Craig Russell - A fear of dark water

‘What do you mean, go off together?’

The waiter sighed. ‘They’d arrive in separate cars, but after they’d eaten they’d go off together in her car. I always noticed that the big Merc convertible sat outside for a couple of hours, then would disappear mid or late afternoon. I actually often thought that he was taking a bit of chance, with all these car-burnings around here and all. But I never imagined it would happen in broad daylight right outside our door. Or that the poor bastard would end up torched himself.’

‘What do you know about him?’

‘What I know about all of my customers: what they order, what they drink, what they leave as a tip. He wasn’t the small-talk type.’

‘Yet he came here often?’

‘What can I tell you? Some customers are easy to get to know. He wasn’t.’

‘But you must at least have had some impression of him… the kind of person he was.’

The lanky waiter gave a small laugh. ‘How can I put it? He didn’t have a lot of personality going on there, and what there was was all arrogant asshole. Every time he came in and sat down was like it was the first time. You know what I mean: I’d serve him every time he came in, but he’d make out like he didn’t know me from Adam. Some customers can be like that. They treat you as if you don’t really exist or matter as a human being, like you simply exist for their convenience.’

‘The woman?’

‘She wasn’t as bad. At least she talked to you; acknowledged you as a person. She’s a real looker and I couldn’t quite work out what she was doing with him. I mean, he seemed pretty one-dimensional to me.’

‘So you had them pegged as a couple?’

‘Yeah. But not married, though. And not business or colleagues. It was obvious they had some kind of regular thing going. When you’ve served tables as long as I have, you get to tell the nature of the visit, the agenda behind the lunch, if you know what I mean. But there was something about them didn’t gel.’

Fabel raised an eyebrow.

‘Oh, I don’t know…’ The waiter renewed his efforts on the tabletop and his irritation at being disturbed. ‘They fitted in some ways… him rich, her cute… but it was just that he seemed so… I don’t know… so dull. I tell you, if I had a woman who looked like that across the table from me, I wouldn’t spend so much of my time playing with my electronic toys.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He was always texting or taking calls on his cellphone. There was one time they were in here that he sat half the time working on his laptop. Sometimes I think it wasn’t the excellence of our cuisine that brought him here. More our free WiFi. But I tell you, his girlfriend was getting pretty pissed off with it. I reckon she was on the point of giving him the elbow.’

‘And you could tell this just from waiting table?’ Fabel had not intended his question to sound patronising but the lean waiter’s face clouded.

‘Maybe if you cops were forced to work as waiters for six months you’d be better at sizing people up. Everybody is becoming more and more detached from each other, from reality. All of this technology shit. Me, I run this place because I get to watch people. Live in the real world.’ He looked at Fabel disdainfully. ‘Take you… you’re a cop but I can tell from the way you dress and the way you talk to people that you like to think you’re different from the rest. That jacket you’re wearing — English-cut, tweed — it’s not the usual anonymous semi-corporate two-hundred-euro suit the Hamburg Kripo always seems to wear. I’d say you’re not all that comfortable with being a cop and you like to think you’ve got a little more going on up here.’ He tapped his forefinger against the side of his head. ‘You’re trying really hard to fit in by not fitting in. But what do I know, huh? I just wait tables.’

‘Okay,’ said Fabel. ‘So you’re the Great Observer, the ultimate people watcher. I get it. You told the officers that you noticed one of the arsonists before the attack. I don’t suppose your people-watching skills could extend to giving me a decent description of him?’

‘I saw him, all right. He was hanging around across the street, under that tree…’ The waiter tutted when he realised the view of the tree was obscured by the plywood. ‘Anyway,’ he said philosophically, ‘he was over there. To start with I thought he was a junkie. He was kinda hopping from one foot to the other, fidgeting, sort of, and checking and rechecking that big black holdall he was carrying.’

‘Would you recognise him again?’

‘Doubt it. He was wearing a sort of woolly hat that he pulled down as a mask when he torched the car. I did think I noticed something. I didn’t mention it to the other cops because I only thought of it afterwards…’

‘Yes?’

‘A limp. I’m pretty sure the guy had a limp. Or at least there was something stiff about the way he walked.’

‘Thanks,’ said Fabel.

The skinny waiter shrugged and went back to cleaning tables.

Fabel’s next visit was in Harvestehude. An impressive Wilhelmine building faced with white stucco tried to hide behind a screen of manicured shrubs and trees. Fabel found the name he was looking for and rang the bell.

‘Polizei Hamburg…’ he said into the entry system in answer to the crackling voice. ‘I’d like to speak to you, Frau Kempfert.’

‘Let me see your ID,’ the voice said. ‘There’s a camera above the entryphone.’

Fabel held his card up to the bulbous electronic eye and there was a harsh buzzing and a click. He pushed open the heavy door and made his way up an ornately tiled stairwell to the apartment building’s third floor. An attractive, dark-haired young woman eyed him suspiciously from her doorway as he approached.

‘I told the other officers all I know.’

‘You know, Frau Kempfert, everybody always says exactly that same thing. But I like to hear it all for myself. And, you never know, something might always come back to you. Do you mind?’ Fabel nodded towards the apartment behind her.

‘No…’ Unsmiling, she moved to one side to admit him. ‘Come in.’

The young woman led him along the long hall into a corner lounge. It was huge and bright with French windows that opened out onto a small balustraded balcony. Fabel guessed from what he had seen on the way in that the flat probably consisted of this room, one, maybe two bedrooms, a kitchen-diner and a bathroom. The architecture was typical Harvestehude: echoing a more formal and elegant age with high ceilings, huge windows and the odd bit of ostentation in the plasterwork. The flat was not big, thought Fabel, but it would still be pricey. The furnishings and artwork were brightly coloured to contrast with the white walls. It all suggested a sophisticated sense of taste.

Victoria Kempfert dropped into a huge red armchair and made a perfunctory gesture towards the sofa, indicating that Fabel should sit. I get it, he thought, I’m taking up your time. Fabel had learned to be suspicious of people who overstated how much of an inconvenience it was to have to talk to the police. Generally speaking, if someone had lost their life, witnesses were only too willing to give you their time. They were helping you make sense of an often senseless death; doing that, for most people, was a way of restoring the universe’s natural balance.

‘You usually came back here after your lunchtime meetings?’ asked Fabel. ‘You and Herr Fottinger, I mean.’

‘Yes. We came back here and fucked.’ She held Fabel in a defiant gaze, her eyebrows arched.

‘I see,’ said Fabel matter-of-factly, noting it down in his notebook. ‘And where did you and Herr Fottinger fuck? In the bedroom or here, where I’m sitting?’