A Fear of Dark Water

by Craig Russell

  ‘You know, this is very interesting reading,’ he said conversationally. ‘Did you know that Daniel Föttinger studied philosophy at Hamburg University?’

  ‘No, Herr Fabel. I did not.’

  ‘Really? I would have thought you and he would have discussed such things. After all, the Pharos Project trades heavily on the philosophy of mind, wouldn’t you say?’

  Wiegand said nothing, instead keeping Fabel locked in a cold, contemptuous glare.

  ‘He didn’t do too well with his studies,’ continued Fabel. ‘From what we’ve been able to find out, he had a tendency to become too fixed on one particular aspect of philosophy. Obsessive, almost. He lacked intellectual discipline, apparently. Not enough rigour. His dissertations were considered to be too narrow and ill-researched. Take this one: it was supposed to be a general exploration of Plato’s Theory of Forms, but it turns into a very, very discursive piece on Platonic Simulation.’ Fabel flicked further through the document. ‘But where it really gets interesting is when he gets into a discussion about qualia. Now, I’m no philosopher, but qualia seem to me the sensory experiences we have of the world, how we perceive our environment.’

  ‘Does tedium fall under that description, Herr Fabel?’ said Wiegand wearily. ‘I really do hope that you intend to make some kind of point.’

  ‘Well, let me put it this way. Daniel Föttinger’s personality, I feel, is revealed through these notes. Philosophy is, after all, all about making sense of the individual’s experience of the world. Föttinger was interested in a very specific concept related to qualia: the concept of the “philosophical zombie”. That is the idea held in some fields of philosophy that there is only a minority of people in the world who are real; that some people – most people, in fact – don’t really exist at all in the real sense of the word. They react to stimuli the way you would expect them to – they express feelings of sorrow, pain, anger, love … but they don’t really feel these things, because they have no real sentience.’

  ‘Point?’ asked Wiegand’s lawyer.

  ‘Simply that it’s interesting that these notes suggest that Daniel Föttinger was obsessed with the concept. Now, I’ve spoken to a lot of people about Herr Föttinger, and I’ve gained a bit of an insight into his personality. And I have to say it’s not a very pleasant personality. I believe that, as a young student, he was obsessed with these ideas because they fitted pretty much with his experience of the world.’

  ‘Which was?’ asked Wiegand.

  ‘That people didn’t really matter. Daniel Föttinger was a person completely devoid of empathy. He simply could not imagine that others had any kind of consciousness in the same way that he did.’ Fabel closed over the file. ‘Daniel Föttinger was, quite simply, a sociopath.’

  ‘And what does this have to do with my client?’ asked Harmsen.

  ‘Let me get to that. Sociopathy, as a personality disorder, is much more common than one would think. A mildly sociopathic personality is probably something of an advantage in the corporate world; the “ruthless businessman” is very often someone who is supremely egocentric and blind to the feelings of others. Daniel Föttinger was certainly such a businessman, as was his father before him, from what I can see. Daniel must not have seemed the ideal candidate for you to recruit into the Project, but you already had his independently wealthy wife and you needed Föttinger’s business to work in harmony with the Korn-Pharos Corporation. I don’t know, but it was probably your intention that, when you had him brainwashed sufficiently, Föttinger Environmental Technologies would become absorbed into the Korn empire.’

  ‘I still don’t see—’ began Wiegand’s lawyer.

  ‘Your brainwashing techniques started to work on Föttinger, mainly because the concept of a virtual world peopled with self-aware programs appealed to his already skewed ideas. But he was a bit of a thorn in the side, wasn’t he, Herr Wiegand? My guess is that his behaviour became increasingly erratic. I would also guess that you perhaps started to encounter problems with how he interacted with the female members of your little group.’ Fabel paused. ‘So how does that have anything to do with you, Herr Wiegand? I’ll tell you. A young environmental activist and web-journalist calling herself Meliha Yazar infiltrated your organisation. Somehow she gained access to the deepest levels of the Project. She discovered something big. Something so big that it could bring the Project down. And because she gained that knowledge, you had her killed. Then, because you thought she had passed that information on to her lover, Berthold Müller-Voigt, you had him killed too. You even arranged for me to be shoved off a pier and into the Elbe because you thought I was getting close to the truth, which I was.’

  ‘Are you going to enlighten us?’ asked Wiegand. Fabel could see the billionaire did not feel threatened. He knew that accusations were one thing; having the evidence to back them up was another. His counsel remained quiet.

  ‘First of all, let’s talk about the death of Daniel Föttinger. You arranged that, too. Your Consolidators actually run the Guardians of Gaia and you used poor, confused Niels Freese to kill Föttinger.’

  ‘And why,’ asked Harmsen, ‘would my client do that?’

  ‘Because of the big secret that Meliha Yazar discovered, the knowledge that Herr Wiegand here has tried so hard to wipe off the face of the planet.’

  ‘And what is this “big secret”?’ asked Harmsen.

  ‘That Daniel Föttinger was the Network Killer.’

  There was a pause. Nothing to read on Wiegand’s face. Less certainty on Harmsen’s.

  Fabel turned to Wiegand again. ‘As Föttinger got more and more drawn into your wacky ideas – ideas that actually made sense of his experience, just as they did with Niels Freese – he became more and more out of control. He spent up to six hours a night logged into Virtual Dimension, leading a substitute life that spilled out into the real world. He arranged to meet these women online, then raped and strangled them, dumping their bodies in the waterways around the city. You found out about it but couldn’t get to him before he got to his last victim. In fact, I suspect you didn’t find out about it until you caught Meliha Yazar. Am I right?’

  Wiegand remained impassive and silent.

  ‘So your Consolidators did a clean-up operation,’ continued Fabel, ‘wiping out all trace of any online contact between Julia Henning and all the other victims and Föttinger. You even cold-stored her body until after Föttinger’s death so that he would not be connected to the murders.’

  Wiegand remained silent for a split second, then burst into laughter. His lawyer, however, did not even break a smile.

  ‘You know something, Fabel?’ Wiegand leaned forward, his shaven head gleaming in the artificial light of the interview room, his eyes hard and cold. ‘You’re the one with the problem with reality. Everything you’ve said is absurd. Pure, unadulterated fantasy.’

  ‘Is it? It certainly was embarrassing enough for you. You messed with Föttinger’s mind just that little too much, too quickly. He had sociopathic tendencies. Not immediately apparent, and the type that make for ruthlessness in business. But what you didn’t know was that he had a history of sexual assaults, all covered up by Daddy. Your crackpot theories started to appeal to his sense of superiority; his belief that there were people out there who weren’t real people. That maybe all of this isn’t reality at all, but some kind of simulation. A game. He probably convinced himself that the women he raped and strangled didn’t even feel what he was doing to them. That they were philosophical zombies programmed to simulate fear and pain.’

  ‘Do you have any actual proof with which to back up these allegations?’ asked the lawyer.

  ‘That was the object of this morning’s raids. Our first was less than successful. There was a young woman at the headquarters of the Guardians of Gaia, the same young woman who had tried to compromise me by giving me the identity of Julia Henning before her body was discovered. Anyway, this young woman was dressed a lot like one of your Consolidators and she detonated
a bomb that wiped out the evidence we needed. Wiped herself out, too. But we’ve got material from the Pharos and Technical Section is taking that apart, bit by bit, at the moment. I’m afraid you’ll be our guest until they’re finished.’

  ‘Then I wish you luck,’ said Wiegand. ‘Because if you don’t find anything with which to substantiate these outrageous claims, then I’ll be having a very long conversation with Frau Harmsen here about our options.’

  After Fabel suspended the interview, he went back up to the Murder Commission. He sat for a moment at his desk, gazing absently at the three books that Anna had left there for him. The books that they had found on Meliha Kebir’s bedside table. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Silent Spring. The Judge and His Hangman.

  Werner came in and slumped in the seat opposite.

  ‘We’re fucked, aren’t we?’

  ‘All in all, I think that sums up our situation quite well. We’ll keep him overnight and hope that the tech boys turn something up. How did Anna and Henk get on with Bädorf?’

  ‘They didn’t. Bädorf’s keeping his mouth shut, except to demand that someone produces some evidence against him. They’re a pretty confident bunch, Jan. By the way, there’s a complete “infirmary” on the second floor of the Pharos. The guys doing the search say that, given the size of this infirmary, Pharos members must be very accident-prone or a pretty unhealthy bunch.’

  ‘Operating theatre?’

  ‘Looks like there has been one, but it’s been cleared out. Again, no proof we can present in court. You thinking about catching up on your reading?’ He nodded towards the books on the desk.

  ‘Do you think you should listen to dreams?’ asked Fabel.

  Werner frowned. ‘You’re not coming apart on me, are you, Jan?’

  ‘I dreamt about Paul Lindemann again. He told me to remember these books.’

  ‘No, Jan,’ said Werner. ‘You told yourself to remember these books. That’s the way dreams work. The people in them aren’t real, you know. They’re just there to tell you what you already know; what’s locked up somewhere in your subconscious, or some shit like that.’

  ‘I know that, Werner. But it’s odd. It was so like Paul.’

  There was a knock and Kroeger stuck his head around the door and asked if he could join them.

  ‘Well?’ Fabel asked once the Cybercrime Unit officer had sat down next to Werner.

  ‘Nothing so far. I’ve got half a dozen of my best people out at the Pharos going through every file, every piece of data, and I’ve had a dozen hard drives brought back here. We’ve focused on Wiegand’s and Bädorf’s computers, just as you suggested, as well as the hardware used by the Office of Consolidation and Compliance, but we’ve come up empty. Sorry.’

  ‘So they obviously wiped anything incriminating when they saw us coming?’

  ‘To tell the truth, I just don’t know.’ Kroeger’s long face looked greyer and grimmer that usual. ‘I’m sorry. Normally we can tell when data’s been wiped and more often than not, unless the hard disk’s been truly trashed – and I mean physically damaged – we can usually retrieve erased files. But it’s not that they’ve dumped what we’re looking for, it’s more that it wasn’t there to begin with.’

  ‘I can’t believe there isn’t anything on their mainframe or whatever the hell you call it.’ Fabel’s frustration was beginning to boil over into anger. ‘I thought you and your geeks were supposed to be the best in the business. I think you’ve met your match. The Pharos Project has simply outgunned and outsmarted you.’

  Kroeger seemed to consider Fabel’s words; there was no hint of him having taken offence at what Fabel had said.

  ‘No …’ he said contemplatively. ‘No, I don’t think that’s it at all. We would have found something. You can’t wipe all trace of previous data from computers. The only anomaly we can find is that a lot of the data we are looking at has been updated within the last few hours. New files. And some of them have had update times manipulated. But I think it ties in with what happened with your cellphone.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Werner.

  ‘We’re looking for a high-tech solution to these problems,’ said Kroeger, creasing his high forehead with a frown. ‘Maybe it’s a lot simpler than that. I think that the Pharos Project has physically dumped all of its data. I think that several of the computers we are examining have been brought in from elsewhere, or at least the hard drives have been swapped over. The original drives are at the bottom of the Elbe or have been crushed in some waste plant. That would explain there being so many new files on some of the key computers, particularly in the Office of Consolidation and Compliance. The server in there looks brand new. My thinking is that they’ve brought these computers in from their other operations, loaded with harmless data, and then added some Pharos-specific stuff to make it look like they’ve been there for months.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with my cellphone?’

  ‘I think they did the same with that. I think the phone I’ve been examining isn’t yours at all. It’s a substitute. A clone. And your network isn’t your network. They’ve faked it all so that you’ve been connected to their network and the whole time they were monitoring you through it.’

  Fabel thought about what the Cybercrime officer had said. ‘So you’re saying that you’re not going to find anything on their system? Wiegand’s going to walk if you don’t, Kroeger, you do realise that?’

  ‘I can’t find what’s not there,’ replied Kroeger, ‘And I honestly think we’re looking in the wrong place at the wrong time. If only we had got into the network before they swapped drives … If you’re right and Meliha Yazar did get something on them, then you’ve got to find it, if it still exists.’

  There was a perfunctory knock on the door and Anna stepped in.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, Chef, but there’s something I think you might want to see.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What looks like a suicide, over in Wilhelmsburg.’

  ‘And what makes it interesting?’

  ‘Two things. Firstly it would appear the guy committed suicide using an Exit Bag, just like the invalid, Reisch. The second thing is that the dead man’s neighbour insists he speak to you. He asked for you by name …’

  ‘This isn’t the same,’ said Fabel as soon as he walked into the apartment. ‘We need a forensics team up here.’

  He walked over to where the massive bulk of the dead man lay slumped over the computer desk. From a distance, Fabel had had difficulty identifying the shape as human. It had appeared more like a large, formless dark mass. Unlike Reisch’s Exit Bag, ballooned up with helium, the plastic bag over this man’s face was sucked in tight.

  ‘You don’t think this is suicide?’ asked Anna, who had accompanied Fabel to the scene.

  ‘He’s got a plastic bag over his head, but there’s no helium canister or other inert gas. This guy’s gone out with every instinct screaming for breath. It would take an enormous effort of will to sit there without your hands tied and not tear the plastic bag off your head.’

  ‘I don’t see him as the willpower type, somehow,’ said Anna gravely. ‘Especially around pastry. Whatever it was that killed him, it wasn’t anorexia …’

  ‘You’re all heart, Commissar Wolff.’

  ‘If there’s anyone with an enlarged heart around here, it’s not me. How much do you think this guy weighed?’

  ‘God knows. Close on two hundred kilos.’

  ‘What’s up?’ Anna read the frown on Fabel’s face.

  ‘Do you see all this computer equipment? There must be thousands of euros’ worth here.’

  ‘I’m guessing he didn’t get out much,’ said Anna.

  ‘No, this is more that that. There’s something professional about this set-up. I can’t help but think this could be tied in with the whole Pharos Project thing.’

  ‘Could be a coincidence. By the way, do you really think Daniel Föttinger was the Network Killer?’

  ‘I’m convinced
of it. Kroeger and his boffins have seized Föttinger’s computer, not that they’ll find anything there, but they’ve also got a court order to get his records from his internet service provider, as well as his cellphone accounts. Even if I can’t prove it, I’d put a year’s pay on us not seeing another victim.’ Fabel nodded towards the slumped body. ‘What did the police surgeon say about this?’

  ‘That he’s been dead for a while, that he clearly had a history of breathing problems, going by the gear in the bedroom and some of the medication. It would have been quick and easy with the bag. Maybe that’s why there’s no helium.’

  ‘Where’s this neighbour who insists on seeing me?’ asked Fabel.

  ‘Downstairs.’

  * * *

  Jetmir Dallaku was agitated. Impatient. It was clear that he had been waiting for some time for Fabel to call.

  ‘Are you Principal Chief Commissar Jan Fabel of the Polizei Hamburg?’ The small, wiry Albanian posed the question with such earnestness and formality that Fabel had to suppress a grin.

  ‘I am, yes. You wanted to see me?’

  ‘Do you have badge? Card? With name on?’

  Fabel glanced at a smirking Anna, then reached into his jacket pocket and held out his police ID. Dallaku studied it with a frown.

  ‘Herr Kraxner, upstairs. He knew someone come to do something bad.’

  ‘He told you this?’ asked Fabel.

  ‘Yes. He said that if anything bad happen to him, I am to speak to you. Only you, and give you this …’ He reached into his pocket and took out a carefully folded envelope. ‘Herr Kraxner … he was sad man. Lonely man. Why anybody hurt him?’

  Fabel stared at the envelope for a moment, seeing his own name written on it, then looked up at the ceiling as if he could see through it and into the dead man’s apartment.

  ‘Klabautermann …’

  ‘What?’ said Anna.

  Fabel snapped his attention back to her. ‘Get on to Kroeger. I’ve got more work for him. Tell him I want every piece of hardware taken out of that apartment and subjected to the same scrutiny as the Pharos Project stuff.’