JF02 - Brother Grimm (23 page)

Van Heiden’s expression darkened even further. Ganz shook his head disbelievingly. ‘How could this happen? How could this happen to Laura?’

‘I’m not sure I understand your point, Herr Ganz. Do you mean how could this happen to someone with such a public profile? Rather than to some anonymous shopgirl?’

‘That is quite enough!’ Fabel had succeeded in igniting van Heiden’s notoriously short fuse. Ganz held up a hand and stopped the Kriminaldirektor.

‘It’s okay, Horst.’ There was no animosity in the plump, florid face. ‘It’s not that, Herr Fabel. It’s not that at all. I am – I was – Laura’s godfather. I’ve known her since she was a little girl.’

‘I’m sorry, Herr Ganz. I was out of line. You say you saw her on Saturday?’

‘Yes. Her birthday party. Her thirty-first. In her villa at Blankenese.’

‘Were there many people there?’

‘Oh yes. I’d say over a hundred guests. Maybe a hundred and fifty.’

‘Did anything particular happen? Any incidents?’

Ganz gave a small laugh. ‘It was a society event, Herr Fabel. Such gatherings are carefully engineered and arranged. Everyone there has an agenda, from being seen with the right people to doing deals. So no, there weren’t any
incidents
.’

‘Did she have a partner? A boyfriend?’

‘No. No boyfriend. No partner. Or rather, none of any significance that I can remember. Despite all her beauty and her wealth, poor Laura was a very lonely person. I would say the person closest to her was Heinz. Heinz Schnauber. Her agent.’

‘Were they involved?’

Ganz laughed briefly. ‘No. Nothing like that. Heinz is a member of the
Schwul ist Cool
brigade.’

‘Gay?’

‘Very. But a devoted friend to Laura. He’s going to be devastated to hear about this.’

Down by the police cordon, a television crew had arrived and Fabel could see that several press photographers had focused long zoom lenses on them, like snipers waiting for the clearest shot. ‘I think we’re beginning to attract a little too much attention. Herr Ganz, I would like to talk to you some more about Fräulein von Klosterstadt, but somewhere less public. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you would speak to the family. And if I may make a suggestion, Herr Kriminaldirektor, I think, it would be a very good idea if you were present.’

Van Heiden nodded. Fabel watched the two men make their way back to the Mercedes 4x4. He noticed that the usually press-friendly Ganz waved away the reporters with the same irritated conviction as did van Heiden. The last occasion Fabel and Ganz had crossed paths, the friction had been considerable. Last time, the serial murderer that Fabel had been hunting had been seen by Ganz as a generator of embarrassing headlines; this time, death had come too close to home for Ganz to worry about bad press.

Fabel looked up at the vast edifice of the Planetarium’s tower. There was a message here. And he wasn’t getting it.

Fabel looked around the conference table and was very aware of Werner’s and Anna’s absence. Only Maria and himself remained of the core team and he had seconded two Kommissars, Petra Maas and Hans Rödger, from Kriminalhauptkommissarin Ute Walraf’s sexual-crime Sonder Kommission, which was based on the same floor of the Präsidium. Fabel knew both detectives well, and valued their support, but they weren’t his regular Mordkommission team and he felt exposed. Olsen, if it was Olsen who was committing these murders, was getting bolder and more prolific, despite having come close to capture. Fabel and his team would have to move as fast and as efficiently as possible to prevent him killing again.

Also seated around the table were Susanne and Klatt, the Norderstedt Kommissar. Fabel had just asked Maria to start briefing the team on the latest killing when there was a knock at the conference room door and a tall, sandy-haired, uniformed SchuPo officer hovered awkwardly on the threshold.

‘Ah … Kommissar Hermann.’ Fabel indicated a free seat with a sweep of his hand. ‘Thanks for coming along. I thought you’d like to sit in on this briefing.’

Hermann beamed as he sat down at the table, placing his green and white peaked cap on the table before taking out a notebook and laying it on the cherrywood surface.

‘Kommissar Hermann,’ explained Fabel to the others, ‘was the officer who identified the double murder in Naturpark Harburger Berge as a possible serial killing, and who did so well in preserving the locus for forensics.’

Hermann nodded his thanks. Fabel asked Maria to continue. She summarised what they knew, and didn’t know, to date about the latest killing, as well as going over the previous three murders.

When Maria had finished, Fabel took over. ‘What we have is a violent and unpredictable suspect on the loose. Peter Olsen. Twenty-nine. He has a record for violence and was involved with Hanna Grünn, whom we found along with Markus Schiller in the Naturpark Harburger Berge. So there is a link and a possible motive. But we still have to establish what connection, if any, he had with the other victims. We also believe that he may be what is known as Karotype XYY … a genetic disorder that may predispose him to violent rage. Frau Doktor Eckhardt?’

‘We are all born with a chromosome mix,’ Susanne explained. ‘Men are XY, women are XX. Sometimes, however, there are variations on this mix. This can lead to Down’s Syndrome, Turner Syndrome or intersex conditions such as hermaphroditism, or we can end up with an extra male or female chromosome. In men, this is called XYY or ‘supermale’ syndrome. Such men can be extremely tall, exceptionally muscular, and are often highly aggressive with difficult-to-control tempers. Sometimes they develop severe acne and have skeleto-muscular problems. Current research suggests
that they are within the normal IQ range, if slightly below the average. They can, however, have educational problems because they are developmentally immature. Kriminalhauptkommissar Fabel has described Olsen as having an almost adolescent taste in music and decor.’ Susanne paused and leaned back in her chair. ‘For the sake of clinical balance, I have to point out that there’s a lot of discussion about just how much XYY contributes to criminality. The debate all started with a spree killer in the United States – Chicago, I think – called Richard Speck. He killed eight nurses in the 1960s and then appealed for leniency on account of his XYY genotype. It came out later that he’d been misdiagnosed and it threw the whole XYY argument into discredit for a while. And there are many XYY men who control their condition well. I knew a highly respected psychologist who was XYY. He had strategies for dealing with the difficulties it presented, particularly with his temper.’

‘And,’ added Fabel, ‘we can’t be certain that Olsen is XYY. As far as we know, he has never submitted to Karotype testing. But it should be pointed out that we know from experience that he can be extremely violent and has no qualms about injuring police officers. And, if he is our guy, he is capable of slashing a throat with a single blow.’

Fabel noticed that Susanne had removed her glasses and was turning them thoughtfully in her hands. ‘Frau Doktor?’

‘Sorry. I was just thinking that that is the thing which doesn’t fit with me. If Olsen is XYY, then he’s a rager. The typical XYY in prison is there for wife-beating or other loss-of-control assaults. When he hit Kriminaloberkommissar Meyer, he struck him with unnecessary, excessive violence. My belief is that
if he were the killer, then we would see the excess of a psychotic fury … repeated stabbing, including post-mortem wounds where he would continue to attack his victim even after he knew he or she was dead. A single throat-slash doesn’t seem to fit.’

‘But it doesn’t exclude him?’

‘No. Probably not.’

Fabel flipped open the file in front of him. It wasn’t just Susanne’s reservations that were ringing an alarm bell somewhere deep in his mind. Olsen murdering Hanna Grünn and Markus Schiller would have been a crime of passion – of jealous rage. And that didn’t fit with the bizarre staging of the bodies. Then there was the girl found on Blankenese beach, and this latest murder. All had notes written by what seemed – at first sight – to be the same hand.

It was as if Maria had been reading Fabel’s mind. ‘I’m not convinced about Olsen. I would have thought that he would be trying to keep a low profile at the moment, considering half of the Polizei Hamburg is out looking for him.’

‘I don’t know, Maria. He’s our prime suspect so far, but I can’t seem to get to grips with Olsen as a person. Or perhaps the problem is that I have. I keep on expecting to discover that there’s more to Olsen than meets the eye. Perhaps there isn’t. Maybe there’s
less
to him than meets the eye. We’ve placed him at the Naturpark murders, that’s for sure. He was lurking, waiting for them. We have his boot print and a match for his motorcycle tyre tread. He must be the killer there. It’s the other two murders I can’t fit him with. Nor the whole Grimm Brothers theme.’ He turned to Susanne. ‘Why would Olsen commit two murders with a motive, but also two without?’

‘There’s no such thing as a motiveless killing. Even
the most random acts of violence are inspired by some desire or need. It could be that in Olsen’s mind there is no connection with the other two killings, other than the fact that he is on some kind of Grimm Brothers-inspired crusade, and he included Grünn and Schiller because it suited him to combine objectives. Or mix business with pleasure, as it were.’

‘“
To kill two birds with one stone
”,’ Fabel said, in English. The others stared blankly at him. ‘Never mind.’ He looked down at the file. At Olsen’s almost handsome face. ‘Maybe these other victims aren’t the random choices we first thought. Maybe Olsen is picking them for who they are or what they represent. This latest victim was a model famed for her beauty, and she was posed as Sleeping Beauty. The first girl was from a family at the lowest social level – the underground people who were supposed to leave their children in the place of those they abducted. A question that remains is: did Olsen abduct the original girl, Paula Ehlers, three years ago?’

Klatt, the Norderstedt officer, answered. ‘I’m convinced he must have. The similarity in appearance between the two girls is unnerving. I’m positive that whoever abducted and killed Martha Schmidt abducted Paula Ehlers.’

Fabel nodded. It was clear even to him, despite the fact that he had never seen either girl in life, that they were far too close in appearance for it to be a coincidence. ‘What about the other victims – Hänsel and Gretel? If Olsen chose to combine his sexual jealousy with his “killing theme”, then there must have been a conflict. He knew, only too well, that his chosen victims were not brother and sister.’

‘He probably doesn’t feel he has to be too “literal” …’ It was Petra Maas, the Kommissarin whom Fabel
had drafted into the team, who answered. She was a tall, thin woman in her late thirties with mid-brown hair that framed an intelligent face. ‘For example, this latest victim fitted with Sleeping Beauty or Briar Rose because of her famed beauty, but she was twice the age of the character in the fairy tale. There’s flexibility in most psychotic agendas. We see the same kind of thing in the Sexual Crime SoKo. Serial rapists and serial killers have similar psychoses. If Olsen is your “Fairy Tale” killer, then he probably sees his victims’ suitability in general, rather than specific, terms.’

‘Or maybe he sees something specific in the two Naturpark victims that we don’t,’ Susanne proposed.

Fabel paused, staring down at the table’s surface but seeing again the Schillers’ opulent villa, their functional office, Vera Schiller’s coldness. ‘Okay, so Hanna Grünn was an employee in Markus Schiller’s business. Or, more correctly, in the business run by Markus Schiller for his wife, Vera. She was the real power behind the concern, having inherited it from her father. Is there anything we’re missing here?’

‘Maybe the killer cast Vera Schiller, allegorically, as the wicked stepmother, with Hanna and Markus as the Babes in the Wood?’ suggested Hans Rödger, the other officer from the Sexual Crimes SoKo.

‘It’s not very convincing,’ said Henk Hermann, the SchuPo Kommissar. ‘But, if it is true, then the killer knew at least something about the victims’ backgrounds. Which brings us back to Olsen.’

‘The question is, what knowledge did the killer have of the other victims?’ said Fabel. ‘What was his connection with them?’

Susanne swivelled her chair to face Fabel fully. ‘That he has knowledge of their backgrounds doesn’t mean that he had any kind of significant contact
with them. If we take Olsen out of the picture for a moment, the killer may have just been waiting for a courting couple – any courting couple – to use that spot for a tryst and then kill them, much as Son of Sam did in the US.’

Fabel stared out of the window towards Winterhuder Stadtpark and the city beyond. ‘The main thing that concerns me is that he is getting bolder.’

‘But that means he might also be getting sloppier.’ The voice came from the doorway. A young, pretty woman, with short black hair and too-red lipstick and wearing a rather battered-looking leather jacket, made her way over to the table. She moved with an exaggerated ease, but Fabel noticed her wince slightly as she sat down.

‘You should be recuperating,’ he said.

‘I’m fine,
Chef
…’ said Anna Wolff, and, in response to Fabel’s raised eyebrow, ‘… and fit enough to return to duty.’

Fabel called Anna and Maria into his office after the meeting was over. Fabel was less than convinced Anna was fit for anything other than the lightest duties, but he had to admit to himself that he was glad to see her back. The team he had built was greater than the sum of its parts: each officer had his or her own special abilities and individual strengths that were amplified in combination. When one member was down, it weakened the team generally, not just numerically. Fabel knew that, like Anna, Werner would probably be back on duty before it was medically advisable; but Werner’s injury was more serious and any return would still be some time away.