by Craig Russel
‘For God’s sake, man, be careful…’
‘Look at the front page…’ The voice spoke with an even, steady tone. Still the man made no move out of the shadows.
Scheibe opened out the newspaper. The cover photograph showed the giant Airbus 800 making its maiden flight, captured as it swept over der Michel – the spire of the St Michaelis church. A headline proclaimed that a hundred and fifty thousand proud Hamburg citizens had turned out to watch the fly past. Scheibe turned to the shadows and shrugged.
‘No… smaller article, near the bottom…’
Scheibe found it. Hans-Joachim Hauser’s death had only made it to a headline in a smaller font: 1970s Radical and Eco-warrior found murdered in Schanzenviertel apartment. The article gave what scant details the press had on the death and went on to highlight Hauser’s career. The Morgenpost had found it necessary to use Hauser’s relationships with other, more memorable figures of the radical left to identify him. It was as if he had only existed in reflections. There was very little to report after the mid-1980s.
‘Hans is dead?’ Scheibe asked.
‘More than that – Hans has been killed. He was found earlier today.’
Scheibe turned. ‘You think it’s significant?’
‘Of course it’s significant, you idiot.’ There was little anger in the voice of the man in the shadows: more irritation, as if his low expectations of his partner in the conversation had been confirmed. ‘The fact that one of us has died a violent death could be a coincidence, but we have to make sure there’s no connection to… well, to our former lives, is probably the best way of putting it.’
‘Do they know who did it? It says here that they have someone in custody.’
‘My official contacts at the Police Presidium wouldn’t give me details. Other than to say that it’s early days in the investigation.’
‘You worried?’ Scheibe reconsidered his question. ‘Should I be worried?’
‘It could be nothing. Hans was a pretty promiscuous gay, as you know. It can be a pretty dark world, out there among our mattress-munching chums.’
‘I never took you to be a reactionary homophobic… You keep that side of your personality well hidden from the press.’
‘Spare me the political correctness. Let’s just hope that it was related to his lifestyle – some kind of random thing.’ The man in the doorway paused. For the first time he sounded less than sure of himself. ‘I’ve been in touch with the others.’
‘You’ve spoken to the others?’ Scheibe’s tone was somewhere between astonishment and anger. ‘But we all agreed… You and I – our paths have had to cross – but I haven’t seen any of the others in over twenty years. We all agreed that we should never instigate contact between each other.’ Scheibe’s eyes ranged wildly over the delicate, fragile topography of the KulturZentrumEins model, as if reassuring himself that it was not dissolving, evaporating as they spoke. ‘I don’t want anything to do with them. Or with you. Anything at all. Especially not now…’
‘Listen to me, you self-important little prick… Your precious project counts for nothing. It is an inconsequence… nothing more than a dull expression of your middlebrow egotism and bourgeois conceit. Do you think anyone will be interested in this crap if everything comes out about you? About us? And remember where your priorities lie. You are still involved. You still take orders from me.’
Scheibe threw the newspaper to the floor and took a long and too-fast draught of his Barolo. He snorted with contempt. ‘You’re not telling me that you still believe in all that crap?’
‘This is not about beliefs any more, Paul. This is about survival. Our survival. We didn’t do much for the “revolution”, did we? But we did enough – enough for it still to destroy all our careers if it were to come out now.’
Scheibe gazed into his glass and swirled what was left of his wine contemplatively. ‘The “revolution”… my God, did we really think that was the way forward? I mean, you saw what the East was like when the wall came down – was that really what we were struggling for?’
‘We were young. We were different people.’
‘We were stupid.’
‘We were idealistic. I don’t know about you, but the rest of us were fighting against fascism. Against bourgeois complacency and the same kind of rampant, unfeeling capitalism that we now see turning the whole of Europe, the whole world, into an American-inspired theme park.’
‘Do you ever listen to yourself? You’re a self-parody – and it strikes me that you’ve embraced capitalism pretty enthusiastically yourself. And I do my bit…’ Scheibe let his gaze range over the model again. ‘In my own way. Anyway, I’m not interested in having a political debate with you. The point is that it’s madness for us to be in touch with each other after all these years.’
‘Until we know what’s behind Hans-Joachim’s death, we all have to be vigilant. Maybe the others have noticed something… unusual recently.’
Scheibe turned round. ‘You really think we could be in danger?’
‘Don’t you see?’ The other man became irritated again. ‘Even if Hans’s death is nothing to do with the past, it’s still a murder. And murder means police sniffing about. Raking around in Hans-Joachim’s history. A history we shared with him. And that places us all at risk.’
Scheibe was silent for a moment. When he spoke, it was hesitantly, as if he was afraid of stirring something from a long sleep. ‘Do you think… Could this have anything to do with what happened all those years ago? The thing with Franz?’
‘Just report to me if you notice anything unusual.’ The man in the shadows left Scheibe’s question unanswered. ‘I’ll be back in touch. In the meantime, enjoy your toy.’
Scheibe heard the door of the conference room slam shut. He drained his glass and again examined the model on the round table top: but instead of a radical vision of the future, all he saw was a clutter of white card and balsa.
10.00 p.m.: Marienthal, Hamburg
Dr Gunter Griebel regarded Fabel without interest over the reading glasses that sat almost on the tip of his long, thin nose. He watched Fabel from his leather armchair, one hand resting on the textbook on his lap, the other on the chair’s armrest. Dr Griebel was a man in his late fifties whose tall frame had retained the angular gangliness of his youth but had lately gained a paunchiness around the middle, as though two incompatible physiques had melded together. He was dressed in a check shirt, grey woollen cardigan and grey casual trousers. All of which, like the chair and the textbook on his lap, were liberally spattered with splashes of blood.
Dr Griebel looked for all the world as if he had been so lost in contemplating the content of the textbook on his lap that he had not noticed when someone had slashed open his throat with a razor-sharp blade. Nor did he seem to have been distracted by his assailant then slicing across his forehead and around his head before ripping the scalp from his skull. Beneath the glistening dome of his exposed cranium, Griebel’s long, thin face was expressionless, the eyes blank. Some blood had splashed onto the right lens of his spectacles, like a sample collected on a microscope slide. Fabel watched as it gathered in one corner of the lens as a thick, viscous globule before dripping onto his already gore-stained cardigan.
‘Widower.’ Werner pronounced the lifetime status of the corpse from where he stood behind Fabel. ‘Lived here alone since the death of his wife six years ago. Some kind of scientist, apparently.’
Fabel took in the room. Apart from Fabel, Werner and the departed Dr Griebel, there was a team of four forensic technicians, led by Holger Brauner. Griebel’s house was one of those substantial but not ostentatious villas found in the Nopps part of Marienthal: solid Hamburg prosperity combined with an austere streak of North German Lutheran modesty. This room was more than a study. It had the practical, organised feel of a regular workplace: in addition to the computer on the desk and the books that lined the walls, there were two expensive-looking microscopes, which were clearly for professional use, in
the far corner. Next to the microscopes was some other equipment which, although Fabel had no idea of its purpose, again looked like serious scientific kit.
But the centrepiece of the room had been added very recently. There was practically no wall space free of books, so the killer had nailed Griebel’s scalp to the shelves of a bookcase, from where it dripped onto the wooden floor. Griebel had obviously been thinning on top and the scalp was as much skin as hair. It had been stained the same vivid red as Hans-Joachim Hauser’s scalp, but the paucity of hair made it even more nauseating to behold.
‘When was he killed?’ Fabel asked Holger Brauner, still focused on the scalp.
‘Again, you’ll have to get a definitive answer from Moller, but I’d say this one’s very fresh. A matter of a couple of hours, at the most. There’s the beginning of rigor in the eyelids and lower jaw, but his finger joints, which will be the next to go, are still fully mobile. So a couple of hours or less. And the similarities with the Schanzenviertel murder are obvious… I had a quick look at Frank Grueber’s notes.’
‘Who raised the alarm?’ Fabel turned to Werner.
‘A friend. Another widower, apparently. They get together on Friday evenings. Take turns to go to each other’s house. But when he arrived, he found the door ajar.’
‘It sounds like he maybe disturbed our guy. Did he see anyone when he arrived?’
‘Not that he can remember, but he’s in a hell of a state. A fellow in his sixties. A retired civil engineer with a history of heart problems. Finding this’ – Werner indicated Griebel’s mutilated body with a nod of his head – ‘has put him in a state of shock. There’s a doctor giving him the once-over, but it’s my guess that it will be a while before we get much sense out of him.’
For a moment Fabel was distracted by the thought that someone could go through sixty years of life without encountering the kind of horror that was Fabel’s everyday stock-in-trade. The concept filled him with a kind of dull wonder and more than a little envy.
Maria Klee entered the study. The way her eyes were drawn to the scalped body reminded Fabel of how she had seemed almost hypnotised by the disfigurement of Hauser. Maria had always been pretty detached emotionally when examining murder victims, but Fabel had noticed a subtle change in her behaviour at crime scenes, particularly those involving knife wounds. And the change had only been apparent since her return to duty after recovering from her attack. Maria snapped her gaze away from the corpse and turned to Fabel.
‘The uniform units have been doing a door-to-door,’ she said. ‘No one saw anything or anyone unusual today or this evening. But given the size of these properties and the fact that they’re reasonably far apart, it’s not particularly surprising.’
‘Great…’ Fabel muttered. It was frustrating to be so close to the time of commission, only to see a hot trail turn cold.
‘If it’s any consolation, one thing is now certain,’ said Werner. ‘Kristina Dreyer was telling us the truth. She’s still in custody – so this can’t be her.’
Fabel watched as the forensic team started the slow, methodical processing of the body for trace evidence. ‘It’s not much consolation,’ he said dully. ‘The fact is that we have a scalp-taker out there on the loose…’
4.
Two Days After the First Murder: Saturday, 20 August 2005.
10.00 a.m.: Poseldorf, Hamburg
Fabel knew it was something big as soon as he heard his boss, Criminal Director Horst van Heiden, on the phone. The fact that he was calling Fabel at home was enough on its own to start alarm bells ringing: that van Heiden had broken into his Saturday to make the call made it really serious. Fabel had not got back to his apartment until three a.m. and he had lain awake in the dark for another hour trying to banish from his exhausted brain the images of two mutilated heads. Van Heiden’s call had woken him from a deep sleep. It therefore took Fabel a few seconds to rally his sleep-scattered mental resources and make sense of what van Heiden was telling him.
It seemed that the murdered man from the previous night, Dr Gunter Griebel, had been one of those obscure members of the scientific community who tend not to dominate public imagination, or even attention, but whose work in some recondite scientific realm could totally change the way we live our lives.
‘He was a geneticist,’ explained van Heiden. ‘I’m afraid science is not my thing, Fabel, so I can’t really enlighten you about what exactly it was that Griebel did. But apparently he was working in an area of genetics that could have monumental benefits. Griebel documented all his research, of course. But according to experts, even with that the result of Griebel’s demise will be that an entire area of research – very important research – will be put back ten years.’
‘And you don’t know what that area was?’ asked Fabel. He understood when van Heiden said that ‘science was not his thing’. Nothing was Criminal Director van Heiden’s thing other than straightforward police work: and the more bureaucratic side of police work at that.
‘They did tell me, but it was all in one ear and out the other. Something to do with genetic inheritance, whatever that means. All I do know is that the press are already getting very steamed up about it. Apparently the details of the method of killing have been leaked to the media – this whole scalping thing.’
‘It didn’t come from one of my team,’ said Fabel. ‘I can guarantee that.’
‘Well, someone leaked it.’ Van Heiden’s tone suggested he was not entirely convinced by Fabel’s assurance. ‘In any case, I need you to move fast on this one. Griebel was clearly a major loss to the scientific community, and that means there will be political flak to contend with. Added to that is the minor political celebrity of the first victim.’
‘Obviously, I’m dealing with this case as a priority,’ said Fabel, not disguising his irritation that van Heiden obviously felt the need to give him a nudge. ‘And that has nothing to do with the status of the victims. If they had been down-and-outs I would be treating the case with the same urgency. The focus of my concern is that we clearly have two murders close together in commission where the disfigurement of the corpses indicates a psychotic agenda.’
‘Just keep me updated on progress, Fabel.’ Van Heiden hung up.
Fabel had told Susanne he would be working half the night so she hadn’t come round to his place. They met for lunch in the Friesenkeller near the Rathausmarkt, Hamburg’s main city square. Despite Susanne being the psychologist who would work with Fabel on profiling the killer, they didn’t discuss the case: they had an unspoken rule of keeping their professional and personal relationships very separate. Instead they chatted idly about their holiday on Sylt, about going back for Lex’s birthday, and about the forthcoming election.
After lunch, Fabel headed into the Presidium. He had scheduled a meeting with his team, calling everyone in from their weekend. Holger Brauner and Frank Grueber came into the conference room shortly after Fabel had arrived: Fabel was pleased to see that the two most senior forensics officers had both taken the time to attend. Brauner had two forensic-trace collection bags with him, making Fabel hopeful that something of value had been retrieved from the second murder locus.
The inquiry board was quickly set up, with photographs of the two victims: photographs taken in life and those taken in death at the scenes. Maria had written a brief biography of each victim. Despite them being roughly the same age, there was no evidence that their paths had ever crossed.
‘Obviously, Hans-Joachim Hauser had enjoyed an element of public recognition in his time.’ Maria indicated one of the photographs on the board. It had been taken in the late 1960s: a young, girlish Hauser was stripped to the waist and his long wavy hair hung down to his naked shoulders. The photograph had been intended to look natural but was contrived; posed. Fabel realised that the young and arrogant Hauser had been making a statement, a reference, with this photograph: it was deliberately redolent of the image that Fabel had seen in Hauser’s apartment, the one of Gustav Nagel, the n
ineteenth-century environmental guru. There was a cruel irony in the contrast between the cascade of dark hair in the photograph of the youth and the image beside it, of the dead, scalped, middle-aged Hauser.
‘Gunter Griebel, on the other hand,’ continued Maria, moving across to his side of the board, ‘seemed to have actively sought to avoid the limelight. The acquaintances we have spoken to, including his boss whom I got on the phone, all say that he even hated having his photograph taken for periodicals or at university events. So it would appear that the killer was not motivated by envy of Hauser’s fame.’
‘Is there any suggestion that Griebel might have been gay?’ asked Henk Hermann. ‘I know that he had been widowed recently but, with the first victim being openly homosexual, I wondered if we may have a sexual or homophobic motive here.’
‘There’s absolutely nothing that we’ve found so far to suggest anything like that,’ said Maria. ‘But we’re still checking into the victims’ respective backgrounds. And if Griebel was a closet gay then he will of course have been secretive about it and we may never find out for sure.’
‘But you’re right, Henk… it is a line of inquiry that we should follow up.’ Fabel was keen to encourage the positive contribution from his newest team member. He joined Maria over by the board and studied the details of the two men; the photographs of them in life and in death. The only live picture of Griebel was a blow-up from some kind of staff group shot. He stood stiffly between two white-coated colleagues, his awkward stance and tense expression clearly communicating his discomfort at being photographed. Fabel focused on the grainy detail of the same long, narrow face with the precariously balanced spectacles that had stared at him from beneath an exposed dome of skull. Why was Griebel so ill at ease in front of a camera? Fabel’s train of thought was broken when Holger Brauner spoke.
‘I think we should talk about the forensic evidence recovered,’ said Brauner. ‘Or rather the lack of it. That’s why Herr Grueber and I came along. I think this will interest you.’