The Valkyrie Song jf-5

by Craig Russell

  ‘Here, Jan,’ said Gessler.

  ‘I have arranged for all the seizure warrants you’ll need. As soon as we take the Valkyrie down, you hit NeuHansa with your team. I need the proof that Bronsted is the Valkyrie’s client.’

  Fabel wound up the meeting and grabbed a coffee and sandwich in the canteen before going up to his office. Martina Schilmann was waiting for him. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he could see that she had a dressing in her ear. She looked tired and pale. And more than a little annoyed.

  ‘Sit down, Martina,’ he said, with a smile. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Sore. In more ways than one. I got the message that you wanted to see me. That’s good, because I wanted to see you. Do you realise that you’ve really screwed up my business? What do you think you are doing, telling Gennady Frolov that the Polizei Hamburg will handle his protection?’

  ‘Martina, you’re not that naive. A serious offence was committed in the harbour last night. A lot of people have been injured, including you. Gennady Frolov is the victim of an attempted murder. That makes it our business, not yours. You should know that. Anyway, I didn’t tell him to sack you-’

  ‘No, you didn’t tell him to sack me. But you asked him a lot of questions about me, didn’t you? Where I was when the bomb went off, why I was outside… You successfully put the idea into his head that I might be involved.’ Martina stared at Fabel and her scowl became a frown and then an expression of disbelief. ‘My God — you really do suspect me of something. I don’t believe this.’

  Fabel looked at the sandwich on his desk, sighed and dropped it into the wastebasket.

  ‘It’s not like that, Martina.’

  ‘No? What is it like?’

  ‘I don’t suspect you of anything. It’s just… well, you never really know someone.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Jan — we slept together for six months.’

  ‘This case — it’s… complicated,’ Fabel said awkwardly. ‘There are three women involved: Margarethe Paulus, Liane Kayser, Anke Wollner. All of them were brought up in the old GDR and they were trained as assassins. And all of them were given new identities. Margarethe Paulus is deranged and was the woman behind Drescher’s torture and murder, Liane Kayser has dropped off the radar and is presumably living a normal life under an assumed name and Anke Wollner, we believe, became the Valkyrie. And planted the bomb last night as a warning to Frolov.’

  ‘I do not bloody believe this!’ Martina’s face flushed red and her eyes glinted hard. ‘So which one do you think I am, Jan? Do you think I went outside and shattered my own eardrum by detonating the bomb at close range? Or do you have me down as the reincarnation of the killer who’s disappeared from sight?’

  ‘I’m not accusing you of anything. I just wanted you to tell me what happened last night. If you saw anything unusual. You are a witness, for God’s sake. I have to question you.’

  ‘We were just about to leave,’ said Martina in a steely tone. ‘When we arrived, I directed Frolov and his entourage away from the windows — I’d phoned the restaurant in advance and told them to reserve a table towards the back. Frolov and his business acquaintances were on to their coffees and brandies. I told Lorenz to stay with Ivan, Frolov’s own security guy, and I went outside for a smoke. The Merc was parked just a little further down the street and I was telling the busboy we would need it out front when he got the message from the maitre d’. Then boom… no more Merc and no more eardrum. I didn’t have my hands in my pockets, by the way, Jan. You can ask the busboy. Just in case you were wondering if I had a remote detonator stashed.’

  ‘Did you see anyone other than the busboy outside?’ Fabel ignored Martina’s gibe.

  ‘No. No one within sight to set the bomb off other than the busboy. Oh yes… and, of course, me.’

  ‘Martina, this isn’t helping. Frankly I don’t give a shit if our protecting a potential murder victim doesn’t fit in with your business plan. All I want to do is to put together some kind of picture of this hit woman. I’m asking you to think like a police officer again. Was there anything you saw or heard that might have been connected with the detonation?’

  Martina sighed. ‘No. Not really. Except I don’t think it was the radio transmission between the maitre d’ and the busboy that set the bomb off. Everything else was too professional for the detonator not to be selectively shielded.’

  Fabel raised a questioning eyebrow.

  ‘I did a course,’ explained Martina. ‘But the other thing is that the blast was at the same time as the radio went off, but not exactly. Not simultaneous. So that fits with the bomb being a warning.’

  ‘That’s where we are with it,’ said Fabel.

  ‘But it still doesn’t jell with me…’ Martina’s earlier anger seemed to have dissipated. ‘It was all done very professionally, and with great precision, and that fits with this killer. But that’s what she is: a killer. Sending out warnings doesn’t fit.’

  ‘Mmm… you could be right,’ said Fabel. ‘But like you say, everything else fits.’

  ‘Maybe she’s extending her service offer.’ Martina smirked. ‘Moving with the times to match the needs of the market.’

  ‘Could be…’ said Fabel. ‘But if she is, then that’s where we’ll nail her. If she doesn’t stick to what she knows best.’

  Fabel was interrupted by Anna Wolff, who came into the office without knocking. She had a copy of Muliebritas in her hand. She tossed it onto Fabel’s desk.

  ‘Here’s the new edition,’ she said, slamming her hand flat on the magazine. ‘Our ad’s in it.’

  ‘Yes, Anna — I know,’ said Fabel as if talking to an importunate child.

  ‘But ours isn’t the only one,’ said Anna. ‘Someone else is trying to communicate with the Valkyrie…’

  4

  You surround yourself with things, she thought. With stuff. You surround yourself with things to fill the gaps. At one time it had all seemed so important. To have nice things. Like the coffee table she had had specially imported from Japan. Or the Danish Hans Jorgen Wegner-designed Ox chair that had cost her over six thousand euros. She sat on the sofa and stared at the magazine.

  Maybe it was Uncle Georg who had got to her. He had been so… melancholic when they last had met. It had disturbed her. They had all called Georg Drescher ‘Uncle’. With hindsight, like everything else they had done to Anke, Liane and Margarethe, it had been so very carefully calculated. Not quite a father figure. Definitely not a lover. An uncle. An older male to whom they could turn and on whom they could always rely. Their trainers had tapped into adolescent female psychology to position Drescher perfectly in their minds. Socialism didn’t matter. The GDR didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that they would never, ever let their Uncle Georg down.

  Then, when the world had shifted on its political axis, socialism disappeared, the GDR was no more. Even Margarethe and Liane, by that time, were no longer there: Margarethe was now so disturbed that she was useless as a potential agent. The only thing they had achieved, Uncle Georg had confided in Anke later, was to turn a seriously disturbed girl into a dangerously disturbed killing machine. And Liane

  … well, Liane had been too perfect. Liane had exactly what they had been looking for: a singular ruthlessness and complete disregard for others. But that had also included Uncle Georg, the Stasi, the state. Liane had learned every lesson to perfection and had been deployed in the West before they had realised their mistake. Liane would use the skills they had taught her exclusively to achieve her own ends.

  That left only her. Anke. Not that she had called herself that in years. She had been Uncle Georg’s favourite. After the Wall had come down, Drescher had set up his own little enterprise, sending Anke out to kill people she didn’t know on behalf of people she didn’t know. Not for ideology, not for state security, but for cold, hard cash.

  And that had suited her fine. Anke had known that Margarethe had been smarter and Liane had been prettier, but Anke had had t
he sense to recognise a successful partnership. And the partnership with Uncle Georg had worked out just fine. But now there were hints of sentimentality creeping in with the old man. And there was no room in this business for sentimentality.

  Uncle Georg had kept the old, Cold War methods of staying in touch. Using the magazine for rendezvous messages. There were five dead-letter drops that he used throughout Hamburg. He had told Anke that he was an old dog who had learned his last trick so long ago. But Anke knew the truth: Uncle Georg used these methods to keep Anke at arm’s length; the snake charmer’s fear of being bitten.

  But it was an unjustified fear. Uncle Georg was as close to family as Anke had ever known. Or would ever know. That was not to say that she had never considered the possibility of killing him, to protect her identity should he through age or for whatever other reason lose his professionalism. But she knew that when the time came for them to part ways, she would let him live out his retirement in peace. Probably.

  She put the magazine down. This made no sense at all.

  Two messages. One from Uncle Georg. And the other. The other message was as wrong as it was possible to be. The wrong place and the wrong time. Muliebritas was the signal Uncle Georg used to alert her that he needed to see her; that he had another meeting for her to fulfil.

  But this shouldn’t be here. She read it again: The heavens are stained with the blood of men, as the Valkyries sing their song.

  It had been their code. The one they had agreed on if they ever wanted to contact each other. But she had never wanted to keep in touch with the other two. She had known, even then, that she was the only true Valkyrie. Margarethe was mad and Liane had her own agenda.

  Anke knew it couldn’t be one of the other girls. Muliebritas had not existed back then. And their plan had been compromised. Whoever had placed the announcement knew she would know it wasn’t Liane or Margarethe. Too obvious to be a trap.

  She looked again at the decoded message from Uncle Georg. An appointment tomorrow. She would keep it. She would ask Uncle Georg what he made of the other message.

  5

  Fabel and Anna were on their way back from talking to Gennady Frolov on his yacht. Frolov’s need for luxury equalled his desire for security, so Fabel had agreed to allow him to return to the yacht. The compromise was the two blue-and-silver police cars parked on the quay and the Harbour Police launch moored alongside.

  Surrounded by so much opulence, Fabel had found it difficult to focus on his questions. They had met Hans Gessler from the corporate crime unit at the yacht; Gessler must have been more accustomed to dealing with the obscenely wealthy, because he plodded through all the questions he had for the Russian and his accountant, a grumpy and surprisingly scruffy Russian called Krilof. Krilof had given Gessler a CD containing all their files on NeuHansa, Gina Bronsted and Goran Vuja i c.

  ‘We’re trying to go paperless,’ said Krilof without irony or a hint of a smile on his crumpled face. ‘This is basically what we’re handing over to OLAF. It’s enough to bury Gina Bronsted for a long time.’

  Fabel was heading back to the Presidium when he got a call from Dirk Hechtner.

  ‘Where are you, Chef?’

  ‘I’m just passing through St Georg. I’ve got Anna with me. Why?’

  ‘We’ve just had a shout, Chef. Henk and I are taking it, but it’s on your way. Well, kind of. A woman’s been strangled in an apartment in Barmbek-Sud. Sounds like a little afternoon delight that’s gone sour.’

  ‘God — we’re doing good trade these days. Maybe I’ll transfer to New York for a quieter life. I take it this has nothing to do with the Valkyrie case?’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like it,’ said Hechtner. ‘Just a good old-fashioned straightforward, banal, sordid murder — the way they used to make ’em. We don’t even have to hunt down the killer. A uniformed unit have nabbed him at the scene. You want to call in?’

  ‘I’ll see you there.’

  Hechtner gave Fabel the address in Barmbek.

  ‘Have you thought any more about my future?’ Anna spoke without turning to Fabel, instead staring straight ahead through the Hamburg drizzle.

  ‘Anna, now’s not the time.’

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ she said, ‘I’d like to make it the time. Listen, Chef, I don’t want to beg for my job, but whatever assurances you want from me, I’m ready to make them. I love this job. I don’t want to do anything else.’

  ‘Okay.’ Fabel drew a deep breath. ‘Will you consider going on an anger-management course?’

  ‘You’re kidding — right?’

  ‘Anna, you said anything. It wouldn’t necessarily have to be through the Polizei Hamburg. It doesn’t have to go on your permanent record. But if you want to stay, I insist you do it.’

  ‘Do I get a time-of-the-month allowance? I do the anger management but get to go menstrual-mental every four weeks?’

  ‘This isn’t a joke,’ said Fabel.

  ‘Sorry. I was winding you up. I’ll do it. Thanks.’

  It was fitting weather for visiting a murder scene. The sky was steel-grey and the air was clingy-damp with a faint chill drizzle. It turned out not to be an apartment after all, but a cheap hotel with ‘suites’ for rent.

  When he pulled up outside, Fabel saw Dirk and Henk come out of the main entrance with a tall man. The man had grey hair and was dressed in a long, expensive-looking blue coat. He was being placed, handcuffed, in a silver and blue police car. As Fabel nodded a greeting to his officers, he realised he had seen the man somewhere before. Somewhere else where his appearance of prosperity and respectability had looked out of place. His eyes met Fabel’s briefly before a uniformed officer pressed his head down gently as he guided him into the car.

  ‘Someone you know?’ asked Anna.

  ‘No,’ said Fabel. ‘I’ve seen him before, that’s all. Twice.’

  There were two uniformed officers at the scene: an older Obermeister stood at the foot of the bed while a young cop stood outside in the hall, interviewing a hotel cleaner. Holger Brauner, the head of the forensics team, was working with an assistant, both suited up in blue coveralls and surgical gloves.

  Fabel knew the older uniformed officer: a man called Hanusch with twenty-five years behind him. It was normal for uniform branch to team up a less experienced officer with a senior man: it eased the passage of the inexperienced into the world of violence and death that was part of everyday police work. Unexpectedly, it was the older policeman whose face had drained of colour. There was a melancholic expression in the eyes that had seen so much over the years. The younger officer in the hall, however, had had the eager electricity about him of someone high on adrenalin.

  Fabel followed the older cop’s gaze. A pretty girl of about twenty lay on the bed. Her eyes stared back at the uniformed policeman, bloodshot and glazed. Her mouth gaped slightly, her lips bluish and her tongue protruding. The ruptured capillaries in the skin of her neck had created delicate blue spiderweb threads. Fabel looked at her face and felt something lurch deep inside.

  ‘Oh Christ…’ he said. He looked back at Hanusch: the older uniformed cop smiled sympathetically. Like Fabel, Hanusch wasn’t looking at the body, at this sordid scene, with the eyes of a professional policeman. He was looking at the broken remains of a young girl with the eyes of a father.

  ‘I suppose we’d better inform the parents,’ said Hanusch. ‘I’ll get on to locating them. She must have ID somewhere.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Fabel. ‘I’ll do it. I know where they live. Barmbek, a few blocks away.’

  Fabel felt the inquisitive gazes of both Anna and Hanusch on him, but all he said was: ‘She was going to be a doctor, you know. Her name was Christa Eisel. She was studying medicine at Hamburg University.’

  6

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Susanne. ‘You sound down.’

  ‘I am. Just the usual. I’ve just come from a murder scene. Girl of about nineteen. A medical student moonlighting as a hooker. Some old perv strangled h
er.’

  ‘My God,’ said Susanne. ‘Not the girl you told me about before: the one who found Jake Westland?’

  ‘Yes. The very same. I tried to tell her, Susanne, but she wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Jan. Is her death connected to the other killings?’

  ‘No — just a coincidence. Well, not that much of a coincidence in that world. That’s what I tried to warn her about. And I know it’s not my fault, but I feel, I don’t know, responsible somehow.’

  ‘It’s your age, Jan. You’re at that stage in life that you start to see more and more people as sons or daughters.’

  ‘Thanks, Dr Eckhardt, that’s cheered me up. Not only is the world going to hell, but I’ve got one foot in the grave.’

  ‘Just about sums it up. Seriously though, are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine. I just wish you weren’t going away tonight.’

  ‘It’s only for a few days. I’ve been promising my mother for ages.’

  ‘Will I see you before you go?’

  ‘Depends on when you get back from work, but I doubt it. The train leaves at seven. Good luck with this set-up — you know, catching the Valkyrie. Phone me at Mum’s and let me know how it goes tomorrow.’

  Fabel wished Susanne a good trip and hung up, wishing he had arranged his night out with Otto for that evening instead of the night before. Chances were he’d be working anyway. With an operation like the one they were about to pull in the Alsterpark there was no such thing as too much preparation.

  Fabel wandered through to the main open-plan Murder Commission office and spoke to Anna Wolff.

  ‘Has Muliebritas been able to give us any more details about that other ad?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Anna. ‘They’ve done their best, but their records lead to a dead end. Somehow, someone was able to hack into their database and place the ad without a trace.’