JF01 - Blood Eagle (16 page)

‘Quite so,’ said Dorn. ‘The concept of German identity is a myth. A myth that our little Austrian house-painter amplified into a false history until Germany believed it. One of the most important lessons I have learned as a historian is that only the present exists. Only the present has an immutable, uncompromising form; the past is what we choose to make of it. History is shaped by our present, not the other way around. We have spent the last two centuries reinventing our past: reshaping our identity when all along we don’t have one. The fact is there is no German race. We are a rag-tag of Scandian and Slav, Celt, Italic and Alpine … a mishmash united by a language and a culture, not by ethnicity.’

‘What’s your point? What has this to do with these killings?’

Dorn smiled. ‘Do you believe that the god Tuisto was born from Germany’s soil? And through his three sons fathered the three pure tribes of Germans?’

‘Of course not. That’s pure myth.’

‘Do you believe in the god Wotan? Or the Norse pantheon of gods, headed by Wotan’s equivalent, Odin?’

‘No,’ answered Fabel. ‘Again that’s just mythology. Look, I don’t see that this has anything to do with …’

Again Dorn held up his hand to stop Fabel. ‘They
are
myths. Falsehoods. But, as you have already pointed out, believing in myths can be powerful and destructive.’ Dorn swiftly picked up the paper and threw it across to Fabel. ‘And
he
believes them.’

‘What?’ Fabel’s confusion was genuine. ‘Who?’

‘Your killer. Every time he kills in this manner he is making a reference …’ Dorn looked towards the ceiling, but his mind was clearly somewhere else. ‘He has spanned a thousand years … he has reached into the darkness of the past to pull out a fragment that makes sense of his present. It would be remarkable if it weren’t so obscene.’ Dorn snapped out of his reverie and looked again at Fabel.

‘Are you saying that there is some kind of mythological or historical link to these killings?’ Fabel asked.

‘The Blood Eagle.’ Dorn held Fabel’s gaze.

‘The what?’

‘The Blood Eagle. Your killer is not sexually motivated. He is religiously motivated. He is making sacrifices.’

‘Sacrifices? Blood Eagle? I’m sorry, Herr Professor, but what the hell are you talking about?’

‘As you know this part of northern Germany was the homeland of the Scandians. It was the Saxons who first founded the village of Hamm. The Franks and the Slavic Obertriten conquered it and made it Hammaburg. And then came the Vikings of Denmark. Look at Altona – right at the heart of modern Hamburg – that was a Danish city until the eighteenth century. Ours is the blood of Vikings … among others, of course. The gods worshipped here were Freya, Balder, Thor, Loki … Odin. These Norse gods were far from perfect. They were moody, petulant, envious, greedy … angry. Wise Odin, father of the gods, the Nordic Zeus, was no exception. It was his favour above all that our ancestors craved.’ Dorn paused. He reached over to the desk and picked up two volumes. ‘Odin demanded sacrifice. Like all the gods. But the greater the god, the greater the sacrifice. For example, Adam of Bremen wrote in his chronicle about, well, I suppose you could call it a “festival” at Ubsola – or Uppsala, as it’s known today. This festival was held every nine years and lasted nine days. Everyone – king, chieftain or commoner – had to send offerings. In fact, one Christianised Viking king – King Inge the Elder – was deposed for not taking part. On each of the nine days of the festival, nine of all living male things – cattle, fowl and humans – had their throats cut and were hung upside down in the grove beside the temple. Amazing. All because the number nine had some significance in the worship of Odin. Well, my point is that Odin demanded human sacrifice. And one form that that sacrifice often took was that of the Blood Eagle.’

‘Which was?’ Fabel could feel the adrenalin course through his system.

‘It was an offering that made its own way to Odin’s lair. A human being given the wings of an eagle.’

‘And how did that work exactly?’ Fabel asked, although he already knew the answer.

Dorn looked Fabel directly and unblinkingly in the eye. ‘You would take a prisoner. Perhaps a woman brought back from one of your Viking raids. You would strip her and tie her down, spread-eagled. Then the Priest of Odin would take a broadsword and slash open her abdomen …’

Fabel felt his heart begin to pound as Dorn spoke.

‘These priests had the skill of a surgeon. Their blows would slice the victim open, supposedly without damaging essential organs and killing her. Then they would tear the lungs out of the sacrifice and throw them over the shoulders. The wings of the Blood Eagle, do you see? Wings with which they could fly to Odin.’

Fabel sat and stared at Dorn. He felt as if he were standing at the heart of a silent explosion: in a street where a thousand alarm bells had started to ring. ‘This is a documented historical fact?’

‘Documented, yes. Historical, yes. But how much of documented history is fact depends on the perspective of the chronicler. The Vikings were feared above all other raiders. Portrayed as demons in the chronicles of the time.’ Dorn flicked through the pages of one of the volumes. ‘Yes, here we are. Victims could be of either sex. For example, here’s an account of an English prince taken prisoner and held for ransom by the Vikings. The ransom wasn’t paid so he was sacrificed to Odin as a Blood Eagle. There are a number of other documented incidents.’ He stopped at another page. ‘This is an account of a bishop on one of the Scottish isles.’

‘And our killer is emulating these?’ Fabel’s voice was still full of disbelief.

‘Oh yes. I read some of the details in the paper. I could see that you tried to keep as many secret as possible, but from what was said about the dismemberment, I guessed the rest.’

‘I can’t believe it. It’s obscene.’

‘To us, yes,’ said Dorn. ‘But to the killer it’s noble. A crusade. He believes he is serving the ancient gods. He has the highest moral authority on his side. He is a proselytiser, a missionary returning Germany to its true faith.’ Dorn put the book down. ‘You are dealing with the darkest forces imaginable, Jan. This killer is a true believer. And what he believes in is truly apocalyptic, in a way the Christian mind cannot comprehend. The Vikings had their Judgement Day too. Ragnarok. But biblical apocalypses pale into nothing compared to Ragnarok. A time when Odin and the Aesir join battle against Loki and the Vanir. A time of fire and blood and ice when earth and heaven and all living things are consumed. This “Blood Eagle” believes in all of that. His mission is to see the heavens fall and the oceans to fill with blood.’

Fabel sat, holding the newspaper limply in his hands and gazed, unseeing, at the headline. His mind raced.

‘How can you be so sure about him? We’ve got a criminal psychologist who profiles …’

‘I’m no psychologist, you’re right,’ Dorn’s voice revealed something close to anger. ‘But I have spent much of the last twenty years trying to understand minds like this maniac’s. Trying to make sense of what drives a human being to become a hunter, torturer and killer of other human beings …’ Dorn broke off. There was genuine pain in his eyes.

Fabel sat motionless, still stunned. When he did eventually speak, it was as much to himself as to Dorn. ‘I just can’t believe it. He is out there living out some obscene fantasy, believing he has a mission to fulfil. If what you say is true, that is.’

‘What I am telling you is part of the historical record. Whether it really happened as recorded or not, or whether it was exaggerated to demonise the Vikings by those who documented it, doesn’t matter. It’s there. And your killer believes it.’

‘And if it is a mission,’ continued Fabel, ‘then he is going to go on and on killing. Until we stop him.’

For some reason Fabel did not want to make the call from the visitors’ car park outside Vierlande Prison. Instead he drove out to the Neuengammer Hausdeich dyke. He stopped the car and climbed the steep bank of the dyke. From here he could see the Neuengamme Concentration Camp with its symmetrically laid-out buildings and blocks. Most of the prisoners here had been women. The prisoners of Neuengamme and its satellite camps had been used as slave labour to build temporary housing for the people of Hamburg who had been bombed out of their homes. When he had been brought here by his father, the ten-year-old Fabel had learned a new phrase,
Vernichtung durch Arbeit
: extermination through labour. The prisoners had been worked to death.

He sat down on the grass and watched as an empty sun played with cloud shadows across the flat landscape, across the camp. He could just make out the memorial block before which, he knew, was the sculpture of
The Dying Prisoner
: an emaciated figure lying buckled and tangle-limbed on the cobbles.

Fabel looked down at a place where women had been murdered in the name of some sick idea of German identity and thought about what Dorn had told him: about how there was an individual with a perverted sense of history and ethnology and faith who was using it as a justification for satisfying his basest instincts and his psychotic hunger for blood.

Fabel needed time to gather his thoughts before phoning the office. He tried to get Mahmoot, but again reached his voice mail. Fabel cursed silently and flipped shut his cell phone. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all. He just hoped Mahmoot had had the sense to drop out of it when he heard about the hit on Ulugbay. He sat for a few more minutes, his arms wrapped around his knees and watched sun and shadow dance across the land; then he phoned Werner and outlined Dorn’s theory.

‘I’ll be back in an hour. We’ll have a meeting in the conference room. Better get Paul and Anna back in for it. Have they found anything on Klugmann?’

‘Nope.’

‘I didn’t expect they would. Could you contact Van Heiden and see if he’s free for the conference. He’s going to love this.’

Friday 13 June, 1.50 a.m. St Pauli, Hamburg.

The bass thumped relentlessly. The lights strobed across 400 sweat-sheathed bodies that writhed like a single creature with every pulse of the music’s beat. She clung to him as if they were both adrift in this ocean of humanity. His tongue probed her mouth and his hands explored her body. She took her mouth from his and placed it to his ear, shouting something into it that was all but drowned by the deafening music. He smiled and nodded vigorously, indicating the way out with a couple of jerks of his head. He backed away from her, still holding her hands and still smiling, guiding her through the crowd towards the club’s exit. God, he was good-looking. And sexy. His T-shirt was soaked with sweat and showed the hard lines of his muscles. He was tall and slim; his hair was dark and sleek and his eyes the most incredible colour of green. She wanted him badly.

Hitting the air outside the club was like diving into a plunge pool. The doormen did not even glance in their direction as they spilled out, still entangled. The street was quiet except for the muffled thumping from the club, and for a moment she paused, the cool air and the decrescent effect of the E she had taken making her suddenly more wary. After all, she didn’t even know his name. He sensed the resistance in her body and moved towards her. He beamed a handsome grin at her, revealing perfect teeth that glittered like porcelain in the street lights.

‘Hey baby, what’s up?’ For the first time she heard his voice clearly. There was a hint of some kind of accent.

‘I’m thirsty. I took some E earlier. I don’t want to get dehydrated.’

‘Then let’s go to my place to chill. I’ve got some mineral water in my car. It’s just around the corner. Come on.’ He took her firmly by the arm.

His car was a sleek, new silver Porsche and they fell against it, becoming entwined again. She pulled away. ‘I’m really thirsty … maybe we should go back …’

He beeped off the alarm and leaned into the car, pulling out two half-litre Evian bottles. He twisted the cap off of one and handed it to her, drinking from the second himself. She took the water and gulped greedily.

‘It tastes salty,’ she said.

He ran his tongue up her neck, from the shoulder strap of her top to the lobe of her ear. ‘So do you.’

She felt suddenly dizzy and slumped against the car. He moved swiftly and caught her, his hands under her arms. ‘Easy …’ he said solicitously. ‘You’d better sit down.’ He guided her towards the open door of the car. She looked up and down the empty street and then into his eyes. They had changed: they were still the same amazing green, but now they glittered cold and empty.

But she was not afraid.

Friday 13 June, 11.50 a.m. Alsterarkaden, Hamburg.

Fabel had left the Präsidium immediately after the case conference. They had reviewed the progress made over the last week: none. Klugmann was still on the loose, and as an ex-policeman, he would know how to stay on the loose; the leads from the last murder had run cold and they still did not have an identity for the dead girl; even Fabel’s green-eyed Slav seemed to have walked from the murder scene and evaporated into the night. Other than the fact that Dorn had given a name and provenance to the ritualism of this killer’s barbarity, they were no closer to nailing him. Fabel was also deeply concerned about Mahmoot, with whom he had still not made contact. Mahmoot was notoriously difficult to reach, but he would have known that not returning Fabel’s calls would set alarm bells ringing.