‘Not that we know about. She seems to be very active in environmental management and technologies. She helps other corporations become greener. It’s a big business now.’
‘I’ve arranged a meeting with her this afternoon,’ said Fabel. ‘Believe me, it wasn’t easy. But this morning we don’t have far to travel…’
Fabel was as good as his word: the Hamburg State Police Academy on Braamkamp was less than a kilometre distant from the Police Presidium. It was here that officers were shaped for command and developments in policing analysed, developed and passed on to the city’s officers. It was a building Fabel was only too familiar with. When he arrived the main hallway was filled with between-classes students. He found himself thinking about his daughter Gabi and how her recently announced decision could lead her here too.
Principal Commissar Michael Lange was not an officer whom Fabel had encountered before. From what Fabel had been able to find out, Lange had started off in the Polizei Schleswig-Holstein and had transferred to the Polizei Hamburg early in his career. He was now a lecturer in the Hamburg State Police Academy; but it was Lange’s experience early in his career that brought Fabel to his door.
The older uniformed officer at reception directed Fabel and Vestergaard up to the first floor of the Academy. A tall, lean man in a blue Hamburg Schutzpolizei uniform was leaning into the corridor from his office, clearly watching out for Fabel after having been told of his arrival by reception.
‘Principal Chief Commissar Fabel?’ Lange smiled and extended his hand as Fabel approached. Lange was about forty but Fabel felt he had the eyes of an older man. But that was maybe just because he knew of Lange’s experience.
‘Call me Jan,’ said Fabel. ‘This is Politidirektor Karin Vestergaard of the Danish National Police. Could we speak in English? It would save me a lot of translating.’
‘Sure,’ said Lange. ‘I just hope my English is good enough.’
‘Thanks for arranging to see me so soon,’ said Fabel. ‘It’s just that the case I’m working on has a Balkan connection and Anna Wolff, whom I believe you know, suggested I should talk to you.’
‘I’ll help if I can,’ said Lange. ‘You said on the phone you were looking into Goran Vuja i c ’s death. And his background. Of course his death wasn’t in our jurisdiction but in yours, Frau Vestergaard.’
‘Vujaic ’s death may not have been in our jurisdiction, but the murder of the Danish detective who was investigating it is,’ said Fabel. ‘He was one of Frau Vestergaard’s officers. We suspect that the Danish officer was murdered by the same professional assassin who took out Vuja i c. I take it you understand that this must stay between us, Michael?’
‘Of course.’
‘We suspect that this person is a contract killer, based here in Hamburg. And that makes everything our jurisdiction.’
Lange pursed his lips meditatively. ‘You’re right. We do have jurisdiction under Section Seven of the Criminal Code if the perpetrator is a German national. And you say no one outside the Commission is aware of this? What about top brass — shouldn’t they be told?’
‘The Police President has been briefed,’ said Fabel. ‘But at the moment we’re keeping it tight. There’s been another murder, committed by someone else, but it is related to the investigation and we’re trying to keep it quiet until we flush out this killer.’
‘And you think there may be something in Vujaic ’s background that could point you in the direction of more solid evidence?’
‘Truth is, I don’t know. But if this Valkyrie — that’s what this contract assassin is supposed to be code-named — if this Valkyrie is based here, then he or she would have a pretty good motive for taking Jespersen out of the equation. And Vuja i c is the connection.’
‘Okay, I’m glad to help if I can. The jurisdiction issue may not be an issue at all. But I only know about three years of Vuja i c ’s life. The three years he was active in the Bosnian War. And even then Vuja i c was not a leading figure. More a footnote in the diary of atrocity, so to speak. We never got enough to indict him, mainly because he successfully argued a special defence of alibi. He had gall, I’ll say that. He never tried to hide, like most of the others. But there again, that actually worked in his favour. Flight is a judicially acceptable indicator of possible guilt.’
‘So you think he was innocent?’
‘Like hell. Goran Vuja i c was clever and more than a little lucky. I wasn’t personally involved in his case, but I was able to access the files through OSCE.’ Lange referred to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. ‘Vuja i c had already assembled a gang around him. The writing was on the wall as soon as NATO got involved in the conflict and I think that Vuja i c started to look at the bigger picture. But Vuja i c was there. In the rape camps. In the forests by the mass graves. He was up to his elbows in it all, except that he had half a dozen affidavits swearing he was lying wounded in a hospital bed in Banja Luka.’
‘This unit or gang of his… Petra Meissner of the Sabine Charity told me they called themselves the Dogheads or something.’
‘Yep. Psoglav. It’s Serbian for “doghead”, but it’s also a mythical creature that Serbs — Bosnian Serbs in particular — used to believe in. A pagan demon or werewolf-type thing. The Psoglav unit was little more than an organised-crime gang and that’s exactly what it became after the conflict. There was talk — little more than a rumour, mind — that Vuja i c and his Psoglav chums got heavily involved in people trafficking after the Bosnian War. All kinds of bad stuff: organ farming, selling women into the sex trade, slave-labour sweatshops, that kind of thing. But you’d have to talk to the Europol organised-crime division about that. As far as I’m aware, Vuja i c was not directly active in Northern Europe. Sorry, that’s not that helpful, is it?’
‘I appreciate it anyway,’ said Fabel.
‘One thing I would say,’ said Lange, ‘is that Vuja i c was one of the most evil sons of bitches to walk the earth. The stories about what he did to Bosniaks, Croats and ethnic Albanians
… particularly what he did to women. I tell you, I saw more than my fair share of beasts out there, and Vuja i c was right up there with the worst of them. Unfortunately it’s not always about who deserves justice most, but about who you can get the evidence on. Vuja i c was such a cunning little bastard that we never had anything more than rumour on him. It’s not a very policeman-like thing to say, but when he got topped my first reaction was that he got what he deserved. The only pity is that he didn’t suffer the same way the people who fell into his hands did.’
Fabel nodded, watching Lange. There are some things, he thought, even in this job, that it’s better not to see. To know. At that moment he knew he was talking to someone whose dreams were even darker, even more terrifying, than his own.
‘Thanks, Michael,’ said Fabel. ‘If anything else comes to mind, please let me know.’
Fabel and Karin Vestergaard had just stepped through the revolving doors and into the bright double-storey reception atrium of the Police Presidium in Alsterdorf when they were stopped in their tracks by a determined- looking Anna Wolff.
‘Don’t take your coats off,’ she said, with a grin. ‘We’ll take your car, Chef. I’ll give you directions. There’s someone I want you to meet…’
The cafe Anna took them to was in the Sachsentor pedestrian zone in Hamburg-Bergedorf. When they arrived, a young woman with a pretty but rather severe face and long dark hair was waiting for them. Sandra Kraus sat with a huge canvas bag at her side, the strap still over her shoulder, and tapped the cafe table with the tips of her fingers as Fabel, Vestergaard and Anna approached, almost as if she was announcing their arrival with a drum roll. She didn’t stand up but smiled at them. Fabel noticed that it was like when Karin Vestergaard smiled: nothing of it seemed to reach the eyes.
‘I’ve known Sandra since we were kids,’ said Anna after she had done the introductions. ‘She was the smartest student in the whole school. And she is an absolutely brilliant cryptologist.’
‘Really?’ said Fabel with genuine interest but looking questioningly at Anna. He was slightly distracted as Kraus drummed her fingers again on the tabletop. He turned to her and found the intensity of her gaze disturbing, as if she was looking at him as an object rather than a person.
‘Yes — really,’ said Anna, with more than a hint of defiance. ‘And trust me, bringing you here to meet Sandra isn’t a waste of time. I gave her a copy of Muliebritas. The same issue we found in Drescher’s flat.’
‘Does she know…?’
Anna shook her head. ‘You told us to keep a lid on the Drescher thing and that’s exactly what I’ve done.
