Free JF03 - Eternal by Craig Russell Page B

Medicopter had arrived. Their shared fear had been a forced intimacy that had created an unspoken bond between them and, during the two years since, Maria had imparted to her boss small confidences about her personal life – but only those things that could possibly have had some bearing on her work. One of these confidences had been that she had become involved with Frank Grueber.
    Down the hall, Grueber concluded his briefing to Maria. He touched her elbow in a gesture of farewell and headed back down the apartment hallway. There was something about that gesture that botheredFabel. Not the informality of it: rather the almost imperceptible tensing of Maria’s posture in response. As if a very faint electric current had been passed to her.
    Maria came back down the hall to the doorway.
    ‘We still can’t go in,’ she explained. ‘Grueber has his work really cut out for him. The killer – a woman – was disturbed cleaning up the scene. Apparently she made too good a job of it and forensics are finding it hard to pick up anything worthwhile.’ She shrugged. ‘But it’s academic, I suppose. If you catch the killer at the scene then there’s no better forensic trace than that.’
    Fabel turned to Maria. ‘The suspect was disturbed cleaning up the scene … by whom?’
    ‘A friend of Hauser’s …’ said Maria. ‘A very young, pretty male friend of Hauser’s called Sebastian Lang, who found the door unlocked … although apparently he did have a key himself.’
    Fabel nodded. Hans-Joachim Hauser had never made any secret of his homosexuality.
    ‘Lang had come back to pick something up from the apartment before going into town for lunch,’ continued Maria. ‘He heard noises from the bathroom and, assuming it was Hauser, went through and disturbed the killer as she cleaned up the scene.’
    ‘Where is the suspect?’ asked Fabel.
    ‘Uniform have taken her back to the Presidium for us,’ Werner answered. ‘She seems a pretty disturbed individual … no one could get much sense out of her, other than she wasn’t finished cleaning.’
    ‘Okay. If we can’t get into the crime scene, then we should maybe head back to the MurderCommission and interview the suspect. But I’d like Frau Doctor Eckhardt to do a psychological assessment of her first.’ Fabel snapped open his cellphone and hit a pre-set button.
    ‘Institute for Legal Medicine … Doctor Eckhardt speaking …’ The voice that answered was female: deep and warm and tinged with a soft Bavarian accent.
    ‘Hi, Susanne … it’s me. How’s it going?’
    She sighed. ‘Wishing we were back on Sylt … What’s up?’
    Fabel explained about the arrest of the woman in Schanzenviertel and that he wanted Susanne to do an assessment before they interrogated her.
    ‘I’m tied up until late afternoon. Is four p.m. okay?’
    Fabel looked at his watch. It was one-thirty. If they waited for the assessment it would mean they would not get to interview the suspect until the early evening.
    ‘Okay. But I think we’ll have to have a preliminary with her beforehand.’
    ‘Fine. I’ll see you at four at the Presidium,’ said Susanne. ‘What’s the suspect’s name?’
    ‘Just a second …’ Fabel turned to Maria. ‘What name do we have for the woman in custody?’
    Maria flipped open her notebook and scanned her notes for a moment.
    ‘Dreyer …’ she said eventually.
    ‘Kristina Dreyer?’
    Maria looked at Fabel in surprise. ‘Yes. You know her?’
    Fabel didn’t answer Maria but spoke again to Susanne. ‘I’ll call you back,’ he said, and snapped his cellphone shut. Then he turned to Maria. ‘GetGrueber. Tell him I don’t care what stage forensics are at – I want to see the murder scene and the victim. Now.’
2.10 p.m.: Schanzenviertel, Hamburg
    It was clear that Grueber recognised the futility of trying to deny the Murder Commission team access to the murder scene. But with a determined authority that did not sit well with his youthful