4.
Fabel’s hotel room had the expected brightly coloured abstract print hanging on the wall. He sat on the edge of his bed and stared at it as if it would yield the knowledge or the strength to help him work out what to do next. His head ached. It was Vitrenko’s sheer arrogance that astounded him: grabbing a senior police officer on a busy street and demanding that he betray everything he believed in.
As Fabel stared at the painting, he thought of The Nightwatch hanging in his mother’s parlour; about how he had forgotten what he had seen in the painting as a small boy. The protection of others from harm.
Fabel knew what he had to do but dreaded doing it. It went against every instinct he had. He picked up the phone and dialled.
‘Hello, Ullrich, Fabel here. About the Vitrenko Dossier…’
5.
Maria had realised, in those cold, dark, isolated hours, that she needed a sharp cutting edge to succeed in any attack. She had planned to sharpen the spoon, but that had been taken away along with, for a while, all hope. Then she had realised that, of course, she did have a sharp-edged weapon. It was just that using it had taken her to a place that was beyond human.
The grey-white walls were splashed with arcs of arterial blood. Sarapenko now reached out to Maria, desperate to touch another human being as she died. The spurts from her neck weakened: the outstretched hand dropped onto the grubby floor. Shakily, Maria dragged herself to her feet and wiped the blood from her mouth and face with the back of her sleeve. She took the automatic from its holster on Sarapenko’s body, trying not to look at the face stripped of its beauty. The face that she had ravaged. But Maria felt no horror. Again, it was as if she were unreal; simply watching herself. She staggered out into the main part of the unit, swinging Sarapenko’s automatic wildly around. There was no one. No Nose. Maria saw where the row of surveillance monitors still sat: now blank dark eyes. She ripped drawers from their runners, tore open cabinets until she found three more clips for the automatic, plus the two guns they had taken from her. There was a wastebasket in the corner and she frantically tossed its contents out onto the floor. She found a half-eaten roll, sodden with discarded coffee, with a shred of meat left inside. She stuffed it into her mouth and swallowed it half chewed, its stale flavour mingling with the lingering taste of Sarapenko’s blood in her mouth.
The Nose came in through the main door at the end of the unit, carrying a large box. The instant he saw Maria he dropped the box and reached into his leather jacket. Maria walked deliberately and unhurriedly towards him. She heard several gunshots and felt Sarapenko’s gun kick in her outstretched grasp. The Nose sank to his knees, hit in his chest and left flank. His hand cleared his jacket and Maria fired twice more into his body. His gun clattered to the floor. Maria kicked the automatic out of his reach. He looked up at her, his breath coming in short gasps. Maria knew that he was seriously wounded and would die if he didn’t get hospital treatment immediately. She guessed he knew that as well. He tried to stand up but Maria shoved him back onto the floor with her boot.
‘Where’s the swap supposed to take place?’ she asked.
‘What swap?’ he said between laboured breaths.
Maria lowered her aim and fired again. He screamed as his right kneecap shattered, his jeans turning black-red as the blood soaked into them.
‘I’m supposed to be swapped for something,’ said Maria, still calm. ‘My guess is the Vitrenko Dossier. Where’s the meet and who with?’
‘Fuck you…’
‘No,’ Maria said wearily. ‘Fuck you.’ She leaned forward and aimed the muzzle at his forehead.
‘Near the cathedral,’ said The Nose. ‘On the corner of Komodienstrasse and Tunisstrasse. With Fabel.’
‘Jan Fabel?’
‘He’s supposed to hand over a copy of the dossier in exchange for you.’
‘When?’
‘Rose Monday. When the procession is passing.’
‘Thank you,’ said Maria. ‘You’ll die if you don’t get help. Do you have a cellphone?’
‘In my pocket.’
Maria shoved the gun’s muzzle into his cheek while she dug into his leather jacket with the other hand, retrieved the phone and put it into her own pocket. Then, with all her remaining strength and ignoring his screams of agony, she dragged The Nose by the collar of his jacket across the floor and into the storeroom. She dumped him next to the body of Olga Sarapenko and left him there.
‘Like I said…’ Maria regarded the Ukrainian coldly as she slid the cold-store door shut. ‘Fuck you.’
6.
Fabel stood on the corner of Komodienstrasse and Tunisstrasse, the spires of Cologne Cathedral looming behind him, and watched as float after float drifted by. Crowds of organised chaos. Fabel looked up Tunisstrasse and recognised Scholz’s Cologne Police float approaching. He stood watching the procession but not seeing it. Instead, he ran through every possible outcome. He even wondered if he would die here: if Maria was already dead and if Vitrenko would finish him off as soon as he got his hands on the dossier. Fabel gripped the plastic carrier bag tight.
‘It’s nothing to do with roses, you know,’ Scholz had told him. ‘The Rose in Rose Monday comes from the Old Low German Rasen – to rave or run around madly.’ Now Fabel stood on the corner of a Cologne street on Rose Monday and watched as the city’s population turned the world on its head. A giant papier-mache model of the American President George Bush, his bare buttocks being spanked by an enraged Arab, drifted by. It was followed by another depicting the new German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, dressed as a Rhine Maiden. A group of German TV personalities were depicted on the next float, stuffing their pockets with cash. Everyone was cheering and scrabbling to catch the candies thrown by the costumed members of each float.
The procession slowed and came to a temporary standstill, as it did periodically to maintain the regulation distance between floats. Undaunted, the crowd continued to cheer. Fabel scanned the faces around him: clowns, oversized floppy hats in stridently jolly colours, face-painted children hoisted on the shoulders of parents. Then he saw him: the same gold mask and black outfit, standing four or five rows back. Fabel edged through the crowd towards the figure, then became aware of another gold mask. Then another. And another. There were five
… no, six of them scattered throughout the crowd. All the gold masks were watching Fabel, not the procession. He stopped and tried to weigh up which was Vitrenko. Two of the figures made their way over to him. Fabel and the two gold-masked men stood, an island in an unseeing sea of revellers.
‘I said I’d only hand this over to Vitrenko,’ said Fabel. Neither masked man moved but Fabel heard Vitrenko’s voice.
‘And I said I wouldn’t walk so easily into a trap.’
Fabel spun around and came face to face with another identical gold mask. The other two men closed in behind him.
‘You have it?’
‘I have photocopied pages from the original. Where’s Maria?’ said Fabel. The crowd around him cheered another passing float.
‘Safe. She’ll be released when I return with the dossier.’
‘No, she won’t. That wasn’t our deal. You said we would exchange here. If I let you walk away with the dossier you’ll kill her. Or she’s dead already.’ A shower of candies rained down on them, thrown by a passing float with the ritual Kolsch cry of ‘ Alaaf… Helau! ’. The crowd responded with ‘ Kolle Alaaf! ’
‘You’re right, Herr Fabel, I don’t have her to exchange any more. But that doesn’t matter, because you’ve brought the dossier. Thank you. And goodbye, Fabel.’
Vitrenko seized Fabel by the shoulder and pulled him close to the expressionless gold Venetian mask. One of the others snatched the carrier bag from his grasp. Vitrenko’s other hand thrust a knife upwards and into Fabel’s abdomen. Fabel doubled over, gasping for breath.