The Carnival Master

1.

Fabel put the phone down. It all made sense now.

Something had been nagging away at him for days and he hadn’t been able to put his finger on what it was. It had unsettled him, because every time he had had a feeling like this in the past it had turned out to have a solid foundation. He understood the process behind it: little scraps of seemingly unrelated information that he had picked up coming together in his subconscious to start an alarm bell ringing. There had been nothing unusual about the telephone conversation that he had had with Maria, but her claim that her psychologist had said she should cut herself off from her colleagues for a while had rung false with him.

And now, two weeks later, Minks had called him at the Presidium and everything had fallen into place.

Fabel had come across Dr Minks as part of a previous investigation. Minks was an expert in post-trauma stress and phobic behaviour. As such he had set up a specialised Fear Clinic in Hamburg. The Polizei Hamburg had brought in counsellors to help Maria, but the main element of her treatment was now provided by Dr Minks. Minks had been one of Susanne’s lecturers at Munich University and she rated his skills very highly.

‘Obviously I cannot go into the specifics of Frau Klee’s treatment,’ Minks had said on the phone. ‘But I know that she values your… guidance… very highly. I mean not just as her professional superior. That’s why I thought I’d give you a call.’

‘What’s the problem, Herr Doctor?’

‘Well… I really felt I was getting somewhere with Frau Klee and I think she is making a big mistake in breaking off her therapy. She is far from well. I was hoping that you could get her to see sense.’

‘I’m sorry, Dr Minks,’ said Fabel. ‘I don’t understand. Are you saying that Maria hasn’t been keeping her appointments?’

‘Not for the last four or five weeks.’

‘Tell me, doctor, did you suggest it would be a good idea for Maria to avoid contact with me or any of her colleagues for the time being?’

‘No…’ Minks sounded puzzled. ‘Why would I say any such thing?’

Fabel had promised to speak to Maria about returning to therapy and hung up. Maria had lied to him. Not just about the therapy: she had lied about her whereabouts. And now Fabel knew exactly where she was.

He sat for a moment, his hands pressed flat on his desk, staring at them absently. Then he snatched up the phone and made the first of the three calls that he knew he had to make.