The Ghosts of Altona (13 page)

He opened the clasp knife he’d taken from the drawer, ran his thumb along its cutting edge then, snapping it shut and slipping it into his pocket, picked up his chequers set and headed for the door.

22

It had been more than a week since Monika Krone had come back into the world. Her remains had been transferred to Butenfeld, the mortuary at the Institute for Judicial Medicine in Eppendorf, but they remained silent, refusing to yield any forensic evidence of how, where and when she had died. All the pathologist could say was that the pH of the soil in which Monika had been buried had been such that soft tissue would have decomposed within a year, and that DNA other than that captive in bone would have similarly been destroyed quickly after burial. Only one thing was confirmed: based on a comparison with a sample from Kerstin Krone, the DNA extracted from the remains’ femur was a match. A perfect match: identical twins had identical DNA.

In the Murder Commission, the case board Fabel had set up for the Krone inquiry started to take shape. Names were connected and interconnected by pins and threads of different colours. Patterns emerged of friendships, of sexual intimacy, of rivalries and animosities, most of which had probably been forgotten at more than a decade’s distance. But there was nothing to be seen, other than an unconnected void at the heart of it all that represented Monika Krone: her presence conspicuous as an absence.

Monika had been active in a lot of clubs and societies. She had been a keen swimmer and a regular at the pools of the Alster Schwimmhalle, as well as a leading member of Gothic and Romantic literature societies. Though no artist herself, Monika had had an interest in art, particularly pre-Raphaelite and art nouveau, and had even modelled for students at the University of Fine Arts in Uhlenhorst.

The picture that emerged was of a young woman connected to many, close to none. Over the years, Fabel had seen how often the strikingly beautiful were the loneliest of people: their physical perfection setting them apart, making them unapproachable, even shunned and loathed.

But he was not at all sure that the isolation of the comely was what he was looking at here: it was as if Monika sought acquaintance but shrank from intimacy. She was part of any number of sets of friends, sometimes the focus of them, but never seemed deeply involved. There was one in particular: an odd assortment made up from students at the university, but in very different disciplines. Others had described them as a very exclusive clique. From the descriptions of them, Fabel had at first thought they were some kind of Goths. But they had, by all accounts, been more sophisticated than that. The focus of the group had been a shared taste for classical Gothic literature.

He didn’t think looking into the group would lead anywhere in itself, but it might cast some additional light into the corners of Monika’s last days and he took a note to get someone onto it.

Fabel visited Kerstin, Monika’s sister, twice more. Each time was to see if he could coax out some extra detail about her twin, but again all that emerged was the picture of a closed-off, aloof young woman who had confided little in anyone.

*

It was a Saturday evening when Fabel took Susanne out for dinner in her favourite restaurant in Ottensen, along from the Fischmarkt and with huge picture windows that looked out across the Elbe. From their table they could see the inverted silver egg-box of the water treatment works, floodlit silver and blue on the far side of the river. As they ate and chatted, the vast, silent bulk of container ships slid by smoothly and silently causing the velvet waters beyond the window to sparkle with fractured reflections of the dock lights. Not for the first time it struck Fabel how much beauty there could be in industry. It was also one of the things he loved about Hamburg: the sense of things passing through, of connection with a much wider world. Susanne had been brought up in Munich, locked in by the fastness of Europe. Fabel had been born and brought up in Ostfriesland, on the North Sea coast, and could never imagine living more than a few kilometres from the sea.

As they ate, Fabel discussed the case, explaining to Susanne how he still felt discomfited every time he talked to Kerstin, aware he faced the older mirror image of the victim of the murder he was investigating.

‘If her sister was the great beauty she appears to have been,’ Susanne arched a dark eyebrow as she lifted her wine glass to her lips, ‘then Kerstin must be very beautiful too.’

‘I can’t say I’ve—’

‘Oh no you don’t . . .’ Susanne laughed. ‘Don’t say you haven’t noticed.’

‘Okay, I’ve noticed. She is very striking. But that’s where the similarity ends. Kerstin Krone is totally different from her sister in personality.’

‘Do you know what I think?’ Susanne put her wine glass down. ‘I think this case has burrowed its way into you more than you know or admit. You’ve always said it’s your job to get to know the dead . . . that’s how you’ve always approached every case, using that little historian’s brain of yours to bring the dead back to life and understand them. But Monika Krone was your first major case and you never could crack open her personality. It’s not just her death that has remained an enigma all these years. I think you fell a little in love with this mystery woman fifteen years ago.’

‘Is that a professional opinion? Or personal?’

‘A bit of both.’

‘There’s only one woman I’m in love with,’ Fabel smiled.

‘Oh yeah? I bet it’s some dumpy, florid-faced blonde Frisian lass from your past. Probably called Femke or Swaantje or something equally fetching.’

Fabel reached over and took Susanne’s hand in his.

‘I want to get married,’ he said.

Susanne looked startled for a moment. She smiled a little nervously then said, ‘What does Swaantje have to say about it?’

‘I’m being serious, Susanne. I want us to get married.’

Susanne drew a deep breath and straightened in her chair, her expression suggesting she was processing something she would never have anticipated.

‘Wow,’ she said eventually. ‘I don’t know what to say. I mean, I really don’t . . .’

‘Listen, Susanne, I don’t want an answer now, I just want you to think it over. You don’t even have to answer at all, I just wanted you to know how I feel.’

‘But why? I mean, why now?’

‘I’ve been thinking about it for the last two years. Ever since . . . Well, you know since what. Things have changed for me. I know you have noticed that. I’m not saying that my feelings towards you have changed – it’s not that at all – it’s just that I see things differently now and I value the things that are important to me more than ever. And the two most important things in my life are you and Gabi.’

‘But we’ve been happy the way we are . . .’

‘I know. That’s not what I’m saying. If things don’t change – if you don’t want them to change – then that’s fine. But when I thought I was dying, I regretted never having asked you to marry me. I couldn’t stand the idea that I’d be dead and you wouldn’t know how I felt about you.’ Fabel shook his head. ‘I know I can be a bit buttoned-up. That I
was
buttoned-up. But life’s too short to leave things unsaid.’ He shrugged. ‘So I’ve said it.’

‘Thanks, Jan.’ She leaned across the table and kissed him. ‘I’ll need to think about it.’

‘Like I said, I don’t need an answer if you don’t want to give one.’ He smiled and raised his glass. ‘I just wanted you to know how I feel. In any case, if you turn me down there’s always Swaantje . . .’

23

He had been given his instructions in great detail: the exact day, the exact time. Jochen Hübner – Frankenstein – knew that getting the timing exactly right meant everything; not just the difference between continued imprisonment and freedom but between life and death itself. Hübner – who had never relied on anyone, who had never put his trust in anyone – found himself having faith in the stranger who had delivered the means of escape. His guardian. There was something in his guardian’s eyes that Frankenstein had recognized as the same dark hunger for revenge he himself felt.

The guardian had promised Frankenstein freedom – from captivity and to do whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted. Only one thing was asked in return: that for a short time Frankenstein would serve his liberator, carry out his bidding. That he would kill those whom the guardian chose he should kill.

Timing.

Santa Fu – Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel prison – offered its high-security prisoners more room than other prisons. Frankenstein’s cell was modern, clean and spacious – he was housed on the floor that had the biggest cells, each with its own screened-off shower.

It was nearly time for the doors to be opened for the morning. Frankenstein checked his watch, ridiculously small and fragile on his thick, heavy wrist: 5.56 a.m.

At six a.m. the door would be opened for
Lebenskontrolle
: the morning ritual where a guard opened the door and called in ‘good morning’. A response, even a held-up hand, meant the prisoner was alive and well.

He leaned into the door and strained to hear approaching footsteps, but could hear nothing. Most of the guards wore rubber-soled shoes and the prison rules meant they were instructed to open the cell doors quietly. You could lock a man up for the rest of his life, apparently, but it was inhuman to give him a rude awakening.

He had to time it perfectly.

As his guardian had told him to do, Frankenstein went to the wall of his cell furthest from and facing the door. He took the disposable hypodermic from under his pillow and gripped it between his teeth while he slapped a vein on his forearm to the surface. A moment’s hesitation: he looked at the vein, a dark cable beneath his pale skin. He had taken it on trust that the fluid in the hypodermic had been what his guardian had said it was.

They would be at the door in a minute, maybe less.

The doubt lingered. What if Hübner’s strange guardian was really a relative of one of his many female victims? What if the dark hunger for revenge Frankenstein had recognized in his guardian’s eyes was really directed at him? What if, instead of a means of escape, the syringe was full of poison?

He heard muffled voices from along the hall. Thirty seconds.

It didn’t matter, he decided. Frankenstein had already made up his mind that death would be just another form of escape. He jabbed the needle into the vein and felt his arm chill as he squeezed the dose into his system.

The effects started right away, just as his guardian had said they would. Frankenstein had been instructed to conceal the hypodermic immediately after taking the dose.

‘You’ve got to hide it while you still can,’ his guardian had told him. ‘Under a pillow or behind a book. Somewhere that’s quick. And near – once the drug kicks in you’ll find it difficult to move. Don’t worry about it being easy to find. All that matters is they don’t find it until you’re out of the prison and in hospital. When they get to your cell, you will still be on your feet but barely conscious. That’s the way the drug works. You will look like shit – no colour in your face. If you can remember, grab hold of your left arm as if it’s really hurting you. They’ll believe you’re having a heart attack.’

It was working just like Frankenstein had been told it would. He felt like he should be falling down, but his legs had turned into stone pillars, keeping him upright but unmoving, rooted to the ground.

The sound of a key in the lock of his cell door. One clunk. Second clunk. Two sliding bars to go. He still had the syringe in his hand.

He forced himself to focus, shaking his huge head in an attempt to clear it, then leaned over and dropped the disposable syringe behind the pillow on his bed.

Everything decelerated. The world beneath his feet turned more slowly, the air around him became thick and viscous. He grabbed his upper left arm with his right hand, but couldn’t remember why it was he was to do that.

The door opened and from a million miles away, a voice said good morning.

‘Help . . .’ Hübner gasped his rehearsed lines. ‘Help. I can’t breathe. My chest . . . I think it’s my heart.’ It would be on Frankenstein’s record, his guardian had told him, that his acromegaly condition predisposed him to heart problems.

He could no longer talk. No longer think. But he was still standing.

There were now uniformed shadows at the door; dark blue ghosts shouting something at him. He wanted to ask them who they were, where he was, who he was, but his tongue and lips were too massive and heavy to move.

As the world faded to black, one thought, one instruction, remained burned into his mind: when he awoke, he had to do so the way he had practised. Totally and immediately.

He couldn’t remember why, but he knew his life depended on it.

24

‘Well,’ said Nicola Brüggemann in contralto tones as she leaned into Fabel’s office. ‘We can’t say this isn’t a varied job. Nothing like something unusual to get the day started.’

‘What have you got?’ Fabel smiled and beckoned for her to come in and sit down. Brüggemann was Fabel’s deputy, despite holding the same rank as him. She had given up the directorship of the Sexual Crimes Commission to join his team and he had been very glad of her expertise. The Kiel-born detective also had a dry
Waterkant
humour that Fabel appreciated.

‘The Alte Mühle Seniors’ Home in Bahrenfeld,’ she explained, ‘has had a murder. The victim is a few days short of a hundred and the suspected perpetrator is ninety-six.’

‘You are kidding me . . .’ said Fabel.

‘I kid you not. We’ve got uniforms and forensics on their way. I would have thought murder would have seemed a little redundant at that age, but who knows? Maybe the motive was sexual jealousy. Who do you want assigned?’

Fabel keyed up the duty roster on his computer. ‘I’ll take it with Anna.’

‘Okay.’ Brüggemann laid the call sheet on Fabel’s desk. ‘But you better hurry, in case the suspect makes a run for it . . .’

*

The Alte Mühle Seniors’ Home looked like no other old people’s home Fabel had ever seen. It was in Bahrenfeld, still officially within the Altona city borough, but set off the main road and facing into the dense forest of Altona Stadtpark. The only other building Fabel and Anna had passed was the old forester’s house, which now looked unoccupied and forlorn, the woodland around it threatening to reclaim it.