JF05 - The Valkyrie Song (22 page)

‘I’m on it. By the way, Herr Knabbe has been looking for you.’

Sylvie smiled to herself: Ivonne was a great assistant.
More importantly, she hated their mutual boss as much as Sylvie did. Ivonne’s little rebellion was to reject his Americanised informality and never address or refer to him as Andreas.

‘What did you tell him?’ she asked.

‘That you were following up a hot lead. I also told him that the battery on your cellphone was low and you’d temporarily switched it off and I couldn’t reach you.’

‘Ivonne, you’re a star.’

‘So they tell me. Oh, there was another call for you. Some guy phoned saying he had to talk to you urgently but he wouldn’t leave a name. He said he would call back. He sounded a bit creepy, if you ask me.’

Sylvie told Ivonne to let Knabbe know she’d be back in the office first thing tomorrow morning and not to worry about the anonymous caller. Probably some crank. She hung up, pulled out into the traffic on the Reeperbahn and headed back into the city.

Fabel got a phone call from Renate just as he was about to go up with Anna and Werner to the Presidium’s fifth floor to meet with van Heiden.

‘Have you spoken to Gabi yet?’ Renate asked without preliminaries.

‘Not yet. You know I haven’t. Why are you phoning me at work to ask me something you already know the answer to? I’m seeing Gabi on Thursday. I’ll talk to her then.’

‘You could have phoned her.’

‘This isn’t something I want to discuss with her over the phone. I choose the right time and place. You should try it, Renate. Anyway, Gabi’s choice of career is hardly pressing: she hasn’t even sat her Abitur yet.’

‘Trouble?’ asked Werner when Fabel came off the phone.
Anna and Werner had been standing awkwardly during the exchange.

‘The worst kind. Renate. Gabi is thinking about a career in the police. I’m a bad influence, according to Renate.’

‘I wouldn’t have wanted one of my daughters doing this job,’ said Werner.

‘Oh yeah? So what if you had a son?’ asked Anna.

‘You know I don’t have a son, so I don’t know. It’s got nothing to do with gender politics, Anna.’

Fabel took a deep breath. ‘Ready? Then let’s go and walk amongst the exalted …’

They stood waiting outside van Heiden’s office for five minutes. But they weren’t invited in; instead van Heiden emerged from his office, putting on his suit jacket as he did so.

‘Follow me.’ As he spoke, van Heiden cast a disapproving eye over Anna’s jeans and T-shirt.

Hamburg’s Police Presidium had been built in the form of a giant Police Star, the symbol of police forces throughout Germany. The entire Presidium was built around a central circular atrium open to the sky: all office suites, including the Murder Commission, radiated out as the arms of the star from its circular hallways. Fabel, Werner and Anna followed van Heiden along the sweep of the fifth-floor corridor until they came to doors of the Presidial Department. This was where Hugo Steinbach – Hamburg’s Police President – and his deputies had their offices.

‘Police President Steinbach has asked to be involved in this meeting,’ explained van Heiden. He paused for a moment and turned to Fabel. ‘Listen, Jan, I don’t like being caught on the back foot. What have you told Herr Steinbach?’

‘Nothing,’ said Fabel. ‘I thought you—’

Van Heiden shook his head. ‘Looks like we’re both on the back foot. I suppose we’d better find out.’

When they arrived at the Presidial Department, they weren’t directed to Steinbach’s office but were told to go straight into the conference room. When they entered, Fabel was surprised to see Karin Vestergaard sitting at the conference table next to Hugo Steinbach. The Police President stood up and shook hands with van Heiden and then with Fabel. Steinbach was the opposite of van Heiden in many ways. Van Heiden could be nothing other than a policeman and somehow managed to wear his smartly tailored Hugo Boss suits as if they were uniforms. In complete contrast, Hugo Steinbach was softly spoken and had an avuncular, easygoing appearance. To look at Hamburg’s Police President, one would have taken him for a schoolteacher or some rural family doctor. The truth was Steinbach was highly unusual for an officer of his rank in Germany. He had not entered the police at senior level but had started out as a uniformed beat Polizeimeister and had worked his way up through every rank. Fabel knew that part of that journey had involved being head of the Polizei Berlin’s murder squad. Fabel respected Steinbach as an officer, but he also liked him as a person.

‘I know you wanted to talk to Criminal Director van Heiden about what Frau Vestergaard discussed with you yesterday, but I thought we should all have a chat about it. If you don’t mind, Jan.’

‘Hello, Frau Vestergaard,’ said Fabel in English. ‘I thought we were meeting later to discuss this. I had hoped to brief Herr van Heiden, as Herr Steinbach has suggested.’

‘I’m afraid events have moved on a little from then,’ said Vestergaard without a hint of apology. ‘New information has come to light and I felt it would be appropriate to discuss it with Mr Steinbach.’

‘Why don’t we all sit down?’ said Steinbach in a clear attempt to ease the tension between Fabel and Vestergaard. ‘And perhaps you should update Herr van Heiden on what this is all about.’

Once they were seated, Fabel outlined Vestergaard’s theory about the Hamburg-based contract killer and Jespersen’s death not being natural. Vestergaard sat silently throughout Fabel’s commentary in German, her expression as impossible to read as it had been the day before.

‘How sure are we that this so-called Valkyrie is based in Hamburg?’ asked Steinbach when Fabel was finished.

‘With the greatest respect to Frau Vestergaard and her deceased colleague, there is absolutely no proof that the Valkyrie even exists.’ Fabel looked again at the Danish policewoman. There was no sign that she understood what he was saying in German. But there again, he thought, she wouldn’t show it even if she did. ‘To be frank, Herr President, I feel that our foreign colleague here is not being as communicative as she might be.’

‘You think there’s more to this?’ asked Steinbach.

‘I don’t know. In fact, there may be less to her story than meets the eye. And I have to be honest, with this supposed resurrection of the Angel of St Pauli, I can well do without some wild-goose chase. But we’ll get the autopsy report on Jespersen this afternoon.’

‘I see,’ said Steinbach. ‘What do you think, Horst?’

‘I think we can’t afford to ignore the possibility. There are those in the international security community who feel we dropped the ball in not nailing the so-called “Hamburg Cell” before they launched the attack on the World Trade Center. It could be embarrassing if we were seen to have had advance warning of this assassin operating from Hamburg and then for something to happen. A political assassination abroad, for example.’ Van Heiden turned to Fabel. ‘Sorry, Jan … I understand you’re under pressure with this Angel case, but we have to treat this seriously.’

‘I agree. Especially if the autopsy throws up something.’

Vestergaard cleared her throat.

‘I’m sorry …’ Fabel said in English. Then, to the others:
‘Maybe we should all speak in English from now on, for Frau Vestergaard’s sake.’

‘Natural,’ said van Heiden in heavily accented English. ‘We will, of course, you bet.’

The look Vestergaard fired at Fabel eloquently communicated an ‘I-told-you-so’ reminder of their conversation about the difference between how Danes and Germans spoke English.

‘I think Frau Vestergaard has something you should hear,’ said Police President Steinbach. ‘Please, Frau Vestergaard.’

‘My office in Copenhagen has been in touch with me,’ she said. ‘They in turn were notified by the Norwegian National Criminal Investigation Department of an incident in Drøbak, near Oslo. This incident, which involved the murder of two men, took place yesterday evening.’

Vestergaard paused while she took her notebook from her bag.

‘Jørgen Halvorsen is – was – a leading investigative journalist for newspapers and magazines throughout Scandinavia,’ she said, referring to the notebook. ‘He was a Norwegian by birth but worked in Copenhagen for a great many years. He moved back to Norway about five years ago. For the sake of his health, you could say. He made some heavyweight enemies in Denmark and Sweden. You see, Halvorsen had two specific areas of interest, areas that were not always mutually exclusive: the extreme right in Europe, and corporate and political corruption. He was assassinated yesterday evening in his home in Drøbak. His family were away overnight, so the timing suggests surveillance of the house. Also, Halvorsen was planning a trip abroad. The Far East. Where exactly in the Far East and for what reason we don’t know. But it suggests the killer knew Halvorsen’s schedule and everything points to a timed, planned killing – except that Halvorsen’s gardener obviously happened along at the wrong moment. He was the other victim. Single knife wound to the heart.’

‘And you think this is the work of the alleged Hamburg Valkyrie?’ asked Fabel.

‘It could be …’ Vestergaard shrugged. ‘It was a highly professional job. The other thing is that the Norwegian police had been keeping an on-off eye on Halvorsen’s house.’

‘Why?’ asked Fabel.

‘About two weeks ago someone broke in and stole Halvorsen’s laptop and selective files, including back-ups of his computer data. And this is where it gets creepy … Halvorsen, being a security-minded man, also backed up to an online source. Someone used his access code and passwords to wipe that too. Again, the work of real professionals.’

‘What was it that he was working on?’ asked van Heiden.

‘We don’t have details yet. You see, the Norwegian National Police isn’t the only agency with an interest in Halvorsen: PST, the Norwegian security agency, and Økokrim, the economic and environmental crime bureau, were very much interested in what Halvorsen was into. They had both been cooperating with Halvorsen – basically because they knew he would turn over what he found to them.’

‘Your Norwegian colleagues seem to have been very open with you,’ said van Heiden.

‘That’s the way it is in Scandinavia …’ Vestergaard shrugged. ‘The Nordic Police Agreement has been in force since nineteen sixty-six and was expanded in two thousand and one. We enjoy much more freedom to cooperate without formality across our borders. Anyway, organised crime, right-wing extremism, that kind of thing – it all tends to spread wider than one constituent country.’

‘So do we know what Halvorsen was working on?’ asked Fabel.

‘Without his files or back-ups, no. Over the years Halvorsen has exposed quite a few major figures. Powerful
figures. He had learned to play his cards very close to his chest. But we do have a few theories. One is that it may have had something to do with the trafficking of women. Norway, as you probably know, is currently the chair of Interpol’s Working Party against Trafficking in Women, and it’s possible that Halvorsen was tying a story in to coincide. A couple of my colleagues believe that he might have been about to expose a major environmental crime by some corporation or other, or maybe by a government. We’re compiling a list of the information he asked for from Økokrim. One thing we are pretty certain about is that whatever it was he was investigating, it involves Denmark. He made several trips to Copenhagen. He seems to have had a particular interest in the Øresund Region: we do know he did research at Copenhagen University on the region as a politico-economic identity.’

‘I’m sorry,’ interrupted Steinbach, with a frown. ‘Maybe my English …’

‘The Øresund Region is partly in Denmark, partly in Sweden,’ explained Vestergaard, speaking more slowly. ‘It’s where the new bridge between Denmark and Sweden is. Historically, that part of Sweden was Danish. Same way we used to own Schleswig-Holstein.’

‘Why was Halvorsen interested in this region particularly?’ asked van Heiden.

‘No idea. It’s maybe not significant in itself. Halvorsen was known to have an interest in Euroregions. You know, groupings within the new EU that tend not to conform to national boundaries. The part of Sweden that is included in the Øresund Region is open to a lot of social and linguistic debate: the majority of linguists say the Scanians speak in an East Danish dialect, while others maintain it is a South Swedish dialect. The point is, there is a sense of Europe dividing into self-identified units rather than traditional national units. You could argue, for example, that Hamburg has more in common
with Denmark in terms of identity and culture than it does with Bavaria.’

‘I don’t see a big story for Halvorsen in whether a bunch of Swedes speak with a Danish or a Swedish accent,’ said Fabel.

‘Nor do I,’ said Vestergaard dismissively. ‘And his visits to Copenhagen and visits to the region may have nothing to do with his death. But remember Halvorsen’s special interest was neo-fascism. Scanian identity isn’t just about being Danish or Swedish. There are several extreme-right groups who want autonomy for the region and to expel all Muslims to “Sweden”.’

Vestergaard was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. Steinbach answered it.

‘It’s for you,’ he said to Fabel, holding out the receiver.

‘Fabel, Möller here. I’m about to send the autopsy results on Jespersen to your office, but I thought you’d want the main points.’