A Fear of Dark Water (36 page)

Roman looked around. It really was a nice place, if only he had kept it tidier. He regretted that now. There was a lot he regretted now. He stood leaning against the door, still struggling with his breathing.

There were three of them in the flat. None of them spoke. They all wore identical grey suits and had Bluetooth earpieces jammed into their ears as if fused there. One was sitting at Roman’s computers, another held Meliha’s cellphone in his hand. The third stood directly in front of Roman, staring at him with nothing in his face.

Roman had known they would be there. Before he had left to carry out his chores he had reassembled Meliha’s phone, including the tracer, and had left it switched on. A beacon. A digital lighthouse. They were big on that kind of metaphor, he thought.

He started to laugh at the absurdity of it all just as the Consolidator closest to him stepped forward, slipped the large plastic bag he had in his gloved hands over Roman’s head and pulled the drawstring tight.

Chapter Thirty-One

Fabel knew that it would be panic that would kill him. He forced the thought to the front of his mind. He had been winded by the first impact and his lungs were still depleted of oxygen; a primal instinct screamed within him to open his mouth and breathe: to suck in the filthy river water; to fill his lungs with something, anything.

The natural buoyancy of his body was pushing him up against the fabric roof of the car as it sank and he knew he was being dragged deeper into the Elbe. The wharf had originally been intended as a shipping berth, meaning the water was deep enough to accommodate a large ship’s draught. Deep and dark.

Now Fabel could see nothing. This was the car he had owned for ten years but suddenly its interior was totally alien to him. A strange and toxic environment. One window, he knew, was open and offered a quick exit. The other was intact. A simple choice: one direction or the other. He pushed himself toward what he thought was the right side of the car. No steering wheel. He found the edge of the passenger window and pushed himself through. He was out of the car. And rising. His lungs screamed and a searing pain he had never felt before sliced through his chest. He could now see the surface above him but it did not seem to get any nearer. The light above started to dim, the water around him growing darker again. He felt renewed panic when he realised he was going to black out. He was going to lose consciousness and he would never regain it. His arms and legs became leaden and he knew he was sinking again.

All fear left him and he let his held breath go in an explosion of bubbles.

Something closed over his mouth and pinched his nose shut. A hand. There was someone in the water with him. Another arm looped under his armpit and around his chest. Fabel instinctively fought against the hand bruisingly clamped over his nose and mouth: the logic that it was preventing him breathing in the filthy dock water lost in primal panic.

He knew they must be rising, but the water became even darker. Black. He no longer felt his limbs, the chill of the water, the hammering in his chest.

Fabel found himself sitting again in his father’s study in Norddeich. It was dark and the study was illuminated by only one desk light. Somewhere outside the window, on the other side of the dyke, there was the sound of a storm. As Fabel listened to the wind and the rain he noticed that Paul Lindemann was sitting opposite him, the bullet wound in the centre of his forehead crusted with a circle of long-dried black-red blood.

‘Does it hurt?’ Fabel asked.

‘Not any more.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. It happened. It was my time.’

‘It’s my time now. Is this real?’

‘It’s not your time,’ said Paul and smiled. ‘I don’t know if this is real. Do you remember that case you investigated, the one where the murderer thought he was made up, that everything, including himself, was all part of a fairy tale?’

‘I remember him.’

‘Maybe he was right after all. Maybe there is no such thing as reality.’ Paul paused. ‘Did you see the books?’

‘What books?’

‘The books she kept beside her bed.’

‘Yes, I saw them.’

‘Are they with you now? Do you have them in the water?’

‘I’m not in the water. I’m here.’

‘You’re in the water, Jan. Do you have the books with you?’

‘No. Anna took them. In a bag.’

‘Remember the books.’ Paul frowned, creasing the punctured skin around the bullet wound. ‘Don’t forget about the books.’

Fabel wanted to answer Paul but found himself becoming sleepy. The room went dark and the sound of the storm faded.

Something seared through him; penetrated every millimetre of his being. There was a great roar, like the crashing of waves but too fast, one after the other. The pain surged with each roar and Fabel realised it was his own breathing. There was something still clamped over his nose and mouth and he grabbed at it. A hand caught him by the wrist.

‘Take it easy.’ A female voice mixed authority and reassurance. ‘It’s just an oxygen mask.’

He tried to get up but more hands gently restrained him.

‘It’s Anna,
Chef
. You’re going to be okay. You’re in an ambulance. We’re taking you to the hospital.’

Fabel’s vision cleared and he saw Anna and a female paramedic leaning over him. Full consciousness returned like an electric shock.

‘Did you get them?’ He tried to sit upright but again was restrained. Pain throbbed nauseatingly in his head. ‘They pushed me into the water. They tried to kill me.’ He saw there was someone else in the ambulance. A figure sitting on the bench seat next to Anna; hair wet-black and plastered to his brow, a blanket wrapped around hunched shoulders.

‘This is Herr Flemming, Jan,’ said Anna. ‘It was Herr Flemming who pulled you out of the water. He saw your car go in and he jumped in to save you.’

Fabel remembered the hand over his nose and mouth, the arm looped around him, pulling him upwards.

‘You saved my life?’

Flemming shrugged underneath the blanket. ‘Right place, right time.’

‘It was more than that. You risked your life to come in for me.’

‘Jan …’ Fabel thought he sensed something tentative in Anna’s tone. ‘Herr Flemming works for Seamark International.’

‘But I thought …’

‘You were right, Herr Fabel,’ said Flemming. ‘We were following you. But we’re on the same side, so to speak. But rest now. They’re taking me to the hospital, too. We can talk later.’

‘Was it you who phoned me last night? Are you
Klabautermann
?’

Flemming laughed. ‘Maybe I was the Klabautermann today, but no, I didn’t phone you.’

Fabel lay back on the gurney. The oxygen eased his breathing. He closed his eyes and tried to fight back the nausea that washed over him in great, welling waves. The ambulance started to move, jolting over some obstacle as it got under way. Fabel tore off the oxygen mask and twisted sideways, vomiting over the edge of the gurney. The paramedic held him while he finished retching, before asking him if he felt better and easing him back into a lying position. As he lay there, feeling the pressure of the paramedic’s fingertips on his wrist as she checked his pulse, Fabel felt a dull surprise as his eyelids closed. He was going to sleep.

Susanne arrived at the hospital in St Georg about half an hour after Fabel had been admitted. She looked shaken and Fabel found himself worrying more about her than himself as she sat at his bedside. She stayed there while he was reexamined on the hour. The frown on her face refused to dissipate, no matter how often he reassured her that he was all right, or the doctors told her that there was nothing to be concerned about.

‘I didn’t take in much water,’ he said. ‘That guy Flemming made sure of that. He got me out really quickly, Susanne. I’m fine, honest.’ He placed his hand on her cheek and smiled. She placed her hand over his.

‘They tried to kill you, Jan,’ she said incredulously. ‘These maniacs actually believe they can get away with trying to kill a senior Hamburg police officer.’

‘Truth is, as far as I can see, they
are
getting away with it. We have nothing to tie the vehicle that rammed into me with the Pharos Project or the Guardians of Gaia. Or anyone else for that matter. They could claim it was a random road-rage attack. I don’t know. But we’ll get them, don’t worry Susanne. We
will
get them.’

Anna Wolff came in. She clearly saw Susanne clasping Fabel’s hand and looked awkward for a moment.

‘It’s all right, Anna,’ said Susanne. Fabel thought he detected a little frost in her smile. She stood up, leaned over and kissed him proprietarily on the forehead. ‘I’ll go and get a coffee. I’ll be back in a minute.’

‘Sorry,
Chef
,’ said Anna. ‘I didn’t mean to …’

‘It’s fine, Anna. What’s up?’

‘Flemming has been given the all-clear to go, but he’s hanging around because he thought you’d want to talk to him. If you’re up to it, that is.’

‘Damned right I want to talk to him. Did he tell you why he was following me?’

‘You’re better getting all the details from him, but I gather that Seamark International works for a company called Demeril Importing. It’s a Turkish carpet and textile importer, down in the Speicherstadt. Seamark work for a lot of companies like that, providing security for imported and exported goods, even with men on ships safeguarding the cargo. They even have their own investigative branch, apparently. Mainly because the cargo and shipping they look after passes through so many jurisdictions and shades of legislation.’

‘What the hell has that got to do with anything?’

‘The owner of Demeril is a Herr Mustafa Kebir. His brother is a well-known Turkish archaeologist and environmental campaigner, Burhan Kebir, who happens to be very concerned about the whereabouts of his daughter …’

‘Meliha?’

‘Meliha Kebir – our Meliha Yazar – is an environmental campaigner and “underground” investigative journalist. The reason we could find no record of her is that she doesn’t write as either Meliha Kebir or Meliha Yazar. All her work appears on the internet on activist and environmental sites under the tag
Mermaid
. She’s already done several exposés on various companies who have shafted the environment. In two cases the internet shit-storm she’s created has spilled over into the mainstream media to such an extent that charges have been brought against the companies she’s named.’

Fabel eased himself up in the bed. His head still hurt like hell and he winced at the effort. ‘Exactly the kind of person the Pharos Project wouldn’t want anywhere near.’

‘I’ve been in touch with the mental health sanatorium in Bavaria where Föttinger was placed by his parents. I managed to get a federal warrant for their records on him and guess what?’

‘They’ve had some kind of computer glitch and the records have been mysteriously erased?’

Anna looked disappointed that she had not had a chance to drop her bombshell. ‘Lucky guess?’

‘Educated one. Anything else?’

‘Yes – Nicola Brüggemann is here to see you.’

‘How are you getting on with her?’

‘Fine. She’s a good cop, like you said.’

‘That it?’

Anna shrugged. ‘Oh no, there was one more thing. Fabian Menke called to cancel. He said he’d arranged to meet you but something had come up and could you reschedule for same time, same place tomorrow?’

Fabel frowned. ‘That’s who I was going to meet when I got shunted into the river.’

‘Will you be up to seeing him tomorrow?’

‘All I’ve had is a needle in my ass for tetanus. I’m fine. A little shaken, that’s all.’

‘They want to keep you in overnight, just for observation.’

‘They can observe me remotely. Will you get my clothes for me while I talk to Nicola? Susanne brought in a fresh change of clothes for me. And you better get them here before Susanne comes back. She’ll want me to stay in.’

‘How’s it going, Jan?’ Brüggemann asked in her low contralto as she sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Do you have a moment for a chat? I mean, you don’t have anything planned, do you? A swim or …’

‘Very funny, Nicola. Have you been taking sarcasm lessons from Anna Wolff?’

‘There are a few things young Anna could teach me, Jan. That’s not one of them.’

Anna came back in and handed Fabel his clothes. ‘You’d better be quick,’ she said. ‘I think they’ve told the chief nurse and she’s steaming this way. I’ll leave you to it.’

As Anna left, Fabel made a face at Brüggemann who turned her back to him as he stood up and dressed. He found his head still hurt and he was a little unsteady on his feet.

‘All of this crap about me being in charge of the Network Killer case because you’ve been
compromised
…’ said Brüggemann. ‘I’ve had a word with Criminal Director van Heiden and he agrees that the attempt on your life makes it all a crock of shit.’

‘“Crock of shit”?’ Fabel grinned. ‘I take it you didn’t actually use that phrase to Horst van Heiden? It’s okay, by the way, I’m decent.’