Old German type and script; a copy of Grimms’ fairy tales. It wasn’t what you would expect in a tattooist’s apartment. Another murder with a Grimm connection and another body, but one they had not been meant to find.
Fabel removed the three books from the shelves and put them to one side to be placed in evidence bags later. He stood in the dingy bedroom for a moment and gazed down at the books. He knew he was still to unravel their exact significance; he also knew he had just taken a large step closer to his killer. He snapped open his cell phone and hit a pre-set dial button.
‘Anna – it’s Fabel. I have a strange request. I want you to phone Fendrich and ask him if he has any tattoos …’
56.
2.10 p.m., Tuesday, 27 April: Neustadt, Hamburg
Weiss had been polite and cooperative on the phone when Fabel had called him at home, but had managed to squeeze the tiniest hint of tested patience into his tone. He explained that he was tied up most of the following day doing book signings and some research for a new book he was writing. He was going to be in the Neustadt area and Weiss suggested that they meet there, about eleven-thirty.
‘As long as you don’t mind doing your interrogation alfresco,’ Weiss had said.
Fabel arrived, as usual ten minutes early, and sat on a bench in the pedestrianised Peterstrasse. The sky had wiped the last smudges of cloud from its face and presented itself in a flawless bright blue and Fabel cursed having worn his heavier Jaeger jacket. Being dressed appropriately for the ever-changing weather was a problem Fabel shared with the rest of Hamburg’s population. He couldn’t slip his jacket off because his service automatic was clipped to his belt, so he chose a bench shaded by a rank of trees that punctuated the cobbled street. Peterstrasse was flanked by five- and six-storey Baroque town houses, their façades crowded with windows and rising to Dutch-style gables.
Slightly after eleven-thirty, Weiss’s huge frame emerged from the imposing doorway of number thirty-six, which sat on the corner of Peterstrasse and Hütten. Fabel knew the building: as a student he had visited it frequently. He stood up as Weiss approached and the two men shook hands. Weiss’s gesture suggested that they should sit down on the bench.
‘I take it your new book follows a similar traditional literary theme?’ said Fabel.
Weiss raised one of his heavy brows questioningly and Fabel indicated the building from which Weiss had just come. ‘The Niederdeutsche Bibliothek – I take it you’ve been researching older Low German literature. I used to spend quite some time in there myself …’
‘What can I help you with, Herr Kriminalhauptkommissar?’ Weiss’s intonation still nursed a hint of impatient indulgence. It rankled with Fabel, but he let it go.
‘There are more coincidences in this case than I’m comfortable with, Herr Weiss,’ said Fabel. ‘I suspect that the murderer has read your book and that it is influencing his actions.’
‘Or it could be that your killer and I simply use the same source material, if in a radically different way. By which I mean the original Grimms’ Children’s and Household Tales.’
‘I have no doubt that is the case, but I also feel that there is a …’ Fabel struggled for the best form of words ‘… well, a freestyle element to both. An interpretative element, if you like.’
‘By which I take it that you mean he doesn’t stick strictly to the book?’
‘Yes.’ Fabel paused. An elderly woman walked past with a dog on a lead. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that the sculptor was your brother? That he created the wolf sculpture in your study?’
‘Because I didn’t think it was any of your business. Or that it had anything to do with what we were talking about. Which leads me to ask why you feel that it is your business. Am I a suspect, Herr Fabel? Do you want a full accounting of my whereabouts?’ Weiss’s eyes narrowed and the heavy brows shaded the first sparks of a dark fire. ‘Oh, I see your logic. Maybe madness runs in the family.’ He leaned his massive head towards Fabel. ‘Maybe I am moon-mad too.’
Fabel resisted the temptation to back away and held Weiss’s gaze. ‘All right, let’s say that I have grounds for suspicion. Your book comes out and all of a sudden we have a series of murders that follow the same specific themes as your novel. Added to that, these murders are placing you in the public spotlight, increasing interest in – and sales of – your book. That, at least, legitimises my interest in you.’
‘I see … So I’m in the police searchlight as well as the public spotlight?’ The smile that stretched Weiss’s lips lacked any form of warmth. ‘If you could provide me with a list of dates and times you want me to account for, I’ll supply the information you need.’
‘I’ve already prepared that.’ Fabel took a folded sheet of paper from his inside pocket. ‘The times and dates are all there. And, wherever possible, it would be useful if you could give details of anyone who can corroborate your whereabouts.’
Weiss took the paper and placed it in his jacket pocket without looking at it. ‘I’ll attend to it. Is that all?’
Fabel bent forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. He watched the woman and her dog as they turned the corner into Hütten. ‘Listen, Herr Weiss, you are clearly a very intelligent man. The coincidences between your book and these murders are not the main reason I’m here. I suppose you’re the nearest thing I’ve got to an expert on what drives this killer. I need to understand him. I need to understand what it is he thinks he sees in these tales.’
Weiss eased back on the bench and spread his large hands on his knees. He looked at the cobbles at his feet for a moment, as if contemplating what Fabel had said.
‘Okay. But I don’t know what I can do to help. I can’t claim to have any special insight into what motivates him. It’s his reality; not mine. But, if you ask my opinion, it has nothing to do with Grimm’s Fairy Tales. What he’s doing is his own invention. Like my book … Die Märchenstrasse has nothing to do with Jacob Grimm, really. Nor Grimm’s Fairy Tales. It’s just, well, a background to that which I have freely invented.’ Weiss paused. He indicated the Baroque Bürgerhäuser before them. ‘Look at this. We’re sitting here surrounded by history. In high season Peterstrasse – and Hütten and Neanderstrasse around the corner – is filled with tourists, particularly Americans, soaking up the late-medieval splendour of these buildings. But, as I’m sure you know only too well, it’s all a lie. These splendid Baroque town houses were built in the late 1960s and early 1970s. There were never buildings like these here. They’re not even reconstructions – they’re inventions, fabrications. Admittedly they were built according to genuine historical plans for such buildings, but they don’t belong here, in this place, in this time. At any time.’
‘What’s your point, Herr Weiss?’
‘Just that you and I and anyone who knows about Hamburg history are aware of that. But the majority of people don’t have a clue. They come here, and sit on these benches, just as we are now, and soak up a sense of their history, of German history. And that is what they experience. What they feel. It is their reality, because they believe it. They don’t see a sham because there is none to see.’
Weiss rubbed the heels of his hands on his knees, frustratedly, as if he was struggling still to give form to his thoughts. ‘You asked about my brother. The reason I didn’t mention that he was the sculptor of that piece in my study was because it is all still too real for me. Too raw. I was glad when Daniel killed himself, and I still find that difficult to deal with. He was so tortured towards the end that I was relieved when he ended it. I explained how Daniel believed himself to be a lycanthrope, a werewolf. The fact is that he really did believe it: it was an absolute, unquestionable, hideous reality to him. He was my older brother and I loved him dearly. He was everything I wanted to be. Then, when I was about twelve and he was seventeen, he started to have these episodes. I saw it, Herr Hauptkommissar. I witnessed my brother in the grip of some invisible force that tore at him. It wasn’t just mental anguish that made him scream and howl, it wa
s intense physical agony. What we watched was a teenage boy having a seizure. But what Daniel experienced, what he truly felt physically, was every sinew twist and stretch, his bones bend, his body racked with unbelievable pain as he changed shape. My point is that he felt it all. It was all real to him. Even if it wasn’t to us.’ Weiss broke off the intense gaze with which he had locked Fabel. ‘That’s where I got the idea for my Wahlwelten novels. I wrote about Daniel in the very first one. I made him a wolf. Not a werewolf, but a wolf-king who was master of all the world’s wolf packs. I made him happy and free – free from pain – in my story. And that became my reality for him.’ Again Weiss paused. Fabel could see pain in the dark eyes. ‘That’s why you’re wrong to say that your killer isn’t sticking to the book, to the authentic tales. He is … because it’s his book. It’s his reality.’
‘But the Grimm fairy tales, and maybe even your book, are his inspiration?’
‘Obviously. But it’s how he interprets them that is hard to second guess. Listen – do you remember I showed you my collection of illustrations?’
Fabel nodded.
‘Well, think how many highly individual artistic interpretations of the Grimms’ tales they represented. And they are only a fraction of the paintings, drawings, book illustrations and sculptures that the tales have inspired. Take the Humperdinck opera … the Sandman comes along and sprinkles magic dust in Hänsel’s and Gretel’s eyes to make them sleep. Something that has nothing to do with the original tale at all. Your killer’s interpretation – because he clearly sees himself as an artist – is as subjective and personal as these others. And such interpretations can be twisted. The Nazis appropriated Grimm’s Fairy Tales just as they did anything else in our culture that they could twist and corrupt to suit their own purposes. There is a particularly nasty, notorious book illustration of a very “Aryan” Gretel pushing the old witch into the oven. And the old witch has stereotypical Jewish features. It is a repulsive piece of work and, when you think about it, a pretty chilling presage of the horrors that were to come.’
‘So what you’re saying is that all we have is a theme, rather than a plan?’
Weiss shrugged. ‘What I’m saying is that there is no way of telling what he will do next or how he sees his work evolving. But the material he is working with gives him a terrible scope and choice of tale to twist to his particular agenda.’
‘Then God help us,’ said Fabel.
57.
9.00 p.m., Thursday, 29 April: Othmarschen, Hamburg
The skies above Hamburg had stayed clear after another cleansing storm and now glowed with the late evening. Fabel’s apartment was flooded with the warm, gentle light. He felt absolutely exhausted. He threw his jacket and his gun clip on to the sofa and stood for a moment, taking in his apartment. His little realm. He had furnished it well, even expensively, and it had become an externalisation of his personality. Clean, efficient, almost too organised. He absorbed the view and the furnishings, the books and the pictures, and the expensive electronics. But was it, at the end of the day, any less lonely than Max Bartmann’s seedy Sankt Pauli apartment above his studio?
Before stripping and stepping into the shower, he called Susanne. They hadn’t arranged anything for this evening and she was surprised to hear from him: surprised, but happy.
‘Susanne, I need to see you tonight. Your place, my place, in town – it doesn’t matter where.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Is there anything wrong?’
‘No … Nothing at all. It’s just that I need to talk to you.’
‘Oh, I see …’ she said. She clearly had assumed it was about the case. ‘Why don’t you come over here? Stay the night.’
‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’
Susanne’s apartment was in a grand Wilhelminischeera building in the Övelgönne part of Hamburg’s Othmarschen district. Övelgönne sat down by the Elbe, on the Elbechaussee, and was on the way to Blankenese, both in terms of geography and desirability. Fabel had often stayed the night at Susanne’s, but they had somehow fallen into the custom of her sleeping over at his apartment. Fabel suspected that Susanne sought to protect her own space more consciously than he did. But she had given him a key and, after parking off the main street, he let himself in.
Susanne had seen him arrive and waited for him at the door to her flat. She was in the oversized T-shirt she wore to bed. Her glossy, dark hair tumbled down to her shoulders and her face was naked of make-up. There were times, unexpected times, when Fabel felt overwhelmed by her beauty. As he looked at her now, on the threshold of her apartment, this was one of them.
Her apartment was much larger than Fabel’s and tastefully decorated, but there was a hint of tradition in the style that was absent from the Nordic minimalism in Fabel’s place.
‘You look tired,’ Susanne said, and stroked his face. She led him into the living room before going into the kitchen, re-emerging with a glass of white wine and a bottle of beer.
‘There you go, a Jever.’ She handed him the bottle. ‘I got a stock in especially for you.’
‘Thanks. I need this.’ He sipped the chilled, sharp Frisian beer. Susanne sat down on the sofa next to Fabel, folding her legs under her. The T-shirt rode up and exposed the silky skin of her thigh.
‘What is it you wanted to talk about so urgently?’ She grinned. ‘Not that I’m not delighted to see you. But it sounded like you wanted to discuss this case and you know how I feel about talking shop …’
Fabel silenced her by pulling her towards him and kissing her long and hard on the lips. When he released her, he held her gaze.
‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I didn’t come here to talk about the case. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Thinking about us.’
‘Oh …’ Susanne said. ‘This sounds ominous.’
‘We don’t seem to be going anywhere with this relationship. I suppose that’s because we’re both contented, in our different ways. And maybe you don’t want any more than we have.’ He paused, searching her eyes for any reaction. All he could read in them was her patience. ‘I took a kicking over my marriage. I don’t know what I did wrong, but I guess it was maybe that I just didn’t do enough to keep it alive. I don’t want that to happen to us. I really care about you, Susanne. I want this to work.’
She smiled and caressed his cheek again. Her hand was cool from the wineglass. ‘But Jan, things are fine. I want this to work too.’
‘I want us to live together.’ Fabel’s tone was decisive, almost curt. Then he smiled and his voice softened. ‘I would really like it if we lived together, Susanne. What do you think?’
Susanne arched her eyebrows and let out a long breath. ‘Wow. I don’t know. I really don’t know, Jan. We both like our own space. We’re both very strong-willed people. That’s not an issue now, but if we lived together … I don’t know, Jan. Like you say, we’ve got a good thing going here, I don’t want to screw it up.’
‘I don’t think it would. I think it would strengthen it.’
‘I was in a relationship before.’ Susanne swung her legs down from the couch. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and cradling her wineglass in both hands. ‘We lived together for a while. I didn’t see it at first, but he was a very controlling person.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Me … a psychologist, and I couldn’t recognise a control freak when I saw one. Anyway, it wasn’t good for me. I felt belittled. Then I felt worthless. I stopped believing in myself, stopped trusting my own judgement. I got out before he destroyed any self-esteem I had left.’
‘You think I’m like that?’
‘No … of course I don’t.’ She took his hand. ‘It’s just that I’ve spent a long time creating a sense of, well, independence for myself.’
‘God, Susanne, I’m not looking for some kind of Hausfrau. I’m looking for a partner. I’m looking for someone to share my life with. And the only reason I’m looking for that is because of you. Before I met you I hadn’t given it any thought. Will you at
least think about it?’
‘Of course, I will, Jan. I’m not saying no. I’m not saying that at all. I just need time to think about it.’ She smiled broadly. ‘I tell you what: you take me to Sylt, the way you’ve been promising for ages. To stay at your brother’s hotel. You do that and I’ll give you an answer.’
Fabel smiled. ‘It’s a deal.’
* * *
They made intense, eager love before falling asleep. A feeling of contentment nursed Fabel into a deep sleep. A deeper, sounder sleep than he had known for weeks.
His awakening was sudden. Something had reached down to find him and hauled him suddenly up to the surface. He lay, his eyes wide, watching the shadows on the ceiling. Susanne slept beside him. Something, somewhere in a dark, small room in a distant corner of his mind, was hammering to get out. He swung his legs around and sat on the edge of the bed. What was it? Something that had been said? Something he had seen? Or both? Whatever it was, he knew it had to do with the murders: some link that had registered on the fringes. He stood up and walked through to the living room and looked out through Susanne’s windows. Her apartment couldn’t compete with Fabel’s in terms of its outlook. Susanne’s view extended over the park and down to the Elbe, but it was heavily framed by the other buildings. A couple of cars passed by, heading towards Liebermann Strasse. A solitary dog wandered across the street and Fabel followed it with his eyes until it disappeared from view.
Something he had heard. Something he had seen. Or both. His exhausted, sleep-deprived brain refused to give it up.
Fabel went through to the kitchen and squinted his eyes against the dazzle as he switched on the lights. He made himself a cup of tea. As he took the milk from the fridge he saw three bottles of Jever chilling. He smiled at the thought of Susanne buying them in for him and placing them in her fridge. Fabel always thought of people’s fridges as an intimate area: the contents of someone’s fridge were as personal as the contents of their wallet or purse. Whenever he was at a murder scene, he would examine the fridge to get an impression of the person or people who lived there. And now his beers shared that personal space with Susanne’s yogurt, with her favourite Southern German cheeses and with the pastries she had a weakness for.
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