JF05 - The Valkyrie Song (38 page)

‘No. Ralf just mentioned he might be travelling with a Norwegian friend. Are you sure Ralf’s not in danger? The Chinese authorities don’t always take kindly to foreign environmentalists.’

‘Do you have Dr Sparwald’s cellphone number?’ asked Vestergaard. ‘We could perhaps reach him on that.’

‘Certainly,’ said Lüttig. ‘I’ll get it for you.’

‘You said you are a wholly owned subsidiary of a group,’ said Fabel. ‘Would that be the NeuHansa Group?’

‘That’s right.’

Fabel handed Lüttig one of his Polizei Hamburg visiting cards. ‘If you hear from Dr Sparwald, I’d be grateful if you could tell him I would like to speak to him as a matter of urgency. And if you come across anything that you think would be of interest to us, please give me a call.’

‘Of course.’ Lüttig turned back to Vestergaard. ‘I’ll get you Ralf’s number and home address.’

‘How did you know that SkK Biotech was owned by the NeuHansa Group?’ Vestergaard asked Fabel as they walked back to the car.

‘That.’ He thrust his chin in the direction of the pennant flying beside the other flags. ‘The small red cross. In German we call that a
Tatzenkreuz
. You know, the flared cross you see on German military vehicles. Well, the one on that flag is less flared and it’s red on a white background. It’s a Hanseatic cross. I’m guessing it’s some kind of corporate logo. That and the Danish flag made me think of Gina Brønsted, the owner of the NeuHansa Group.’

‘Is it significant?’

‘Not significant. Coincidental. The most recent victim of the St Pauli Angel also worked for a NeuHansa Group company. But that’s not unusual – so do a lot of people.’

‘Funny things, coincidences,’ said Vestergaard. ‘I tend not to believe in them.’ As they were about to get back into his car, she handed Fabel the note Lüttig had given her with Sparwald’s home address on it.

‘Nor do I,’ said Fabel.

When they got back from SkK Biotech, Fabel found a thick legal envelope on his desk. He had just picked it up when Werner came in. Karin Vestergaard diplomatically excused herself and left the two men alone.

‘She’s becoming your shadow,’ said Werner. ‘Doesn’t it get on your nerves?’

‘As a matter of fact it doesn’t. I would be every bit as hands-on if you got yourself killed in Copenhagen and I went up to find out what happened.’

‘What can I say?’ Werner grinned. ‘I’m touched.’ He nodded towards the envelope. ‘That arrived half an hour ago and I just left it on your desk. It’s the details of Westland’s investments, correspondence, that sort of thing. Westland’s widow sent them over like you asked.’

‘Thanks. I’ll look at it later. Anything else new?’

‘Yes, there is, as a matter of fact.’ Werner swung open the door and called through to Dirk Hechtner, who came in carrying an evidence bag, which he placed on Fabel’s desk. The bag contained a curved blade attached to a leather device that looked halfway between a wrist-strap and a glove.

‘Things have just got even more interesting,’ said Dirk Hechtner. ‘This is one of the things we found in Margarethe Paulus’s apartment. We did get positive traces of blood from the leather … unfortunately they were too small and too degraded to get a match. However, we did manage to get a sample of dried blood from around the base of the blade.
Or at least Astrid Bremer did. But we still weren’t able to get a match.’

‘A match with whom?’ asked Fabel. ‘There’s no sign that this was used in Drescher’s murder.’

‘No, not Drescher. I did some digging … tried to find out what the hell this thing is. I got a name for it. It’s called a
srbosjek
. I thought this might be the weapon used to kill Goran Vuja
i
ć
in Copenhagen. You know, the Serbian gangster.’

‘Vuja
i
ć
?’ Fabel frowned. ‘What made you make the connection to Vuja
i
ć
?’

Hechtner nodded towards the object in the evidence bag. ‘This is a particularly horrible device with only one purpose: to murder. It was designed for the
Usta
e
, the fascists who ran Croatia during the Second World War. The
Usta
e
believed in an ethnically cleansed Croatia, free of Serbs, Gypsies, Jews … They set up their own concentration camp, Jasenovac, where they murdered a million or more. They were very hands-on about it all: they clubbed, stabbed or hacked their victims to death, all of which was very labour-intensive. So they came up with the
srbosjek
. It was used to cut throats with maximum speed and minimum effort. That’s why I made the connection with Vuja
i
ć
–
srbosjek
is Croat for “Serb Cutter”. It struck me that maybe someone was being poetic.’

‘More like they’re trying to tell us something.’ Fabel picked up the evidence bag. The
srbosjek
was an ugly, vicious-looking thing, even if you didn’t know its history. ‘But this definitely wasn’t the weapon used to kill Vuja
i
ć
. His throat wasn’t cut: the blade used to kill him was more like a thin stiletto or a needle file, pushed into the heart from under the sternum. But good work, Dirk. You may be on to something.’

Fabel met Susanne in the Presidium canteen for lunch. She had spent an hour on the phone with Köpke, the Mecklenburg
State Hospital Chief Psychiatrist. Karin Vestergaard had phoned Fabel and explained that she needed to catch up on a few things with her office. There had been something about her manner on the phone that made him feel that she was not being entirely straightforward with him. But he dismissed the thought: Vestergaard knew that if she withheld anything from Fabel he would shut her out of the investigation into Jespersen’s death.

‘You look tired,’ said Fabel as they picked up their trays and inched along in a queue of blue uniforms. Susanne had a large thick leather-bound notebook tucked under her arm. Fabel could see Post-it notes sprouting like foliage from its edges and he noticed that she had jammed various other folded sheets between its pages.

‘I’ve had a lot to take in,’ she said wearily. ‘You say you’ve spoken with Köpke?’

‘I’ve had that pleasure,’ said Fabel, with a wry smile.

‘I don’t think I’ve been talked at like that since I was a first-year student,’ said Susanne. She broke off to place her order with the canteen assistant. ‘He’s not the most patient of people, is he? In fact, for a psychiatrist, he doesn’t seem much of a people person.’

‘If you mean he’s an arsehole,’ said Fabel, ‘then I would agree with your professional assessment. I thought you southerners were direct and outspoken.’

‘I’m acclimatising. Another year or two up here and I’ll be locking up all that emotion deep inside till it rots away at me, just like the rest of you. Anyway, arsehole or not, I had to take a hell of a lot of notes while I spoke to him. He was well prepared. And he thinks we should be too, before we talk to Margarethe Paulus again.’

‘He has a point,’ said Fabel.

‘How is the head?’ asked Susanne.