Fabel looked into Erika Kessler’s arctic blue eyes. They held his gaze resolutely. She had almost got away with it, but in that split second before answering with the too-natural response and the too-steady gaze, she had revealed to Fabel her first lie. But why would Kessler lie about Blüm’s boyfriends?
‘Do you know Marlies Menzel?’
‘The painter?’
‘The terrorist.’
Kessler laughed, but the ice in her eyes frosted and hardened a little more. ‘Shall we say the
former
terrorist turned painter? I know
of
her, but no, I don’t know her personally.’
‘But Angelika Blüm did.’
‘I believe they worked together at one time.’
‘On
Zeitgeist
, the left-wing magazine. I believe the editor at the time was a young Hans Schreiber. Frau Blüm and he were involved at the time?’
‘I believe so. I think they lived together for a while,’ said Kessler. Again Fabel detected a defence slide down behind the eyes. The art of the interrogator is to put together not just that which is said, the truth and the lies, but to assemble the silences, the gestures, the directions taken by the eyes. Fabel felt the thrill of a small epiphany as he made a connection. He considered challenging her, but decided to keep his thought locked up tight for the moment.
The rest of the interview yielded nothing of any significance. Fabel thanked Erika Kessler for her time and her nod was somewhere between courtesy and curtness. She led Fabel and Werner to the door, through the tile-floored atrium which was a few palpable degrees cooler than the temperature out on the south-facing deck.
Fabel had some difficulty finding the road back to the city, continually tripping up over Blankenese’s elaborate one-way system. Eventually he turned the BMW onto Elbchaussee.
‘Well, what did you think?’ he asked Werner.
‘She’s holding something back. I suspect that Blüm was involved with someone and Kessler is trying to keep that someone out of all of this.’
‘That’s exactly what I think.’ Fabel paused for a while. ‘Werner, how would you describe Hans Schreiber, the Erste Bürgermeister?’
Werner turned to Fabel with a puzzled frown. All Fabel gave was his profile.
‘I don’t know … tall, I suppose. Expensively dressed. Grey-blond hair. Obviously works out … broad shouldered … Why?’
Now Fabel turned to Werner. ‘Now describe the man your witness saw going into Angelika Blüm’s apartment block.’
Thursday 19 June, 10.20 a.m. Hamburg Rathaus, Hamburg
.
Kriminaldirektor Van Heiden had reacted almost exactly as Fabel had anticipated. Almost, but not quite. Van Heiden had been shocked by Fabel’s revelation that Erste Bürgermeister Schreiber was now a suspect in this most high profile of investigations and Fabel had watched his boss from across the vast desk in Van Heiden’s fourth-floor office. Van Heiden had seemed frozen in his leather chair, gazing at the desktop, as if all physical movement had been suspended to divert energy to his racing thought processes. Eventually, and unexpectedly, Van Heiden had looked up with an expression of resignation and asked Fabel what they should do next, as if Fabel were the senior officer and Van Heiden the subordinate.
‘Arrange to see him,’ Fabel had said. ‘If he were anyone else I would haul him in … but I do appreciate the need for, um … diplomacy, shall we say, in this case.’
‘When do you want to do it?’
‘Schreiber has been placed at the last murder scene … or at least someone very close in appearance to him … and he has a …
history
… with the victim. That would not incline me towards seeking out the next convenient “window of opportunity” in his diary. I need to talk to him now.’
‘Leave it with me.’
Van Heiden had made a call to the Rathaus and had obviously encountered some bureaucratic resistance. The threats that Van Heiden had made to the poor administrator at the other end of the phone had been given added menace by the quiet, restrained and cold voice in which he had delivered them. He had been put through to Schreiber. The conversation had been short and to the point. Schreiber had agreed to meet them in his chambers immediately. Van Heiden had stared at the phone after replacing the receiver.
‘It was almost as if he had been expecting the call. I got the feeling he was relieved.’
The Rathaus is Hamburg’s city hall, home to the Hamburg state government and one of its most striking buildings. The main entrance to the Hamburg Rathaus sits immediately beneath the clock tower and spire which soar above and dominate the vast Rathaus square.
When Fabel and Van Heiden entered the Rathaus, the huge main hall with its colonnades and multi-vaulted ceiling opened up to them. A few dozen tourists were scattered throughout the hall, clustered around the illuminated glass displays that circle the immense pillars. The Kriminaldirektor was about to say something when a liveried official approached the two policemen.
‘I’ve been asked to meet you gentlemen and take you to meet his honour the Erste Bürgermeister.’
The Bürgermeistersaal, the room used for official and ceremonial functions, is on the second floor of the Rathaus, just off the main tower hall. The working offices of Hamburg’s Erste Bürgermeister, however, are on the ground and first floors, set in the south-east corner of the building. It was to the first floor Bürgermeisterzimmer that Fabel and Van Heiden were conducted.
Schreiber stood up when they entered his oak-panelled office. Fabel noticed the cut of Schreiber’s suit. Yet more expensive Italian tailoring that hung perfectly from the Erste Bürgermeister’s powerful shoulders. But Fabel sensed that he also bore something that sat less easily than Armani: there was a certain awkwardness in his movements. Schreiber thanked the attendant and asked the two policemen to sit down. Fabel took his notebook out and flipped it open.
‘You said this was something to do with Angelika’s death?’ asked Schreiber.
Fabel paused the couple of seconds that protocol demanded, in case Van Heiden wanted to take the lead. When Van Heiden remained silent, Fabel spoke.
‘You expressed considerable concern about these murders, Herr Erste Bürgermeister …’
‘Naturally …
‘And you also made it clear you wanted as swift and successful a conclusion to the investigation as possible …’
‘Of course …’
Fabel decided to play his cards face up. ‘Then could you explain to me why you neglected to inform us that you visited Angelika Blüm the night she was killed?’
Schreiber returned Fabel’s stare, but there was no hostility, no defensiveness, no strength in the gaze. After a moment, Schreiber sighed. ‘Because I didn’t want to get caught up in all of this. The scandal. As you can imagine, the press would have a field day …’ Schreiber looked in Van Heiden’s direction, as if he would appreciate the point. Van Heiden gave no indication that he did.
‘Herr Doktor Schreiber, you are a lawyer, so you understand your rights under the relevant articles of the Grundgesetz, and that your answers to our questions from now on may be used in evidence.’
Schreiber’s broad shoulders sagged. ‘Yes, I understand.’
Fabel leaned forward, resting his elbows on the carved lion-claw arm rests of the oak chair. ‘And I take it you understand that I – that we – do not give a rat’s ass about your concerns about the media. You have withheld potential information about a series of murders. Murders, I have to point out, for which you are fast becoming a prime suspect. There are women being butchered – and I don’t mean that metaphorically – and you are worried about your PR?’
‘I think the Bürgermeister takes your point, Fabel,’ Van Heiden said, quietly and without anger.
‘If your answers do not satisfy me, Herr Doktor Schreiber,’ Fabel continued, ‘then I am going to arrest you here and now. And believe me, I will lead you through the Rathaus in handcuffs. So I think you should exhibit a little more candour than you have thus far.’ Fabel leaned back. ‘Did you murder Angelika Blüm?’
‘Christ … no.’
‘Then what were you doing at her apartment the night she was murdered?’
‘Angelika was an old friend. We saw each other now and again.’
Fabel’s face hardened. ‘I thought I made myself clear, Herr Schreiber. We can do this here or at the Präsidium. And unless you start being totally honest with us – and I mean about everything – then we’ll do it on our ground, not yours. Let’s start with the true nature of your relationship with Frau Blüm. How long had you been having an affair?’
Schreiber looked empty. He had been scrabbling around for some scrap to cover at least something of his privacy and Fabel had snatched it away from him.
‘A year. Maybe a little longer. As you probably know we had been intimate years ago. I had asked Angelika to marry me at the time but she turned me down. We remained friends throughout the years and then, somehow, something began to spark between us again.’
‘Is Frau Schreiber aware of this relationship?’ asked Van Heiden.
‘No. God, no. Karin has no idea. Neither of us wanted her to get hurt.’
‘So you didn’t plan to leave your wife?’ Fabel asked.
‘No. Or at least not now. I had suggested it to start with but Angelika didn’t want us to move in together. She wanted her independence and I suppose the arrangement … well, suited her. Anyway, like I said, we didn’t want Karin or the kids to get hurt.’
‘It doesn’t sound like a particularly deep relationship.’
Schreiber leaned forward onto the desk. He picked up a pen and fiddled with it, turning it end to end between his fingers. ‘That’s not true. We cared for each other. It’s just that we were being …’ he paused to find the right word – ‘
practical
. The other thing was that we always had a sense of unfinished business between us.’
Fabel decided to play another hunch. ‘Would I be right in saying that Frau Blüm wanted to end the relationship?’
Schreiber looked stung. ‘How did you …’
Fabel cut him off. ‘Was that why you were up there that evening? Were you trying to talk Frau Blüm out of ending the relationship?’
‘No. We had already agreed to stop seeing each other.’
‘I take it you had stayed the night on previous occasions?’
Schreiber nodded. ‘When circumstances allowed.’
‘In other words when you had a credible alibi to offer your wife.’
Schreiber made a small signal of resignation with his shoulders.
‘So I assume you had some stuff in Frau Blüm’s apartment and you were picking it up that night.’
Schreiber’s eyes widened slightly. ‘Yes … shirts, a spare suit, toiletries, et cetera … How on earth did you know that?’
‘The sports bag. You were either collecting something or carrying the murder weapon in it.’
It had been the sports bag that had brought Fabel to envision the scene: the end of a relationship; the removal of the last personal belongings from the apartment. Fabel remembered how he himself had used exactly the same kind of bag, Renate standing silent, Gabi asleep in her room, as he had disinvested himself from their family home five years before.
‘When did you leave the apartment?’
‘About a quarter to nine.’
‘You were only there for fifteen minutes?’
‘I guess. Angelika had just stepped out of the bath and had some work to get on with that evening, so I just picked up my stuff and went.’
‘Was there any kind of argument?’
‘No … of course not. Our continued friendship was too valuable to throw away. It was all very civilised really.’
‘And you didn’t see anyone else arriving as you left?’
Schreiber took a moment to think, then shook his head. ‘No, I can’t say I did.’
‘What time did you get home?’ asked Fabel.
‘About nine-ten, nine-fifteen.’
‘And your wife can confirm this?’
‘Do you have to bring Karin into this?’ There was a hint of pleading in Schreiber’s tone.
‘I’m afraid we do, if she’s the only person who can confirm you were back by nine-fifteen. The autopsy of Frau Blüm states she was murdered sometime around ten p.m.’
Schreiber had the look of a man who had sewn his life together, tight and neat, only to see it come apart at the seams.
‘And we’ll need your fingerprints, Herr Doktor Schreiber,’ added Fabel.
‘I think we could arrange for a technician to do that here …’ said Van Heiden, looking at Fabel as if for approval, ‘discreetly.’
Fabel nodded his acceptance. ‘Brauner himself is the best guy to send. I’ll arrange it.’ Fabel turned back to Schreiber. ‘I’ll probably have more questions for you at some point.’
Schreiber nodded. There was a pause.
‘The first victim, Ursula Kastner – I believe she worked for the Hamburg state government. Did you know her?’ asked Fabel.
‘Of course I knew her. She worked in our environment and property law office. She was involved with projects like Hafen City and the St Pauli regeneration project. I knew her well. She was an excellent lawyer.’
‘Did you have any kind of relationship with her, other than a professional one?’