The Carnival Master

6.

Fabel stood on the corner of Komodienstrasse and Tunisstrasse, the spires of Cologne Cathedral looming behind him, and watched as float after float drifted by. Crowds of organised chaos. Fabel looked up Tunisstrasse and recognised Scholz’s Cologne Police float approaching. He stood watching the procession but not seeing it. Instead, he ran through every possible outcome. He even wondered if he would die here: if Maria was already dead and if Vitrenko would finish him off as soon as he got his hands on the dossier. Fabel gripped the plastic carrier bag tight.

‘It’s nothing to do with roses, you know,’ Scholz had told him. ‘The Rose in Rose Monday comes from the Old Low German Rasen – to rave or run around madly.’ Now Fabel stood on the corner of a Cologne street on Rose Monday and watched as the city’s population turned the world on its head. A giant papier-mache model of the American President George Bush, his bare buttocks being spanked by an enraged Arab, drifted by. It was followed by another depicting the new German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, dressed as a Rhine Maiden. A group of German TV personalities were depicted on the next float, stuffing their pockets with cash. Everyone was cheering and scrabbling to catch the candies thrown by the costumed members of each float.

The procession slowed and came to a temporary standstill, as it did periodically to maintain the regulation distance between floats. Undaunted, the crowd continued to cheer. Fabel scanned the faces around him: clowns, oversized floppy hats in stridently jolly colours, face-painted children hoisted on the shoulders of parents. Then he saw him: the same gold mask and black outfit, standing four or five rows back. Fabel edged through the crowd towards the figure, then became aware of another gold mask. Then another. And another. There were five

… no, six of them scattered throughout the crowd. All the gold masks were watching Fabel, not the procession. He stopped and tried to weigh up which was Vitrenko. Two of the figures made their way over to him. Fabel and the two gold-masked men stood, an island in an unseeing sea of revellers.

‘I said I’d only hand this over to Vitrenko,’ said Fabel. Neither masked man moved but Fabel heard Vitrenko’s voice.

‘And I said I wouldn’t walk so easily into a trap.’

Fabel spun around and came face to face with another identical gold mask. The other two men closed in behind him.

‘You have it?’

‘I have photocopied pages from the original. Where’s Maria?’ said Fabel. The crowd around him cheered another passing float.

‘Safe. She’ll be released when I return with the dossier.’

‘No, she won’t. That wasn’t our deal. You said we would exchange here. If I let you walk away with the dossier you’ll kill her. Or she’s dead already.’ A shower of candies rained down on them, thrown by a passing float with the ritual Kolsch cry of ‘ Alaaf… Helau! ’. The crowd responded with ‘ Kolle Alaaf! ’

‘You’re right, Herr Fabel, I don’t have her to exchange any more. But that doesn’t matter, because you’ve brought the dossier. Thank you. And goodbye, Fabel.’

Vitrenko seized Fabel by the shoulder and pulled him close to the expressionless gold Venetian mask. One of the others snatched the carrier bag from his grasp. Vitrenko’s other hand thrust a knife upwards and into Fabel’s abdomen. Fabel doubled over, gasping for breath.

At that moment a flood of police officers burst out from under the curtain of the Cologne police float. Benni Scholz, who had been riding on top, leapt from the float, still dressed in his comedy police costume. The crowd cheered enthusiastically, thinking it was all part of the act until the officers barged into the crowds. Vitrenko looked down at Fabel, then at the knife in his gloved hand. He dropped it and ran, disappearing into the crowd.

‘Get after them!’ Scholz screamed at his men. He pushed through the crowd to where Fabel had fallen.