Brother Grimm

by Craig Russell

  Fabel had to stop Werner in his tracks as he donned his black leather jacket and made his way out with the rest of the team.

  ‘Just an observer?’ Werner smiled meekly. ‘Please, Jan, the bastard split my head open. I just want to see him get taken.’

  ‘Okay, but you stay back where I put you. Maria’s my number two on this.’

  It had, at one time, been a working community. A place where the workers in the Hafen came home to; where families lived; where their children played. But now it lay empty, awaiting the inexorable forces of development and gentrification that seemed to be taking hold of all the former working-class districts of Hamburg. Even Fabel’s beloved Pöseldorf, the home of Hamburg’s trendy, wealthy Schickeria, had been known as the Arme Leute Gegend – the poor people’s area – until the 1960s, when it had been transformed into the trendiest part of Hamburg to be seen in.

  But this area down by the harbour had yet to acquire any such desirability. Architecturally, the area seemed frozen in time, with its cobbled streets and huge tenements. The only incursions of the twenty-first century were found in the ugly graffiti that defaced the buildings and the silent, hulking form of a container vessel that could be seen sliding by through the gaps between the tenements. All the officers were tense.

  The building where Olsen had been spotted sat on the fringes of the Hafenstrasse Genossenschaft, the area of Hamburg that, since December 1995, had been owned and administered by a tenants’ commune ‘Alternativen am Elbufer’. Politically and socially, this part of the city had been a battleground. Literally.

  In the autumn of 1981, the apartment blocks along Hafenstrasse and in Bernhardt-Nocht-Strasse had become systematically occupied by squatters. Alfons Pawelczyk, who was Innensenator at the time, had ordered the police in to clear them out. The result had been total anarchy and mayhem. A decade-long war between the squatters and the Polizei Hamburg had followed, and German TV screens had been filled with scenes of burning barricades, vicious hand-to-hand street battles and hundreds of injured police officers and squatters. Ultimately it had cost the then Erster Bürgermeister, Klaus von Dohnanyi, his job. It had only been with the compromise deal struck in 1995 that the unrest had ended. Nevertheless, the area around Hafenstrasse had continued to simmer, and it was not a place the police could enter and operate in without care.

  The MEK team had therefore positioned itself a block back all round the building, which sat on a corner, where Olsen had been sighted. The MEK commander was glad to see Fabel. In an area like this, it would have been impossible to keep their presence a secret much longer. He informed Fabel that Olsen was believed to be in the squat, which sat one floor up in the tenement. It was certainly his motorbike that was parked outside, and one of the MEK team had sneaked in to disable it, in case Olsen tried to make a run for it. Because it had been so badly vandalised, the ground floor was unoccupied. It made things easy. Basically, there was one way in, one way out.

  Fabel divided the team in two. Maria was in charge of Anna and Henk Hermann. They would secure the outside of the building. Fabel, Hans Rödger and Petra Maas would go in for Olsen, taking two MEK officers with them in case any of the other occupants of the squat gave them trouble. He asked the MEK commander to use the rest of his team to support Maria in sealing off any possible escape route.

  They split up into the MEK van, Fabel’s BMW and Maria’s car. They pulled up simultaneously outside the building, vehicle noses inwards. Maria and her team were out and deployed in seconds. Fabel and his group took the front door. The two MEK men slammed a door-ram into the centre of the double doors which splintered and flew open. Fable drew his pistol and led the team in. The hallway stank of urine and some other unclean odour that Fabel could not place. There was the sound of a commotion upstairs and Fabel moved swiftly and silently up the stairwell, flattening himself against the flaking pale green paint and keeping the bead of his pistol lined up on the uppermost point he could see. The door of the squat was open, and Fabel waited until the others could give him cover before going in.

  He scanned the room. It was large and surprisingly bright. It was also empty. There were three large windows facing out on to the street and it took a second for Fabel to register the shape of a man just outside one of them, sitting on the ledge outside, poised to jump. Fabel had just shouted ‘Olsen!’ when the figure was gone.

  ‘He’s jumped!’ Fabel shouted into his radio. ‘Maria, he’s jumped!’ He had no sooner made the report when he realised that he had been in this situation before: him inside, Maria outside and a suspect fleeing.

  ‘Shit!’ he shouted and nearly knocked Petra Maas and an MEK officer over as he burst back out of the squat, taking the stairs three at a time.

  Outside on the street, Maria could hardly believe what she had seen. Olsen had not only dropped a full floor’s height on to the street, but he had immediately picked himself up and started sprinting down towards the water. By the time she had heard Fabel’s shouts on the radio, she was already running. This was it. This was her time. Now she would find out if she still could hack it. She screamed into her radio that she was heading for the Hafen and she knew that Anna and Henk wouldn’t be far behind her, but she also knew that she would be the one to get to Olsen first. And they didn’t come bigger or badder than Olsen.

  Up ahead, Olsen made a sudden turn into another disused building. This time its history had been more industrial than residential and Maria found herself in a large, wide, pillared factory space. The rusting chains and the pulleys in the ceiling from which they hung hinted at some kind of heavy engineering past. Olsen was nowhere to be seen and the huge workbenches that had at one time obviously supported heavy equipment offered a dozen places for him to have hidden. Maria stopped dead and drew her SIG-Sauer from its holster, snapping her arms out in front of her. She strained her ears, trying to hear over her own laboured breathing and the pounding in her chest.

  ‘Olsen!’ she shouted.

  Silence.

  ‘Olsen! Give it up. Now!’

  She felt an intense pain as something flashed before her face and slammed into her wrists. Her gun flew from her grasp and she bent double, clutching her right wrist with her left hand. She turned to see Olsen to her right, an iron bar raised above his head, like some oversized medieval executioner wielding an axe, ready to bring it down on to her neck. Maria froze. For a split second she was somewhere else, with someone else who had a large knife rather than an iron bar. A feeling that went beyond any fear she had felt before surged up in her. It coursed through her like cold electricity, locking her in her bent-over position. Olsen let go a deep, animal cry as he swung the iron bar, and suddenly Maria’s fear became something else. She threw herself forward like a swimmer taking a dive and rolled on the filthy floor of the factory. Olsen’s rage and the viciousness of his attempted blow threw him off balance. Maria was up on her feet and she slammed her foot into the side of Olsen’s head.

  ‘You fuck!’ she screamed. Olsen scrabbled to get to his feet. Maria, clutching her injured wrist, jumped up and forwards, ramming the sole of her boot into his neck. Olsen’s head snapped forward and smashed into the concrete floor. He moaned and his movements became slower. Maria searched the floor for her gun, found it and snapped it up with her good hand. She aimed it at Olsen’s head as he rolled on to his back. He placed his hands above his head.

  Maria examined her wrist. It was bruised but not broken and the pain was already beginning to ease. She looked down her gun barrel at Olsen and hissed.

  ‘Big man. Big fucking scary XYY man. Like hitting women, do you, you fuck!’ She swung her boot once again into the side of Olsen’s face. By now Anna Wolff was running across the factory floor towards them.

  ‘Are you okay, Maria?’

  ‘I’m okay.’ Maria didn’t take her eyes from Olsen. Her voice was tight. ‘You like scaring women? Is that it? You like hurting them?’ She slammed the heel of her boot into Olsen’s cheek. It split and blood started to flood from the
wound.

  ‘Maria!’ Anna was now beside her and levelled her SIG-Sauer at Olsen’s bleeding face. She looked across at Maria. ‘Maria … we’ve got him. We’ve got him. It’s okay. You can back off now.’ Henk Hermann was suddenly there too, and Maria could hear Fabel and the others running towards them. Hermann dropped beside Olsen, rolled him on to his belly and, twisting his arms behind him, cuffed him.

  ‘You okay?’ Fabel put an arm gently around Maria’s shoulders and eased her back from Olsen.

  Maria smiled a broad, warm smile. ‘Yes, Chef. I’m fine. I really am fine.’

  Fabel gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘Good work, Maria. Really good work.’ When Henk Herman rolled Olsen back over so he faced up, Fabel saw the gash on his face.

  ‘He fell, Chef,’ Maria said, trying to sweep away her smile. By this time, Werner and the rest of the MEK team had arrived. Werner looked down at Olsen’s battered face, touching the dressing on his own head. He turned to Maria and grinned.

  ‘Fucking excellent!’

  49.

  6.00 p.m., Tuesday, 20 April: Polizeipräsidium, Hamburg

  Some things were predictable in police work. Olsen refusing to talk until he had access to a lawyer was one of them. He had been taken to the hospital for treatment to the wound on his face. Fabel had asked him if he had any complaint to make about the injuries he had sustained during the course of his arrest.

  Olsen had laughed bitterly. ‘Like the lady said, I fell.’

  What was not expected was that Olsen’s lawyer would emerge from a twenty-minute meeting with his client to declare that Olsen wanted to cooperate totally with the police and that he had extremely important information to give them.

  Before going in to conduct the interview, Fabel gathered his senior team together. Anna Wolff, spike-haired and red-lipped, was dressed in her usual leather jacket and jeans, but her injured leg was still causing her obvious discomfort. Werner was sitting at his desk, the bruising still blooming from under the white dressing on his head. Maria leaned against her desk, in her usual pose of elegant composure, but her grey trouser suit was scuffed and torn and her right wrist and hand were bound in the strapping they had applied at the hospital.

  ‘What’s up, Chef?’ asked Anna.

  Fabel grinned. ‘I need one of you to do the Olsen interview with me … I was just trying to make up my mind as to which of you is least likely to fall off their chair and break something.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Maria.

  ‘Under the circumstances, Maria, I think that Olsen may be more forthcoming with someone he hasn’t had such a physical relationship with.’

  ‘That excludes me, then,’ said Werner, bitterly.

  ‘Anna?’ Fabel nodded in Kommissarin Wolff’s direction.

  ‘My pleasure …’

  Olsen sat sullenly across the table from Anna and Fabel. His lawyer was a state-appointed Anwalt: a small, mouse-like man who, for some odd reason, had chosen to wear an insipid grey suit that emphasised the colourlessness of his complexion. He was small and, next to Olsen’s bulk, looked as if he belonged to another species. Olsen’s face was badly bruised and swollen. The flesh seemed puffed up around where the gash on his cheek had been stitched and dressed. The mouse-man spoke first.

  ‘Herr Kriminalhauptkommissar, I’ve had a chance to talk to Herr Olsen at length and in depth on the matter about which you wish to question him. Let me get straight to the point. My client is innocent of the murder of Laura von Klosterstadt – or, for that matter, the killing of anyone else. He admits to taking flight when he should have been providing the police with information central to their investigation, but, as will become clear, he had good reason to fear that his account would not be treated credibly. Furthermore, he admits to assaulting Kriminaloberkommissar Meyer and Kriminaloberkommissarin Klee during the commission of their duties, but we would ask that some leniency is shown here, considering that Herr Olsen does not wish to pursue any complaint regarding the, shall we say, enthusiasm of his arrest by Frau Klee.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Anna snorted. ‘Three police officers have been injured trying to nail the Incredible Hulk here, we have absolute forensic proof that places him at the double-murder scene, as well as firsthand experience of his psychotic temper – and you seriously expect us to negotiate with you because he got a scrape while violently resisting arrest?’

  Olsen’s lawyer did not reply but looked pleadingly at Fabel.

  ‘Okay,’ said Fabel. ‘Let’s hear what you’ve got to say, Herr Olsen.’

  The Anwalt nodded. Olsen leaned forward, resting his elbows on the interview table. His hands were still handcuffed and he made an open gesture with them. Fabel noticed how huge and powerful his hands were. Like Weiss’s. But they also reminded him of someone else whom he couldn’t, at that moment, place.

  ‘Right. First of all, I didn’t kill nobody.’ Olsen turned to Anna Wolff. ‘And I can’t help my temper. It’s a condition. I’ve got a kinda genetic disorder. It makes me lose it sometimes. Big time.’

  ‘XYY syndrome?’ asked Fabel.

  ‘It’s always got me into a lot of trouble. Someone gets me angry and I go fuckin’ ape. Nothing I can do about it.’

  ‘Is that what happened with Hanna Grünn?’ asked Anna. ‘Did you lose it “big time” with her and Markus Schiller?’ Before Olsen could answer, Anna slipped some photographs from a SpuSi forensics envelope. She placed a series of four of them on the table before Olsen, as if she were dealing cards. They showed the bodies of Hanna Grünn and Markus Schiller. Together and apart. Fabel watched Olsen’s face as Anna laid out the images. He winced and Fabel noticed the huge handcuffed hands begin to shake.

  ‘Oh, fuck.’ Olsen’s voice seemed to tremble. ‘Oh, fuck. I’m sorry. Oh God, I’m sorry.’ His eyes glossed with tears.

  ‘Is there something you want to tell us, Peter?’ Fabel’s voice was calm, almost soothing. ‘Why did you do it?’

  Olsen shook his head violently. A tear escaped from the corner of his eye and made a run for the dressing on his cheek. To see Olsen weep was a disturbing sight. It looked so incongruous with his massive bulk and heavy features. ‘I didn’t do it. I didn’t do this.’

  Anna laid out another two images. They were forensic comparisons of a boot print and a tyre mark. ‘Your boots. Your bike. You were there. You did it all right. You couldn’t forgive Hanna, could you? She wanted to trade up, so she dumped the oversized grease-monkey for an oversized wallet. You couldn’t stand that, could you?’

  ‘I got so jealous. I loved her, but she was just using me.’

  Anna leaned forward eagerly. ‘You must have stalked them for weeks. Watching them screw in that fancy car of his. You hiding in the shadows, in the trees. Watching and planning and fantasising about how you would give them both what was coming. Am I right?’

  Olsen’s huge shoulders slumped. He nodded his head, wordlessly. Anna didn’t allow a heartbeat to pass.

  ‘Then you did it. Then you really did give them what was coming. I understand that. I really do, Peter. But why the others? Why the girl on the beach? The model? Why the salesman?’

  Olsen dried his eyes with the heels of his hands. Something harder, more determined swept across his face. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t kill nobody. Everything you said about Hanna and that prick Schiller is true. I wanted to scare them. Beat the crap out of them. But that was all.’

  ‘But you got carried away, right?’ said Anna. ‘You’ve admitted you can’t control your temper. It’s not your fault. You meant to give them a scare but you ended up killing them. Isn’t that about the size of it?’

  No, thought Fabel. That isn’t it. The killings didn’t show rage or loss of control, they showed premeditation. He glanced across at Anna and she picked up the signal, reluctantly sitting back in her chair.

  ‘If you didn’t kill them, or even get a chance to beat them up,’ said Fabel, ‘then what exactly is it that you’re sorry for?’

&n
bsp; Olsen seemed fixed on the image of Hanna Grünn, her throat slashed open. When he tore his gaze away and looked at Fabel, his eyes were pained and pleading. ‘I saw it. I saw it. I saw him and I didn’t stop him.’

  Something tingled the skin on the nape of Fabel’s neck. ‘What did you see, Peter? Who are you talking about?’

  ‘I didn’t kill them. I didn’t. I don’t expect you to believe me. That’s why I went on the run. I don’t even know what you’re talking about with these other murders. But yes, I was there when Hanna and Schiller got killed. I saw the whole thing. I saw it and I did nothing.’

  ‘Why, Peter? Did you want them to die?’

  ‘No. Christ, no.’ He locked eyes with Fabel. ‘I was scared. I was terrified. I couldn’t move. I knew if he knew I was there he’d come for me too.’

  Fabel looked at Olsen. At the huge hands. At the bulk of his shoulders. It was difficult to imagine anything or anyone scaring him. But Fabel could tell that he had been frightened. Frightened for his life. And he was reliving that fear, right here, in front of them. ‘Who was it, Peter? Who killed them?’

  ‘I don’t know. A big man. As big as me, maybe bigger.’ He looked again at Anna Wolff. ‘You were right. Everything you said was true. I watched them. I was waiting to scare the shit out of them and give Schiller a real hiding. But I wasn’t going to kill no one. I don’t know, maybe if I lost it I could’ve killed Schiller. But never Hanna. No matter what she’d done to me. Anyway, I had something better planned. I was going to tell Schiller’s wife. She would have fixed him good and proper and Hanna would have seen just how serious he’d been about leaving his wife for her. I wanted Hanna to feel used. I wanted her to feel the way she made me feel.’

  ‘Okay, Peter, tell us what happened?’

  ‘I hid in the woods and waited for them. She turned up first and then he arrived. But before I could do anything I saw something come out of the woods. I didn’t think it was a man to start with. He was really fuckin’ big. All dressed in black with some kind of mask on. It was like a kid’s party mask. Some sort of animal … a bear, or a fox. Maybe a wolf. It looked really small on him. Too small. And all stretched out of shape and that made it even scarier. Even the way he moved was scary. He just seemed to take shape out of the shadows. He simply walked up to the car – they were both in Schiller’s car by then – and knocked on the window. Schiller opened it. I couldn’t hear too good, but it sounded like Schiller got angry and started shouting. Obviously didn’t like being interrupted. Then it was like he saw the big guy, with the mask on and everything. I couldn’t make out what Schiller was saying, but he sounded scared. The big man in black just stood and listened. He didn’t say nothin’. Then it happened. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The big man’s arm shot up above him and I saw the moonlight flash on something. Like a big blade. Then he brought it down through the open car window. I heard Hanna screaming but I couldn’t do nothin’. I was afraid. Scared shitless. I can take just about anyone, but I knew if he knew I was there this big guy would have done me too.’ He broke off. Tears glazed the eyes again. ‘He was so calm. Slow, even. What’s the word? Methodical. He was methodical. Like he’d got all the time in the world. He just walked around the car, calm as you like, opened the door and dragged Hanna out. She was screaming. Poor Hanna. I didn’t do nothing. I was rooted to the spot. You’ve got to understand, Herr Fabel, I knew I’d die. I didn’t want to die.’