Brother Grimm Read online

9.

  9.30 p.m., Friday, 19 March: Naturpark Harburger Berge, south of Hamburg

  Buxtehude was a joke. It was a place ‘wo sich Fuchs und Hase gute Nacht sagen’. A place where nothing ever happened.

  For Hanna, to come from Buxtehude had a clear and unambiguous meaning. It meant to come from the back of beyond. To be a hick. To be a nobody. Hanna Grünn had come from Buxtehude, but as she sat and waited in her five-year-old VW Golf, in the middle of this creepy forest car park, she reflected bitterly that she hadn’t come far from Buxtehude. Only as far as that stupid bloody bakery.

  From about the age of fourteen, Hanna had always attracted the boys. She had grown tall and full-figured with long blonde hair, and had been the most sought-after girl at her school. Hanna wasn’t clever, but she was smart enough to realise that and to use other resources to achieve what she wanted. And what she principally wanted was to get the hell out of Buxtehude. She had gathered clippings about Claudia Schiffer’s career: how Claudia had been plucked from obscurity while at a disco, about her first modelling contracts, about the phenomenal sums she had earned, about the exotic places she had been to. So the eighteen-year-old Hanna had left Buxtehude behind and set off, with the unshakeable conviction of youth, to launch a career in modelling in Hamburg. It hadn’t taken long, however, for Hanna to realise that every agent’s reception she waited in was populated by other Claudia Schiffer clones. At her first interview she had shown the portfolio of shots taken of her by a local photographer before she left home. A tall, skinny queer and a woman in her late forties, who was clearly a former model, had all but sniggered as they looked through Hanna’s pictures. Then they had asked where Hanna came from. When she had replied, ‘I come from Buxtehude,’ the bastards had actually laughed.

  The story had been the same at most of the other agencies. Hanna had felt as if the life she had envisioned for herself was evaporating. There was no going back to Buxtehude, but what had been, in her mind, the certainty of a modelling career now became a dream, fast on its way to becoming a total fantasy. Eventually she had worked her way through the phone books until she had found an agency in Sankt Pauli. Hanna wasn’t so green that she hadn’t realised the significance of the agency’s offices being above a strip club. The sign on the door had confirmed that the agency specialised in ‘models, exotic dancers and escorts’, and the stocky, leather-jacketed Italian who ran the agency had looked more like a gangster than a figure from the fashion industry. He had, to be fair, spelled it out. He had told Hanna that she was a looker with a great body and he could get her lots of work, but it would be mainly video work. ‘Real fucking – you understand?’

  When Hanna had told the Italian that she wasn’t interested he had simply shrugged and said, ‘Okay.’ But he had handed her a card and said that if she ever changed her mind she should get in touch. Back in the bedroom of her shared apartment, Hanna had bunched her pillow to her mouth to stifle the huge, uncontrollable sobs that racked her body. What had depressed her most was the businesslike, matter-of-fact way the Italian had told her that the video work would involve ‘real fucking’. He hadn’t been particularly seedy, he hadn’t been lecherous: he had simply been laying out a job description for her, just as if he had been discussing the details of an office job. But what had got to her most was that it was clear that he thought that was all she was worth. All she should expect. It was then that she started looking around for an ordinary job; and without secretarial skills, without her Abitur, her choices had been very limited.

  It was then that Hanna had got the job in the Backstube Albertus: on a production line with fat, stupid, middle-aged women who had been strangers to any kind of ambition all their lives. Now, day after tedious day, she stood, her lustrous blonde hair gathered up under an elasticated bakery hat, her perfect body concealed in a formless white bakery coat, as she iced birthday cakes with an ever-increasing sense of doom.

  But not for much longer. Soon Markus would take her away from all that. Soon she would have the wealth and lifestyle she had always wanted. Markus owned the bakery and if fucking the boss was what it took to get what she wanted, then that was what she would do. And now she was so close: Markus had promised to leave that frigid cow of a wife of his. Then he would marry Hanna.

  She looked at her watch. Where the fuck was he? He was always late, mainly because of his wife. She looked around at the dense mass of trees that crowded around the car park, a darker black against a black, moonless sky. She hated meeting him here: it was so creepy. She thought she saw something move in the trees. She peered into the darkness intently for a moment and then relaxed, letting go an impatient sigh.

  He had tracked her here before, but had not been able to follow her up the road to the Naturpark car park for fear of being too conspicuous: the only other vehicle on an isolated road that led just to this car park. That was why he had come back during daylight and scouted out the site. So, tonight, when he had followed her long enough to establish where she was heading, he had overtaken her and got here first. His reconnaissance of the Naturpark had revealed a narrow service track used by the foresters for maintaining the woodland. He had ridden his motorbike halfway up the track and then killed the lights and engine, letting it coast for a moment before concealing it amongst the trees. Then he had walked the rest of the way, concerned that anyone already in the car park would hear the motorcycle’s approach. Now he was at the fringe of the trees, unseen, watching the whore as she waited for her married lover. He felt the thrill of a grim anticipation, a knowledge that soon the anger and the hate that ate at him like a cancer would be released. They were going to hurt. They were both going to know what it was like to experience real pain. She turned in his direction. He didn’t shrink back, didn’t move. She looked directly at him, peering into the dark, but the stupid bitch couldn’t see him. She would see him soon enough.

  The sweep of a car’s headlights arced across the face of the trees and he drew back slightly. It was a Mercedes sports. Markus Schiller’s car. He watched as the car pulled up alongside the Golf and Schiller put down the window and made an apologetic gesture. From his concealed vantage point in the trees he watched as Hanna got out of the Golf, slammed the door, marched ill-temperedly to the Mercedes and climbed into the passenger seat.

  Now was the time.

  10.

  10.20 a.m., Saturday, 20 March: Krankenhaus Mariahilf, Heimfeld, Hamburg

  The bright spring sun, cutting through the large paned window at a slant, starkly divided the hospital room into angles of light and shade. The son had pulled up the blinds, allowing the sun to glare mercilessly into the unprotected face of his mother.

  ‘There you are, Mutti. Now, that’s better, isn’t it?’ He stepped back to the bed and drew the chair in close before sitting down. He leaned forward in his habitual posture of devotion and solicitousness. In a gesture that seemed gentle and considerate, but which hid a malevolent intent, he laid his hand on her forehead, easing it ever so slightly back towards the hairline and pulling the heavy, unresponsive eyelids up and open to let the full glare of the sun burn into the old woman’s pallid eyes.

  ‘I went out to play again last night, Mutti. Two this time. I cut their throats. I did him first. Then she begged for her life. She begged and she begged. It was so funny, Mutti. She just kept on saying “Oh no, oh no …” Then I stuck her with the knife. In the throat too. I sliced it wide open and she shut up.’ He gave a small laugh. He let his hand slide off the old woman’s brow and his fingers traced the fragile angles of her cheek and across her thin, wrinkled neck. He tilted his head to one side, a wistful expression on his face. Then he removed his hand suddenly and sat back in his chair.

  ‘Do you remember, Mutti, when you used to punish me? When I was a boy? Do you remember how you would make me, as my punishment, recite those stories over and over and over? And if I got even one word wrong, you would beat me with that walking stick you had? The one you brought back from the walking holiday we had in Bavaria? Remember
how you got a fright one time, when you beat me so badly that I passed out? You taught me that I was a sinner. A worthless sinner, you used to call me – do you remember?’ He paused, as if half expecting the answer she was incapable of giving, then continued, ‘And always you’d make me recite those stories. I would spend so much of my time memorising them. I used to read them over and over again, reading until my eyes began to jumble up the letters and the words, trying to make sure I didn’t forget or misplace a single word. But I always did, didn’t I? I always gave you an excuse to beat me.’ He sighed, looked out at the bright day beyond the window and then back to the old woman. ‘Soon, very soon, it will be time for you to come home with me, mother.’

  He stood up, leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. ‘And I still have the walking stick …’

  11.

  9.15 a.m., Sunday, 21 March: Naturpark Harburger Berge, south of Hamburg

  Maria had been at the scene for some time before Fabel arrived. It was more of a clearing than a car park, and Fabel suspected that it served two purposes: by day, a starting point for walkers; by night, a discreet location for illicit liaisons. He parked his BMW next to one of the green-and-white marked SchuPo cars and got out. It was a bright, breezy spring morning and the dense woods that framed the car park seemed to breathe with the breeze and the chatter of birdsong.

  ‘“In the midst of life” …’ he said in English to Maria as she approached him, indicating the trees and the sky with a sweep of his hand. She looked confused.

  ‘“In the midst of life, we are in death” …’ he repeated, translating into German. Maria shrugged. ‘Where are they?’ Fabel asked.

  ‘Over there …’ Maria indicated a small gap in the fringe of trees. ‘It’s a Wanderweg – a path for walkers. It goes right through the woods, but there is a small clearing with a picnic table about three hundred metres along. This is as far as you can take a car.’ Fabel noticed that half of the parking area, the half next to the entrance of the Wanderweg path, had been cordoned off.

  ‘Shall we?’ Fabel indicated that Maria should lead the way. As they made their way up the uneven, slightly muddy path, Fabel noticed that the Spurensicherung forensic team had lain down protective covers at irregular intervals. Fabel looked questioningly at Maria.

  ‘Tyre marks,’ she said. ‘And a couple of footprints that need checking out.’

  Fabel stopped and scanned the path they had just come. ‘Mountain bikers?’

  Maria shook her head. ‘Motorbike. Could be totally unconnected, as could the footprints.’

  They walked on. Fabel took in the trees on either side. The spaces between them darkened as they receded, like green caves into which the bright day could not reach. He thought back to the interview on the radio. The darkness of the forest in the light of the day: the metaphor for the danger that lies in the everyday. The path took a turn and suddenly opened up into a small clearing. There were about a dozen police and forensics moving around the space. The focus of their activities was a wooden picnicking table with attached benches, set to the right of the main path. Two bodies, a man and a woman, sat on the ground, propped up against the end of the table. They both stared out at Fabel and Maria with death’s disinterested glare. They sat side by side, each with an arm extended, as if reaching out to the other; their limp hands touching but not holding. Between them lay a handkerchief, carefully unfolded and laid flat. The cause of death was immediately apparent: both throats had been slashed deep and wide. The man was in his late thirties with dark hair cropped close to disguise the thinning on the top of his scalp; his mouth gaped, black-red with the blood that had frothed up from the ravaged throat in the final seconds of life.

  Fabel stepped closer. He looked at the male victim’s clothing. It was one of the most unsettling things at a death scene for Fabel: how death set its own agenda, how it refused to recognise the trivial subtleties that we build into our lives. The man’s pale grey suit and tan leather shoes were clearly expensive: something to be noticed in life as indicators of status, of taste, of his place in the world. Here, the suit was a crumpled, mud- and blood-smeared rag. The shirt lay blood-dyed under the dark gash across the throat. One of the shoes had come off and lay discarded half a metre from the foot that pointed towards it, as if seeking to reclaim it. The grey silk sock had unfurled halfway and the mottled, pale flesh of the man’s heel was exposed

  Fabel turned his attention to the woman. Compared to the man, she had considerably less blood on her clothes. Death had come more quickly and more easily to her. A swathe of blood was splashed diagonally across the thighs of her jeans. She was in her early twenties and had long blonde hair, some of which had been blown by the breeze into the slash across her throat and had become matted in the blood. Fabel noted that, although the colours and cut had been carefully and tastefully chosen, her clothes were of a totally different price bracket from those of the man. She wore a pale green T-shirt and her jeans were new, but a cheaper alternative to the designer jeans whose style they copied. This was not a couple. Or at least, not an established couple. Fabel leaned forward and examined the handkerchief; there were small pieces of bread crumbled on to it. He stood up.

  ‘No sign of the blade used?’ he asked Maria.

  ‘No … and no blood spatter on the ground, the table or anything around here. Hi, Jan …’ Holger Brauner, the Präsidium’s forensic team leader, joined them.

  Fabel smiled. As soon as he had seen the sweeping stain of blood on the woman’s jeans he had realised that this was not the primary locus: the killing had been done elsewhere.

  ‘You got here quickly …’ he said to Brauner.

  ‘We got a call from a local Kommissar, who decided not to leave it to the Lagedienst to inform me. I guess the same one who called you. A Kommissar …’ Brauner struggled for the name.

  ‘Hermann,’ Maria completed the sentence for him. ‘That’s him over there.’ She indicated a tall, uniformed man in his early thirties. He was standing with a group of SchuPos, but when he noticed that he had become the focus of interest he made an apologetic gesture to his colleagues and strode towards the Mordkommission officers. There was an earnest purposefulness in his movements and, as he approached, Fabel noticed that his nondescript appearance, sand-coloured hair and mottled, pale skin were at odds with the keen energy that burned in his pale green eyes. His appearance reminded Fabel of Paul Lindemann, the officer he had lost, but when the uniformed officer came closer Fabel realised that the similarity was superficial.

  The SchuPo nodded to Maria and extended his hand, first to Fabel, then to Brauner. Fabel noticed the single silver Kommissar star on the shoulder flashes of his short black leather uniform jacket.

  Maria introduced him. ‘This is Kommissar Henk Hermann, from the local Polizeidirektion.’

  ‘Why did you call us in specifically, Herr Kommissar?’ Fabel asked, smiling. The normal role of the Schutzpolizei was to secure the murder scene and keep any onlookers outside the taped perimeter, while the Kriminalpolizei took charge of the crime scene itself. The Lagedienst would be responsible for informing the KriPo, and the Mordkommission would investigate any sudden death.

  An uncertain smile stretched Hermann’s meagre lips even thinner. ‘Well …’ he looked past Fabel towards the bodies. ‘Well, I know that your team specialise in, well, this sort of thing …’

  ‘What sort of thing?’ Maria asked.

  ‘Well, it’s clearly not a suicide. And this is not the primary scene of the crime …’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  Hermann wavered for a moment. It was unusual for a SchuPo to offer any form of opinion on a murder scene, and even more unusual for any KriPo, far less a Kriminalpolizei officer of Fabel’s rank, to listen. He moved round the group to have clearer access to the bodies, but maintained a distance sufficient to ensure that the scene wasn’t contaminated. He knelt down, balanced on the balls of his feet and pointed to the male victim’s lacerated throat. ‘Obviously, without movin
g the bodies I can’t see very clearly, but it looks to me like our male victim was killed with two blows. The first caught him on the side of the neck and he started to bleed out fast. The second sliced right across his windpipe.’ Hermann pointed to the female victim. ‘It’s my belief that the girl died from a single slash across her throat. This blood here –’ he indicated the broad splash of blood across her thighs ‘– isn’t hers. It’s almost certain to have come from our male victim. She was in close proximity to him when he was attacked and she must have caught the arterial spray from his neck. But there is no significant amount of blood anywhere else here … indicating that this is not the primary scene of crime. It also suggests that they were brought here by the killer. And that, in turn, leads me to believe that our killer is maybe a big man – or, at least, physically strong. There are few signs of dragging, other than when he was putting the male victim in place and the shoe was pulled off. You can’t get a vehicle up here, so that means he must have carried the victims.’

  ‘Anything else?’ asked Fabel.

  ‘I’m only guessing, but I’d say that our killer did the guy first. Maybe a surprise attack. That way he takes the path of least resistance. His second victim doesn’t have the same strength and doesn’t pose the same threat as the man.’

  ‘A dangerous assumption to make,’ said Maria, with a bitter smile. Hermann straightened up and shrugged.

  ‘You’ve described the modus used in this murder,’ Fabel said. ‘But you still haven’t explained why you felt this was something for my team, specifically.’

  Hermann stepped back and tilted his head slightly to one side, as if standing before some painting or exhibit that he was appraising.

  ‘That’s why …’ he said. ‘Look at it …’

  ‘What?’ asked Fabel.