‘This isn’t about your moral well-being, Christa. It’s about placing yourself in danger. You study medicine. Surely you know the risks. To your health, I mean.’
‘And because I study medicine I know how to look after myself. Listen, Herr Fabel, I don’t have to justify myself to you. Women have been exploited by men for centuries. I’m doing a little exploiting back.’ Despite the defiance, Fabel could see that Christa had been badly shaken by what she’d gone through in the last hour or so. He didn’t even know why he was getting into this with her. As she had said, it wasn’t his business. He decided to drop it.
‘It’s your life, Christa…’ Fabel sighed. He looked at the notes before him. ‘Listen, I know this is very hard for you, but I need you to try to remember if there was anything else you saw or heard that you maybe haven’t mentioned in your statement. You saw no one come out of the courtyard? I mean, as you made your way in?’
‘No. No one. It’s not that I’ve forgotten or didn’t notice. I’m sure there was no one there. I use that alley if I’m in a hurry. It cuts across from Erichstrasse through the courtyard. You’ve always got to be on your toes for creeps, so I was paying attention. There was no one.’
‘But that doesn’t make sense. You must have got there moments after the attack.’
‘I was, if the rate of his blood loss was anything to go by. But that doesn’t change the fact that I saw no one come into or go out of the alley.’
‘I heard that you carried out first aid. I take it your medical training kicked in?’
‘For what it was worth, which wasn’t much. He’ll be dead by now. Whoever did that to him was very skilled. A single cut that eviscerated him. It was like the Japanese suicide cut — you know, the seppuku. Straight and very deep. From the amount of bleeding I reckon the abdominal aorta had been nicked. They won’t be able to repair it before he bleeds out.’ Fabel watched Christa’s guileless youthful face as she spoke about a man’s death: her description was clinical, but her voice shook as she spoke and her hands kneaded the woollen hat on her lap more vigorously.
‘What did he say to you?’
‘I’ve already told them. Before.’
‘I’d like to hear it again, if you don’t mind, Christa.’
‘He was nearly unconscious when I got to him. Shivering. All he said was: “It was a woman. She said she was the Angel.” He was speaking in English. It’s funny, I didn’t recognise him. I didn’t know he was who he was until they told me. All I saw was… I suppose all I saw was a man dying.’ She looked at Fabel earnestly. ‘I’ve never seen anyone die before. I guess I’ll have to get used to it.’
‘You never do.’
When Fabel had no more questions and long after Christa had no more answers, he told her he would arrange for a police car to take her home. She asked if she could be taken to her parents’ house in Barmbek.
‘Can they drop me at the end of the street?’ she asked. ‘My parents… they don’t know anything about what I do…’
After Christa left, Martina Schilmann came into the conference room. She was wearing an expensive-looking dark blue business suit and her blonde hair was gathered up behind her head in a French plait. Looking at her now, for the first time in three years, Fabel remembered why he had found her so attractive. Martina was carrying two mugs of coffee. She placed one in front of Fabel.
‘At least I remember where the canteen is,’ she said, and smiled. ‘Hello, Jan, how are you?’
‘I’m fine.’ He returned her smile weakly. ‘And you?’
‘You sure you’re okay?’
‘Yeah… sorry. Just thinking about doomed youth.’
‘Oh God, I know… the “Happy Hooker”. Did she try to convince you that she was content in her work too? Kidding herself. She is tough, though. I was the first on the scene after her. She was doing a pretty good job of not going to pieces. But it is depressing. She’s just a kid. God knows I saw lots just like her when I was working this beat. Anyway, it’s good to see you again. How have you been?’
‘Fine. You look prosperous.’
‘Business has been good.’ Martina’s expression darkened. ‘Until now. I just can’t believe that we’ve lost one. This could be the end for me. I mean, that’s the whole point of the bloody exercise: to guard someone’s body. Who’s going to want to hire us now?’
‘From what I’ve heard, Martina, you’ve built Schilmann Security into one of Europe’s biggest personal- protection businesses. I would think this is a storm you could weather. Actually, I was surprised when I heard you were personally involved with Westland’s protection. I would have thought you’d be on an ethereal executive level now, guiding lesser mortals from the clouds.’
‘I’m a control freak. Hands-on. Too much hands-on, if I’m honest. We were short-staffed this weekend as well. I’ve got a big Russian tycoon coming in next month and I had to send half my team to liaise with his regular security people. God, I hope I’ve got a big Russian tycoon coming next month. When he gets wind of this he’ll probably tell me to stick it. Anyway, never mind that: are you still involved with the beautiful Dr Eckhardt?’
‘Yep,’ said Fabel. ‘Still involved.’
‘Pity,’ said Martina mischievously.
‘What was the story with Westland?’ asked Fabel. ‘How come he gave you the slip?’
‘What can I tell you? The usual rock-star megalomania. They pay us thousands of euros a day to keep them safe, then think it’s all a game. Sometimes I think we’re there for the cameras more than anything. Status symbols or shit like that. Westland was an arsehole. No big surprise there… He spent half the tour drunk and the other half chasing nineteen-year-old girls. The guy’s in his fifties, for Christ’s sake. To be honest, we saw him as a relatively low risk. Fending off drunks, persistent autograph hunters, paparazzi, that kind of thing. Anyway, we did a double- up on him, me and Lorenz. Lorenz is all bulk and no brains but he’s good for visible presence, if you know what I mean, even if he is getting on a bit. And, like I said, not one of nature’s great thinkers. He’s a Saxon from Gorlitz, bless him. Ex-Volkspolizei. Still calls a hamburger a Grilletta and probably jerks off to pictures of Katja Witt wearing a Free German Youth blouse.’
Fabel laughed. ‘You’re pretty scathing for someone from the East yourself.’
‘I’m from Mecklenburg — a totally different proposition from the Valley of the Clueless,’ said Martina with a smug grin, referring to the parts of the former East Germany which had not been able to pick up West German TV before the Wall came down. It was an affectionate jibe: it was exactly in the ‘Valley of the Clueless’ that the Monday Demonstrations had begun the peaceful mass protest movement that ultimately brought down the Communist regime.
‘Anyway,’ continued Martina, ‘we were taking Westland back to the Hotel Vierjahrzeiten from a concert at the Sporthalle arena when he pipes up that he’d like to see the Reeperbahn, never been there, heard all about it, the Beatles, all that crap. I tell him it’s not what it’s cracked up to be and anyway it’s not on the route to the hotel but he makes a fuss and we end up taking him on a brief guided tour.’
‘I would have thought he would have been too tired after a concert,’ said Fabel.
‘Yeah, well… he seemed pretty lively. He was doing a lot of sniffing in the back of the car and I don’t think he had a cold, if you catch my drift. No doubt it’ll all come out in the autopsy. The funny thing was he had pissed off a few people by refusing to attend the post-concert party — tells them he’s too tired and then badgers us to take him to the Reeperbahn. Anyway, we do the tour thing but all Westland is interested in is seeing Herbertstrasse and he starts giggling like a schoolgirl. So we take him. Of course, because it’s Herbertstrasse and because I’m a woman, I can’t go in so I drop him and Lorenz at one end and go and wait at the other. The Davidwache end. Naturally, Westland finds it easy to bewilder Lorenz and all the time I think he’s with Westland he’s actually just standing around like an idiot waiting for him at the far end. Next thing I know Westland’s trying to repack his intestines and my business is down the tubes.’
‘You say he was pretty insistent about going to Herbertstrasse. Specifically Herbertstrasse and not Grosse Freiheit. Do you think there’s any chance it was prearranged? That maybe he had agreed to meet someone after losing you by cutting through Herbertstrasse?’
Martina furrowed her brow in thought for a moment. ‘I doubt it. Could be, I suppose, but it all seemed pretty spontaneous to me.’
‘It’s just that it seems odd. If Westland was looking for a little bit of cheap excitement, then why go to the bother of giving you the slip where he did? I find it strange that he didn’t just go with one of the window girls. You say he told you he had never been to Herbertstrasse before?’
