Brother Grimm

by Craig Russell

  ‘A serial killer using a study guide?’ Fabel’s laugh had a bitter edge. ‘I suppose it’s possible.’

  ‘Jan, you know we’re going to have to check out this author guy …’

  ‘Weiss.’ Fabel filled the gap. He turned and looked back towards the boat. Boats like these had plied their trade on the rivers and canals since before Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm travelled Germany collecting tales, legends and myths. And before them, other boats had met here and bartered goods when those tales, legends and myths had been given voice for the first time. An ancient land. An ancient land and Europe’s heart, was how Fabel’s father had explained Germany to him as a child. A place where things were felt more acutely, experienced more intensely, than anywhere else. ‘I will,’ said Fabel eventually.

  The contrast with the Schiller villa was as stark as it could be. The Grünn family lived on the outskirts of Buxtehude, in a rented apartment in a block of six. The block, the grounds around it and the Grünns’ apartment itself were clean and well-kept. But when Fabel and Werner joined Herr and Frau Grünn and Hanna’s eighteen-year-old sister Lena in the living room, it was as if the apartment’s capacity had been exceeded.

  It wasn’t just the apartment that contrasted with the circumstances of Fabel’s last interview: unlike with Vera Schiller, the sense of loss here was raw and immediate. Fabel couldn’t help making another comparison: with the Ehlers, who had thought they had found their missing child, dead, only to find they had been the victims of a hoax of intolerable cruelty. Unlike the Ehlers, the Grünn family could at least experience the release of intense grief. They would have a body to bury.

  Erik Grünn was a large, stocky man with a shock of ash-blond hair that had not been thinned by his fifty-two years. His wife Anja and his daughter both showed hints of Hanna Grünn’s beauty, but in lesser proportions. All three answered the detectives’ questions with a leaden politeness. It was clear that the Grünns were eager to help, but it was also clear that the interview was not going to yield much. Hanna hadn’t told them a great deal about her life in Hamburg, other than that she’d been hopeful of getting a modelling contract soon. In the meantime, she had told them, she was getting on well at the Backstube Albertus and was expecting promotion soon. This, of course, Fabel knew to be false from what he had been told by Biedermeyer, Hanna’s immediate boss at the bakery. It became obvious to Fabel that Hanna had kept in touch with her family, but that the contact had been limited, and she had kept a great deal of what was going on in her life to herself. Fabel had felt awkward, almost guilty, as he had explained the circumstances of Hanna’s death: that she had been having an affair with her boss and that he had been the other victim. He had gauged their reactions: Frau Grünn’s shock was genuine, as was the dark shame that clouded Herr Grünn’s expression. Lena simply stared at the floor.

  ‘What about other boyfriends? Was there anyone special?’ As soon as Fabel asked the question, he sensed tension between the three.

  ‘No one special.’ Herr Grünn’s answer was a little too quick in coming. ‘Hanna had her pick. She wasn’t into getting serious with anyone.’

  ‘And what about Herr Schiller? Did Hanna ever mention her relationship with him?’

  It was Frau Grünn who answered. ‘Herr Fabel, I want you to know that we did not bring our daughter up to … to get involved with married men.’

  ‘So Hanna wouldn’t have discussed it with you.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have dared,’ said Herr Grünn. Fabel could tell that, even in her death, Hanna had incurred her father’s dark wrath. He wondered just how dark that wrath had been when Hanna was a child, and how much it had to do with her minimising contact with her family.

  As they were leaving, Fabel and Werner expressed their condolences for a second time. Lena said to her parents that she would see the policemen out. Instead of saying goodbye at the door, Lena led them in silence down the communal stairs of the apartment building. She stopped in the entrance hallway and when she spoke her voice was low, almost conspiratorial.

  ‘Mutti and Papi don’t know, but Hanna had been with someone. Not her boss … someone before that.’

  ‘Did he have a motorcycle?’ Fabel asked. Lena looked slightly taken aback.

  ‘Yes … yes, he did, as a matter of fact. You know about him?’

  ‘What is his name, Lena?’

  ‘Olsen. Peter Olsen. He lives in Wilhelmsburg. He’s a motorcycle mechanic. I think he has his own business.’ Lena’s pale blue eyes clouded. ‘Hanna liked her men to have money to spend on her. But I got the impression that Peter was a temporary thing. Money was Hanna’s thing. Oily hands weren’t.’

  ‘Did you ever meet him?’

  Lena shook her head. ‘But she told me about him on the phone. Friday nights are when Mutti and Papi go out. She would phone then and tell me all kinds of things.’

  ‘Did she mention Markus Schiller at all?’ asked Werner. ‘Or his wife, Vera Schiller?’

  There was a sound in the stairwell, like a door opening, and Lena cast an anxious look upwards. ‘No. No, I can’t say she did. Not directly. Hanna told me she had found someone new – but she wouldn’t tell me any more than that. It never occurred to me it might be her boss. But I did know she was worried about Peter finding out. I’m sorry, I’ve told you everything I know. I just thought you ought to know about Peter.’

  ‘Thank you, Lena.’ Fabel smiled at her. She was a pretty, bright eighteen-year-old who would now go through the rest of her life carrying the scars of this experience within her. Deep, unseen, but always there. ‘You really have been very helpful.’

  Lena was about to head back towards the stair when she checked herself. ‘There is one other thing, Herr Hauptkommissar. I think Peter was violent. I think that’s why she was worried about him finding out.’

  24.

  10.10 a.m., Thursday, 25 March: Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg

  Tracking down Olsen had not been difficult. He didn’t have much of a record, but what he did have suggested someone who was quick to resolve problems with his fists. He had three recorded convictions for assault, as well as having been cautioned on a trading offence: he had sold on parts that came from a stolen motorcycle.

  Wilhelmsburg is Hamburg’s biggest Stadtteil – its largest city division. It is effectively an island in the Elbe, Europe’s largest river island, and it bristles with bridges, including the Köhlbrandbrücke, which connect it to the main city to the north and Harburg to the south. Wilhelmsburg has a strange, undecided look to it, a combination of the rural and the heavy industrial: sheep graze in fields next to hulking industrial sheds. Wilhelmsburg also has a rough reputation often jokingly referred to as Hamburg’s Bronx, and more than a third of its population is immigrant in origin.

  Peter Olsen sold and repaired motorcycles from a battered industrial unit down on the riverside in the shadow of the oil refinery. Fabel decided to take both Werner and Anna with him when he went to question Olsen, and asked for a uniformed Schutzpolizei unit to join them. They hadn’t enough evidence to arrest him, but Fabel had managed to get a warrant from the Staatsanwaltschaft state prosecutor’s office to seize his motorcycle for forensic examination.

  Fabel pulled up at the overgrown kerb next to the two-metre-high mesh fence that ringed Olsen’s workshop. As they waited for the SchuPo unit to arrive, Fabel surveyed the workshop and yard. The skeletons of four or five motorcycles lay tangled and rusting and a vast Rottweiler dog lay on its side in the yard, occasionally raising its massive head to cast an indolent glance around its domain. Fabel couldn’t see if the dog was tethered or not.

  ‘Werner, get on to the Wilhelmsburg Polizeirevier,’ Fabel said, still scanning Olsen’s premises. ‘See if they can provide a dog handler. I don’t like the look of Olsen’s pet.’ A green and white marked police van pulled up behind them. It was as if Olsen’s guard dog was trained to respond to police vehicles, because as soon as the van arrived, the dog leapt to its feet and started to bellow deep, loud barks in its dir
ection. A large man, dressed in overalls, emerged from the workshop, wiping his hands on a cloth. He was massively built, with huge shoulders into which the neckless head seemed to have been rammed: he was the human equivalent of the Rottweiler that guarded his yard. The man stared hard at the dog and muttered something, then looked across towards the police vehicles before turning and going back into the workshop.

  ‘Forget the dog handler, Werner,’ said Fabel. ‘We’d better go and chat to our chum now.’

  As they approached the gate it became clear that the dog wasn’t tethered. It bounded towards the approaching group of policemen with a speed and agility that belied its bulk. Fabel noted with relief that the gate was chained closed and padlocked. The Rottweiler snarled and barked viciously, the white teeth flashing. Olsen appeared again at the door of the workshop.

  ‘What do you want?’ His voice was barely audible at such a distance and over the continuing barking of the Rottweiler.

  ‘We have a warrant, Herr Olsen,’ said Fabel, holding up the document so that Olsen could see. ‘And we’d like to ask you a few questions.’ The dog was now leaping up at the gate, making it rattle and strain against the chain and padlock. ‘Would you please call off your dog, Herr Olsen? We need to ask you some questions.’

  Olsen made a dismissive gesture and made to turn back into the doorway. Fabel nodded to Werner, who drew his pistol, snapped back its carriage and took aim at the Rottweiler’s head.

  Olsen called out ‘Adolf!’ sharply and the dog obediently returned to where it had been lying, but remained on its feet, alert.

  Anna cast a glance at Fabel. ‘Adolf?’

  Fabel nodded to Werner, who responded by reholstering his gun. Olsen came up to the gate with a bunch of keys and unlocked the padlock. He swung open the gate and stood, sullenly, to one side.

  ‘Would you tether your dog, please, Herr Olsen?’ Fabel handed him a copy of the warrant. ‘And could we see your motorcycle, please? Your own machine. The index number is on the warrant.’

  Olsen jerked his head in the direction of the workshop. ‘It’s over here. Forget about the dog. He won’t hurt anyone – unless I tell him to, that is.’

  They made their way across to the building. Adolf watched them from his station, where Olsen had secured with a sturdy chain. The dog’s posture was tense, and it turned its gaze from the police officers to Olsen and back again, as if waiting for the order to attack.

  The interior of the workshop was surprisingly tidy and bright. Rammstein or something similar roared coarsely from a CD player. Olsen turned the volume down but not off, as if to indicate that this was only a temporary interruption to his day. Fabel had expected the walls to be covered with the usual soft-core or even hard-core posters; instead the images were either aesthetic shots of motorcycles or technical illustrations. There was a row of motorbikes at the far end, a couple of which were clearly classics. The workshop had a concrete floor that Olsen obviously swept regularly and there was shelving along one wall on which parts were arranged in red plastic trays and boxes, each of which was neatly tagged. Fabel took a long look at Olsen. He was a big man in his late twenties, and would almost have been handsome had his features not been just that little bit too big and coarse. Added to that, he had bad, mottled skin. Fabel found the methodical ordering and labelling of parts at odds with Olsen’s brutish appearance. He leaned closer to the parts store and peered at the labels.

  ‘You looking for something special?’ Olsen’s voice was flat. He had clearly decided to be cooperative, but indifferent. ‘I thought you wanted to see my motorcycle?’

  ‘Yes …’ Fabel moved away from the stores rack. The writing on the labels was small and neat, but Fabel couldn’t have said whether it was the same as the tiny handwriting on the notes left with the bodies. ‘Yes, please.’

  A large American motorcycle sat in the centre of the workshop, supported on a stand. Several parts had been removed from the engine and laid out on the floor. Again, Fabel sensed order and care in the way they had been placed on the concrete. Olsen had obviously been working on this bike when they’d arrived.

  ‘No, not that one. Over here.’ Olsen indicated a silver and grey BMW motorcycle. Fabel knew nothing about motorbikes but noted that the model was an R1100S. He had to admit there was a beauty to it: a sleek, elegant menace that made it look fast even when standing dormant – in an odd way it reminded Fabel of Olsen’s guard dog: full of pent-up power, even violence, aching to be released. He nodded to the two uniformed officers who pushed the bike from its space and out towards the waiting van.

  ‘What do you want it for?’ asked Olsen. Fabel ignored the question.

  ‘You know about Hanna Grünn? I take it you’ve heard?’

  Olsen nodded. ‘Yeah, I heard.’ He feigned as much disinterest as he could muster.

  ‘You don’t seem particularly upset, Herr Olsen,’ Anna Wolff said. ‘I mean, I thought you were her boyfriend.’

  Olsen spurted a laugh and did nothing to keep the raw bitterness from it. ‘Boyfriend? Not me. I was just a mug. One of Hanna’s many mugs. She dumped me months ago.’

  ‘Not according to the people who worked with her. They say you picked her up there on your motorcycle. Until quite recently.’

  ‘Maybe I did. She was the user. I was the used. What can I say?’

  Fabel could see that Olsen clearly visited a gym regularly: there was great power in the shoulders and arms that bulged against the fabric of his overalls. It was not hard to imagine Olsen overpowering the smaller, slighter Schiller and killing him with two strokes of a sharp knife.

  ‘Where were you, Herr Olsen,’ asked Anna, ‘on Friday evening? The nineteenth – right up until Saturday morning?’

  Olsen shrugged. You’re overdoing the disinterested thing, thought Fabel. You’ve got something to hide. ‘I went out for a drink. In Wilhelmsburg. Then I went home about midnight.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Der Pelikan. It’s a new bar in the Stadtmitte. I thought I’d go to check it out.’

  ‘Did anyone see you?’ asked Anna. ‘Anyone who could confirm that you were there?’

  Olsen made a face that suggested Anna’s question was stupid. ‘There were hundreds of people. Like I said, it’s a new place and a lot of people obviously had the same idea as me, but I didn’t see anyone I know.’

  Fabel made an almost apologetic gesture. ‘Then I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to come with us, Herr Olsen. You’re not giving us enough information to eliminate you from our inquiry.’

  Olsen gave a resigned sigh. ‘Fair enough. But I can’t help it if I haven’t got an alibi. If I was guilty of something I would have made an effort to have a convincing cover story. Will this take long? I’ve got repairs I need to get out.’

  ‘We’ll keep you only for as long as it takes to get to the truth. Please, Herr Olsen.’

  ‘Can I lock up first?’

  ‘Of course.’

  There was a rear door at the far side of the workshop. Olsen went over to it and turned the key in the lock. He then made his way out, followed by the three detectives. The dog was now asleep in the yard.

  ‘If I’m going to be away overnight I’ll have to arrange for the dog to be fed.’ He stopped suddenly and looked back at the workshop. ‘Shit. The alarm. I can’t leave the bikes in there without the alarm on. Can I go back and set it?’

  Fabel nodded. ‘Werner, go with Herr Olsen, please.’

  When they were out of earshot, Anna turned to Fabel. ‘Do you get the feeling we’re backing a loser here?’

  ‘I know what you mean. I get the feeling that the only thing Olsen is hiding is how upset he is about Hanna’s death …’

  It was then that they heard a sudden urgent, throaty roar from inside the workshop. Anna and Fabel exchanged a look and started to run towards the building. The guard dog, startled from its sleep by the noise and its predator’s instinct stimulated by the two running police officers, started to thrash around
rabidly, its vicious jaws snapping at the empty air. Fabel arced his run, hoping he had correctly estimated the limit of the Rottweiler’s restraining chain. They had covered about half the distance to the workshop when Olsen swept round its side on a huge red beast of a motorcycle. Both Fabel and Anna froze for a moment as the heavily muscled racing bike loomed towards them. Olsen’s head was encased in a red motorcycle helmet and the visor was down over the eyes, but Fabel recognised the oil-stained overalls. Olsen steered the bike like a weapon. The front wheel lifted slightly as he throttled the engine into an angry whine.

  Adrenalin surged through Fabel’s body, slowing time. The bike had been travelling fast, but now it seemed to lunge forward with impossible acceleration, as if Fabel had focused on it with a fast zoom lens. Fabel and Anna threw themselves in opposite directions as the bike flashed between them. Fabel rolled over on the ground a couple of times before coming to rest. He had just raised himself on to one knee when something massive and dark collided with him. For a sliver of a second, Fabel thought Olsen had come back with the bike to finish them off, until he turned to see the massive jaws of the Rottweiler lunge towards him. Fabel jerked his head back as the dog snapped its teeth shut. He felt cold mucus and saliva on his cheek, but knew that the dog had missed. He rolled again, this time in the opposite direction, and felt a sharp pain as something clamped down hard and tore at his shoulder. Fabel kept rolling in a continuous movement and heard the dog’s vicious snarling turn to furious, frustrated barking as it reached the limit of its chain.

  He pulled himself to his feet. Anna Wolff was also standing and looked over to Fabel to check that he was okay. Her poise was almost that of someone ready to start a race and Fabel nodded to her. She sprinted towards Fabel’s car and the green and white police van. The two uniformed officers stood as if stunned, each at either end of the motorcycle they had been loading into the back of the van. Anna Wolff’s run switched trajectory from Fabel’s car to the motorbike.