The Carnival Master Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Craig Russell

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One

  Clown Diary First Entry. Dated: 11.11 A.M. 11th November.

  Chapter One: 14–16 January

  Clown Diary Second Entry. Undated.

  Chapter Two: 17–19 January

  Chapter Three: 19–21 January

  Chapter Four: 21–25 January

  Chapter Five: 25–26 January

  Part Two

  Clown Diary, Fifteenth Entry. Undated.

  Chapter Six: 1–3 February

  Chapter Seven: 4 February

  Chapter Eight: 6–9 February

  Chapter Nine: 9–11 February

  Chapter Ten: 13–14 February

  Chapter Eleven: Women’s Karneval Night. 23 February.

  Chapter Twelve: 24–28 February

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  About the Book

  The Cologne police know a woman is going to die. They know the day it will happen. And they’re powerless to stop it.

  They call on an outside expert: Jan Fabel, head of Hamburg’s Murder Squad and Germany’s leading authority on serial killers.

  Fabel is on the point of leaving the police for good, but Carnival in Cologne is a time when the world goes crazy, and he is drawn into the hunt for the Carnival Cannibal. What he doesn’t know is that he is on a collision course with a crack special forces unit from Ukraine and a disturbed colleague with a score to settle.

  Fabel finds himself on a trail of betrayal and vengeance, violence and death. And once more he faces his greatest enemy. The true Master of the Carnival.

  About the Author

  Craig Russell was born in 1956 in Fife, Scotland. He served as a police officer and worked in the advertising industry as a copywriter and creative director. In 2007, his second novel, Brother Grimm, was shortlisted for the CWA Duncan Lawrie Dagger, and in the same year he was presented with a Polizeistern (Police Star) award by the Polizei Hamburg for raising public awareness of the work of the Hamburg police.

  For more information about Craig Russell and his books, please visit www.craigrussell.com

  Also by Craig Russell

  The Jan Fabel Novels:

  Blood Eagle

  Brother Grimm

  Eternal

  A Fear of Dark Water

  The Valkyrie Song

  The Lennox Novels:

  The Long Glasgow Kiss

  The Deep Dark Sleep

  For Holger and Lotte

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank the following people for their help and support: Wendy, Jonathan and Sophie; my agent Carole Blake; from Hutchinson, my editor Paul Sidey, Tess Callaway and my copy-editor Nick Austin; Bernd Rullkötter; Erste Polizeihauptkommissarin Ulrike Sweden of the Polizei Hamburg; Dr. Jan Sperhake, chief pathologist of the Institut für Rechtsmedizin; Udo Röbel; and Anja Sieg.

  I would also like to thank all of my publishers around the world for their enthusiasm and support.

  Karneval in Cologne is a custom dating back to when the Romans founded the city. Its roots probably lie in the dark pagan past of the Celts who occupied the area before the arrival of Germanic and Roman invaders.

  Karneval is a time when order is replaced with chaos, when the abstinence of Lent is preceded by abandon and indulgence. A time when the world is turned on its head. When people can become, for a few hours, someone else.

  The Master of the Carnival is ‘Prinz Karneval’. He is also known as ‘seine Tollität’ – His Craziness. Prinz Karneval is protected by the Prinzengarde. His personal bodyguard.

  The German word ‘Karneval’ comes from the Latin ‘Carne Vale’:

  ‘Farewell to Flesh’.

  Prologue

  Weiberfastnacht – Women’s Karneval Night. Cologne. January, 1999.

  Madness. Everywhere she looked was insanity. She ran through crowds of the demented. She stared around wildly, seeking an asylum: somewhere she could find refuge amongst the sane. The music thudded and screamed mercilessly, filling the night with terrifying cheerfulness. The crowd was denser now. More people, more madness. She pushed through them. Always away from the two massive spires that thrust up from the mayhem of the streets, black and menacing into the night. Always away from the clown.

  She stumbled as she ran down the steps. Past the main railway station. Through a square. On and on. Still surrounded by the shouting, grinning, laughing faces of the insane.

  She collided with a knot of figures gathered in front of a stand selling Currywurst and beer. The former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl stood in a nappy stuffed with Deutschmarks, laughing and joking with three Elvis Presleys. A medieval knight struggled to eat his hot dog through a visor that would not stay up. There was a dinosaur. A cowboy. Louis the Fourteenth. But no clown.

  She spun around. Scanned the throng of bodies that now closed in her wake. No clown. One of the beer-stand Elvises staggered towards her. Blocked her path and circled her waist with his arm; said something lewd and latex-muffled. She pushed Elvis away and he collided with the dinosaur.

  ‘You’re mad!’ she screamed at them. ‘You’re all mad!’ They laughed. She ran on through a part of the city she didn’t know. Fewer people now. The streets narrowed and closed in on her. Then she was alone in a narrow cobbled street, dark and tightly lined with four-storey-high buildings with black windows. She pressed into a shadow and tried to get her breathing under control. The sound from the distant city centre was still loud: madly cheerful music mingled with the raucous cries of the deranged. She tried to listen through it for the sound of footsteps. Nothing. She stayed pressed into the shadow, the reassuring solidity of the apartment building at her back.

  Still no clown. No nightmare clown from her childhood dreams. She had lost him.

  She had no idea where she was: one direction looked the same as the other. But she would keep heading away from the maniac sounds of the city, from the looming black spires. Her heart continued to pound but her breathing was now under control. She hugged the wall as she moved along the street. The raucous music and laughter faded further but suddenly there was a new blast as a door opened and yellow light sliced across the street. She shrank back again into shadow. Three cavemen and a female flamenco dancer burst out of the apartment house, two of the Neanderthals carrying a crate of beer between them. They staggered off in the direction of the other lunatics. She started to cry. To sob. There was no escape from it.

  She saw a church at the end of the street. A huge church, standing crammed into a cobbled square. It was a Romanesque building that at one time would have sat grandly with fields and gardens around it. But the city had closed in on it over the centuries: now it was squeezed on every side by apartment buildings, like a bishop jostled by beggars. A parochial house nudged into its flank. A bar-restaurant at the other end of its meagre square. She would avoid the bar. She would seek refuge in the parochial house. She walked towards it, suddenly startled by the image of a small, frail, frightened, broken-winged fairy in the black shield of a butcher’s shop display window. Her reflection. Her reflection hanging between pasted cardboard stars with special offers on beef and pork.

  She reached the corner of the church. It loomed dark and austere into the cold night sky. She turned the heavy iron handle and leaned against the door but it would not give. She made her way towards the parochial house.

  He stepped out in front of her from where he had been waiting, hidden, around the corner of the church. His face was blue-white in the dim street
light, his over-wide painted smile dark crimson. Two flaps of green hair stood at a ridiculous angle from his otherwise bald head. She tried to scream but nothing came. She stared at his eyes: cold and dead and hard under the comical arches of his black-painted eyebrows. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t cry out. She couldn’t find the strength to break free and run. His hand, gloved in bright blue felt, snapped up and grabbed her throat. He pushed her against the wall and into the shadows. Lifted her onto tiptoe. In a single movement of his free hand he produced a necktie from the huge patch pocket of his oversized coat and looped it around her neck.

  Now she struggled. The necktie burned her skin, crushed the arteries in her neck, closed her windpipe. No breath came to her screaming lungs. Her head swam. Her world darkened. And as he tightened the ligature around her neck, all she could do was stare into his face.

  His grotesque clown face.

  Part One

  CLOWN DIARY FIRST ENTRY. DATED: 11.11 A.M. 11th NOVEMBER.

  CHAPTER ONE

  14–16 January

  1.

  The commander of the MEK tactical assault team looked surprised to see Fabel squatting next to him, taking cover behind the large armoured van.

  ‘I was in the area and heard the call.’ Fabel predicted his question. He looked up at the four-storey block of flats white against the blue winter sky. Pristine and cheerful. Balconies with winter pansies. Mid-range cars parked outside. Heavily armed, black-uniformed MEK officers were rushing the occupants of the block out of the main door and along the street to where the ordinary uniformed police had hastily erected the perimeter on Jenfelderstrasse.

  ‘I heard you’d quit, Chief Commissar.’

  ‘I have,’ said Fabel. ‘I’m working out my notice. What have we got?’

  ‘Reports of a domestic disturbance. The neighbours called the police. The first local unit had just arrived when they heard shots. Then the guy inside took a pot-shot at one of the uniforms.’

  ‘Does he belong to the building?’

  The MEK commander nodded his helmet. ‘Aichinger. Georg Aichinger. It’s his flat the disturbance came from.’

  ‘We know anything about him?’ Fabel slipped on the body armour that one of the MEK team handed him.

  ‘No record. According to the neighbours, never any trouble until now. The perfect neighbour, apparently.’ The MEK commander frowned. ‘He has a wife and three kids. Or maybe had. There hasn’t been much sound from the flat since the first gunshots. Four gunshots.’

  ‘What’s the weapon?’

  ‘From what we can see, a sporting rifle. He’s either half-hearted about it or he’s a lousy shot. The idiot from the first patrol car to arrive presented him with the perfect target by running headlong up the stairwell. Aichinger missed him by a metre. More a warning shot if you ask me.’

  ‘So maybe the family are still alive.’

  The commander shrugged inside his Kevlar. ‘Like I said, it’s been pretty quiet since. We’ve got a negotiator on his way.’

  Fabel nodded grimly. ‘Can’t wait. I’m going in to talk to him. Can you give me a man to cover me?’

  ‘I don’t approve of this, Chief Commissar. I’m not sure that I can allow you to put yourself at risk. Or one of my men at risk, for that matter.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Fabel. ‘If Aichinger’s family is still alive, then that could be a very temporary situation. If he’s talking to me, then he isn’t killing them.’

  ‘They’re already dead … you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Maybe so, but we’ve nothing to lose, have we? I will just keep him occupied until the negotiator gets here.’

  ‘Okay. But I’m not at all happy with this. I’ve already got two men positioned on the landing outside the apartment. I’ll send another up with you. But if Aichinger doesn’t feel chatty, or if there’s any hint of things kicking off, then I want you straight out of there.’ The MEK commander nodded across to one of his team. ‘Go with the Chief Commissar.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Fabel examined the young MEK trooper: young, heavy-muscled bulk beneath the body armour. Eyes bright and hard with excitement. The new breed. More soldier than policeman.

  ‘Breidenbach. Stefan Breidenbach.’

  ‘Okay, Stefan. Let’s go and see if we can talk our way out of you having to use that.’ Fabel nodded towards the Heckler and Koch machine pistol clutched to the MEK man’s chest. ‘And remember this is a hostage negotiation and a possible crime scene – not a war zone.’

  Breidenbach nodded sharply, making no effort to conceal his resentment at Fabel’s remark. Fabel let him lead the way into the building and up the stairwell. Aichinger’s flat was on the second level and there were already two MEK men positioned there, pressed against the wall, faces hidden by helmets, goggles and flash masks.

  ‘Anything?’ Fabel asked the trooper at the top of the stairwell.

  He shook his head. ‘All quiet. I reckon we’ve got a multiple. No crying, no movement.’

  ‘Okay.’ Fabel edged along the landing while Breidenbach trained his weapon on the closed apartment door.

  ‘Herr Aichinger …’ Fabel called towards the apartment. ‘Herr Aichinger, this is Principal Chief Commissar Fabel of the Polizei Hamburg.’

  Silence.

  ‘Herr Aichinger, can you hear me?’ Fabel waited a moment for a reply that did not come. ‘Herr Aichinger, is there anyone hurt in there? Does anyone need help?’

  Again silence, but a faint shadow moved across the frosted glass of the small square window set into the apartment door. Breidenbach adjusted his aim and Fabel held up a cautionary hand to the young MEK man.

  ‘Herr Aichinger, we – I – want to help you. You’ve got yourself into a situation and I know that right now you can’t see your way out of it. I understand that. But there’s always a way out. I can help you.’

  Again there was no reply, but Fabel heard the sound of the latch being taken off the door. It opened a few centimetres. All three MEK troopers moved forward, keeping their aim locked onto the open door.

  Fabel frowned a warning at the three MEK men.

  ‘Do you want me to come in, Herr Aichinger? Do you want to talk to me?’

  ‘No!’ hissed Breidenbach. ‘You can’t go in there.’

  Fabel dismissed him with an annoyed shake of the head.

  Breidenbach inched closer to him. ‘I can’t let you make a present of yourself as a hostage. I think you should go back outside, Chief Commissar.’

  ‘I’ve got a gun!’ The voice from inside the apartment was tight with fear.

  ‘We’re very much aware of that, Herr Aichinger,’ Fabel talked to the crack in the door. ‘And as long as you keep hold of that gun, you are placing yourself in danger. Please, slide it out of the door and we can talk.’

  ‘No. No, I won’t. But you can come in. Slowly. If you want to talk, you come in here.’

  Breidenbach shook his head vigorously.

  ‘Listen, Herr Aichinger,’ said Fabel, ‘I’m not pretending it isn’t a very complicated problem we have here. But we can solve it without anyone getting hurt. And we can do that in easy stages. I have to tell you that I have armed officers out here. If they think I am under threat they will fire. And I’m sure that if you think you are in danger you will do the same. What we need to do is move back from that situation. But we have to do that one step at a time. Agreed?’

  There was a pause. Then: ‘I don’t want a solution. I want to die.’

  ‘That’s silly, Herr Aichinger. Nothing … no problem … is so hopeless that it’s better to die.’ Fabel looked around at the MEK men. In his mind he could see only too clearly that there would be three dead children and a dead wife lying in the apartment. And if Aichinger was determined to die, then this could end with ‘suicide by cop’. All he had to do was run out onto the landing waving his rifle around and Breidenbach and his colleagues would gladly oblige him.

  A phone rang somewhere in the flat. It kept ringing. The negotiator had ob
viously arrived.

  ‘Shouldn’t you answer that?’ Fabel asked the crack in the door.

  ‘No. It’s a trap.’

  ‘It’s not a trap. It’s help. It will be one of my colleagues. Someone who can really help.’

  ‘I’ll only talk to you.’

  Fabel ignored Breidenbach’s reproachful look. ‘Listen, Herr Aichinger. The person on the other end of the phone is much better qualified to help you out of this situation than I am.’

  ‘I said I’ll only talk to you. I know that whoever is on the phone is just going to try to psychobabble me into believing he’s my best friend. I’ll talk to you. Only you. I’ve heard about you, Herr Fabel. You’re the one who solved those murders last year.’

  ‘Herr Aichinger, I want you to open the door so we can talk face to face.’ Fabel paid no attention to Breidenbach’s frantic signalling.

  ‘They’ll shoot me.’

  ‘No, they won’t …’ But Fabel felt the need to look pointedly at Breidenbach. ‘I’m ordering them not to shoot unless you do. Please, Herr Aichinger. Open the door.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Herr Aichinger?’

  ‘I’m thinking.’

  Another pause. Then the tip of Aichinger’s rifle appeared as it nudged the door fully open.

  ‘I’m going to come and stand where you can see me, Herr Aichinger. I’m not armed.’ One of the other MEK troopers grabbed at Fabel’s jacket sleeve as he moved towards the door, but he snatched it free. Fabel’s heart pounded and he used every adrenalin-stretched second to take in as much as he could. The man standing in the hall was as unexceptional as it was possible to be. In his late thirties with dark hair cut short and gelled, he had what Fabel would have described as generic features: not so much a face in the crowd as the face of the crowd. A face you would forget as soon as he was out of sight. Georg Aichinger was someone you would never notice. Except now. Aichinger had a new-looking sports rifle in his hands. But he wasn’t pointing it at Fabel. His arms were stretched taut and his chin pushed upwards as he jammed the rifle barrel under his own jaw. His thumb quivered on the trigger.