Craig Russell - A fear of dark water

Yes… that was what made most sense. That she had used a false name. But for some reason, as he drove back through the dark alongside the canal, its high bank topped with the type of Knick that Muller-Voigt had talked about, Fabel couldn’t quite believe it.

Maybe it was possible that someone, somehow, had been able to erase all traces of the woman who had been Meliha Yazar.

The next morning, Fabel felt tired and irritable when he arrived at the Presidium. He had been right about the coffee: it had kept him awake half the night. Or, more correctly, the coffee, the absence of Susanne in bed beside him, and the ceaseless flashing picture show running through his head — featuring the woman in the photograph Muller-Voigt had shown him — had kept him awake half the night.

‘Well, you look like crap…’ was Werner’s greeting as Fabel came out of the elevator. ‘Hangover?’

‘I wish,’ said Fabel. ‘Sleepless night. How’s everything going with the Network Killer case? Have we got warrants yet?’

‘Anna says we’ve got four addresses to hit this afternoon. She suggests we muster at three p.m. and hit them simultaneously. It would be good if we could have a few uniforms at each address.’

‘I’ll arrange it.’

Anna Wolff came out of the office she shared with Henk Hermann and greeted Fabel.

‘You look terrible…’

‘We’ve done that,’ said Werner. ‘He claims it was the burden of his intellect that kept him awake last night, but my money’s on a bottle of malt.’

‘When you’re quite finished…’ said Fabel. ‘Did you send me a text yesterday?’

‘Me?’ Werner frowned. ‘No… not me.’

‘You, Anna?’ asked Fabel.

‘Not me either, Chef. Is it important?’

‘Don’t know. No… probably not. All it said was “Poppenbutteler Schleuse”.’

‘Sounds like it was sent to you by mistake,’ said Anna. ‘Do you know anyone who lives in Poppenbuttel?’

‘Can’t say I do. Can I have a word with you both?’

Werner and Anna followed Fabel into his office.

‘I know we’re pushed at the moment but I need to check out a couple of things this morning,’ said Fabel. ‘You can reach me on my cellphone if you need me. Before I leave I’ll arrange the uniform cover for the raids this afternoon. If I get bodies in at two-thirty can you brief them, Anna?’

‘No problem. Here are the four addresses. I’m afraid they’re spread out all across the city. By the way, Criminal Director van Heiden was trying to get hold of you. He phoned down about fifteen minutes ago.’

‘Okay,’ said Fabel, although the thought what now? flashed through his brain. ‘There’s something I’d like you both to check out for me. I have to say this could be unconnected to anything, but I need information on an organisation called the Pharos Project. Like I say, at the moment this is not entirely official, but there’s a chance there may be a link to the wash-up from yesterday. I have a new best friend in the BfV, so I’m going to ask him if he can give me some info on Pharos. Either of you heard of it?’

Werner, who was still writing in his notebook, shook his head. ‘Is that Faros with an F or with a Ph…?’

‘Ph… the Greek way,’ said Fabel. ‘And it’s headed up by some guy called Dominik Korn.’

‘I’ve heard of them,’ said Anna. ‘I thought they were just some kind of environmental group like Greenpeace.’

Fabel laughed. ‘Nothing like. I’m a member of Greenpeace but you wouldn’t get me within a mile of the Pharos Project. It started out legitimately enough but it looks like it may well now be a manipulative cult.’

‘I’ll check it out,’ said Anna, grinning at Werner. ‘At least I can spell it.’

‘Anything else I should know about before I go out?’ asked Fabel.

‘Just that we’ve got a potential homicide in the Schanzenviertel. We’re waiting to hear if the guy pulls through. Poor bastard has sixty per cent burns.’

‘What happened?’

‘One of these car torchings went wrong.’

‘A car torching?’ Fabel’s mood darkened as he thought back to his conversation of the previous day with Menke, the BfV man. ‘And you say someone might die?’

‘The owner came running out when he saw his car on fire,’ said Werner, ‘but the attackers had dumped containers full of kerosene inside. They ignited when the poor schmuck was beside the car. Human-torch stuff, from what I can gather.’

‘Great,’ said Fabel. ‘I can guess why Criminal Director van Heiden was on the phone first thing. I’d better get back to him. I’ll see you back here about one-thirty and we can brief in the raids on these addresses.’

After Werner and Anna were gone, Fabel took the list of addresses Anna had given him and contacted the Presidium control room to have resources allocated to each raid. Fabel explained there would be at least two Murder Commission detectives at each address, and asked that they have a couple of uniforms from each local police station as support.

Van Heiden took Fabel’s call right away. It was exactly as Fabel had thought: the Criminal Director’s reaction to the news about the car-burning. Fabel sensed that his boss was taking a little pleasure from reminding everyone about how prescient he had been about ‘someone going to end up dead’.

Of course, the main thrust of the conversation was to remind Fabel how important it was, if the victim died, that the perpetrators were caught quickly. Fabel could never understand why van Heiden felt the need to emphasise the importance of a particular case: as if Fabel did not regard the taking of a human life seriously unless it was given management-team emphasis. For Fabel, the act of murder was emphatic enough, no matter who the victim was.

‘There’s perhaps more to this than meets the eye, Fabel,’ said van Heiden. ‘And another reason to give this case some priority. The victim, the owner of the Mercedes, is one Daniel Fottinger. He’s a very important figure in environmental technologies. So much so that he is one of the organisers of the GlobalConcern Hamburg summit.’

‘So you think this is political?’ asked Fabel. ‘That he was deliberately targeted and this is attempted murder?’

‘It could be. At the very least, I don’t like the coincidence. I think this is where your special talents may come into play. And if we can prove aforethought, which may be difficult, then I doubt it will be attempted murder.’

‘He doesn’t look good?’

‘According to the hospital, he’ll be lucky to make it through the next twenty-four hours.’

After he had hung up, Fabel did a search in his computer for Daniel Fottinger. As he went through the results he felt his unease grow. Fabel desperately wanted this not to be another homicide, attempted or not. The Commission was stretched as it was with the Network Killer case. Then there was the torso found at the Fischmarkt and its possible connection to the woman Muller-Voigt claimed had disappeared. But the more he read about Fottinger Environmental Technologies and its chief executive and principal shareholder, Daniel Fottinger, the less convinced he was that the arson attack had been random.

There was something else that troubled Fabel: there were several photographs of Fottinger and Berthold Muller-Voigt at various functions, looking particularly chummy. But, there again, Fabel told himself, it was no surprise that Hamburg’s Environment Senator and a leading light in environmental technologies should have frequently crossed paths; especially when Fottinger was an organiser of the GlobalConcern Hamburg summit.

But it still did nothing to lessen the gut feeling he had about it. A bad gut feeling.