Craig Russell - The Carnival Master

‘Similar,’ said Fabel. ‘But your killer seems fixated on the run-up to Karneval. I’m guessing it has some symbolic significance for him.’

‘Him and the entire population of Cologne, Herr Fabel. You don’t have Karneval up there in Hamburg, do you?’

‘No. We don’t.’

‘Karneval is more than you see on the television. It’s not just fancy dress and reciting lame Buttenrede comic monologues in front of the Elferrat. Sorry, the Elferrat is the eleven elected members of the Karneval committee…’

‘I know what the Elferrat is, Herr Scholz,’ said Fabel drily. ‘I’m from Hamburg, not Ulan Bator.’

‘Sorry… anyway, my point is that Karneval defines what it is to be a Kolner. It’s part of our soul. It’s an emotional experience that can’t be explained, only experienced. The fact that this nut-job focuses on Karneval is no surprise. It just tells me that he’s a born Kolner.’

‘I think there’s more to it than that,’ said Fabel. ‘But we can discuss this when I come down to see you.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’ve cleared it with the Polizei Hamburg. I’ll drive down on Friday. I should be there sometime between two and three p.m. Can you fix me up with a hotel? Nothing too fancy. I’m afraid your people will be picking up the tab.’

What else could you expect from a northerner? thought Scholz. ‘Fine…’ he said cheerily. ‘No problem.’

After he hung up from his call to Cologne, Fabel used his cellphone to reach Anna Wolff and asked her to meet him at Maria’s flat.

‘You know that bunch of keys you keep in your drawer, Anna?’

‘Yes?’ she said hesitantly and with a hint of suspicion.

‘Well, bring that with you.’

‘Do I detect a whiff of illegality about this?’ Anna said. Then, more seriously: ‘Is Maria all right?’

‘That’s what I want to establish, Anna. And yes, this is probably illegal, but I dare say Maria won’t file charges.’

‘I’ll meet you there in half an hour.’

Maria shared the floor of her apartment building with two other flats. Fabel rang the buzzers for both but only got an answer at the second, which had the name ‘Franzka’ by the bell-push: a small woman in late middle age and with a weary expression came to the door.

‘The Mittelholzers are both out at work at this time of day,’ explained Frau Franzka.

Fabel showed her his Murder Commission ID and told her there was nothing to be alarmed about. Frau Franzka’s countenance suggested it would take a lot more than Fabel’s presence to alarm her. ‘I’m Frau Klee’s boss,’ he explained. ‘She’s been unwell recently and we were a little concerned about her. Have you seen her lately?’

‘Not for a while,’ Frau Franzka replied. ‘I saw her take some luggage down to her car. It was a Wednesday, so exactly two weeks ago today. It looked like she was going away on business. She had a computer bag and a briefcase with her.’

‘Thanks,’ said Fabel. He and Anna went across to Maria’s apartment door. Frau Franzka watched them from her doorway, then shrugged and went back inside. Anna had brought her collection of keys: a wire coat-hanger bent into a circle with a hundred or more keys attached, like some improvised tribal necklace. Fabel remembered that in the days before central locking and keyless remotes, every uniformed station had the same arrangement for car keys. He decided not to ask Anna why she felt it necessary to have such comprehensive means of illegal entry; he had always suspected that Anna bent the rules a little too far at times. Until today, he had pretended to be unaware of her key collection. After about five minutes and countless keys, they were rewarded by a click. Anna paused and looked over her shoulder at her boss.

‘Does Maria have an alarm system?’

‘I don’t know…’ Fabel looked uncertain for a moment, then nodded decisively.

Anna shrugged and pushed open the door. There was a loud electronic beeping from the alarm keypad inside in the hall.

‘Bollocks…’ she said. Fabel brushed past her and typed in a sequence of numbers. The display flashed ERROR CODE and continued to beep. He hit the clear button and typed in a new sequence. The beeping stopped.

‘Her date of birth?’ Anna sighed.

‘The date she joined the Polizei Hamburg. I checked both in her file.’

‘What would you have done if neither had worked?’

‘Arrested you for housebreaking,’ said Fabel and headed along the hall.

‘You probably would…’

They stood in the living room of Maria’s flat. It was, exactly as they had expected, pristine, ordered and furnished with immaculate taste. The walls were painted white but were hung with brightly colourful paintings. Oils, and originals. He guessed they would be by up-and-coming artists on the cusp of saleability. Maria was the kind of person to temper her art appreciation with acumen.

‘I always envied Maria, you know,’ said Anna.

‘In what way?’

‘Wanted to be like her. You know… Elegant, cool, together.’

‘She’s not together now.’

‘Do you never feel that way?’ Anna asked Fabel as she examined Maria’s CD collection. ‘You know, wish that you could be someone else? Even for a little while?’

‘I don’t give myself as much to philosophical musings as you do,’ he lied, with a smile.

‘I always thought of myself as too impulsive. Chaotic. Maria was always so disciplined and organised. Having said that…’ Anna indicated the CD collection. ‘This is bordering on the anally retentive. Look at these CDs… all ordered by genre and then alphabetically. Life’s too short…’

Fabel laughed, mainly to disguise the unease he felt at seeing how similar Maria’s taste and way of living were to his. They went through to the flat, checking each room. Fabel found what he was looking for, but had hoped not to find, in the smallest of the three bedrooms.

‘Shit…’ Anna gave a low whistle. ‘This is not good. Not good at all. This is obsessive.’

‘Anna…’

‘I mean, this is the kind of thing we’ve come across with serials

…’

‘Anna – that’s not helping.’

Fabel took in the small room. The walls were covered with photographs, press cuttings and a map of Europe with location pins and notes attached. There wasn’t a square centimetre of clear wall space. But this was no chaos. Fabel could see four defined areas of research: one related to Ukraine, one to Vitrenko’s personal history, one to people smuggling, one to organised crime in Cologne.

‘Maria hasn’t been spending her time recuperating,’ said Anna. ‘She’s been working. On her own.’

‘You’re wrong. This isn’t work. This is vendetta. Maria’s planning her revenge on Vitrenko.’

Anna turned to Fabel. ‘What do we do, Chef?’

‘You take the desk. I’ll go through the filing cabinet. And Anna… this stays between us. Okay?’

‘You’re the boss.’

Fabel and Anna spent two hours going through Maria’s files and notes. They were full of contacts with whom she had spoken, probably using her position as a Polizei Hamburg officer to gain access to otherwise confidential information: the Anti-Trafficking Centre in Belgrade, Human Rights Watch, a people-smuggling expert at Interpol. There were notes on all aspects of current people-trafficking in Europe, a full dossier on Ukrainian Spetsnaz units and a file of even more cuttings that hadn’t made it to the wall display. Among them were articles about a fire in a container truck in which several illegal immigrants heading for the West had been burned to death; about a model in Berlin who had been murdered with acid; about a bloody underworld feud in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia; about a Ukrainian-Jewish crime Godfather who had been found murdered in his luxury apartment in Israel.