The Valkyrie Song

by Craig Russell

  ‘But don’t you see that’s the point? Anna has put her neck on the line. She nearly got herself killed twice doing exactly that. This isn’t the Wild West, Werner. I mean, I thought you would understand. If anything it’s you that’s kept me from screwing up because you always make sure we follow procedure. There have been times when Anna has all but rendered evidence inadmissible because she hasn’t followed the State Prosecutor’s guidelines.’

  Werner sighed and rubbed a shovel of a hand over the grey stubble on his scalp. Fabel always thought Werner looked like a retired boxer or hardened sailor: his broken nose, picked up early in his career as a street policeman, his Hamburg Low-German way of speaking combined with his faintly scruffy way of dressing and his powerful build made him look like someone who was probably inclined to use muscle rather than brain. But no one had the eye for detail that Werner had. A tiny discrepancy in someone’s statement, some event that didn’t quite fit into the chronology of a crime, a forgotten scrap of evidence that changed the whole picture: these were the things that Werner caught when everyone else, including Fabel, had missed them. The truth was that Fabel relied heavily on Werner’s counsel, and it troubled him that his friend thought he was making a mistake over Anna.

  ‘Listen,’ said Werner, ‘I know you’ve been looking for a replacement for Maria Klee to partner me with. Team me up with Anna in the meantime. You could put Henk together with Dirk for a while. I think Anna and I could work well together. A good balance. Give it a go for a month or two. Then, if you still think she should go, fair enough.’

  ‘Have you talked to her about this idea of yours?’ Fabel asked suspiciously.

  ‘No. I promise. It’s just that she’s desperate to stay in the Commission, Jan. And Anna really would be a loss to the team. Another loss. She’s a good officer, Jan. She just needs to be brought into line. Let me have a crack at it.’

  ‘Okay, let me think about it,’ said Fabel.

  5.

  ‘Hard day?’

  ‘I thought you were asleep,’ said Fabel to the shadow in the bed.

  ‘I was. I asked if you’d had a hard day …’

  ‘The usual. Murder. Mayhem. Paperwork. You?’

  ‘The usual. I heard you have another celebrity murder on your hands. Are you sure you’re not doing them yourself, just to advance your career?’

  ‘Our career. I can see I’m going to have to bring you into this one,’ said Fabel. ‘That’s the deal: I’ll keep killing them to keep us both in work.’ He slid between the sheets. They were cool and clean on his skin. ‘By the way, have you seen my MP3 player lying around?’

  ‘No. You’ve already asked me. How did it go with Renate?’

  Fabel sighed. ‘How does it ever go with Renate? She was as bitter as hell, as always. I don’t know how the hell she has managed to turn the whole situation around so that she’s the injured party. It was Behrens who dumped her. Not me.’

  ‘It’s a woman thing.’ Susanne still had her back to him. ‘If you can’t find the man to blame, find a man to blame. I hold you responsible for Hans Zimmerman not choosing me as his partner for our kindergarten parade.’

  ‘I knew there was something,’ said Fabel. ‘Anyway, Gabi is thinking about joining the police. Renate blames me and wants me to talk her out of it.’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘No. Not talk her out of it. Give her an informed picture, yes. Talk her out of it, no.’

  ‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’ Susanne’s voice was thick with sleep, but Fabel slid close to her, put his arms around her, cupped her breast in his hand.

  ‘I’d like to make up for the kindergarten parade …’ he said.

  6.

  Jespersen had been relieved that the seat next to him on the plane was unoccupied. Jespersen liked to use travel time to sort things out in his head: to review, to do a bit of broader thinking. The Scandinavian Airlines flight to Hamburg’s Fuhlsbüttel Airport from Copenhagen had only taken a little over fifty minutes but, during that time, Jens Jespersen had been able to study the information he had obtained through Europol on Erster Kriminalhauptkommissar Jan Fabel.

  Most of the information related to the consultative role Fabel was adopting for cases outside the Polizei Hamburg’s jurisdiction. He was being touted by Europol as a major expert in complex murder investigations. The ‘go-to guy’ as the Americans would call him. Jespersen didn’t like Americans much. He liked Germans less.

  As the seat-belt lights came on and Jespersen put the file back in his case, he reluctantly admitted to himself that the German was probably the best person to talk to. Talk to about what? It suddenly struck Jespersen that he had come a long way to meet with the German and he didn’t really have that much to discuss. All he had was a remark made by a drug trafficker during a sting operation; a couple of potentially connected events that may be nothing more than so many coincidences; and a legend: a vague and most likely exaggerated spook-story from the dark ages of the Cold War.

  After touchdown at Hamburg Fuhlsbüttel, Jespersen called the Politigård headquarters in Copenhagen and was put through to his office. He spoke to Harald Tolstrup, his deputy. Tolstrup confirmed that Jespersen was booked into a hotel on the Alter Wall, in Hamburg’s city centre. Tolstrup also said that Jespersen’s boss, Politidirektør Vestergaard, wanted to speak with him as soon as possible and hadn’t sounded happy. After Jespersen hung up from his call to the Politigård, he phoned the Hamburg Police Presidium and asked in English to speak to Jan Fabel. He was told that Fabel was in a meeting: Jespersen gave his cellphone number and asked that Fabel call him back.

  After Jespersen checked into the hotel he took a walk around the city centre. It was cold but bright and he looked up at the pale blue of the sky. It was the same sky as in Copenhagen. As in Stockholm or Oslo. Hamburg’s light was a Nordic light and Jespersen found it strange to be in a foreign country amongst people he disliked and yet to see the same sky, the same light, the same architecture, the same faces in the street. He knew that the illusion would have been dispelled if he had travelled even a little further south. But here, in Hamburg, and totally despite himself, Jespersen felt at home. He walked along Grosse Bleichen and found himself in front of an impressive red-brick building which announced itself with a plaque as the Hanseviertel. Jespersen went in, partly motivated by curiosity: he had come across the word ‘Hanseviertel’ once before, when he had visited Bergen in Norway. Bergen had been part of the Hanseatic League and there had been a part of the city where German traders had settled in the Middle Ages called Tyskebryggen, the German Wharf: Bergen’s own Hanseviertel. This Hanseviertel in Hamburg, however, was something completely different: behind the red brick lay connecting avenues and galleries of shops, all now covered over by glass. It looked like the ideal place to get some lunch and, while he was at it, he would pick up a small gift for his twelve-year-old niece. Everywhere he went he would find some small soft toy for Mette, his younger brother’s daughter. She was beginning to pretend she was too old for such nonsense, but he could tell she liked it. He found a small shop in the arcade selling gifts that were a little more upmarket and unusual than the usual tourist stuff. He bought a small stuffed bear for Mette: it was dressed in a blue jacket with ‘Hamburg’ embroidered on the back and was wearing a Prinz Heinrich fisherman’s hat. Jespersen found a pleasant-looking café and ordered a light lunch. He sat eating slowly and watching Germans go by.

  Germans. Jens Jespersen had been a police officer for twenty-three years. His father had been a police officer before him. And his grandfather before him. It was a tradition he was immensely proud of. And in that tradition lay the roots of his dislike of Germans. But now was not the time to think of such things.

  A female voice asked him something in German. Jespersen looked up: the woman was in her thirties with light blonde hair, pale skin over high cheekbones and bright blue eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ he said in English.

  ‘May I sit here?’ she repeated in English.r />
  He nodded, moving his coat to allow her to sit. She was about to say something when Jespersen’s cellphone rang. He answered it without excusing himself.

  ‘Herr Jespersen? This is Principal Chief Commissar Fabel, Polizei Hamburg Murder Commission. I got your message. I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to you earlier but I was kind of tied up with something. We’ve just had a major case kick off – I’m sure you know the drill. Anyway, I believe you would like to arrange a meeting.’

  Jespersen, whose English was excellent, was surprised to hear the German speak in perfect and, to Jespersen’s ears, unaccented English.

  ‘Yes, Herr Fabel. I have a few things to check out so I’ll be in Hamburg for a few days, but I’d like to talk to you as soon as possible. Would you be able to see me tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow might be difficult. Like I say, we’ve just launched a major inquiry. Give me a moment …’ There was a short silence. ‘How about four-thirty at the Presidium?’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ said Jespersen.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, Herr Jespersen, but when you say you have a few things to check out, does that mean you are conducting part of an investigation here in Hamburg?’

  ‘I see what you’re getting at …’ Jespersen managed to get just the right element of irritation into his voice. ‘If I were conducting an investigation, I would have gone through the appropriate channels. No, Mr Fabel, your toes are not being trodden on. I’ll see you tomorrow at four-thirty.’ He snapped his cellphone shut. Bloody Germans: was there one who wasn’t a born bureaucrat?

  ‘Are you English?’ the woman sitting next to him asked after he had pocketed his phone.

  ‘No.’ He smiled wearily, not really trying to conceal his disappointment at having to make small talk. ‘I’m Danish.’

  ‘No! I’m half Danish,’ she said fluently and enthusiastically in his native tongue, but with a heavy German accent. ‘My mother is from Fåborg – you know, on Fyn – but I was brought up here. My father is from Hamburg.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ Jespersen said. The woman was clearly delighted at the happenstance that she should sit next to a Dane; Jespersen despaired at it. He liked to have time to think things through. But, there again, she was an attractive woman.

  ‘Are you here on holiday?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Business,’ said Jespersen. He looked at the young woman more closely. She certainly had the colouring of a Dane. Something about her reminded him of Karin. Her almost white blonde hair had been gathered up by a band but protested in a torrent of kinks and curls. Jespersen smiled, this time not wearily.

  She really was very attractive.

  7.

  Carstens Kaminski called Fabel at his office in the Presidium first thing.

  ‘We’ve got someone you should talk to,’ he explained. ‘It’s probably nothing, but I think you should hear what he has to say.’

  ‘In custody?’

  ‘No. A witness. Of sorts.’

  ‘I’ll come over,’ said Fabel.

  ‘No, it’s okay. I’ll send him over to the Presidium. He’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

  Even after all of these years, after all of the things he had seen, Fabel still found it difficult to understand why some people got involved in the things they did. Despite his experience, Fabel still sometimes found himself fooled by people’s appearances. Jürgen Mann, who now sat opposite Fabel in the interview room, did not look like someone who should have inside information on hookers. Mann was thirty-five years old, tall and slim, dressed trendily but tastefully in a grey jacket and trousers and a black sweater. He had a wide, strong jaw forested with the kind of designer stubble that actually took a lot of maintenance to look so casual. Like the grey-haired man Fabel had seen ducking into Herbertstrasse, the fact that someone so outwardly normal, so unexpected, could be a regular user of street prostitutes depressed him.

  Because of the ‘sensitivity’ of the interview, Fabel conducted it alone.

  ‘What is it you do?’ asked Fabel. ‘For a living, I mean?’

  ‘I’m a designer. Packaging, signage, that kind of thing.’

  That would explain the stubble, thought Fabel. ‘Are you married?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t see—’

  ‘Children?’ Fabel cut Mann off.

  ‘One. An eight-year-old. Girl.’

  ‘And you visit the Reeperbahn regularly?’

  ‘Now and again. Listen, do you want to hear what I’ve got to say or not?’ Mann asked defiantly.

  ‘I need to know how you came by such information. I need to know about you. How often is “now and again”?’

  ‘Once every couple of weeks or so, I’d say. Sometimes more, sometimes less.’

  ‘And is it always street prostitutes you use?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Fabel regarded the young man. He thought of his wife and eight-year-old daughter. ‘And this prostitute you told Herr Kaminski about: do you use her frequently?’

  ‘No. It was just the once. And I didn’t get to … well, there was no contact.’

  ‘Have you seen her before?’

  ‘No. That was the first time. And she approached me. Just sort of came out of the shadows and asked if I wanted to go with her. She told me how much and it was cheaper than usual, so I said yes.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘Like I told them at Davidwache, she led me into this courtyard. It looked like she planned that we do it there but I said I wanted to go to her room. It was then that she pulled the knife. She had me cornered and said that if I didn’t hand over my wallet she would cut me up the same way as she had sliced up that English singer.’

  ‘You believed her?’

  ‘If you had seen her eyes … I knew if I didn’t do what she said – and maybe even if I did – she would have a go at me with the knife.’

  ‘What kind of knife was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. A bloody big one. Maybe a filleting knife or something. Like a butcher knife but thinner.’

  ‘And you gave her your wallet?’

  ‘Yes. I threw it to her and when she caught it, I shoved her as hard as I could and ran for it.’

  ‘And this happened last night?’

  ‘Yes. I knew what she was talking about because I saw this thing on the news about the Angel being back.’

  ‘Yet you still went to the Kiez and wandered into an empty courtyard with a prostitute.’

  ‘I suppose I did. Anyway, it cost me my wallet.’

  ‘So why did you wait until this morning to go to Davidwache and tell them about the robbery?’

  ‘I was going to leave it … notify my credit card companies that I’d lost my wallet and have the cards stopped and forget all about it. But then I thought about the fact that she said she was the Angel. I thought I ought to let you know.’

  ‘Very public-spirited of you.’

  ‘Listen, I didn’t have to—’

  ‘What did this prostitute look like?’

  ‘She was older than the usual girls. Thirties. Maybe older. She had blonde hair … looked dyed. She was quite tall, about one-seventy-five. Slim. She was attractive, but looked – I don’t know – hardened, I suppose you could say. She was wearing a dark coat and black leather boots.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll need you to go and talk to one of our police artists here. We need to get a good picture of her. Then I’d like you to go through some mugshots for us, on the off chance that you might recognise someone we already know about.’

  ‘I need to get back to work.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Fabel. ‘I’ll send someone over to your home this evening to go through them with you. I take it your wife knows about all of this?’

  ‘Okay …’ said Mann. ‘I’ll do it here.’

  Fabel got up to leave the room.

  ‘There’s one other thing,’ said Mann.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Her eyes. If you had seen her eyes. They were so full of hate and anger. That’s why I ran.
I knew that if I hadn’t, she would have killed me for sure. She was the Angel. I know she was the Angel.’

  * * *

  Carstens Kaminski was in the Murder Commission when Fabel returned. Kaminski was half-sitting on the edge of Anna Wolff’s desk, smiling and chatting. He was small and dark and had something about him that was relaxed and confident. A charmer. Fabel heard that he had been quite the ladies’ man at one time. If the smile on Anna’s face was anything to go by, he probably still was.

  ‘Come on through,’ Fabel said to Kaminski and led him into his office.

  ‘Pretty girl,’ said Kaminski, with a lazy grin. ‘I heard she’s looking for a transfer. I’d sure like to accommodate her.’

  Fabel stared at Kaminski incredulously. ‘My God, it doesn’t take long for word to get around, does it?’

  ‘What did you think of Mann’s story?’ asked Kaminski. ‘Nice office you’ve got, by the way.’ He craned his neck. ‘Can you see the Winterhude Planetarium from here?’

  ‘Mann’s a creep,’ said Fabel. ‘But I have no doubt that he believes he’s had a real brush with death. Or that he truly believes it was the Angel who mugged him.’

  ‘But you don’t think it was. Me neither,’ said Kaminski. ‘But the way she approached him suggests to me that she was keeping out of sight of the other girls. That and the way she was dressed makes me think she wasn’t a regular working girl. And she lured him into an isolated courtyard … she may not be the original Angel, but she certainly fits with the killer the other night.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Hopefully Mann will be able to give us a good enough artist’s impression or pick her out from the mugs. Having said that, like you say I don’t think she’s a regular in the Kiez. Your guys pick anything else up?’

  ‘We talked to all the window girls in Herbertstrasse that night. Two of them remember seeing a man they thought was Jake Westland. He came in the Gerhardtstrasse end and made his way straight along the street without looking right or left and out onto Davidstrasse.’

  ‘That sounds planned,’ said Fabel.