The Ghosts of Altona

by Craig Russell

  ‘What is it?’ asked Fabel.

  ‘I think he’s clean,’ she said. ‘I think we’ve screwed up. Or more correctly, I’ve screwed up.’

  ‘I take it you’re referring to more than your love life. Maybe you can take him out on an apology date. Anyway, it’s too soon to write him off.’

  ‘You still think he’s maybe had something to do with it?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. We’re in the dark so much here. And his distracting you while the woman got Albrecht out of the bar . . . If you and Glasmacher hadn’t been changing shift with Dirk and Sandra, it would have worked. Get people over to Tempel’s hotel and ask if anyone remembers seeing him with anyone else, particularly anyone fitting the description of the woman you saw Albrecht with that night.’

  Nicola Brüggemann, carrying a document, came along the hall towards them.

  ‘You were right,’ she said, handing the printed-out email to Fabel. ‘Forensics have confirmed xylazine in Albrecht’s system. A lot of xylazine. They’re rushing through tests on samples they got from Mortensen, not that there could have been much blood left in his body.’

  ‘Thanks, Nicola.’

  ‘There’s more,’ she said, nodding to the stapled pages in Fabel’s hands. ‘Take a look at the photograph over the page . . .’

  He flicked through the pages until he found a mortuary photograph, clearly of Albrecht’s chest. The wooden stake had been removed and the hole gaped raw into the chest cavity. Someone had circled an area on the photograph in red marker, close to the chest wound.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Fabel.

  ‘You can’t really see it that clearly on the photograph, and we wouldn’t have seen it when Albrecht showed you his chest – but the pathologist confirmed that there are hypopigmentation spots on the skin. Albrecht’s skin tone was light anyway, so they would be difficult to notice . . .’

  Fabel looked meaningfully at Anna. ‘Laser tattoo removal?’

  ‘That’s what the pathologist reckons.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Anna. ‘So he did have a tattoo.’

  ‘And in exactly the same place as the others.’

  58

  Beyond the windows of his office, the sky above the Winterhuder Stadtpark had turned to a shade of pewter, as if the rain that had started falling had washed any colour out from it. Against his will, another day when the sky had been the colour of pewter pushed its way into his recall and a knot tightened in his gut.

  He called Nicola Brüggemann in and asked her to round up the whole team and get everyone in the briefing room in ten minutes.

  ‘Sure, Jan – you think we’re getting close?’

  ‘We’re close,’ he said. ‘But close to what, I don’t know. There are so many potential routes I’m worried that we’ll head off in the wrong direction again. We’ve got so little forensic evidence from any of the scenes that I’m beginning to think we won’t be able to pin any suspect down. Anyway, I want to discuss something else with the team as well.’

  Henk Hermann appeared at the door. ‘I just wanted you to know that I’m free, Chef. I’ve finally got all the paperwork done on the Alte Mühle Seniors’ Home thing. I’m guessing you need all hands on deck.’

  ‘You’re guessing right. We’re having a briefing in ten minutes, and if you and Sven Bruns could be there, it would be good. What was the confusion? You said something about the Alte Mühle case having some kind of mix up?’

  ‘Oh, nothing that confusing,’ said Henk with a wry smile. ‘Just that the killer was the victim and the victim was the killer.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Henk ran through what he had found in Georg Schmidt’s diary, his interview with the old man and the discussion with the psychiatrist, Gosau, that had followed.

  ‘So Schmidt killed Wohlmann in revenge for sins he had committed, not Wohlmann.’

  ‘So it would appear. Herr Doctor Gosau seemed to think that Schmidt, once his mind and his memory started to fail him, escaped from his own history and slipped into the life he had always coveted.’

  Fabel thought for a moment, then turned to Brüggemann. ‘Nicola, do me a favour – get onto custody and tell them to hang on to Marco Tempel. I don’t want him leaving the building until I talk to him again. But I don’t want him to know why he’s being delayed. I need to speak to him after the briefing, but without him getting a lawyer involved.’

  ‘That sounds like thin ice . . .’

  ‘Trust me. I’ll see you in the briefing room in ten minutes.’

  *

  ‘Okay, is everyone here?’

  ‘Anna’s been delayed,’ said Nicola Brüggemann, ‘but she shouldn’t be too long. Something important she needed to check up on, she said.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Fabel. ‘Obviously I want to go through where we are with the so-called “Gothic” murders. It’s become pretty clear that the murders of Detlev Traxinger, Werner Hensler, Tobias Albrecht and Paul Mortensen are all connected. The last two employed the same form of killing – bleeding the victim to death, probably while they were sedated and immobilized by a large dose of the horse tranquillizer xylazine hydrochloride. That seems to be the one thing common to all the killings. There’s little doubt, as far as I’m concerned, that all four killings are connected to the disappearance and murder, fifteen years ago, of Monika Krone. However, before we go over where we are with the cases, there’s something else I need to discuss with you all . . .’

  Fabel paused as Anna Wolff came into the briefing room.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Chef.’

  ‘Now that we’re all here . . .’ Fabel addressed the room. ‘I have something to tell you. It will affect you all, so I wanted you to know about it and I want to hear your honest opinions. I have been offered one of two jobs. The first is as Leading Criminal Director in charge of the Hamburg LKA. If I accept, it would take me away from the Murder Commission, but as head of the whole investigative branch I would definitely have a say in my successor here. The second opportunity I’ve been offered is to stay on here, but in the rank of Leading Criminal Director and for the Commission to become a semi-autonomous unit within the LKA.’

  There was a buzz of voices and Fabel held up his hand to halt it.

  ‘This isn’t just a choice for me. All of you here are officers I hand-picked for the Commission. As individuals, I consider each of you to be among the very best officers on this force; collectively you are the best investigative unit in Germany. Any success we have achieved has been more down to you than to me. I wanted you all to know, before I make it official, that I have decided to accept the Police President’s offer and develop the Commission. What that’ll mean for us all is that we’ll be called in more and more to help other forces, if they ask us, with complex cases or when they have a serial offender active in their area. I should point out that if we do go down this route, we’ll be given more resources and more people. And, because we’ll be accepting consultative roles at a federal level, the Polizei Hamburg will get some funding from the federal government to help develop the Commission. But I want you all to be assured that our focus will remain Hamburg, first and foremost. This additional role will involve some of you being called away to other parts of the Republic, sometimes at short notice. I want you all to think this through and if, as a team, you’re unhappy about the new arrangement, I want you to elect a spokesperson and let me know before I formally accept. If any individual officer wants to transfer, I will understand. I won’t stand in your way and you’ll be guaranteed a report that will put you at the top of any department’s wish list.’ Fabel paused, holding his palms up. ‘Any questions?’

  ‘I don’t know about the others, but personally I think it’s great,’ said Anna Wolff. ‘If there are any cases in Berlin, let me have them. Or Cologne. Oh, yeah . . . and Munich. Anywhere, really. But not Frankfurt . . . anywhere but Frankfurt. Fuck that.’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘Are we covering only the German-speaking world,’ asked Dirk Hecht
ner, ‘or will we be taking cases in Baden-Württemberg too?’

  More laughter.

  ‘I’m glad you’re all taking it so seriously,’ said Fabel. ‘Okay, think about it and if any of you wants to discuss it further, my door’s open. In the meantime, let’s get back to the case in hand.’ He turned to the incident boards, now side by side and interconnected with pins and red thread.

  ‘We’ve got a clear sequence of events,’ he continued, ‘starting with Monika Krone’s remains being accidentally uncovered. Whatever else that event signifies, it seems to have torn the scab off a fifteen-year-old wound. Think about it – a new development needs a rerouted water supply and the trench cuts through the exact corner of a mini-market car park where Monika Krone has lain undisturbed for fifteen years. Her remains could have stayed hidden there for decades longer if it hadn’t been for that single turn of fate . . .’

  Fabel went over to the incident board to where Jochen Hübner glowered from a custody mugshot.

  ‘But by chance or not, once her body was discovered all hell breaks loose: Jochen Hübner – aka Frankenstein and the only solid suspect we had fifteen years ago – escapes from Santa Fu prison and disappears off the face of the Earth. Then, in quick succession, four men – Detlev Traxinger, Werner Hensler, Tobias Albrecht and Paul Mortensen – are all murdered. All four men were involved to one degree or another with Monika Krone, who seems to have left them all deeply marked. I mean, Detlev Traxinger was completely obsessed with her – and probably Tobias Albrecht too, just that he was better at hiding it. And two of the four men had the same tattoo, the significance of which we’ve yet to establish, but I’d bet a month’s pay that it had something to do with being members of this so-called Gothic set, which is looking more and more like a cult or secret society. And it’s pretty safe to assume that the fourth man, Albrecht, had the same tattoo because we’ve just established that he’d had laser surgery to have one removed from exactly the same spot as the others.’ Fabel paused.

  ‘So who’s killing former members of this secret student society? There are two strong possibilities – there’s actually a third that only came to me today, but I need to think it through. But the first obvious possibility is this: that Jochen Hübner did kill Monika Krone fifteen years ago and the discovery of her remains has prompted him to escape from prison and, for some reason, start killing men who were close to her. Incidentally, forensics have told me that the partial thumbprint retrieved from Traxinger’s studio isn’t good enough for significant identification purposes, but it is enough to eliminate Jochen Hübner. Significant differences in morphology, apparently. But that doesn’t, by any means, exclude him as a suspect.’

  ‘But what’s the motive?’ said Nicola Brüggemann. ‘I mean, I get it if he abducted and killed Monika – that would fit with his twisted sexual agenda and hatred of women. But we’ve only just discovered, through hard investigation, that these men were all connected to Monika. How would Hübner know?’

  ‘He wouldn’t. Jochen Hübner has been on the run for three weeks. He’s not called Frankenstein for no reason – he has got to be the most conspicuous fugitive in the history of Hamburg manhunts. Yet there hasn’t been a single sighting of him. I mean, this guy’s appearance literally stopped traffic when he made his break from the hospital, yet no one has seen him since.’

  ‘An accomplice . . .’ Brüggemann nodded.

  ‘An accomplice. Someone who helped him escape for a price. There is a fifth man – my ghost in the files – who was involved with the Gothic set. He was a ghost even back then – someone on the periphery of the group. Maybe he’s the one who knows all the connections and sprung Hübner to do his dirty work. But maybe not. Which brings me to another possibility: that this fifth man is acting alone and killing his former associates.’

  ‘Motive?’ asked Dirk Hechtner. Fabel paused before answering: a young woman in uniform had knocked on the glass door of the briefing room. She leaned in and gestured towards Anna, who nodded.

  ‘Excuse me, Chef,’ she said. ‘I need to see to this, it’s relevant . . .’ Fabel nodded and Anna went out into the hall and spoke to the uniformed policewoman, who started to guide Anna through a file of papers she had brought. Fabel turned back to Hechtner.

  ‘Motive? We have two possibilities. One is that our mystery man is Monika’s killer and the other four knew his identity. Maybe they didn’t know for sure that he had killed her. The other possibility is that the reverse is true: that Traxinger, Hensler, Albrecht and Mortensen acted together in the murder of Monika Krone, and our fifth man has always suspected but never knew for sure. Then the body is found . . .’

  ‘And your third possibility?’ asked Nicola Brüggemann. Fabel noticed that Anna had come back in, clutching the file the uniformed officer had brought her. Anna’s face was pale, her expression set hard.

  ‘That’s a long shot, Nicola . . . In fact it’s so improbable I find it difficult to believe. In any case, I need time to think it through before sharing it.’ He turned to Anna. ‘What is it, Anna?’

  ‘Your fifth man. I’ve got him. And this is big, Chef . . .’

  ‘You don’t look happy about it. Who is he?’

  ‘The reason I don’t look happy is that I’ve found a sixth man, too . . .’ She walked to the front and handed Fabel a photograph. It was another morgue shot, again a close-up of the tattoo: the DT monogram circled with acanthus and ivy.

  Fabel looked up and across to Anna, shrugging.

  ‘Jan . . . I checked this out on a hunch. Trying to find a connection. That photograph is from the autopsy of Jost Schalthoff – the man who shot you two years ago.’

  59

  It wasn’t yet full evening, but the dense trees around the old forester’s house were already blotting out the light. Zombie had arrived twenty minutes before and had sat in the cellar, in that motionless way he had, and had quietly gone over what was to happen, how it was to happen and when. As he described the horror to be unleashed, he did so without emotion, without passion. Nevertheless a dark excitement had still risen in Frankenstein’s chest. Now, their plans agreed, they stood in the dusty hallway.

  ‘It’s nearly time,’ said Zombie. He handed Frankenstein a photograph and the keys to the white van. ‘This is the revenge we’ve waited for. They will take me now.’

  ‘I know,’ said Hübner.

  ‘They’ll catch you too, you know that?’

  ‘I won’t let them. I’ll kill as many as I can before they kill me.’ Frankenstein turned his eyes, small and black, almost lost in the huge architecture of his face beneath the bulging brow. He rested his too-heavy hand on Zombie’s too-light shoulder. ‘Thank you. For everything.’

  Zombie smiled. ‘We’ll both be free now.’

  After Zombie had left, Frankenstein stood alone in the gloom of the dusty hallway and looked down at the photograph Zombie had given him.

  He would wait until dark. Until the exact time he had been given.

  60

  ‘Jost Schalthoff?’ Fabel stared at the photograph as if it could yield the answer. The briefing room was silent.

  ‘It explains why we found that print – the one of Traxinger’s painting – in his apartment.’ Anna still looked worried. ‘Are you okay with this?’

  ‘What?’ Fabel looked up, frowning. ‘Sure . . . I’m fine. Yes, it explains the painting but nothing else. I just don’t understand . . . Wait a minute.’ He beckoned over to Sven Bruns. ‘Sven, the architectural drawings I asked you to look for in Albrecht’s apartment. Did you find them?’

  ‘Yes, Chef, I put them on your desk.’

  ‘And the book I asked for?’

  ‘The dictionary . . . yes, it’s there too.’

  ‘Anna, Nicola – come with me. The rest of you wait here. I need to get something sorted out, then I’ll assign duties.’

  Once they were in the office, Fabel pulled the drawings from their cardboard tube.

  ‘Birgit Taubitz told me about these.’ He unrolled
them flat on his desk. The top drawing was of a fountain. The style was totally different from that which Fabel associated with the architect: ornate, rich in detailed flora. Gothic. He shuffled through the drawings until he came to the one he wanted. It was the mausoleum-cum-memorial that Birgit Taubitz had described.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Nicola Brüggemann.

  ‘A bit overdone for me,’ said Anna.

  Fabel stabbed his forefinger at the legend at the bottom of the page. It read: PROPOSAL FOR MEMORIAL AT JEWISH CEMETERY, ALTONA. He went through his desk drawers, almost frantically, until he found the file he was looking for. He placed a photograph of the painting of Monika Krone standing in a graveyard, surrounded by ivy and acanthus, on his desk next to the architectural drawing. In the background of the painting they could see tilted or broken headstones. The legend on some was in German, but in Hebrew on others.

  ‘This is the place,’ said Fabel. ‘Whatever happened that night fifteen years ago, it happened here. And that’s our link with Jost Schalthoff. He has absolutely no other connection with the others. He never went to university, but he did have an interest in Gothic literature. And God knows there was more than a touch of the Gothic about Schalthoff. He was all about death.’

  ‘I still—’ started Anna.

  Fabel interrupted her: ‘Schalthoff worked for the Hamburg state monuments department ever since he left school . . .’

  Realization lit up Anna’s expression. ‘And the Jewish cemetery is a Hamburg monument . . .’

  ‘My guess is Schalthoff was allowed into their little secret club because he had the keys to their playground. Nowhere is more Gothic than a graveyard.’ He turned to Anna. ‘So tell me . . . Schalthoff is our sixth man, but who is the fifth? Who’s my ghost in the file?’

  ‘I did a search for the guy Professor Rohde said was always loitering in the wings of the Gothic set. Well, the name wasn’t Messing or Mesling – it was Mensing. Martin Mensing.’