Craig Russell - The Carnival Master

When Fabel arrived at the Presidium, the security-desk officer smiled and sent him straight up without an escort. He found it odd to walk into a different Murder Commission without being fully a visitor any more. It was almost, but not quite, as if he worked here and the thought brought to mind the offer that Wagner and van Heiden had made: is this what it would be like to have a Federal Republic-wide brief?

Tansu was on the phone when Fabel arrived. She had gathered her rich coppery curls up in a clasp on the back of her head and it exposed the line of her neck. Tansu was not particularly pretty and her figure was more than full, but there was something about her that Fabel, in spite of himself, found attractive. Sexy. She indicated Scholz’s office with a jab of her head and covered the mouthpiece of the phone for a second.

‘He’s waiting for you,’ she said. ‘But make sure neither of you leave until I have a chance to talk to you.’

‘Okay,’ said Fabel.

Scholz was on the phone but gestured for Fabel to take a seat. From what Fabel could gather from Scholz’s side of the telephone conversation, it had to do with the Cologne Police Karneval float and Scholz was still not at all happy with its progress. It struck Fabel that this subject, more than the murders he was investigating, seemed to have Scholz wound up tight. He was not someone that Fabel would otherwise imagine ever becoming stressed.

‘Morning…’ Scholz said gloomily as he came off the phone. ‘You ready to talk to these Internet people?’

‘Yep. But Tansu said she wants to talk to us before we go out.’

Scholz shrugged. ‘There’s another call we should make today. I did a bit of checking into the escort agency our chum at the hotel gave us last night. I think this will interest you quite a bit.’

‘Oh?’

‘The A la Carte escort agency is operated by a certain Herr Nielsen, a German national. Tansu’s looking into his background. But the real owners are a couple of Ukrainians called Klymkiw and Lysenko. No criminal records but they are suspected of heavy involvement in organised crime. Particularly people-smuggling. So you won’t need three guesses who the organised-crime division reckon Klymkiw and Lysenko work for?’

‘Vitrenko.’

‘Exactly. The boys at organised crime have asked that we handle this with extreme care.’

‘You spoke to organised-crime division? I take it you didn’t say anything about Maria Klee?’

‘For now. And it was just our organised-crime guys. The Federal Crime Bureau don’t know we’re talking to Nielsen. But there’s a limit to how long I can withhold that. Anyway, as far as we can see, A la Carte Escorts operates legally and its girls pay the regulation tax. Or at least the ones who are officially on their books.’ Scholz grinned. ‘The trade in human flesh was first made fully taxable in Cologne, as you probably already know.’

Fabel nodded. Cologne had been the first German city to levy income tax on sex-industry workers.

‘We’re quite proud of our role in pioneering a tax on sex. At first it was impossible to assess exactly how much any given prostitute earned…’ Scholz continued. ‘I mean, can you imagine a federal tax form with a section on how many blow jobs you performed and for what price in the last fiscal year? The tax boys calculated a possible range of earnings and came up with an average. So now there’s a flat-rate tax of one hundred and fifty Euros per month per hooker. I can tell you, even with all the undeclared earnings, Cologne has been raking it in. What I’ve always tried to work out is: does that make the Burgermeister a pimp?’

Scholz’s musings were interrupted when Tansu came into the office.

‘At long bloody last I’ve got somewhere with Vera Reinartz, the medical student who was raped in ’ninety-nine.’

‘You’ve tracked her down?’ asked Fabel.

‘Yes… well, technically no, not Vera Reinartz, I suppose. But I now know why we couldn’t find her on any registered change of address. Vera Reinartz really doesn’t exist any more. She changed her name six years ago. A full legal change of name.’

‘She obviously wanted to put as much distance as possible between herself and what happened to her,’ said Fabel.

‘That’s the strange thing,’ said Tansu. ‘I would have thought that she would have wanted to move as far away as possible. But she’s stayed right here in Cologne. Why change your name but not your location?’

‘I take it you have an address for her?’ asked Fabel.

‘Yes. I thought I’d try to see her today,’ said Tansu.

‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to be there, too,’ said Fabel. ‘And Herr Scholz, of course.’

‘Okay.’ Fabel thought he detected a little defensiveness in Tansu’s tone.

‘I’m pretty sure you’re maybe onto something and it could be the best lead we’ve got.’ Fabel turned to Scholz. ‘I’ve read what Tansu has put together on the case and I agree with her. I think there’s a strong chance that attack is linked to these murders.’

‘And the killing the year after? Annemarie Kuppers, the girl who was beaten to death?’ asked Tansu.

‘That I don’t know about. It ties in with the savagery of the beating that Vera Reinartz took, but sits at odds with the other two killings. But I’m not ruling it out. The main thing is that if Vera Reinartz was a victim of our guy and survived, then she’s probably the only person who’s seen him.’

‘I’ll pin down her whereabouts and we can see her this afternoon or evening,’ said Tansu.

They took Scholz’s VW. The address Scholz had for A la Carte Escorts was in Deutz so it took them only a matter of minutes to get there. The street was a mix of small businesses and apartment buildings. There was a restaurant, a bar, a delicatessen and a computer sales and repair store. Scholz referred to his notebook and led Fabel to a doorway between the computer shop and the deli. There were a number of business names listed on the buzzer panel.

‘Here we are,’ said Scholz. ‘ A la Carte Escorts. Second floor…’

Everything had been done to communicate that this was a serious, professional business. Leo Nielsen was dressed in a sombre business suit and the offices of A la Carte Escorts could have been those of a civil engineer. There were no tarty types in reception and the receptionist herself was mousy and conservatively dressed. Nielsen almost carried the whole thing off and could have been any kind of businessman, except that his neck was as thick as his head and his shoulders strained against the material of his suit. In addition, there was a line down one cheek where the skin was paler than the rest of his face. Fabel guessed that Nielsen’s human-resource management experience had started with slapping loose change out of drug-dependent whores hanging around the main railway station.

‘What can I do for you?’ asked Nielsen in an unbusinessman-like way.

‘There was an incident,’ said Fabel. ‘In the Hotel Linden. One of your girls claimed that a customer had bitten her. Badly. We’d like to talk to her.’

‘We’ve been all through this already,’ said Nielsen with a weary sigh. ‘We… she isn’t interested in pressing charges.’

‘We understand that.’ Scholz sat on the corner of Nielsen’s desk and knocked a desk-tidy full of pens and an expensive-looking calculator onto the floor. ‘But – how can I put this? We don’t give a fuck. I want the name of the girl right now or I will go through every file, every client credit-card receipt and personally visit every punter who has dipped his wick in one of your whores.’

‘I don’t have to put up with threats.’ Nielsen maintained his composure and grinned at Scholz contemptuously.