Craig Russell - A fear of dark water

‘Okay…’ sighed Fabel as they made their way in the lift up to the fifth floor. ‘Do I get some kind of clue?’

‘It’s Muller-Voigt-’ started Werner, only to be silenced by a sharp look from van Heiden.

Fabel let his boss and the BfV man lead the way. The fifth floor of the Hamburg Police Presidium was somewhere, if you were of Fabel’s rank or below, you were led. This was the management level of the Presidium and when Fabel realised they were headed for the Presidial Offices, his feeling of foreboding ratcheted up a notch or two. When they reached the reception area they were admitted immediately into the Police President’s office.

Hugo Steinbach stepped around from behind a huge desk to meet Fabel and the others. Just as van Heiden could not be anything other than a policeman, Steinbach looked as though he should be anything but a policeman. Fabel had always felt the avuncular, habitually smiling Steinbach looked more like a provincial family doctor, or even a jovially hospitable rural hotel proprietor. But he was a policeman, through and through. Steinbach had entered the police as an ordinary beat patrolman and had worked his way up through every rank and every department. He prided himself on the fact that whenever he talked to one of his officers he knew exactly what it was like to do their job, to face whatever they had to face. That was even true of Fabel: Steinbach had been a lead detective in the Polizei Berlin’s Murder Commission.

‘Is this about my expense account?’ Fabel said with a small, uncertain laugh.

‘Sit down, please, Fabel,’ said Steinbach with a gentleness that unnerved Fabel even more. He sat down, his unease now beginning to give way to anger.

Steinbach sat casually on the corner of his desk and picked up a file, which he examined briefly.

‘Last night you rang into the Presidium for an ID check on a woman. Someone called Julia Helling.’

‘Oh, yes… yes, I did. What about her?’

‘And you confirmed to the officer on duty that she lived in Eppendorf. Why did you check out that particular name and address?’

‘It was after I left the Presidium last night. I was going to pick up something to eat and I forgot…’ Fabel checked himself. It sounded insensitive to say the least that he had forgotten that his friend of twenty-odd years was dead. And, as he sat there feeling as if he was under interrogation, the fact itself seemed odd. ‘… I forgot that the place had closed. Then this woman sort of appeared out of nowhere. Her behaviour was, well, odd. I don’t know why, but I got the feeling that she knew who I was.’

‘What made you think that?’ asked Steinbach.

‘I don’t know, exactly,’ said Fabel honestly. ‘There was just something about the things she said. She knew all about the guy who used to own the snack stand. And it was as if she knew that he had been a friend of mine.’

‘Dirk Stellamanns?’ asked Werner, frowning. Exactly the reaction Fabel had been concerned about. It did sound odd. Fabel nodded.

‘So you asked this woman for her ID?’ asked van Heiden.

‘Yes. Will someone tell me what this is all about?’

‘All in good time, Fabel.’ Steinbach took the edge off it with a smile. ‘I know this is all very unusual, but this is a very serious matter and we have to establish some of the facts and chronology of events. Could you describe this woman?’

Fabel outlined a description of the unremarkable, business-suited woman he had encountered down by the docks. As he did so, a thought struck him: the couple he had seen in the cafe that morning had been dressed in a very similar manner. He dismissed the thought. They all did look the same: corporate clones.

‘You say she was blonde?’ asked van Heiden. ‘Not a brunette?’

‘She was blonde. Like I said.’

‘And you have had no previous contact with her, or with anyone else with the same name?’ asked Steinbach.

‘No, I haven’t. Why do I feel like a suspect all of a sudden? What is the significance of this woman?’

‘Please bear with us, Fabel,’ said Steinbach. He handed Fabel a photograph from the file. Fabel knew the picture had been taken in the Butenfeld mortuary, because he recognised the dead woman instantly.

‘And this is not the woman?’ asked Steinbach.

‘Of course it isn’t. You know it isn’t. This is the woman we found at the Poppenbutteler Schleuse. How could it have been her? She was long cold and in the morgue last night. The woman I spoke to was very much alive.’

‘We got an ID for her, Jan,’ explained Werner. ‘It came through this morning.’ He nodded apprehensively towards the photograph in Fabel’s hands. ‘ This is Julia Henning. She lived at the address in Eppendorf you phoned in with.’

‘ Shit,’ Fabel said in English. ‘So the woman I met must have something to do with these killings.’

‘That’s not our main concern at the moment, Fabel,’ said van Heiden. ‘We’ve had a report from Chief Commissar Kroeger and Technical Section about the phone you handed in. They say there is no trace of you having received a text message that said “Poppenbutteler Schleuse”.’

‘Like I said, it’s been deleted somehow.’

‘Herr Kroeger assures me that even if it had been deleted,’ said van Heiden, ‘his team would have been able to retrieve it. And they have checked the records of your service provider. Again, no trace.’

‘You see where this leaves us, Chief Commissar,’ said Steinbach. ‘You seem to have had prior knowledge of where a victim was going to be found, then you radio in the victim’s name and address before we have an identity for her.’

Fabel stared at Steinbach incredulously. ‘You can’t seriously be saying that these coincidences make me a suspect?’

‘On their own, no…’ Menke spoke for the first time. ‘But they are not on their own. We talked at length yesterday evening about the Pharos Project, and you instructed Frau Wolff to gather as much information as possible on the organisation. This is a day after Senator Muller-Voigt quizzed me persistently on the same subject.’

‘So?’ Fabel resented the BfV man becoming involved; this was a police matter.

‘I asked you where you had been the night before last,’ cut in van Heiden. ‘You evaded my question. Why did you do that, Fabel?’

‘Quite frankly, Herr Criminal Director, what I do in my own time is none of your affair.’ Fabel was beginning to feel outnumbered and exchanged a glance with Werner.

‘Quite the contrary,’ said van Heiden. ‘If you are using your own time to meet and discuss police matters with a member of the Hamburg Senate without my knowledge, I feel that that is very much my business.’

‘If you know where I was, then why did you ask me?’

‘ Did you visit Herr Muller-Voigt at his home the night before last?’ asked Steinbach.

‘Yes, I did. After we finished our meeting here in the Presidium, he asked me if I would come out to his home that evening.’

‘Why?’

Fabel drew a long breath before launching into the story of Muller-Voigt’s missing girlfriend, the Senator’s belief that someone had deliberately erased all trace of her existence in Germany, his suspicions about the Pharos Project, and how Muller-Voigt had asked Fabel to make his enquiries ‘unofficial’.

‘So that’s why both you and he quizzed me about Pharos,’ asked Menke.

Fabel nodded. ‘And the more I find out about it, the more I believe that there could be a connection to this woman’s disappearance.’

‘Since when did you have the licence to undertake private investigations, Fabel?’ Something like a storm cloud darkened Van Heiden’s expression. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing agreeing to snoop around for Muller-Voigt?’