The Valkyrie Song jf-5

by Craig Russell

  ‘Oh yeah,’ snorted Anna, ‘that’ll be it. Every woman needs a man to complete her, after all.’ Then, before Fabel could respond: ‘I think you’re way off, Chef. He couldn’t have misjudged her that much — look what she did to him.’

  ‘But look at the resources she had at her disposal within weeks of escaping from the hospital. If Drescher didn’t do it, who set her up with everything she needed?’ asked Fabel. When no one responded he moved on. ‘What else have we got?’

  ‘I chased up Theo Wangler,’ said Anna, ‘and I’ve got a still from the Reeperbahn CCTV of the fake taxi,’ said Anna. ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t help much. They’ve done everything they could to enhance it, but it’s worth nothing. The Merc had false plates and you can’t see the face of the driver clearly enough for identification. You couldn’t even really say whether it was a man or a woman at the wheel. But we’ve had more luck with the Hanseviertel. You were right — Jens Jespersen had lunch there. There are no cameras in the basement restaurant itself, but we picked up this…’ Anna handed Fabel a print of an image taken from the CCTV. Jespersen was standing next to the glass elevator in the central atrium, near the restaurant. Next to him was a woman with a mass of chaotic blonde hair. Her face was partly turned from the camera and detail in the enlarged image was fuzzy. But it was clear enough to establish that Jespersen and the woman were engaging each other in conversation.

  ‘You get more than this?’ he asked Anna.

  ‘Nope. A few shots of her back, that’s all. They went their separate ways: he went out onto Neuer Wall and she headed out onto Poststrasse. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t arrange to meet later. We’ve been able to work out a height for her, though, from the security-camera shots — roughly one seventy-three or — four centimetres tall, give or take heels.’

  ‘Get someone down to the restaurant to-’

  ‘Done it,’ interrupted Anna. ‘I’ve got someone to take a photograph of Jespersen and a copy of that.’ She nodded towards the CCTV image. ‘And talk to all of the staff who were on duty at the time. So far, nothing.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Fabel. ‘We’re going back to Drescher’s apartment. This time we’re going to take it apart. If these Valkyries are real, and we remove Margarethe Paulus from the equation, that leaves two more out there. And one of them, or maybe both, were working for Drescher. Now they are rudderless. It would appear we’ve had as many as two highly trained professional killers under our noses for years. Now they are out there on their own and maybe desperate. It’s not an idea I’m too comfortable with. What is it, Werner?’ Fabel had noticed his deputy’s thoughtful expression.

  ‘What are we putting out to the press about the murder?’ he asked. ‘There weren’t any outside the place when I left.’

  ‘What’s your point?’ asked Fabel.

  ‘If Gerdes is this Major Drescher, then he was a spy by training and by inclination.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I’m betting that if he was running a contract-killer business, then he would have run his assassins as a spy cell. Strictly need-to-know basis. They will have had a close bond, but I’ll bet that they never came anywhere near his apartment.’

  ‘I get it,’ said Anna, suddenly animated. ‘So a murder in that apartment block or street won’t really mean anything to the Valkyrie unless the name Gerdes or Drescher is associated with it.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Werner. ‘I’ll bet she doesn’t even know the name Gerdes.’ He turned to Fabel. ‘What if we “lose” the story, or disguise it as something else for a while? That means the Valkyrie won’t know he’s dead. Then, if we can work out the mechanism for contacting her — or them, if there are two — we can nail them.’

  Fabel rubbed his chin thoughtfully and was reminded by the stubble rasping under his fingertips that he hadn’t had a chance to shave before rushing out to the Drescher murder scene. And that was how he saw it now: the Drescher murder scene.

  ‘It’s an idea…’ he said. ‘Sylvie Achtenhagen wasn’t outside the flat, so that would suggest that no one is making the connection yet. I’ll talk to the press department, see if they can fudge for a while… Okay, Werner — let’s run with the idea. The first thing we have to do is find out how Drescher contacted the Valkyrie. Let’s take his place apart.’

  5

  ‘I’ve never seen you on the telly,’ said the old woman as she set the tray with coffee and baked biscuits on the table.

  ‘It’s a satellite station.’ Sylvie smiled as she took the cup handed to her. The coffee had a caramelly aftertaste. Rondo Melange. ‘I see you don’t have satellite. Our station covers most of the North. You really should have satellite. Don’t you watch a lot of TV?’

  ‘Oh yes — I have the TV on all day. Company, you see. And I would love to have satellite, but I can’t afford it.’ The old woman sat down. ‘Who is it you said you were looking for?’

  Sylvie estimated that the woman wasn’t really that old. Maybe seventy. But, like many women of that age, she had given up: she was slightly overweight and saggy, and her pale skin looked rough, with a reddened eczematous disc to the right of her chin.

  ‘You worked for the MfS? Back then, in the old days, Frau Schneeg?’ Sylvie asked.

  ‘Oh yes…’ Frau Schneeg raised her hands and emptied her expression of anything that could be interpreted as guile. ‘But I wasn’t anything to do with all that kind of thing. You know, the snooping and stuff. I was just a filing clerk.’

  ‘I understand that, Frau Schneeg.’ Sylvie smiled. ‘Naturally. But you were involved in the personnel records department.’

  ‘Yes — pensions, staff allowances…’

  ‘Exactly. I was wondering if you could tell me if you knew any of these people.’ Sylvie laid the sheet out on the table, next to the embroidered doilies and the coffee and biscuits.

  ‘I really don’t want to get involved. You know what I mean: people here don’t know I worked in the ministry. I moved here to Halberstadt after the Wall came down. I have a niece here.’

  ‘I understand, Frau Schneeg.’ Sylvie replaced her smile with a concerned frown. ‘But I promise no one will know. I just want to find some of these people and no one need ever know where I got the information. That’s if you can help me at all. I’m looking for people who worked with either Colonel Adebach or Major Drescher.’

  ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘My station would be most grateful if you could help,’ said Sylvie. ‘I’m sure we could fix you up with a satellite box and dish — and a few subscriptions.’

  For a moment Frau Schneeg looked at Sylvie intently, then said: ‘Let me have a look at your list…’

  6

  They sat in the living room of Drescher’s apartment, each of them wearing the same empty expression of dull frustration.

  ‘We’ve been here before,’ Karin Vestergaard said to Fabel.

  ‘There must be something here.’ Fabel sighed.

  ‘We’re not looking in the right places,’ said Werner. ‘We’re not devious enough. That’s what comes of growing up in a democracy.’

  Fabel snapped his fingers. ‘Werner, you’re brilliant. You are absolutely right — we don’t know where to look. Or how to look.’ Taking out his wallet, he retrieved the business card Martina Schilmann had given him. He flipped it over to where she had handwritten her mobile number and keyed it into his cellphone.

  ‘Martina… It’s Jan Fabel.’

  ‘Hi, Jan. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Lorenz, your Saxon chum. You said he was ex-Volkspolizei.’

  ‘Yes, what of it?’

  ‘Did he serve after the Wall came down? In one of the new forces?’

  ‘No.’ Martina sounded suspicious. ‘What is this all about?’

  ‘Why didn’t he continue his police career?’

  ‘Jan,’ she said, with a sigh, ‘I can see where you’re going with this. Let me save time. The answer is yes, he was linked with the Stasi. That’s why he couldn’t get into one of the n
ew forces. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I have an apartment here that’s refusing to give up its secrets. The occupier was ex-Stasi. I need to know where to look.’

  There was a silence at the other end of the connection.

  ‘Give me the address,’ Martina said at last. ‘I’ll bring him over myself…’

  It took Martina Schilmann half an hour to arrive. Fabel had cleared the uniforms from the street, to attract as little attention as possible. In the digital age of cellphones that could take photographs and video, it never took long before someone was on to the television or newspapers. The city was no longer asleep and a heavy police presence in the street would be fully exposed to view.

  Fabel had instructed the uniformed cops downstairs to conduct Schilmann and Lorenz Duhring directly up to the penthouse apartment.

  Fabel guessed that Martina had been taking a day off: she was dressed in jeans, a heavy sweater and a thigh-length leather coat. Her blonde hair had been tied back in a ponytail and her face was naked of make-up. It made her look younger, more natural, and Fabel couldn’t help remembering why he had been attracted to Martina in the first place. It was as if she had read his thoughts and she smiled shyly.

  Lorenz lumbered into the background: tall, thickset and dark.

  ‘This is Politidirektor Karin Vestergaard of the Danish National Police,’ explained Fabel in English. ‘We are cooperating on this case.’

  The two women shook hands. A little coldly, thought Fabel. The dynamics of female relationships remained a mystery to him.

  ‘I’m afraid Lorenz doesn’t speak English,’ said Martina. ‘Poor chump got stuck with Russian at school.’

  Fabel turned to Vestergaard. ‘Lorenz was a policeman in the former GDR. In the Volkspolizei. He wasn’t allowed to become a member of the new, post-change police forces because only members of the Volkspolizei who were free of any connection to the Stasi were allowed to continue as policemen.’

  ‘He’s ex-Stasi?’

  ‘He was one of their little helpers, let’s say,’ said Martina. ‘And he received training from them, which is what Jan was counting on. By the way, Jan, for your information, I didn’t know what Lorenz had been involved in. I guessed he’d been a Stasi unofficial, but, let’s face it, it’s a skills set that’s very useful in my line of work. I asked him on the way over here if he had taken part in house searches and he told me he had.’

  ‘Frau Schilmann told me that an ex-Stasi officer lived here,’ Lorenz piped up in German.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Fabel. ‘A major in the HVA.’

  ‘HVA?’ Lorenz rubbed his heavy chin with forefinger and thumb. ‘Those boys knew what they were doing when it came to hiding stuff. You’re sure he has something here? I think it’s more likely that he would keep anything sensitive in a different location.’

  ‘Could be,’ said Fabel. ‘But my money’s on him operating from here.’

  ‘He would feel reasonably safe here, I suppose,’ said Lorenz. ‘I mean, it’s not like in the GDR. He probably thought this flat would never be searched.’ He cast his eye across the books on shelves. ‘It makes things quicker if I don’t tidy up behind me. Is that a problem?’

  ‘Do what you have to do,’ said Fabel.

  It took Lorenz less than half an hour.

  ‘Like I thought,’ he said in his Saxon baritone when he came back through to the living room. ‘He felt secure here. You were right about him using this as an operational base, so I reckoned there was no point in shifting heavy furniture, bookcases, et cetera. He would want to conceal his stuff but have reasonably easy access to it.’

  ‘You learned that from the Stasi?’ asked Martina.

  ‘Journalists and writers — we were taught that they had to keep manuscripts, typewriters, that kind of thing handy. Serious dissidents and foreign agents — they were a different kettle of fish. That’s why I thought this guy might be difficult. If he was HVA. But this couldn’t have been more straightforward.’

  Lorenz led them through to the study. He lifted up the deco-style bronze bird and gave the wooden base a twist. A compartment was exposed in which sat a small steel tool, almost like a nail twisted into a flattened hook. Lorenz took the hook and leant down beneath the desk. What looked to Fabel like a small chip in a floorboard was actually a perfect fit for the hook. Lorenz inserted the hook, gave it a half-twist and lifted a square of floorboard. The whole operation took less than fifteen seconds.

  ‘It’s nothing more than having a secret drawer,’ said Lorenz. ‘It was secure enough but easy and quick to get to. I haven’t touched anything in there.’

  Fabel snapped on a pair of latex gloves and knelt down to examine the contents.

  ‘There’s a black laptop computer in here, along with its power supply. Also a bunch of data sticks. Nothing else — no notebooks or files. Just this…’ He eased out a copy of a magazine that had been folded lengthwise.

  ‘Don’t tell me he hid porn in there,’ snorted Werner.

  ‘Werner, go down to the flat below and ask Holger Brauner or Astrid Bremer to come up with a few large evidence bags.’ Fabel unfolded the magazine. He showed Vestergaard and Martina Schilmann the title. ‘Now I could be wrong,’ he said, ‘but I don’t really see Drescher as your typical feminist.’

  ‘ Muliebritas,’ Vestergaard said aloud.

  ‘It’s a feminist title,’ explained Fabel. ‘The title is Latin. It’s where the English word “muliebrity” comes from. The female equivalent of virility. There’s a subtle difference from femininity. We would translate it as Fraulichkeit in German. I suppose you have a Danish word for it.

  ‘ Kvindelighed,’ said Vestergaard.

  Fabel stared at the magazine. ‘I tell you what else this is: a prime example of synchronicity. The night Jake Westland was murdered, there was a massive feminist protest in Herbertstrasse that contributed to the confusion. And it was organised by Muliebritas.’

  Werner reappeared with some evidence bags. Fabel slipped the magazine into one and handed it to Vestergaard. Easing the computer and its power connector out of the recess in the floor, he placed them in a tagged evidence bag, putting the data sticks in a separate one.

  He turned to Vestergaard and Martina. ‘We’ll get this stuff down to Tech Division and see if they can get into the computer. I’m guessing it’s encrypted, but the tech guys will be able to get through it. God knows how many paedophiles we’ve nicked because they thought they’d locked up their porn safe and sound.’

  ‘A paedophile is one thing,’ said Astrid Bremer, who had appeared behind them. ‘A professional spy is another. That is what we’ve got here, isn’t it?’

  ‘I think so, Astrid,’ said Fabel. ‘But from a pre-digital age. This was maybe one area he wasn’t too hot on. How are you getting on downstairs?’

  ‘It’ll take a while. Days, maybe. But Holger said he could spare me if you need something special up here.’

  ‘Anything,’ said Fabel. ‘We’ve got one killer in custody but there’s another one, maybe even two, on the loose. And she’s connected to the victim, Drescher. I need anything that can point us in the right direction.’

  ‘Do you think she’s been in this apartment?’

  ‘No. Probably not. But if there’s a trace of anybody other than the vic having been in here I want to know about it. Also, if you come across anything unusual let me know. But can you start with this.’ Fabel handed Astrid the copy of Muliebritas. ‘This doesn’t belong here. It could have been handled by the person we’re looking for. Either that or it’s the mechanism he used to contact her. I need it checked before we start going through it with a cryptologist.’

  ‘I’ll get right onto it,’ said Astrid, and she smiled broadly at Fabel.

  The first thing Fabel did when he got back to the Presidium was to phone Criminal Director van Heiden to approve the overtime for his team and the extra officers he would need to draft in. Van Heiden gave him the authority immediately and without question, which
surprised Fabel a little: he had become used to his superior being grudging about any extra expenses on an investigation, as if he personally had to finance them. But, there again, this case had started off as three: Jespersen’s death, the Angel killings in St Pauli and Drescher’s torture and murder. It was all getting too messy, too political and the media were focusing on it. Complication was something van Heiden had difficulty dealing with. Fabel guessed that his superior was under pressure to clear it all up as quickly as possible.

  ‘Are you convinced all of these crimes are connected?’ asked van Heiden.

  ‘Pretty convinced,’ said Fabel. He gestured to Karin Vestergaard, who had just come into his office, to sit down. ‘It’s safe to assume that this GDR hit squad called the Valkyries has been operating for profit from here in Hamburg. Drescher ran it and he’s been killed by one of his former trainees.’

  ‘He didn’t recognise her?’ asked van Heiden.

  ‘I get the impression she was a reject, probably because of her mental-health problems. And it was a long time ago. She probably just dropped off his radar and out of his memory.’

  ‘Okay,’ said van Heiden. ‘Keep me informed. So I can keep others informed.’

  ‘Of course.’ Fabel hung up and turned his attention to Vestergaard. Again he noticed that she had done something with her make-up that had subtly changed her look and once more Fabel was struck by how attractive her face was, yet how forgettable. Maybe it was something that Margarethe Paulus shared with her. Maybe the appearance of the Valkyries had been a criterion: attractive but forgettable. Maybe that was why Drescher had not recognised his killer.

  ‘You said you’ve been given new information from the Norwegian investigators of Halvorsen’s murder?’ Fabel asked her.

  ‘The Norwegian National Police have been in touch with me through my office.’ Vestergaard leaned forward and placed a note on Fabel’s desk. ‘This man — Ralf Sparwald — is someone Jorgen Halvorsen seems to have had contact with. It’s believed that Halvorsen visited Hamburg to talk to him.’