It wasn’t the ideal day for a walk by the beach.
The water of the Elbe frothed and snapped at the bitter wind that whipped at it and the dull steel-grey fog that smothered it. He had his fists rammed deep into his coat pockets and a woollen hat pulled tight over his ears, but he walked unbowed, his wet and chilled face full into the wind. He had walked here two summers ago with his wife. They had talked then about the future. About how maybe the time was right to have kids.
He stopped and watched the fog-fudged outline of a freighter slide by, further out in the Elbe, in the deep channel just beyond Ness-sand, the nature-reserve island. The freighter was dark and massive in the gloom and as it passed it sounded its horn, a low, plaintive dinosaur cry in the fog.
He had just turned back into the wind to continue his walk when he saw a figure ahead of him. Another shadow in the grey gloom. The figure was standing still, staring out at the ship. Or at nothing. He drew close. He saw the profile now and the wisps of blonde hair from under the woollen hat. A woman.
‘Hello.’
The woman gave a start and turned to face him. Her hands snapped out of her pockets and she held them at her side. For a moment he thought she was going to attack him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’
‘Walking,’ she said. ‘I was just walking.’
‘Are you all right?’
She gazed at him blankly and, for a moment, he was struck by how terribly empty her expression was. Then she smiled.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Yes, you did startle me. Not your fault. The fog.’
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ The concern in his voice was genuine.
She shrugged self-deprecatingly. ‘Truth is, I’ve got a bit lost. I parked the car somewhere…’ She waved her gloved hand vaguely along Strandweg in the direction of the ferry pier. ‘I needed some fresh air. A walk. I didn’t account for the fog being so thick.’
‘It’s not a night for walking on the beach,’ he said.
‘Then what are you doing?’ She smiled at him again. He noticed for the first time how pretty she was. Totally different from Silke, his wife, but very pretty.
‘I live near here. I know where I’m walking.’
She looked up to where Blankenese loomed in the fog, a dark mass punctuated by yellow lights. ‘You live here?’
‘Yes… just over there.’ He pointed.
‘Could you walk me back to the path then, please?’ she asked. ‘I’ve actually lost where I came through the wall onto the beach.’
‘Certainly,’ he said. He held out his hand. ‘My name’s Svend Langstrup.’
‘I’m Birta. Birta Henningsen.’
6
They had just parked outside the villa in Blankenese when they got the message that Jana Eigen’s car had been discovered in woods south of Sulldorf.
‘My God,’ said Fabel. ‘That’s just north of here. Walking distance.’
‘Jana Eigen is Anke Wollner?’ asked Vestergaard.
‘And Anke Wollner is the Valkyrie.’ He pulled his automatic from its holster and checked the magazine. ‘ Shit — she’s come back. There’s something in the house that she needs.’ He turned to van Heiden. ‘Horst, we’ve got to make sure she’s not in here. We could wait until reinforcements arrive.’
‘They didn’t do much good in the Alsterpark. Let’s go.’
Fabel gestured for van Heiden to wait and reached into the glove compartment. He took out a SIG-Sauer automatic, in a holster and wrapped in a shoulder harness. He held the weapon out to Karin Vestergaard but did not release it when she took it. Instead he turned again to van Heiden.
‘What the hell,’ said van Heiden, with a shrug.
Vestergaard took the gun, took off her coat and slipped on the holster before snapping back the carriage on the automatic and reholstering it.
By Blankenese standards, it was quite a modest property. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining room, kitchen and lounge. All of which were unoccupied. Their sweep of the house was made even more stressful by the urgent shrieking of the alarm that Fabel had set off when he had forced the door. Once they were satisfied that Anke Wollner was not at home, Fabel phoned the Presidium and asked that a forensic team be sent out to check out the house.
‘And for God’s sake get on to Commissariat twenty-six in Osdorf and let them know that it’s a false alarm,’ Fabel said. ‘And get them to send someone out to switch the damned thing off.’
They searched the house. Every drawer, every wardrobe, every cupboard. Fabel pulled down the extendable ladder and checked out the attic. At first sight there was nothing: no arms cache, no briefcase full of currency and passports, none of the accoutrements of a professional killer. Like Georg Drescher’s flat, this house felt unlived-in. Everything in the house was expensive and tasteful, yet there was no sense of permanent habitation about the place: as if it were an extended hotel room rather than a home.
‘That’s a Hans Jorgen Wegner Ox chair,’ said Vestergaard.
‘Danish?’
‘Very Danish. Even more expensive.’
‘It’s not here.’ Fabel spoke loudly to be heard over the din of the house alarm. ‘Whatever it is she came back for, it’s not here, not in this house. I don’t get it at all.’
‘A change of car, maybe?’ suggested Vestergaard. The alarm shut off and they reholstered their guns.
‘Could be, I suppose,’ said Fabel. ‘In which case she’s moved on already. But she knows this address is compromised. I don’t think she would risk coming back here for a car that would also be registered to this place.’
He heard the sound of vehicles pulling up outside. Three uniformed officers arrived with a man in overalls. Fabel told them to make sure nothing was disturbed more than it had already been by their search, and informed them that the forensics team was on its way.
‘So you think she’s still in Blankenese?’ asked van Heiden.
‘If she dumped the car and came here on foot, then she has a purpose.’ Fabel went over to the uniformed Commissar who had arrived with the alarm engineer. ‘You’re from PK26 in Osdorf?’
‘Yes, Herr Principal Chief Commissar.’
‘Can you get on to the Commissariat and tell them we need as many bodies as possible down here right now? We’re searching for a woman called Anke Wollner who lived in this house under the name Jana Eigen.’
Something akin to shock crossed the young Commissar’s face. ‘My God — you mean the person who killed those cops in the city centre? You think she’s here?’
‘Just get on to Osdorf and get people out here.’
Fabel turned back to Vestergaard and van Heiden. ‘Why would she come back? I know I’m repeating myself but it doesn’t make sense. We can assume that she has several alternative identities up her sleeve and we failed to contain her at the crime scene. She could, presumably, disappear into thin air. She must have worked out by now that something’s happened to Georg Drescher.’
Fabel froze.
‘They gave him up…’
‘What?’ asked van Heiden.
‘Hold on.’ Fabel used his cellphone to call the Presidium and asked to speak to Hans Gessler.
‘He’s left for the evening,’ said the duty officer on the other end.
‘Then patch me through to his cellphone.’
There was a pause. Fabel covered the mouthpiece and spoke to van Heiden and Vestergaard. ‘They gave Drescher up. It was Gina Bronsted who hired the Valkyrie all these years. Drescher had enough on Bronsted to send
