Craig Russell - A fear of dark water

‘Someone had the brass balls to walk into Butenfeld, flash a Polizei Schleswig-Holstein badge and ask to see the torso that had been washed up at the Fischmarkt after the storm. I put it down to the Pharos Project, but now…’

Flemming shrugged and took a sip of his coffee.

‘Isn’t it a huge coincidence that “Commissar Honer” showed a Kiel division ID? You know, where you served… Listen, Flemming,’ Fabel turned in his chair to face the big man square on. ‘After what you did for me today, I don’t want to make any trouble for you. But I could get someone up here from the morgue to see if they can spot anyone who looks a little like the Schleswig-Holstein detective who turned up to view the torso…’

‘Okay. It was me. I wanted to see if it was Meliha.’

‘And?’

‘You saw that torso. The only way to get a positive ID is to check against familial DNA, which I’ll leave to you, now that you know where to find a family member.’

‘But your instinct?’

‘I don’t have one. When I saw the torso it had been degassed — you know, to stop it exploding — but it was still quite bulked up. It could be Meliha. But it could be anyone. As you can imagine, I’ve seen a lot of floaters over the years and they’re always very difficult to age and size up. Your Fischmarkt torso had certainly been in the water for a long time. And the longer the immersion, the more difficult it is to age them accurately. For all my subterfuge, it really didn’t do me any good.’

‘Okay. I’ll arrange for a DNA comparison with Herr Kebir. In the meantime, you keep your nose clean and out of official police business.’

Flemming sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. ‘Okay. But if there’s anything I can do — and I mean anything — then I want you to let me know.’

‘I appreciate it,’ said Fabel. ‘You can start by going through everything you know about Meliha Kebir…’

The next day, Fabel was in the Presidium early. He had woken up with a start and had known that something bad had happened the day before but, for a few seconds, had forgotten what it was. He had sat upright in bed, a cold sweat on his brow, until it fell into place.

Susanne had always worried about the stress Fabel’s job placed him under. There had been a time when, driven by the bad dreams that he experienced almost nightly, he had himself considered giving up the Polizei Hamburg. But the look on Susanne’s face that morning had been far beyond anything that he had seen before; more like fear than worry. Someone had made a pretty good stab at killing him.

She clung to him as they said goodbye in the morning. She was working out of the Institute for Legal Medicine and, in a reversal of the normal routine, she had dropped him off at the Presidium first. And she had been punctual, which worried Fabel most of all.

When he entered the Murder Commission Fabel was confronted with grim determination. The full team was there, including the officers who were not slated for duty. It was clear that Nicola Bruggemann had called them all in and had given them an informal briefing on what had happened; several of them came up to Fabel, asked if he was okay and expressed their support, each with appropriate gravity. Fabel noticed that there was a Kevlar bulletproof waistcoat sitting upright on the desk behind Nicola Bruggemann.

‘We’ve talked it through, Chef,’ said Bruggemann, her face set hard, using the informal title to identify Fabel as her commanding officer, ‘and we feel you need some extra protection. Werner…?’ She stood to one side to let Fabel have a view of the body armour. Werner grabbed the vest and pulled it to one side, like a stage magician whipping the cover from a cage of freshly disappeared pigeons. The room exploded into laughter: on the desk, until now hidden by the bulletproof vest, was a pair of bright yellow inflatable water wings, each complete with the neck, head, and bright red bill of a duckling.

Laughing, Fabel slipped off his jacket and slid the water wings onto his shirt-sleeved arms. He became aware of a sudden sobriety in the room and turned to see Criminal Director van Heiden standing framed in the door.

‘Fabel… a word.’

Fabel self-consciously slipped the water wings off, ignoring the smirks of his team, and guided van Heiden into his office.

It was a brief meeting, and Fabel realised it was van Heiden’s way of making his support for his junior officer clear. The Criminal Director confirmed what Bruggemann had told Fabel in the hospital: that he was now fully back in charge of all investigations and that he was to take whatever measures necessary and could request whatever resources he needed. It was clear that van Heiden was still out of his depth, even more so than before, but someone had tried to kill one of his own and that had fired up every policeman’s instinct that van Heiden possessed.

‘I just don’t understand what is going on,’ said van Heiden, genuinely perplexed.

‘I do,’ said Fabel. ‘That’s why I was pushed into the river. I can’t prove any of it yet. And I doubt that we will ever be able to prove all of it, or any of it. But there’s clearly a danger that someone is going to make another attempt on my life because of it, so I’m going to tell you.’

It took Fabel ten minutes to explain. Van Heiden sat silent, taking it all in but never looking any less perplexed.

‘I’ll get it written up,’ said Fabel. ‘But if you don’t mind I won’t email it. I’ll have it hand-delivered to your office. I don’t know how much our email system is compromised.’

‘So you believe all this?’ asked van Heiden.

‘Yes, but like I say, I can’t prove it. I’ve called Herr Menke to discuss it with him. We need all the help we can get with this one.’

For some reason, Fabian Menke had responded to Fabel’s call by asking that they should meet, neither at the Presidium nor the BfV’s office. Instead, he suggested a venue on the south side of the river, down by the docks. Fabel took a pool car and parked behind Menke’s BMW 3 series. A very corporate car, thought Fabel and wondered if the security agent sold insurance policies in his own time. When he got out of his car, Fabel realised he was on another quayside, parked next to the water’s edge. The sudden frisson he felt surprised him and he realised he was afraid of the water.

‘Are you okay?’ Menke asked as the two men shook hands.

‘I’m fine. Just a bit shaken up after my last trip to the waterfront.’

‘Oh God, yes,’ said Menke. ‘I should have thought. A pretty insensitive venue. Sorry. Do you want to go somewhere else?’

‘No, it’s fine.’

Menke led the way along the quayside. From here Fabel could see the arc of Hamburg on the far shore, from the Kohlbrandbrucke bridge to the Speicherstadt and HafenCity. This side of the Elbe, the south shore, was the working heart of the city. Huge cranes behind them arranged freight containers in piled-high rows, like children’s building blocks.

‘Before we start,’ said Menke, ‘do you have a cellphone with you?’

‘Of course. But it’s switched off and I left it in the car.’

‘I see,’ said Menke. ‘You clearly recognise what we’re dealing with here.’

‘We’re dealing with an idea,’ said Fabel. ‘Not a reality. I know that these people have massive technological resources and skills at their disposal, but I still think they’re not as omniscient as their PR makes out.’

‘No?’ said Menke. ‘I work in the business of watching others, Fabel. And I have technology at my disposal that you couldn’t begin to imagine. I can sit outside someone’s home and see what they’re seeing on their computer monitor. I’m not talking about hacking into their WiFi or anything like that. They don’t have to be connected to a hub or a network at all. We even have keystroke analysis where we can tell what’s being typed into a computer without breaking into the hard drive… all done purely externally. Or take where we’re standing now… there are at least five national intelligence agencies who have access to satellite technology so sophisticated that they could have a good stab at deciphering what we’re saying to each other right now. You’ve read the material I sent you on the Pharos Project?’ he asked when they reached the pier’s end.