Craig Russell - The Valkyrie Song

‘How old was he?’

‘Thirty, maybe,’ said Berger with an expression of distaste. ‘Looked younger. He was the real boy wonder of the department.’

‘So he was involved with whatever project was in the files?’

‘I don’t know if “involved” is the right word. He was a gofer. A filer and paper-shuffler. But he would have had sight of a lot of the files that crossed Adebach’s desk.’

Sylvie sat quietly for a moment, looking around without taking in the meagre, dull apartment.

‘Was that useful for you?’ asked Berger expectantly.

‘Oh yes,’ said Sylvie. ‘I think Herr Kittel and I have already crossed paths.’

‘I’d watch him, if I were you. I heard he went on to bigger things. Investigations. Rooting out undesirable elements. He developed a nasty reputation.’

‘It’s all right — Siegfried and I understand each other only too well…’ said Sylvie, ignoring Berger’s confused expression.

It was a bright morning. Again there was a welcome freshness in the air and Fabel woke to find himself in a more optimistic mood. Karin Vestergaard was already at the Presidium when he arrived and he waited patiently while she made various phone calls in Danish.

‘Sorry about that,’ she said. ‘I got my office to see if they could find out anything about Gina Bronsted and NeuHansa from a Danish perspective. It would appear that Bronsted has almost as many business interests in Copenhagen as she does here in Hamburg. Added to which she has companies across all the Scandinavian countries.’

‘Nothing dodgy?’ asked Fabel.

‘Not that we know about. She seems to be very active in environmental management and technologies. She helps other corporations become greener. It’s a big business now.’

‘I’ve arranged a meeting with her this afternoon,’ said Fabel. ‘Believe me, it wasn’t easy. But this morning we don’t have far to travel…’

Fabel was as good as his word: the Hamburg State Police Academy on Braamkamp was less than a kilometre distant from the Police Presidium. It was here that officers were shaped for command and developments in policing analysed, developed and passed on to the city’s officers. It was a building Fabel was only too familiar with. When he arrived the main hallway was filled with between-classes students. He found himself thinking about his daughter Gabi and how her recently announced decision could lead her here too.

Principal Commissar Michael Lange was not an officer whom Fabel had encountered before. From what Fabel had been able to find out, Lange had started off in the Polizei Schleswig-Holstein and had transferred to the Polizei Hamburg early in his career. He was now a lecturer in the Hamburg State Police Academy; but it was Lange’s experience early in his career that brought Fabel to his door.

The older uniformed officer at reception directed Fabel and Vestergaard up to the first floor of the Academy. A tall, lean man in a blue Hamburg Schutzpolizei uniform was leaning into the corridor from his office, clearly watching out for Fabel after having been told of his arrival by reception.

‘Principal Chief Commissar Fabel?’ Lange smiled and extended his hand as Fabel approached. Lange was about forty but Fabel felt he had the eyes of an older man. But that was maybe just because he knew of Lange’s experience.

‘Call me Jan,’ said Fabel. ‘This is Politidirektor Karin Vestergaard of the Danish National Police. Could we speak in English? It would save me a lot of translating.’

‘Sure,’ said Lange. ‘I just hope my English is good enough.’

‘Thanks for arranging to see me so soon,’ said Fabel. ‘It’s just that the case I’m working on has a Balkan connection and Anna Wolff, whom I believe you know, suggested I should talk to you.’

‘I’ll help if I can,’ said Lange. ‘You said on the phone you were looking into Goran Vuja i c ’s death. And his background. Of course his death wasn’t in our jurisdiction but in yours, Frau Vestergaard.’

‘Vujaic ’s death may not have been in our jurisdiction, but the murder of the Danish detective who was investigating it is,’ said Fabel. ‘He was one of Frau Vestergaard’s officers. We suspect that the Danish officer was murdered by the same professional assassin who took out Vuja i c. I take it you understand that this must stay between us, Michael?’

‘Of course.’

‘We suspect that this person is a contract killer, based here in Hamburg. And that makes everything our jurisdiction.’

Lange pursed his lips meditatively. ‘You’re right. We do have jurisdiction under Section Seven of the Criminal Code if the perpetrator is a German national. And you say no one outside the Commission is aware of this? What about top brass — shouldn’t they be told?’

‘The Police President has been briefed,’ said Fabel. ‘But at the moment we’re keeping it tight. There’s been another murder, committed by someone else, but it is related to the investigation and we’re trying to keep it quiet until we flush out this killer.’

‘And you think there may be something in Vujaic ’s background that could point you in the direction of more solid evidence?’

‘Truth is, I don’t know. But if this Valkyrie — that’s what this contract assassin is supposed to be code-named — if this Valkyrie is based here, then he or she would have a pretty good motive for taking Jespersen out of the equation. And Vuja i c is the connection.’

‘Okay, I’m glad to help if I can. The jurisdiction issue may not be an issue at all. But I only know about three years of Vuja i c ’s life. The three years he was active in the Bosnian War. And even then Vuja i c was not a leading figure. More a footnote in the diary of atrocity, so to speak. We never got enough to indict him, mainly because he successfully argued a special defence of alibi. He had gall, I’ll say that. He never tried to hide, like most of the others. But there again, that actually worked in his favour. Flight is a judicially acceptable indicator of possible guilt.’

‘So you think he was innocent?’

‘Like hell. Goran Vuja i c was clever and more than a little lucky. I wasn’t personally involved in his case, but I was able to access the files through OSCE.’ Lange referred to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. ‘Vuja i c had already assembled a gang around him. The writing was on the wall as soon as NATO got involved in the conflict and I think that Vuja i c started to look at the bigger picture. But Vuja i c was there. In the rape camps. In the forests by the mass graves. He was up to his elbows in it all, except that he had half a dozen affidavits swearing he was lying wounded in a hospital bed in Banja Luka.’

‘This unit or gang of his… Petra Meissner of the Sabine Charity told me they called themselves the Dogheads or something.’

‘Yep. Psoglav. It’s Serbian for “doghead”, but it’s also a mythical creature that Serbs — Bosnian Serbs in particular — used to believe in. A pagan demon or werewolf-type thing. The Psoglav unit was little more than an organised-crime gang and that’s exactly what it became after the conflict. There was talk — little more than a rumour, mind — that Vuja i c and his Psoglav chums got heavily involved in people trafficking after the Bosnian War. All kinds of bad stuff: organ farming, selling women into the sex trade, slave-labour sweatshops, that kind of thing. But you’d have to talk to the Europol organised-crime division about that. As far as I’m aware, Vuja i c was not directly active in Northern Europe. Sorry, that’s not that helpful, is it?’

‘I appreciate it anyway,’ said Fabel.

‘One thing I would say,’ said Lange, ‘is that Vuja i c was one of the most evil sons of bitches to walk the earth. The stories about what he did to Bosniaks, Croats and ethnic Albanians