The Valkyrie Song

by Craig Russell

  He got up, went through to the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea. It still took him a while to find things in the new apartment: in his head, especially in the small hours of the morning, he was still living in his Pöseldorf flat.

  The phone rang. Looking at his watch, Fabel saw it was five-forty in the morning.

  ‘This had better be good,’ he said into the phone.

  ‘It is …’ It was Glasmacher, one of the Murder Commission team. ‘I’m just around the corner from you in Altona. We’ve got her, Chef – we’ve got the Angel.’

  2.

  The apartment block had been sealed off and barriers set up in the street fifty metres on either side of the entrance, but the media throng had yet to materialise. There hadn’t been time for word to get out. It only took Fabel ten minutes to get to the scene from his own flat and he parked at the barrier, showing his ID to the uniformed officers guarding the location.

  A tall pale-complexioned blond man of about thirty, wearing a brown leather jacket and a muffler at his throat, stood waiting for Fabel at the entrance to the apartment block. He sniffed as Fabel approached and Fabel noticed his nose was tinted red-pink.

  ‘You should be in bed, Thomas,’ Fabel said.

  ‘I wish I had called in sick. If I hadn’t been on call I wouldn’t have seen this.’ Glasmacher indicated the apartment building with a nod of his head.’

  ‘Bad?’

  ‘Oh yeah … One of the worst I’ve seen. The victim’s been tortured for hours. By the way, I’ve called in a few extra bodies. Dirk Hechtner’s on his way over, too.’

  ‘You said we’ve got the Angel?’

  ‘The m.o. has similarities to both the recent killings and the older ones. Whatever this woman’s mission was, it’s clearly over. When she was finished, she dialled 110 and said she’d killed this guy and she wanted to “come in”.’

  ‘Who’s the vic?’

  Glasmacher pulled his notebook out of the pocket of his leather jacket, and with it a bundle of used paper tissues. ‘Sorry, Chef … Robert Gerdes, sixty-three, a retired teacher from Flensburg, in Schleswig-Holstein. He’s been living in Hamburg for fifteen years. His apartment is the penthouse and he was murdered in the flat below, rented by the woman who claims to have done it.’

  Fabel looked up at the apartment building. ‘The penthouse, you say? His schoolteacher’s pension went a long way. What’s the woman’s name?’

  ‘Ute Cranz. She’s just moved in, apparently. I’ve got a uniformed unit to take her into the Presidium.’

  There was the sound of approaching sirens and two unmarked cars pulled up at the barrier, behind Fabel’s BMW. Fabel made a frantic gesture with his hand across his throat and the sirens were killed. Anna Wolff and Werner Meyer emerged from one car while Dirk Hechtner and Henk Hermann got out of the other.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Fabel as they approached. ‘We’ve got no press here yet. Let’s keep this as low-key as blocking a street off in the middle of the night can be.’

  ‘Sorry, Chef,’ said Anna. ‘To be honest, it was one of the main attractions of the job for me. If I don’t get to toot my siren I’d just as well be a taxi driver.’

  ‘No one would take your cab with all that farting,’ muttered Werner.

  ‘Listen, Dick und Doof,’ said Fabel, unsmiling. ‘When you’ve quite finished the comedy act, I’d like to go in and view the locus.’

  ‘Sorry, Chef,’ said Anna as unrepentantly as she could manage.

  ‘There’s something else you should know,’ said Glasmacher. ‘The perpetrator was making wild claims about the victim. She’s clearly as mad as a hatter. She said he was living under a false name and an invented backstory and that he was really one of the Stasi’s top people. She claims he ruined her sister’s life.’

  ‘Stasi?’ Fabel felt as if someone had passed a faint electric current through his spine. ‘She said he was ex-Stasi? Did she say what his real name was?’

  Again Glasmacher checked his notebook. ‘Yeah … she said he was an HVA major called Georg Drescher.’

  Someone turned up the current in Fabel’s spine.

  ‘Anna, Werner – you come with me,’ he said determinedly. ‘Thomas, you get back to the Presidium and write up your report. Then get off home and rest up. I’m going to need you fit over the next few days. Dirk, Henk – I want you to phone Politidirektør Karin Vestergaard and tell her you’re on your way to her hotel to pick her up and bring her into the Presidium. No, wait – bring her here.’

  As Fabel moved towards the door, Glasmacher placed his gloved hand on Fabel’s arm to check him.

  ‘Brace yourself, Chef – I mean it about this one. When you see what she’s done to this guy …’

  Holger Brauner asked Fabel and his team to wait a few minutes before entering the scene. He also insisted that instead of just the usual overshoes and latex gloves, they should all don full forensic suits and masks.

  ‘There’s a lot of body fluids in there,’ he explained. ‘We’ve got a lot of processing to do. I know you are all experienced murder detectives and so on, but I have to request that if you think you’re going to throw up you get out of the flat as soon as possible.’

  ‘That bad?’ asked Fabel.

  ‘It’s that bad, Jan,’ said Brauner.

  Fabel couldn’t help noticing how stylish and spacious the apartment was. The lounge and dining room were open-plan, with a large sliding window that opened out onto a small terrace. The furniture was expensive-looking and Fabel guessed this had been a furnished let. One of Brauner’s bunny-suited team was taking photographs of the dining table: it had been set for two and there were still used plates and wine glasses on it. A numbered tent card sat on the floor beside the sofa, next to where a brandy glass had shattered, spilling its contents on the polished beechwood.

  Fabel took Glasmacher’s advice and braced himself emotionally as he and the others entered the kitchen.

  He found that he could not tear his eyes away from it. It was as if his brain was trying to make sense of what it was he was looking at; or more as if his brain was trying to deny what he was looking at had been human. It lay on heavy-duty blue plastic sheeting over the kitchen worktop. The head had been propped up and the round white orbs of the lidless eyes stared at Fabel. The sheeting extended across the floor and sheets of it had been duct-taped to the wall. There were splashes of blood everywhere, but around the body and on the floor immediately next to the worktop the blood was mop-smeared. She had cleaned up as she had worked.

  Behind him, Fabel could hear Anna breathing heavily through her forensic mask. Werner muttered something obscene. Holger Brauner eased past the statues of Anna and Werner and stood next to Fabel.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it, Jan,’ he said. ‘She has an amazing knowledge of human anatomy. See the tourniquets around the upper thighs? She used those to restrict blood flow while she worked on the legs. And as you can see from the exposed bone, she has cut through muscle tissue while avoiding the femoral artery. Similarly she used a surgical clamp on his groin to stop him bleeding out from the castration.’

  Fabel heard Anna’s heavy breathing turn to gasps and she rushed out of the kitchen.

  ‘There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever about premeditation, Jan,’ said Brauner. ‘She laid everything out in advance, sheeted up the room, immobilised the victim somehow … She even had a saline solution for his eyes, once she had removed his eyelids. It’s obvious it was important to her that he saw her working on him. Poor bastard.’

  ‘How long do you think it would have taken him to die?’

  ‘The truth? I honestly don’t know. Herr Doctor Möller will be able to give you an indication after the autopsy. But my guess is that he was maybe alive for up to an hour of this abuse. How much of that he was conscious for is anyone’s guess …’ Brauner pointed to a metal tray next to the body. ‘That’s full of broken phials. From the smell I’d say they were capsules of ammonia carbonate. She obviously broke them un
der his nose to rouse him when he passed out from the pain.’

  Anna came back into the kitchen, keeping her head down and not looking up from the floor. ‘Dirk and Henk are back, Chef. They’ve got the Dane with them.’

  ‘Okay.’ Fabel placed an arm around her shoulder and turned her away from the body. He looked into her face: above the surgical mask and framed by the elasticated hood of the forensics suit, she was very pale, her eyes red-rimmed. ‘Are you all right, Anna?’

  ‘As you know, not my strong point. But hey, never mind – you’ll have me issuing parking tickets soon.’

  ‘That’s enough, Anna,’ said Fabel, but without anger. He could see she was in a state. ‘You head back to the Commission and go through what Thomas has got before he heads home. Werner – you go with her. I’m going to have a look upstairs at the victim’s apartment.’

  On the way out of the apartment Fabel dumped his forensic suit and mask at the door, but he retained the gloves and overshoes. He had just gone out onto the landing when he saw Karin Vestergaard coming up the stairwell with Dirk Hechtner and Henk Hermann.

  ‘Your colleagues told me this might have something to do with Jens’s death,’ she said without preliminaries. Fabel saw the grim determination on her face and was reminded that Jespersen had been more than a colleague to her.

  ‘Truth is I don’t know yet, Karin. The killer called it in herself and we’ve got her down at the Presidium. She definitely could be our St Pauli killer. But the thing that is most interesting is the tale she’s been spinning. We’ve got a male victim, sixty-three years old, a retired teacher from Flensburg called Robert Gerdes. But – and wait for this – the woman who tortured and killed him says that he is really a former high-ranking Stasi officer and that his name is Georg Drescher.’

  For a moment, Vestergaard looked stunned. ‘Can I see this victim?’

  ‘Trust me, it’s best not to. She really did a number on him and anyway you’d have to get all suited up. I sent for you because I’m going to have a look through the victim’s apartment. He lived upstairs. I thought you might like to help. Maybe you’ll pick up on something relevant to Jespersen.’ Fabel turned to Hechtner and Hermann. ‘I want you two to go through the killer’s apartment – everything except the murder scene in the kitchen. Bag everything.’ He turned back to Vestergaard. ‘After we’re through upstairs, I’d like you to listen in on my questioning of the suspect.’

  ‘Lead on …’ said Vestergaard grimly.

  3.

  The penthouse had been finished to the same quality and in the same style as the apartment below. It was slightly larger and better use had been made of the space available, but the main difference was the furnishings. Like its downstairs neighbour, the flat was ultra-modern and bright, but much of the furniture was traditional. Some looked like genuine antiques. Fabel thought of the man who had occupied this space and somehow couldn’t connect it with the mass of bloody tissue lying on the kitchen counter downstairs.

  ‘He’s got some nice furniture,’ said Vestergaard in an unusually conversational tone. ‘Walnut, most of it. Some maple. I’ve seen this kind of stuff before. It’s Hungarian art deco, a lot of it. Made in the nineteen-thirties. Some of the other pieces are French.’

  Fabel looked at her questioningly.

  ‘Hobby …’ she said and he nodded. They walked slowly through the apartment. There was a lounge, a study, a bedroom and an open-plan kitchen and dining room. They stopped for a moment in the study.

  ‘No sign of a struggle,’ said Fabel. ‘It doesn’t look like he even had company recently. The whole party must have taken place downstairs. But I’ll have Holger’s forensics boys give the place a thorough going-over.’

  Vestergaard picked up a sketch pad that had been lying on the desk. Fabel noticed that it was the same brand and size as the ones he used for laying out his thoughts during an investigation. Vestergaard flipped through it and gave a couple of small laughs. In response to Fabel’s questioning look, she turned the open pad towards him.

  ‘Whatever else he did,’ said Vestergaard, ‘he had a talent for caricatures. That’s meant to be your illustrious Chancellor, Angela Merkel, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes – you’re right, he wasn’t half bad.’ Fabel grinned. ‘I know Frau Merkel is keen to promote good international relationships, but I really don’t think she would do that with Monsieur Sarkozy. And I don’t think he’s really quite that small.’

  ‘I have to say he had expensive tastes …’ Vestergaard put the drawing pad back down and examined a deco bronze on the desk: a stylised eagle perched on a walnut base. ‘For a retired school teacher from Flensburg.’

  ‘Exactly what I was thinking,’ said Fabel. ‘I think we should start here in the study. You take the desk, I’ll go through the filing cabinets and the bookshelves.’

  Three-quarters of an hour later they had examined every piece of correspondence, every bill, the victim’s notebook and his desk diary.

  ‘Either he had a very limited social life or a very secret one,’ said Vestergaard. ‘Even with official and household correspondence – there’s nothing here other than the barest minimum of paperwork. No personal computer. This is either a life only half lived, or a cover. And from the look of the furniture and the quality of the selection in his wine rack, he was not a man of an ascetic disposition.’

  Fabel wandered through to the lounge and looked around. ‘So, Major Drescher, this is where you hid yourself.’ He turned back to Vestergaard. ‘I got on to the Federal Commissioner’s office in Berlin to dig up his files. Nothing. Only the odd mention here and there. He did a good job of hiding himself and I thought we’d never find him. Now he’s dropped right into our laps.’

  ‘He’s still hiding from us, Jan,’ said Vestergaard, looking around the study.

  Before heading back to the Presidium, Fabel asked Holger Brauner if his team could seal off the penthouse apartment and give it a good going-over once they were finished with the primary locus.

  As he and Karin Vestergaard headed out of the apartment building and towards his BMW, Fabel noticed that the street had a completely different look to it in the daylight, even the winter daylight. He took a few deep breaths of the cold air. Over the years Fabel had found that after visiting a murder scene there was one aspect, one image, that haunted you for weeks afterwards. This time, every time he closed his eyes, it was the lidless stare of Drescher’s corpse.

  ‘You okay?’ asked Vestergaard.

  ‘Yeah … I’m fine.’ Fabel sighed. ‘Just another day in the meat factory.’

  When they arrived at the Presidium, Fabel fetched coffee for them both and they sat in his office drinking it.

  ‘We should take a break before questioning Cranz,’ said Fabel. ‘It’s going to be a long haul.’

  There was a knock on the door and Werner came in. Something about his face told Fabel that relaxation time was over.

  ‘This is all seriously messed up, Jan,’ he said, not bothering to switch to English for Vestergaard’s sake.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The woman we’ve got in custody rented the apartment under the name of Ute Cranz. But she claims her real name is Ute Paulus, and that she is the sister of Margarethe Paulus—’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Fabel, the weariness swept from his expression. ‘The woman who escaped from the secure hospital in Mecklenburg?’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘So Ute Paulus has taken up her sister’s trade of knackering male victims? It would certainly explain why Margarethe has been able to stay out of sight, if she has had outside help.’

  ‘Ah, well … that’s where it all gets very complicated.’ Werner gave a wry smile and rubbed the stubble on his scalp. ‘I’ve been in touch with the state hospital in Mecklenburg and I spoke to the chief psychiatrist there who’s responsible for Margarethe Paulus’s case. It’s a Dr Köpke. According to Köpke, there is no Ute Paulus. No sister. Just Margarethe.’

  Werner placed a printout of
a file photograph on Fabel’s desk. ‘That is Margarethe Paulus, taken a year before her escape. I’ve had a look at the woman in custody. The hair colour is different, but apart from that, if she’s a sister she would have to be a twin.’

  ‘Shit.’ Fabel turned to Vestergaard and explained everything that Werner had just said. ‘What else did Köpke say?’ he asked, turning back to Werner.

  ‘Two things. First, he needs to talk to you urgently. He needs to know the identity of the victim and how he died. Dr Köpke says that he might have information that will be indispensable to us. He would also like to talk to any criminal psychiatrist or psychologist who sits in on or monitors the interview – which he strongly recommends we do.’

  ‘And the second?’

  ‘That we use maximum security when dealing with Margarethe Paulus. He said that she is probably the most dangerous individual that he has ever dealt with.’

  On the way down to the interview room, Karin Vestergaard took a call on her cellphone. After a brief exchange in Danish she paused to make a few notes in her notebook. Fabel waited for her.

  ‘That was my office in Copenhagen,’ she said as they continued along the corridor. ‘The NCID in Norway have been doing some more digging into Jørgen Halvorsen’s affairs. They have found a contact he had here in Hamburg. We can talk about it after you’ve interviewed this woman. Do you think she’s the one who killed Jens?’

  ‘I don’t know. There seems to be a hell of a lot of coincidences going on and she fits perfectly as someone we should be looking at for all these killings, if it weren’t for the simple fact that we know absolutely for certain that she was locked up in an asylum. There’s no way she can be either our Angel or our Valkyrie.’

  ‘But she was out when Jens was killed,’ said Vestergaard.

  ‘True. She’s well worth a look for it. I’ll establish her whereabouts at the time – if I can.’ Fabel stopped their progress along the corridor by turning to her. ‘Listen, Karin, this will just be our initial interview to establish basics. It won’t take long. I’d like us to talk the whole thing through afterwards. There’s another couple of deaths that have cropped up that are not, strictly speaking, being treated as murder. I just think there’s so much going on that there’s a chance we’ll miss something.’