‘I keep telling you … I didn’t go anywhere near Hauser’s apartment. I was a bit pissed so I nicked the bike. For Christ’s sake, do you think I would have held on to it if I had topped the owner?’
‘Good point …’ Fabel moved over from the door. He pulled up a chair next to Schüler and leaned his face close in to the young man. When he spoke it was with a quiet, deliberate menace. ‘I want you to listen to me, Leonard. I want you to understand something very clearly. I hunt people. In this case I am hunting a very particular man … like me, he is a hunter of other men. The difference is that he stalks them, he finds them, and then he does this to them …’ Fabel looked across to Anna and snapped his fingers impatiently. She handed him the file with the scenes-of-crime photographs. Fabel took one from the file and held it so close to Schüler’s face that the young thief had to pull back from it. When Schüler focused on the image, his expression contorted with disgust. Fabel snapped the photograph away and replaced it with another. ‘Do you see what my guy does?
This
is the person who interests me, Leonard.
This
is who I am after. You, on the other hand, are a worthless piece of shit that I am only taking the time to wipe off my shoe.’ Fabel leaned back in the chair. ‘I believe that it is important to establish a sense of perspective in these things. I just want you to understand that. You
do
understand that, don’t you, Leonard?’
Schüler nodded his head silently. There was a heartbeat’s pause.
‘I also want you to understand this.’ Fabel laid the photographs of both victims face up on the table’s surface. As with all scenes-of-crime photographs the colours were camera-flash stark and vivid. The dead-stare eyes of Hans-Joachim Hauser and Gunter Griebel gazed out towards the ceiling from beneath their ravaged heads. ‘If you do not convince me, within the next two minutes, that you are telling me the absolute truth … do you know what I’m going to do?’
‘No …’ Schüler tried to sound as though Fabel had not rattled him. He failed. ‘No … what will you do?’
Fabel stood up. ‘I will let you go.’
Schüler gave a confused laugh and looked across at Anna and Henk, both of whom remained expressionless.
‘I will let you walk out of here,’ continued Fabel. ‘And I will make sure that it is public knowledge that you are our principal witness to this murder. I might even allow one of the less scrupulous local newspapers to feel that they have tricked your name and address out of me. Then …’ Fabel gave a small, cruel laugh. ‘Oh, then, Leonard my boy, then you won’t ever have to worry about us again. Like I said, I don’t hunt small fry like you. But I can use you as bait.’ Fabel leaned close to Schüler once more. ‘You don’t understand this man. You could never even begin to think in the same way. But
I
can. I have hunted so many killers like him. Too many. Let me tell you, they don’t see or feel the world in the same way we do. Some of them don’t feel fear. Honestly. Some – most of them, actually – kill just
to watch what it is like for another human being to die. And quite a few of them savour each death in the same way the rest of us would enjoy a fine wine or a good meal. And that means they like to make the experience last. To relish every last second. And trust me, Leonard … if my friend here believes that you might lead us to him, that you maybe saw him without him seeing you, it won’t cost him a thought to hunt you down and kill you. But he doesn’t just kill. Just imagine what it must feel like to be tied to a chair while he slices you up and tears your scalp from your head. And all that pain, all that horror, would be the very last thing on earth that you would experience. An eternal moment. Oh no, Leonard, he won’t just kill you. He’ll take you with him into hell first.’ Fabel stood up and extended an arm towards the door. ‘So, Leonard, do you want me to release you …?’
Schüler shook his head determinedly. ‘I’ll tell you everything. Everything I know. Just make sure my name doesn’t get out.’
Fabel smiled. ‘That’s a good boy.’ He turned to Anna and Henk as he made his way to the door. ‘I’ll leave this to you …’
Fabel poured himself a coffee when he got back to his office. He sat down at his desk, hung his jacket over the back of his chair and checked his watch. It was now nine-thirty. Sometimes Fabel felt that there was no refuge from his work: that it had the ability to reach out to him no matter where he was or what time of day it was. Fabel was annoyed with himself that he had discussed the case with Susanne during their time off together, even if it had only been about Griebel’s work. He even regretted taking
home the files that Ullrich had given him. But something nagged relentlessly at Fabel about the second victim and he could not put his finger on it. It was like not being able to locate a tiny stone in your shoe, yet feeling it with every step.
Fabel reached into his desk and took out a large sketch pad from the drawer. He flipped it open at the page on which he had begun to map out the Hamburger Hairdresser case. It was a process that Fabel had repeated so many times before, with so many cases: a perversion of the creative function for which the sketch pads were intended. Fabel mapped out the profiles of sick and twisted minds, of death and pain. He thought back to what he had said to Schüler: all bluff, of course, but it bothered Fabel how true it was when he said that he was a hunter of men; someone who found it increasingly easy to enter the mindset of the men he hunted.
Again Fabel found himself wondering how it had come to pass that he had ended up here, up to his elbows in the blood and filth of others. This life had crept up on him. There had been definite, discreet steps along the way. The first had been the murder of Hanna Dorn, his girlfriend at university. He had not really known her that long or that well, but she had been a significant figure in his landscape. And she had been taken from it, suddenly and violently, by a killer who had chosen her as a victim, completely at random. Fabel had been as much confused as grief-stricken, and as soon as he had graduated he had joined the Polizei Hamburg. Then there had been the Commerzbank shoot-out. Fabel – the pacifist Fabel who had for his national service elected for Civilian Duty, driving ambulances in his native Norden rather than opting for a shorter conscription
period in the armed forces – had been forced to do that which he had always promised himself he would never do. He had taken a human life. Then, during his time at the Murder Commission, each new case had chipped away at him, reshaping him into someone he had never thought he would become.
Sometimes Fabel felt that he was wearing someone else’s life, as if he had picked up the wrong coat from a restaurant cloakroom. This was not what he had planned for himself at all.
He gazed down at the sketch pad, not seeing it for the moment but trying to look into another life. Not, this time, into the mind of a killer or into the life of a murder victim, but into a life that should, that could, have been his. Maybe that was what Fabel had become: a victim of murder himself.
He reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet. He took out the slip of paper with her telephone number on it that Sonja Brun had given him, and Roland Bartz’s card, and laid them on the desk. A new life. He could pick up the phone, make two phone calls and change everything. What would it be like, he wondered, to have small worries? Not to have to make life-or-death decisions? He looked at the phone on his desk for a moment, imagining it as a portal to a new life. Then he sighed and put the scrap of paper and the business card back into his wallet before turning his attention again to the sketch pad.
Two victims in a single day. No solid leads and little to connect them. One a flagrant attention-seeker, the other practically a recluse. The only common theme that Fabel could discern, other than the suggestion of political radicalism in their youth,
was the way they seemed to exist only in reflection. Hauser had sought to establish himself as an environmental guru and significant figure on the Left, only to become a footnote in the biographies of others. Griebel had seemed to exist only through and for his work, even when his wife had been alive.
Earlier, Fabel had written Kristina Dreyer’s name on the page, looped it with a highlighter pen and linked it to Hauser’s. He crossed it out. He had also linked Sebastian Lang’s name to Hauser’s. Fabel had not interviewed Lang personally, but Anna had assured him that Lang’s alibi was solid. A question mark indicated the older man who Anna had said had been seen with Hauser in The Firehouse. Could that have been Griebel? There were so few clear pictures of the camera-shy scientist in life, and the mortuary photograph of him with the top of his head sliced off did not help with identification. Fabel made a note to have Anna take an artist’s impression of Griebel down to The Firehouse to see if any of the staff recognised him.
There was a knock on the door and Anna Wolff walked in, as usual without being invited. Henk Hermann followed her.
‘Thanks for softening up Schüler,’ said Anna, in a tone that left Fabel unsure of whether she meant it or not, as she sat down opposite him. ‘It was difficult to get him to shut up, he’s so scared of the bogeyman you threatened to unleash on him.’
‘Anything useful?’ asked Fabel.
‘Yes,
Chef
,’ said Henk. ‘Schüler admitted he was cruising the area on foot, checking out likely apartments and houses. According to him it was only a half-hearted reconnaissance … apparently he does
his best work in the wee small hours when the occupiers are asleep, but the Schanzenviertel is a clubby and pubby type of area so he thought he might find a few empty flats at that time of evening. Anyway, he hadn’t had any luck and had nearly been caught once by a householder, so he had decided to call it a night. It was on his way home that he noticed the bike chained up outside Hauser’s apartment and he thought “Why not?” The interesting thing is he said he wanted to check the apartment out, just in case, so he went around to the back where there’s a small courtyard with access to the lounge, bedroom and bathroom windows. He says he didn’t take it any further because he could see that the occupier was at home.’
‘He saw Hauser?’
‘Yep,’ said Anna. ‘Alive. He was sitting in the lounge drinking, so Schüler decided to settle for the bike.’
‘But the main thing is that Hauser was not alone,’ said Henk. ‘He had a guest.’
‘Oh?’ Fabel leaned forward. ‘Do we have a description?’
‘Schüler says that Hauser’s guest was sitting with his back to the window,’ said Anna. ‘Schüler was keen to get out of the courtyard in case he was spotted, so he didn’t pay much attention to either of the men. But, from what he said, one of them was definitely Hauser. Schüler described the other man as younger, maybe early thirties, dark hair and slim.’
‘Doesn’t that description fit with the guy who discovered Kristina Dreyer cleaning up after the murder?’ said Fabel.
‘Sebastian Lang … It does, doesn’t it?’ Anna grinned. ‘I have a photograph of Lang that I’ve
been using when I’ve been asking around about Hauser.’
‘Lang gave you a photograph voluntarily?’ asked Fabel.
‘Not exactly.’ Anna exchanged a look with Henk. ‘I
borrowed
it from the crime scene. Technically, it was the property of the deceased. Not Lang’s.’
Fabel let it go. ‘Did you show the photograph to Schüler?’
‘Yep,’ said Anna. ‘Inconclusive, I would say. Schüler says that it could be the same guy – the colouring is the same and, roughly, so is the build. But he didn’t get a close enough look at Hauser’s guest to make a positive identification. Nevertheless, I think we should pay Herr Lang another visit. I’d like to have another look at that alibi.’
‘This time,’ said Fabel, ‘I think I’ll come along too.’
It was after ten-thirty by the time Fabel, Anna and Henk knocked on the door of Sebastian Lang’s apartment. Lang lived on the second storey of an impressive building in Ottersbekallee, only a few minutes from Hans-Joachim Hauser’s Schanzenviertel apartment. Fabel had never met Lang before: he was a tall man in his early thirties, very slim, with a pale complexion, pale blue eyes and dark hair. His appearance certainly fitted the rough description of the man Schüler had seen in Hauser’s apartment. Lang’s face was perfectly proportioned, yet instead of making him handsome the perfection of his features seemed to feminise him. A ‘pretty’ boy was how Maria had described him. The other thing that was remarkable
about Lang’s face was its lack of expression, and when he stood to one side with a sigh to allow the officers to enter there was nothing in the mask of his face to reveal the extent of his annoyance.
He directed Fabel, Anna and Henk into the lounge. Like its occupier, the flat was immaculately presented, with not a thing out of place. It was as if Lang made the minimum possible impact on his living environment. He had clearly been reading when Fabel and the others arrived and he had set the book down, neatly, on the coffee table. Fabel picked it up. It was some kind of political history of post-war Germany, open at a chapter on German domestic terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s.
‘You a student of history, Herr Lang?’ asked Fabel.
Lang took the book from Fabel’s hands and closed it, placing it back into the space it had left in Lang’s tidily arranged bookshelf.
‘It’s late, Herr Chief Commissar, and I don’t really appreciate being pestered at home,’ Lang said. ‘Would you please tell me what this is all about?’
‘Certainly, Herr Lang. And I do apologise for disturbing you in the evening, but I assumed you’d be only too willing to answer any questions that might take us closer to understanding what happened to Herr Hauser.’
Another sigh. ‘You’re trying my patience, Herr Fabel. Of course I want to help catch Hans-Joachim’s killer. But when the police turn up mob-handed at my door after ten in the evening, I assume that there is more to their visit than just checking a few facts.’
‘True …’ said Fabel. ‘A witness has come
forward. He saw someone in Herr Hauser’s apartment on the night of his murder. Someone who fits your description.’
‘But that’s impossible.’ Still the protesting tone in Lang’s voice did not translate into any animation of his features. ‘Or, at least, it is possible that someone
like
me was there. But it was not me.’