‘Do you see here,’ Möller tapped the screen with his pen, ‘the corresponding scar on the other side? They were very faint scars … perhaps five or six years old. Do you know what they are?’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Fabel. After all, he had two similar scars himself.
Möller leaned back again in his chair. ‘I would think that that should narrow things down a little in identifying her … I mean, how many young women in Hamburg have been treated for gunshot wounds over the last ten years?’
It rained heavily. Despite the downpour Fabel felt the urge to get out into the open, to allow the rain and the moist air to purge his clothes and his lungs of the musty odour of the morgue. His car was parked a couple of streets away and by the time he reached its shelter his blond hair was plastered to his scalp. He drove down towards the docks of the Hafen district. Within a few minutes the vast cranes that lined the banks and quaysides of the Elbe started to dominate the skyline. Fabel called his office on his cellular phone and asked to speak to Werner, but got Maria Klee instead, who explained that Werner was checking in with the surveillance team who were tracking Klugmann. Fabel told Maria about the gunshot wound on the body and asked her to carry out a thorough search of records covering all Hamburg hospitals and clinics from about fifteen to five years ago. By law any hospital or medical professional treating a gunshot injury was obliged to report it to the police. Maria pointed out that there was a chance that, if this girl was a prostitute and had been injured in some kind of underworld shoot-out, then the wound may have been treated unofficially by some bent medic. Fabel told Maria that he thought that was possible, but not likely.
‘Any other messages?’ he asked Maria.
‘Werner left a message to tell you that an appointment with Professor Dorn has been set up for tomorrow. Three p.m.’ Maria paused. ‘Is Professor Dorn some kind of forensics expert?’
‘No,’ said Fabel, ‘he’s a historian.’ He paused for a heartbeat before adding, ‘I thought he was history. Anything else?’
Maria told him that a journalist had called a couple of times: an Angelika Blüm. The name meant nothing to Fabel.
‘Did you refer her to the press department?’
‘Yes. I did. But she was quite insistent that it was you she needed to talk to. I told her that all press enquiries had to be handled by the Polizeipressestelle, but she said she wasn’t looking for a story, that she needed to discuss a matter of great importance with you.’
‘Did you ask what this matter was?’
‘Of course I did. She basically told me to mind my own business.’
‘You get a number?’
‘Yep.’
‘Okay, I’ll see you when I get back. I’ve got an appointment with the Organised Crime Division at two-thirty.’
The Schnell-Imbiss snack stand was by the docks on the Elbe, dwarfed by the huddle of cranes that loomed above it. It comprised a caravan with a wide, open serving window and bright canopy. It was surrounded, at regular intervals, by parasol-topped, waist-high tables at which a handful of scattered customers stood consuming Bockwurst or drinking beer or coffee. There was a small newspaper stand next to the serving window. Despite the drabness of its surroundings and the weather, the Schnell-Imbiss managed to look both cheerful and scrupulously clean.
Fabel pulled up and ran through the rain from his car to the shelter of the canopy. A rotund man of fifty, with florid cheeks and dressed in a white overcoat and cook’s hat, stood behind the counter. He leaned forward onto his elbows as Fabel approached.
‘Good morning, Herr Kriminalhauptkommissar,’ he said, with an accent that was as broad and flat as the Frisian landscape to which it belonged. ‘And might I say you look like shit today.’
‘Been a rough night, Dirk,’ answered Fabel, his own speech slipping from strict Hochdeutsch into his natural Frysk. ‘I’ll have a Jever and a coffee.’
Dirk served the Frisian beer and the coffee.
‘Have you seen Mahmoot lately?’
‘No, not for a while, now that you mention it. Something up?’
Fabel sipped his beer. ‘I need to talk to him, that’s all. I’ll give him a buzz later – if I can get a hold of him. You know what he’s like.’ Fabel sipped the thick, black coffee. It scalded his lips so he put it down and took another sip of the Jever.
‘I take it this is your lunch?’ Dirk nodded at the beer and the coffee.
‘Okay, give me a Käsebrot to go with it. If you see Mahmoot could you let him know I’ve been looking for him? I know I don’t need to tell you to be discreet.’ Fabel looked past Dirk; on the wall of the caravan behind him was a photograph of Dirk, about fifteen years younger and slimmer, in his green SchuPo uniform. Fabel nodded towards the photograph. ‘Don’t you get hassle because of that?’
He handed Fabel a split bread roll filled with cheese and gherkin and shrugged. His smile broadened. ‘Occasionally. Sometimes I get a rough crowd down here, but I find that my diplomacy usually works on them …’ He reached under the counter and pulled out a large Glock automatic. Fabel coughed on his beer and looked around to make sure the other customers hadn’t seen.
‘For Christ’s sake, Dirk, put it away. I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that.’
Dirk laughed and reached out and down and slapped Fabel affectionately on the cheek. ‘Now, now, don’t get agitated, Jannik …’ Little Jan. It had been Dirk’s nickname for Fabel when they had served together. Despite Dirk’s inferior rank as an Obermeister in the uniform branch, the Schutzpolizei, the young Kommissar Fabel had quickly recognised the wealth of experience the older policeman had to offer. Dirk had willingly shown Fabel the ropes. He had done the same for Franz Webern, the young policeman who had died the same day Fabel had been shot. Dirk had taken Franz’s death very badly. When he had visited Fabel in hospital after the shooting, it was the only time Fabel could recall Dirk stripped of his infectious good humour.
The rain had stopped and the sun probed a shaft of light through the furls of cloud, etching the latticed shadow of the cranes’ superstructure across the car park. Fabel paid for the Käsebrot, beer and coffee. He tossed an extra few coins down. ‘I’ll take a SCHAU MAL! as well,’ he said, pulling a copy out of the news-stand.
‘I didn’t think SCHAU MAL! would be your thing,’ said Dirk.
‘It’s not …’ Fabel flipped the folded tabloid open. The headline slapped Fabel in the face.
MANIACAL RIPPER STRIKES AGAIN! POLIZEI HAMBURG POWERLESS TO STOP MADMAN! Underneath the headline was a photograph of Horst Van Heiden with the caption: KRIMINALDIREKTOR VAN HEIDEN: THE MAN FAILING TO KEEP HAMBURG’S WOMEN SAFE.
‘Scheisse …’ muttered Fabel. Van Heiden would be going through the roof. The editorial blasted the Polizei Hamburg and offered a reward for information. The centre spread was also devoted to the story. Another shrill headline proclaimed: WHO CARES ABOUT CATCHING THIS MONSTER? SCHAU MAL! DOES. WE WILL PAY €l0,000 FOR INFORMATION THAT LEADS TO THE ARREST AND CONVICTION OF THIS MANIAC!
‘What’s up?’ asked Dirk. Fabel tossed the paper across the counter to Dirk. ‘Oh, I see … let me guess, this is your case?’
‘Got it in one.’ Fabel drained his beer and then his coffee and left the uneaten bread roll on the counter. ‘Better go. Before Van Heiden puts up a reward for my hide.’
‘Tschüss, Jan.’
Wednesday 4 June, 2.45 p.m. Polizeipräsidium, Hamburg.
LKA7 – the Organised Crime Division – is separated from the rest of the Hamburg Polizeipräsidium by heavy security doors, which in turn are controlled from a security desk. Closed-circuit security cameras sweep the corridors leading to LKA7, and everyone approaching the department is watched by the armed officers manning the security desk. A secure environment within a secure environment; a police station within a police station.
The fight against organised crime in Hamburg had become a secretive and violent game. Immigrant Mafias – specifically Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian – were invol
ved in a constant struggle with indigenous German gangs for control of the two most lucrative criminal markets: sex and drugs. There was even a special department LKA7.1 devoted to the fight against Hamburg’s Hell’s Angels, who had carved out a piece of the organised-crime market for themselves.
LKA7 had, as a consequence, developed a reputation for secrecy itself. It was a war, and the mentality of the division’s officers had almost become more that of soldiers than policemen.
Fabel approached the screen door and pressed the buzzer. At the command of a speaker above the door he identified himself and held his police ID up to the camera. A harsh electrical buzz and loud click confirmed his permission to enter. An older uniformed officer of massive build and with a shaven head awaited Fabel at the security desk.
‘Someone will be along shortly, sir.’ The desk man smiled. He was clearly out of practice. ‘They will take you along to see Hauptkommissar Buchholz.’
Fabel had just sat down at the small reception area when another huge man approached. His blond hair was cropped almost to the scalp and muscles bulged under the stretched fabric of his black polo-necked shirt. The broad shoulders were braced with a tan leather shoulder holster which held a massive and non-regulation Magnum automatic. As he approached, the muscleman smiled, exposing a row of perfect white teeth. The question ‘Does it bite?’ flashed through Fabel’s mind.
‘Good day, Herr Kriminalhauptkommissar. I’m Kriminalkommissar Lothar Kolski, I work with Hauptkommissar Buchholz.’
Fabel stood up and found himself still looking up at Kolski as they shook hands.
‘Please follow me, Herr Fabel, I’ll take you along.’
Kolski made small talk as they walked along the corridor. Fabel found the experience surreal: walking along beside a heavily armed hulk who chatted about the weather and how he was looking forward to taking some late leave. Gran Canaria, probably.
Buchholz’s office was one of a uniform row that lined the corridor. Whereas the other offices in the row had two work-station desks facing each other, obviously shared by teams of two officers, Buchholz had an office to himself. Kolski held the door open for Fabel to enter, and Fabel felt like an insignificant satellite orbiting a vast planet as he slipped past Kolski’s bulk into the room. Behind a large desk with a computer terminal was a man in his mid-fifties. He was balding, and what was left of his dark hair was trimmed to bristle that, in turn, extended into stubble which darkened the lower half of a tough face. His nose looked as if it had been broken more than once. Fabel had heard that Buchholz had been a boxer in his younger days and he noticed framed photographs on the wall behind him: the same face but more youthful; a slimmer but still-powerful build. Each photograph showed the youthful Buchholz at a different stage of his amateur boxing career and his nose at a different stage of destruction. One photograph showed a teenage Buchholz, in boxing kit, holding aloft a trophy. It was captioned ‘Hamburg-Harburg Junior Light-Heavyweight Champion, 1964’.
‘Come in and sit down, Herr Fabel.’ Buchholz half rose from his seat and indicated one of the two chairs opposite him. Fabel sat down and was surprised to see Kolski pull up the other chair. ‘Kriminalkommissar Kolski leads the Ulugbay team,’ Buchholz explained, ‘he can probably tell you more than I can.’
‘There may be nothing to this,’ Fabel began, ‘but as part of this murder inquiry I would ideally like to set up a liaison with the LKA7 – that would obviously be yourself, Herr Kolski. The victim was, we believe, a prostitute, and possibly working for Ulugbay – through a man called Klugmann … an ex-Polizei Hamburg officer.’
Buchholz and Kolski exchanged knowing looks.
‘Ah yes,’ said Kolski, ‘we know Herr Klugmann rather well. Is he a suspect in your inquiry?’
‘No. Not at the moment. Should he be?’
‘This is a serial killer, you reckon. A psycho?’ Buchholz asked.
‘Yes …’ Fabel flipped open the file and handed a scene-of-crime photograph to Buchholz. Buchholz studied the picture in silence before passing it to Kolski, who gave a long, low whistle as he took in the image. ‘That’s our guy’s handiwork,’ continued Fabel. ‘Is there any reason at all why we should be looking more closely at Klugmann?’
Buchholz shook his head and looked across to Kolski, who gave a dismissive shrug of his vast shoulders. ‘No, I know Klugmann of old. He’s a cop that went crooked … and Ulugbay does use his muscle sometimes, but I don’t see Klugmann doing anything like this. He’s a thug, not a psycho.’
‘I understand Klugmann worked for LKA7, in the Mobiles Einsatz Kommando attached to your drugs unit, before he was dismissed …’
‘That is correct … unfortunately …’ answered Buchholz. ‘We had a few ops go wrong. It was as if the targets had inside information, but we never for a moment considered that one of our own was the source. Then, of course, it came out that Klugmann was exchanging information for drugs. If we hadn’t sprung him when we did, who knows what damage he could have done …’
‘How did you catch him out?’
‘We searched his locker,’ answered Kolski. He folded his arms and the thick cables of muscle strained against the fabric of his shirt. ‘We found an unregistered automatic, a pile of cash and some cocaine …’
‘What, here in the Präsidium?’
‘Yes.’
‘Didn’t that strike you as a bit … well, odd? Convenient, even?’
‘Yes, it did, as a matter of fact,’ said Buchholz. ‘The other thing was that we had been tipped off by an anonymous call, otherwise we never would have caught him. But Klugmann confessed almost immediately that he was using drugs and claimed he had thought the Präsidium was the safest possible hiding place. After all, who would think of searching for illegal drugs here?’
‘But we’re talking about a tiny amount of drugs, aren’t we?’
‘Yes, a few grams. But enough.’ Buchholz leaned forward. ‘As you say, it was all a bit too easy, but we have a theory about that.’
‘Oh?’
‘Ulugbay has quite a pull on Klugmann. We were never able to prove that Klugmann had been supplying information about our operations to the Turks. If we had, then Klugmann would still be behind bars. As it happens all we could get him on was possession of a tiny amount of drugs and the illegal firearm. He even got to keep the cash: we couldn’t prove that it was dirty. It was all enough to get him kicked off the force but not enough to have him put away.’
Kolski picked up the thread. ‘But Ulugbay could, at any time, hand us the evidence we need – and Klugmann’s head on a plate.’
Fabel nodded. ‘So Klugmann had no choice but to work for Ulugbay …’
‘Exactly,’ said Buchholz.
‘Do you think that Ulugbay was behind the anonymous tip-off?’
‘Possible, but highly unlikely. Klugmann is very valuable to Ulugbay now – as a source of information and a highly trained heavy – but he was a hell of a lot more valuable when he was a serving police officer in a special-operations unit.’
‘So who ratted on Klugmann? Any ideas?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Buchholz said. ‘It was highly valuable information – something we would have paid an informant well for. It was very strange that we were handed it free of charge and anonymously.’
‘Maybe someone in the Ulugbay organisation had his own agenda?’
‘Again possible – and again highly unlikely. These bloody Turks are tight. Informing isn’t just against the code, it’s punishable by death – a very unpleasant death – and having your face carved off.’
‘And, even if you aren’t afraid of what will happen to you,’ picked up Kolski, ‘there’s always the possibility of retribution against your family … either here in Germany or back home in Turkey.’
Fabel nodded thoughtfully for a moment, then tapped the scene-of-crime photograph. ‘Could this fall into that category? Could it be some kind of punishment? Some kind of ritualised warning – you know, a gang thing …’
&nb
sp; Buchholz smiled, a little patronisingly thought Fabel, and glanced at Kolski. ‘No, Herr Fabel, this isn’t a “gang thing”. I think you’re safer sticking to your serial theory. Having said that, I don’t like the idea of any link with Ulugbay …’ Buchholz turned to Kolski. ‘Check it out, would you, Lothar?’
‘Sure, Chef.’
Buchholz turned back to Fabel. ‘If Ulugbay had wanted this girl killed then she would have simply disappeared. We would maybe never have got involved. If, on the other hand, Ulugbay had wanted to make an example of her – if she’d cheated him or informed – she would have been found with a bullet through the head. Or at worst, if he really wanted to make a statement, she would have been garrotted. Anyway, Ulugbay is trying to keep a low profile at the moment …’
‘Oh?’
‘Ulugbay has a cousin, Mehmet Yilmaz,’ Kolski explained. ‘Most of Ulugbay’s success has been through Yilmaz’s efforts. Yilmaz has been legitimising large parts of the Ulugbay operation and is reckoned to be the brains behind the more profitable elements of the criminal activity. Yilmaz is boss in all but name. Ulugbay can be a real Arschloch. He’s temperamental, unpredictable and incredibly violent. The times we have come close to nailing the bastard are when he has gone berserk over some insult or threat to his organisation. He doesn’t think – just steams in and starts littering the place with bodies. Yilmaz, on the other hand, is our real target. He keeps a lid on Ulugbay, and makes it difficult for us to get decent evidence. And, although he has been trying to legitimise the business, he is a hard son of a bitch. When Yilmaz kills, it’s planned like a military operation … it’s cold, effective and without evidential traces. His security is unbreakable. Anyway, Yilmaz has been trying to keep a lid on things and keep the organisation’s profile low, so as not to compromise his legitimisation programme.’
‘So you don’t think that they would be involved in anything like this?’
‘Certainly not,’ answered Buchholz. ‘This is not their style at any time but especially not now. Anyway, this guy has killed before, hasn’t he?’
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