JF01 - Blood Eagle

The first woman had her lungs ripped out. When the same gruesome ritualistic method was used again, it was clear that the same killer was responsible. But there is no precise evidence to link the two cases, except for the tantalising email. In his first crime novel, Craig Russell introduces us to a new detective hero, Jan Fabel – half-Scottish, half-German – a man of conscience and imagination.

Blood Eagle
is a violently exciting thriller and Fabel’s desperate attempt to solve the case before more victims are discovered gradually uncovers layer upon layer of intrigue. How can he track a murderer who leaves no trail, whose victims seem purposefully random and whose motive reaches far beyond greed and lust, into the darkest recesses of the human soul?

Craig Russell was born in 1956, in Fife, Scotland. He served as a police officer and worked in the advertising industry as a copywriter and creative director. In 2007, his second novel,
Brother Grimm
, was shortlisted for the CWA Duncan Lawrie Dagger, and in the same year he was presented with a
Polizeistern
(Police Star) award by the Polizei Hamburg for raising public awareness of the work of the Hamburg police. In 2008 he won the CWA Dagger in the Library.

For more information about Craig Russell and his books, please visit
www.craigrussell.com

Cover

About the Book

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Glossary

Epigraph

Part One: Wednesday 4 June and Thursday 5 June

Part Two: Friday 13 June to Tuesday 17 June

Part Three: Thursday 19 June to Sunday 22 June

Thanks and Acknowledgements

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Nowhere were the Dark Ages darker than in the lands of the Viking. Powerful cults flourished: cults whose superstitions and bloody rituals revolved around the most arcane beliefs. One of the most horrific of these rituals was the rite of the Blood Eagle.

A rite of human sacrifice.

TIME IS STRANGE, IS IT NOT? I WRITE AND YOU READ AND WE SHARE THE SAME MOMENT. YET AS I WRITE THIS, HERR HAUPTKOMMISSAR, YOU SLEEP AND MY NEXT VICTIM STILL LIVES: AS YOU READ IT, SHE IS ALREADY DEAD. OUR DANCE CONTINUES.

I HAVE SPENT ALL OF MY LIFE ON THE EDGE OF OTHER PEOPLE’S PHOTOGRAPHS. UNNOTICED. BUT DEEP WITHIN, UNKNOWN TO ME AND HIDDEN FROM THE WORLD, LAY THE SEED OF SOMETHING GREAT AND NOBLE.

NOW THAT GREATNESS SHINES THROUGH ME. NOT THAT I CLAIM GREATNESS FOR MYSELF: I AM MERELY THE INSTRUMENT, THE VEHICLE.

YOU HAVE SEEN WHAT I AM CAPABLE OF: MY SACRED ACT. IT IS NOW MY SACRED DUTY, MY MISSION, TO CONTINUE, JUST AS IT IS YOUR DUTY TO STOP ME. IT WILL TAKE YOU A LONG TIME TO FIND ME, HERR FABEL. BUT BEFORE YOU DO I SHALL HAVE SPREAD THE WINGS OF THE EAGLE FAR AND WIDE. I SHALL MAKE MY MARK, IN BLOOD, ON OUR SACRED SOIL.

YOU CAN STOP ME, BUT YOU WILL NEVER CATCH ME.

I SHALL NO LONGER BE AT THE EDGE OF OTHER PEOPLE’S PHOTOGRAPHS. IT IS MY TURN AT THE CENTRE.

SON OF SVEN

Wednesday 4 June, 4.30 a.m. Pöseldorf, Hamburg.

Fabel dreamed.

Hamburg’s element is water: there are more canals in Hamburg than in Amsterdam or Venice; the Aussenalster is the largest city-centre lake in Europe. It also rains throughout the year. Tonight, after a day when the air had lain over the city like a damp, stifling cloak, the heavens opened with vehemence.

As the thunderstorm outside flashed and growled its way across the city’s sky, images sparked across Fabel’s mind. Time imploded and folded in on itself. People and events separated by decades met in a place outside time. Fabel always dreamed of the same things: the untidiness of real life, the ends left loose, the stones left unturned. The unravelled ends of a dozen investigations would insinuate themselves into every corner of his sleeping brain. In this dream Fabel walked, as he had done in so many dreams before, among the murdered of fifteen years. He knew them all, each death-bleached face, in the same way most people would remember the faces of their extended family. Most of the dead, those whose killers he had caught, did not acknowledge him and passed by; but the dead eyes of those whose cases he had not solved gazed at him in bleak accusation and held out their wounds.

The crowd parted and Ursula Kastner stepped out to face Fabel. She wore the same smart, grey Chanel jacket as the last time, the only time, Fabel had seen her. Fabel stared at a tiny spot of blood that stained the jacket. The spot grew larger. A deeper red. Her bloodless, grey lips moved and formed the words ‘Why have you not caught him?’ For a moment Fabel was puzzled, in that vague, detached way one is in dreams, as to why he could not hear her voice. Was it because he had never heard it in life? Then he realised: of course, it was because her lungs had been torn out and therefore there was no breath to carry her words.