Craig Russell - The Valkyrie Song

As they approached, Fabel saw a tall grey-haired man wearing a long dark blue overcoat slip through the baffle screens. Everything about the man spoke of him being well-off, respectable. Fabel imagined the life of this stranger: an unsuspecting wife at home, children. Grandchildren probably. He was maybe even a respected figure. Someone whom others looked up to. There was something about the man’s furtive sidestep into sleaze that thoroughly depressed Fabel.

They walked along Erichstrasse, passing the occasional illuminated window and ignoring the tapping on the glass and beckoning gestures of the prostitutes.

‘Ah…’ Werner sighed sarcastically. ‘The siren call of a two-minute knee-trembler… I mean, would you ever consider…?’ He jerked a thumb in the direction of the last window they had passed.

‘You’re joking, right?’ said Fabel.

‘Some men — a lot of men — go in for it. Complication-free sex, I suppose.’

‘Unless you consider picking up a disease a complication. I hate the way the Reeperbahn is painted as “naughty but nice”. A tourist attraction. The truth is it’s cheap and nasty and sordid.’

‘Granted. But it’s here. And here to stay.’

‘Everybody keeps telling me that,’ said Fabel. ‘But I’m not so sure, Werner.’

When they reached the crime scene they found that there were still two uniforms on duty and a single forensic technician in a white bunny suit was still working the site. Fabel held up his Polizei Hamburg ID and one of the uniforms lifted the tape.

‘Is there anywhere you don’t want us to walk?’ Fabel called over to the technician.

The technician stood up and Fabel saw it was Astrid Bremer. Astrid had replaced Frank Grueber to become Holger Brauner’s deputy two years ago. She had the hood of her forensic suit pulled up over her hair and its elasticated edge turned the oval of her face into a pretty, almost childlike mask.

‘Nope…’ she said. ‘You’re okay. We finished processing the scene an hour ago.’

‘So why are you still here?’ asked Werner.

Astrid shrugged. ‘My mother always said I was a stubborn child. I just thought we were missing something. It was winding me up.’

‘And were you missing something?’ asked Fabel.

‘The killer knew what she was doing,’ said Astrid, ‘but it’s difficult for any human being not to leave some trace somewhere of their presence. I reckon she stepped back into the shadows over there by the tree. We didn’t quite get a footprint, but the heel of her boot sank into the earth at the bottom of the tree. From that we might be able to get a rough indication of her weight. That started me thinking about her height. There’s only one hundred and forty-two centimetres of clearance between the bottom of the tree and the first branches. Unless she was a midget, she would have had to duck in to keep concealed without getting tangled in the branches.’ Astrid grinned and held out a plastic evidence bag.

The bag looked empty to Fabel until he stepped out into the street and held it up against the street light.

‘A single strand,’ said Astrid. ‘It’s maybe not connected to the killing, but given where I found it I think that’s very unlikely. I would say your killer is a blonde. And we have her DNA.’

The Altona Balkon — the ‘Altona Balcony’ — is a plateau of parkland elevated thirty metres above the River Elbe and fringed with a bench-lined boulevard. The Balcony affords one of the finest views of Hamburg, all along the Elbe to the Kohlbrandbrucke, making it a favourite spot not just for the people of Altona but for those from all over Hamburg.

A still-handsome man of about sixty, his coat collar turned up against the cold, sat on a bench at the edge of the snow-dusted Balkon and watched the distant activity of the ships and tugs, loaders and cranes in the container harbours. Above him the sky was a pale winter blue and behind him the low sun sparkled gold through the naked branches of the trees. It was a peaceful moment: a moment in which he realised how little peace he had enjoyed over the last twenty years.

A woman with a dog walked past, followed by three teenage boys on skateboards thundering along the rock-salted footpath, their breath fuming in the cold air. Then peace again.

‘Hello, Uncle Georg.’ A young woman in her thirties, expensively dressed and tastefully made-up, sat down beside him and kissed him on the cheek. She laid her handbag and a copy of Muliebritas magazine across her lap and placed a carrier bag on the bench beside her.

‘You know, it wasn’t all bad,’ he said as if she had been beside him all the while. ‘Back home. Back then, I mean.’

‘No, Uncle Georg, I suppose it wasn’t.’

‘I mean, I did believe in what we stood for. What we did. There were things that were better then. People cared for each other more. We had a sense of community. Of society. Whatever dreadful things we had to do, we did them for the greater good of the people, of the world.’

She rested a gloved hand on his arm. ‘I know you did. What’s wrong, uncle?’

‘And sometimes… well, sometimes I look at the way we live now and think we maybe had it more right than everybody says we did. It wasn’t what we believed in that forced us to do these things. It was a war. A cold war, maybe, but it was still a war.’ He stopped and smiled at her. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. Just an old man ranting.’

‘Are you sure that’s all that’s wrong?’

‘I thought…’ He frowned, his gaze out across the Elbe river. ‘It’s nothing. It was just I got the feeling that I was being watched or followed. Instinct. More like paranoia.’

‘Are you sure there wasn’t more to it? Maybe you were being followed,’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘No one’s that good. I used all the old tricks and checks. Like I said, paranoia.’

‘I got you a present,’ she said and handed him the carrier bag.

He looked into it and smiled. ‘ Rondo Melange…’

She smiled too. ‘They started making it again. Like you say, not everything from back then was bad.’

‘But I suppose they make it for a profit now. Everything that was done then for the good of the people is now done for a profit. Like us. Like the way we’ve turned what we do into a business. All for money now.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘I’m an entrepreneur.’

‘To be honest, Uncle Georg, most of my life has been since, not before. Almost all of my meetings have taken place since the Wall came down. And we’ve done well out of them, haven’t we?’

‘Yes, my child.’ He turned to her and smiled sadly. ‘But the things I taught you and your sisters. All those terrible things.’

‘It’s our business, uncle. It’s what we do. What we are.’

He nodded. ‘Did you see the media coverage of the St Pauli killing?’

‘Yes… they’re talking about it being the Angel again.’

‘What about the forthcoming meetings — is everything going to plan?’

‘Yes, uncle. Everything is going well.’

‘Will the Hamburg one look like an accident?’

‘Suicide. The meeting will be as the brief required.’

‘What about the big one? You clear on everything?’

‘Not a problem. It will actually be easier. No need to disguise it. I’m going to use the Sako TRG-21.’

‘Is it okay over that distance?’

‘Perfect. And anyway, I’m comfortable with it. And that new suppressor works well. It doesn’t just muffle, it distorts any report and sends scanners looking in the wrong direction for the shooter. But in a remote location like that, it won’t be an issue anyway. If the intel is correct, he’ll be alone.’

‘You’ll have to get out quick. Back across the border, I mean.’