Epilogue
I
It stung. It stung like hell, but Fabel knew that he had to let it go. But one day, he swore, he would get enough on her to put her away for good. He glared at the television monitor in the Murder Commission’s main office. He glared at two faces he knew.
‘Isn’t this an embarrassment for the NeuHansa Group?’ asked Sylvie Achtenhagen. ‘And an indictment of you personally that you employed and trusted a man who turned out to be a criminal? Someone who ordered and paid for the murders of so many people?’
‘The first thing I want to make clear is this,’ said Gina Bronsted, with a smile that suggested she was talking to children. ‘The corporate crime division of the Polizei Hamburg has placed me and all of my business dealings under the very closest scrutiny and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that I knew anything about Svend Langstrup’s criminal activities. He was obviously running his own covert empire within the NeuHansa Group. It is true that he got away with this for some time, but there was no way…’
Werner switched off the TV with the remote.
‘Don’t eat yourself up over that bitch, Jan,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to let it go. She’ll be caught out sooner or later. I believe the guys at corporate crime are as determined to nail her as you are.’
‘And OLAF,’ said Fabel grimly. ‘And Okokrim in Norway. And the Danish National Police. Gina Bronsted is going to have to tread very carefully from now on.’
‘What about this first-Monday-of-the-month deal? You know, the message in Muliebritas? That’s Monday coming: are we going to stake it out?’
‘No point,’ said Fabel. ‘Three Valkyries: one dead, one back in a mental institution, and the third will do anything other than attract attention to herself.’
‘True…’ Werner chuckled maliciously. ‘Anyway, she comes round to yours if she wants a chat.’
Fabel shot him a look and Werner gathered up some papers from his desk and left the office. Once Werner was gone, Fabel picked up the phone and punched in a number.
‘Hello, Frau Meissner? Jan Fabel here. I got your invitation to talk to the Sabine Charity about the Polizei Hamburg’s initiative on violence against women. I’d be delighted to…’
II
The last meeting of the day had gone on late. They had arranged for caterers to bring food in and, eventually, they had been able to crack open a bottle of champagne to seal the deal. After all the negative publicity, Gina Bronsted had had to do some tough negotiating and make some firm assurances. But things were back on track.
Because the meeting had gone on so late, Bronsted had decided to stay over in her penthouse above the offices. Truth was, she loved it here, with the huge windows looking over the harbour and out towards where they were building the new opera house. She poured herself a glass and drank in the view and the champagne at the same time. She was going to own this city one day. And Copenhagen.
Something caught her eye, reflected in the window glass. She spun around.
‘What are you doing here?’ Bronsted’s tone was more puzzled than angry. ‘How did you get in?’
‘Do you know who I am?’ asked the blonde woman standing in the middle of Bronsted’s living room.
‘What the hell do you mean?’ Real anger now. ‘Of course I know who you are. Now will you tell me what the hell you are doing here? I have nothing more to say to you.’
‘Do you know my name?’ asked the woman.
‘Of course I know your name. Have you lost…’ Bronsted’s voice trailed off. Her focus was now fixed on the gun that the woman had lifted out from the folds of her black coat.
‘My name isn’t what you think it is. My name — my real name — is Liane Kayser. I am a Valkyrie. You know all about the Valkyries, don’t you, Gina?’
‘I…’ Bronsted’s expression turned from realisation to fear. ‘Listen, I can give you work…’
‘You mean you can use me. The way you used Margarethe and Anke? Do you know, the funny thing is that I didn’t know I cared. I thought I was incapable of feeling anything for anybody. But I do care. They were the closest thing I had to family. But I am going to do something for you, Gina. I know you like making the news. I’m going to make you news. Tomorrow you will be big news. I promise you.’
‘I can make this right for you…’ Bronsted’s eyes darted around the room. The panic button. The phone. Both a universe away.
‘You know Gina, you’re right. You can make it right for me.’ Liane Kayser pulled the trigger twice, the shots muffled by the suppressor attached to the Makarov PM automatic. Bronsted fell to the ground. She was breathing in short, rapid gasps. The blonde woman took a few steps closer.
‘Do you know what the word Valkyrie actually means? It comes from the Old Norse Valkyrja. It means chooser of the slain.’ She pulled the trigger twice more. Head shots. ‘Goodbye, Gina.’
III
It had changed so much since she had last been here.
Halberstadt was somewhere Sylvie Achtenhagen had visited as a young girl. That had been back then, of course; before the Wall came down. The city hadn’t made much of an impact on the young Sylvie: it had looked pretty much like every other GDR town or small city she had visited. Halberstadt had been bombed flat at the very end of the Second World War, four weeks before the German surrender had been signed. Many suspected that the bombing had been a final vindictive act of vengeance.
Whatever the motive, the British had, with full moral vigour and righteous zeal, all but wiped the pretty little city off the face of the earth and had completely destroyed the medieval heart of Halberstadt. Then, with equally full moral vigour and righteous zeal, the communist government of the GDR had rebuilt it as a workers’ city. Ugly Plattenbau concrete housing blocks had crowded around the city’s cathedral and all that was old or traditional had been replaced with the modern and functional. And then the Wall had come down and Halberstadt had been reclaimed by its people.
Halberstadt is a city without suburbs. It sits self-contained on a grassy plain before the Harz mountains. As she drove towards it, Sylvie had the impression of a fairy-tale picture-book town, its red roofs, half-timbered buildings and the spires of the cathedral and the Martinikirche sitting prettily and perfectly in its landscape setting. But it was as she navigated the town itself that she saw the real differences that had been made since she had last been there. The monolithic Plattenbau apartment blocks were mostly gone and the medieval Altstadt had been faithfully restored and the square in front of the cathedral had again been opened out, allowing the majesty of the building to breathe and be appreciated. It was as if this small city had been given its soul back.
The hotel was a converted eighteenth-century mansion in the heart of the city and Sylvie’s room was high- ceilinged and wood-panelled, furnished with what looked like genuine antiques. Sylvie found it disconcerting to sit in baroque luxury in the heart of a city that she had only ever known as part of the communist past she had put so far behind her.
From her cellphone she called the number she had been given.
‘Frau Achtenhagen?’
‘Yes.’
‘Meet me in the Cathedral Treasury in fifteen minutes. I’ll find you.’
