Fabel had been here for years. He loved it. His apartment lay where the student quarter – the university was within walking distance – collided with rich and trendy Pöseldorf. In one direction Fabel could browse through the countless book and record stores on the Grindelhof, or catch an obscure, late-night foreign film at the Abaton Kino; in the other direction he could sink into the chic affluence of the Milchstrasse, with its wine bars, jazz clubs, boutiques and restaurants.
The clouds had finally surrendered the sky to the sun. Fabel stared blankly at the view; a dull nauseating anxiety gnawing at his gut. He looked out over the Aussenalster again, hungrily trying to absorb its calm. The scenic Hamburg that opened itself before the apartment’s picture windows seemed neither scenic nor open. Fabel scanned the horizon, then swept his gaze like a searchlight over the familiar view: the vast mirror of the Aussenalster reflecting a steely sky, the expanses of green that fringed it and punctuated the city, and the orderly residences and offices that sat like temperate, self-assured burghers supervising the progress of the day. Today the view did not calm Fabel. Today it was not ‘another’ Hamburg, removed from the city of his work. Today, as he scrutinised the view, he was aware of the fusion between the city he loved and the city he policed. Out there, somewhere, was something monstrous. Something evil. Something so violent and malevolent it was difficult to imagine it as being human.
Fabel went back into the kitchen and refilled his coffee cup. He stabbed the replay button as he passed his answering machine. The sterile electronic voice announced that there were three messages. The first was from the
Hamburger Morgenpost
, asking for a comment on the latest killing. How the hell did these people get his home number? Anyway, they should know better; wait for the official statement. The last two messages were from another journalist, Angelika Blüm. The name Maria had mentioned earlier. Her tone was strange, insistent. Instead of asking Fabel for some kind of comment, she had said, in her last message: ‘It’s vital that we talk …’ A new approach. Ignore it.
He drained the last of his coffee and made his way across to the phone. He made two calls. The first was to Werner at the office: he was on the other line and Fabel left a message that he was on his way back in. For the second call, Fabel hugged the handset between shoulder and ear while he flicked through his pocket diary for the number. The phone rang for a long time before it was answered.
‘Yeah?’
‘Mahmoot? It’s Fabel. I want a meet …’
‘When?’
‘The Rundfahrt ferry. Seven-thirty …’
‘Okay.’
Fabel replaced the receiver, slipped his diary back into his jacket pocket and reset his answering machine. He was about to leave the apartment when he turned back and played the messages once more. He listened to Angelika Blüm’s telephone number again; it began with 040: a Hamburg number. This time he noted it down on the pad that sat next to the phone. Just in case.
Fabel’s footsteps in the echoing hall of the stairwell had hardly faded when the phone rang. After two rings the answering machine clicked on, delivering Fabel’s recorded instructions to leave a message after the tone. The voice was that of a woman who said ‘
Scheisse!
’ in genuine frustration and hung up.
Wednesday 4 June, 4.30 p.m. Hotel Altona Krone, Hamburg.
His arrival in the hotel reception was almost presidential. Centred in an envelope of burly, black-leather-jacketed bodyguards, a tall, lean man in his late seventies, dressed in a pale grey raincoat and darker grey business suit. His posture and movements were those of a man twenty years younger and his angular features, hooked nose and a plume of thick, ivory-coloured hair gave him an aristocratic, arrogant look.
His entry into the reception hall had been heralded by a fusillade of camera flashes. Some photographers, seeking a closer vantage, had been bounced off the picket of muscle and leather; one had been sent sprawling on the marble floor.
As it reached the reception desk, the envelope opened, allowing the tall older man to approach the counter. The hotel desk clerk, who had seen it all before – rock groups, politicians, film stars, billionaires with egos to match their bank balances – did not look up from his desk until the group was immediately before the counter. Then, with a polite yet tired smile he asked:
‘Yes, mein Herr. May I help you?’
‘I have a reservation here …’ The tall man’s voice was resonant and authoritative. The desk clerk continued to project a monumental apathy.
‘And your name, sir?’ he asked, although he knew very well.
The tall man jutted his jaw, tilting his head back and imperiously peering down his aquiline nose at the clerk, as if he were a morsel of prey.
‘Eitel,’ he answered, ‘Wolfgang Eitel.’
A journalist pushed forward, an untidy man of about forty whose scalp gleamed through a web of carelessly combed strands of blond hair. ‘Herr Eitel, do you really thing that your son has
any
chance of becoming Bürgermeister? After all, Hamburg has a tradition of liberalism and social democracy …’
Eitel’s eyes projected a laser of disdain and contempt.
‘It is what the people of Hamburg
really
think that matters – not what people like you tell them they should think.’ Eitel bent his face close to the reporter’s with a predatory swoop. ‘The people of Hamburg buy my son’s magazine …
SCHAU MAL!
has become the voice of the ordinary man on the street. The people of Hamburg want to be heard – they
deserve
to be heard. My son will make sure they are heard – through the pages of
SCHAU MAL!
and through him, as their Senator and ultimately their Erste Bürgermeister.’
‘And what message, exactly, will he bear on their behalf?’ A second journalist spoke: an attractive woman of about forty-five with short, styled auburn hair, expensively dressed in a black Chanel suit, the skirt of which was short enough to show off her still-firm and shapely legs. Extending an arm which held a Dictaphone, she leaned in past a bodyguard who placed a beefy restraining hand on her shoulder.
‘Lose the hand,
Schätzchen
, or I’ll have you for assault.’ Her husky voice held calm and menace in perfect equilibrium. The hand was removed. Eitel turned in her direction. Like him, she had a southern accent. He clicked his heels and made a brief, bowlike nod with his head.
‘Gnädige Frau … allow me to answer your question. The message my son bears – the message of the Hamburg people – is simple. It is that Hamburg has had enough; enough of mass immigration, enough of drug pushers poisoning our children, enough of burgeoning criminality, enough of foreigners taking our jobs, subverting our culture and turning Hamburg – and our other fine German cities – into cesspools of crime, prostitution and drugs.’
‘So you’re placing the blame on foreigners?’
‘What I am saying, gnädige Frau, is that the experiment in “multiculturalism” so vaunted by the Sozis’ – Eitel used the pejorative abbreviation of the Social Democratic Party – ‘has failed. Unfortunately we are now having to live with this failure.’ Eitel straightened his back and turned slightly into the reception, looking over the heads of his bodyguards and turning his answer into a semi-public address. ‘How much more of this unremitting assault on the lives of decent German people can we take? The whole fabric of our society is being unravelled. No one feels safe or secure …’
Eitel turned back to the woman journalist and smiled. Beneath the thick sweep of her auburn hair was a powerfully carved face, large, penetrating green eyes, a wide mouth accentuated in vermilion lipstick and a strong jawline. She did not return his smile.
‘Herr Eitel, your son’s magazine
SCHAU MAL!
has a reputation for being sensationalist and, on several occasions – how can I put this – a little
one-dimensional
in its approach to complex political issues. Is that a good summation of the political perspective of the Bund Deutschland-für-Deutsche?’
Each question crashed against the sea-wall of Eitel’s goodwill, eroding it swiftly and steadily. The smile remained, but the thin top lip tightened with something other than congeniality.
‘There
are
complex issues, and there are simple ones. The destruction of our society by extrinsic elements is a simple one. And there is a simple solution.’
‘By that you mean repatriation? Or by “simple” solution do you mean “final” solution?’ The other journalist leaned in to ask the question. Eitel ignored him, keeping his laser gaze on the woman.
‘A good question, Herr Eitel. Would you care to answer it?’ The woman journalist paused, but not long enough for him to answer. ‘Or would you prefer to explain why, when both you and your son feel so strongly about foreigners, the Eitel Group is negotiating property deals here in Hamburg with eastern-European interests?’
Eitel looked taken aback for a sliver of one second. Then something dark and malevolent mustered behind the eyes.
At that moment a second entourage entered. Smaller. More dignified. Less muscle and more business. Eitel turned in its direction without answering the question.
‘Papa!’ A stocky man, no taller than about one metre seventy-two, with a shock of thick dark hair and a handsome face creased by a broad smile, approached Eitel. He grasped his hand in an enthusiastic handshake, reaching up to place his other hand on the taller man’s shoulder.
‘And this, gnädige Frau, is my son. Norbert Eitel – the next Erste Bürgermeister of Hamburg!’ More camera flashes.
The woman journalist smiled, more in amusement at the unlikely disparity of physical types between father and son than in greeting.
‘Of course, I know Norbert already …’ She smiled and extended a hand to the shorter, younger Eitel. He smiled and kissed her hand.
The older Eitel spoke: ‘If you’ll excuse us, I’m afraid we have matters of great importance to discuss.’ Both men nodded a brief bow. The elder extended his hand.
‘You still haven’t answered my question, Herr Eitel,’ she responded, flatly.
‘Perhaps some other time. It has been a pleasure, gnädige Frau …’
As she walked away, the woman journalist smiled.
Gnädige Frau
… it was an address she would reserve for some stern, aristocratic grandmother.
As Eitel father and son watched her make her way across the reception towards the door, Wolfgang Eitel’s smile had been washed away by a more predatory expression. He spoke without turning to his son.
‘Who was that, Norbert?’
‘Her? Oh she’s a freelancer – well respected, done work for
Der Spiegel
and
Stern
…’
‘Her name …’ It was a command, not a question.
‘Blüm … that’s Angelika Blüm.’
Wednesday 4 June, 6.45 p.m. B73, Hamburg–Cuxhaven.
Fear ran through him like an electric current. A delicious fear that tingled his scalp and tightened his chest. This was his selected duty and he never resented being the one who had to take all the risks.
He took his hands from the steering wheel, first one, then the other, and wiped the sweat from his palms and concentrated on the road. All it would take would be a routine police road check, or a minor accident, or a flat tyre and a helpful autobahn patrol. Then it would be all over. He angled the rear-view mirror so that he could see her. She was slumped in the back seat. Her sonorous breathing was deep but irregular, with a scratchy stridor. Fuck. Maybe he had used too much. ‘Just stay alive,’ he muttered, knowing she was far beyond hearing anything. ‘Just stay alive for a couple of hours more, you stupid bitch.’
Wednesday 4 June, 7.40 p.m. Aussenalster, Hamburg.
The 7.30 Rundfahrt ferry gleamed golden in the evening sun that had at last triumphed against the rain. Fabel stood on deck, leaning with his forearms resting on the rail. The ferry was not particularly busy and the only passengers on deck were an elderly couple, sitting together and in silence on one of the benches. They simply stared out over the Aussenalster, not speaking, not touching, not looking at each other. To Fabel it seemed that all they had left to share was solitude, and he reflected for a moment on how, since his divorce, his solitude had been total. Indivisible and unshared. There had been more than a few women, yet with each new liaison came a deep ache that was something like guilt, and the relationships had never lasted. Fabel had sought something solid in each new involvement, something on which to anchor some sense of meaning, but he had never found it. He had grown up among the tight-knit, Lutheran communities of Ost-Friesland where people married for life. For better and, quite often, for worse. He had never considered that he would be anything other than a full-time, full-term husband and father. It was a constant in his life, an anchor point, like being a policeman. Then Renate, his wife, had removed the landmark of his marriage from his life and Fabel had been lost for a long, long time. And now, five years after his divorce, each time he shared the bed of another woman felt like a small adultery; an infidelity to a marriage that had died long ago.
The ferry glided on. Fabel had boarded at the Fährdamm quay in the Alsterpark, and now they were moving out from the sweep of green and gold that seemed to glow in the evening sun. Fabel had just looked at his watch – 7.40 p.m. – when he became aware of a figure leaning on the rail next to him. He turned to face a tall Turk, about thirty-five, with a longish handsome face and a shock of black hair. The Turk grinned broadly and the smile lines that were already around his eyes deepened further.