Fabel had used his contacts to find Sonja a small rented apartment on the other side of town, along with a job in a clothes shop. He had obtained details of courses she could take and before long Sonja had moved on to working in a shipping office.
Simple steps, but they had transformed her life at a time when she could have sunk even deeper by giving in to the grief of losing her lover and the anger of discovering that he had been living a lie. Fabel was pleased to see her so settled, and was relieved that she had succeeded in putting so much distance between herself and her past life.
Fabel had known the instant she had handed him her number that he was going to tear it up and drop it into the ashtray as soon as she left. But he found himself staring at the piece of paper and considering for a moment what he should do with it. Then he folded it in half and placed it in his wallet.
Fabel had just finished his coffee when his cellphone rang. He was annoyed that he had forgotten to switch it off. He often found himself out of step, out of time, with the modern world: cellphones in restaurants and bars were one of the many intrusions of twenty-first-century life that he found intolerable. All through the meal, as he had eaten alone, there had been a hollow feeling within him. He knew it was something to do with having encountered Sonja and her new life. It made him think of Kristina Dreyer. Maybe she really had cleaned up the murder scene simply to keep whole the universe of order and punctuality that she had built around herself.
Fabel answered his cellphone.
‘Hi, Jan, it’s me.’ Fabel recognised Werner’s voice. ‘You should have taken my advice about extending your holiday over the weekend…’
10.00 p.m.: Speicherstadt, Hamburg
Most of the lights were now out, but a central spotlight beamed down like a full moon onto the architectural model that stretched across the table top. Paul Scheibe gazed at it. There was still a butterfly flutter of pride in his chest each time that he saw this three-dimensional representation of his vision. His thoughts, his imagination, given solid form, even if that form was in miniature. But soon, very soon, his concepts would be written large on the face of the city. His proposal for KulturZentrumEins – Culture Centre One – overlooking the Magdeburger Hafen would be the centrepiece of the HafenCity’s Uberseequartier. His monument, right at the very heart of the new HafenCity. It would more than match the visual impact of the new concert hall and opera house on Kaispeicher A and it would rival the elegance of the Strandkai Marina.
Building would start in 2007, if his proposal got approval from the Senate and the design jury selected it. There were, of course, other proposals contending, but Scheibe knew with absolute certainty that none of them stood a chance against the boldness and innovation of his vision. At press conferences he had taken to wittily describing the competing proposals as pedestrian-area concepts. His reference was, of course, not to the function of the area but to the pedestrian abilities of his competitors.
The pre-launch party could not have gone better. The press had turned out in force and the presence of Hamburg’s First Mayor, Hans Schreiber, as well as that of the city’s Environment Senator Muller-Voigt and several other key members of the city’s Senate, had underlined the importance of the project. And the full public launch would not take place for another two days.
Now Scheibe stood alone, all his guests gone, and contemplated his vision spread out before him. So close. The sequence of events that was already in train would see his ideas turn into a concrete reality. He would stand in a few short years on a riverfront boardwalk and look up at art galleries, a theatre, performance spaces and a concert hall. And all who viewed it would be stunned by its audacity, its vision, its sheer beauty. Not one building; yet not separate structures. Each space, each form, would link organically, in terms of its architecture and in terms of its function. Like separate but equally vital organs, each element would combine with the others to give life and energy to the whole. And all engineered to have practically zero environmental impact.
It would be a triumph of ecological architecture and engineering. But, most of all, it would be a testament to Scheibe’s radicalism. He took a long thick pull on his glass of Barolo.
‘I thought I’d find you still here.’ The voice was that of a man. He spoke from the shadows over by the doorway.
Scheibe did not turn, but sighed. ‘And I thought you’d gone. What is it? Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’
There was a fluttering sound and a folded copy of the Hamburger Morgenpost flew into the pool of light, crashing down onto the miniature landscape. Scheibe snatched up the newspaper, leaning forward and checking the model for damage.
‘For God’s sake, man, be careful…’
‘Look at the front page…’ The voice spoke with an even, steady tone. Still the man made no move out of the shadows.
Scheibe opened out the newspaper. The cover photograph showed the giant Airbus 800 making its maiden flight, captured as it swept over der Michel – the spire of the St Michaelis church. A headline proclaimed that a hundred and fifty thousand proud Hamburg citizens had turned out to watch the fly past. Scheibe turned to the shadows and shrugged.
‘No… smaller article, near the bottom…’
Scheibe found it. Hans-Joachim Hauser’s death had only made it to a headline in a smaller font: 1970s Radical and Eco-warrior found murdered in Schanzenviertel apartment. The article gave what scant details the press had on the death and went on to highlight Hauser’s career. The Morgenpost had found it necessary to use Hauser’s relationships with other, more memorable figures of the radical left to identify him. It was as if he had only existed in reflections. There was very little to report after the mid-1980s.
‘Hans is dead?’ Scheibe asked.
‘More than that – Hans has been killed. He was found earlier today.’
Scheibe turned. ‘You think it’s significant?’
‘Of course it’s significant, you idiot.’ There was little anger in the voice of the man in the shadows: more irritation, as if his low expectations of his partner in the conversation had been confirmed. ‘The fact that one of us has died a violent death could be a coincidence, but we have to make sure there’s no connection to… well, to our former lives, is probably the best way of putting it.’
‘Do they know who did it? It says here that they have someone in custody.’
‘My official contacts at the Police Presidium wouldn’t give me details. Other than to say that it’s early days in the investigation.’
‘You worried?’ Scheibe reconsidered his question. ‘Should I be worried?’
‘It could be nothing. Hans was a pretty promiscuous gay, as you know. It can be a pretty dark world, out there among our mattress-munching chums.’
‘I never took you to be a reactionary homophobic… You keep that side of your personality well hidden from the press.’
‘Spare me the political correctness. Let’s just hope that it was related to his lifestyle – some kind of random thing.’ The man in the doorway paused. For the first time he sounded less than sure of himself. ‘I’ve been in touch with the others.’
‘You’ve spoken to the others?’ Scheibe’s tone was somewhere between astonishment and anger. ‘But we all agreed… You and I – our paths have had to cross – but I haven’t seen any of the others in over twenty years. We all agreed that we should never instigate contact between each other.’ Scheibe’s eyes ranged wildly over the delicate, fragile topography of the KulturZentrumEins model, as if reassuring himself that it was not dissolving, evaporating as they spoke. ‘I don’t want anything to do with them. Or with you. Anything at all. Especially not now…’