4
Fabel headed into the Police Presidium early, driving through Winterhude just as the sun was coming up. The sky was clear and the lying snow had been crisped by the overnight frost. Fabel loved it when it was like this. Since he was a boy, he had been a winter person.
When he arrived at his office he checked the internal email and found there was a reminder from van Heiden about the conference on violence against women. Another reminder. Fabel typed in a brief response explaining he needed a meeting with van Heiden urgently. He also left messages for Anna and Werner that he wanted to see them as soon as they came in.
Fabel opened his desk drawer and took out the sketch pad, laid it on his desktop and flipped it open. He stared at the empty, clean expanse of white paper and sighed. It always started this way. Fabel had used these sketch pads for fifteen years of murder investigations. Singles, multiples, serials. No one except Fabel ever saw these pads. For Fabel, this was a completely different exercise from the plotting of an investigation on an incident board. This exercise had nothing to do with a team effort: it was the externalisation of his thought processes. These clean pages would fill with names, times, places: all connected by a web of lines. Alongside them would be phrases, press cuttings, quotes from statements. And ideas: foul, dark ideas. Fabel remembered how once, when investigating a serial-murder case, he had come across the notebook of the killer: obsessively neat but tangled threads connecting; words underlined, scored out, circled, triple question-marked. It had chilled Fabel to the bone to see how similar the insane methodology of the killer was to his own.
Fabel took a marker and at the top of the page wrote in block capitals the name ANGEL, followed by three question marks. Then he noted, on opposite sides of the page, the names of the two St Pauli victims. Then, referring to the case files and his notebook, be began plotting out the key elements of the case. But as he did so, another case kept shouldering itself into his way: that of the dead Danish policeman. He tried to shake it clear of his mind: it wasn’t even a case yet, although Moller, the forensic pathologist at Butenfeld, had grudgingly promised that the autopsy results would be available about lunchtime. He thought back to Karin Vestergaard and remembered that she had been beautiful, yet somehow he could not picture her face.
His reflections were interrupted by the arrival of Anna Wolff and Werner Meyer in his office. He closed over the sketch pad and put it back into his desk drawer, asking Anna and Werner to sit as he did so.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Where are we?’
‘I went to see Viola Dahlke’s husband,’ said Werner. ‘That was tough. Nice guy, ordinary family. Had no idea his wife had a secret life.’
‘I take it you didn’t enlighten him about the nature of that life?’
Werner frowned. ‘Give me some credit. But she sure has a lot of explaining to do. Anyway, her husband confirms that she was at home the night Westland was killed. I take it we can let her go.’
‘A spousal alibi isn’t enough in itself,’ said Fabel. ‘But we don’t have enough to go for an extension of detention. And anyway, I’m convinced both St Pauli killings are the work of the same person and we know for a fact that Viola Dahlke did not commit the second one.’
‘I’ve checked all the taxi drivers working St Pauli the night Lensch was killed — three of whom were women. None of them picked him up or remember him at a rank or trying to flag a taxi. So it looks like it was our woman.’
‘Almost like she was targeting Lensch or someone like him,’ said Fabel.
‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ said Anna. ‘Her choice of victims so far has been pretty diverse. Westland was a celebrity, a foreigner and in his fifties. Lensch was a nobody, a German national and in his early thirties. The only thing that I can see they shared was that they were both male and they both happened to be in the Kiez.’
‘Maybe that’s all she needed. But the whole thing with the taxi is odd. No one has a car that colour, especially an E-class Merc, unless they’re in the taxi business. This is a highly organised killer. Why go to all of that trouble and then pick a victim at random?’ Fabel sighed. ‘What about CCTV — anything?’
‘Not so far. I’ve got that rather hunky uniform from Davidwache going through it.’
‘Why?’ asked Fabel. ‘Shouldn’t you do that yourself?’
‘Listen, I’m not dodging out of anything. It’s just that Wangler has been on that beat for four years. He knows every inch of it, including where each camera is. That Mercedes must have been picked up somewhere on the way in or out. If anyone can find it and find it quickly, then it’s Wangler.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Fabel held up his hands defensively. ‘Did you check out Jurgen Mann?’ he asked, referring to the witness who had approached Carstens Kaminski.
‘Yep,’ said Anna. ‘He checks out. One conviction for cannabis possession; nothing else. He’s a dying breed, apparently.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘According to Wangler-’
‘Your new best chum,’ interrupted Werner.
‘I wish…’ Anna sighed. ‘Anyway, according to Wangler, there are fewer and fewer creeps like Mann in the Kiez these days. With all the CCTV in the Reeperbahn, even if it is supposed to be strategically sited, no one wants to be seen going into or coming out of a brothel these days. It’s all call girls, online escort agencies, that kind of stuff. Wangler says that, compared to the past, street girls are struggling for custom these days. Added to which there is a steady supply of trafficked women being brought into the unregulated prostitution business elsewhere in the city.’
‘Against their will, for the most part,’ said Fabel.
‘Maybe so, but when you’re a sleazeball paying for sex,’ said Anna, ‘you’re not the kind of person who cares if your chicken is free-range or battery, if you know what I mean. Anyway, there are fewer punters on the street. Nowadays the Kiez is full of the Armin Lensches of this world, getting pissed and getting into trouble. For what it’s worth, I think Mann was on the level. I think he genuinely believes he came face to face with the Angel. But again we’ve got no CCTV to back up his claim.’
‘Okay…’ Fabel paused and leaned back in his chair. ‘Listen, we have a guest. A colleague from Denmark. I’ve asked her to come into the Presidium this afternoon. I’d like you to talk to her, Anna. You too, Werner.’
‘A PR job?’ asked Anna. ‘Of course I will. After all, we all know that I’m a natural diplomat.’
‘That’s not why I’m asking you to talk to her, Anna. Her name is Karin Vestergaard and she’s a senior officer in the Danish National Police. More senior in rank than me.’
‘Is this to do with the Dane who died from a heart attack?’ asked Werner.
Anna exchanged a knowing glance with Fabel. ‘ Supposed to have died from a heart attack,’ she said.
‘ Politidirektor Vestergaard has exactly the same kind of suspicions that you did, Anna. And she has some evidence to base them on. I’d like you to talk to her because you picked up on the Jespersen death.’
‘So it was murder?’ asked Werner.
‘We’ll know by lunchtime, hopefully. If Moller does his job.’
‘Moller may be a wanker,’ said Werner. ‘But he’s one of the best pathologists I’ve ever worked with.’
‘Well, Frau Vestergaard was able to point us in a couple of specific directions. Listen, I don’t want to get into it all now but there’s all kinds of serious stuff going on in Jespersen’s background. And if the autopsy comes back with anything suspicious, then Jespersen’s death becomes an active case. If he was murdered, then it’s a major investigation with all kinds of implications. The main thing is, Anna, it was your catch — a good catch.’
‘So what’s she like?’ asked Werner. ‘This Danish cop, I mean?’
‘Wear your gloves when you shake hands with her,’ said Fabel. ‘Otherwise you’ll get frostbite…’