A Fear of Dark Water

by Craig Russell

  ‘Exactly. But Korn had some kind of accident – a diving accident, I believe – after which he became increasingly reclusive. The Pharos Project, which had started off as a genuinely innovative environmental research organisation, became a weird cult driven by Korn’s increasingly bizarre philosophies. Meliha really had a bee in her bonnet about it. She felt it was more than a lost opportunity. It was a betrayal.’

  ‘So you think she was on some kind of mission to expose Korn and Pharos?’

  ‘I think that is entirely possible. If you’re asking me where to look for Meliha, then I suggest you start with the Pharos Project.’

  ‘By the way, the picture you’ve got in the digital frame – can you give me a hard copy of that?’

  ‘I can email it to you. I have a new laptop and a private email that are not connected to the State’s system so they haven’t been exposed to this bloody Klabautermann Virus.’

  ‘If you don’t mind, Herr Senator, I’d rather have a hard copy.’

  For a moment Müller-Voigt looked surprised. ‘Okay … I think I’ve got a print in my office. I’ll have it couriered over to the Presidium tomorrow morning. If not I can print it out again when I get my old computer back. They’re de-virusing it or whatever the hell they do to get the data back.’

  As Fabel drove away from the politician’s house all kinds of nagging thoughts worried away at the edges of his mind. The simplest explanation of the woman’s disappearance, and of the fact that there was no trace of her identity, seemed obvious to Fabel: that, for whatever reason, she had given Müller-Voigt a false name. That would explain the thing with the conference: she probably did have an official delegate’s badge, but it had been under a different name and, once she had introduced herself as Meliha Yazar, Müller-Voigt wouldn’t have thought to check her name tag. Maybe she was an investigative journalist or maybe she was a member of one of those extreme environmental groups Menke had mentioned, and she had simply been trying to get close to an influential member of the Hamburg government.

  Yes … that was what made most sense. That she had used a false name. But for some reason, as he drove back through the dark alongside the canal, its high bank topped with the type of Knick that Müller-Voigt had talked about, Fabel couldn’t quite believe it.

  Maybe it was possible that someone, somehow, had been able to erase all traces of the woman who had been Meliha Yazar.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning, Fabel felt tired and irritable when he arrived at the Presidium. He had been right about the coffee: it had kept him awake half the night. Or, more correctly, the coffee, the absence of Susanne in bed beside him, and the ceaseless flashing picture show running through his head – featuring the woman in the photograph Müller-Voigt had shown him – had kept him awake half the night.

  ‘Well, you look like crap …’ was Werner’s greeting as Fabel came out of the elevator. ‘Hangover?’

  ‘I wish,’ said Fabel. ‘Sleepless night. How’s everything going with the Network Killer case? Have we got warrants yet?’

  ‘Anna says we’ve got four addresses to hit this afternoon. She suggests we muster at three p.m. and hit them simultaneously. It would be good if we could have a few uniforms at each address.’

  ‘I’ll arrange it.’

  Anna Wolff came out of the office she shared with Henk Hermann and greeted Fabel.

  ‘You look terrible …’

  ‘We’ve done that,’ said Werner. ‘He claims it was the burden of his intellect that kept him awake last night, but my money’s on a bottle of malt.’

  ‘When you’re quite finished …’ said Fabel. ‘Did you send me a text yesterday?’

  ‘Me?’ Werner frowned. ‘No … not me.’

  ‘You, Anna?’ asked Fabel.

  ‘Not me either, Chef. Is it important?’

  ‘Don’t know. No … probably not. All it said was “Poppenbütteler Schleuse”.’

  ‘Sounds like it was sent to you by mistake,’ said Anna. ‘Do you know anyone who lives in Poppenbüttel?’

  ‘Can’t say I do. Can I have a word with you both?’

  Werner and Anna followed Fabel into his office.

  ‘I know we’re pushed at the moment but I need to check out a couple of things this morning,’ said Fabel. ‘You can reach me on my cellphone if you need me. Before I leave I’ll arrange the uniform cover for the raids this afternoon. If I get bodies in at two-thirty can you brief them, Anna?’

  ‘No problem. Here are the four addresses. I’m afraid they’re spread out all across the city. By the way, Criminal Director van Heiden was trying to get hold of you. He phoned down about fifteen minutes ago.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Fabel, although the thought what now? flashed through his brain. ‘There’s something I’d like you both to check out for me. I have to say this could be unconnected to anything, but I need information on an organisation called the Pharos Project. Like I say, at the moment this is not entirely official, but there’s a chance there may be a link to the wash-up from yesterday. I have a new best friend in the BfV, so I’m going to ask him if he can give me some info on Pharos. Either of you heard of it?’

  Werner, who was still writing in his notebook, shook his head. ‘Is that Faros with an F or with a Ph …?’

  ‘Ph … the Greek way,’ said Fabel. ‘And it’s headed up by some guy called Dominik Korn.’

  ‘I’ve heard of them,’ said Anna. ‘I thought they were just some kind of environmental group like Greenpeace.’

  Fabel laughed. ‘Nothing like. I’m a member of Greenpeace but you wouldn’t get me within a mile of the Pharos Project. It started out legitimately enough but it looks like it may well now be a manipulative cult.’

  ‘I’ll check it out,’ said Anna, grinning at Werner. ‘At least I can spell it.’

  ‘Anything else I should know about before I go out?’ asked Fabel.

  ‘Just that we’ve got a potential homicide in the Schanzenviertel. We’re waiting to hear if the guy pulls through. Poor bastard has sixty per cent burns.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘One of these car torchings went wrong.’

  ‘A car torching?’ Fabel’s mood darkened as he thought back to his conversation of the previous day with Menke, the BfV man. ‘And you say someone might die?’

  ‘The owner came running out when he saw his car on fire,’ said Werner, ‘but the attackers had dumped containers full of kerosene inside. They ignited when the poor schmuck was beside the car. Human-torch stuff, from what I can gather.’

  ‘Great,’ said Fabel. ‘I can guess why Criminal Director van Heiden was on the phone first thing. I’d better get back to him. I’ll see you back here about one-thirty and we can brief in the raids on these addresses.’

  After Werner and Anna were gone, Fabel took the list of addresses Anna had given him and contacted the Presidium control room to have resources allocated to each raid. Fabel explained there would be at least two Murder Commission detectives at each address, and asked that they have a couple of uniforms from each local police station as support.

  Van Heiden took Fabel’s call right away. It was exactly as Fabel had thought: the Criminal Director’s reaction to the news about the car-burning. Fabel sensed that his boss was taking a little pleasure from reminding everyone about how prescient he had been about ‘someone going to end up dead’.

  Of course, the main thrust of the conversation was to remind Fabel how important it was, if the victim died, that the perpetrators were caught quickly. Fabel could never understand why van Heiden felt the need to emphasise the importance of a particular case: as if Fabel did not regard the taking of a human life seriously unless it was given management-team emphasis. For Fabel, the act of murder was emphatic enough, no matter who the victim was.

  ‘There’s perhaps more to this than meets the eye, Fabel,’ said van Heiden. ‘And another reason to give this case some priority. The victim, the owner of the Mercedes, is one Daniel Föttinger. He’s a very impo
rtant figure in environmental technologies. So much so that he is one of the organisers of the GlobalConcern Hamburg summit.’

  ‘So you think this is political?’ asked Fabel. ‘That he was deliberately targeted and this is attempted murder?’

  ‘It could be. At the very least, I don’t like the coincidence. I think this is where your special talents may come into play. And if we can prove aforethought, which may be difficult, then I doubt it will be attempted murder.’

  ‘He doesn’t look good?’

  ‘According to the hospital, he’ll be lucky to make it through the next twenty-four hours.’

  After he had hung up, Fabel did a search in his computer for Daniel Föttinger. As he went through the results he felt his unease grow. Fabel desperately wanted this not to be another homicide, attempted or not. The Commission was stretched as it was with the Network Killer case. Then there was the torso found at the Fischmarkt and its possible connection to the woman Müller-Voigt claimed had disappeared. But the more he read about Föttinger Environmental Technologies and its chief executive and principal shareholder, Daniel Föttinger, the less convinced he was that the arson attack had been random.

  There was something else that troubled Fabel: there were several photographs of Föttinger and Berthold Müller-Voigt at various functions, looking particularly chummy. But, there again, Fabel told himself, it was no surprise that Hamburg’s Environment Senator and a leading light in environmental technologies should have frequently crossed paths; especially when Föttinger was an organiser of the GlobalConcern Hamburg summit.

  But it still did nothing to lessen the gut feeling he had about it. A bad gut feeling.

  Fabel drove out to the address Müller-Voigt had given him for Meliha. It was in a 1960s apartment block with galleries looking out over the trees and the small lake of the Wandsee. Fabel found the apartment on the third floor and, as Müller-Voigt had said, the windows were shuttered. He knocked at the door of the next apartment and a small woman in her forties with dark roots to her unnaturally butter-coloured hair answered. She eyed Fabel suspiciously and muttered something about not buying anything at the door before he showed her his police ID. Her expression shifted from suspicious and hostile to just plain hostile.

  ‘I’m looking for the lady who lives next door. Meliha Yazar. Do you know where or when I would be able to find her?’

  ‘There was already someone here a few days ago, asking the same thing. He wasn’t a policeman, though. I’ll tell you what I told him: that apartment hasn’t been occupied for a couple of months. And it was a family – a German family – who lived there.’

  ‘Who’s the landlord here?’ asked Fabel.

  ‘This block is all public. No private landlord here. Just the City and State of Hamburg, mister.’

  Fabel thanked the woman and left. On the way back down to the car he called in to the Presidium and asked Henk Hermann to get in touch with the City and get hold of the rental records for the address.

  He had just got back to the car when the phone rang. He saw it was the Murder Commission.

  ‘Hi, Henk, that was quick—’

  ‘Chef, it’s Anna. You better get back here. It looks like the Network Killer has chalked up another one. A female body dumped in a city waterway. Werner’s already out at the locus.’

  ‘Shit …’ said Fabel. He looked at his watch. ‘You’ll have to do the briefings for the raids this afternoon yourself. I’ll meet Werner at the scene. Where was the victim discovered?’

  Anna paused before answering. Fabel could have sworn he heard her take a deep breath.

  ‘You’re not going to believe this, Chef,’ she said at last. ‘Werner’s up in Poppenbüttel. The Network Killer dumped his latest victim in the Alster canal lock at the Poppenbütteler Schleuse.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  As he had been ordered, Niels had not gone back to the squat.

  After the firebomb attack on the Mercedes, Harald had sped through the city on the stolen motorbike, ignoring Niels’s demands to slow down: going too fast could attract the attention of the police. But Niels knew that Harald was panicked, and that made him a liability. He had ignored Niels’s screaming in his ear to pull over until Niels had jabbed the muzzle of the automatic into his cheek. Once they were stopped, Niels had told Harald to ride slowly down to the river, making sure he did nothing to cause the police to pull them over. The original plan had been to ride out of the city and to dump the bike in woodland, setting fire to it to destroy any forensic evidence. But Niels had worked out that the police would soon have an alert out with a description of two men on a motorbike, so he had ordered Harald to head down to the docks, to a quieter section of waterfront, where a stone pier jutted out into the Elbe.

  When Harald had dismounted and ripped the helmet from his head, he had thrown it down onto the concrete of the pier with such force that it had bounced.

  ‘He’s dead!’ Harald had screamed at Niels. ‘I mean, he’s fucking dead. They’ll send us down for life for this, Niels. And where did that fucking gun come from? Were you going to kill the guy anyway?’

  Niels had not answered. Instead, he had looked around, at the pier, at the cobbled road leading to it, at the city behind it. He had been here before, doing exactly the same thing. And when he had been here before, he had had exactly the same feeling. In fact, Niels knew he had been here many thousands of times. But he also knew that he had never been here before.

  Still without answering Harald, Niels had wheeled the motorcycle to the end of the pier. Tipping it over the edge, he had watched it sink into the dark water. He had then taken the helmet from his head and had swung his arm as hard as he could, like a discus thrower, sending it hurtling as far out into the river as he could manage. He had repeated the action with Harald’s scuffed helmet, which he had picked up from the ground. This time the effort had wrenched his shoulder and he’d cursed as pain stabbed deep into the muscles. He knew the helmets would float, but hoped that they would drift midstream, perhaps never being found.

  ‘If we get caught I’m going to tell them I knew fuck-all about the gun. Or that he was meant to be killed.’ Harald had shaken his head emphatically. ‘That’s all down to you Niels. I joined the Guardians to protect the planet, not to murder people.’

  Niels had returned to watching where the motorbike had sunk into the Elbe. The water would only be two or three metres deep, but it was dark enough to conceal the bike. When he had turned back, it had been as if he had not heard, or had not been listening to, what Harald had just said. Niels had stared at Harald and tried to work out who and what he was. The very moment that the Mercedes’s owner had burst into flames, an epiphany had burst with equal violence in Niels’s brain. Now he understood the truth about everything. He had been shown in an instant that the environment he cared so deeply about was, in truth, some kind of projection of another, distant reality; and that it wasn’t Niels who had the disability. He realised that it was absolutely everyone else who did not experience the universe as Niels did. They were the deluded ones, not him.

  Harald had looked stunned when Niels had pointed the gun at him and told him to stand at the end of the pier, at exactly the same point from which Niels had just pushed the motorbike into the water. It was evidence in itself, Niels had thought, that Harald did not exist, or at least did not exist in any real sense. He was bound to have known what was going to happen to him, standing there at the end of the pier, yet he had made no move to resist.

  Niels had heard himself laugh again. He had never used a gun before so the first three shots had completely missed Harald, who now cowered and cried like a child. Niels had sighed and walked up to Harald and had pointed the gun at his head from less than a metre’s distance. Then he had fired four times into Harald’s skull.

  Niels had stood and watched as Harald’s crouched body toppled backwards off the pier and into the Elbe. He’d sighed as he’d watched the dead ecoterrorist float away, a plume of dark crimson from his head bloom
ing in the murky water: it had been a waste of effort throwing the helmets so far out and wrenching his shoulder. There was clearly a current here close to the pier that would have swept them upstream.

  That was the thing about this false reality: you could never count on the logic of its physics.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Poppenbüttel lay to the north of the city centre in the Alstertal district of Wandsbek and marked the border between Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. This was yet another place that, at various stages of its career, had been German or Danish. It was now one of the less densely populated parts of Hamburg where the city landscape was broken up by large green spaces of park and woodland. The Poppenbütteler Schleuse had, for two hundred years, provided the city with two services: its primary function, as part of an integrated system of sluices and locks, had always been to control the flow of the Alster river into the centre of Hamburg, ensuring a constant water level in the city. But people knew it best for its secondary role: behind the sluice gates of the Poppenbütteler Schleuse, something between a deep pond and a small lake had formed; almost a miniature version of the Small, Outer and Inner Alster lakes in the city centre. Each weekend and on holidays, people would swim or hire a boat to take out onto the lock pond’s placid water. It was sheltered by a thick curtain of trees, and green-cocooned by the Henneberg Park. It was, Fabel reflected as he parked his car, the ideal place to dump a body: conveniently within the city and connected to a network of roads, yet offering seclusion.

  By the time Fabel got there the uniformed branch had sealed off the scene with tape, but Holger Brauner and his team had not yet arrived to set up a forensics tent. Fabel parked off Saseler Damm, next to a canoe-hire stall. As he walked along the water’s edge he passed a couple of uniforms talking in calm tones to a pale-faced middle-aged man who clutched a fishing rod as though it was a lifeline.