JF02 - Brother Grimm (43 page)

‘So what you’re saying is that all we have is a theme, rather than a plan?’

Weiss shrugged. ‘What I’m saying is that there is no way of telling what he will do next or how he sees his work evolving. But the material he is working with gives him a terrible scope and choice of tale to twist to his particular agenda.’

‘Then God help us,’ said Fabel.

The skies above Hamburg had stayed clear after another cleansing storm and now glowed with the late evening. Fabel’s apartment was flooded with the warm, gentle light. He felt absolutely exhausted. He threw his jacket and his gun clip on to the sofa and stood for a moment, taking in his apartment. His little realm. He had furnished it well, even expensively, and it had become an externalisation of his personality. Clean, efficient, almost too organised. He absorbed the view and the furnishings, the books and the pictures, and the expensive electronics. But was it, at the end of the day, any less lonely than Max Bartmann’s seedy Sankt Pauli apartment above his studio?

Before stripping and stepping into the shower, he called Susanne. They hadn’t arranged anything for this evening and she was surprised to hear from him: surprised, but happy.

‘Susanne, I need to see you tonight. Your place, my place, in town – it doesn’t matter where.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Is there anything wrong?’

‘No … Nothing at all. It’s just that I need to talk to you.’

‘Oh, I see …’ she said. She clearly had assumed
it was about the case. ‘Why don’t you come over here? Stay the night.’

‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’

Susanne’s apartment was in a grand Wilhelminischeera building in the Övelgönne part of Hamburg’s Othmarschen district. Övelgönne sat down by the Elbe, on the Elbechaussee, and was on the way to Blankenese, both in terms of geography and desirability. Fabel had often stayed the night at Susanne’s, but they had somehow fallen into the custom of her sleeping over at his apartment. Fabel suspected that Susanne sought to protect her own space more consciously than he did. But she had given him a key and, after parking off the main street, he let himself in.

Susanne had seen him arrive and waited for him at the door to her flat. She was in the oversized T-shirt she wore to bed. Her glossy, dark hair tumbled down to her shoulders and her face was naked of make-up. There were times, unexpected times, when Fabel felt overwhelmed by her beauty. As he looked at her now, on the threshold of her apartment, this was one of them.

Her apartment was much larger than Fabel’s and tastefully decorated, but there was a hint of tradition in the style that was absent from the Nordic minimalism in Fabel’s place.

‘You look tired,’ Susanne said, and stroked his face. She led him into the living room before going into the kitchen, re-emerging with a glass of white wine and a bottle of beer.

‘There you go, a Jever.’ She handed him the bottle. ‘I got a stock in especially for you.’

‘Thanks. I need this.’ He sipped the chilled, sharp
Frisian beer. Susanne sat down on the sofa next to Fabel, folding her legs under her. The T-shirt rode up and exposed the silky skin of her thigh.

‘What is it you wanted to talk about so urgently?’ She grinned. ‘Not that I’m not delighted to see you. But it sounded like you wanted to discuss this case and you know how I feel about talking shop …’

Fabel silenced her by pulling her towards him and kissing her long and hard on the lips. When he released her, he held her gaze.

‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I didn’t come here to talk about the case. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Thinking about us.’

‘Oh …’ Susanne said. ‘This sounds ominous.’

‘We don’t seem to be going anywhere with this relationship. I suppose that’s because we’re both contented, in our different ways. And maybe you don’t want any more than we have.’ He paused, searching her eyes for any reaction. All he could read in them was her patience. ‘I took a kicking over my marriage. I don’t know what I did wrong, but I guess it was maybe that I just didn’t do enough to keep it alive. I don’t want that to happen to us. I really care about you, Susanne. I want this to work.’

She smiled and caressed his cheek again. Her hand was cool from the wineglass. ‘But Jan, things are fine. I want this to work too.’

‘I want us to live together.’ Fabel’s tone was decisive, almost curt. Then he smiled and his voice softened. ‘I would really like it if we lived together, Susanne. What do you think?’

Susanne arched her eyebrows and let out a long breath. ‘Wow. I don’t know. I really don’t know, Jan. We both like our own space. We’re both very strong-willed people. That’s not an issue now, but
if we lived together … I don’t know, Jan. Like you say, we’ve got a good thing going here, I don’t want to screw it up.’

‘I don’t think it would. I think it would strengthen it.’

‘I was in a relationship before.’ Susanne swung her legs down from the couch. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and cradling her wineglass in both hands. ‘We lived together for a while. I didn’t see it at first, but he was a very controlling person.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Me … a psychologist, and I couldn’t recognise a control freak when I saw one. Anyway, it wasn’t good for me. I felt belittled. Then I felt worthless. I stopped believing in myself, stopped trusting my own judgement. I got out before he destroyed any self-esteem I had left.’

‘You think I’m like that?’

‘No … of course I don’t.’ She took his hand. ‘It’s just that I’ve spent a long time creating a sense of, well,
independence
for myself.’

‘God, Susanne, I’m not looking for some kind of Hausfrau. I’m looking for a partner. I’m looking for someone to share my life with. And the only reason I’m looking for that is because of you. Before I met you I hadn’t given it any thought. Will you at least think about it?’

‘Of course, I will, Jan. I’m not saying no. I’m not saying that at all. I just need time to think about it.’ She smiled broadly. ‘I tell you what: you take me to Sylt, the way you’ve been promising for ages. To stay at your brother’s hotel. You do that and I’ll give you an answer.’

Fabel smiled. ‘It’s a deal.’

They made intense, eager love before falling asleep. A feeling of contentment nursed Fabel into a deep sleep. A deeper, sounder sleep than he had known for weeks.

His awakening was sudden. Something had reached down to find him and hauled him suddenly up to the surface. He lay, his eyes wide, watching the shadows on the ceiling. Susanne slept beside him. Something, somewhere in a dark, small room in a distant corner of his mind, was hammering to get out. He swung his legs around and sat on the edge of the bed. What was it? Something that had been said? Something he had seen? Or both? Whatever it was, he knew it had to do with the murders: some link that had registered on the fringes. He stood up and walked through to the living room and looked out through Susanne’s windows. Her apartment couldn’t compete with Fabel’s in terms of its outlook. Susanne’s view extended over the park and down to the Elbe, but it was heavily framed by the other buildings. A couple of cars passed by, heading towards Liebermann Strasse. A solitary dog wandered across the street and Fabel followed it with his eyes until it disappeared from view.

Something he had heard. Something he had seen. Or both. His exhausted, sleep-deprived brain refused to give it up.

Fabel went through to the kitchen and squinted his eyes against the dazzle as he switched on the lights. He made himself a cup of tea. As he took the milk from the fridge he saw three bottles of Jever chilling. He smiled at the thought of Susanne buying them in for him and placing them in her fridge. Fabel always thought of people’s fridges as an intimate area: the contents of someone’s fridge
were as personal as the contents of their wallet or purse. Whenever he was at a murder scene, he would examine the fridge to get an impression of the person or people who lived there. And now his beers shared that personal space with Susanne’s yogurt, with her favourite Southern German cheeses and with the pastries she had a weakness for.

He took his tea over to the breakfast bar. He took a sip of it. It was too hot and he set it down to cool. Susanne walked into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes.

‘You okay?’ she asked sleepily. ‘Bad dream again?’

He stood up and kissed her. ‘No. Just couldn’t sleep … sorry if I disturbed you. Do you want some tea?’

‘That’s okay – and no, thanks.’ She talked through her yawn. ‘I just wanted to check you were okay.’

Fabel froze as a dark energy coursed through him. His tiredness was gone and he was now as fully awake as it was possible to be. Every sense, every nerve had come alive. He stared blankly at Susanne.

‘Are you okay?’ Susanne asked. ‘Jan, what’s wrong?’

Fabel crossed the kitchen and opened the fridge door. He stared at the pastries. They were delicate: baked apple encased in a light, flaky crust. He closed the door and turned back to Susanne.

‘The Gingerbread House,’ he said. But he wasn’t talking to Susanne.

‘What?’

‘The Gingerbread House. Werner said to me that we should be looking for someone who lives in a Gingerbread House. Then I saw the pastries in the fridge, and that’s what reminded me.’

‘Jan, what the hell are you talking about?’

He took her by the shoulders and kissed her cheek. ‘I’ve got to get dressed. I’ve got to go back to the Präsidium.’

‘What on earth for?’ she asked, following Fabel into the bedroom, where he hastily pulled on his clothes.

‘I’ve heard him, Susanne. All this time he’s been trying to tell me something and now I’ve heard him.’

Fabel phoned Weiss from his car.

‘Christ, Fabel – it’s nearly five in the morning. What the hell do you want?’

‘Why do baked goods feature so much in the Grimm fairy tales?’

‘What? What the hell …’

‘Listen, Herr Weiss, I know it’s late – or early – but this is important. Vitally important. Why are there so many references to baked goods – to bread and cakes, to gingerbread houses and the like – in the Grimm fairy tales?’

‘Oh, God … I don’t know … it symbolises so much.’ Weiss sounded confused, as if being forced to search through mental files when still half asleep. ‘Different things in different tales. Take ‘Rotkäppchen’, for example: Little Red Riding Hood’s freshly baked bread for her grandmother is a symbol of her uncorrupted purity while the wolf represents corruption and rapacious appetites. It isn’t the bread he wants, it’s her virginity. Yet Hänsel and Gretel, despite being innocents lost in the darkness of the woods, succumb to their appetites and greed when they come across the gingerbread house. So, in that case, it represents the temptation to sin. Baked foods can represent so many different things. Simplicity and purity. Or even poverty – the meagre
breadcrumbs that Hänsel secretly stores to use to guide him and his sister back to safety. Why?’

‘I can’t explain right now. But thanks.’ Fabel hung up and immediately redialled. It took some time for the phone to be answered.

‘Werner, it’s Fabel … Yes, I know the time. Can you get to the Präsidium right away? See if you can get hold of Anna and Maria as well.’ Fabel checked himself. For a moment he was about to ask Werner to call Paul Lindemann in: the lateness of the hour and the force of habit obscuring, for a second, the fact of Paul’s death a year ago while on duty. ‘And get Anna to contact Henk Hermann.’ He hung up.

So much death. How did he ever end up surrounded by so much death? History had been his overwhelming love and he had felt drawn to the life of the historian as if his very genes had predestined his path. But Fabel didn’t believe in destiny. Instead he believed in the cruel unpredictability of life: a life where a chance encounter between a young girl student, Fabel’s girlfriend at the time, and a nobody with a severe psychotic disorder resulted in a tragedy. And that tragedy had set in train a sequence of unforeseen events that ended in Fabel’s career becoming that of a murder-squad policeman, instead of a historian, or an archaeologist, or a teacher.

So much death. And now he was closing in on another killer.

It was nearly six before everyone was assembled in the Mordkommission. No one complained about being summoned from their beds, but everyone had the bleary-eyed look of the barely awake. But not Fabel. Fabel’s eyes burned with a cold, dark determination. He stood with his back to them, moving
his searchlight gaze along the images on the inquiry board.

‘There have been times I thought that we weren’t going to get this guy.’ Fabel’s voice was quiet, deliberate. ‘That we were going to see several weeks of intense activity and a pile of corpses, and then he would disappear. Until his next spree.’ There was a heartbeat’s pause. He turned to his audience. ‘We have a busy, busy day ahead of us. By the end of it I intend to have our killer in custody.’

No one spoke, but suddenly everyone looked more alert. ‘He’s clever. Mad – but clever,’ Fabel continued. ‘This is his life’s work and he has thought it through to the tiniest detail. Everything he does is significant. Every detail is a link to another. But there was one link we missed.’ He slammed his open palm against the first image. ‘Paula Ehlers … this is the picture taken the day before she disappeared. What do you see?’