The Ghosts of Altona

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The Ghosts of Altona Page 28

by Craig Russell


  ‘I take it we’re talking about female visitors?’

  ‘One of the things we’re taught about in training is to be discreet. Not to pry or talk about the residents’ affairs. But you can’t help noticing things. Herr Albrecht was one for the ladies, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Anyone in particular? Or anyone you could identify for me?’

  The young concierge frowned. A lock of dark blond hair fell across his face and he palmed it back. Fabel knew he had something to say, but didn’t want to say it. Again, years of experience told him to be patient.

  ‘Yes,’ said the concierge eventually. ‘There was one woman who came often. I saw them arrive and leave together a couple of times.’ He nodded towards the reception desk. ‘On the monitor, like I said.’

  ‘And you know who this woman was?’ asked Fabel.

  Another frown creased the girlish brow. ‘I don’t want to get into trouble. We’re not supposed to—’

  ‘You’ll get into much more trouble if you withhold evidence in a murder case,’ said Fabel, his tone still friendly.

  ‘Yes,’ the concierge said decisively. ‘I do know who she was. And I can give you her name . . .’

  54

  The office was the same, but the figure behind the desk was very different. Fabel had spent more time than he would have liked up in the Presidial Suite, on the fifth floor of the Presidium – but as head of a major wing of the investigative service, bureaucracy and politics were something that came hand in hand with the role.

  For fifteen years, nearly all of Fabel’s service in the Commission, it had been Hugo Steinbach who had served as Hamburg’s Police President: an avuncular, open man who had started out as an ordinary patrolman and had worked his way up through every rank and every department. The fact that Steinbach, immediately before transferring to Hamburg, had been head of the Polizei Berlin’s Murder Commission had made him someone Fabel had found very easy to deal with; someone who understood the very particular pressures of Fabel’s job.

  Steinbach had also been still in office when Fabel had returned to duty after his shooting and had made it clear that he would do anything to support him, including the offer to free him from his Murder Commission duties.

  But now Steinbach, the bottom-to-top policeman, was gone. Negative press over a mishandled human-trafficking case, Steinbach’s often too-direct manner with media and public, political pressure from the generally hostile Principal Mayor’s office and a shot-across-the-bows minor heart attack had guided the Hamburg Police President into early retirement.

  Now, in his place, someone new sat behind the huge presidial desk.

  Petra Gebhardt stood up when Fabel entered the room, came round the desk and greeted him with a smile and a handshake. She was a tall, slim, unremarkable-looking woman in her early forties, with blonde hair and pale blue-green eyes. She was dressed in a dark blue trouser suit with a pink blouse: an outfit that made her look more corporate than municipal.

  Not that Fabel felt there was anything wrong with Petra Gebhardt, or her appointment as Police President. She was likeable, amenable and very supportive of Fabel and his department, which was not in itself surprising: under Fabel’s command LKA411 – the official designation of the Hamburg Murder Commission – had become a resource increasingly tapped into by other state police forces across the Federal Republic. It became known that Principal Chief Commissar Jan Fabel was the go-to guy, as the Americans would say, if you had a multiple killer on the loose, particularly if there was some kind of complex or psychological agenda behind the murders.

  Petra Gebhardt, unlike her predecessor, had joined the police at officer entry level – there again, so had Fabel. Gebhardt, however, struck Fabel as more management, more a professional administrator, than a policewoman, and much of her experience during what had been an accelerated rise through the ranks had been behind a desk. But Fabel had resigned himself to that being the way things were now, and that hers were probably exactly the skills that a modern chief of police needed.

  Moreover, Petra Gebhardt, again very unlike her predecessor, had proved herself to be a very political animal: adept at dealing with politicians, the public and the media. And that was exactly why Fabel had asked to see her.

  ‘Sit down, Herr Fabel, please,’ she said, taking her place once more behind the huge desk. ‘I’m so glad you asked for this appointment. I was about to arrange one with you myself.’

  ‘Oh?’ Here it comes, thought Fabel.

  She leaned back in the leather chair. ‘As you know, Leading Criminal Director van Heiden is due to retire at the end of this year.’ Gebhardt referred to Horst van Heiden, Fabel’s immediate boss. As Leading Criminal Director, van Heiden was in charge of all officers in the LKA – the investigative branch of Hamburg’s police force.

  ‘Of course,’ said Fabel. ‘I’ll miss him, we have worked together for a long time.’

  ‘Quite. Anyway, it would be grossly unfair of me if I weren’t to offer you first refusal of the promotion.’

  Fabel smiled. ‘That’s an interesting way of putting it. Why do I get the idea you want me to refuse it?’

  ‘Because I do. I really don’t want you to move. I cannot imagine anyone else taking over from you and maintaining the Murder Commission’s reputation as a national centre of excellence. But you deserve the promotion, and I know you would do as good a job as commander of the whole investigative branch as you do in charge of the Murder Commission.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Fabel. ‘But I think you’re overstating my gifts. There’s any number of very capable officers both inside the Polizei Hamburg and in other forces who could take over the Commission. Nicola Brüggemann, for example. Come to that, there are other officers who are qualified to take over the Leading Criminal Director role – like Freddy Berger from the Organized Crime Commission.’

  ‘I’m not sure that Herr Berger has the . . . the people skills for the role. He can be abrasive.’

  ‘He’s an excellent officer,’ said Fabel.

  ‘The truth is that if you don’t take over as head of the investigative branch, we’ll probably recruit from outside the force. I already have my eye on a couple of potential appointees. And as far as head of the Murder Commission is concerned, Frau Brüggemann would perhaps be my first-choice replacement if you do take over as Leading Criminal Director. But you know as well as I do that you have a very special level of experience and set of skills that would be hard to match. And anyway it’s more than that – you have this unique understanding of what drives and motivates a killer.’

  Fabel smiled. ‘Thank you, but I’m really not that special. People always seem to be surprised to find out that I’m a very ordinary kind of guy – that I’m not some tortured soul struggling from one existential crisis to the next because of my job. And that I don’t have any special gifts or insights.’

  ‘Come on, Jan,’ said Gebhardt. ‘Enough false modesty. You know you’ve got something special going on.’

  ‘Not really. In many ways, my job is very straightforward. And if you’re working a difficult case, you use the skills you’ve got. Adapt them. As you know, I studied history – if there’s no easy solution to a case, I start to think like a historian. A murder is an event, a point in time, with a chronology before and after. All I do is examine that history. It’s a process, a technique, not some deep, nearly psychic attribute. Others have their own routes to it. Far be it from me to say, but I’m not as indispensable as you think.’

  ‘Are you saying you want to make the move? As I remember, you were pretty emphatic with Herr Steinbach that you wanted to stay at the Murder Commission when he offered you the chance of a transfer before.’ Gebhardt paused for a moment, reaching into a desk drawer and taking out a file. ‘Like I said, it would be unfair of me to hold you back, so the Criminal Director’s job is there for the taking. However . . .’ She handed the file to Fabel. ‘This is my counter-proposal. Right at the start when it was suggested that the Commission took on a
consultative role with other forces, the proposal was that you be promoted to the rank of Criminal Director while still staying in charge of the unit. It was never followed through, mainly because of your concerns about the Commission becoming swamped with outside cases.’ She nodded to the file in Fabel’s hands. ‘That proposal includes your immediate promotion not just to Criminal Director but to Leading Criminal Director while still remaining head of the Murder Commission. You will be equal, and not subordinate, to the new Leading Criminal Director. Effectively, the Murder Commission becomes an autonomous unit with potentially a Federal Republic-wide brief. You’ll see that the proposal also gives you an additional two teams. Four new officers, whom you are free to recruit yourself from any department or rank.’

  ‘That is a quite some proposition . . .’ Fabel nodded as he flicked through the proposal.

  ‘It’s my way of keeping you where you are, while still treating you fairly. That said, I expect you to build our brand,’ Gebhardt used the English expression, ‘across the Federal Republic.’

  ‘I won’t accept outside cases if our Hamburg caseload has us fully committed,’ said Fabel.

  ‘It goes without saying that the Hanseatic City remains your absolute priority, but that’s why you’ll be allocated extra human resources. Take your time and think about it. But not too much time, I have to get the wheels in motion sometime next month.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘So what was it you wanted to see me about?’ asked Gebhardt.

  Fabel’s expression darkened. ‘Something you’re not going to like. It’s maybe going to make you reconsider your offer . . .’

  *

  Petra Gebhardt sat silently watching the sky for a moment, her leather chair turned to the window and tilted back slightly. She had maintained the position and the silence while Fabel had gone through all of what he knew about Tobias Albrecht’s potential involvement with the murders, and his actual involvement with Birgit Taubitz. Birgit, Fabel had explained, had been the mystery woman Albrecht had wished to shield, even though she could provide him with an alibi for the night Hensler was killed.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’ asked Gebhardt. ‘After all, we just have the word of a lobby boy.’

  ‘I’m sure. It fits with Albrecht’s reluctance to name her. And we’ve done our own enquiries—’ Fabel held up a hand to halt Gebhardt’s coming protests. ‘We were very discreet, I assure you. Anyway, we have enough to suggest there really was something going on – although it has to be said that Albrecht and Frau Taubitz took great care to cover up their tracks.’

  ‘Was she the one who was with Albrecht the night he was killed?’ she asked.

  ‘No, we checked. Frau Taubitz was at an official function with her husband. The woman the surveillance team saw Albrecht with looked like a casual pick-up from the bar. I’m sending a team in tonight to see if any regulars or staff in the bar can shed any light on her identity.’

  ‘Do you think she was the killer?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. We watched the place but missed her leaving. And we have at least two strong leads that would take us in another direction. However, we’re looking for a man whose sister committed suicide because of Albrecht. There’s always a chance that the woman in the apartment was at least an accomplice.’

  ‘I take it you’re going to interview Birgit Taubitz?’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s no way around it, Frau Police President.’

  ‘I trust you to be delicate in your handling of the interview.’

  ‘Naturally. As I would whatever the status or celebrity of the witness.’

  Gebhardt smiled, taking Fabel’s point. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Could you keep me regularly up to date on progress? I mean in my role as acting Leading Criminal Director more than Police President.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Fabel, but he knew very well that her interest in the case was political, rather than investigative. He picked up the file on the proposed Super Murder Commission and stood up.

  ‘And you will let me know your decision about which promotion you decide upon? Carrying Herr van Heiden’s workload as well as my own has been difficult. I’d like things decided as soon as possible.’

  ‘Certainly, Frau Police President.’

  55

  When it came to real estate, the Elbchaussee wasn’t just the most expensive street in Altona, it was the most expensive street in Hamburg. Probably in Germany. You had to count your change in millions to own a property of any size here.

  The house was a huge, white, Jugendstil affair, taking up, Fabel reckoned, almost five hundred square metres of a two thousand square metre lot. Like Traxinger’s studio and Albrecht’s apartment, it had views out over the water. The gardens were immaculate, with an in-ground pool flanking the house and a fringe of trees shielding it from its equally imposing neighbours. This was a world Fabel occasionally had to move in, but he did so like an explorer on an alien planet. The people who lived here were those who made Hamburg Germany’s richest city. This was the milieu of the Free and Hanseatic City’s seriously, incomprehensibly wealthy.

  Fabel was surprised that it wasn’t a servant who answered the door to him, but Birgit Taubitz herself. Her unexpected appearance made her beauty all the more striking, and he made a real effort not to let its impact on him show. Like Monika Krone, even like Kerstin Krone, the wife of the Principal Mayor of Hamburg wasn’t just beautiful, she was intimidatingly beautiful. Caligynephobia – it was a strange word and a strange time for it to fall into his recall. He remembered reading about it once: the fear of beautiful women. At the time he found it hard to believe that any such phobia existed, but Susanne had assured him it did, and was often, like many phobias, the result of some deep trauma. Standing there at the threshold of the huge Taubitz villa, held in the imperious gaze of Birgit Taubitz, Fabel suddenly found it less difficult to believe in caligynephobia.

  Frau Taubitz’s hair was exactly the same tone of vibrant auburn-red as Monika Krone’s had been and she shared the same emerald green eyes as both the Krone twins. She was dressed very casually, in jeans and a sweater, but Fabel could see at first glance that the ensemble would have cost more than he made in a week.

  Fabel introduced himself and offered his hand.

  ‘We’re in the front study,’ she said without taking it and turned to lead the way. Fabel followed her, wondering how many studies they had that they had to be described by their position in the house.

  The front study was a bright room with white paintwork, art deco French windows out to the garden and some original art hanging on the pale cream walls. Fabel found himself checking that there wasn’t a Traxinger hanging among the other paintings. There wasn’t: this was a much more select artistic crowd. A tall, thin twist of dark metal stood on a plinth in one corner and Fabel recognized it as a Giacometti. Birgit Taubitz indicated Fabel should sit with a wave of her hand.

  ‘I expect you and your department to handle this situation with the delicacy and discretion it deserves. I have agreed to meet you only on that basis and I will only answer questions I deem relevant. I spoke with the Police President about this this morning.’

  ‘I see,’ said Fabel smiling. ‘Of course we will be discreet.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  Fabel leaned forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees. The smile dropped. ‘I think I should make myself perfectly clear: it is my job to be discreet in all investigations and in all situations like this, Frau Taubitz, whatever the background of the witness. Your status, such as it is, has no bearing whatsoever. And as for the questions you’ll answer – I’ll decide what’s relevant, not you. And you will answer everything. If I am not entirely satisfied that you have, then I will take you into the Presidium and we’ll continue the questioning there – in which case it will be a hell of a lot more difficult to keep your involvement out of the media. You maybe have been speaking to Petra Gebhardt, but I know that she’ll have told you in no uncertain ter
ms that your best policy is to be as open with me as possible. I will do my best to keep your involvement out of the papers, but you may well end up as a witness in court. The secret to discretion in this situation, as you put it, would have been for you to have chosen your fellow adulterer with more caution. Have I made myself perfectly clear, Frau Taubitz?’

  Birgit Taubitz sat glaring at Fabel, wrapping a tight-lipped silence around her rage before nodding briskly.

  ‘Your husband,’ said Fabel. ‘Have you told him that you were involved with Tobias Albrecht?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘It’s not my place to advise you on marital matters, but I don’t think his knowledge of your involvement can be avoided.’

  ‘You’ll tell him?’ The defiance suddenly left her demeanour. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘I have no intention of telling the Principal Mayor at the moment. We are following specific lines of inquiry and hopefully one of these will bear fruit. However, if they don’t, then, at the end of the day, your husband has a pretty strong motive – perhaps one of the most common motives – for committing murder: killing his wife’s lover out of sexual jealousy.’

  ‘You can’t seriously be suggesting that?’

  Fabel held up a hand. ‘Like I said, we have other lines to follow first. And your cooperation in following those lines is key. Do we understand each other?’

  Another nod, this time with less rage behind it.

  ‘How long were you sexually involved with Tobias Albrecht?’

  ‘A year and a half, roughly. We met at a function.’

  ‘And the affair was conducted where?’

  ‘His apartment, mainly.’ She held Fabel’s gaze determinedly, as if trying to prove she wouldn’t allow the indelicacy of the subject to faze her. ‘A hotel room on a couple of occasions, but that was too risky and only when we met away from Hamburg.’

 

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