One of the places Fabel favoured for lunch was a cafe on one of the dozens of canals that criss-crossed the city. This particular cafe was on the Alsterstreek canal, next to the Winterhuder Fahrhaus, where tourists and locals would catch the red and white water buses that criss-crossed the Alster. Sitting below the city that surrounded it and tucked in tight to the bridge, the cafe gave Fabel an odd sense of safety. Its location made it handy for the Presidium and if the weather was half decent he could sit out at one of the tables by the railings that ran along the side of the Alsterstreek and watch the swans patrol the waterway. Being beside the water, too, comforted Fabel, calmed him; which was strange, because, as a boy growing up in Norddeich, Fabel had been just a little afraid of the water; specifically of the sea. He had always put it down to the fear of flooding that was instinctive in East Frisians and their neighbours, the Dutch. Fabel’s boyhood home had been behind a dyke and there had been nights in his childhood — not many, but a few — when he would lie awake thinking about the dark mass of sea held back by a simple man-made earthwork.
A waiter came over to wipe down the table before taking Fabel’s order. He greeted him with a smile and asked him how he was. It was a ritual of recognition: Fabel was a known face here, but he knew that none of the staff would have any idea what it was that he did for a living, and that somehow added to his sense of comfort. It was something he had often wondered about: what people assumed about him, not knowing that his daily business was all about violence and death. Did he look like an academic, which is what he would prefer them to think, or did they take him for some kind of businessman? The latter thought depressed him.
Fabel had given a lot of thought to how people perceived him, and how they perceived each other; mainly because it was something that came up so frequently when interviewing the family and friends of murderers. Not, of course, in the majority of homicides where the murder was committed by people known to the police and to their victims as habitually violent and potentially dangerous. Most of the murders Fabel dealt with occurred within a certain milieu and were fuelled by drink or drugs; but there were cases — particularly with sex killings — where everyone stood open-mouthed on discovering that the murderer was someone they knew. The I-would-never-have-guessed killers. The bloated body washed up at the Fischmarkt, head and limbs removed, could well turn out to be the victim of just such a killer.
Over the years Fabel had become accustomed to the shock and disbelief of others: how, in so many of these cases, people who knew the killer well had to adjust their perspective on everything; had to learn to view everyone with a new element of mistrust.
We all have a face we show to the world; and we all have a face that we only allow ourselves to see. It had been Uwe Hoffman, Fabel’s first boss at the Murder Commission, who had told him that. Maybe, thought Fabel, this Network Killer case wasn’t that different after all; maybe the internet was just a further extension of the way things had always been.
He ordered a salad and a mineral water and was watching the swans, thinking about nothing in particular, when his phone beeped again.
He read the text. It didn’t make much sense. It didn’t make any sense at all.
Chapter Nine
The house was on the boundary between the Schanzenviertel and St Pauli. It had its back to a railway line and had, at some distant point in its history, faced the world with some dignity. Now, however, that face was tattooed with a continuous, swirling band of graffiti, two metres high, and the ground-floor windows the graffiti half-framed were dark with soot and grime.
The young man who hesitated on the other side of the road, near the corner, carefully checking the street in both directions, was Niels Freese. He was checking for any hint of a police presence, uniformed or otherwise, before crossing over and knocking on the heavy door of the squat. The grimy glass of the window shadowed darker for a moment as someone inside checked out the approaching figure. They would, he knew, recognise him by his limp.
The door opened on his first knock and he slipped inside, into the dark cavern of the house. He instantly recognised the man who admitted him, a tall gangly male who was a little older than Niels, maybe thirty, and who had the kind of tough look that attracted police attention. But he did not know the man’s name. Then he realised that he had never met the man before, nor seen him. The thought flashed through Niels’s mind that the man at the door was actually also Niels, but in disguise, but he dismissed the thought by applying, as he had been taught to do by the doctors at Hamburg-Eilbek, reason and logic to an unreasonable and illogical perception. No, the man at the door was real and he was not another version of Niels. And the house was real, and not an exact replica in a carbon-copy of Hamburg created to beguile him.
He would not have known the man’s name, anyway: that was one of the rules, that you didn’t know the names of anyone outside your immediate cell. The fascists of the Polizei Hamburg or the BfV could not torture the information out of you if you did not have it to give. Niels nodded wordlessly to the man as he passed. Niels did not trust him, because Niels trusted almost no one older than himself: it had, after all, been they who had done what had been done to the world. And trust was something alien to Niels in any case. He might have got his delusions under some kind of control, but he still did not entirely trust the world he perceived around him.
Inside it was all gloom. Whereas the exterior had been run-down, the interior of the house was positively dilapidated. Large scabs of plaster had fallen from the walls and the floorboards were coated with plaster dust, grime and general filth.
A girl of about twenty, with lank blonde hair and bad skin, waited for him at the end of the hall, by the foot of the stairs.
‘He’s waiting for you.’ She tilted an acned chin up the stairwell. ‘Second door on the right. Go straight in. Were you followed?’
‘I wasn’t followed.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
The fact was that Niels did not only follow the protocols of the Guardians of Gaia regarding security, he had a routine that was ten times more elaborate than that which the Guardians demanded. He never explained his routines, because his need to defend himself against impostors sounded bizarre to others. The girl nodded and Niels made his way up the stairs. Despite having been told to go straight in, Niels knocked on the door before entering.
It had, at one time, been a bedroom. A pretty grand one. Now the windows had been boarded up from the inside, making the room a large, sealed box. But there was more light in here than anywhere else in the derelict house: artificial light from the desk lamps placed around the room. It did not have the clutter or detritus evident in the rest of the house: the floorboards had been swept clean of dust and cables taped to them; there were three workstations set against the wall to Niels’s right, each with a large computer monitor, and he could hear the distinct monotone hum of the five large hard-drives. The sight of the technology made Niels want to vomit. It represented everything that the Guardians of Gaia were fighting against, a complete negation of the organisation’s eco-anarcho-primitivism. But Niels knew, for he had been told by the Commander, that such technology, abhorrent as it was, was essential in carrying out the war against the forces of pollution and globalisation.
The theory did not help Niels with the reality: the irony was that, had it not been for the scruffy walls and boarded-over windows, this room could have been an office for any Hamburg business.
But it wasn’t. Straight ahead of Niels as he entered was a large desk at which sat the Commander, a heavyset man in his late thirties with a head of thick, curling black hair. To the Commander’s left, to Niels’s consternation, sat a couple dressed in grey business-type suits. Both the man and the woman looked as if they had walked out of a bank or insurance company and Niels noted that they shared the same expressionlessness.
‘Sit down, Freese,’ said the Commander.
‘Who are they?’ Niels nodded towards the couple.
&
nbsp; ‘Friends.’
‘Are they members of the Guardians?’
‘This is a war with many armies, Niels. Our friends here are allies. They fight for Gaia just like us, on the same side as us, but on a different battlefield. More than that need not concern you.’
Niels stared at the couple. They stared back, but without aggression; without anything in their expression. Why were they dressed like that? Niels did not like their suits in the same way that he did not like the computer hardware in the squat. For a start, where had it come from? Where had the money to pay for it come from? There again, he thought, it could be that the Commander had had it stolen to order. The idea cheered him a little.
‘The Globalist-Polluters are creating their own doom,’ continued the Commander. ‘ Our doom. Even their own scientists are talking about a Malthusian Cataclysm, about the Great Die-Off… so they are not blind to the catastrophe that they are shaping every day by chasing the Myth of Progress. They cannot say they don’t know the consequences of their actions.’
‘A Malthusian Cataclysm would not be a bad thing, Commander,’ said Niels, eagerly. ‘Humanity is a pestilence that needs to be controlled if Gaia is to survive.’
‘Mmm…’ said the Commander. ‘In the meantime we have to do all we can to wage this war. Our fight is the greatest battle in the history of mankind. While we sit here, Freese, our world, our ecosystem, is being raped. In the time it takes us to have this conversation, four million barrels of oil will have been pumped from the Earth. And all that carbon will just as quickly be pumped into the atmosphere.’ The Commander paused to allow Niels to process the information. He knew that you had to allow time for Niels to process information. He had noticed Niels’s limp again as the younger man had come into the room. He knew that the neurological damage behind the limp came from the same cause as Niels’s unique intellectual architecture. Oxygen deprivation at birth.
‘This is a war,’ said the Commander. ‘A real war. And a war needs good soldiers. I need good soldiers. And you, Freese, are one of my very best. And that is why I am entrusting you with one of the most important missions we have ever undertaken.’
Niels felt the pride bloom in his chest. All he had ever wanted to do was to be a good soldier for Gaia.
‘I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Gaia,’ said Niels proudly.
‘You have to understand, Freese, that I am asking you to take this war to a new level. Burning cars in the Schanzenviertel is not enough. The stakes are higher.’ The Commander nodded to the man in the grey suit, who pushed an envelope across the table to Niels. Niels opened it; it contained two photographs, one of a man in his early forties and the other of a car: a huge Mercedes cabriolet. There was also a piece of paper in the envelope with a time and an address written on it.
‘Who is he?’ asked Niels.
‘All you need to know is that he is an enemy of Gaia. A real enemy. His activities have got to be brought to a halt. You have carried out a number of successful car-burnings with Harald. I want you to team up with him again and torch this car…’ the Commander tapped the photograph of the Mercedes. ‘… while it is parked outside the cafe at this address. Do you understand?’
‘I understand what I have to do, but I don’t understand why burning his car will stop him doing whatever it is he has been doing.’
The Commander turned to the silent grey-suited couple. The woman reached into her handbag, brought out a clear plastic bag and handed it to the Commander, who slid it across the table to Niels.
‘When his car goes up, he’ll be inside the cafe. He meets a woman there. You wait until they’re both inside, then torch the car. And make it spectacular. I want you to bring him out of the cafe. Then I want you to use that.’ The Commander nodded to the plastic bag and its contents, which Niels had not yet lifted.
‘ Can you use that?’ asked the Commander. ‘It will be the first mission of its type.’
‘This man is an enemy of Gaia?’ asked Niels, still staring at the bag.
‘More than that, he is threatening the whole success of the movement. He has done things… well, like I said, his actions could be disastrous for all we stand for.’
Niels picked up the plastic bag, opened it and removed the automatic pistol and ammunition clip from it before placing them in the patch pocket of his combat jacket. As he did so, he had the feeling that he had seen and held the weapon a dozen times previously. But he knew he had never held any gun before.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said.
Chapter Ten
Horst van Heiden was a man of middle height, stockily built and with a brooding face framed by a grey-white continuum of hair and beard. When he walked into van Heiden’s office, Fabel was struck by the same impression that he always had on seeing the Criminal Director: that he wore an expensive suit as if it were a uniform. It fitted, because most of van Heiden’s career had been spent in the uniformed branch, including some time on attachment to the Harbour Police, and even after ten years in the post he did not look suited to the role of chief of detectives.
Van Heiden looked at his watch as Fabel entered. The Criminal Director wasn’t making a point: it was simply a habit he had of time-checking the beginning and end of each meeting, or segment of a meeting, or time between meetings. Time was important to van Heiden. Fabel had worked with him for seven years and the relationship had become as relaxed and close as a relationship with van Heiden could become. Fabel had no doubt that van Heiden respected him, even liked him, but the Criminal Director was a hard man to read. Distant. Closed-off.
There were two other men in the office, sitting facing van Heiden’s desk. They both turned in their chairs when Fabel came in. He recognised one of them instantly — a medium-height fit-looking man in his mid-fifties with receding greying hair swept severely back and a neatly trimmed beard. As he had the first time they had met, he gave Fabel the impression of a successful film director, artist or writer. Fabel was taken aback by the synchronicity of it all.
‘Ah, Jan… thanks for coming at such short notice,’ van Heiden said and indicated the chair between the two men. ‘You know Herr Muller-Voigt, I believe?’
‘Indeed I do.’ Fabel shook hands with Muller-Voigt. ‘How are you, Herr Senator? I heard you on the radio this morning.’
‘Oh, that?’ Muller-Voigt looked as if the memory of it was vaguely irritating. ‘I don’t know why they put me in with that idiot…’
Fabel made a vague ‘mmmm’ noise of agreement, hiding the fact that he had been too sleepy even to take in who that idiot was, or indeed anything other than the sketchiest impression of what was being discussed.
‘And may I introduce Herr Fabian Menke, of the BfV?’ Van Heiden indicated the other man. Menke was in his late thirties, Fabel reckoned, and had thinning fair hair and blue eyes behind frameless spectacles. His suit was several hundred euros downmarket from Muller-Voigt’s designer casual-chic. The BfV was the Bundesamt fur Verfassungsschutz, the Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution: Germany’s main internal security service. The agency’s brief covered anything that was considered to endanger German democracy: skinheads and neo-Nazis, left-wing extremist groups, Islamic terrorism, destructive cults or anti-democratic groups, foreign espionage. More controversially, the BfV had a unit devoted to the monitoring of the activities of Scientology in Germany. Even the Interior Ministry of the Hamburg State Government had a Scientology Task Force and, although Fabel had not met Menke before, he had heard of him and knew he was the main liaison between the BfV and Hamburg’s law-enforcement agencies. Van Heiden turned to Menke: ‘This is Principal Chief Commissar Fabel, who heads our special Murder Commission team.’
Fabel shook hands with Menke and sat down.
‘I’ve heard about your unit, Herr Fabel,’ said Menke. ‘I believe you now assist other Murder Commissions across the Federal Republic with complex cases.’
‘When we can,’ said Fabel. ‘I’m afraid that, at the moment, we have too much of a workload o
f our own to deal with.’
‘Ah, yes, this Network Killer case?’ Muller-Voigt cut in. ‘I believe there was another body found this morning.’
‘We found a body, yes, Herr Senator. But we have not established whether or not it is linked to the other murders.’
‘You think it may be unconnected?’ asked Muller-Voigt. Fabel remained silent for a moment, fighting back the instinct to tell the politician that such information was a police matter and none of his damn business.
‘Our investigations are continuing,’ said Fabel blankly. He turned to his boss. ‘You wanted to see me about something, Criminal Director?’
‘Em, yes. Yes, I did.’ Van Heiden had clearly sensed the tension between Fabel and Muller-Voigt. He reached across the vast plain of his desk and handed a file over to Fabel. We have a major environmental summit, GlobalConcern Hamburg, about to take place in the city. As Environment Senator, Herr Muller-Voigt here heads up the organising committee. But of course you already know about it, because you said you heard the debate on the radio this morning.’
‘I only caught part of it…’ Fabel was beginning to seriously regret having mentioned hearing Muller-Voigt on the radio. But it was true that he did know something about the GlobalConcern Hamburg summit.
‘This is an unusual conference,’ said Menke, the BfV man, ‘insofar as the focus is not just on saving the planet, it is about the commercial opportunities that environmental technologies offer. There are now a lot of major corporate players involved in environment-related activities. The difference is that these operators aren’t motivated by revolutionary zeal but by the same old imperative of turning a profit. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, if, at the same time, they’re making a positive contribution to the environment.’
A fear of dark water jf-6 Page 6