Eternal jf-3

by Craig Russel

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fabel. ‘If it were just the scalps, maybe. But this thing with dying the hair red… if he is talking to us, then he is using a vocabulary that we don’t understand. Maybe, instead of talking to us, this guy is talking through us. I get the feeling that his main audience is someone else.’

  ‘That’s as may be, but who is this third victim?’ Van Heiden stood up and walked over to the inquiry board. He examined the images of both victims. ‘If this has got something to do with their histories, then we have to assume that we have another victim in their fifties or early sixties lying somewhere.’

  ‘Unless…’ Anna stood up suddenly as if stung.

  ‘Unless what?’ asked Fabel.

  ‘The guy you had in. The potential witness. You don’t think-’

  ‘Witness?’ Van Heiden looked surprised.

  ‘Schuler? I doubt it.’ Fabel paused for a moment. He thought about how he had threatened the small-time crook with the spectre of the scalp-taker. It couldn’t be: there was no way the killer could have found out about him. ‘Anna – you and Henk go and check him out, just in case.’

  ‘What’s this about a witness, Fabel?’ said van Heiden. ‘You didn’t tell me anything about having a witness.’

  ‘He’s not. It was the guy who stole the bike from Hauser’s place. He saw someone in the apartment, but could only give a partial and pretty vague description.’

  After Anna and Henk had left, Fabel took the rest of the team through the case again. There was nothing. No new leads to follow. This killer was so skilled at eliminating his forensic presence from a scene that they were totally dependent upon what they could deduce from the selection of the victims. Which left them nothing other than the suspicion that it was connected to their political pasts.

  ‘Let’s take a break,’ said Fabel. ‘I think we could all do with a coffee.’

  The Presidium canteen was all but deserted. A couple of uniformed-branch officers sat in the corner, chatting quietly. Fabel, van Heiden, Werner and Maria collected their coffees and made their way across to a table at the opposite end of the canteen from the two uniformed officers. There was an awkward silence.

  ‘Why did he target you, Fabel?’ asked van Heiden at last.

  ‘Maybe it’s just to prove that he can,’ said Werner. ‘To show us how clever and resourceful he is. And how dangerous.’

  ‘Does he seriously think he can frighten off the police? That we’ll drop the case?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Fabel. ‘But I do think that Werner has a point. I got this odd phone call in the car the other day. At the time I thought it was a hoax. But I’m pretty sure it was our guy. Maybe he feels he can compromise my effectiveness. Shake me up a bit, as it were. He’s bloody well succeeded. Maybe he even hopes that I’ll be taken off the case if he makes my involvement more personal.’

  Another silence. Fabel suddenly wished that he was alone. He needed time to think. He needed to sleep first, then think. A pressure seemed to build in his head. He found that van Heiden’s presence, no matter how well meant, stifled his thought processes. Fabel sipped at his coffee and it tasted bitter and gritty in his mouth. The pressure in his head grew and he felt hot and sweaty. Dirty.

  ‘Excuse me a moment,’ he said and headed across to the male toilets. He splashed water on his face, but still did not feel any cooler or cleaner. The nausea hit him so fast that he only just made it into the cubicle before he vomited. His stomach emptied and he continued to retch, his gut clenching in spasms. The nausea passed and he returned to the basin and rinsed his mouth out with cold water. He splashed his face again; this time it made him feel a little fresher. He was aware of Werner’s massive bulk behind him.

  ‘You okay, Jan?’

  Fabel took some paper towels and dried his face, examining himself in the mirror. He looked tired. Old. A little scared.

  ‘I’m fine.’ He straightened himself up and threw the towels into the wastebasket. ‘Honestly. It’s been a pretty full day. And night.’

  ‘We’ll get him, Jan. Don’t worry. He’s not going to get away with-’

  The ringing of Fabel’s cellphone cut Werner off.

  ‘Hello, Chef…’ Fabel could tell from the tone, from the faint tremulousness in Anna Wolff’s voice, what she was about to say. ‘I was right, Chef, it was him. The bastard’s killed Schuler.’

  3.00 p.m.: Osdorf, Hamburg

  Fabel woke up and felt the panic of the lost.

  There was a hint of daylight at the edges of the heavy dark curtains that hung over a window that should not have been where it was. He lay on a bed that was smaller than it should have been and in the wrong position in the wrong room. For a moment that seemed to stretch into infinity he could not work out where he was or why he was there. His disorientation was total and his heart hammered in his chest.

  When he remembered, it was in stages. Each part of his recent history colliding with him like a steam train. He remembered the horror in his flat, the nauseating violation of his home; Susanne’s scream; van Heiden’s concerned presence; vomiting in the canteen toilets. The memory of relaxing with Susanne and the team seemed a lifetime away.

  He was at Frank Grueber’s. He remembered. They had agreed. He had packed a suitcase and a holdall and Maria Klee had driven him across town to Osdorf. Van Heiden had arranged for there to be a silver and blue patrol car outside.

  But immediately before they had come here. Fabel remembered that, too. More horror. This time it had been a sad, pathetic horror: Leonard Schuler, whom Fabel had sought so hard to frighten, sitting strapped to a chair in his squalid little flat, his scalp missing and his throat sliced open, his dead face streaked with blood, with red dye. With tears.

  As they had stood gathered around Schuler’s sitting body, they had all thought the same terrible thought that had burned in Fabel’s mind but to which no one had dared give voice: that what Fabel had threatened Schuler with, that terrible fiction he had used to frighten the small-time crook, had really happened to him. Fabel had grasped Frank Grueber, who had led the forensic team at the scene, by the arm and had said pleadingly, ‘Find me something to go on. Anything. Please

  …’

  Fabel swung his legs around and sat up on the edge of the bed. He rested his elbows on his knees and cradled his head, which still pounded nauseatingly. He felt listless and weary. It was as if a dense damp fog had gathered around him, insinuating itself into his brain, clouding his thought processes and making his limbs heavy and aching. He tried to remember what it was that the sickening feeling that sat in the centre of his chest reminded him of. Then it came to him. It reminded him of bereavement: it was an attenuated form of the grief he had felt when he had lost his father. And when his marriage had died.

  Fabel sat on the edge of a strange bed and thought about what it was that he was mourning. Something precious, something special that he had kept separate from his world of work had been violated. Fabel was anything but a superstitious man, but he thought back to how he had broken the unspoken rule of not talking shop with Susanne; of how he had done so in his apartment. It was almost as if he had opened a door and the darkness that he had sought so hard to keep out of his personal world had come rushing in. After nearly twenty years, his two lives had collided.

  Fabel found the bedside light and switched it on, blinking in the sudden painful brightness. He checked his watch: it was three p.m. He had only slept for three hours. Fabel had been amazed at the size and comfort of Grueber’s apartment. ‘Parents with money – lots of money…’ Maria had said in a mock-conspiratorial tone, her attempt at unaccustomed humour clumsy and inappropriate. Grueber had shown him to a vast spare bedroom that was about the size of the living room in Fabel’s apartment. Fabel dragged himself up from the bed and made his way into the en-suite bathroom; he shaved before stepping into a cool shower that did little to ease his feeling of pollution. He had seen it so many times before, with victims of or witnesses to a violent act. But he had never felt
it. So this was what it was like.

  Fabel reckoned that Maria and Grueber were still in bed and he did not want to disturb the rest that they both needed after such a gruelling night. He had watched them together when they came home. Fabel had always liked Grueber and found it sad that, although he was clearly very fond of Maria, they did not jell as a couple. Now, of course, Fabel knew the basis for Maria’s lack of intimacy with Grueber, and he could understand the caution with which Grueber displayed any kind of physical affection. But it made him sad to see two young people who obviously had strong feelings for each other unable to function fully as a couple because of an invisible wall between them.

  The apartment was on two levels and, after he had showered and dressed, Fabel went downstairs to the kitchen. After a brief search he found some tea and made himself a cup, sitting down at the large oak kitchen table. He heard the sound of someone coming down the stairs and Grueber entered the room. He looked remarkably fresh and Fabel felt a little resentful of his youthful energy.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Grueber asked.

  ‘Rough. Where’s Maria?’

  ‘She’s grabbing a couple of hours’ sleep. Do you want me to wake her?’

  ‘No… no, let her sleep. But I’ve got to get back to the Presidium. This is one trail we can’t let go cold.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s cooling as we speak,’ said Grueber apologetically. ‘I did my best, I really did. But we got nothing from either scene that is going to help us identify this madman. He did leave his trade-mark single red hair – this time in your apartment rather than at the primary locus. I called Holger Brauner while you were asleep: he said that the hair matched the other two and is of the same antiquity, about twenty to thirty years old.’

  ‘Nothing else?’ There was a tone of bleak disbelief in Fabel’s voice. Just one break, that was all he wanted. Just for this killer to slip up once.

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘ Shit.’ Fabel used the English word. ‘I can’t believe that this bastard can walk into my apartment and plaster a human scalp to a window without leaving a trace.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Grueber, a little defensively this time. ‘But he did. Both Herr Brauner and I checked and double-checked both scenes. If there was anything to find we would have found it.’

  ‘I know – sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t process them properly. It’s just…’ Fabel let the sentence die with a gesture of impotent frustration. Fabel’s own team had questioned his neighbours over and over again: no one had seen anyone come in or leave his apartment. It was as if they were dealing with a ghost.

  ‘Whoever this killer is,’ said Grueber, ‘I get this weird feeling every time… almost as if he deprocesses a scene before he leaves it. As if he knows forensic techniques.’

  ‘What, by the way he cleans up after himself?’

  ‘More than that.’ Grueber frowned as if trying to focus on something out of his range. ‘I sense three stages to it. Firstly, he must come heavily prepared and sets up something to protect the scene. Sheeting, maybe, and perhaps even some kind of protective clothing that prevents him leaving traces at the scene. Secondly, he must clean up after each murder. We blamed that woman, the cleaner, for destroying forensic evidence at the first murder. She didn’t. There would be none to destroy. Then he leaves his signature – the single ancient red hair – and he does so in a way that he knows we will find. Again, it’s as if he understands how we process a scene.’

  ‘But you nearly didn’t find it the first time,’ said Fabel.

  ‘And that was the cleaning woman’s fault. She had partially bleached it and it had been pushed well into the seam at the base of the bath. My guess is that the killer left it somewhere more obvious.’

  ‘You can’t seriously be suggesting that we are dealing with a forensic technician?’

  Grueber shrugged. ‘Or maybe he has read extensively about forensic techniques.’

  Fabel stood up. ‘I’m going in to the Presidium…’

  ‘If you want my opinion,’ said Grueber, pouring Fabel a second cup of tea, ‘you should rest up for the remainder of the day. Whoever this killer is, whether or not he has experience of forensics, he’s smart, and he likes to prove it. But, as we both know, these people are never as smart as their egos tell them they are. He’ll slip up soon. Then we’ll get him.’

  ‘You reckon?’ said Fabel dismally. ‘After last night I can’t be so sure.’

  ‘Well, I really do think you should stay here and rest. The fresher you are, the more likely you are to think straight.’ Fabel gave Grueber a sharp look and the younger man held up his hands defensively. ‘You know what I mean… Anyway, like I said before, make yourself at home. In fact… follow me…’

  Grueber led Fabel out of the kitchen, along the corridor to a large bright room which Grueber had converted into a study. The walls were lined with bookcases and there were two desks: one was clearly a general working desk with a computer, notepads and files on it; the other was used as some kind of workbench. What caught Fabel’s attention was a clay model head, punctuated at regular intervals, like points on a grid, with small white pegs.

  ‘I thought this room would interest you – this is where I do my moonlighting. And most of my research.’

  Fabel walked over and examined the clay head. ‘I heard about this,’ he said. ‘From Holger Brauner. You’re quite an expert on reconstruction, I believe.’

  ‘I’m happy to say that I’m kept reasonably busy with it in my spare time. Most of what I get is archaeological, but I’m hoping to use it more in a forensic context. When a body is discovered and is too decomposed for the usual means of identification.’

  ‘Yes – we would find that very useful. Is there a skull under this?’ asked Fabel. Despite his tiredness he could not help but be intrigued. He could see how Grueber had been building up the layers of soft tissue onto the bone. First the main muscles, then the smaller tendons. It was a perfect representation of a human face stripped of its outer layer of fat and skin. There seemed to Fabel to be an anatomical precision about it. And, in a strange way, it was beautiful. Science becoming art.

  ‘Yes,’ said Grueber. ‘Well, no, not the original. The university sent me a cast. They make a mould in alginate and the cast they create is an absolutely perfect reproduction of the real skull. That’s what I base my reconstructions on.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Fabel examined the detail of Grueber’s work. It was like looking at one of Da Vinci’s anatomical drawings.

  ‘She’s from Schleswig-Holstein. But from a time when there was no concept of Schleswig-Holstein or Germany and the language she spoke would not have been related to German. She would have been a Proto-Celtic speaker. She most likely belonged to the Ambroni or Cimbri. That would mean that her native tongue would be closer to modern Welsh than anything else today.’

  ‘It – she – is beautiful,’ said Fabel.

  ‘She is, isn’t she? I reckon I’ll have her finished in a couple of weeks. The only thing I have left to do is to add the soft tissue over the muscle layer. That’s what gives living form to the model.’

  ‘How do you judge the thickness of the tissue?’ asked Fabel. ‘Surely it’s pure guesswork.’

  ‘Actually, it isn’t. There are guidelines for the thickness of facial tissue for each ethnic group. Obviously, she might have been fat, or particularly thin. But she comes from a time when there was not a surplus of food, and everyday life was much more strenuous than it is today. I think I will manage to get pretty close to what she looked like two thousand, two hundred years ago.’

  Fabel shook his head in wonder. As with the image of Cherchen Man that Severts had shown him, he was being offered a window on a life that had burned and been extinguished two millennia before he had been born.

  ‘Is it mainly bog bodies you work on?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I’ve reconstructed soldiers killed in the Napoleonic Wars, plague victims from the late Middle Ages, and I get a
great deal of work to do on Egyptian mummies. I enjoy them the most – because of their antiquity, I suppose. And the exoticism of their culture. It’s funny, I often feel a bond with the surgeon-priests who prepared the bodies of their kings, queens and Pharaohs for mummification. They were preparing their masters for reincarnation, for rebirth. I often feel that I am fulfilling their task… giving life again to the mummies they prepared.’

  Fabel remembered the archaeologist Severts saying something almost identical.

  ‘The most important thing for me,’ said Grueber, ‘is that what I create should be accurate. Truthful. I do this for the same reason I studied archaeology in the first place, why I chose to become a forensics specialist. The same reason you and Maria chose to become murder detectives. We all believe the same thing: that truth is the debt we owe to the dead.’

  ‘After last night, I don’t know why I do it any more, if I’m honest.’ Fabel said. He looked at Grueber’s earnest, concerned face. Fabel had been so concerned about Maria, but he could not imagine her being with anyone who would be better for her.

  ‘Take a look at this.’ Grueber pointed to the side of the reconstructed head, above the temple. ‘This muscle is the first we apply, it’s the temporalis. And this…’ He pointed to a wide sheet of muscle on the forehead. ‘Is the occipitofrontalis. These are the largest muscles in the human head and face. When this killer takes a scalp he cuts around the full circumference of the cranium.’ He picked up a pencil and, without touching the surface of the clay, indicated a sweep across the muscles that he had described. ‘It is comparatively easy to remove a scalp. By cutting through the full dermis all the way around, it can be pulled free with little effort. The scalp basically sits on top of the muscle layer and is anchored by connective tissue. The last two scalps have been taken that way, but he cut much deeper with Hauser, the first victim. Remember he looked almost as if he was frowning? That was because the occipitofrontalis was severed, causing his brow to droop.’ Grueber threw the pencil down on the table. ‘He’s getting more proficient. Our scalp-taker is perfecting his craft.’