The Valkyrie Song

9

It was a bright morning. Again there was a welcome freshness in the air and Fabel woke to find himself in a more optimistic mood. Karin Vestergaard was already at the Presidium when he arrived and he waited patiently while she made various phone calls in Danish.

‘Sorry about that,’ she said. ‘I got my office to see if they could find out anything about Gina Bronsted and NeuHansa from a Danish perspective. It would appear that Bronsted has almost as many business interests in Copenhagen as she does here in Hamburg. Added to which she has companies across all the Scandinavian countries.’

‘Nothing dodgy?’ asked Fabel.

‘Not that we know about. She seems to be very active in environmental management and technologies. She helps other corporations become greener. It’s a big business now.’

‘I’ve arranged a meeting with her this afternoon,’ said Fabel. ‘Believe me, it wasn’t easy. But this morning we don’t have far to travel…’

Fabel was as good as his word: the Hamburg State Police Academy on Braamkamp was less than a kilometre distant from the Police Presidium. It was here that officers were shaped for command and developments in policing analysed, developed and passed on to the city’s officers. It was a building Fabel was only too familiar with. When he arrived the main hallway was filled with between-classes students. He found himself thinking about his daughter Gabi and how her recently announced decision could lead her here too.

Principal Commissar Michael Lange was not an officer whom Fabel had encountered before. From what Fabel had been able to find out, Lange had started off in the Polizei Schleswig-Holstein and had transferred to the Polizei Hamburg early in his career. He was now a lecturer in the Hamburg State Police Academy; but it was Lange’s experience early in his career that brought Fabel to his door.

The older uniformed officer at reception directed Fabel and Vestergaard up to the first floor of the Academy. A tall, lean man in a blue Hamburg Schutzpolizei uniform was leaning into the corridor from his office, clearly watching out for Fabel after having been told of his arrival by reception.

‘Principal Chief Commissar Fabel?’ Lange smiled and extended his hand as Fabel approached. Lange was about forty but Fabel felt he had the eyes of an older man. But that was maybe just because he knew of Lange’s experience.

‘Call me Jan,’ said Fabel. ‘This is Politidirektor Karin Vestergaard of the Danish National Police. Could we speak in English? It would save me a lot of translating.’

‘Sure,’ said Lange. ‘I just hope my English is good enough.’

‘Thanks for arranging to see me so soon,’ said Fabel. ‘It’s just that the case I’m working on has a Balkan connection and Anna Wolff, whom I believe you know, suggested I should talk to you.’

‘I’ll help if I can,’ said Lange. ‘You said on the phone you were looking into Goran Vuja i c ’s death. And his background. Of course his death wasn’t in our jurisdiction but in yours, Frau Vestergaard.’

‘Vujaic ’s death may not have been in our jurisdiction, but the murder of the Danish detective who was investigating it is,’ said Fabel. ‘He was one of Frau Vestergaard’s officers. We suspect that the Danish officer was murdered by the same professional assassin who took out Vuja i c. I take it you understand that this must stay between us, Michael?’

‘Of course.’

‘We suspect that this person is a contract killer, based here in Hamburg. And that makes everything our jurisdiction.’

Lange pursed his lips meditatively. ‘You’re right. We do have jurisdiction under Section Seven of the Criminal Code if the perpetrator is a German national. And you say no one outside the Commission is aware of this? What about top brass — shouldn’t they be told?’

‘The Police President has been briefed,’ said Fabel. ‘But at the moment we’re keeping it tight. There’s been another murder, committed by someone else, but it is related to the investigation and we’re trying to keep it quiet until we flush out this killer.’

‘And you think there may be something in Vujaic ’s background that could point you in the direction of more solid evidence?’

‘Truth is, I don’t know. But if this Valkyrie — that’s what this contract assassin is supposed to be code-named — if this Valkyrie is based here, then he or she would have a pretty good motive for taking Jespersen out of the equation. And Vuja i c is the connection.’

‘Okay, I’m glad to help if I can. The jurisdiction issue may not be an issue at all. But I only know about three years of Vuja i c ’s life. The three years he was active in the Bosnian War. And even then Vuja i c was not a leading figure. More a footnote in the diary of atrocity, so to speak. We never got enough to indict him, mainly because he successfully argued a special defence of alibi. He had gall, I’ll say that. He never tried to hide, like most of the others. But there again, that actually worked in his favour. Flight is a judicially acceptable indicator of possible guilt.’

‘So you think he was innocent?’

‘Like hell. Goran Vuja i c was clever and more than a little lucky. I wasn’t personally involved in his case, but I was able to access the files through OSCE.’ Lange referred to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. ‘Vuja i c had already assembled a gang around him. The writing was on the wall as soon as NATO got involved in the conflict and I think that Vuja i c started to look at the bigger picture. But Vuja i c was there. In the rape camps. In the forests by the mass graves. He was up to his elbows in it all, except that he had half a dozen affidavits swearing he was lying wounded in a hospital bed in Banja Luka.’

‘This unit or gang of his… Petra Meissner of the Sabine Charity told me they called themselves the Dogheads or something.’

‘Yep. Psoglav. It’s Serbian for “doghead”, but it’s also a mythical creature that Serbs — Bosnian Serbs in particular — used to believe in. A pagan demon or werewolf-type thing. The Psoglav unit was little more than an organised-crime gang and that’s exactly what it became after the conflict. There was talk — little more than a rumour, mind — that Vuja i c and his Psoglav chums got heavily involved in people trafficking after the Bosnian War. All kinds of bad stuff: organ farming, selling women into the sex trade, slave-labour sweatshops, that kind of thing. But you’d have to talk to the Europol organised-crime division about that. As far as I’m aware, Vuja i c was not directly active in Northern Europe. Sorry, that’s not that helpful, is it?’

‘I appreciate it anyway,’ said Fabel.

‘One thing I would say,’ said Lange, ‘is that Vuja i c was one of the most evil sons of bitches to walk the earth. The stories about what he did to Bosniaks, Croats and ethnic Albanians

… particularly what he did to women. I tell you, I saw more than my fair share of beasts out there, and Vuja i c was right up there with the worst of them. Unfortunately it’s not always about who deserves justice most, but about who you can get the evidence on. Vuja i c was such a cunning little bastard that we never had anything more than rumour on him. It’s not a very policeman-like thing to say, but when he got topped my first reaction was that he got what he deserved. The only pity is that he didn’t suffer the same way the people who fell into his hands did.’

Fabel nodded, watching Lange. There are some things, he thought, even in this job, that it’s better not to see. To know. At that moment he knew he was talking to someone whose dreams were even darker, even more terrifying, than his own.

‘Thanks, Michael,’ said Fabel. ‘If anything else comes to mind, please let me know.’

Fabel and Karin Vestergaard had just stepped through the revolving doors and into the bright double-storey reception atrium of the Police Presidium in Alsterdorf when they were stopped in their tracks by a determined-looking Anna Wolff.

‘Don’t take your coats off,’ she said, with a grin. ‘We’ll take your car, Chef. I’ll give you directions. There’s someone I want you to meet…’

The cafe Anna took them to was in the Sachsentor pedestrian zone in Hamburg-Bergedorf. When they arrived, a young woman with a pretty but rather severe face and long dark hair was waiting for them. Sandra Kraus sat with a huge canvas bag at her side, the strap still over her shoulder, and tapped the cafe table with the tips of her fingers as Fabel, Vestergaard and Anna approached, almost as if she was announcing their arrival with a drum roll. She didn’t stand up but smiled at them. Fabel noticed that it was like when Karin Vestergaard smiled: nothing of it seemed to reach the eyes.

‘I’ve known Sandra since we were kids,’ said Anna after she had done the introductions. ‘She was the smartest student in the whole school. And she is an absolutely brilliant cryptologist.’

‘Really?’ said Fabel with genuine interest but looking questioningly at Anna. He was slightly distracted as Kraus drummed her fingers again on the tabletop. He turned to her and found the intensity of her gaze disturbing, as if she was looking at him as an object rather than a person.

‘Yes — really,’ said Anna, with more than a hint of defiance. ‘And trust me, bringing you here to meet Sandra isn’t a waste of time. I gave her a copy of Muliebritas. The same issue we found in Drescher’s flat.’

‘Does she know…?’

Anna shook her head. ‘You told us to keep a lid on the Drescher thing and that’s exactly what I’ve done. Sandra only knows that we may have a coded message in this magazine. To be honest, that’s all she’s interested in.’

‘And did she find anything?’ asked Vestergaard.

‘It took her five minutes to find the message and crack the code. No more.’

‘Are you trying to tell me that an amateur cryptologist can break a code created by one of the world’s most successful secret police and espionage agencies?’ Fabel smiled patronisingly.

Kraus drummed her fingers on the table again, took a sip of her coffee and then spoke briskly. ‘I have advantages that they didn’t have. I have an inbuilt ability to recognise patterns in things. What you see as complexity, I see as structure and ultimately simplicity.’

‘There’s more,’ said Anna. ‘I got all of the issues of Muliebritas for the last three years. Drescher was using it regularly to communicate with the Valkyrie. Sandra has decoded dozens of messages.’

‘It really wasn’t that difficult. The person who called himself “Uncle Georg” in the announcements used a combination of polyalphabetic cyphers. Basically he used a Vigenere Square with a staggered shift of Caesar cyphers. Basic stuff. For example…’

She took a pad and pencil out of the huge shoulder bag and wrote ALTONABALKONSFOURTHIRTYPMTHURSDAY on the pad. Fabel noticed that Kraus’s handwriting was perfect, the capital letters corresponded exactly with the lines on the pad.

‘That becomes VLEYLRJEGKZXQWWYMTSSPKGTHT-SEPJLET,’ she continued. ‘Of course, a long jumble of letters like that would be very easily noticed by anyone looking at the magazine, and would attract the attention of any cryptologist, so he buried them in several personal ads throughout the announcements section. He put in thanks notices that listed names. The initials would give several of the encrypted letters in each announcement.’

‘And you’re absolutely positive that you have interpreted the codes correctly?’ asked Fabel.

‘Like I said, it was a simple enough encryption. In principle. But for three hundred years the Vigenere cypher was considered unbreakable simply because to decode the encryption you have to know which word was used as the keyword. In other words, what the vertical letters are on the axis of the Vigenere Square.’

‘And you worked it out?’ asked Fabel. ‘How?’

‘I just saw it. I have this knack for frequency analysis of letters and recognition of common pairings. I read all the messages and I could see the patterns. You’re only supposed to be able to do frequency analysis with monoalphabetic cyphers; not with a polyalphabetic cypher like this one where an encrypted letter can be decoded as more than one original.’

‘But Sandra can do it,’ said Anna with clear pride in her friend’s abilities. ‘Tell him the keyword, Sandra.’

‘Valkyrie,’ said Kraus, again drumming out the same tattoo with her fingertips on the tabletop. ‘The word used as the keyword was Valkyrie.’

As Anna drove back to the Presidium, Fabel sat in the passenger seat and went through the messages Sandra Kraus had decoded.

‘These are all times and places,’ said Fabel over his shoulder to Vestergaard, who sat in the back. ‘Obviously he passed anything sensitive on in person. This was just used to set up a meeting.’

‘So that means we can now do exactly the same,’ said Vestergaard. ‘We can lure this Valkyrie out into the open. Assuming she really doesn’t know about Drescher’s death.’

‘We’ve still got the lid tight on that, but for how much longer I don’t know.’ Fabel turned to Anna. ‘That’s an interesting friend you’ve got there.’

‘Sandra? She’s great. She has a genius IQ.’

‘I guessed that much,’ Fabel said, with a small laugh.

‘And she’s an Aspie.’

‘A what?’

‘Did you notice her drumming her fingers all the time? Same rhythm, same number of beats. Or how she’s got an unnerving way of seeking eye contact with you?’

‘As a matter of fact I did,’ said Fabel.

‘Sandra has Asperger’s syndrome. But she calls herself an Aspie. She doesn’t see herself as a sufferer from a disability. Just different, and she’s cool with that. She campaigns for a group that promotes neurodiversity… the idea that there is more than one type of mind. She calls us NTs — Neurologically Typical.’

‘I thought people with Asperger’s have difficulty with interpersonal relationships. You said she’s your friend…’ said Vestergaard from the back seat.

‘A good friend,’ said Anna. ‘Sandra has problems in some areas, but, as you could see, there are compensations in others. And she has taught herself coping strategies and stuff. I’ve learned not to judge. It’s funny: Sandra said that one of the stereotypes people have of Aspies is that they have little or no empathy for the feelings of others. That’s why it’s often difficult to recognise a male Aspie: who can tell the difference from a normal man?’

Vestergaard gave a loud laugh. Fabel shrugged.

‘Well, one thing’s for sure,’ he said. ‘Your friend Sandra has probably given us our biggest break in this case so far.’

The preliminary forensics survey of Sparwald’s house had, as expected, surrendered nothing much. Fabel was surprised, however, at just how much Astrid Bremer had been able to read from such meagre trace evidence. She was still at Poppenbuttel when she phoned him at his office in the Presidium.

‘I’ve had the body removed and we’ll get the autopsy report, obviously. But my guess is that the victim was dead before he hit the floor. The killer put another bullet in him, firing along the victim’s already supine body and causing an entry wound under his chin. Very professional job. The last shot was probably insurance. Professional meticulousness.’

‘There was a similar murder outside Oslo,’ said Fabel. ‘Exactly the same modus.’

‘My guess is that the victim didn’t let the killer into the house. There was a book beside him on the floor. No prints other than his own and it’s obvious he dropped it when he was shot. And I found powder traces on the wall by the lounge door and on the edge of the door itself. Again no prints on the door handle or anywhere else that I could see. I’m guessing that the killer opened the lounge door, stepped in and fired before the victim had time to respond. The killer didn’t need to go any further into the room, so she retraced her steps back along the hall to the front door. It was a hunch, but I was right: there is no evidence of the door having been forced, but there is some fresh scratching around the lock. She picked it.’

‘But nothing we can get DNA from? Or any trace of any kind?’ Fabel failed to conceal his frustration.

‘A faint partial bootprint in the hall, bearing traces of soil from the garden, but that could have been anyone’s and made at any time. And, anyway, it’s not big enough to give us a match.’

‘Great,’ said Fabel.

‘Sorry. I did my best,’ said Astrid and, even over the phone, Fabel could tell that she meant it. ‘I went over everything three times. Tried all the tricks. There just wasn’t anything to find.’

‘It’s not your fault. Holger told me that if anyone could get something, you could. He also said you’re the best he’s worked with for cold scenes.’

‘Thanks,’ Astrid said. ‘But whoever killed Sparwald is better.’

After he’d hung up Fabel made his way into the main Murder Commission meeting room. Werner, Anna, Henk and Dirk were waiting for him. He had also invited Karin Vestergaard to join them, but she had phoned in to say she’d be a few minutes late.

‘You know,’ said Werner, ‘if we’re looking for a Valkyrie, we couldn’t go far wrong looking at the Danish ice maiden. She’s a cold one all right.’

‘She’s a good cop, from what I can see,’ said Fabel.

‘Listen,’ said Anna, ‘while we’re on the subject of people we should be thinking about… I’m not being funny, but there are two women we should maybe take a long hard look at. Martina Schilmann and Petra Meissner.’

‘Why Martina?’ Fabel searched Anna’s face for meaning. ‘She’s ex-Polizei Hamburg, for God’s sake.’

‘She was also involved with Westland and was there at the scene. Let’s face it, we’ve only got her word that she was at the opposite end of Herbertstrasse all the time she said she was. And she was brought up in the GDR, as was Petra Meissner. Both fall within the age range we have for the Valkyrie.’

‘What?’ said Fabel dismissively. ‘So now we’re going to suspect all women from East Germany? We’d better bring in Chancellor Merkel, then. She was brought up in Brandenburg, after all.’ Fabel sarcastically put on an expression of enlightenment. ‘And she was in the Free German Youth!’

‘Seriously, Chef,’ pressed Anna. ‘We can’t ignore the fact that two women involved with Jake Westland spent their youth in the GDR.’

‘But Martina’s background will have been thoroughly checked out before she was allowed to join the Polizei Hamburg. And I would say that Petra Meissner’s public profile is far too visible for her to operate as a professional killer.’

‘Maybe so,’ said Anna. ‘But if Martina Schilmann is the Valkyrie, then her backstory in the GDR would be as solid as it could be…’

‘Okay, check it out.’ Fabel turned to Hechtner. ‘Dirk, were you able to get any more on who “Olaf” might be — the name in Jespersen’s notebook?’

‘Nope, sorry, Chef. From the little we’ve been able to piece together, there’s nothing to suggest Drescher ever used “Olaf” as a pseudonym. No Olafs that we can see connected to Goran Vuja i c, Jake Westland or Armin Lensch either. We’re still looking into any Olaf that Ralf Sparwald might have known.’

‘It could be incidental,’ said Fabel. ‘Maybe nothing to it all.’

Fabel waited until Vestergaard arrived and the rest of the team had assembled in the Incident Room.

‘Okay. We’ve got a break,’ he said addressing the whole team. ‘Thanks to Anna, we’ve cracked the code behind Drescher’s messages to the Valkyrie. All the messages have been simple time-and-place set-ups for meetings. It’s an example of institutional thinking. They formed their working system in a time before reunification, using the methods of the Cold War. I’m guessing that Drescher was uncomfortable with new technology, otherwise they could have used the Internet or anonymous email accounts. Having said that, there’s no evidence that they didn’t use these means in addition to the magazine announcements.’

‘Why do it at all?’ asked Werner. ‘After all, they could have simply phoned each other. No one knew who Drescher was and she could have had an untraceable cellphone.’

‘Like I said, institutional thinking. Drescher was in the same city as the Valkyrie, but their entire relationship had been created to operate at long distances, with the Valkyrie working on her own most of the time. When they set up in Hamburg, post-Reunification, they kept their old way of working. Inflexibility, I suppose.’

As he spoke, Fabel noticed that Astrid Bremer, the deputy head of the forensics team, had come into the Incident Room and was standing at the back.

‘Anyway,’ continued Fabel, ‘we’ve managed to get the cooperation of Muliebritas magazine. They’re going to hold us a space in the next issue. It’s due out next week, so we’ve had to work fast to get our wording right. There doesn’t seem to be any regular meeting place. The only common element is that it seems to always be in an open space, presumably so she can check it out as she approaches him, but with enough people around for them to be inconspicuous. As far as we can see, all meetings have been in Altona or Hamburg city centre.’

‘What about the Rathausplatz in front of the City Chambers?’ asked Anna. ‘We could put someone on each corner and on the U-Bahn entrance.’

‘I suspect that would be a little too public for the Valkyrie. Drescher always picked quieter venues. People milling about but not crowds. The other thing is we want to limit the risk to the public if things go pear-shaped.’

‘What if we used the Altona Balkon?’ asked Werner.

‘Drescher used it once before, as far as we can see. The last meeting, in fact.’

‘What about the Alsterpark next to where you used to live, Chef?’ said Anna. ‘On the shores of the Outer Alster? It would be reasonably easy to secure but quite difficult for the Valkyrie to spot us.’

Fabel thought for a moment. ‘That sounds good. Anybody have any objections?’

There were none.

‘Okay,’ said Fabel to Werner. ‘Let’s get this encrypted and spread across three announcements, the way Drescher did: “Alsterpark at Fahrdamm. Eleven-thirty, Wednesday”. That gives us a week to get it all set up. In the meantime, I’m going to do a bit of digging into Goran Vuja i c ’s history. It was his untimely demise that brought Jens Jespersen to Hamburg.’ He turned to Vestergaard and spoke in English. ‘I’d like you to come along with me, if that’s okay. I’d also like us both to go and visit Gina Bronsted. The NeuHansa Group keeps cropping up in all of this.’

‘Of course,’ she said and smiled in a way so cool that it reminded him of Margarethe Paulus. ‘It would be my pleasure.’

After Fabel had set the team about their various tasks, Astrid Bremer came over to him. She looked young and girlish and, for a moment, Fabel found it difficult to imagine her being an expert on death.

‘I think I have something,’ she said.

‘From Sparwald’s house?’ asked Fabel hopefully.

‘No, from the Drescher apartment. We have a fingerprint specialist who can extrapolate prints from very faint or old traces. I found a packet of Rondo Melange, the popular East German coffee. I just thought it was odd that a man trying so hard to conceal his Stasi past and living with a phoney West German history would have something like that in his cupboard. Well, I’ve just heard back from my fingerprint guy. We’ve got a print that doesn’t belong.’

‘The coffee was a gift?’

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Astrid. ‘And a gift from someone who knew of Drescher’s GDR background. And that could only be one person …’

Fabel had just walked into his office to fetch his coat when his phone rang.

‘Hello, Principal Chief Commissar Fabel? This is Dr Luttig — Thomas Luttig at SkK Biotech. I heard about Ralf… one of your people came round. A young woman.’

‘Commissar Wolff, yes. I’m sorry about Dr Sparwald, I know you valued him as a colleague.’

‘He was my friend as well, Chief Commissar. Anyway, you asked me to tell you if anything out of the ordinary came up. Well, after I heard about Ralf I spent the afternoon going through all his stuff. There is something… It would appear Ralf was doing some work for which there’s no company authorisation. Some kind of private project.’

‘Oh?’ Fabel reached into his drawer and took a notebook out. ‘What kind of private project?’

‘From what I can see, he has been having blood samples tested. Not many — it looks like just three samples, each from a different donor. I found the samples and some paperwork. It seems very strange indeed.’

‘How so?’

‘The tests were very specific. Ralf seems to have been looking for PBDEs. Also, he was doing the tests himself and wasn’t keeping proper records. But I did find a note relating to each of the samples. The first said: female, twenty-two, Hunan Province.’

‘China…’ Fabel spoke as much to himself as to Luttig.

‘Yes. But the second one isn’t. It says: female, twenty-two, Bitola.’

‘Bitola?’

‘I checked it out on the Internet. It’s a city in Macedonia. Very industrial.’

‘What are these PBDEs?’ asked Fabel.

‘Polybrominated diphenyl ethers. They’re used a lot in flame-retardants. And in a thousand other things. There’s a great deal of concern about their toxicity.’

‘You said there was a third sample. What was that labelled?’

‘Well, yes… it’s this third sample that’s causing me the most concern. It was labelled Hunan Province, same as the first blood sample. But it’s human tissue. And, from the tests Ralf was doing, I’m guessing it’s a sample of human thyroid. Which means it has been taken post-mortem. And there’s something else.’

‘What?’

‘From what I can see of his results, the level of PBDEs in these samples is astronomical.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Fabel. ‘Could it be fatal?’

‘Potentially, yes. Like I said, they’re incredibly toxic and you need a special licence to dispose of them. The jury is still out on what damage they actually do, but they are suspected of causing problems with the thyroid gland, the endocrine system generally and even neurological damage.’

‘Thanks — that could be useful, Dr Luttig.’ Fabel paused. ‘By the way, does the name “Olaf” mean anything to you? Someone whom Ralf Sparwald may have known?’

‘No, I can’t think of anyone. Is it important?’

‘Probably not,’ said Fabel.

He didn’t like business types.

It didn’t matter how exalted or lowly they were in their arcane corporate hierarchies, they all, to Fabel, seemed to have had some kind of personality-ectomy. He had recently flown to Frankfurt for a meeting with the city’s Murder Commission. On the flight, Fabel had sat in his British tailored sports jacket surrounded by Boss-suited clones and feeling like an extra in the film Gattaca. He had promised himself he would blow his brains out with his SIG-Sauer before owning a BlackBerry.

Fabel even found it difficult at times to hide his disdain for the type of police officers who seemed to be in ‘the business of policing’ and who dressed in the same corporate-clone style as their commercial counterparts.

But it was the business leaders at the top of the tree who wound Fabel up most of all. Sometimes, it was as if they thought themselves medieval barons. In a way, Fabel supposed, they had a point: Hamburg was a city, and a state, that had built its history and independence on a foundation of trade. Instead of having total control over the lives of serfs and bondsmen, the Hanseatic city’s tycoons and magnates held employees, subsidiaries, suppliers and not a few of Hamburg’s politicians in their thrall. And most of Hamburg’s politicians were businessmen themselves.

It had been Fabel’s experience that Hamburg’s business leaders often felt themselves above and beyond the reach of common mortals like policemen.

So it didn’t surprise Fabel that it took his personal intervention to arrange an appointment with Gina Bronsted. He had asked one of the Presidium’s administrative assistants to set up a meeting but she had got nowhere, constantly being fobbed off by someone comparatively low down in the NeuHansa food chain.

‘That’s not a problem,’ Fabel had said when Bronsted’s secretary’s secretary’s assistant had said it was ‘quite impossible’ for an appointment to be made within the next week or so. ‘I quite understand that Frau Bronsted is very busy. I’ll send a marked police car to her home tonight and bring her into the Presidium. And don’t worry, I’ll be sure to tell her that you were so protective of her office time.’

Fabel was informed that Gina Bronsted would see him later that afternoon. As soon as the appointment was confirmed he phoned Hans Gessler of the corporate crime division and asked him if he would mind coming along at such short notice.

‘Will you be bringing along the Little Mermaid?’ asked Gessler.

‘What are you talking about?’ Fabel was genuinely confused.

‘That little Danish beauty I’ve heard you’ve grown attached to.’

‘If you mean Politidirektor Karin Vestergaard, then yes, as a matter of fact she will be there. Gina Bronsted is a Flensburg Dane and I thought it might be useful. And anyway, Politidirektor Vestergaard has a direct interest in this case.’

‘Count me in,’ said Gessler.

Given the trouble that he had had in securing an appointment with Gina Bronsted, Fabel was surprised when, as he was leaving the Presidium, he was handed a note at reception telling him that Gennady Frolov’s office had been looking for him, asking if it would be possible for Fabel to talk with the Russian. Frolov was on Fabel’s to do list and he made a mental note to follow up the call when he got back.

The NeuHansa Group had its offices in a brand-new building in the HafenCity. Fabel had picked up Gessler and Vestergaard and drove through the city from the Presidium down to the shores of the Elbe. They crossed over the short cantilevered bridge into the Speicherstadt.

‘This is amazing,’ said Vestergaard as they entered the maze of narrow cobbled streets, cathedral-sized red-brick warehouses and interconnecting canals.

‘The Speicherstadt was a toll-free zone right up until a few years ago,’ said Gessler eagerly, leaning over from the back seat. ‘I think it was two thousand and four… up until then the Speicherstadt was an independent free port and the world’s biggest bonded area.’

Gessler was a shortish but good-looking man in his forties with a reputation for being a bit of a ladykiller. Fabel had noticed when he picked him up at the Presidium that Gessler was wearing a Hugo Boss suit. And tapping something into his BlackBerry.

Fabel had also noticed that Gessler’s eyes had lit up as soon as he had introduced him to Karin Vestergaard. The light had failed to catch in hers.

‘There’s been a lot of new building,’ explained Fabel. ‘The Hanseatic Trade Centre in the Speicherstadt itself as well as the HafenCity, which is all new. Gina Bronsted has headquartered her NeuHansa Group in one of the biggest and newest buildings. Rumour has it she has a thirteen-million-euro penthouse apartment above the shop, as it were.’

They passed through the Speicherstadt and into the HafenCity. Glass and steel were everywhere, but it was obvious an effort had been made to extend something of the spirit of the old Speicherstadt into the architecture of the twenty-first century.

‘Very impressive,’ said Vestergaard.

‘It’s not finished,’ said Gessler. ‘There’s going to be an opera house to compete with Sydney — the Elbphilharmonie Concert Hall.’

‘How do you want to handle this, Jan?’ asked Vestergaard as if she hadn’t heard Gessler.

‘I’ll ask her about Lensch, her employee, and Claasens, the export agent. She also met Westland the night he died. This is all quite… involved. She’s a Flensburg Dane — I think I told you that already — meaning she’s German by nationality but Danish by ethnicity and first language. If I’m struggling, maybe you can jump in. Also, I’ll leave the questioning about Jespersen to you.’ Fabel turned and spoke to Gessler. ‘Hans, I smell a rat here. I’m not saying Bronsted herself is directly involved with any of these killings, but NeuHansa is always there in the background.’

‘I don’t interrogate people, Jan — I interrogate paperwork and computer data. If there’s a link between NeuHansa and these murders, then there will be something on file, somewhere, something that might look innocuous but which will point us in the right direction. I need to get access to their files. When you introduce me, it would be best not to disclose my department, unless she asks specifically.’

‘Okay.’ Fabel swung his door open and got out, followed by Gessler and Vestergaard. He heard Gessler give a low appreciative whistle and when he turned he half expected the corporate cop to be staring at Karin Vestergaard’s legs. Instead Fabel followed his eyes to a massive, sleek luxury motor yacht anchored further down the quay. The yacht had the look of something equally suited for space travel as sailing: a long, elegant white needle with a superstructure of black glass and elongated arches. A helicopter sat on the aft deck.

‘I know what that is,’ said Gessler. ‘That’s the Snow Queen. Ninety metres and it came in at about a million euros a metre.’

‘Gennady Frolov’s yacht?’ asked Fabel, his eyes still following the lines of the mega-yacht. Fabel was not a sailor, and he had no real interest in boats, but it struck him that the Snow Queen was one of the most graceful objects he had ever seen.

‘Yep,’ said Gessler. ‘Take a good look… this is as close as you or I will ever get to that kind of wealth.’

They headed into the NeuHansa Group building. A receptionist who looked as if she’d been recruited from a model agency rather than a business school asked them to wait in the vast pillared atrium. They sat on one of the dozen white leather sofas, each of which looked several times more expensive than the one that Fabel and Susanne had at home. Like the mega-yacht docked half a kilometre along the quay, this was intimidation by wealth.

‘Do you want to get a drink afterwards?’ asked Gessler while they waited. ‘We could deconstruct the interview.’

‘Sorry,’ said Fabel, although he knew the true direction of Gessler’s invitation. ‘I’m meeting a friend in town.’

‘And I have work to do for my office in Copenhagen,’ said Vestergaard without a smile.

After waiting ten minutes, they were conducted up to the eighth floor of the NeuHansa building.

The office suite was populated only by a few workstations and a handful of male and female staff who looked as if they’d come from the same model agency as the downstairs receptionist. Another point in the making: a lavish underuse of some of the most expensive floor space in Hamburg. Fabel, Gessler and Vestergaard were led into an inner office. It was huge and plush and looked more like a trendy hotel suite than a working environment. A tall, slim woman in her early to mid forties stepped out from behind an impossibly huge desk, indicating that they should all take a seat on the sofas arranged around a coffee table. Gina Bronsted was what Fabel would have described as a handsome woman. Attractive, but with a jaw so strong that it hinted at the masculine. Her blonde hair was cut shortish, but in a manner that softened the severity of her features. Everything about her — her hair, her cream jacket and skirt suit, the matching shoes, her simple sky-blue blouse — was understated and tasteful. It also screamed wealth. Fabel realised he was looking at the flesh and blood equivalent of the luxury yacht anchored outside.

‘Frau Bronsted?’ asked Fabel, remaining standing.

‘Herr Fabel.’ She smiled and extended her hand. ‘Please… sit. Excuse me a moment.’ She walked over to the door and said something to the woman who had shown them in.

‘I’ve asked Svend Langstrup to join us. Herr Langstrup is in charge of all security matters as well as being one of my team of legal advisers.’

Fabel responded by introducing Karin Vestergaard and Hans Gessler. As Gessler had suggested, Fabel didn’t mention that he was from the Polizei Hamburg’s corporate crime division.

On hearing Vestergaard’s name, Gina Bronsted smiled broadly and began speaking in Danish. After a short exchange she turned back to Fabel.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t often get a chance to speak my native language.’

‘If you don’t mind, for Frau Vestergaard’s sake we’ll speak in English.’

‘That’s not necessary,’ said Vestergaard in lightly accented German. ‘I’ll be able to follow what’s said.’

Fabel stared at Vestergaard blankly for a moment. ‘Good…’ he said. He gave a small laugh and shook his head. ‘That will save a lot of time…’

‘I must say, Herr Fabel, that I have a pretty good idea what it is you want to talk to me about. I’ve already been through it all with that annoyingly persistent lady from HansSat TV.’

‘Sylvie Achtenhagen?’ Fabel shook his head. ‘She’s been here?’

‘Pushing her luck. I reminded her that I had a controlling stake in the station she worked for. She’s a very arrogant individual, you know.’

‘You don’t say,’ said Fabel without a hint of irony. At that moment a tall dark-haired man of about forty walked into the room and smiled at everybody. He was slim, but broad across the shoulders. At some point his nose had been broken and there was a faint scar on his forehead, just above the eye. He didn’t look to Fabel like a legal adviser, unless lawsuits in Denmark were settled in a boxing ring. The man introduced himself as Langstrup and sat down.

‘You take care of security for Frau Bronsted?’ asked Fabel.

‘Amongst other things, yes,’ answered Langstrup, without the Danish accent that Fabel had expected. Fabel guessed he was a German Dane like Bronsted herself. ‘With Frau Bronsted’s rising political profile, as well as her success in business, there are sometimes threats to her safety.’

‘There have been threats?’ asked Vestergaard.

‘Potential threats.’

‘We’re here to discuss a number of recent deaths. All of these deaths have some connection to the NeuHansa Group. Not always directly, but there always seems to be a tie-in.’

Gina Bronsted frowned. ‘Naturally if we can help we will do all we can.’

‘You are standing for Principal Mayor, Frau Bronsted?’

‘That’s public knowledge. I don’t see-’

‘Could you tell me something about your political platxform?’ asked Fabel.

‘I really don’t see the relevance,’ said Langstrup.

‘Indulge me,’ said Fabel to Bronsted, ignoring Langstrup. ‘Let’s say I’m a floating voter.’

‘My political platform is pretty much the same as the one my business is built on. Europe is unifying: some day soon there will be a Federal Europe and its economic power will dwarf that of the United States and even emerging superpowers like China and India. Already Europe is an economic and mercantile singularity. That means that old national borders are meaningless and there is an opportunity for new transnational alliances to be built. I am not a German politician. I am a Hamburg politician. As far as business is concerned, my vision is to build alliances with other Northern European cities and create and share the kind of prosperity that national governments are incapable of delivering.’

‘Like the old Hanseatic League,’ said Fabel. ‘Hence the NeuHansa name.’

‘The Hanseatic League is long dead and gone. Hamburg adopted the title “Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg” a century and a half after the League had ceased to be an active economic or political force. But the idea lived on. You still see it today — all around you. Here. If the Hanseatic ideal hadn’t lived on in the Hamburg psyche, then the Speicherstadt would not have been built here. And this, the HafenCity — it’s another example of Hamburg’s independence and entrepreneurial spirit.’ Bronsted talked with force but, Fabel thought, without genuine passion. He realised he was listening to a party political broadcast. Well, he thought, he had asked for it, after all.

‘Ten, fifteen years ago,’ continued Bronsted, ‘when the rest of Europe was navel-gazing about the future of the world economy, Hamburg saw that China and the Far East, as well as Eastern Europe, offered a massive trading opportunity. So we acted and built dedicated facilities to make the most of that opportunity. Look at what’s happening just a few hundred metres from here in Sandtorhafen. A vast area of the HafenCity devoted exclusively to trade with China. Do you realise that of the ten point eight million container units Hamburg is expected to handle this year, one out of every five of those containers will be traffic to or from China? My politics are simple. Hamburg needs the freedom and independence to build on her successes, to build alliances with other cities in Scandinavia and the Baltic and together to outclass every other trading location in the world.’

‘All good in theory,’ said Fabel. ‘But, like you said, ultimately the Hanseatic League failed.’

‘It lasted in one form or another for nearly three hundred years, Herr Fabel. It was a superpower within Europe. A mercantile rather than a military superpower. It had military might, but it hardly ever used it. War is bad for business. I think that’s a pretty good model for the future of Europe.’

‘But you’re a Dane,’ said Karin Vestergaard. ‘A German Dane, admittedly, but you know that unbridled capitalism just doesn’t fit with the Danish character. Yet you include Copenhagen in your plans.’

‘This isn’t unbridled capitalism,’ said Bronsted. ‘It’s about generating great wealth and sharing it. Capitalism with social democracy. And nothing could be more Danish as a concept.’

‘I’m sure you didn’t come here just to discuss the politics of the NeuHansa Party,’ Langstrup said. Fabel noticed Langstrup had small, hard eyes.

‘Could you tell me what you know about Armin Lensch?’ Fabel asked Bronsted. ‘The young man who worked in your export department.’

‘Nothing.’ Bronsted shrugged. ‘I have over a thousand employees. Obviously I was distressed to hear about his death. And the manner of his death. But I wasn’t even aware of his name until I was informed that the latest victim of the Angel of St Pauli was an employee.’

‘Would you mind if we had a look at Lensch’s recent workload?’ asked Gessler. He smiled his ladykiller’s charming smile. ‘It might help us.’

‘Help you how?’ asked Langstrup. ‘His death was clearly not connected to his work.’

‘Oh,’ said Fabel. ‘And how can you be so sure of that?’

‘He was the victim of a random serial killer, for God’s sake.’

‘Not so random, as far as I can see,’ said Fabel without diverting his attention from Gina Bronsted. ‘It is by no means certain that the so-called Angel of St Pauli was responsible for Lensch’s death. And, if you prefer, we can obtain a court order to see his files.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Bronsted and Fabel thought he caught her fire a warning look at Langstrup. As if she was saying: Be seen to cooperate. ‘Just let us know what you need to see.’

‘We won’t know until we see it,’ said Gessler. ‘So we’ll have to look at everything, really.’

‘I saw Gennady Frolov’s yacht, the Snow Queen, moored along the quay. Do you have business dealings with him?’ asked Fabel.

‘The yacht is there because that is the regular mooring for private vessels of that size. But yes, I have had dealings with Herr Frolov. In fact, I have an interest in the Flensburg boatyard that designed and built the Snow Queen.’

‘Vantage North?’ asked Vestergaard.

‘Yes — Vantage North.’ Bronsted made an insincerely impressed face. ‘You’ve done your homework.’

‘And other than your involvement with Vantage North, do you have any other dealings with Frolov?’ asked Fabel.

‘As a matter of fact, we are in the middle of negotiations over a joint project. An environmental project.’

‘Through your company Norivon?’

‘Yes. Why the interest in Herr Frolov?’

‘Do you know Peter Claasens, the export agent?’

‘Of course I do… or did. I heard about his suicide. Claasens Exporting did some work with us. Occasionally.’

‘Did you ever meet him?’

‘Maybe once. Or twice. Official functions, company events or exhibitions, that kind of thing.’ Bronsted smiled politely and held Fabel in her earnest Danish-blue gaze. There it was, he thought: impatience. Annoyance. Just a hint of it, but enough.

‘And you met Jake Westland the night he died?’

‘Before he died, yes. Before his performance. He was supposed to come to a post-event party but didn’t turn up.’

‘What did you talk about?’ asked Vestergaard. Again Fabel noticed how good her newly found German was.

‘The event. The charity — the Sabine Charity — that the concert was in aid of. I really can’t remember: it was the usual meaningless chit-chat.’

‘Did he do or say anything out of the ordinary?’ asked Fabel. ‘Did he seem preoccupied or distracted?’

‘No.’ Bronsted frowned and made too big a show of trying to remember. ‘No, I can’t say that he did.’

‘Okay,’ said Fabel in a way that suggested he was mentally ticking off names on a list. ‘Another employee, another death…’

‘Ralf Sparwald?’ interjected Langstrup who had followed the exchange intently, his small hard eyes on Fabel.

‘Ralf Sparwald,’ repeated Fabel, still focused on Bronsted.

‘I’m afraid I didn’t know him either. I heard about his murder. Is it connected to Armin Lensch’s?’

‘So, to summarise…’ Fabel ignored the question. ‘You didn’t really know Jake Westland, who died within a matter of hours of talking to you; you didn’t really know Armin Lensch who was the next victim in St Pauli and who happened to work for you; you didn’t really know Peter Claasens and met him only a couple of times, but he was an export agent who worked under contract to your company and fell to his death; and you really didn’t know Ralf Sparwald, another of your employees, who was professionally executed in his own home.’

Langstrup leaned forward on the sofa, his small, hard eyes smaller and harder. ‘If you have a specific accusation to make against Frau Bronsted, I suggest you make it. But if you continue with these insinuations, then this interview is at an end. And I think you should bear in mind the fact that Frau Bronsted is standing for Principal Mayor…’

Fabel didn’t answer for a moment but watched Gina Bronsted, who remained impassive and silent. ‘Let me get this absolutely clear,’ he said to Langstrup. ‘I am investigating a series of murders and this interview only ends when I say it ends. I am quite happy to make it more formal and move it to the Murder Commission. Secondly, you’re supposed to be in charge of NeuHansa’s security. Did it never strike you as strange that so many people working for or connected to the company are meeting untimely ends? It must be saving your pension fund a fortune.’

‘As a matter of fact it did,’ said Langstrup. ‘We’ve been looking into it. My people have found no link between the company and the deaths. Coincidence. The NeuHansa Group has thousands of employees, hundreds of contractors and subcontractors — it’s not really that much of a stretch.’

Fabel laughed in disbelief. ‘A few years ago, I hunted a serial killer who was obsessed with fairy tales. I tell you, Herr Langstrup, he was more anchored in reality than you are if you believe that a NeuHansa connection with every murder we are investigating is a coincidence.’

‘Well, not every murder has a NeuHansa connection…’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Fabel.

For a moment Langstrup looked caught off guard. ‘Oh, wait… no, you’re right. I thought the Claasens death wasn’t connected, but of course it is… I forgot he did work for us as an export agent.’

‘I see,’ said Fabel, exchanging a knowing look with Vestergaard.

‘The Chief Commissar has a point,’ Bronsted said to Langstrup. ‘I think we should be doing all that we can to cooperate.’

‘Of course.’ Langstrup smiled dryly.

Fabel asked that Hans Gessler be allowed full access to the company’s files. Bronsted offered predictable assurances that NeuHansa would do all it could to aid the investigation and instructed Langstrup to give Gessler anything he needed.

‘One more thing, Frau Bronsted,’ said Fabel. ‘Does the name Valkyrie mean anything to you?’ He watched her face for any reaction or recognition. All he got was a frown.

‘I don’t understand… I mean, of course it does, Germanic mythology, Wagner, that kind of thing… and of course the plot to kill Hitler-’

‘No, I mean in a business context. Does NeuHansa have anything to do with anything or anyone using that name?’

Bronsted pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘I can’t say that we do. I’ll check it out if you like.’

‘Have you ever heard of any of these women: Margarethe Paulus, Liane Kayser or Anke Wollner?’

‘Can’t say that any of those names ring a bell.’

Fabel could read nothing in Bronsted’s expression. He toyed with the idea of throwing in Georg Drescher’s name to see what kind of reaction it got, but decided against it. That was a lid he wanted to keep on tight for the meantime.

The rest of the interview was devoted to questions about details. About what Ralf Sparwald had been working on; about who else had talked with Westland at the pre-concert party; about the overlap of function between Norivon Environmental Technologies and SkK Biotech. About anything that Fabel thought he might be able to get some kind of reaction to. After about an hour, he stood up and thanked Bronsted for her time.

Once Fabel, Gessler and Vestergaard were outside on the street, Fabel drew a deep breath.

‘Hans,’ he said to Gessler without taking his eyes off the yacht. ‘Every NeuHansa file, every databank, every transaction — I want you all over that company like a rash. I’ll speak to the powers that be and get you all the time and people you need.’

‘I thought you might,’ said Gessler. ‘If there’s something there to be found, we’ll find it. I take it you now know who hired the Valkyrie? Or at least hired her through Drescher?’

‘Langstrup slipped up,’ said Fabel. ‘Of course there’s a murder that is not linked to the NeuHansa Group.’

‘Drescher’s,’ said Vestergaard.

‘Exactly. And we’ve nailed the lid down on that one for the time being. No one knows about it. Which means Langstrup, despite trying to cover it up, was talking about a murder that, as far as he and anyone outside the Murder Commission is concerned, hasn’t happened yet.’

‘The question remains,’ said Vestergaard, ‘whether Langstrup is running his own little empire or if Gina Bronsted herself is behind these killings.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Gessler. ‘Langstrup looks as if he knows how to handle himself. And he looks like he’s had more than one run-in with someone else who can handle themselves. But he just doesn’t strike me as the brains of the outfit.’

‘Me neither,’ said Fabel.

It was nearly the end of the working day. Fabel dropped Gessler off to pick up his car at the Presidium, made a quick call to Gennady Frolov’s office and fixed up an appointment in two days’ time. After doing a quick check with the Commission that nothing had come up while they had been out, Fabel drove Karin Vestergaard back to her hotel.

‘You know what I’m going to ask you, don’t you?’ he said, reverting to English again as they drove through the city centre.

‘I have a pretty good idea.’

‘You have a hell of a nerve, do you know that? I have extended you every professional courtesy. Damn it, I’ve extended personal courtesy and hospitality too. I introduced you to Susanne and you sat through the entire meal allowing us to believe we needed to speak English. I must say, you’re one hell of a fast learner. You seem to have progressed from not understanding a word to being totally bloody fluent in a matter of two weeks.’

‘ Ubung macht den Meister — isn’t that what you say in German? Practice makes perfect?’

Vestergaard was smiling mischievously. It totally disconcerted Fabel: it was the first time, other than brief glimpses during their meal together with Susanne, that he had seen anything like a genuine unguarded expression on her face.

‘I’m sorry, Jan,’ she continued. ‘You’re right, it was deceptive of me. But it really is better for me to speak in English.’

‘You didn’t seem to be struggling back there. Where the hell did you learn to speak German like that?’

‘I was brought up in South Jutland, just north of the border. My father was the opposite of Gina Bronsted: where she’s a Danish German, he was a German Dane. He spoke Sonderjysk dialect and German at home. German was my third language after English at school.’

‘Well, I can see you’ve retained a lot of it.’

‘There’s something else I ought to tell you…’ she said tentatively.

‘Okay, let’s have it.’

‘It wasn’t strictly true, what I told you about never having been to Hamburg before. I worked here during my breaks at university.’

‘Let me guess — to improve your German?’

‘Sorry.’

‘It doesn’t matter in itself, Karin, but we had a deal — how the hell am I to know what else you’ve kept to yourself?’

‘I’ve been totally straight with you, Jan. I just wasn’t sure that you’d be straight with me. I suppose I thought that if you thought I didn’t speak the language…’

‘And I take it by now your mind’s been put at ease?’ Fabel pulled into the semicircle of cobbles in front of the hotel.

‘Yes, it has. We’re on the same side, Jan. I promise you.’