Grueber seemed to sense her fear. He frowned and there was both anger and sadness in his expression. He reached out and stroked her cheek.
‘I’m not going to hurt you, Maria,’ he said. ‘I would never, ever hurt you. I am not a psychopath. I don’t kill without reason. You should realise that by now. I have been given the gift to see through the veils that separate each life, each existence. And because of that I value life more – not less. The ones who died… they deserved it. But not you. And not Fabel. That’s why I didn’t detonate the bomb I planted in his car. You see, we are all bound together. In each life, we all come together again to resolve that which has been left over from our last incarnation. You, me, Fabel – we have all been here before and we shall be here again. Don’t worry, Maria. I won’t hurt you. It’s just that I can’t let you disturb what must happen tonight. Tonight my vengeance shall be complete.’
‘Frank,’ said Maria. ‘No more killing. Let it end here. I’ll look after you. I’ll help you.’
Grueber smiled at her again. ‘Sweet Maria, you don’t understand, do you? All that I have learned in this lifetime, all the skills I have gained, have been acquired so that I can finish what I must finish tonight.’ He took her by the arm and led her over to the thick semi-opaque sheets.
‘I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about. You have seen my reconstruction work. Where I rebuild the dead, applying layer on layer, giving flesh and substance and skin to them. Restoring their identity. Well, I can do the same in reverse – removing the layers from the living. Destroying their identity…’
Grueber pulled back the thick plastic curtain. Maria heard a shrill sound fill the cellar and realised it was her own scream.
10.03 p.m.: Police Presidium, Hamburg
‘Henk’s found something out,’ said Anna.
‘Okay,’ said Fabel, leaning back in his chair. ‘Let’s have it…’
‘Like you asked, we’ve been going over Brandt’s history and that of his mother, Beate. Frank Grueber over at forensics has, as you already know, confirmed Franz Brandt’s paternity. He is definitely the son of Franz Muhlhaus.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ said Fabel wearily.
‘Franz Muhlhaus may have been his father, but he was not adopted by Beate Brandt.’ Henk dropped a photocopy onto Fabel’s desk. ‘Birth certificate for Franz Karl Brandt. Father unknown. Mother Beate Maria Brandt, at that time resident at twenty-two Hubertusstrasse, Niendorf, Hamburg. She didn’t adopt him. He told us the truth: she is his natural mother. He maybe doesn’t even know that Red Franz Muhlhaus is his natural father. There is absolutely nothing to link Beate Brandt to Red Franz Muhlhaus or to suggest that she was a radical of any kind in the nineteen seventies or nineteen eighties. But the DNA proves that she had a child with him.
‘Where that leaves us is with Franz Brandt being Muhlhaus’s son. But not Michaela Schwenn’s son. And that, in turn, means he wasn’t the small boy on the platform in Nordenham with his hair dyed black.’
‘A brother?’
‘We know that Muhlhaus had sexual relationships with many of his female followers, as well as with other women who may not have been connected to his movement. It could be that our killer is a half-brother who Brandt probably doesn’t even know exists,’ said Anna.
‘But wait a minute,’ said Fabel. ‘You’re forgetting that Brandt left a bomb in his girlfriend’s apartment to blow us all to pieces.’
‘And then he and his girlfriend walk straight into our hands,’ said Henk. ‘You said yourself that it seemed strange. My guess is that he didn’t know anything about the bomb.’
‘ Shit,’ said Fabel, in English. ‘That means the killer is still out there. We have to find out what happened to that kid on the platform.’
‘That’s what I meant when I said we were coming at it from the wrong direction,’ said Henk. ‘We were trying to prove that Brandt was the son we were looking for. Working the connection backwards. We’ll have to check the adoption files again. This time searching for the surname Schwenn.’
‘I have the access codes here.’ Anna waved her notebook. ‘May I use your computer?’
Pushing Ingrid Fischmann’s information file to one side, Fabel stood up and let Anna take his seat. She logged onto the database and entered her search criteria: the name ‘Schwenn’ and the time-frame of 1985 to 1988.
‘Got it!’ she said. ‘I’ve got four names here. Two are nineteen eighty-six adoptions. It’ll be one of these…’ Anna clicked on the first file. ‘Nope – this is a four-year-old girl.’ She clicked on the next. ‘This is a possible… no… the age is wrong.’ She hit the third file.
It was Anna’s expression that shook Fabel. He had expected her usual grin of insolent satisfaction at having nailed a crucial piece of evidence. But she stood up suddenly and Fabel noticed that her face had drained of colour.
‘What is it, Anna?’ asked Fabel.
‘Maria…’ It was as if every muscle in Anna’s face had pulled itself taut. ‘Where is Maria?’
‘I sent her home. She had a migraine,’ said Fabel. ‘She’ll be back tomorrow morning.’
‘We’ve got to find her, Chef. We’ve got to find her now.’
10.05 p.m.: Osdorf, Hamburg
‘Fascinating, is it not?’
Maria did not hear Grueber’s question. Her ears seemed to ring, every nerve seemed to burn as she looked down at the male body lying on the metal trestle table. It was naked. Naked not only of clothes, but also of skin. It was sculpted from raw, red sinew. Small round droplets of blood dotted the aluminium surface of the table that supported it.
‘I have invested heavily in making this working environment perfect.’ Grueber did not rant nor rave. Maria gauged the scale of his madness from his measured, conversational tone. ‘I spent a fortune on soundproofing this cellar. The contractors were told that I would be operating noisy equipment down here. That is why I have had to install the air pump and temperature control. When the door is closed, this is totally airtight and soundproof. Which is just as well, because he’ – Grueber indicated the figure on the table, stripped of its skin, of its humanity – ‘screamed like a girl.’
Maria’s head pounded and she felt sick.
‘Oh, sorry – this is Cornelius Tamm.’ Grueber apologised as if he had forgotten to introduce someone at a cocktail party. ‘You know, the singer.’
‘Why?’ Maria found the word from somewhere.
‘Why? Why did I do this? Because he betrayed me. They all did. They did a deal with the fascist authorities and sold me. My life. Piet van Hoogstraat was the only other person the police knew about, so they sent him to identify me. But it was Paul Scheibe who negotiated it all, from a safe distance. The others went along with it. Even Cornelius. My friend.’ He turned to Maria. There was the hint of tears in his eyes. ‘I died, Maria. I died.’ He rested a hand on his chest. ‘I can still feel where the bullets hit me. I saw you die, and then I died, kneeling on that railway platform.’
‘What are you talking about? What do you mean, you died? Who do you think you are, Frank?’
Grueber straightened his back. ‘I am Red Franz. I am eternal. I have lived for nearly two thousand years. And probably before that, but I cannot yet remember. I was a warrior who gave up his life as a sacrifice for his people, for the Earth to renew. Twice. Once over a millennium and a half ago, the second time as Red Franz Muhlhaus.’