Fabel parked on the uneven improvised car park, two hundred metres or so from the viewing platform. Two members of the Polizei Hamburg’s uniformed branch were already at the site and had done their usual thing of cordoning off the scene. In this case, their efforts seemed redundant: archaeology is forensic in its methodology, and the dig site had already been ringed off and divided into quadrants. As Fabel made his way across to the site he saw the familiar figure of Holger Brauner, the forensics chief. Brauner was dressed in his white coveralls and blue shoe-covers, but had his hood down and was not wearing his mask. He was engaged in conversation with a younger, taller man with long dark hair, swept back from his face and tied in a ponytail. The younger man’s dull green T-shirt and his slightly darker green cargo pants hung loosely on his angular frame. They both turned in Fabel’s direction as he approached.
‘Jan…’ Holger Brauner beamed at Fabel. ‘This is Herr Dr Severts, from the Universitat Hamburg’s archaeology department. He’s in charge of the dig. Dr Severts, this is Principal Chief Commissar Fabel from the Murder Commission.’
Fabel shook Severts’s hand. It felt callused and rough, as if the sand and earth in which Severts worked had become ingrained in the skin of his palm. It fitted with the colouring of his clothing; it was as if Severts was himself something of the earth.
‘Dr Severts and I were just discussing how close our disciplines are. In fact, I was explaining that my deputy, Frank Grueber, would have been even better suited to this case. He trained as an archaeologist himself before turning to forensics.’
‘Grueber?’ said Fabel. ‘I had no idea he’d been an archaeologist.’ Frank Grueber had only been a member of Brauner’s team for a little over a year, but Fabel could already see why Brauner had picked him as his deputy: Grueber had shown the same ability as Brauner at a crime scene to read both detail and context. It made sense to Fabel that Grueber had trained as an archaeologist: reading the story of a landscape and that of a crime scene took the same type of intellect. Fabel recalled how he had once asked Grueber why he had become a forensic specialist. ‘Truth is the debt that we owe to the dead’ had been his reply. It was a reply that had impressed Fabeclass="underline" it was also a reply that fitted just as well with a career as an archaeologist.
‘Archaeology’s loss is forensics’ gain,’ said Brauner. ‘I’m lucky to have him on the team. Actually, Frank has an interesting sideline going. He reconstructs faces from skeletonised archaeological remains. Universities from all over the place send him skulls to rebuild. It’s something I’ve always thought could come in handy in identifying unknown remains… who knows, maybe today’s the day…’
‘Fraid not,’ said Severts. ‘This victim’s got a face… This way, Herr Chief Commissar.’ The archaeologist paused while Fabel put on the blue forensic overshoes that Brauner handed him and then led the way across the archaeological site. In one corner the soil had been dug away deeper, in wide stepped tiers. ‘We have been taking the opportunity that all this land clearance offers to check out the area for early medieval settlement. This would have been largely marshland, and at one point completely inundated, but this has always been a natural harbour and crossing point…’
Brauner interrupted Severts. ‘Chief Commissar Fabel studied medieval European history himself.’
The concept of a Murder Commission policeman having an academic background obviously fazed Severts somewhat, because he stopped and looked at Fabel in blank appraisal for a moment. Severts had a long, lean face. After a moment his wide mouth broke into a smile.
‘Really? Cool.’ He recommenced leading Fabel and Brauner to the corner of the site. They had to step down two levels and stood on an area about five metres square. Each level was smooth and even and Fabel noticed that he could still, just, see out across ground level around them. He couldn’t imagine the patience that would be needed for such work – then he gave a small laugh as the image of Werner came to mind.
The excavated ground beneath them was banded, like rock strata laid on their side: a strange mix of pale sand, dry, black earth and some kind of bright, coarse silicate that glittered in the sunlight. The surface was punctuated with fragments of what looked like rough sacking and then broke into more irregular rubble and stone towards the edges of the area. In one corner of the excavation the upper half of a man’s body had been exposed. He was recumbent, on his side with his back to them, but lying at a slight angle so that he remained buried from the waist down. It gave him the appearance of lying in bed.
‘We found him early this morning,’ Severts explained. ‘The team like to get started early… get down here before rush hour.’
‘Who found him?’ asked Fabel.
‘Franz Brandt. He’s a postgrad student of mine. After we exposed enough of the body to establish that it wasn’t ancient, we stopped and contacted the Polizei Hamburg. We photographed and documented every stage of the exposure.’
Fabel and Brauner moved closer to the body. It certainly wasn’t ancient. The dead man was wearing a suit jacket of coarse blue serge. They moved around the body until they could see the face. It was thin, pale and pinched, topped with frazzled wisps of blond hair. The closed eyes were sunken into the skull and the neck seemed too thin and scrawny for the still-white shirt collar. The dead man’s skin had the look of old, yellowing paper and his wide, sharp jaw was patchily stubbled with two or three days’ pale growth. The emaciation made fixing the dead man’s age difficult, but there was something about the face and the patchy stubble that suggested youth. His lips were slightly parted, as if he were about to speak, and one hand seemed to grasp at something in the air. Something invisible to the living.
‘He can’t have been here long,’ said Fabel, squatting down. ‘As far as I can see, decomposition is limited. But it’s the weirdest corpse I’ve come across in a while. He looks like he has starved to death.’ He stood up and looked around the site, his expression puzzled. ‘It took a lot of effort for someone to bury him this deep. A lot of effort and a lot of time. I don’t see how they could have done it without being noticed, even at night.’
‘They didn’t,’ said Severts. ‘There was no sign of the ground around him having been disturbed.’
Brauner bent closer to the body. He touched the face with his latex-sheathed fingers, then, sighing in frustration, he snapped off one of his forensic gloves and touched the papery skin with his naked hand. He smiled grimly and turned to Severts, who nodded knowingly.
‘He didn’t starve to death, Jan,’ said Brauner. ‘It’s lack of moisture and air that’s done this to him. He’s desiccated. Completely dried out. A mummy.’
‘What?’ Fabel crouched down again. ‘But he looks like a normal corpse. I thought mummified bodies were all brown and leathery.’
‘Only the ones you find in bogs.’ A tall, lean young man with red hair tied back in a ponytail had joined them.
‘This is Franz Brandt,’ said Severts. ‘As I told you, it was Franz who uncovered the body.’
Fabel stood up and shook hands with the young red-haired man.
‘When I first saw him I suspected right away that he had been mummified.’ Brandt continued his explanation. ‘Dr Severts here is a leading expert on the subject and I have a great interest in mummies myself. The bog bodies you’re thinking about go through a different process entirely: the acids and the tannin in peat bogs tan the skin of the bodies within them. They literally turn into leather bags: sometimes all that’s left is their hide, while the internal organs and even the bones can dissolve to nothing.’ He nodded towards the body. ‘This fellow has the appearance of a desert mummy. The emaciated appearance and the parchment texture of the skin… he’s been dried out almost immediately in an oxygen-deprived environment.’