The Ghosts of Altona (11 page)

And this was where they usually met. It was a cellar restaurant, below street level at the Alsterarkaden. But because it sat next to the channel of the Kleine Alster, one flank of the cellar was all windows and looked out onto the water and the symbolic white Alster swans that glided across its surface.

The restaurant had an East Frisian theme and they served beers and dishes from Fabel’s home region, along with other traditional Northern German specialities. The fact that it was very much a tongue-in-cheek theming made it all the more East Frisian. Fabel had come here often over his years in Hamburg, joking with others about it being his embassy in the Hanseatic City.

Fabel’s usual waiter had approached him without his customary cheeriness and had explained that the decision had been taken to close the restaurant permanently. Its doors would shut for good in a couple of months.

‘The world moves on, I suppose,’ the waiter had said dolefully. ‘Things are changing. People aren’t interested in traditional dishes any more. They want sea bass and linguine, not eel or herring and potatoes.’

Fabel ordered a beer while he waited for Gabi to arrive and sat watching the swans. Thinking about the restaurant closing made him much sadder than he would have expected. His patronage of this East Frisian outpost in Hamburg had been half-humorous, but the truth was he would really miss coming here. It was also true that Fabel had always had this strange resistance to change: he saw himself as a progressive, forward-looking type in many ways, but this strange attachment to regularity, an inner conservatism, annoyed him. He tended to have established patterns to his life – regular habits and set places – and found it difficult,
uncomfortable
, to shift from them. The odd thing was that since the shooting he had become a much more relaxed person, less rigid in almost every aspect of his life, but this strange attachment to things, places and routines had endured. Perhaps even intensified.

A pretty girl entered through the stone arch of the doorway and waved across to him. She had auburn-red hair, a shade or two lighter and redder than Monika Krone’s had been. Gabi Fabel had inherited her hair, complexion and many of her features from her mother, Renate, but her personality was very much that of her father.

She came over, kissed Fabel and sat down opposite him. They chatted for a while, catching up on the week, and Fabel told her about the imminent closure of the restaurant.

‘That’s a shame,’ she said. ‘I know how much you like this place. I do too. It always make me think of Gran’s.’

‘How are things going with your course? You said last week that you were struggling.’

‘I’m getting there. An existential flutter, that’s all. Just worried that I might be doing the wrong course for the wrong reasons, that kind of thing.’

‘And now?’

Gabi shrugged. ‘I’m good. Like I said, just a blip. A
brain fart
as the Americans say.’

‘It fills me with such pride to see how your studies have broadened your cultural references.’ Fabel arched an eyebrow. He tried not to let his relief show too much. Gabi was into her third year as a history student, the same route his studies had taken him. There had, however, been talk of her studying jurisprudence as a route into senior officer-level entry into the Polizei Hamburg. It had been an option that had cost him more than a few nights’ sleep. The idea seemed to have faded from her mind.

‘Any ideas about what you want to do after uni?’ he asked.

Gabi laughed loudly.

‘What?’

‘My God,
Dad
,’ she said. ‘I always imagined your interrogation techniques would be subtle to the point of mystical. If you want to ask me if I’m going to join up, then just ask me.’

‘Well, are you?’

‘No. Probably not, at least. I’ve been giving it all a lot of thought, especially after the shooting, and I don’t think it’s for me.’

‘Listen, Gabi,’ said Fabel. ‘God knows I’m relieved that you’ve changed your mind, but I have to be honest and say that what happened to me is incredibly rare. It’s a dangerous job, or at least it can be a dangerous job, but don’t think—’

‘I don’t,’ she interrupted. ‘It’s not the danger, it’s the reality I don’t think I could handle.’

‘I don’t get you.’

Gabi leaned forward, frowning, as if forcing a difficult idea into shape. ‘I couldn’t believe it when you were shot. I couldn’t believe that I came that close to losing you. Then I realized that you deal with that feeling all the time, every day. Telling people that a loved one has been murdered, or digging into their grief and the rawest, most secret parts of their lives. Do you know what society is? It’s hiding. We build all of these walls and defences to stop us having to face up to our own mortality. Take this restaurant – practically no one here has even seen someone dead. We hide from death. But I bet you can’t even tell me how many times you’ve seen death. Policemen, doctors, nurses, firemen – you are society’s caretakers, you tidy it all away so we don’t have to face up to it. I don’t think I can do that. I don’t think I can be a caretaker.’

‘Well, I can’t say you haven’t thought it through.’ Fabel paused as the waiter, restored to his usual cheeriness, served their main courses. ‘What do you think you’ll do?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve got lots of time to think about it. I might even do a post grad.’

They spent the rest of the meal talking and laughing about the usual inconsequences. Gabi was one of the few people who shared his particular, often absurdist sense of humour. As they talked, Fabel watched her. She really had grown up so fast and in so many ways.

Things were changing; the waiter had been right.

19

Fabel looked at his watch before starting the briefing. He checked the time against the wall clock: his watch was running fast, again. He shifted the hands to the correct time before calling for quiet.

‘Let’s get back to the Monika Krone investigation,’ he said. ‘This is a cold case so I’m afraid that means a lot of catch-up reading.’

He let the groans die before continuing.

‘We’ll have no involvement in the fall-out from the riots, thank God, and although one right-wing radical is in hospital with serious head injuries, he’s expected to pull through and there’s already been an arrest. That means I can divide the Krone file between you. I’m taking a different approach to the case this time around and I want you to go through all of the statements and cross-reference them. Anna and I will set up a board and I want you to peg connections between people at the party.’

‘But that was done before,’ said Thomas Glasmacher.

‘No, the last time connections to the victim were sought. This time I want you to ignore Monika Krone and see who was involved with whom at the party. Were there any cliques or sets, that kind of thing.’

‘I thought the theory was that her disappearance had nothing to do with the party.’ Dirk Hechtner stood leaning against the window sill, looking small and dark next to the burly, blond Glasmacher.

‘It was the theory,’ said Fabel. ‘It maybe still is, but this is an angle I feel was underexplored the last time round. Bear in mind I worked the case fifteen years ago and it was me who originally suggested it was a random abduction . . . a snatch off the street. With the gift of hindsight, I’m just not so sure. Plus there was always that phone call to her sister, an hour after she left the party and during which there was no suggestion of her being afraid or in danger.’ Fabel sighed. ‘Okay . . . We’ve got sixty-three partygoers: three teams will each take twenty names – Thom and Dirk, Anna and Henk, and Principal Chief Commissar Brüggemann and Sven. I’ll take the remaining three myself. I want us to constantly cross-reference, working across teams as connections are established. As well as connections between individuals, I want you to look for interdependencies between the alibis.’

‘You think it could have been a group, rather than an individual?’ asked Nicola Brüggemann.

‘It’s possible, but there again at this stage everything and anything is possible. If anyone sees anything that seems even the slightest bit odd or incongruous, I want it red-flagged on the board. Anna, could you distribute the files?’ Fabel looked at his watch again. ‘I’ll catch up with you this afternoon. I have an appointment to keep . . .’

*

There was practically none of the meaningless small talk that usually oils the gears of a small assembly. And this was a small assembly, only five of them. Small and odd. They were all different ages and completely different backgrounds. Each member of the group had exchanged polite smiles and perfunctory greetings with the others on arrival, but there was little chat amongst them. Fabel was the last to arrive.

There was the young woman who dressed conservatively, despite the black swirls of tattoos that coiled up from the collar and out from under the cuffs of her blouse, and whose nostrils and earlobes bore the fading signs of multiple piercings. There was the medical student, or ex-medical student, who was as much boy as man and whose intelligent, bright blue eyes were set behind spectacles into a very pale face beneath a mop of thick black hair, and who seemed always to radiate contentment. He always smiled. Not forcedly, not broadly, but always just there in the bright eyes and the faint curve of narrow lips.

Between the medical student and the ex-Goth sat another, unexceptional-looking young man, this time in his mid-thirties. He had three children, he had told the group. All with a year’s gap between them. Like everything else in his life, it had been a matter of planning: it had seemed important, he had said, to have them close together. One of the many things that had seemed so important once.

The last member of the group was from Blankenese: a late-middle-aged woman with butter-coloured hair who had clearly been pretty in her youth but now struggled with her weight and who tried not to look too prosperous.

And then there was Fabel.

The Club of the Living Dead.

Fabel had used the name once in a quip when talking to Dr Lorentz and he had regretted it instantly, realizing that his irony reflected not just on himself, but on the others. But they had all laughed. From then on, everyone had referred to the group as the Club of the Living Dead. And now they were assembled, waiting for Dr Lorentz to arrive.

‘What’s the time?’ the Blankenese woman, whose name was Hanne, asked without impatience and despite the fact she was examining her wristwatch.

‘You too?’ asked the unremarkable man, whose name was Josef but preferred Sepp. ‘I can’t get a watch to keep accurate time, either. Ever since.’

They were interrupted by the door swinging open to admit a tall, thin man who was balding untidily. Fabel noticed that Dr Lorentz’s suit and shoes were expensive, but his shirt was definitely chain-store multipack. He was tieless and the open collar of his shirt exposed a too-thin neck. All in all, it was a comfortingly ascetic look, as if the psychiatrist was some kind of plain-clothes monk.

‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ Lorentz smiled and sighed as he sat down, as if gaining some peace from a backstory of hectic schedules and frustrating delays. He crossed long legs that seemed all bone under worsted and set a heavy ring-bound folder on his lap. ‘Let’s just recap on where we left off last session . . .’

Everyone sat patiently and listened to the psychiatrist. Patience was an acquired symptom for them all; an after-effect of the only thing that they all had in common. Each had had the same experience. Even that was not so common: the experience had been different, unique, for each of them. The purpose of the Club of the Living Dead was to find the commonalities, the shared elements to the experience. The shared after-effects.

They had all been invited to take part in the group because each of them had had a near-death experience; some through illness, some through accident and, in Fabel’s case, through violent intent. At the first meeting, Dr Lorentz had explained that he was a psychiatrist by training, but his particular expertise was as a thanatologist: a death expert. Lorentz and his colleagues were part of a research programme that examined every aspect – medical, physical, psychiatric and social – of the phenomenon of human death. Lorentz’s specific area was trying to understand the phenomenon of near-death experiences.

Before the group sessions had started, before he had met any of the others, Fabel had been subject to individual assessment: a barrage of brain scans, encephalographs, blood tests, psychometric testing and lengthy and very personal interrogations. They all had.

It had been explained from the very beginning that the project was not about helping the members of the group, but understanding their experience. However, Lorentz had added, it was hoped that they would each benefit from the exchanges in the group sessions.

The strangest thing Fabel found was how relaxed he was about talking about himself, something that would have made him very uncomfortable before. Lorentz had from the outset taken a special interest in Fabel, clearly because of his unique perspective as an investigator of death who had himself come close to it. Fabel had felt the need early on to explain to Lorentz that while he was happy to discuss every other aspect of his life, the sensitivity of his work meant that he could not discuss anything to do with it. Nor had he wanted the others to know the specifics of his work within the police.

Fabel was to come to realize that he was not the only member of the group who had been keeping something hidden. During this particular session, it emerged that Ansgar, the youthful but pale ex-medical student, was dying. His near-death experience, he explained, had been brought about by the tumour that was spreading tentacles through his brain.

‘I call him the Explorer,’ Ansgar said, almost with affection. ‘Technically, he’s a glioblastoma multiforme.’

Fabel noticed that Lorentz did not look surprised or pass comment: he would have known, and kept confidential, Ansgar’s medical history.

‘How long have you had it?’ asked Fabel.

‘Six months, more or less. They grow quickly, this type of tumour. I was always in the top two per cent of my class at medical school, but I started to get headaches and found it increasingly difficult to concentrate. Then, after the seizures started, I was diagnosed. The anticonvulsants they put me on didn’t seem to work and then I had this massive seizure. I knew it was coming, I kept having déjà vu and this weirdly buzzed feeling. I can’t remember the seizure itself, of course, but it nearly finished me and I had my NDE.’