disappearance into some huge conspiracy, just to make sense of it. But Fabel knew this was not one of those cases. What Muller-Voigt was telling him made absolutely no sense at all, and Fabel believed every word of it.
‘If what you say is true… No, let me put that better: if what you suspect is true, then it would take massive resources and organisation. Are you saying the government, or a government is behind this? You said that you thought Meliha was into something that might have placed her in danger. What, exactly?’
Muller-Voigt regarded Fabel for a moment, as if assessing him.
‘Do you remember what I said about how we used to be more connected to Nature?’ he said. ‘That we could interpret our environment?’
Fabel nodded.
‘I need you to keep that in mind for a while. Have you heard of the Pharos Project?’
Fabel remembered the poster he had passed when running Susanne to the airport: the overdone symbolism of the lighthouse in the storm.
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Heard of it but I don’t know anything much about it.’
‘The Pharos Project is purportedly an environmental organisation. It has a massive corporate conglomerate, headed by its founder, behind it. The European headquarters of the Pharos Project is, believe it or not, just a few kilometres from here. There’s an old disused lighthouse out on the coast, just to the north of Horne: they’ve renovated the original lighthouse and added this massive building beside it. They call the building itself the Europa Pharos. You should see it — it is actually a beautiful piece of architecture and, of course, environmentally self- sustaining. It projects out on stilts over the water. There’s another one, apparently, on the coast of Maine, called the Americas Pharos. Anyway, the Pharos Project uses its status as an environmental research and pressure group to avoid being classed as a religious or philosophical movement, or an out-and-out political organisation.’
‘You’re saying they’re covering up being a cult?’
‘You met Fabian Menke from the BfV earlier today,’ said Muller-Voigt. ‘I’ve been talking to him about the Pharos Project and he admitted to me that it is a group that his people are monitoring. Closely.’
‘Doesn’t that, well, concern you? That the BfV is investigating an environmental organisation? After all, you are Hamburg’s most outspoken environmentalist.’
‘Let’s get one thing straight: the Pharos Project has nothing to do with anything I believe in. The Pharos Project is a cult. But more than that, it is a dangerous, malignant cult. You should talk to Menke about it.’
‘So what was Meliha’s connection to it?’
‘She was very guarded about her work but, like I said, I got the impression that she was some kind of investigator for whatever organisation she worked for. Or maybe an investigative journalist. But, again, I’ve searched for her on the internet and can find no trace of her ever having contributed to any journal, press or TV. In any case, I know she was gathering as much information as she could about the Pharos Project. She even asked me what I knew about it, which turned out to be a lot less than she did.’
‘And what do you know?’
‘Well, I’ve done quite a bit of research since Meliha disappeared. And I was able to get a fair bit from Menke. None of it is good. The Pharos Project meets all the criteria for a dangerous cult. It is highly dictatorial and its leaders, particularly Dominik Korn, are venerated as demigods; it demands that all its members donate all their wealth to it; it has some kind of doomsday agenda; it exerts total control over its members and has an incredibly hostile and aggressive attitude towards any critics.’
‘And you think that aggression has been directed towards Meliha?’
‘Remember what I said about us not engaging with our environment any more? Well, that kind of disengagement is exactly what the Pharos Project, specifically its leader, Dominik Korn, positively encourages. He believes that the best way to save the environment is for humankind to be removed from it.’
‘And how do they propose that is achieved?’ asked Fabel.
Muller-Voigt shrugged. ‘Most cults believe in some epiphanic moment. A Judgement Day, or Ragnarok, or Apocalypse. The Pharos Project is no different. They believe in an event they call the Consolidation. I don’t know any more than that. But I suspect that Menke will be able to give you more details. There was a limit to how much he was willing to share with me, but you’re not a politician, you’re a policeman.’
‘And you think that Meliha’s disappearance is connected to the Pharos cult?’
‘They don’t like people investigating or criticising them. And Meliha did seem to be looking into their activities before she disappeared.’ Muller-Voigt paused. ‘I’m going to get to the bottom of this, Fabel. I’ll do it without your help if I have to. It will make it difficult, but I’ll do it. The question remains, Herr Fabel: will you help me?’
‘As you’ve said yourself, there’s no evidence of a murder. There’s not even evidence that Meliha ever existed, from what you’ve told me. I simply can’t launch an official Murder Commission inquiry based on what you’ve given me.’
‘So you’re saying that you won’t help me?’
‘I didn’t say that. I’ll look into it. God knows I’ve got enough on my plate with this Network Killer case. But I’ll see what I can find out. But there’s no point in you looking at the washed-up body we found. It was a torso: no head, legs or arms.’
Fabel saw the colour drain dramatically from behind the politician’s tan. For a moment he thought Muller- Voigt was going to throw up.
‘Listen, Herr Senator, I think it’s unlikely that it’s Meliha. We believe the body was dismembered to avoid identification. According to everything you’ve told me tonight, Meliha doesn’t seem to have any kind of recorded identity. Give me a few days and I’ll see what I can find out.’
‘Thank you, Fabel. I appreciate it. Can I ask you one more thing? Can we keep this between ourselves… for the meantime at least.’
‘Okay, Herr Senator,’ said Fabel. It wasn’t an official investigation after all. Yet.
‘You have to admit, though,’ said Fabel, ‘that you haven’t really given me much to go on. Is there anything you can tell me about Meliha that might help me?’
Muller-Voigt’s small laugh was both bitter and sad. ‘After Meliha disappeared, I thought about how little I really knew her. Every time I thought about talking to you — or someone like you — about her disappearance I realised how little I really had to tell you about her. But I did know her. I knew her as well as if we’d spent our whole lives together. If you like, I knew the essence of her.’ He thought for a moment. ‘She was a Kemalist. You know, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey. Ataturk is a massive figure for a lot of Turks because he created something so totally, radically different to everything that went before. He simply rethought the concept of Turkey and shaped a secular, progressive republic. He convinced an entire nation to put the past behind them and embrace a future that they had never considered. I can understand why he is so inspirational to Turks. As I said, Meliha was also deeply passionate about the environment. And that was her big thing: she believed that the world needed an “environmental Ataturk”. Someone who was capable of rethinking our entire way of life. She used to accuse me and others like me of being “pop-environmentalists”. Dilettantes.’
‘I don’t see how…’
‘“ Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned ”,’ said Muller-Voigt in English. ‘Do you know your Shakespeare, Herr Fabel?’
‘Congreve,’ said Fabel. ‘“ Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned ” is from a play by William Congreve, not Shakespeare.’
Muller-Voigt grinned. ‘Of course, I was forgetting you’re a very learned policeman, aren’t you, Herr Fabel? Anyway, I think Meliha felt a little of that fury. Not that she had been scorned romantically, more philosophically. She was a great admirer of Dominik Korn, of his environmental views. At least when he set out his original vision for the Pharos Project. I think she saw him as the great hope for the future of the environment.’
‘Her “Ataturk of the Environment”?’
‘Exactly. But Korn had some kind of accident — a diving accident, I believe — after which he became increasingly reclusive. The Pharos Project, which had started off as a genuinely innovative environmental research organisation, became a weird cult driven by Korn’s increasingly bizarre philosophies. Meliha really had a bee in her bonnet about it. She felt it was more than a lost opportunity. It was a betrayal.’
‘So you think she was on some kind of mission to expose Korn and Pharos?’
‘I think that is entirely possible. If you’re asking me where to look for Meliha, then I suggest you start with the Pharos Project.’
‘By the way, the picture you’ve got in the digital frame — can you give me a hard copy of that?’
