The forensic photographs of Angelika Blüm’s devastated body now hung alongside those of the two previous victims. Photocopies of pages from academic books on Viking ritual were pasted next to copies of the e-mails from the killer. Fabel had written the names of the three victims, with the second identified as simply ‘Monique?’, in the centre of the whiteboard panel. Above the names he had written the name ‘Son of Sven’ and the words ‘Blood Eagle’. Over to the right, the name ‘Hans Klugmann’ was linked with an upward arrow to ‘Arno Hoffknecht’ which in turn had an arrow connecting it to ‘Ulugbay/Yilmaz’. Next to this, punctuated with a question mark, he had written ‘Ukrainians’. On the other side he had written the names of the two known date-rape-drug abduction victims. This was linked to the words ‘Blood Eagle’ by a line broken by the words ‘Odinist cult?’
On the table in front of Fabel sat the case file to which had been added his report of what Professor Dorn had told him and the preliminary forensic and pathology reports on the Blüm murder. They had recovered Klugmann’s cell phone from Sonia’s apartment and it now sat in a plastic evidence bag, on top of the file. The entire principal Mordkommission team, except Maria Klee, was now gathered around the cherrywood table: Fabel, Werner Meyer, Anna Wolff and Paul Lindemann. Fabel was annoyed that Maria wasn’t there.
‘She’s tying something up,’ explained Werner. ‘She said she won’t be long.’
In addition to the core Mordkommission team, there were half a dozen other KriPo detectives who had been drafted in by Van Heiden to support Fabel’s inquiry. Fabel had phoned Susanne Eckhardt, and she had joined the meeting. At the end of the table, Van Heiden sat impassive, as Fabel outlined his conversation with Dorn. When Fabel finished, Susanne Eckhardt was the first to speak.
‘I can see that Herr Professor Dorn has been able to draw on his expertise as a historian, but why is he so involved in, well, to be frank, amateur psychology? He has identified the modus as being reminiscent of this sacrificial rite, but he seems to have extrapolated a profile of the killer as well.’
‘Professor Dorn has worked for many years with offenders,’ said Fabel.
‘But that hardly qualifies …’
Fabel turned and locked eyes with Susanne. There was a cold steel edge to his voice. ‘Dorn was my European History tutor at university. His daughter, Hanna, was abducted, tortured, raped and murdered. About twenty years ago. She was twenty-two. I think Professor Dorn has a more …’ he sought the right word – ‘
intimate
understanding of murder than we do.’
What Fabel omitted to say was that Hanna Dorn had been his girlfriend at the time. That he had gone out with her for only a couple of weeks. That they were only just on that threshold between awkwardness and intimacy when an unremarkable thirty-year-old hospital orderly called Lutger Voss snatched her from the street as she made her way home from a date with Fabel. The police had questioned Fabel as to why he hadn’t walked her home. He had asked himself the same question over and over again and having an assignment to complete had never seemed a substantial enough answer. Fabel had graduated before the trial. Immediately after the trial he had joined the Polizei Hamburg.
Van Heiden broke the awkward silence.
‘How likely is all of this, Frau Doktor? Do you think this psychopath believes this “Blood Eagle” nonsense?’
‘It’s possible. It’s definitely possible. And it does explain the religiosity of the e-mail. But if it is true, then we are dealing with a much more sophisticated and structured psychopathy. I would imagine that he plans everything in great detail and well in advance. That means he’ll leave as little as possible to chance.’
Fabel had been turning a pencil around between his fingers. He sighed and threw it down onto the table. ‘And that means he’s less likely to slip up and give us a lead. And a religious motive means, as we already suspected, he could be on some kind of crusade … unless it is all a smokescreen. Or at least a partial smokescreen …’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Susanne.
‘I don’t entirely know what I mean. I’ve no doubt that our guy believes this crap, but maybe it isn’t what drives him. Maybe he’s hiding another motive in all of this. Why did he erase everything from Blüm’s computer? And why did he steal files? And I’m not the only one who’s flagged up the possibility.’ Fabel then gave a brief summary of what Brauner had had to say.
‘Frau Doktor?’ Van Heiden invited a response to Fabel’s statement.
Susanne frowned. ‘It is possible. People with a motive to murder have often “dressed it up” to fit with some other psychological agenda.’ She turned back to Fabel. ‘You’re saying that there may be a division between motive and method? That there is a need to kill other than for the pleasure or psychotic fulfilment that he derives from the act?
‘Exactly.’
‘Possible. I can’t say it’s likely, but it’s possible.’
The door of the conference room opened. Maria Klee, clutching a thick file, came in and apologised for being late, although she seemed less than contrite and looked more than a little pleased with herself. Fabel paused for a second before continuing.
‘The only way we can be sure,’ Fabel continued, ‘is to establish more facts. We’ve got to probe deeper. We must find Klugmann and find out what it is he’s withholding from us. If there’s a link between the victims we’ve got to find it. Are we any closer to finding him?’
Anna Wolff answered. ‘No,
Chef
. Sorry. Klugmann obviously knows how to stay lost. We’ve kept a close watch on his girlfriend, Sonja, but there’s been no attempt at contact.’
Fabel worried at his chin with a thumb and forefinger. ‘I want us to take a closer look at the Odinist connection. I have a name, the Temple of Asatru, that needs checking out. Werner, I’d like you to pay Mr MacSwain a return visit as well and ask him where he was when Angelika Blüm was being murdered.’
‘You think he’s a possible?’
‘Well we didn’t have the time to fix a surveillance on him and he could, just about, fit the description we got from the girl outside Blüm’s apartment. Although if it’s accurate, MacSwain’s hair is too dark.’ Fabel paused. His mind had moved on and there was a bitter irritation in his expression. ‘There’s no way we can build a fact trail between all three victims if we don’t have an identity for one of them. We absolutely must crack the identity of Monique. That is our number-one priority. Someone, somewhere, must know who she is.’
Maria Klee slapped the file she had brought in down on the conference table. Everyone looked in her direction: she was grinning broadly, something she was not normally wont to do.
‘I do.’
‘What?’ Van Heiden and Fabel spoke at the same time.
‘I know the identity of “Monique”. And I have to tell you that this is dynamite,
Chef
.’ Maria turned defiantly to Van Heiden. ‘And someone, somewhere has been withholding key information from this inquiry.’
‘For God’s sake, Maria, just tell us who she is.’ Fabel’s voice was stretched taut and thin. This was the biggest break in the inquiry so far.
‘The victim is Tina Kramer. She was twenty-seven.’ Maria’s simple statement seemed to electrify the stale conference-room air. ‘The good news is that I’ve discovered her identity. The bad news is how I discovered it.’
‘Get to the point, Maria,’ said Fabel.
‘As you know, I did all the usual checks against our own and the Bundeskriminalamt’s records. Criminal records, that is. It revealed nothing. So I ran a wider search.’ Maria paused, as if allowing the others to brace themselves. ‘I widened the search to include police officers.’
Maria flipped open the file and removed a letter-sized, head-and-shoulders photograph. She walked around the table and behind Fabel and secured the image to the board with a pin, next to where Fabel had written ‘Monique’. Maria slapped the photograph with the palm of her hand as if to stamp it indelibly on the inquiry board. She took the cloth and wiped the name ‘Monique’ off the board and picked up a broad-tipped red felt pen, writing ‘TINA KRAMER’ in large capitals. Fabel stood up and looked at the face in the photograph: the same face as in the mortuary picture next to it. The hair was darker than Fabel had remembered it, scraped severely back. She was wearing a dull mustard service-uniform shirt with green epaulettes. Behind him, Fabel heard the electrified silence in the room explode into a buzz of excited talk. Eventually he turned to Maria.
‘Shit, I don’t believe this … She’s one of ours?’
‘Yes. Or at least partially. She is …’ Maria corrected herself – ‘she
was
Polizei Niedersachsen, based at Hanover. She was a Schutzpolizei Kommissarin. From what I’ve been able to gather, she was originally from Hamburg and – get this – she was seconded to the Bundeskriminalamt; specifically to the BAO here in Hamburg.’ Maria scanned down a report in the file. ‘And this is no admin screw-up with records. In 1995, she was serving with a Polizei Niedersachsen special-weapons Sonder Einsatz Kommando based in Hanover. There was a robbery on a security truck and there was a fire-fight between the robbers and the unit. She was hit in the leg. Right thigh. She’s our girl all right.’
‘She was seconded to the BAO?’ Fabel turned to Van Heiden. His voice was flat and cold.
‘No way, Fabel.’ Van Heiden made a face and gestured as if pushing the accusation away. ‘No way did I know about this! The Besondere Aufbau Organisation has a pretty autonomous structure … but by God I’m going to find out who authorised this without my knowledge or consent.’
‘I just want to be clear on this,’ Susanne interjected. ‘The BAO is the special unit set up to fight international terrorism?’
‘Yes,’ Maria answered. ‘It is a cooperation between ourselves, the Bundeskriminalamt, the BND secret service and the American FBI. Its principal aim is intelligence-gathering.’
‘And,’ added Fabel, ‘they probably run covert operations.’ He turned to Maria. ‘Is she still seconded to the BAO?’
‘Yes. And her secondment started just over a year ago.’
Van Heiden and Fabel exchanged looks. But it was Werner who expressed what they all were thinking. ‘Just before Klugmann was discharged from the service. This victim …’ he looked at Maria.
‘Tina Kramer.’
‘This victim, Tina Kramer,’ Werner continued, ‘is a serving officer with the BAO, a highly secretive criminal and counter-terrorism intelligence unit, and she’s also ex-SEK. Klugmann is an ex-Mobiles Einsatz Kommando member.’
Maria Klee returned to her place at the table, leaned back in her chair and ran her hands through her short blonde hair. ‘Added to which is the fact that we have a hidden video camera and whatever it recorded missing from the scene. All of this at a time when one of the top organised-crime godfathers is assassinated.’ She leaned forward, clasping her hands with interlocking fingers and resting her weight on her elbows. ‘Do you remember I thought I recognised Klugmann?’
‘Yes … God, that’s right,’ said Fabel. ‘You couldn’t place him though.’
‘It’s been bothering me. I couldn’t place him anywhere. But when I found out who Tina Kramer was, I thought I’d check out Klugmann’s files at the Bundeskriminalamt. And guess what, his records stored at Federal Records and his service record at the Polizei Hamburg don’t match. The dates are all over the place. Specifically his discharge from the army. He got out six months earlier than his records show here, and they place him somewhere very interesting indeed.’
‘Where?’
‘Weingarten.’
Fabel’s face was split by a bitter, knowing smile. ‘Of course. I might have known. The NATO Long-Range Reconnaissance School?’
‘Exactly.’
Van Heiden said: ‘Fabel?’ and made a gesture of impatient confusion.
‘We’ve got the whole bloody lot of them in here now. If it goes by initials then it’s involved.’ He slumped back into his chair and threw his pencil onto the table. ‘The Long-Range Reconnaissance School at Weingarten is where GSG9 is trained. An elite counter-terrorism unit that’s officially made up of policemen and is part of the Federal Border Police. But, nevertheless, our British cousins send over their SAS to train GSG9.’
‘As soon as I saw that, it all clicked,’ said Maria. ‘I met Klugmann at a seminar at Weingarten, when I was attached to a Mobiles Einsatz Kommando myself. I can only have said a couple of words to him and I didn’t know his name. He was shaven-headed then and a lot slimmer. But I’d bet a month’s pay it was Klugmann.’ Her mouth tightened into a grim straight line. ‘This is an undercover operation. Klugmann is the deep-cover guy, using as much of his real history as possible to give him credibility. Tina Kramer is his control. She has a fake identity but she’s not deep cover.’
Fabel drew a deep breath. ‘That’s it! Damn it. That is exactly where I’ve been heading with this whole bloody thing. Our so-called random serial killer has taken out an undercover federal agent. That is one hell of a coincidence. Now we have to go back to the first murder, the civic lawyer, and see if there is a fact trail between her and this policewoman. And we have to check them both out against Angelika Blüm.’ He turned to Van Heiden. ‘We have some serious ass-kicking to do here, Herr Kriminaldirektor. We are up to our necks in dismembered women and these idiots are playing James Bond. We should have been advised about this girl’s identity as soon as she was killed.’
‘And that,’ interrupted Werner, ‘is what that twelve-minute telephone call to a non-existent number was all about.’