Fabel had no difficulty in finding the genetics facility in which Griebel had worked. It lay within the same complex of buildings that housed both the Institute for Legal Medicine and the Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Clinic where Susanne was based. The University Clinical Complex was the centre for all major clinical and biomedical research in Hamburg as well as many of the city’s main medical functions. Fabel’s main involvement had been through its world-leading forensics facility. It had grown over the years and now stretched back on the north side of Martinistrasse like a small town in its own right.
Professor von Halen, who headed up the facility, was waiting for Fabel in reception. Von Halen was much younger than Fabel had expected and did not fit with Fabel’s idea of a scientist. Perhaps because of the stereotype imprinted in Fabel’s mind, and perhaps because of the photograph for which Griebel had so unwillingly posed, Fabel had expected von Halen to be wearing a white scientific dust coat. Instead he was dressed in an expensive-looking dark business suit and a slightly too-bright tie. As Fabel was guided through the reception doors, he half expected von Halen to lead him into a showroom filled with top-of-the-range Mercedes cars for sale. Instead his preconceptions were restored as he was led through a laboratory and a suite of offices, all the occupants of which were suitably attired in white coats. Fabel also noticed that most of them stopped what they were doing and watched as he passed by. Word had obviously already spread about Griebel’s death, or von Halen must have made some kind of official announcement.
‘It’s been a massive shock to us all.’ Von Halen seemed to read Fabel’s thoughts. ‘Herr Dr Griebel was a very quiet man who largely kept his own counsel, but he was well liked by the staff who worked directly with him.’
Fabel scanned the laboratory as they passed. There were fewer test tubes than he would have imagined in a science lab, and many more computers. ‘Was there ever any gossip about Dr Griebel?’ asked Fabel. ‘Sometimes we gain more leads through Kaffeeklatsch than through known facts about a victim.’
Von Halen shook his head. ‘Gunter Griebel was not someone you would associate with gossip of any kind – either as source or subject. Like I said, he kept his personal life very distinct from his working life. I don’t know of anyone here who socialised with him or who knew any of his friends or acquaintances outside work. No one had any personal knowledge of him to gossip about.’
They passed through some double doors and out of the laboratory. At the end of a wide corridor, von Halen showed Fabel into an office. It was large and bright and expensively furnished in a contemporary style. Von Halen sat down behind a vast expanse of beech and indicated that Fabel should take a seat. Again, Fabel was struck by how ‘corporate’ von Halen’s office was. Fabel put this together with von Halen’s sharp-suitedness and decided that the facility chief was very much in the business of science.
‘Are there any commercial aspects to the work you do here?’ Fabel asked.
‘In today’s world, Herr Fabel, all research activity with any potential biotechnical or medical applications has a commercial aspect to it. Our genetics unit here straddles the academic and the business worlds… we are part of the university but we are also a registered company. A business.’
‘Did Dr Griebel work in a commercial area of research?’
‘As I said, all research ultimately has a commercial application. And a price. But to give you a simple answer: no. Dr Griebel was working in a field that will ultimately offer enormous advantages in the field of diagnosing and preventing a vast range of diseases and conditions. The fruits of Dr Griebel’s research will be of great commercial value. But we are talking about years into the future. Dr Griebel was a pure scientist. He was in it for the challenge and the potential breakthrough – the leap forward in human science and all of the benefits that come from such advances.’ Von Halen leaned back in his executive leather chair. ‘And, to be honest, I indulged Gunter more than a little. He would occasionally go “off brief”, as our English friends would say. He had a few windmills to tilt at along the way, but I knew that he never lost sight of the aims of his research.’
‘So you would say there’s no possible link between Dr Griebel’s work and his murder?’
Von Halen gave a mirthless half-laugh. ‘No, Herr Chief Commissar – I can see no motives there. Nor anywhere else. Gunter Griebel was an inoffensive, hard-working, dedicated scientist and why anyone would do
… well, what was done to him… is totally beyond my understanding. Is it true? What the papers said?’
Fabel ignored the question. ‘What, exactly, was Dr Griebel’s field of research?’
‘Epigenetics. It studies how genes are switched on and off, and how this prevents or promotes the development of certain diseases and conditions. It is a field still very much in its infancy, but it will become one of the most important life sciences.’
‘Whom did he work with?’
‘He was the head of a team of three. The other two were Alois Kahlberg and Elisabeth Marksen. I can introduce you if you wish.’
‘I would like to talk to them, but perhaps another day. I can ring to make an appointment.’ Fabel rose. ‘Thank you for your time, Herr Professor.’
‘You’re welcome.’
As Fabel rose to leave, he examined a picture on the wall next to the door. It was a group shot of the entire research team: the same staff he had passed through on his way to von Halen’s office.
‘Is this a recent photograph?’ he asked the sharp-suited scientist.
‘Yes. Why?’
‘It’s just that Herr Dr Griebel seems to be absent from it.’
‘No – he’s there, all right.’ Von Halen indicated a tall figure at the back. The person in the picture had moved partly behind another colleague and his head was slightly lowered, depriving the camera of a clear image of his face. ‘That’s Gunter… messing up the photograph as usual.’ Von Halen sighed. ‘Not a problem we’ll have any more, I suppose…’
4.10 p.m.: Police Presidium, Hamburg
As soon as Fabel returned to the Presidium he phoned Severts, the archaeologist, and arranged to meet him the following morning at his office at the Universitat Hamburg. Severts told Fabel that they had uncovered some personal items at the HafenCity site that clearly belonged to the mummified man.
But Fabel had the more freshly dead at the front of his mind and as soon as he hung up he called Anna Wolff and Henk Hermann into his office.
‘We’ve got most of the phone records for both victims,’ said Anna in response to Fabel’s asking. ‘We’re trying to match numbers to names or institutions now. I have to say that Griebel was not the most social of animals – there’s not much to go through in his phone accounts. Hauser, on the other hand, seemed to be permanently attached to a phone. We’re starting with the numbers that Hauser called or was called from most.’
‘That makes sense, of course,’ said Fabel. ‘But the number I am looking for may not have connected often. Perhaps only once. It may even have been a payphone.’
‘What is it that you’re looking for, Chef?’ asked Henk.
‘It looks like both victims admitted their murderer to their homes,’ said Fabel. ‘That would suggest either that Hauser and Griebel knew their killer or killers, or that the killer had pre-arranged a meeting with them.’
‘But we are dealing with someone who is clearly most careful to avoid leaving forensic traces,’ said Anna. ‘Isn’t it a bit much to hope that they would leave their phone numbers on record?’
‘It is…’ Fabel sighed at the futility of the exercise. ‘But my thinking is that contact had to be established somehow. Like I say, I would expect it to be a payphone or a disposable cellphone number – something we cannot trace to anyone in particular. There is always the chance that the contact was made some other way. Maybe even approaching the victims on the street with some plausible story. But the telephone is a more likely form of initial contact. I just want to know if my theory is justified before we go off looking in the wrong direction.’