Brother Grimm

by Craig Russell

  ‘That’s nonsense. So, in another dimension, you and I might simply be fictional characters?’

  Otto shrugged. ‘I’m only laying out Weiss’s premise. Added to the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, he layers in this proposition that our concept of history tends to be shaped more by literary or, increasingly, screen portrayals of characters rather than by the historical record and historical or archaeological research.’

  ‘So, despite all his denials, Weiss is implying that, simply by writing this fiction about him, Jacob Grimm is guilty of these crimes in some other invented dimension. Or that Grimm will be judged guilty by future generations who will choose to believe Weiss’s fiction rather than documented fact.’

  ‘Exactly. Anyway, Jan …’ Otto tapped the book that Fabel held. ‘Happy reading. Anything else I can get you?’

  ‘As a matter of fact you can … Do you have any fairy tales?’

  17.

  3.00 p.m., Monday, 22 March: Polizeipräsidium, Hamburg

  The conference room of the Mordkommission would have had the look of a library reading room had it not been for the scene-of-crime photographs that were taped to the incident board, alongside the blown-up images of the notes left in the hands of all three victims. The cherrywood table was completely covered with books of all sizes. Some had the glossy sheen of the freshly published, while others were handworn and a couple were clearly antiquarian volumes. Fabel’s contribution had been the books he had bought from the Jensen Buchhandlung – three copies of Gerhard Weiss’s thriller, a copy of Grimms’ Children’s and Household Tales, a volume of Hans Christian Andersen and one of Charles Perrault. Anna Wolff had gathered the others from the Hamburg Zentralbibliothek library.

  Anna Wolff, Maria Klee and Werner Meyer were already there when Fabel arrived. Kommissar Klatt, from the Schleswig-Holstein KriPo also sat with them but, although the team chatted animatedly with Klatt, there was something about their body language that set the newcomer apart. Fabel had just sat down at the head of the table when Susanne Eckhardt arrived. She apologised to Fabel for her late arrival with the formality that the two lovers automatically adopted when their professional paths crossed.

  ‘Okay,’ Fabel said in a decisive tone. ‘Let’s get started. We have two murder scenes and three victims. And given that the first victim bore a direct reference to Kommissar Klatt’s three-year-old missing-person inquiry, we have to assume, unfortunately, that there is a fourth victim.’ He turned to Werner. ‘What have we got so far?’

  Werner ran through the details they had to date. The first victim had been discovered by a woman from Blankenese out for an early-morning walk along the beach with her dog. In the second case, the police had been tipped off by an anonymous telephone call to the Polizeieinsatzzentrale control room. The call had come from a phone booth at a service station on the B73 Autobahn. Fabel thought back to the motorcycle tyre marks on the track leading out of the Naturpark. But why would this man hide the cars to buy time and then call to tell the police where to find the bodies? Werner also explained that Brauner had got back to them about the two sets of boot prints. The ones that Hermann had pointed out on the Wanderweg didn’t match those found next to the car park. ‘The odd thing is,’ said Werner, ‘that although they were different boots, the size was the same. Huge … size 50.’

  ‘Maybe he changed boots, for some reason,’ said Anna.

  ‘We focus on the motorcyclist who used the foresters’ service path,’ said Fabel. ‘He was watching and waiting for them to arrive. That’s our premeditation.’

  ‘We’re still waiting for the autopsy results on the first victim,’ continued Werner, ‘as well as the forensic reports on the cars we found dumped in the woods. But we do know that it’s likely the first victim was strangled, and the double murder obviously involved a weapon and a different form of killing. Our link between the murders is these small notes pressed into the victims’ hands.’ Werner stood up and read the contents of the notes out loud.

  ‘What we have to ascertain,’ said Susanne, ‘is whether this latest reference – the use of the Hänsel and Gretel story – is just some kind of sick one-off joke, because he abandoned his victims in the woods, or whether he really is making some kind of link to fairy tales.’

  ‘But there’s no “fairy tale” link in the first note,’ Fabel turned and stared at the blow-ups of the notes, as if concentrating on them would squeeze further meaning from the tiny, obsessively neat handwriting.

  ‘Unless we’re simply missing the reference,’ said Susanne.

  ‘Let’s stick with “Hänsel und Gretel” for the moment,’ Fabel continued. ‘Let’s assume our guy is trying to tell us something. What could it be? Who are “Hänsel und Gretel”?’

  ‘Innocents lost in the wood. Children.’ Susanne leaned back in her chair. ‘Neither of which fits with what we know about the victims. It’s a traditional German folk tale … one of the ones collected and recorded by the Brothers Grimm … it’s also an opera by Humperdinck. Hänsel and Gretel were brother and sister – again something that doesn’t fit with the two victims. They epitomise innocence in danger from corruption and evil, over which they ultimately triumph …’ Susanne made a ‘that’s it’ gesture with her hands.

  ‘I’ve got it!’ Anna Wolff had been flicking through one of the books on the table; she slapped her hand down on the open pages.

  ‘What?’ said Fabel. ‘The “Hänsel und Gretel” connection?’

  ‘No … No … sorry, Chef, I mean the first girl. I think I may have the “fairy tale” link. A young girl found on a beach, right? Beside water?’

  Fabel nodded impatiently.

  Anna held up the book so the others could see. On the page opposite the text was a pen-and-ink illustration of a sad-looking girl sitting on a rock by the sea. The illustration echoed the famous small statue that Fabel had himself seen when visiting Copenhagen.

  ‘The Little Mermaid? Hans Christian Andersen?’ Fabel’s tone sounded unconvinced, although there was a chorus of approval from around the table. He looked at the picture again. It was an icon. The legs folded, mermaid’s-tail-like, underneath the body as she sat on the rock. It would be a gift to a serial killer seeking to pose a victim: an instantly recognisable pose. Yet the girl on the beach hadn’t sat on or rested against a rock. There hadn’t even been a rock anywhere near her. But there was the note. There was the false identity. And there was the statement ‘I have been underground.’ At last he said, ‘I don’t know, Anna. It’s a possibility. But so much doesn’t fit. Can we keep looking?’

  Each member of the team took a volume and flicked through it. Fabel selected the Andersen tales and speed-read ‘The Little Mermaid’. He thought back to the dead girl, her azure gaze. Lying, waiting to be found, by the water’s edge. Anna had a copy of Grimms’ Children’s and Household Tales, while Susanne scanned through German Legends. Suddenly, Susanne looked up as if stung.

  ‘You are wrong, Frau Kriminalkommissarin,’ she said to Anna. ‘Our killer is using the Brothers Grimm as his literary reference, not Andersen, nor Perrault. Our dead girl isn’t meant to be the Little Mermaid … she’s meant to be a Changeling.’

  Fabel felt an electric tingle on his skin. ‘Go on …’

  ‘There’s a story here recorded by the Grimms, called “The Changeling” and another called “The Two Underground Women”.’ The current across Fabel’s skin was turned up a notch. ‘According to the notes that accompany these tales, there was a whole system of belief about how children – specifically unbaptised children – were abducted by “the underground people,” who would leave changelings in their stead. But listen to this – these “underground people” would often use water as their medium of transport, and many of these tales relate to changelings being left on the banks of the Elbe and Saale rivers …’

  ‘And Blankenese is on the shore of the Elbe,’ said Fabel. ‘What’s more, we have a direct mention in the note left in the girl’s hand of “underground people”, as well as the
girl being left there with the identity of another missing girl. A Changeling.’

  Werner let out a breath. ‘My God, that’s all we need. A literary psycho-killer. Do you think he intends to stage a killing based on each of the Grimms’ fairy tales?’

  ‘We’d better pray that he doesn’t,’ said Susanne. ‘According to the contents page of this version, the Grimms gathered more than two hundred stories.’

  18.

  5.10 p.m., Monday, 22 March: Institut für Rechtsmedizin, Eppendorf, Hamburg

  Möller was tall; taller than Fabel, and slim-framed. His hair was a pale butter-yellow flecked with ivory and his features were thin and angular. Fabel always felt Möller was one of those people whose appearance changed according to whatever style of clothes they happened to be wearing when you saw them: Möller had a face that could belong to a North Sea fisherman or to an aristocrat, depending on his outfit. As if aware of this fact, and to maintain an image in keeping with his imperious nature, Möller habitually adopted the style of an English gentleman. When Fabel walked into the pathologist’s office, Möller was putting on a green corduroy jacket over his Jermyn Street shirt. When he stepped round from behind his desk, Fabel half expected to see him wearing those green rubber boots that the British royal family seemed to prefer to Gucci.

  ‘What do you want, Fabel?’ Möller asked charmlessly. ‘I’m going home now. Feierabend. Whatever it is it can wait until tomorrow.’

  Fabel remained silent and stood in the doorway. Möller sighed, but did not sit down again. ‘All right. What is it?’

  ‘You’ve done the post-mortem on the girl found on Blankenese Elbstrand?’

  Möller nodded curtly, flipped open a file on his desk and pulled out a report. ‘I was going to give you this tomorrow. Happy reading.’ He gave a tired, impatient smile and slapped the report into Fabel’s chest as he made his way to the door. Fabel still didn’t move from the doorway but attempted a disarming grin.

  ‘Please, Herr Doktor. Just the main points.’

  Möller sighed. ‘As I’ve already informed Kriminaloberkommissar Meyer, the cause of death was by asphyxiation. There was evidence of small blood-vessel damage around the nose and mouth, as well as the ligature marks around the neck. It would appear that she was strangled and smothered simultaneously. There were no signs of sexual trauma or any form of sexual activity in the forty-eight hours prior to death. Although she has been sexually active.’

  ‘Sexual abuse?’

  ‘Nothing to suggest anything other than normal sexual activity. There was no evidence of the type of internal scarring indicative of early sexual abuse. The only other fact revealed by the autopsy is that her teeth were in a bad way. Again I explained this to Herr Meyer. She hadn’t seen a dentist much, and when she did, it was obviously for emergency treatment when she was in pain. There was extensive caries, gum erosion and a lower left molar had been extracted. There were also two ancient fractures. One on the right wrist and the other in the left hand. They had been left to heal themselves. They would be consistent not only with neglect, but active abuse. The wrist fracture is consistent with it having been severely twisted.’

  ‘Werner told me that she hadn’t eaten much in the two days before her death.’

  Möller snatched the report back from Fabel and flicked through the pages. ‘Certainly not in the previous twenty-four hours, other than some rye bread consumed an hour or two before death.’

  For a moment, Fabel was somewhere else: in a dark, frightening place with a young girl fearfully eating her last, insubstantial meal. He knew no detail about this girl’s life, but he did know that it had been as unhappy as it was short. Möller handed him back the report, raised his eyebrows and nodded towards the door.

  ‘Oh, sorry, Herr Doktor.’ Fabel moved to one side. ‘Thanks. Thank you very much.’

  Fabel didn’t head back to the Mordkommission. Instead he drove home, parking his BMW in the underground space reserved for his apartment. He still couldn’t get the girl’s blue eyes out of his mind. More than the horror of the second murder scene, it was the almost alive gaze of the girl on the Blankenese shore that haunted him. The Changeling. The unwanted and false child substituted for the loved and true one. Again, he imagined her final hours: the frugal meal that she had consumed, more than likely served to her by her killer; then she had been strangled and smothered. It made Fabel think of the ancient sacrifices that would turn up every so often in the peat bogs of Northern Germany and Denmark: bodies preserved for three millennia or more in the dark, thick, damp soil. Many of them had been garrotted or deliberately drowned. Even those bodies whose accoutrements suggested high rank revealed they had been fed a meagre final, ritual meal of grain gruel. What had this girl been sacrificed to? There was no evidence of a sexual motive, so what was it that she’d had to surrender her life for? Had it been that she had had to die simply because she looked so much like another girl, also most likely dead?

  Fabel let himself into his apartment. Susanne was working late at the Institut and wouldn’t be over till later. He had brought home the books from Otto’s shop and set them down on the coffee table. He poured himself a glass of crisp white wine and slumped on to the leather sofa. Fabel’s apartment was in the attic of what had once been a grand and solid villa. It was situated in the trendy Pöseldorf part of the Rotherbaum district of the city. He could step out of the front door and within a minute’s walk he would be amongst some of the best restaurants and cafés in Hamburg. Fabel had stretched himself to afford this apartment, sacrificing space for a fantastic view and a great location. He had also bought it at a time when the economy had been shaky and property prices in the city had dropped: he had often reflected bitterly that the German economy and his marriage had slumped at the same time. Fabel knew he could never have afforded a place like this now, even on his Erster Kriminalhauptkommissar’s salary. The apartment was a block back from the Milchstrasse, and the floor-to-ceiling picture windows looked over Magdalenen Strasse, the Alsterpark and the vast lake of the Aussenalster. He gazed out of the window at the city and the vastness of the sky. Hamburg lay spread out before him. A dark forest in which a million souls could become lost.

  Fabel phoned his mother. She said she was well and complained about the continual fussing, and told him that she was getting worried that Lex was losing business by staying with her instead of getting back to his restaurant on Sylt. Again Fabel felt reassured by his mother’s voice on the phone. An ageless voice that he could separate from the whitening hair and the reducing briskness of movement. As soon as he rang off from talking with his mother, he called Gabi. Renate, Fabel’s ex-wife, answered the phone. Her tone, as always, lay somewhere between disinterest and hostility. Fabel had never quite understood why Renate was habitually like this with him. It was as if she held him responsible for her having an affair which blew their marriage into irreparable pieces. Gabi’s voice, on the other hand was, as usual, full of light. They chatted for a while about Fabel’s mother, about Gabi’s school work and their forthcoming weekend together.

  After a while, Fabel asked: ‘Do you remember when I used to read you bedtime stories?’

  ‘Yes, I do, Papi. Don’t tell me you’re going to tuck me up with warm milk and read me Struwwelpeter when I come to stay.’

  Fabel laughed. ‘No … No, I won’t. Do you remember you would never let me read you any Brothers Grimm stories? Even “Snow White” or “Sleeping Beauty”?’

  ‘I remember, all right. I hated those stories.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know, really. They were scary. No … creepy. It was like they were supposed to be for children but they were really for grown-ups. It’s kind of like clowns, you know? They’re supposed to be funny and friendly, but they’re not. They’re dark. Old dark … like those carved wooden faces they wear down in the South for Fasching. You can tell that these things are to do with all kinds of old stuff that people really used to believe at one time. Why do you ask?’

&nb
sp; ‘Oh, nothing. Just something that came up today.’ Fabel steered the conversation back to family matters and arrangements for the weekend. He had gone as far as he ever would in bringing the shadow of his work into his relationship with his daughter. After he had hung up, he made himself some pasta, poured some more wine, and sat down to read, while he ate, the introduction to Gerhard Weiss’s book.

  Germany is the heart of Europe and the Märchenstrasse is the soul of Germany. The Märchenstrasse is the history of Germany. The Märchenstrasse is Germany.

  Our language, our culture, our achievements and our failures, our grace and our wickedness: all these things are to be found on the Fairy Tale Road. It was always so and it always will be so. We are the children lost in the woods with only our innocence to guide us; but we have also been the wolves who prey on the weak. More than anything, we Germans have aspired to greatness: great good and great evil. These are the turns and twists we have always taken and the German folk tale is a tale of purity and corruption, of innocence and guile.

  This tale is a tale of a great man. A man who helped us understand ourselves and our language. This tale, for tale is all it is, follows this great man down the Märchenstrasse, along the path he truly took; but it also asks the question: What if he strayed from the path and into the darkness of the forest?

  Fabel flicked through the pages. The book was a fictionalised Reisetagebuch – the travelling diary of Jacob Grimm as he toured Germany in search of fairy tales to collect. Grimm was portrayed as a fastidious pedant who applied the same attention to detail to the murders he committed as he did to his work as a philologist and folklorist. Then Fabel came to a chapter that made him put down his wineglass. It was titled ‘The Changeling’.