Armin walked on, his internal rage and the ache from his groin making him blind to all around him. He stopped. Where the fuck was he? He had thought he knew his way around the Kiez well enough, but he must have taken a wrong turning. He took a moment to reorient himself and took the next right. He saw the Reeperbahn ahead of him but he was further up than Spielbudenplatz. Still, it wouldn’t be difficult to find a taxi. At that moment he caught sight of a beige Mercedes and his hand went up. An automatic reaction: in Germany, all taxis were beige; all beige cars were taxis. He eased himself with a moan into the back seat.
‘Eppendorf…’ he said between his teeth.
‘Are you okay?’ asked the driver. ‘You don’t look well.’
Fucking great, thought Armin. A female taxi driver.
‘Just take me to Eppendorf,’ he said. The woman driver shrugged, started the car and took a left into the Reeperbahn.
It was only after she took the wrong turning at the end of the Reeperbahn and he realised that they were down by the river that Armin noticed that there was no meter in the front of the taxi; nor was there a certificate on display with the driver’s name, photograph and City of Hamburg licence.
By which time it was too late.
4
Fabel felt exhausted. It had been a much more gruelling experience than he had expected. Susanne had come along too and he had been grateful for her presence.
‘That was very worthwhile,’ said a tall, thin woman of about fifty as she approached Fabel. She had a name badge that informed him she was Hille Deicher, representing Muliebritas. ‘I hope you can take something useful away from our workshop.’
Fabel smiled. He could never understand why business people, self-help gurus and others insisted on calling conferences ‘workshops’. No one made anything. None of the people who attended these things worked with their hands.
‘It was interesting,’ said Fabel. ‘But I hope I made it clear that the Polizei Hamburg needs no prompting to deal with the issue of domestic violence, or violence against women in general. We are very
…’ He struggled for the word.
‘Proactive,’ interjected Susanne helpfully.
‘Quite,’ said Fabel. ‘We’ve been running an anti-violence programme for several years now. We do, I assure you, have a zero-tolerance attitude when it comes to violence against women or children. And we have one of the most successful records in Europe in dealing with the issue. But I have to say that we are committed to protecting all of Hamburg’s citizens, regardless of gender. Or ethnicity.’
‘I’m afraid that crime isn’t as gender-blind,’ said Deicher. ‘You said yourself in your presentation that the vast majority of murders are men killing women, and the vast majority of those are within the domestic environment. Add to that the countless assaults on women in their own homes.’
‘All that is true.’ Fabel shot a pleading glance at Susanne. ‘And we have, as I said, made it a priority area.’
‘Maybe that’s why this woman in St Pauli is committing these murders.’ Deicher smiled without warmth. ‘Maybe she’s motivated to redress the balance of male-on-female violence. After all, I can’t think of a better place for her to go about it. It is a farce that there is a street in Hamburg to which women are forbidden entry.’
‘Listen, Frau Deicher,’ Fabel felt himself suddenly angry. ‘It isn’t the police or the state that-’
‘What does Muliebritas mean?’ Susanne interrupted Fabel, directing her question, and her smile, at Deicher.
‘It is the Latin form of “muliebrity”. You know, the quality of being female. It is the name of the magazine I work for. And the charity we support.’ She looked pointedly back at Fabel. ‘We organise emergency accommodation for women subject to domestic violence.’
‘That’s an interesting name,’ said Susanne, still smiling. ‘Is that where the Spanish mujer comes from?’
Somehow, Susanne managed to steer the conversation into calmer waters and, after a while, Deicher drifted off to mingle with other delegates.
‘Thanks for that,’ said Fabel when Deicher was gone. ‘That woman was really beginning to wind me up. I don’t know why they insisted on sending me to this.’
‘Because you’re the head of Hamburg’s Murder Commission, and, like it or not, what Frau Deicher was saying is true: we still live in a society where women are victimised by violence. Anyway, I thought you did really well.’ Susanne smiled and straightened his tie, as if she were about to send him off to school. ‘Especially because women get you all flustered.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Fabel indignantly.
‘Well, you do. It’s pretty clear you think we’re from a completely different planet. But don’t worry about it, most men are the same.’
Fabel was about to respond when his cellphone buzzed. He checked the call screener. It was the Murder Commission.
‘Sorry,’ he said with a shrug as he lifted the phone to his ear. ‘Probably another murder.’
‘If it is,’ said Susanne, ‘even with all of these Angel killings at the moment, I’ll bet the victim is female…’
5
Fabel met Anna and Werner in the hallway outside the interview room. Both officers wore an expression that was less than triumphant.
‘Tell me this is our killer…’ said Fabel.
‘She looked good for it, Jan,’ said Werner. ‘She looked really good. She lured me onto waste ground and out of sight. She didn’t seem to know the drill for a hooker and when she reached inside her coat we took her down.’
‘But?’
‘Her name is Viola Dahlke,’ explained Anna. ‘She’s forty-five and has no previous convictions. She’s a housewife from Billstedt.’
‘That doesn’t mean she’s not our killer. Did you get a knife?’
‘No,’ said Anna. ‘When she reached inside her coat Werner and I both thought that she was going for a knife, but it turned out to be a packet of condoms.’
‘Condoms?’
‘Nothing else,’ said Anna. ‘Don’t ask me what a forty-five-year-old housewife from Billstedt was doing in the red-light district offering to ring Werner’s bell.’
‘All right,’ said Fabel, ‘I won’t. I’ll go and ask her myself…’
Arrest is a deprivation of choice. You are removed to a place not of your choosing and your freedom to leave that place is taken from you. Career criminals accept arrest as a natural element of their lives, even the ones who fight and struggle every centimetre to the cells. For everyone else, the experience of arrest is traumatic. At the very least surreal.
Fabel could tell at first glance that Viola Dahlke had never been in custody before. There was a good chance she’d never even set foot inside a police station before, far less the Police Presidium. Dahlke looked startled, confused. Afraid. Her face was pale behind her overdone make-up and the stark lighting of the interview room seemed to jaundice her pallor and deepen the shadows under her cheekbones. Her hair was the dull putty-blonde that many North German women dyed their hair when it started to lose its natural colour and pulled up into a ponytail. The make-up and the hairstyle looked all wrong on her, like an outfit that didn’t fit right.
‘Frau Dahlke, I take it it has been explained to you that under the terms of Article One-Three-Six of the Criminal Procedure Code you have the right to remain silent. You also have the right to a legal representative. Do you understand these rights?’
Viola Dahlke nodded. She looked as if she was carrying the world on her shoulders and was resigned to the burden. ‘I don’t want a lawyer. I want to go home. I’m sorry. If I’ve broken the law I’ll pay the fine. I didn’t mean any harm. I’m not really… I’m not really one of those women.’
‘Frau Dahlke, I don’t think you understand. We’re not interested in whether you are a prostitute, full-time, part-time or not at all. I am Principal Detective Chief Commissar Fabel of the Murder Commission. The officers who arrested you were murder detectives.’