Craig Russell - A fear of dark water

Fabel held his hands up. ‘Let’s get one thing straight: there’s a limit to how unofficial my enquiries were. To start with, I told Muller-Voigt that there was no way I could spare the time, but then I realised that there’s a good chance that the torso that was washed up at the Fischmarkt is that of Meliha Yazar. And that was the only reason I agreed to look into it. And I have to say that Senator Muller-Voigt accepts that I cannot guarantee to keep his name out of the spotlight. To be honest, all he is interested in is finding out what has happened to this woman.’

There was a pause and an exchange of looks between Steinbach, van Heiden and Werner. Fabel made an exasperated face.

‘Muller-Voigt is dead, Jan,’ said Werner. ‘He was found by his cleaner in his living room first thing this morning. That’s where Anna was headed when you came in.’

Fabel sat stunned for a moment. Then, as if a current had been switched on, he stood up suddenly. ‘I’m going out there…’

‘That would be inadvisable, Fabel,’ said Steinbach. ‘You can see that yourself, given the circumstances.’

‘You can’t seriously be suggesting that I am a suspect?’

‘No one is suggesting that,’ said van Heiden in a vaguely offended tone that still did not convince Fabel. ‘But you are compromised as far as both of these murder investigations are concerned. You simply cannot be seen to be heading up an enquiry in which you feature. You must understand that.’

‘So what happens? Am I suspended?’

‘Of course not,’ said Steinbach.

‘Then I insist on leading the Muller-Voigt case.’ Fabel still could not believe he was referring to the man he had sat and talked with just two nights before as a case. ‘That is my job, after all. And I have a personal stake in this…’

‘But that’s exactly the point,’ said van Heiden. ‘It’s precisely because of your personal involvement that we have to place the case in the hands of another officer.’

‘I suggest we all head out to the crime scene,’ said Menke. ‘There’s clearly more to this than meets the eye. And, in my opinion, Herr Fabel hasn’t compromised himself: someone else has deliberately gone out of their way to remove him from the investigation.’

Fabel looked at Menke: he was surprised that the intelligence man had spoken up for him.

‘I agree,’ said Werner. ‘This is all crap, the thing with the text messages and this woman with a victim’s identity. It’s all engineered to get Jan off the case. Unless you really believe that he is a suspect. In which case you can suspend me as well.’

Fabel shot Werner a warning look: Van Heiden, who now glowered at Werner, was by-the-book enough to take him up on his suggestion.

‘You lead the investigation, Werner,’ said Fabel. ‘The Criminal Director is right. I’m too close to all of this.’ He turned to van Heiden. ‘But I still want to see the Muller-Voigt murder scene.’

Fabel sat in the back of the Mercedes that took them out to the Altes Land. Werner followed. Stuck in the back of the car next to Menke, watching a huge sky above a billiard-table landscape slide by, Fabel still felt more than a little like a suspect and found himself resenting the intelligence man’s presence.

‘What did Muller-Voigt say to you about this supposedly missing woman?’ asked Menke.

Fabel remained quiet for a moment. Long enough to make the point that he resented Menke questioning him.

‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ said Menke into the void.

Fabel sighed. ‘She’s not just supposed missing, she’s a supposed woman. Muller-Voigt told me that he said that he could find no trace of her existence. He asked me to investigate because he felt that if he were to go through official channels he would look like he was losing his mind.’

‘You do realise,’ said Menke, ‘that this all ties up. Your encounter with a woman who shows you identification that belongs to someone already dead, your problems with electronic messages disappearing.’

Van Heiden twisted around in the front seat, edged his broad shoulders so he could turn to Menke. ‘If you have some information we should know, Herr Menke,’ he said, ‘then I strongly suggest you share it with us.’

Menke shrugged. ‘I was just making an observation, that’s all.’

Holger Brauner and his team had been at the Muller-Voigt murder scene for some time and when Fabel entered the house with Menke, van Heiden and Werner, Anna Wolff was standing in the lounge, talking to a uniformed officer. She came over and spoke directly to Fabel, pointedly ignoring van Heiden.

‘Muller-Voigt is over there…’ She indicated the seating area where Fabel had talked with the politician two days earlier. Fabel could see a scattering of books and magazines on the floor next to the coffee table. Muller-Voigt’s feet were just visible: he had obviously fallen between the sofa and the coffee table. There was an arc of blood spatter visible on the leather of the sofa. ‘You want to see?’

Anna handed Fabel blue stretch overshoes and a pair of latex gloves but ignored van Heiden. The Criminal Director began to fume and Fabel shot Anna a warning look. She handed the Criminal Director a set. Anna was an officer of great ability and promise, but Fabel knew her very obvious problem with authority meant she would never be promoted much above her current rank. It frustrated him but somewhere deep inside he was heartened by these little displays: maybe her rebellion was not at an end after all.

‘Signs of struggle?’ asked Fabel as they approached the body.

‘Minimal,’ said Anna. ‘It looks like he knew his attacker. There’s no sign of forced entry and all this…’ she indicated the scattered books and magazines ‘… could have been simply when he fell, or at the most after a very brief struggle.’

Fabel nodded a greeting to Holger Brauner. ‘Can I have a look?’

‘So long as you don’t contaminate my crime scene,’ said Brauner, with a grin.

Fabel looked down at Muller-Voigt’s body and Muller-Voigt looked back at him with an unblinking stare and an expression of surprise. It was not really an expression, Fabel knew, just the slack-jawed stare of eased rigor mortis. One side of the politician’s head, above the right temple, was badly deformed, as if dented, and the hair was parted by an ugly deep laceration where he had been hit with a heavy object. There was a halo of dark, thickly viscous blood around Muller-Voigt’s head. Fabel felt something unpleasant flutter dark wings in his gut when he realised that Muller-Voigt was wearing the same clothes as he had been the last time Fabel had seen him.

‘How long has he been dead, roughly?’ Fabel asked Brauner.

‘He’s not fresh,’ said the forensics chief. ‘More than a day. Maybe two.’

Fabel tensed.

‘What did you say?’ asked van Heiden over Fabel’s shoulder.

Brauner gave a small laugh and looked at Fabel quizzically before turning to van Heiden. ‘I said the victim’s been dead for more than a day. What’s the problem?’

‘I met with the victim the night before last,’ explained Fabel in a dull voice. ‘Here.’

‘Ah…’ Brauner said and frowned.

‘Wait a minute.’ Fabel turned to where Menke was standing. ‘Didn’t you say Muller-Voigt missed a meeting yesterday but got in touch to make his apologies?’

‘Yes… that…’ Menke said ponderously. ‘The thing is, we don’t have the email any more. Or, for the moment, any of our other emails. I’m afraid your concerns about email security were right, after all. You see, the message sent from Muller-Voigt’s computer had corrupted our entire system. It would appear to have been infected with the Klabautermann Virus. And, of course, an email doesn’t mean he was still alive. His killer could have sent it from his account.’