‘The two masked men from the VW van ran over and grabbed Herr Wiedler and started to rush him over to the van while the other two kept their guns aimed at us. I stepped forward and the man in the overalls raised his gun, so I stopped and kept my hands up. That was all I did. I made no other move and the time for action was past. That is why I do not understand why he shot me. The man in the business suit said I was looking at him again and the next thing I remember was the sound of his gun. I remember thinking then that they must have been using blanks, because there was no way he could have missed me at that range, but I felt no pain, no impact. Nothing. Then I was aware of something wet at my side and running down my leg. I looked down and saw that I was bleeding from a wound just above my hip. I turned away and started to walk back to the car. I wasn’t thinking straight: it must have been the shock. I just remember thinking that I had to get to the car and sit down. Then I heard two more shots and I knew I had been hit in the back. My legs just stopped working and I fell flat on my face. I could hear the woman from the young couple screaming, then a screech of tyres as the van drove off with Herr Wiedler in it. I didn’t see this, because I was face down, but I know that’s what it was.
‘The young couple ran over to me and then the woman ran off down the road to get help while the young man stayed with me. It was the strangest sensation. I lay there with my cheek pressed against the road surface and I remember thinking that it felt warmer than I did. I also remember thinking that I had let Herr Wiedler down. That I should have done more. I was going to die anyway, so I should have made it count. Then I started to think about my wife Helga and little Ingrid and Horst and how they were going to have to manage without me. It was then that I got really angry and decided that I was not going to die. As I lay waiting for the ambulance to come, I concentrated hard on staying conscious and the way I did that was by trying to remember every detail of the face of the man who had not been able to hide his face. If he could be caught, I thought, they would get the rest of them.
‘It is those details that I was able to give to the police artist. I made him rework the picture over and over again. When he asked me if we had captured a good general likeness of the terrorist, I said he had, but that his job was not over. I told him that we could get it to an exact likeness of the man who shot me. So we did the drawing over and over again. What we finished up with was no artist’s impression. It was a portrait.
‘I will be confined to this wheelchair for the rest of my life. Over the last two months I have tried to understand what it is that these people think they can achieve with violence. They say this is a revolution, a rebellion. But a rebellion against what? The time will come when I shall have my reckoning. I may die first, but this tape, and the likeness I helped create of the terrorist who shot me, is my statement.’
Fabel pressed the Stop button. Now he understood why Ingrid Fischmann had been so motivated to uncover the truth. The voice on the tape had made Fabel feel obligated to find the people who had kidnapped and murdered Thorsten Wiedler and consigned Ralf Fischmann to a short and unhappy butt-end of a life spent in a wheelchair; he could not imagine the pressure that Ingrid, as Fischmann’s daughter, must have felt.
He opened the file and searched through it for the artist’s impression that Ralf Fischmann had described in the tape. He found it. An electric current coursed through his skin and ruffled the hairs at the nape of his neck. Ralf Fischmann had been right: he had pushed the police artist to a level of detail far beyond the usual bounds of the pictures of suspects that they normally circulated. It was, indeed, a proper portrait.
Fabel looked hard at a very real face of a very real person. And it was a face he recognised.
‘Now I understand, you bastard,’ Fabel said out loud to the face before him. ‘Now I know why you never wanted anyone to take your photograph. The others all had their faces hidden – you were the only one that anyone saw.’
Fabel laid the image of a young Gunter Griebel down on his desk, rose from his chair and flung the door of his office open.
1.20 p.m.: Police Presidium, Hamburg
Werner had assembled the entire team in the main meeting room. Fabel had asked Werner to arrange the meeting so that he could share his discovery about Gunter Griebel. It was now clear that all the victims had been members of Red Franz Muhlhaus’s terror group, The Risen. It was also more than likely that they were all involved in the Thorsten Wiedler kidnap and murder. Fabel was convinced that the motive for these killings lay in that event: but the person most motivated to carry out the murders, Ingrid Fischmann, was herself dead. She had mentioned a brother, as had her father on the tape recording. Fabel had decided to get someone on to tracing her brother and establishing his whereabouts at the times of each murder.
All of Fabel’s thinking, however, was to be overtaken.
Most of the Murder Commission team, like Fabel, had been seriously deprived of sleep over the last couple of days, but he could tell that something had blown away all weariness from them. They sat, expectantly, around the cherrywood conference table, while a row of dead, scalpless faces – Hauser, Griebel, Schuler and Scheibe – looked down at them from the inquiry board. They had not had time to obtain an image of the latest victim, Beate Brandt, but Werner had written her name next to the other images: a space prepared for her among the dead, like a freshly dug but still empty grave. Centred above the row of victims, the intense gaze of Red Franz Muhlhaus radiated across the room from the old police photograph.
‘What have you got?’ Fabel sat down at the end of the table nearest the door and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, as if trying to banish the tiredness from them.
Anna Wolff stood up.
‘Well, to start with, we’ve been alerted about a missing-person report. A Cornelius Tamm has been reported missing.’
‘The singer?’ asked Fabel.
‘That’s the one. A bit before my time, I’m afraid. It’s shown up on our radar because Tamm is a contemporary of the other victims. He went missing three days ago after a gig in Altona. His van hasn’t been found, either.’
‘Who’s following it up?’ asked Fabel.
‘I’ve got a team on it,’ said Maria Klee. She looked as tired as Fabel felt. ‘Some of the extra officers we’ve had allocated. I’ve told them that they’re probably looking for the next victim.’
‘Are you okay?’ asked Fabel. ‘You look shattered.’
‘I’m fine… just a headache.’
‘What else have we got?’ Fabel turned back to Anna.
‘We’ve been trying to work out what this has all been about.’ Anna Wolff smiled. ‘Has Red Franz Muhlhaus, supposedly dead for twenty years, returned from the grave? Well, maybe he has. I checked through all the records we’ve got on Muhlhaus, as well as media stuff from the time.’ Anna paused and flicked through the file that sat before her on the table. ‘Maybe Red Franz has come back to avenge himself. In the form of his son. Muhlhaus was not alone on that railway platform in Nordenham. He had his long-term girlfriend Michaela Schwenn and their ten-year-old son with him. The boy saw it all. Watched his father and mother die.’
Fabel felt a tingle in the nape of his neck, but said, ‘That doesn’t mean that this son is out for revenge.’
‘According to the GSG Nine officers on the scene, Muhlhaus’s dying word was “traitors”. These killings aren’t motiveless psychotic attacks, Chef. This is all about vengeance. A blood feud.’ Anna paused again. There was the hint of a smile playing around the corners of her full red lips.