The Valkyrie Song jf-5

by Craig Russell

  ‘Hello, Frau Meissner? Jan Fabel here. I got your invitation to talk to the Sabine Charity about the Polizei Hamburg’s initiative on violence against women. I’d be delighted to…’

  II

  The last meeting of the day had gone on late. They had arranged for caterers to bring food in and, eventually, they had been able to crack open a bottle of champagne to seal the deal. After all the negative publicity, Gina Bronsted had had to do some tough negotiating and make some firm assurances. But things were back on track.

  Because the meeting had gone on so late, Bronsted had decided to stay over in her penthouse above the offices. Truth was, she loved it here, with the huge windows looking over the harbour and out towards where they were building the new opera house. She poured herself a glass and drank in the view and the champagne at the same time. She was going to own this city one day. And Copenhagen.

  Something caught her eye, reflected in the window glass. She spun around.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Bronsted’s tone was more puzzled than angry. ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ asked the blonde woman standing in the middle of Bronsted’s living room.

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’ Real anger now. ‘Of course I know who you are. Now will you tell me what the hell you are doing here? I have nothing more to say to you.’

  ‘Do you know my name?’ asked the woman.

  ‘Of course I know your name. Have you lost…’ Bronsted’s voice trailed off. Her focus was now fixed on the gun that the woman had lifted out from the folds of her black coat.

  ‘My name isn’t what you think it is. My name — my real name — is Liane Kayser. I am a Valkyrie. You know all about the Valkyries, don’t you, Gina?’

  ‘I…’ Bronsted’s expression turned from realisation to fear. ‘Listen, I can give you work…’

  ‘You mean you can use me. The way you used Margarethe and Anke? Do you know, the funny thing is that I didn’t know I cared. I thought I was incapable of feeling anything for anybody. But I do care. They were the closest thing I had to family. But I am going to do something for you, Gina. I know you like making the news. I’m going to make you news. Tomorrow you will be big news. I promise you.’

  ‘I can make this right for you…’ Bronsted’s eyes darted around the room. The panic button. The phone. Both a universe away.

  ‘You know Gina, you’re right. You can make it right for me.’ Liane Kayser pulled the trigger twice, the shots muffled by the suppressor attached to the Makarov PM automatic. Bronsted fell to the ground. She was breathing in short, rapid gasps. The blonde woman took a few steps closer.

  ‘Do you know what the word Valkyrie actually means? It comes from the Old Norse Valkyrja. It means chooser of the slain.’ She pulled the trigger twice more. Head shots. ‘Goodbye, Gina.’

  III

  It had changed so much since she had last been here.

  Halberstadt was somewhere Sylvie Achtenhagen had visited as a young girl. That had been back then, of course; before the Wall came down. The city hadn’t made much of an impact on the young Sylvie: it had looked pretty much like every other GDR town or small city she had visited. Halberstadt had been bombed flat at the very end of the Second World War, four weeks before the German surrender had been signed. Many suspected that the bombing had been a final vindictive act of vengeance.

  Whatever the motive, the British had, with full moral vigour and righteous zeal, all but wiped the pretty little city off the face of the earth and had completely destroyed the medieval heart of Halberstadt. Then, with equally full moral vigour and righteous zeal, the communist government of the GDR had rebuilt it as a workers’ city. Ugly Plattenbau concrete housing blocks had crowded around the city’s cathedral and all that was old or traditional had been replaced with the modern and functional. And then the Wall had come down and Halberstadt had been reclaimed by its people.

  Halberstadt is a city without suburbs. It sits self-contained on a grassy plain before the Harz mountains. As she drove towards it, Sylvie had the impression of a fairy-tale picture-book town, its red roofs, half-timbered buildings and the spires of the cathedral and the Martinikirche sitting prettily and perfectly in its landscape setting. But it was as she navigated the town itself that she saw the real differences that had been made since she had last been there. The monolithic Plattenbau apartment blocks were mostly gone and the medieval Altstadt had been faithfully restored and the square in front of the cathedral had again been opened out, allowing the majesty of the building to breathe and be appreciated. It was as if this small city had been given its soul back.

  The hotel was a converted eighteenth-century mansion in the heart of the city and Sylvie’s room was high-ceilinged and wood-panelled, furnished with what looked like genuine antiques. Sylvie found it disconcerting to sit in baroque luxury in the heart of a city that she had only ever known as part of the communist past she had put so far behind her.

  From her cellphone she called the number she had been given.

  ‘Frau Achtenhagen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Meet me in the Cathedral Treasury in fifteen minutes. I’ll find you.’

  Helmut Kittel was a wreck of a man. He was tall, but his shoulders had become rounded and his chest hollowed. His skin tone was a jaundiced grey and his hair thin and dull. He had followed Sylvie out of the Cathedral Treasury and had sat next to her on the bench in the gardens by the cathedral.

  ‘I got your message,’ said Sylvie.

  ‘I knew you would.’ He smiled.

  ‘Did you see the news? About Gina Bronsted?’

  ‘I did.’ His breathing was wet and rattling.

  ‘You realise that it was the work of the third so-called Valkyrie — the one whose name you say you know. I admit that the information is now very valuable. You have proof of the identity of the third Valkyrie?’

  Kittel broke into a spasm of coughing: deep, racking coughs that made his eyes water. After it had passed he leaned back against the bench, breathing hard and deep as if at some extreme, oxygen-deprived altitude.

  ‘Cancer?’ Sylvie asked without malice.

  He shook his head. ‘Emphysema. Too many cigarettes. The cold seems to make it worse.’

  ‘Well, the information you’ve got is newsworthy. Very newsworthy. And the more newsworthy, the more we’ll pay for it.’

  He smiled bitterly. ‘And you make the news, don’t you?’

  ‘Do you have the file or not?’ Sylvie failed to keep the impatience from her voice.

  ‘There were twelve girls to begin with,’ Kittel said. ‘They narrowed it down to three. But then, in the final stages of training, they had to reject one of the final three. Liane Kayser. They realised they couldn’t rely on her. She had sociopathic tendencies, they said. You couldn’t tell to look at her, to talk to her, apparently; but they realised that she was incapable of serving anyone but herself. That she would do anything, kill anyone, just so that she would achieve what she wanted to achieve.’ He turned to her and smiled. ‘No, Frau Achtenhagen, I don’t have the file. There is no file other than the photographs I sent you. I’m the only person who knows who Liane Kayser is.’

  ‘I see,’ she said, still smiling and letting her eyes range over his face as if she were trying to read it.

  ‘I saw you interviewed once, on TV,’ he continued breathily. ‘You were talking about being a television journalist today. How it’s not enough to be passive, waiting for events or for a story to land in your lap. I remember you said that you have to make the news yourself, almost. The Angel of St Pauli case really did make your name, didn’t it? No one had the inside angle on it that you seemed to have; always one step ahead of the others. You really did make the news, didn’t you

  … Liane? I know you’re the Angel of St Pauli. And I know you did it to boost your TV career. I’m also pretty sure it was Anke who carried out the last series of killings. I’m guessing that Drescher told her to make it look like it was your wo
rk. That you were back again.’

  ‘So where is the file?’

  ‘I told you. There is no file.’ Kittel laughed and his laughing caused him to cough violently again, clasping his handkerchief to his mouth. When the coughing subsided and he took the handkerchief away, she noticed it was speckled bright red. ‘We both knew it would come to this, Liane. The fact that you’re here. The fact that you knew where to come when you saw the announcement in Muliebritas.’

  ‘Does it hurt terribly?’ she asked, looking at the blood-flecked handkerchief.

  ‘Sometimes.’ He nodded and the promise and the fear of the pain burned in his eyes. ‘They destroyed all the files. The only one who knows about your real identity is me.’ He smiled. No arrogance, just a sad, almost childish smile. ‘I knew you’d come. I knew you’d find me. I don’t want to die fighting for breath. I want the pain and the fear to go away. I don’t want to be afraid any more.’

  Sylvie smiled and gently pushed back a strand of hair from his damp brow. She leaned close and whispered into his ear. ‘I know, Helmut. I know… It was nice to hear you call me Liane. No one has called me that in years. Now, no one ever will. Thank you for that, Helmut.’

  As she spoke to him soothingly and without menace, Kittel felt something push upwards into his chest. He felt suddenly breathless in a way that he had not before. But there was little pain. He stared into her eyes, first in surprise but without fear, then with something that looked like gratitude.

  ‘It’s better this way, Helmut,’ she said, easing the long needle out from under his ribcage and allowing his heart to rupture. ‘No more pain. No more sweaty, frightened nights racked with coughing. I’ve taken away your pain for ever.’

  Sylvie Achtenhagen checked that there was no one around and stood up swiftly, walking off towards the park exit. Behind her a thin middle-aged man sat on the bench, staring, unblinking, past the leafless trees, across to the double braced spires of the Martinikirche.

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