‘The others were afraid when they died. I ended their lives in fear and pain. But they were not special to me. You were more than a comrade. I called you friend. Your betrayal was the greatest.’
I know who you are! The thought blazed across Cornelius’s brain and he sought to give it voice, but it was stifled into incoherence by the gag taped across his mouth.
‘We are eternal,’ said the young dark-haired man. But Cornelius knew now that his hair was not really dark. ‘The Buddhists believe that each life, each consciousness, is like a single candle flame, but that there is a continuity between each flame. Imagine lighting one candle with the flame of another, then using that flame to light the next, and that to light the next, and on and on for ever. A thousand flames, all passed from one to another across the generations. Each is a different light, each burns in a totally different way. But it is, nevertheless, the same flame.
‘Now, I’m afraid, it is time for me to extinguish your flame. But don’t worry – the pain I give you will mean that you will burn brightest at the end.’
He paused and took the smallest blade from the roll-pouch.
‘I have something very special planned for you, Cornelius. I am going to devote more time and effort to you than I did to all of the others put together. The ancient Aztecs also believed in reincarnation. I don’t know if you are aware of that. They saw the growth of a new crop every year as parallel to the renewal of the soul. The eternal cycle.’ Cornelius could see the madness burning like a black sun in the younger man’s eyes. ‘Each spring they would make a sacrifice, a human sacrifice, to the gods of fertility. They would see serpents shed their skins, crops shed their flowers, and they sought to mirror this in the ritual. You see, they would take the human sacrifice and flay him alive. Cut away all of his skin.
‘Your death is not enough. Your pain is important to me. I’m going to hurt you, Cornelius. I am going to hurt you so terribly…’
13.
Twenty-Five Days After the First Murder: Monday, 12 September 2005.
3.00 p.m.: Police Presidium, Hamburg
Fabel spent the greater part of the day collating and analysing the information that the team had gathered, disseminating it, redirecting investigative routes and reallocating resources.
Anna Wolff had taken a photograph of Paul Scheibe into The Firehouse and the black barman had said that Scheibe could have been the older man with whom Hauser had met. But he could not be sure. Fabel was alone in his office when Markus Ullrich, the BKA man, knocked on his door. He was not wearing his trade-mark smile.
‘Herr Fabel… I wonder if I could have a word with you and Frau Klee – in private…’
‘I’m going to Cologne,’ said Maria after Ullrich had finished. ‘This was no bloody accident.’
‘Like hell you are,’ said Fabel. Only he, Ullrich and Maria were in the conference room. ‘It’s up to the Cologne police to investigate this. And it may have escaped your notice, but we are in the middle of our own investigation.’
‘The Cologne police don’t know Vitrenko.’ Maria’s expression had hardened. ‘They clearly believe that this was an accident. An accident and one hell of a coincidence.’
Ullrich held up his hand. ‘They’re not stupid, Frau Senior Commissar. What I said is that the evidence suggests it was an accident. A high-speed blow-out on the autobahn. Believe me, I have left the Cologne police in absolutely no doubt about the significance of Herr Turchenko’s death. And, as I told you, they are already involved in the Vitrenko investigation.’
Fabel remembered sitting in the Presidium canteen, only two weeks before, chatting to Turchenko about Ukraine’s renaissance. Now Turchenko was dead and his GSG9 bodyguard, who had been travelling with him, was lying in a coma in a Cologne hospital.
‘Okay,’ said Maria. ‘I will see this case out. But as soon as we nail this bastard I am going to Cologne to follow up this Turchenko thing.’
‘With the greatest respect,’ said Ullrich, ‘your involvement with our investigation has already led to the disappearance of one witness. You would be well advised to stay out of this.’
Maria ignored the BKA man. ‘As I said, Chef, I am going to Cologne to follow this up as soon as this case is over. I have leave due and I will take it. If you order me not to go I will resign and go anyway. Whatever you say, I am going.’
Fabel sighed. ‘We’ll talk about this later, Maria. But right now I need you focused one hundred per cent on the business at hand.’
Maria nodded curtly.
‘In the meantime,’ said Fabel. ‘I have to see someone about a different matter.’
6.00 p.m.: Schanzenviertel, Hamburg
Beate held the door ajar, anchored to its frame by the security chain. She had seen who it was through the fish-eye lens peephole, but she still did not want to let her guard down until she knew what he was doing there, without an appointment, in the evening. Both the chain and the door lens were new security measures that she had installed since she had heard of Hauser’s and Griebel’s murders. She would not even have answered the door had it not been for the fact that she had read of another murder that had taken place yesterday: a third victim who had absolutely nothing to do with the group. Maybe it had all just been coincidence.
‘I’m sorry,’ the young dark-haired man said earnestly. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you. It’s just that I had to see you. I don’t know how to describe what’s happening to me… I think it must be my rebirth… you know, the way you said it has to happen… I have been having all these dreams.’
‘It is too late. Phone me tomorrow and I will make you a new appointment.’
‘Please,’ said the young man. ‘I think our last session must have stimulated them. I know I am on the verge of a breakthrough, and it’s driving me nuts. I really need your help. I don’t mind paying extra for it being after normal hours…’
Beate examined the earnest young man and sighed. Pushing the door closed, she slid the security chain free of its housing and reopened it to let him in.
‘Thanks, I’m really sorry about the inconvenience. And please excuse this…’ he said as he entered Beate’s apartment, indicating the large holdall he carried in his right hand. ‘I was on my way to the gym…’
7.30 p.m.: Hammerbrook, Hamburg
Heinz Dorfmann was lean and fit-looking, but each of his seventy-nine years had left its mark on him, Fabel found on examining the older man more closely. He had seen the photograph of him together with Karl Heymann: two youths smiling out of a monochrome past. Yet Fabel had seen the corpse of Heymann only a few weeks before: the body of a sixteen-year-old boy; a face bound to an eternal, desiccated youth. Herr Dorfmann excused himself while he went into the small kitchen of his apartment.
‘My wife died seven years ago,’ he said, as if to explain why he had to perform the duty of fetching the coffee himself.
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Herr Dorfmann’ said Fabel. As the older man poured the coffee, Fabel took in the room. It was clean and tidy, and to start with Fabel had thought it had not been decorated since the 1970s or early 1980s. But then he realised that it was simply that it had been redecorated in the same style, the same tonal beiges and off-whites over the decades. It always fascinated Fabel, the way older people often became stuck in a particular period: as if that one time defined who they were, or marked when it was that they stopped noticing the world changing around them.
The shelves were filled with books about Hamburg: street plans, photographic studies of the city, history books, reference books of Hamburger Platt, the form of Low German unique to the city, as well as English dictionaries and other language reference books. An embossed copper plaque depicting the Hammaburg fortress, used on the city’s coat of arms, sat on one of the shelves, mounted on a teak shield.