JF01 - Blood Eagle (21 page)

Susanne laughed. ‘Sometimes I feel less than professional. I am still a human being, an ordinary person, and occasionally I can’t help reacting to all this horror at an emotional level. There must be times you feel the same?’

Fabel laughed. ‘Most of the time, in fact. But if you feel like that why do you do it?’

‘Why do you?’

‘Why am I a policeman? Because someone has to do it. Someone has to stand in the way, I suppose … between the ordinary man, woman or child and those that would harm them.’ Fabel stopped abruptly, realising he had more or less repeated Yilmaz’s analysis of him. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘you’re a doctor … there’s a hundred different ways in which you could help people. Why do you do this?’

‘I suppose I drifted into it. After qualifying in general medicine I studied psychiatry. Then psychology. Then criminal and forensic psychology. Before I knew it I had become uniquely qualified for this line of work.’

Fabel smiled broadly. ‘Well I’m glad that you did. Otherwise you wouldn’t have drifted in my direction. Now that’s enough shop talk …’ Fabel beckoned to a waiter.

Saturday 14 June, 8.50 p.m. Uhlenhorst, Hamburg.

Angelika Blüm cleared the clutter from the broad coffee table and spread out a large, detailed map of Middle and Eastern Europe. On top of this she laid out the photographs, the press cuttings, the company details and the pieces of paper she had cut out, each with a handwritten name on it: Klimenko, Kastner, Schreiber, Von Berg, Eitel (Jnr), Eitel (Snr). In the middle of the map she laid the last name. Whereas all the others were written in black, this name was in handwritten red felt-pen capitals: VITRENKO.

It was all there. But the connections that held her theory together were too fragile to withstand the pressure of jurisprudential scrutiny. All she could do was write it up and expose those involved to the attentions of investigators with greater resources than she had. Why hadn’t that bloody policeman got in touch? She knew Fabel was investigating Ursula’s murder and what she had to say would cast more light on it. Angelika had read about the second murder: the girl whose photograph they had published in an attempt to establish her identity. She did not recognise the woman nor could she see any connection with Ursula or the other elements in her investigation. Either this second murder was a copycat or there was some link that still lay beyond Angelika’s investigative horizon.

She rested her elbows on her knees and cradled the bowl of her coffee cup in her hands as she scanned the scattered pieces. They were like components of a machine waiting to be assembled, but she didn’t know how the machine worked, what its ultimate function was. Certainly, if all of these components could be put together it would make one hell of a story: a Hamburg Stadtsenator, the office of the Erste Bürgermeister, neo-Nazis, a leading media company and, right at the centre of it all, a faceless Ukrainian special-forces commander whose appetite for atrocity had made him a name others barely dared to speak: Vasyl Vitrenko.

She took a sip of her coffee and tried to disengage her mind from the puzzle for a moment. Sometimes you had to look away before you could refocus and see what had been in front of you all the time. The door buzzer made her jump. She sighed and placed her coffee down on top of the spread-out map and walked over to her entryphone.

‘Who is it?’

‘Frau Blüm? This is Kriminalhauptkommissar Fabel of the Polizei Hamburg. You’ve been trying to get in touch with me. May I come up?’

Angelika looked down at her bathrobe and slippers and swore under her breath. She sighed and pushed the button to speak. ‘Of course, Herr Fabel. Come on up.’ She pressed the button to release the door and moments later heard his footsteps echoing in the hall. She opened the door but kept it on the chain. The man in the hall held up his oval KriPo shield and Angelika smiled and slipped the chain from the door.

‘Please excuse me, Herr Fabel. I wasn’t expecting anyone.’ She stood to one side to let him in.

Saturday 14 June, 11.30 p.m. Pöseldorf, Hamburg.

The moonlight through the deep windows cut geometric shapes across the floor and walls of Fabel’s bedroom and accented the sweeps and curves of Susanne’s body as she lowered herself onto him. It cast her moving shadow on the wall as the initial gentle, quiet, rhythm of their lovemaking grew in intensity.

Afterwards they lay together: Susanne on her back, Fabel on his side, resting his head on an elbow and studying the moonlight-etched profile of his lover. He raised himself up onto one elbow and looked down at her. Tenderly, he pushed back a strand of hair from her brow.

‘Will you stay the night?’

Susanne gave a cosy moan. ‘I’m too comfortable here to get up and get dressed.’ She turned to him and smiled wickedly. ‘But I’m not tired enough to sleep.’

Fabel was about to answer when the phone rang. He gave Susanne a resigned smile and said: ‘Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.’

Fabel rose and walked naked to the phone. It was Karl Zimmer, the duty Kommissar at the Mordkommission.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,’ Zimmer said, ‘but something’s come up that you ought to know about.’

‘What?’

‘We’ve received another e-mail from Son of Sven.’

I AM, AS YOU WILL HAVE GATHERED, A MAN OF FEW WORDS. MY VICTIM, HOWEVER, WAS A WOMAN OF MANY.

I DO NOT CARE FOR WOMEN WHO DO NOT FULFIL THEIR PRIMARY FUNCTION, BUT CHOOSE THE SELFISHNESS OF A CAREER OVER THE NATURAL IMPERATIVE TO BREED. THIS ONE WAS WORSE THAN MOST. SHE SAW IT AS HER CALLING TO DEFAME THOSE WHOSE NOBILITY SHE COULD NEVER ASPIRE TO: SOLDIERS WHO FOUGHT AGAINST ANARCHY AND CHAOS.

I HAVE ADDED A TWIST THIS TIME. SHE THOUGHT I WAS YOU, HERR FABEL. IT WAS TO YOU SHE BEGGED FOR HER LIFE. IT WAS YOUR NAME THAT BURNED IN HER BRAIN AS SHE DIED.

SHE HAS SPREAD HER WINGS.

SON OF SVEN

Sunday 15 June, 1.30 a.m. Polizeipräsidium, Hamburg.

‘I’m sorry to have pulled you all in at such an ungodly hour,’ said Fabel, but his businesslike expression suggested the apology was a formality. The figures around the table all had the puffy-eyed look of unwelcome awakening, but no one complained; everyone realised the importance of the arrival of a new e-mail. ‘But this new e-mail has some unpleasant twists to it, to say the least.’

Werner, Maria, Anna and Paul nodded bleakly. Susanne also sat at the table and there had been an exchange of knowing looks between the others when she arrived with Fabel.

‘So what does this e-mail tell us?’ Fabel’s gesture invited a response from everyone.

It was Maria who spoke first. ‘Well, it rather unpleasantly confirms he is masquerading as a policeman. In this case, specifically you.’

‘I’m not a uniformed officer. So he can’t be dressed up in a Schutzpolizei uniform.’

‘It looks like he’s got his hands on a KriPo shield or ID warrant … or both,’ suggested Werner.

‘What about his victim?’ said Fabel. Mentioning her reminded him of what he had said in the e-mail: that she died thinking that he, Fabel, had killed her. The thought stabbed nauseatingly in his chest. ‘He described her as “a woman of many words” …’

‘A politician?’ ventured Maria. ‘An actress … or a writer or journalist?’

‘Possible,’ said Susanne, ‘but remember he is a psychopath with a distorted view of the world. She might simply be someone he thinks talks too much.’

‘But what about her defaming soldiers, as he put it? Sounds like she’s someone with a public audience,’ said Paul Lindemann.

‘What about the e-mail itself?’ asked Fabel. ‘I take it we’ve got a fake IP address?’

‘Technical Section are pursuing it,’ Maria said. ‘I got the section head out of bed to check it out. He is not a happy camper.’

Werner stood up suddenly, his face clouded with anger and frustration. He walked over to the obsidian sheet of window that reflected the room in on itself. ‘All we can do is wait until her body is discovered. He’s leaving us nothing to go on.’

‘You’re right, Werner,’ said Fabel. He looked at his watch. ‘I think we should all try to catch up on some sleep. Let’s reconvene here at, say, ten a.m.’

They were all rising wearily from the table when the conference-room phone rang. Anna Wolff was nearest so she lifted the receiver. The weariness was suddenly swept from her face. She held up her free hand to stop the others leaving the room.

‘That was Technical Section,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a genuine IP address from the provider. It belongs to an Angelika Blüm. And we’ve got an address in Uhlenhorst.’

‘Oh my God,’ Fabel said. ‘She’s the journalist who’s been trying to reach me.’

‘A journalist?’ asked Maria.

‘Yes,’ said Fabel, ‘a woman of many words.’

Sunday 15 June, 2.15 a.m. Uhlenhorst, Hamburg.

The apartment building met all of the criteria of Hamburg chic. It had been built in the 1920s and it looked as if it had been comprehensively refurbished reasonably recently. Fabel, who knew a thing or two about Modernist architecture, reckoned it had been designed by Karl Schneider, or at least one of his school. There were no hard edges to it: the whitewashed walls met in elegant curves, rather than corners, and the windows of the serviced apartments were high and wide. Uhlenhorst had never quite achieved the same prestige of Rotherbaum, but it was still an affluent and trendy neighbourhood.

There were two Schutzpolizei cars, which Fabel guessed were from the Uhlenhorst Polizeikommissariat, parked immediately before the bronze and glass doors that gave entry to the brightly lit marble lobby. A uniformed SchuPo stood guard at the door while a second listened as a tall man in his sixties talked animatedly to him. Fabel parked behind the police cars and he, Maria and Werner got out, just as Paul and Anna pulled up. Fabel strode over to the uniformed policeman who was listening patiently to the older man. The policeman’s epaulettes told Fabel that he was a Polizeikommissar. Fabel flashed his KriPo shield and the policeman nodded acknowledgement. The taller, older civilian, who had the dishevelled look and red-rimmed eyes of someone disturbed from a deep sleep opened his mouth to speak. Fabel cut him off by speaking directly to the Polizeikommissar.

‘No one’s tried to gain entry yet?’

‘No, sir. I thought it best to hang on until you got here. I’ve two men on the door of Frau Blüm’s apartment and there’s no sound from within.’

Fabel looked in the direction of the civilian.

‘This is the caretaker,’ the SchuPo answered Fabel’s unspoken question.

Fabel turned to the caretaker and held out his hand. ‘Give me the master key for Frau Blüm’s apartment.’

The caretaker had the supercilious, semi-aristocratic look of an English butler. ‘Certainly not. This is an exclusive residence and our occupiers are entitled to—’

Again Fabel cut him off. ‘Fair enough.’ He turned to Werner. ‘Get the door-ram from the trunk of the car, would you please, Werner?’

‘You can’t do that …’ fumed the caretaker. ‘You need a warrant …’

Fabel didn’t even look in the caretaker’s direction. ‘We don’t need a warrant. We are investigating a murder and we have reason to believe the occupant is in danger.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the car. ‘Werner … door-ram?’

The caretaker spluttered apoplectically. ‘No … No … I’ll get the keys.’

The elevator doors slid open onto the third-floor corridor, a wide, immaculate expanse, brightly illuminated by downlighters that splashed pools of light on the pristine marble. Fabel gestured with his hand for the caretaker to lead the way. They followed a slow sweep in the hall and came upon two officers, one on either side of an apartment door. Fabel placed a restraining hand on the caretaker’s shoulder and moved forward, indicating to Werner and Maria that they should come with him. With a silent motion of his hand he gestured that Anna and Paul should move to the other side of the door, next to the second SchuPo. All eyes were on Fabel. He gestured to the caretaker by holding a finger to his lips and whispered: ‘Which key?’

The caretaker fumbled for the appropriate key. Fabel took the keys, smiled and nodded to the caretaker, miming a pushing movement with the palm of his hand to indicate that the caretaker should now back off. The mime act continued: he pointed to himself and to Werner, then held up a single finger followed by two fingers to indicate that he and Werner would take the lead. Fabel and Werner drew their weapons and Fabel pressed the door buzzer. They heard the electronic rasping of the buzzer inside the apartment. Then nothing. Fabel nodded to Werner and put the key in the lock. He turned the key and swung the door open in a single fluid movement. The lights in the apartment were on. Werner slipped through the door followed immediately by Fabel.