Craig Russell - The Valkyrie Song

‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘the scene has been trodden on by God knows how many by now. I don’t know, Chef, this could be innocent enough and there’s no evidence of it being anything other than natural causes…’

‘No, Anna — you were right. Something stinks here.’

‘If this isn’t kosher,’ said Anna, ‘then we’ve got trouble. If this is a deliberate killing then it’s been a professional job. A very professional job.’

In his office with its view out across Hamburg’s Altstadt, Peter Claasens frowned and thought about the questions he had just been asked. He had put the receiver down but sat with his hand resting on the phone, for once oblivious to the rhythmic thumping and clanging that resounded through the building.

He had been reworking a draft of the letter that Emily had asked him to write when the phone had rung. Maybe it was because he had been concentrating on the letter that the journalist’s questions had caught him completely off guard.

The Norwegian hadn’t actually alleged anything, and his questions had been carefully put; yet Claasens could see what he was trying to find out. No one else would have drawn such a clear conclusion from the Norwegian’s questions but they had struck a chord with Claasens. Claasens knew better than to confirm or deny anything to a member of the press: he was scrupulously discreet, maybe even overcautious in his professional life, if not in his private life.

Why had the Norwegian specifically asked about Norivon and shipments to China? It had been that specific question that had struck a nerve and Claasens was worried he had let it show in his voice. It had been two months ago that Claasens had noticed the anomaly: an inconsistency between two shipments and the legally required paperwork. Both shipments had been to China. Claasens had queried them, naturally. Lensch, his contact at Norivon, had sounded equally confused at first. Then, within twenty-four hours, Lensch had come back to him with a reasonable explanation and the paperwork to back it up. Reasonable — but not entirely convincing.

Claasens punched up the account file on his computer and buzzed through for the hard-file paperwork to be brought to him. It was Minna who came in, laid the binder on his desk and walked out again. Sulkily. Claasens cursed himself for having broken his ‘not on my own doorstep’ rule. He had banged Minna for a month or two, tired of her and had then expected everything to go back to business as usual. It hadn’t worked out that way. Minna had been a bitch ever since, and he couldn’t think of a way to get rid of her without making even more trouble for himself.

He suddenly became aware of the reverberating thudding of the workmen again. Peter Claasens’s office was on the top floor of a building in Hamburg’s Altstadt, a block to the north of Willy-Brandt-Strasse and next to the Kontorhaus Quarter. It was a brand-new building, but with a view out over the Speicherstadt and sitting so close to brick-built icons such as the Chilehaus and the Sprinkenhof that it had been designed to be a modern but sympathetic interpretation of a traditional Kontorhaus, with a huge central atrium open to the sky. Claasens had moved his offices there on the scheduled completion date only to find there were dozens of things still to be finished off by the builders. One of them had been the balustrade on his floor around the central atrium, which had meant he had been forbidden to move staff into his offices for a further week. Even now there was a gap in the railings that was blocked off, meaning that staff often had to walk around the entire circumference of the building to reach adjoining offices.

Claasens snapped off the band that held the binder closed. He had slipped Lensch’s paperwork in there along with the original documentation showing the shipment discrepancy. He had tagged the relevant sections with yellow Post-it notes.

Claasens looked at his watch. It was five p.m. The rest of the staff would go and Emily would phone soon, just to check the coast was clear. Emily made everything go away: all the stress, all the hassle. When he was with her he became someone else. Someone better. He smiled, thinking of her phoning; of the cutely ungrammatical German she spoke with her sweet English accent. Then she would come up to his office and they would be alone. But first he had to double-check those figures. Just in case the Norwegian had had a point.

It was exactly like when you lost your keys and kept going back to where you thought you had left them.

Claasens stared at the page as if his concentrated attention on the words and figures would restore them to what he had seen before. And he had seen the error before. Except it wasn’t there now. No paperwork from Lensch. No yellow Post-it notes. This was mad. He flipped the thick binder over and checked inside its back cover, just in case the paperwork was there. Of course, that didn’t make any sense, but what he’d been looking at had made even less sense.

He tried to shut out the sound of the workmen and focused on the file. He felt he was going mad. Everything tallied. No discrepancies.

What the hell was going on?

His cellphone rang and he knew it would be Emily.

‘Anna…’ Werner asked tentatively. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but have you just farted?’ He hit the button and the side window of the Polo slid down. They were parked in the Kiez, at the far end of Silbersackstrasse, facing towards the Reeperbahn. Here the street was narrow and dark.

‘Close the window, Grandad,’ said Anna. ‘It’s freezing out there.’

‘I’d rather take my chances with the cold.’

‘Anyway, who smelt it dealt it.’ Anna smiled innocently.

‘Sometimes you’re less than ladylike.’ Werner closed the window but left a small gap at the top.

‘Well, you make up for me. You remind me of my Auntie Rachael. Except you’ve got less facial hair, of course. What’s the time?’

‘Twenty past midnight.’

‘I’m bored. I am really, really, really, seriously bloody bored.’

‘It’s part of the job. I thought you would be used to it by now.’

‘How come I’m teamed up with you, all of a sudden?’ asked Anna. ‘Is this Lord Gentleman ’s idea of keeping me on a tight rein until he can dump me on someone else?’

‘ Lord Gentleman?’ Werner turned to her.

‘You know — Fabel… the English Commissar. Where the hell does all that Anglophilia come from? I mean, he’s a Frisian, for fuck’s sake.’

‘His mother is Scottish,’ said Werner. ‘You knew that. And he went to school there for a while. You know, you could be more ladylike in the way you speak as well.’

‘Half Scottish, half Frisian — no wonder I’ve never seen him get a round in. Anyway, I take it this was his idea?’

‘As a matter of fact it wasn’t. It was mine.’

‘What? Oh, I see… so now you think I’m the problem child of the family too.’

‘Anna, sometimes — and don’t take offence — but just sometimes you are the most insufferable pain in the arse. I used to wonder why you always wear that heavy-duty leather jacket: it’s to stop the chafing from all those chips you carry around on your shoulders. I suggested he team you up with me because I thought we could work well together. To be honest, I’m trying to keep you as part of the team. I think Jan really wants that too.’

‘Oh, I know,’ said Anna with sarcastic earnestness. ‘He really showed me that by giving me the sack.’

‘You know, Anna, a little less attitude would suit you a whole lot better. And you’re not sacked. Yet.’

‘So you thought we would work well together…’ Anna grinned.