‘We’re not looking in the right places,’ said Werner. ‘We’re not devious enough. That’s what comes of growing up in a democracy.’
Fabel snapped his fingers. ‘Werner, you’re brilliant. You are absolutely right — we don’t know where to look. Or how to look.’ Taking out his wallet, he retrieved the business card Martina Schilmann had given him. He flipped it over to where she had handwritten her mobile number and keyed it into his cellphone.
‘Martina… It’s Jan Fabel.’
‘Hi, Jan. What can I do for you?’
‘Lorenz, your Saxon chum. You said he was ex-Volkspolizei.’
‘Yes, what of it?’
‘Did he serve after the Wall came down? In one of the new forces?’
‘No.’ Martina sounded suspicious. ‘What is this all about?’
‘Why didn’t he continue his police career?’
‘Jan,’ she said, with a sigh, ‘I can see where you’re going with this. Let me save time. The answer is yes, he was linked with the Stasi. That’s why he couldn’t get into one of the new forces. Why do you want to know?’
‘I have an apartment here that’s refusing to give up its secrets. The occupier was ex-Stasi. I need to know where to look.’
There was a silence at the other end of the connection.
‘Give me the address,’ Martina said at last. ‘I’ll bring him over myself…’
It took Martina Schilmann half an hour to arrive. Fabel had cleared the uniforms from the street, to attract as little attention as possible. In the digital age of cellphones that could take photographs and video, it never took long before someone was on to the television or newspapers. The city was no longer asleep and a heavy police presence in the street would be fully exposed to view.
Fabel had instructed the uniformed cops downstairs to conduct Schilmann and Lorenz Duhring directly up to the penthouse apartment.
Fabel guessed that Martina had been taking a day off: she was dressed in jeans, a heavy sweater and a thigh-length leather coat. Her blonde hair had been tied back in a ponytail and her face was naked of make-up. It made her look younger, more natural, and Fabel couldn’t help remembering why he had been attracted to Martina in the first place. It was as if she had read his thoughts and she smiled shyly.
Lorenz lumbered into the background: tall, thickset and dark.
‘This is Politidirektor Karin Vestergaard of the Danish National Police,’ explained Fabel in English. ‘We are cooperating on this case.’
The two women shook hands. A little coldly, thought Fabel. The dynamics of female relationships remained a mystery to him.
‘I’m afraid Lorenz doesn’t speak English,’ said Martina. ‘Poor chump got stuck with Russian at school.’
Fabel turned to Vestergaard. ‘Lorenz was a policeman in the former GDR. In the Volkspolizei. He wasn’t allowed to become a member of the new, post-change police forces because only members of the Volkspolizei who were free of any connection to the Stasi were allowed to continue as policemen.’
‘He’s ex-Stasi?’
‘He was one of their little helpers, let’s say,’ said Martina. ‘And he received training from them, which is what Jan was counting on. By the way, Jan, for your information, I didn’t know what Lorenz had been involved in. I guessed he’d been a Stasi unofficial, but, let’s face it, it’s a skills set that’s very useful in my line of work. I asked him on the way over here if he had taken part in house searches and he told me he had.’
‘Frau Schilmann told me that an ex-Stasi officer lived here,’ Lorenz piped up in German.
‘That’s right,’ said Fabel. ‘A major in the HVA.’
‘HVA?’ Lorenz rubbed his heavy chin with forefinger and thumb. ‘Those boys knew what they were doing when it came to hiding stuff. You’re sure he has something here? I think it’s more likely that he would keep anything sensitive in a different location.’
‘Could be,’ said Fabel. ‘But my money’s on him operating from here.’
‘He would feel reasonably safe here, I suppose,’ said Lorenz. ‘I mean, it’s not like in the GDR. He probably thought this flat would never be searched.’ He cast his eye across the books on shelves. ‘It makes things quicker if I don’t tidy up behind me. Is that a problem?’
‘Do what you have to do,’ said Fabel.
It took Lorenz less than half an hour.
‘Like I thought,’ he said in his Saxon baritone when he came back through to the living room. ‘He felt secure here. You were right about him using this as an operational base, so I reckoned there was no point in shifting heavy furniture, bookcases, et cetera. He would want to conceal his stuff but have reasonably easy access to it.’
‘You learned that from the Stasi?’ asked Martina.
‘Journalists and writers — we were taught that they had to keep manuscripts, typewriters, that kind of thing handy. Serious dissidents and foreign agents — they were a different kettle of fish. That’s why I thought this guy might be difficult. If he was HVA. But this couldn’t have been more straightforward.’
Lorenz led them through to the study. He lifted up the deco-style bronze bird and gave the wooden base a twist. A compartment was exposed in which sat a small steel tool, almost like a nail twisted into a flattened hook. Lorenz took the hook and leant down beneath the desk. What looked to Fabel like a small chip in a floorboard was actually a perfect fit for the hook. Lorenz inserted the hook, gave it a half-twist and lifted a square of floorboard. The whole operation took less than fifteen seconds.
‘It’s nothing more than having a secret drawer,’ said Lorenz. ‘It was secure enough but easy and quick to get to. I haven’t touched anything in there.’
Fabel snapped on a pair of latex gloves and knelt down to examine the contents.
‘There’s a black laptop computer in here, along with its power supply. Also a bunch of data sticks. Nothing else — no notebooks or files. Just this…’ He eased out a copy of a magazine that had been folded lengthwise.
‘Don’t tell me he hid porn in there,’ snorted Werner.
‘Werner, go down to the flat below and ask Holger Brauner or Astrid Bremer to come up with a few large evidence bags.’ Fabel unfolded the magazine. He showed Vestergaard and Martina Schilmann the title. ‘Now I could be wrong,’ he said, ‘but I don’t really see Drescher as your typical feminist.’
‘ Muliebritas,’ Vestergaard said aloud.
‘It’s a feminist title,’ explained Fabel. ‘The title is Latin. It’s where the English word “muliebrity” comes from. The female equivalent of virility. There’s a subtle difference from femininity. We would translate it as Fraulichkeit in German. I suppose you have a Danish word for it.
‘ Kvindelighed,’ said Vestergaard.
Fabel stared at the magazine. ‘I tell you what else this is: a prime example of synchronicity. The night Jake Westland was murdered, there was a massive feminist protest in Herbertstrasse that contributed to the confusion. And it was organised by Muliebritas.’
Werner reappeared with some evidence bags. Fabel slipped the magazine into one and handed it to Vestergaard. Easing the computer and its power connector out of the recess in the floor, he placed them in a tagged evidence bag, putting the data sticks in a separate one.
He turned to Vestergaard and Martina. ‘We’ll get this stuff down to Tech Division and see if they can get into the computer. I’m guessing it’s encrypted, but the tech guys will be able to get through it. God knows how many paedophiles we’ve nicked because they thought they’d locked up their porn safe and sound.’
‘A paedophile is one thing,’ said Astrid Bremer, who had appeared behind them. ‘A professional spy is another. That is what we’ve got here, isn’t it?’
‘I think so, Astrid,’ said Fabel. ‘But from a pre-digital age. This was maybe one area he wasn’t too hot on. How are you getting on downstairs?’
‘It’ll take a while. Days, maybe. But Holger said he could spare me if you need something special up here.’
‘Anything,’ said Fabel. ‘We’ve got one killer in custody but there’s another one, maybe even two, on the loose. And she’s connected to the victim, Drescher. I need anything that can point us in the right direction.’
‘Do you think she’s been in this apartment?’
‘No. Probably not. But if there’s a trace of anybody other than the vic having been in here I want to know
