‘How the hell could we have missed this? How could an outsider uncover all this… this chaos, and our own Consolidation and Compliance Office be totally unaware of what was going on?’
‘I’m sorry, sir. Obviously, this is beyond anything we could have imagined. I mean, this behaviour is so extreme, particularly from one of our own members. I know it’s no excuse, Herr Director, but we weren’t looking for something like this, whereas the woman infiltrated the Project specifically to find something she could use against us. I’m guessing that even she didn’t expect to uncover something of this magnitude. But I can assure you that the instant this came to light… when I realised who it was in the file, and knowing his position in the organisation, I put my best security and surveillance officers onto tracking his every move, twenty-four hours a day. Ever since then we have been monitoring all his internet, email and cellphone activity, as well as tracking his movements and contacts. Our surveillance confirms what is in the USB stick we found on the woman.’
‘And there is no way she could have communicated any of this to someone on the outside?’
‘I cannot say with certainty, Herr Director, but I believe not. It’s my opinion that she intended to sell this information to the press, or to expose it on a website. She would not have told anyone who might have compromised her scoop. And she would be aware of our reach, so she would not risk exposing herself until publication.’
‘She was a journalist, you think?’
‘I can’t say. And she wouldn’t say. She was unresponsive to questioning. However, there is, we believe, a cellphone unaccounted for.’
‘What do you mean, “unaccounted for”?’
‘Simply that we can’t find her cellphone. A Nokia 5800. But we’ve got a tracker on it. It’ll be found, Herr Director.’
‘I sincerely hope so. I don’t need to tell you how much data can be stored on a hand-held.’ The man behind the desk paused meditatively, then nodded towards the image on his laptop screen. ‘What about him?’ Does he know he’s been found out?’
‘Absolutely not, Herr Director. I get the feeling that he believes he is immune from detection. His actions suggest a certain arrogance. And my Consolidators are expert at covert surveillance. He doesn’t know he’s being watched, that I’m sure of.’
‘Have you heard of the Observer Effect, Badorf?’
‘I can’t say I have, Herr Director.’
‘It comes from quantum mechanics, from the observation of subatomic particles. The act of observation itself changes the behaviour of the observed particle.’ The Director examined the image on the screen for a long time. ‘It is imperative that he does not know we are onto him. And no one outside your immediate team must know about this. You realise the danger his actions have placed us in, don’t you, Badorf? The danger they have placed the entire Project in?’
‘Of course. I have told the Consolidators involved to destroy all records of the surveillance, other than those you now have. But I do believe we got to the woman before she could pass on any of this information. And we could deal with… with our problem… before he does anything else to compromise the Project. What are your instructions?’
Wiegand stared at the images again, clicking through them. ‘Nothing rash. This takes planning. He has to be stopped, all right, but not in a way that links with us.’
‘If I may suggest, Herr Director: perhaps Mister Korn should be advised.’
‘You are talking to me, Badorf. It’s the same thing. What I want you to do is to come up with something discreet and effective. Something innovative. Can you manage that?’
‘Of course, Herr Director. We have various resources at our disposal that cannot be linked directly to us. I will examine our options and report back to you.’
After Badorf left the office, the Director swung his chair around to face the glass wall. The sky’s colour had shifted subtly to a more glaucous grey and now hinted at turbulence. Perhaps there was another storm coming.
Chapter Seven
A moment’s calm before the storm.
Sitting quietly in his car, Fabel listened to his music and watched the rain through the windshield as it eased to a drizzle. He knew what was coming.
This was his business. His job. Looking at death. Trying to understand it. But it didn’t matter how often you saw death — violent death — it still stirred a turmoil in you. Maybe not as big a turmoil as it had ten, fifteen years and countless cases ago, but it was still there: the vague churning in your gut triggered by an irrepressible human instinct. A natural fight-or-flight reaction firing somewhere in the oldest evolved part of your brain. Especially if there was a lot of blood. When there was a lot of blood something instinctive kicked in and overrode your reason. And, later on, long after you had left the scene of crime, the images of the dead would come back to you. Unbidden and at the most inappropriate moments: eating a meal, during sex, relaxing with friends.
So Jan Fabel took a moment and sat in the car with the wipers switched off, watching the viscous rain burst maliciously against the windshield. The day outside was grey: the sky, the water, the buildings — all tonal shifts of graphite. It was a grey peace, this moment.
The music seemed to fit his mood — and the weather — perfectly: the Esbjorn Svensson Trio, played through the mp3 player he had plugged into the BMW’s sound system. From Gagarin’s Point of View. A great title. A great piece for a Hamburg morning in graphite tones. Pleasantly melancholic in the way only the Scandinavians seemed able to master.
Cold, wet knuckles rapped on the passenger window and snapped him out of his grey peace. He opened the window and chilled pinpoints of rain prickled against his cheek.
‘Are you going to join us, Chef?’ Anna Wolff leaned over into the window, frowning against the cold and wet. Impatient. Anna had always been youthful-looking and pretty: dark eyes and dark hair cut short. Girlish. But standing there in the rain there was a hint of a future, older Anna: an Anna with the edge of her typical energy blunted. Fabel noticed the subtle change and felt bad. He also noticed her slight limp as she stepped back from the car and felt worse. His team had taken more than its fair share of casualties over the years.
‘You look full of the joys,’ she said as Fabel stepped out of the car.
‘So what have we got, Anna?’
‘Like I said, a wash-up. And be warned: it’s a stinker. It was found by the flood-defence team working here. The boss is a guy called Kreysig.’
‘Lars Kreysig?’
‘You know him?’ asked Anna.
‘More know of him, but I have met him. He’s a bit of a legend in the Hamburg Fire Service. A lot of people are breathing today who wouldn’t be if Kreysig hadn’t been there to pull their fat out of the fire. Literally. He still here?’
‘We asked him to hang about until you arrived. What was that crap you were listening to in the car?’
Fabel stopped and turned to face Anna. ‘You have no soul, Commissar Wolff, do you know that? No appreciation of the finer things in life. Leave me alone, Anna… Susanne’s been having a go at me all the way to the airport about my car.’
‘Really? Personally, I like antiques. Anyway, Susanne’s good for you. You’re less grumpy these days. You ready for this?’
They made their way across to where a white forensic tent had been set up, stepping over pipes and hoses and avoiding the dark rainbow puddles of oil and water and the black tangles of flotsam washed up from the flood.
‘I’ve already had the pleasure,’ said Anna when they reached the tent. ‘If you don’t mind I’ll wait for you here.’
Fabel nodded: Anna was tough, and she had seen more than her fair share of violent deaths, but her Achilles heel was dealing with a messy corpse. And Fabel knew that there was nothing messier than a body that had been
