‘No such luck,’ Scholz had said gloomily. ‘It’s about our Karneval float for Rose Monday. They’re after my head because the finishing of the float and costumes is so far behind schedule.’
Fabel walked into town from his hotel and climbed the cathedral steps above the Bahnhofsvorplatz, the main square that sat between Cologne Cathedral and the city’s central railway station. Ahead of him was the Collonaden shopping mall attached to the station. The winter sun was knife-sharp in the cold air and scarf-muffled crowds milled around the square. This was the heart of the city. It had been for nearly two thousand years and the concentric circles of Cologne’s main thoroughfares radiated from it like ripples in a pond. Maria was out there somewhere on some half-baked revenge mission. She was here to catch up with Vitrenko. The chances were that she would. And that he would kill her.
He had only been waiting for ten minutes when a tall man with greying hair approached him. Fabel noticed that Ullrich Wagner was much more casually dressed than he had been the last time they had met, in van Heiden’s office in Hamburg.
‘I see you got my message,’ said Fabel. ‘I’m glad you could come.’
‘After what you told me on the phone the other day, I could hardly not come.’ Wagner looked up at the dark mass of the cathedral. One of the spires was encased in scaffolding that looked toothpick-fragile compared to the spire’s mass. ‘There’s always scaffolding somewhere on it… it took three hundred years to build and it looks like it’ll take an eternity to repair.’ He smiled. ‘I must say it’s very Graham Greene
… meeting at the cathedral and everything.’
‘I didn’t want to meet at the Police Presidium. I’m working this Karneval case with Benni Scholz. I didn’t want, well… to confuse things. I didn’t have time to head out to BKA headquarters, and you said you would be in Cologne…’
‘Listen, it’s not a problem. By the way, I just wanted to ask you
… your decision… you know, what you said on the phone. Is that your final decision?’
‘Yes…’ Fabel thought back to his phone call to Wagner from his office in Hamburg immediately after he had heard from Dr Minks about Maria’s absence.
‘I have to say, I agree that we have to get Frau Klee out of the picture. Not just because she’s compromising our operation again, but for the sake of her well-being. But I have to be frank, Herr Fabel…’
‘Call me Jan…’ Cologne’s informality seemed to be affecting Fabel.
‘I have to be frank, Jan: I think Frau Klee is finished as a police officer.’
‘Let’s concentrate on saving her life first, then we’ll see about saving her career.’
Fabel had only been in the cathedral once before and as he and Wagner stepped through the double doors into the main body of the building he recalled his previous awe. It had to be one of the most impressive buildings ever built. The vast vaulted space that opened up before them seemed too huge to be sustained in the fabric of the building. For a moment the two men remained silent as they each took in the majesty of the cathedral and its enormous stained-glass windows. On the way in Fabel and Wagner passed a shortish, stocky man with thick sand-coloured hair and a dense bush of moustache. He appeared to be wearing several layers of woollens under his stockman coat. His spectacles were perched on the top of his head and he was peering up, frowning, at one of the detailed stained-glass panels. He had a pen and a thick notebook clutched in one hand and a guidebook in the other.
‘Excuse me…’ He turned and spoke to them in English as they passed. ‘Could you tell me… there is a coat of arms up there. You see
…’
‘It probably signifies one of the wealthy merchant families in Cologne,’ said Fabel.
‘That is the strangest thing,’ said the man, perplexed but smiling. ‘That is quite definitely… absolutely definitely… a rhinoceros… But the guide states here that this panel dates back to the Middle Ages. I thought in Germany you would not know of such things at this time…’
‘Are you Spanish?’ Fabel spoke his mother’s language like a native and had an ear for foreign accents in English.
‘I live in Spain, but I’m Mexican, actually. Paco is my name,’ said the tourist and smiled broadly. ‘I am a writer and such things interest me.’ He shook his head in awe. ‘And this is a most interesting city…’
‘I’m afraid I have no idea. I’m from Hamburg myself…’
‘Maybe it was a family who traded with Africa,’ said Wagner. ‘But Cologne started off as a Roman city and had contacts throughout the Empire. It’s always been a trading centre for the rest of Europe. For the world. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you what the significance of the rhinoceros is.’
‘Thank you, anyway,’ said the tourist.
They were about to walk away when Wagner checked himself. ‘Oh, there is one meaning it might have.’
‘Oh?’
‘There was a lot of symbolism borrowed from pagan times to represent the various aspects of Christ. They were big on bestiaries in the Middle Ages and used exotic animals as symbols for Christ or the resurrection. The Phoenician myth of the phoenix and the image of the pelican were both used to represent the resurrection.’
‘Why the pelican?’ asked Fabel.
‘Back then they thought pelicans ripped open their own chests to deliver their young.’
‘And the rhinoceros?’ asked the tourist.
‘The rhinoceros was a symbol of Christ’s wrath. Righteous vengeance.’
‘Most interesting…’ said the Mexican. ‘Thank you.’
Fabel and Wagner left the tourist still looking up at the stained-glass window, shaking his head in wonder.
‘Impressive…’ said Fabel, with a smile.
‘I was brought up in a very Catholic family,’ said Wagner wryly. ‘A lot of it sticks.’
Fabel and Wagner sat on a pew near where the immense stained-glass window soared high and wide, splashing the floor’s flagstones with puddles of red, green, blue.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ said Wagner. ‘Did you know that Cologne Cathedral was the world’s tallest man-made structure until the end of the nineteenth century? It was the Eiffel Tower that replaced it, I think. Or the Washington Monument.’
Fabel nodded. ‘So much stone. No wonder it took three hundred years to build.’
‘This isn’t simply a place of worship: it’s a physical statement. A big statement. Big God and little us.’
‘I take it that despite your Catholic upbringing you’re not the most religious person, Ullrich?’
‘After going through the Vitrenko Dossier it’s pretty easy to believe in the Devil, if not in God.’
‘I’d like a look at the dossier. Would that be possible?’
A cathedral guide in a monk’s habit, with a cash box and a guidebook dispenser strapped to his belt, walked past. The monk paused to ask an American tourist to remove his baseball cap.
‘This is still a place of worship,’ the monk-guide said in English.
‘It’s on strictly controlled release,’ said Wagner after the American and the guide were out of earshot. ‘You have to sign a register to even look at it. But I’ll see what I can do, Jan. However, if you are getting involved in this, we need you to get involved professionally. One renegade Hamburg cop trampling all over this operation is enough.’
‘Fair enough. Were you able to run the checks I asked for?’
Wagner’s expression suggested it had not been an easy task. ‘Hotel Linden off the Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer. She checked in three weeks ago. The nineteenth of January. Stayed a week and checked out on the twenty-sixth. You do know that getting this information was not entirely legal?’
‘You’d make a good spy, Ullrich.’ Fabel smiled. He remembered that the Linden was on the list of hotels that he and Anna had found in Maria’s apartment. ‘Could I have a look at the Vitrenko file tonight?’