‘Not yet,’ said Fabel. ‘And, if you don’t mind, I’d like to keep it under wraps until the case is over. They have enough to think about for now.’
Van Heiden tapped the envelope against his open palm, as if assessing the weight of its contents. ‘Don’t worry, Fabel. I am telling no one about this unless I have to. In the meantime, I just hope that you change your mind.’
There was a knock on the conference room door and Maria came in.
‘I don’t know how low a profile you want to keep,
Chef
. But we know where he planted the second bomb …’
There was a hierarchy emerging at the site of the explosion, and Fabel felt he was struggling to remain at its top.
In an attempt to sustain the pretence that he had been removed from the case, they had found a traffic Commissar’s uniform to fit Fabel and he had been driven to the scene in the back of one of the riot police’s bottle-green Mercedes-Benz transporters with blacked-out windows. A Polizei Hamburg’s
Libele
helicopter hung in the sky over the scene.
The uniformed branch had secured the site and evacuated the surrounding buildings.
Fabel stepped from the transporter and surveyed the devastation. All the windows of Ingrid Fischmann’s offices had been blasted out and gazed from the blackened shell onto the street like empty eye sockets. The narrow pavement, the roadway and the roofs of the parked cars, the alarms of which still whined in shocked protest at the blast, glittered with gem-sized fragments of glass. From one of the windows hung the frayed and scorched ribbons of Fischmann’s vertical blinds. The perimeter had been secured by the Polizei Hamburg MEK special-weapons unit that Fabel had requested, but there were also a large number of heavily armed officers wearing jerkins bearing the large initials BKA on the back, indicating that they were from the Federal Crime Office. And Fabel was not surprised to see Markus Ullrich. This had all become very political, very suddenly.
Holger Brauner and his deputy Frank Grueber had both turned out with an expanded team to process the site, but an even larger forensics unit had been ordered in by the federal BKA.
Everyone, however, was left standing outside while the fire service and the bomb disposal unit made sure that the site was safe to enter. Fabel took the opportunity to tackle Markus Ullrich who was standing outside the building by the door that, because it had been slightly lower than the main office level, had survived the blast. Ullrich was talking to a BKA officer but broke off when he saw Fabel approach. He smiled grimly.
‘Very fetching,’ he said, nodding at Fabel’s borrowed uniform. ‘I’m guessing this is not a gas explosion.’
‘I very much doubt it,’ said Fabel. ‘Listen, I need to get one thing straight. This is a Polizei Hamburg inquiry. The woman who rents these offices has been helping me with the background to the Hauser and Griebel murders. It is more than a coincidence that her offices have been attacked.’
‘Yes, I understand that. But she was also someone who dabbled in a very dangerous area of German public life. There is a chance that she got too close to someone who maybe decided to revive some old skills they learned two decades ago – including how to use a detonator and Semtex. You have to understand that there is a sound basis for BKA interest.’ There was nothing confrontational about Ullrich’s tone, but Fabel did not feel reassured. ‘Listen, Herr Fabel, I don’t want to compete; I want to cooperate. We have a common interest in this case. I simply arranged for these extra resources to be made available to you. Same goes for the forensics team: they’ll work under your chief’s direction. Do we know if she was inside?’
Fabel sighed and some of the tension eased from his posture. He knew that Ullrich was on the level.
‘We don’t know yet,’ said Fabel. ‘We checked out
her home and she’s not there, and we’ve tried her cellphone. Nothing.’ He looked up at the building. ‘I’m guessing that the bomber hit his target. Anyway, Herr Ullrich. This is my case, first and foremost, and I want you to understand that.’
‘I do. But we are going to have to work together on this, Herr Fabel. Whether you like it or not, we may be dealing with something here that has implications that go beyond Hamburg. You may find it useful to have a federal agency on your team. You’ll need all the help you can get if you have to run this inquiry by remote control – and in disguise. I am happy to let you call the shots. For the meantime.’
‘Okay …’ Fabel nodded. ‘Let’s deal with what you said about it maybe being some former terrorist sleeper protecting himself, rather than my so-called Hamburg Hairdresser case. I’m afraid the two things might not be mutually exclusive.’ Fabel gave Ullrich a summary of what Ingrid Fischmann had told him of her connection to the Wiedler kidnapping and of Benni Hildesheim’s claim that he knew the identity of several of The Risen, including hinting that he had positive proof that Bertholdt Müller-Voigt was the driver of the van in which Thorsten Wiedler had been kidnapped.
‘That’s been around for a long time, Fabel,’ said Ullrich. ‘We’ve looked into it long and hard. There’s no evidence to link him to the abduction, or even to membership of the group. After Hildesheim died we got a warrant to go through all his stuff to see if we could find the proof he claimed to have. Nothing. That doesn’t mean to say that I don’t believe it. It’s just that I don’t think that, if Müller-Voigt really took part in Wiedler’s kidnap and murder, we’ll ever be able to prove it.’
Fabel nodded towards the broken building with its graffiti and
Jugendstil
architectural details. ‘Maybe she was too close to doing just that …’
His phone rang.
‘Don’t bother trying to set up a trace,’ the electronically altered voice rasped. ‘I’m talking to you on my latest victim’s cellphone. By the time you get a location I’ll be gone and the phone will have been destroyed. As you can see, I have been busy. That bitch Fischmann had it coming to her. I just regret that she died so quickly. But I had more fun last night. I won’t tell you where to find the next body. By my reckoning, her son will discover it very shortly.’
‘Give it up—’ Fabel said.
‘You disappoint me, Fabel.’ The voice cut across Fabel. ‘You tried to deceive me with that little public charade this morning. Playing dress-up and skulking around in vans. I’m afraid I will have to punish you for that. For the rest of your life you will curse yourself, every day, and blame yourself for the horror your daughter had to endure before she died.’
The phone went dead.
‘Gabi!’ Fabel strode across to Maria. ‘Give me your car keys, Maria … He’s going after Gabi! I’ve got to get to her.’
Maria grabbed his arm. ‘Wait!’ She placed herself in front of Fabel and stared hard into his face. ‘What did he say?’
Fabel told her. By this time Werner, van Heiden and Ullrich had rushed over to them.
‘How did he know? How could he work it out so fast?’ Fabel looked down at his borrowed uniform, frowning. ‘And how the hell did he know about the disguise? I’ve got to get to Gabi.’
‘Hold on a moment,’ said Maria. ‘You said yourself there was a good chance that he wouldn’t fall for it. There’s a world of difference between that and him knowing where we’ve stashed Gabi. For all we know he’s watching us right now and you would lead him straight to her. But I don’t think he’s interested in going after Gabi at all, just like he wasn’t really interested in killing you with that bomb. It’s just the same as that night with Vitrenko, Jan. A diversion. A delaying tactic.’ There was an earnestness in Maria’s eyes. All the defences, all the shields, had fallen away. ‘He’s playing you, Jan. He wants to divert your attention. The bomb was to tie you up while he worked. This is exactly the same. He wants you to go to Gabi so that he can finish what he’s started.’
‘It makes sense, Fabel,’ said Ullrich.
A uniformed officer ran over to Fabel. ‘There’s a call on the radio for you, Herr Chief Commissar. Someone has just reported a scalped body. A few blocks from here.’
Maria let go of Fabel’s arm. ‘It’s your call,
Chef
.’
A uniformed unit had already arrived at the scene and the first thing they had done was to get Franz Brandt out of the room where he had found his mother’s body. When Fabel got there, Brandt was still in deep shock. He was in his early thirties but looked younger; the most conspicuous thing about his appearance was the shock of long, thick auburn-red hair above his pale freckled face. The room that he had been moved into was large and combined a bedroom and a study. The books that filled the shelves reminded Fabel of Frank Grueber’s study:
almost all were university textbooks devoted to archaeology, palaeontology and history.
The books were not the only thing that Fabel recognised: there was a large poster of the Neu Versen bog body on the wall. Red Franz.
‘I am very sorry for your loss,’ he said. Fabel invariably felt awkward in these situations, despite years of experience of them. He always did feel genuinely sorry for the families of victims, and he was always aware that he was stepping into shattered lives. But he was also there to do a job.
‘I take it this is your room?’ he asked. ‘You live here permanently with your mother?’
‘If you can call it permanent. I’m often away abroad on digs. I travel a lot, generally.’
‘Your mother ran a business from home?’ asked Fabel. ‘What was it she did?’
Franz Brandt gave a bitter laugh. ‘New Age therapies, mainly. It was crap, to be honest. I don’t think she believed any of it herself. Mostly to do with reincarnation.’
‘Reincarnation?’ Fabel thought of Gunter Griebel and his researches into genetic memory. Could there be some kind of link? Then he remembered. Müller-Voigt had mentioned a woman who had been involved with the Gaia Collective. He took his notebook out and searched through his notes. It was there. Beate Brandt. He looked at the pale young man before him. He was near to breaking down. Fabel looked around the bedroom-cum-study and his gaze again fell on the poster.
‘I know this gentleman …’ said Fabel, smiling. ‘He comes from Ostfriesland, like me. It’s funny, but recently he seems to keep on cropping up in my life. Synchronicity or something.’
Brandt smiled weakly. ‘Red Franz … It was my nickname at university. Because of my hair. And because everyone knew that he was my favourite bog body, if you know what I mean. It was Red Franz that inspired me to become an archaeologist. I first read about him at school and became fascinated with finding out about the lives of our ancestors. Discovering the truth about how they lived. And died.’ He went quiet and turned his head towards the door that led to the living room where his mother lay. Fabel rested a hand on his shoulder.
‘Listen, Franz …’ Fabel spoke in a quiet, soothing tone. ‘I know how difficult this is for you. And I know that you are shocked and afraid right now. But I need to ask you some questions about your mother. I need to get to this maniac before he gets to anyone else. Are you up to this?’
Brandt stared at Fabel for a moment, his eyes wild. ‘Why? Why did he do …
that
… to my mother? What does it all mean?’
‘I don’t know, Franz.’
Brandt took a sip of water and Fabel noticed how his hand trembled.
‘Does your mother have any connection with the town of Nordenham?’
Brandt shook his head.
‘Was she politically active in her youth, as far as you know?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘I just need to know – it may have something to do with the killer’s motives.’
‘Yes … yes, she was. Environmentalism. And the student movement. Mostly in the nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties. She remained involved in environmental issues.’
‘Did she know Hans-Joachim Hauser or Gunter Griebel? Do these names mean anything to you?’
‘Hauser, yes. My mother knew him well. Earlier, I mean. They were both involved in anti-nuclear protests and later with the Greens. I don’t think she had much contact with Hauser over recent years.’
‘And what about Gunter Griebel?’
Brandt shrugged. ‘It’s not a name I can say I’ve heard of. She certainly never discussed him. But I can’t say for certain that she didn’t know him.’
‘Listen, Franz, I have to be totally honest with you,’ said Fabel. ‘I don’t know if this maniac is acting out of a desire for revenge or just has something against people of your mother’s generation and political leanings. But there has to be something linking all the victims, including your mother. If I’m right, she may have made the link between the deaths of Hauser and Griebel. Have you noticed anything strange in your mother’s behaviour over recent weeks? Specifically since the press announced the first killing, Hans-Joachim Hauser?’
‘Of course she reacted to that. Like I said, she had worked with Hauser in the past. She was shocked when she read about what had been done to him.’ Brandt’s eyes filled with pain as he realised that he was talking about the same horrific disfigurement that had been performed on his own mother.
‘What about the other murders?’ Fabel sought to keep Brandt focused on his questions. ‘Did she talk about them at all? Or did they seem to trouble her particularly?’
‘I can’t say. I was away on another dig for the university for about three weeks. But, now that you mention it, she did seem very withdrawn and quiet over the last couple of days.’
Fabel watched the young man closely. ‘You found your mother this morning when you came down for breakfast?’
‘Yes. I was late in last night and I went straight to bed. I assumed that my mother was already asleep.’
‘How late?’
‘About eleven-thirty.’
‘And you didn’t go into the living room?’
‘Obviously not. If I had, I would have seen my mother like … like
that
. I would have phoned you right away.’
‘And where were you last night until eleven?’
‘At the university, writing up some notes.’
‘Anyone see you there? I’m sorry, Franz, but I have to ask.’
Brandt sighed. ‘I saw Dr Severts, briefly. Apart from that, I don’t think so.’