’s just that Hans-Joachim only included me in his life when it suited him. There’s practically nothing you could tell me about him that would surprise me. He was a very, very secretive man… despite all his publicity-seeking. Sometimes I think that Hans-Joachim was hiding in plain sight – concealing himself behind his public persona. It was like there was something deep down inside that he didn’t want anyone to see.’

Fabel considered Lang’s words. What he had said about Hauser was true of Griebel, but in a different way.

‘We’re all like that,’ said Fabel. ‘To one degree or another.’

In the car on the way back to the Presidium, Fabel discussed Lang with his two junior officers.

‘I’ll double-check these details,’ said Anna. ‘But, to be honest, his alibi doesn’t put him entirely in the clear for Hauser’s death. If he had gone straight from the restaurant to Hauser’s apartment, and if we allow a margin of error in the estimated time of death, then he could just about have done it.’

‘It would be stretching the timeline pretty far,’ said Fabel. ‘Although I have to admit there’s something about Lang that bothers me. But the main thing that puts him out of the picture is the fact that your sequence of events just doesn’t fit with Schuler’s statement. He saw Hauser sitting with a guest who broadly fits Lang’s description somewhere between eleven and eleven-thirty; Lang’s alibi is solid for that time.’

Fabel dropped Henk and Anna back at the Presidium and drove home to Poseldorf. Hamburg glowed in the dark warmth of the summer night. Something sat heavy in the back of Fabel’s mind, obscuring what this case was all about, but his tired brain could not shift it out of the way. As he drove, he knew that he was dealing with a case that was growing cold on him. A lead-less case. And that meant he might not get a break in it until the killer struck again. Considering he had killed twice within a twenty-four-hour period, and had not struck since, it was entirely possible that the killer’s work was over.

And that he had got away with it.

Midnight: Grindelviertel, Hamburg

As Fabel was driving home from the Police Presidium, Leonard Schuler was sitting in his one-bedroomed Grindelviertel apartment, counting his blessings. He had not been charged with anything. He had admitted to stealing the bike, to going out equipped to break into houses that night but, just as the older cop had said, they had not been interested in any of that. The older cop had really rattled Schuler with his talk of hanging him out as bait for the nutter who was scalping these guys. But even if Leonard had been scared, he had stayed smart: he knew not to give them any more than the absolute minimum. The reason the older cop’s threat had scared him so much was because Leonard had got a much better look at the guy in the apartment than he had admitted. And the guy in the apartment had got a good long look at Schuler.

It had been Schuler’s intention to break into the flat if there had been no one at home. He had planned his getaway with slightly more foresight than usual. Having prised open the lock on the bike, he had left it propped against the wall of the alley before slipping around to the courtyard. It had not been too dark that night, but when Leonard had sneaked around to the back of the apartment the height of the buildings surrounding the yard had cast it into dark shadow. It had been a gift to a burglar, thought Schuler, but one of the occupiers had obviously been security conscious and a motion-sensitive security light had suddenly flooded the small courtyard with blazing light. Schuler had been temporarily dazzled and had taken a blind step forward. The recycling bins must have been too full because he had knocked over some bottles that had been set beside the bins, causing them to clatter loudly on the cobbles of the courtyard.

Schuler had taken a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the sudden bright light. It was then that he had seen the two men. They had clearly been disturbed from their conversation by Schuler’s clumsiness and had come to the window and looked out directly at him – he was only a metre and a half away. There had been an older guy, whom he now knew to have been Hauser, and a younger one. It had been the expression, or lack of it, on the face of the younger man that had really spooked Schuler. Even more so now, knowing as he did what this individual had gone on to commit.

He had looked into the dead, expressionless face of a killer.

Now, when Schuler thought back to that stare, to that dreadful calm on the face of a man who must have known what horrors he was about to perpetrate, it chilled him to the core.

The older cop, Fabel, had been right. He had described a monster who took people into hell before they died. Schuler wanted no part of it. Whoever – whatever – this killer was, the police would never catch him.

Schuler was out of it now.