Who Among Us...: TotenUniverse, #3

By C Harrison

Disowned by her family and deranged by anger, Jennifer Enzo views the world as a demonic garden, a film script and a list of names to be assassinated. But when she finds her own name on the list she is forced out of her insular world to counter a sinister threat to her life.

Professor Virginia Bruck's world is divided between her research in artificial intelligence and posing for her husband, the eccentric German artist Earnst Bruck. Suspected of being the source of a destructive rumour she decides to do what her semi-aristocratic family have never done throughout centuries of rumour, and fight back.

Frieda Schoenhofer, a self-made millionaire, is determined to explain the death of a local witch. Police are equally determined to explain a baffling double murder and Frieda becomes their first suspect after the body of a man is found hung above the north door of Bamberg Cathedral.

All three women share a common association: the Malandanti, a four hundred year old network of covens on the brink of collapse following rumours of a plot to kill the leading members. As the conflict intensifies and the familiar world disappears, they will be forced to reassess their own ambitions, confront the nature of guilt and innocence, and question how their beliefs explain the supernatural forces they each control.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alien Noise Corporation
• Release date: Mar 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781540117557

Book preview

In the Domplatz

PART 1

1

The first sign of trouble began on Katzenberg, on the pavements outside Frieda Schoenhofer's office. Early morning pedestrians, tipped off by messages and phone calls, heard the peel of a solitary bell and quickened their pace; others stopped and changed direction. All of them, distracted and disturbed by the promise of another Bamberg incident, headed up the hill towards the Cathedral and the morbid invitation of the bell.

Frieda grinned, secured her motor bike and joined the growing line of pilgrims. Her phone rang and a voice said, Have you seen him yet? You owe us a thousand euros, loser.

She trotted uphill, eager to race ahead of the crowd. The chatter diminished. The noise of the bell increased. Her heart pounded when she rounded the southern end of the Cathedral where the Domplatz opened out and the wind unleashed its energy. A huge mob had gathered along the edge of a swollen police cordon. Frieda used her crash helmet to push through to the front, forcing her way forward from Bamberg sunlight to Cathedral shadow until the police tape stopped her from going any farther.

Outside the north entrance, plain clothes cops wrestled with an inflatable forensics marquee. A squad car made way for a van with three officers balancing on the roof. And above them all, hanging from the ornate cornice surmounting the portal, a rope and a bell, and beneath the bell the trussed up body of a naked corpse swinging upside down in the turbulence like a human pendulum. With every dizzying pass from left to right, right to left, the bell rang and celebrated another moment of Bamberg's tormented history.

Frieda's phone rang again and the same voice sang to her, Ding dong the witch is dead, witch is dead, witch is dead. Ding dong the wicked witch is dead. . . .

She ended the call and laughed so loud Kriminalkommissar Oliver Tollmann heard her. He pulled out of the contest with the struggling marquee and led Frieda down the police tape away from the crowd. You find this funny?

No, no. Not him. Not exactly. No. Sorry. He wasn't a witch, that's all.

What do you mean?

Nothing. Someone is mistaken. Frieda's soft, almost reluctant voice contrasted with the bright enthusiasm in her eyes; her exuberant smile, wide and generous, masked a latent indifference to the pain of others.

Tollmann's features creased with repulsion, transforming every time the bell rang; a gentle clang that increased his frustration at the efforts to reach the dangling body.

They're not quite tall enough, are they? Frieda said. I thought there was a minimum height to join the police? Is he dead?

Of course he's dead . . . Don't, stop. Stop doing that.

Doing what?

Who did this, Frieda?

I don't know.

You do know. You're always around somewhere when these things happen.

You're being paranoid. How did he die?

You tell me.

How should I know?

Even from a distance and with the frantic scene populated by police and police vehicles, Frieda could see a line of blood traced across the ground beneath the path of the swinging body. Throat cut?

Fucking nail through his neck or a . . . a coach bolt or something, I don't know. Why am I telling you? You already know. It's all linked isn't it?

What is?

You. The covens. You did this?

What, him? I didn't do this. I can't reach up there.

Well, who did?

Someone above the law.

What?

Come on, you know they're everywhere.

Who is everywhere?

Whoever is committing these lawless acts.

You're taking the piss now.

I have to go. I have a meeting this morning.

How convenient. How is business?

It's very good. Thank you for asking. And you should be grateful.

Why?

Because without all this crime you'd be out of a job. Look at all the employment it creates. She walked away.

Tollmann wasn't finished. They'll get to me eventually.

Why is that?

They don't think I'm up to it. They think all this is beyond me. And do you know what?

What?

Good. Tollmann's body shook. Fuck them. I don't care any more, if they demote me, transfer me back to traffic, whatever. Fuck it. This goes beyond Bamberg and nobody gives a shit.

Frieda wanted to place a comforting hand on Tollmann's arm and reassure him, but her hands were full and she knew there was more to come, more misery waiting for him. She was curious to see the form it would take.

This is not a Bamberg problem. This is a European problem, he said.

Why are you telling me?

Because you're part of it. And you do know the people involved. You know how far it extends.

Frieda puffed her cheeks. If you need any help, for what it's worth, she nodded towards the spire of the Cathedral's Gothic tower. Watch what happens up there.

-

On a normal day the office of Schoenhofer crackled and fizzed with ideas. A white open plan field of static electricity from a permanent brainstorm, a permastorm, of money-making ideas.

But today was different. Today, the investment strategies of advisers made way for the modus operandi of murderers. Being tied into a contract didn't have the same urgency as being tied to a bell. Frieda heard an unfamiliar murmur, the unwelcome sound of trivial speculation. Gossip.

She kept her coat on and was ready to go straight back out again, but she noticed the new lawyer sitting at her workstation, hands clamped around a cup of coffee. Are you okay? said Frieda.

The lawyer shook her head.

What's the problem?

The Cathedral.

Did you see the victim? said Frieda. The lawyer shook her head again. If you didn't actually see it then you can't be so traumatised by it. You're imagining demons. Stay at work and distract yourself.

I was in the square, she said. I heard other people talking about it.

But you didn't actually see anything. Stop torturing yourself. You'll be okay once you start working on something.

The business bric-a-brac on Frieda's own desk challenged her every morning. She couldn't sit down without assessing it, and every morning came to the same conclusion. The complicated phone, the dozing laptop, the wooden puzzles, they all served a purpose, all had their reason to occupy those few square centimetres of office desk real estate. . . .

Your meeting. . . . Frieda's PA leaned around the door frame and waved a tablet.

She checked her watch. Yes. My meeting.

Quite a morning. People are wondering who he was, how he got there, who would do something like that?

Theo Wenders, nail through the neck, very bad people. Frieda tutted. Very very bad people.

Now that the morning's murder had been explained Schoenhofer came alive. Office phones trilled, printers cleared their throats and the whole mechanised digitised paraphernalia of commerce reanimated. Frieda checked her rucksack once more and headed out.

What time are you back? said her PA.

No idea.

-

To the north of Bamberg lay the medieval pile of the Ransahlhof, and to the north of the Ransahlhof stood the Hunting Tower. The hollow column protruded from bare scrubland when it was first constructed, but centuries of forest growth left the tower imprisoned by invasive vegetation so dense only the owners and several satellites knew it existed. Every time Frieda arrived the automatic gates welcomed her with a gasp of rusty bronchitis and a prolonged squeal of geriatric metal hinges.

And every time she arrived on the Ducati she reminded herself to visit next time in the Aston Martin. The rippled cobbles of the drive squirmed through the woodland scrub like a hardened serpent, rattling the Ducati's frame and threatening to shake off Frieda's helmet.

The drive arrived at the crumbling bole of the tower and its long eroded decoration and stonework covered by an autumnal rash of creeping vines. Stonework from which eight enemies of the Ransahlhof's owners were hung on meat hooks in 1593.

At ground level the shadow of the tower crossed the spot where Jacob of Rote's father landed after he was thrown off the top by Jacob in 1712. Frieda avoided the Bentleys and BMWs, Porsches and Ferraris, and parked her motorcycle next to the shallow depression in the gravel created by the thud of the falling body. (Or so she liked to imagine.)

From here, Frieda left her helmet attached to the bike, and set off on a twenty minute hike through the claustrophobic woodland of the estate to the rotten carcass of the Ransahlhof. Beyond the canopies, high above the grabbing tree tops with their upturned claws and cackling rooks, the sky began to darken as heavy cloud rolled in from the east. The mood of the forest shifted from light to dark, like a shadowy heartbeat, every time the sun attempted to break the cloud.

The Ransahlhof introduced itself almost apologetically, as if taken by surprise. A collapsed pile of stones, an iron fence lunging from the brambles, and two decapitated stone pillars, their footpath long since devoured by encroaching groundcover. Up ahead, at the base of a weathered wall worn smooth by abrasive winds Karin Vogts, the coven leader, stood like a blackened sentinel outside the main entrance. She was already dressed for the ritual, her pointed hood lying flattened on a semi-collapsed wall. We're waiting for one more, she said to Frieda. If you change inside, use the ante-room. Everywhere else is rigged to go.

Inside the crumble and squalor twelve coven members waited in silence for the thirteenth: Dorothea, the widow. Late again - as she was for her husband's funeral.

Frieda was dressed in her robe and hood when Dorothea arrived in a fluster and full of apologies. Karin confirmed the coven was complete and led the gathering away to the underground chamber where the meeting would take place.

They followed the same route - the only route - deep into the building, retreating from the outside world, the real world. Candle light played across the walls and worn carvings of illustrations from Agrippa's De Occulta Philosophia: illuminated figures coming and going as the flickering flames touched them and gave momentary life.

The gentle echo of synchronised footsteps became a hypnotic rhythm. Frieda's mind wandered into a private darkness and her thoughts turned to Lena, the previous leader of the Bamberg coven. Lena preferred open spaces, large spaces, gathering points for the numerous covens from Wurzburg and Munich, Oberamergau and Nurnberg. She avoided the damp and the slime of the Ransahlhof where every corridor had its own unique breath: a lukewarm whisper or an icy draft. Where every turn of a corner slapped the face with an onrush of circulating air through the old passageways, as if lost in time, trying to find the exit. Trying to exhale. This is what happened when a building held its breath for too long.

For a moment the procession found itself outside in the dim cloudy daylight. They passed through the cavity created by a destructive fire that had burned away the roof and created a new courtyard. Frieda, woken by the change of light, saw the empty shell of the building and reminded herself to find Dmitri Neved. Find him and ask him again why his wife Lena went to England? Why she became obsessed with Toten Herzen, the rock band with the rumours and the secrets and possibly the answers to Lena's questions?

After the cold courtyard, the route plunged into the ever-darkening hole of a spiral staircase. The windows diminished in size until the candles provided the only hint of light.

Frieda wondered why the others chose to join the coven after Lena's had been wiped out on the mountain tops in England. The coven offered Frieda advantages, business opportunities, openings. But the others? What was in it for a dog breeder from Hungary? Was the headmaster spying on his own teacher? Did the twins simply enjoy dressing up? Membership of the coven demanded the surrender of identity and once inside the hoods the thirteen individuals became thirteen pairs of eyes, thirteen mouths. No expressions, no emotions. No signals. . . .

The journey ended when the sound of dripping water fell onto stony ground. Here, at the bottom of the abyss, a circular chamber waited for the arrival like a stagnant pocket of air. Hacked and carved out of the rock without undermining the foundations of the building, the chamber revealed its patterned floor, its decorated tiles and faded pentacle. Grim symbols of alchemy, of hermetic secrets coloured grey by ancient layers of lichen bloomed into golden life as thirteen candles were set down. In the middle of the pentacle, the grinning face of Baphomet looked up at the coven assembling around the glow of the circle. His horns no longer displayed the virulent fires of his first incarnation when the chamber was created three hundred years ago. But his intent was permanent.

Beyond him, beyond the flicker of light, the gloomy outlines of the coven and the smeared shadows cast against the rough stone walls, two doors opened out to a terrible darkness and two unending corridors of intense subterranean night time. Two nightmarish tunnels.

Karin's form hung like a slender faltering lampshade; the feeble candlelight unable to reach the top of her hood where it merged into the low lying darkness of the chamber. Considering what has happened this morning I think we should take a moment to reflect. I thought it appropriate we should make an offering in fire. We neglect the power of fire to cleanse the air, to cleanse the atmospheric poisons.

Frieda stood opposite Simon Frenzel (nervous Simon) framed by the eye holes of her hood. His subdivided figure studied Karin and Frieda waited for his reaction to the rearranged format of the gathering, the hasty change of agenda.

Let us offer fire. Karin held a length of hazel in her right hand and a small sapphire in her left. Palms up she positioned the sapphire above the hazel and blew across the gem until a small flame danced away from the surface of her glove. Sustained by willpower the flame lingered and listened to the coven's 14th century fire incantation.

'We call to the south and the equatorial heat, we call to the earth's internal fires, we call to the sun and the life giving inferno.'

The offering moved left to Karin's colleague, and on to the next and the next . . . a circular chorus line of flames: the headmaster and the twins; the dog breeder; each producing a small tongue of writhing fire. Frieda held out her hands, offered her own hazel wand and sapphire, and breathed into life the seventh flame. Frenzel studied her studying him through the haze.

The offerings continued around the circle and arrived at Frenzel's trembling hands. He hesitated. I'm sorry, but I feel very cold. . . .

That's fine Simon. We can return to you. Karin allowed him a moment as the circle completed. Twelve figurines of fire cast a delicate glow across the patient hooded faces of the coven. And the fleshy mounds of Frenzel's upturned palms shook with nothing more than fear.

I think we have a problem, said Karin.

I think we have our intruder, said Frieda.

Frenzel bolted for the nearest open door. No one moved. Instead, they listened to his footsteps diminish, fade like an old memory until there was nothing to be heard. A calm fell over the circle. The eternal rhythm of the dripping water ticked away the seconds, the moments; ticked away Frenzel's disappearance, his hopeful escape and his inevitable return. . . .

Footsteps approached, a clattering flight from unseen dread. Frenzel burst from the darkness beyond the second open door. His momentum and surprise threw him down into the middle of the circle where he landed against the expectant face of Baphomet. He looked up at Frieda, astonishment visible through the holes of his hood. She was wrong about the hoods: when emotion was intense, when the man inside was desperate and terrified, the fabric deformed, the inner identity transferred to the outside where it soaked into the fibres like a hideous ink stain.

Are you lost, Simon, said Karin. All paths lead to our eventual death. That's the great practical joke of life. Everything comes down to this.

The coven lifted his exhausted body and carried it to the bell tower and a muted timber-lined room ringed by glassless windows boarded up with plywood that heaved with every gust of wind. Below the windows lay several tidy piles of broomsticks. The bell had been removed, leaving a supporting framework of weathered wood and gristly metal. He was woven into it; legs tied to the matrix of diagonal spars, arms trussed to horizontal beams.

Panic dribbled from his mouth. They know I'm here. They'll come. They know I'm here, they know where I am.

Karin leaned into the framework of the timbers. Do you think we don't know you're being tracked? Well, let them come. It's a pity you can't see what happens.

We don't mind waiting, said Frieda.

And so they did, and Frenzel was right. The police knew where he was and came for him. Frieda counted four marked police cars, two unmarked, blue lights rotating and flashing, but no sirens. The arrival thrashed through the scrub and bushes. Tyres dragged across the gravel as the brakes gripped.

Frenzel heard the arrival and yelled for attention.

Even if they hear you, Simon, they still have to reach you up here. There's a reason why we chose the Ransahlhof to meet your employers. . . .

The police barged through the fragile entrance. Poured into the building. Frieda watched, but could only imagine what happened next when the noise of fractured floors and burning timbers devoured the latest wave of visitors.

In the bell tower the building's agony rose up to Frenzel and the coven. The floor shuddered and the frame creaked like an old ship.

Even if you kill me, they'll find you.

No, they won't, said Karin.

The Ransahlhof rattled again and released another shriek of masonry.

I'm married, did you know that? said Frenzel. I have three children. One has just started school. She loves to tell me what she studied when she comes home. He tugged at the ropes.

That's emotional blackmail, Simon, said Karin. Most of us have families. If you have your way we'll never see our families again. Do you think I'm going to put your children ahead of mine?

But we can all benefit. No one needs to suffer from this.

What makes you think they'll miss you? You knew the risks when you signed up for this. Whatever misery your family endures is your fault. Your responsibility, Simon. Don't try to pass your responsibility onto someone else.

From inside the hoods, the men of the coven stared at Frenzel. They all had families, all had children. All of them fathers, brothers, sons. Frenzel appealed to them, to the humans inside the hoods.

Karin took a call on her phone. An SEK back-up's on its way. We have fifteen minutes.

Why didn't you warn Theo Wenders he was in danger? said Frieda.

I don't know, said Frenzel. I didn't know you were so aware.

Why didn't he warn you?

Frenzel cried like an angry child and snatched at the ropes. Fumes from the fires below engulfed the bell tower.

Don't tell me, said Frieda. He didn't know. After four months did either of you learn anything?

You're all insane. You're all fucking evil. Fucking evil bastards.

Frieda closed the shutters of the bell tower.

You're even wrong about that. Karin blew out the only candle. In the concealed corners and crevices of the roof, glowing eyes leered down at the captive still wrapped and trapped by the lattice of the bell tower's strangulating frame.

Frieda's heart thumped in time to the clump of footsteps across the timber floors swept by the brushwood of besoms. The coven gathered their waiting broomsticks, paused to allow the energy of an ancient spell to charge the atmosphere and held on as the besoms twitched angrily. Unable to hold back the energy any longer, Frieda's besom sparked and fired forward, blasting through the flimsy shuttering of the bell tower window. She launched away from the Ransahlhof, hanging on to the wood tucked under her left shoulder.

Like violent spores pulsing from stone fungus the coven members poured into the light and circled the tower, circled the ruined aftermath of the police arrival; the rubble and soot, scattered vehicles and ugly black smoke pouring from every ground floor orifice.

And once again Frieda saw him, sat on his backside, shocked and wounded: Kriminalkommissar Oliver Tollmann shielding his eyes as she flew like a bird. The others hurtled away to the north and the Hunting Tower, but Frieda couldn't resist a closer look. She swooped low, around the shoulder of the building and passed over Tollmann's head. A colossal static charge plucked him off the ground and dropped him several metres away where he landed in a clumsy bundle. One final look over her shoulder, uproarious laughter lost in the scream of the besom’s shockwave and she was off, darting towards the Hunting Tower, exhilarated and ecstatic.

She dropped down next to Karin's Mercedes and listened to her conversation over the in-car phone. . . . We've left him in the same place and this time can you dispose of him in a slightly less eccentric manner than Wenders? . . . A bet? She glanced at Frieda. Yeah, she's here now . . . Well, if you're confident then get on with it. I don't want to know. She hung up. You bet they couldn't hang Theo Wenders from the Cathedral entrance?

Frieda nodded and collected her breath. They're full of shit. We can do this, we can do that. The stunt cost me a thousand Euros.

And how much will this bet cost?

Five thousand. But they'll have to pay me this time. I'm sure of that. She lied. She wasn't sure. In spite of the challenge these people could be very inventive.

Sigil

2

Why are you whispering?

Tollmann refused to acknowledge the reason for his whispering, his discretion, his shifty behaviour as if engaged in some shady transaction. He wanted to avoid the eyes of another eager crowd marshalled to the edge of the Domplatz. Another day, another bunch of early comers, over-enthusiastic citizen journalists clustered close to the Cathedral. And she was there again, staring at him, studying his behaviour and body language. Enjoying his embarrassment. Frieda Schoenhofer and the smile she reserved for Tollmann: a curling line of casual cruelty. They shared a common experience; one he would never forget.

The furious noise of a helicopter rising from behind the Cathedral interrupted Tollmann's whispering. Next to him, Anders Boorhans followed the trajectory of the helicopter and its ludicrous payload. A bodged cylinder of canvas snagged to a makeshift tubular frame hung from the underside of the chopper.

You should have taken this threat seriously, shouted Boorhans.

I know. In hindsight I know.

It's not hindsight. You were told how dangerous these people were, but you didn't listen. In spite of everything. You didn't listen.

The canvas cylinder struggled in the downdraught of the helicopter. In a moment it would be battling the winds tripping across Bamberg's rooftops.

Power was shifting from Bamberg. Tollmann kicked away a stone. We assumed the problem was in Wurzburg. And I know what you're going to say next. Never assume.

I don't need to say it then.

It's okay for you in Belgium. You fly in and out-

Spare me the hysterics.

When Korminsky was killed this lot went quiet. I actually slept at night.

Lucky you. I haven't slept since 2011.

No. Must be the guilt of supplying shit intelligence, the pretence that Interpol are here to help. . . .

The crowd's preoccupation with the helicopter and its dangling ghostly cargo only heightened Frieda's peculiar apathy to the airborne drama. Twenty-four hours earlier she had told Tollmann to focus on the spire and here they all were, another morbid gathering, another gruesome exhibit. Bamberg's greedy appetite for weird murders was becoming a daily habit. First, Theo Wenders hung above the north door of the Cathedral, and now Simon Frenzel impaled on the Gothic tower, ninety metres above the ground.

Boorhans watched. Tollmann watched. The crowd watched. . . . The helicopter buzzed the spire and its dreadful ornament, but before Simon Frenzel could be covered up the belligerent winds intervened, seized the canvas cylinder and lifted it horizontal. The rotor blades' downdraught tore it apart.

Oh, Jesus. Tollmann turned away and watched a long black car slip through the police cordon.

The crowd photographed the disaster, uploaded the ghoulish images, emailed the excitable reactions. Tollmann couldn't stop himself from glancing at his own phone and the rapid leak of information into the sewers of the internet. Bamberg's gory farce discharged to a world of ravenous voyeurs.

The driver of the black car stood guard, his attention on Boorhans.

Friend of yours? said Tollmann.

No. Boorhans turned his back to the car. What do you plan to do now?

Well, the mountain rescue teams don't want to know. Abseilers can get to the top, but can't lift the body off the spike. So, it looks like he'll have to stay there until he decomposes, which shouldn't take long.

Three years we've tracked these people and every time we ask dumb bastards like you to take over, accept your role, your responsibilities. . . .

Frieda's smile expanded. The smile of innocence, deliberate calculated innocence like a child who kills the family pet and challenges the parents to punish her. There she was, on the ground, her victim up in the air. Tollmann tried not to think of them having anything in common, but like the body on the spire, Frieda remained untouchable. . . .

Are you listening? Boorhans clicked his fingers.

Do you have names? said Tollmann.

Excuse me, names?

Yes, names, suspects, ringleaders, criminals. Names. Because the only intelligence you've ever fed through to us was the information provided by Theo Wenders and him, Tollmann jabbed his finger towards the spire. Everything he ever told us could have been lifted off Wikipedia. He told us nothing.

He told you where they were, what they looked like, where they met.

They were in Bamberg. They met at the Ransahlhof and they looked like every other citizen of Bamberg. Take a look. Tollmann gestured to the crowd. Tell me which one of those looks like a member of a coven. Tell me.

What about her? Boorhans selected Frieda.

Tollmann blinked, but then again Frieda was the only person watching them and not the spire. He scrolled through photographs on his phone.

She . . . is Frieda Schoenhofer. She is trying to buy the assets of Lena Siebert-Neved's business.

What's stopping her?

Rutger Holness. A financial advisor, sees himself as a kind of protector of the Neved's interests.

So, keep an eye on him. If anything happens to him you have a suspect.

Tollmann laughed.

What?

She doesn't exactly hide. She was here yesterday when Wenders was found.

Frieda looked directly at Boorhans as if she could hear him talking. Tollmann wondered if they knew each other, but that was Frieda. Even if you knew her you didn't know her. You didn't really know her, but she knew you.

She made it her mission to know all about you.

How was she? said Boorhans.

Calm. I asked her who she thought was responsible. She said someone above the law.

And she's right. The driver of the black car continued to wait for Boorhans.

Is someone from Interpol standing at another crime scene like this? said Tollmann.

What does that mean?

The body thrown off the Eiffel Tower. . . .

They obviously gave up trying to reach as high as these people.

Tollmann found more images on his phone. What makes you think they're people. He held up a crime scene photograph of Kriminalkommissar Korminsky. Bamberg police detective, murdered, bite marks to the throat.

-

The Malandanti investigation would have been shut down, but for Korminsky's murder.

The black car seated six, but its solitary occupant Leonard Thwaite was too important to share it. Too important to drive it, but until cars drove themselves he was forced to endure the presence of a driver. And now, forced to endure the presence of Boorhans. Thwaite spoke slowly in the company of people he didn't trust, or hadn't made up his mind if he trusted them or not.

Seven months I fought to keep that investigation open and then this Korminsky character was murdered.

Tollmann says the Malandanti went quiet after he died, said Boorhans.

Of course they did. They lost their eyes and ears. What the hell is going on up there?

Thwaite glared at the helicopter. It hovered a moment too long, too low above the spire, and whipped Simon Frenzel's body off its ridiculous hook. The bits and pieces landed in the Domplatz with a variety of bloody splats and explosions, scattering the crowd. Frieda stepped back and before leaving the square offered Tollmann one final shake of the head, one final grin.

They seem to have regrouped, said Boorhans. The police here think it's all shifted to Wurzburg.

Maybe it has. What disturbs me, Anders, is how they can place their people inside the EU, NATO, the IMF, and yet we can't place two of ours inside their organisation without all this carry on.

The redundant helicopter flew away. The body had been retrieved.

Do you want me to go to Wurzburg?

Thwaite groaned, the thick upholstery of his seat groaned with him. Wurzburg is only thirty kilometres away. It's neither here nor there. There's a scandal brewing in Brussels. It'll hit the press next month. I want you back in Belgium. Damage limitation. Pick someone up for it. A journalist, something like that. Make people look the other way.

-

Once the body bag was unzipped the contents were received with relish, curiosity, resignation, and an eagerness to make a start, an impatience to grab a knife. Tollmann never asked how the pathologist's mind really worked. The day before, he was almost barged out of the way by a lab technician too eager to start cutting into Theo Wender's head.

But that was Tollmann's impression. Unfamiliar with the environment he found himself staring at a corpse for the second day in a row. His colleague Korminsky had the strongest stomach for the autopsies until Korminsky became the subject of one. For Tollmann, a body on a slab was an event; for the forensics team a routine matter.

What's the symbol? Simon Frenzel's forehead had been marked with a complex scar of crossing lines and triangles. A technician peered at it, took a photograph and stepped away. Tollmann leaned over the body and studied the symbol. Can someone take a look online?

The pathologist pulled him back. Excuse me.

Forensics had delivered one body bag, half full. The rest of Frenzel's remains occupied the other autopsy tables, enduring the fuss and fascination of the technicians.

Tollmann found a notepad and scribbled the symbol from memory. His partner Heike poked and stroked her smartphone. He looked over her shoulder. Try witchcraft. . . .

Witchcraft? You think witches did this? In some places that would be considered discrimination.

No results.

Wicca?

The usual signs and symbols scrolled by: the double serpents, the pentagrams, the sun wheels.

Tollmann checked his notepad.

Anything else? said Heike. What about-

Black magic, try black magic.

Out of the bag, Frenzel's body became the subject of more photographs, taken this time with scientific detachment and accuracy. Dr. Heller, who thought the previous day would never be repeated, fingered and thumbed the pale fattiness, the purple shoulders; outlined the dull crimson eye where the Cathedral spire had punched through the torso. After a series of gestures, grimaces, deep breaths and head nods he spoke into his Dictaphone.

The conclusions, serious trauma to the abdominal region, catastrophic haemorrhaging. . . . Tollmann rolled his eyes. I hate to interrupt you at this delicate moment, but may I ask you about the wound?

Dr. Heller held the Dictaphone at arms length and clicked the pause button. The wound?

The wound on the torso. Can we establish from that if he was dead when they carried him up there, or did the impalement kill him.

Dr. Heller pursed his lips.

Tollmann asked again. I know it's too early to be conclusive, but you've had time to examine the body out in the Domplatz. Do you have any initial ideas?

Possibly dead before. May I continue?

Yes. Yeah you can. Tollmann turned back to Heike.

Come on, let them get on with it. Anything on there?

No. Heike had searched witchcraft, Wicca, black magic, black magick, magick, sorcery, alchemy, paganism, pagans, Bamberg, Bamberg symbol, symbol of Bamberg, cults, religious cults, religious groups, hermetic beliefs, occult, occult symbol. . . .

Don't look on Pinterest, Tollmann said. There's nothing on Pinterest. Come on, we're already late.

And so the pathologist and his team were left to fiddle and snip, saw and slice, with Dr. Heller mumbling into his Dictaphone as the camera clicked and recorded the sloppy visceral mystery.

Outside, in the freezing rawness of October, Tollmann could breath again without worrying about the atomized bits of Frenzel's remains drifting down his throat. Bamberg's blustery avenues provided a comforting lungful of diesel fumes, inert and uninfected.

Theo Wenders didn't have the mark on his head like that, said Heike.

No.

Why was that? Different killer, groups competing with one another?

No, I think they've finished. I think their business here is done. God, I hope so. Do me a favour. Check your phone again for that symbol. Try Interpol.

Heike hesitated.

It's a long shot, I know, but they're rotten to the core. Heike tapped. They're more interested in shutting down Assange and Wikileaks than serious crime.

Doesn't look like anything. Surprise, surprise.

Tollmann walked away without waiting for Heike to catch up. Put someone like Edward Snowden on the radar and they pull out every stop. Why is that?

Why is that what?

They're more interested in keeping people quiet than making people talk.

I thought the NSA wanted Snowden?

NSA, Interpol, MI6, BND, they all function the same way. Shut down political opposition, hide corruption and let us deal with the real criminals.

And I bet you think 9/11 was the Illuminati.

Tollmann pulled up. Who needs the Illuminati? Who needs an urban myth when you have Interpol.

You're letting Boorhans get to you.

No. Tollmann's voice became audible above the traffic. I thought things were shutting down. I thought this problem was Wurzburg's problem, but no. It's come back. Find that fucking symbol.

-

Tollmann had the task of repeating his theory before an investigation committee convened to establish how the police were reacting to the killings. Bamberg's local media called it a plague; southern Germany's regional media tossed around phrases like Bamberg's curse and Bamberg's problem, as if there was something uniquely Bambergian about Cathedrals and murdered men. Headlines in national media outlets took a more aloof approach, less hysterical, almost joking. Terrorists reach new heights said more about Bild than events in Bamberg.

Tollmann and Heike barged through an excitable pack of reporters outside the police headquarters. They parried a verbal assault, fought off the cameras and microphones and arrived at the door of the committee hearing.

Jesus, I hate doors, Tollmann said. Inside the room another crowd waited for him, sitting around an oval table, not a friendly face in sight and only the politest of welcomes before he was flung into an interrogation of his own.

Who are your chief suspects. . . ?

How many lines of enquiry are you following. . . ?

When will we see arrests. . . ?

How do you explain the second killing. . . ?

In your opinion, who might be doing this. . . ?

Someone above the law. Tollmann's answer surprised everyone sitting opposite. They waited for him to continue. He offered his hands, his empty hands.

Above the law?

Tollmann could sense Heike waiting for his explanation. We have lost the only two people with access to this group-

The Malandanti?

Tollmann winced. That was always an informal name for the investigation. We know these people don't refer to themselves as Malandanti. What we do know is that they are a cellular structure. The group operating in Bamberg don't know anyone from any other part of the organisation. Not by name. That's why Simon Frenzel couldn't provide any useful intelligence. The names of the other coven members were false. They never checked out.

And what about Theo Wenders?

Theo Wenders was an intermediary. He received the information from Frenzel, passed it on to Interpol who fed it back to us. Interpol didn't want Frenzel talking directly to police. Wenders was like a family friend. They could talk in private.

And now their families are in danger.

If only Tollmann could reassure them, give them the guarantees they wanted to hear, but guarantees died with Korminsky the year before.

Are they safe or not?

Tollmann struggled for a preamble. It's not so simple. Before Korminsky was murdered all our safe houses and protection programmes were compromised. We're still trying to build up a new infrastructure.

But the protection is needed now.

Well, unfortunately I can't work miracles. Korminsky was corrupt. The whole department is corrupt-

Oli! Heike's whisper attracted everyone's attention.

Organised crime only works when there are people on the inside. Tollmann ignored the sound of coughing and scraping chairs. Everyone in the room discovered an itch that needed scratching, but Tollmann's valve had blown and Heike couldn't stop him.

I can't trust my own colleagues, my own superiors-

One of your colleagues is sitting next to you.

Interpol can't be trusted. There is intense pressure to shut down the Malandanti investigation. Why is that? Three times I've been told to back off investigating this person and that person. . . .

Who?

Walther Primke, the developer, Gerda Mannershelm, the magistrate. . . .

Eight people objected to the accusation. Wait, hang on. . . . If you have suspicions, Oliver, you go through the channels. . . .

I've tried to go through the fucking channels. . . .

There are procedures, due process. . . .

Fuck them. Tollmann stabbed the table with his finger. A sharp pain shot up his hand. They use the procedures to stop me doing my job.

Calm down, Oli. Heike was part of the rot. Part of the problem.

I won't calm down. These people have to know. You've experienced it yourself. You were threatened with a charge if you approached Gerda Mannershelm with questions.

Is this true?

Heike nodded. She held her phone underneath the table to continue searching for the symbol on Frenzel's head.

Let's take a break for a couple of minutes.

Toilet breaks and a hunt for coffee left Tollmann alone with Heike and Jan Matheus, the leader of Bamberg's business group. He waited for the door to close itself.

Why did you suspect Walther Primke?

With all due respect, Herr Matheus, I'm not sure why you're asking. I'm not sure I want to tell you.

I ask because his business is doing very well. His competitors are going to the wall. They tell me the banks won't lend to them, but they lend to Walther.

We think he had information on a senior manager at Bayerische Investmentfonds. He had access to money like it came out of the taps. He could build where he wanted.

His competitors had a lot of trouble with their planning applications.

The door opened and the room started to fill with people interested in Tollmann and Matheus' discussion.

I was asking how they got him up there, said Matheus. Up on the spire.

I've no idea. Tollmann sat down and waited for the meeting to resume, but his suspicions were unsettled. Suspicions going back to the moment when Korminsky was killed along with another officer. Korminsky bitten in the throat, his colleague's head torn off. The trouble started then and concluded with Simon Frenzel being hauled to the top of the Gothic tower. And connections to the rock band Toten Herzen, lurid rumours of vampirism, became colourful local gossip. The brief appearance of the Toten Herzen effect was mercifully short, with only two people murdered and the burning down of a house belonging to a prominent business woman. One more bit of tittle-tattle for the guidebooks, but when the pragmatic power brokers of the city sat at the table Tollmann felt neutered, unable to say what he thought. Bringing vampirism into the discussion would only make him look even more deranged.

I've come here from the autopsy, he said. We can be pretty sure Frenzel was dead before he was impaled on the spire. But you saw how difficult it was to get a helicopter up there. You can't climb the spire carrying a body.

I think we're getting nowhere, said Matheus. We're not here to find out who did this, we're here to tell you to get on top of this problem. Your priority is to safeguard the families of Simon Frenzel and Theo Wenders. I'll have some discreet conversations, try to allay your fears. But Oliver, quit the conspiracy theories. We know about Korminsky's corruption. It ended with him. Local people are scared. We all want answers and we look to you to find those answers.

Heike had found one of the answers.

Something wrong, Oliver? said Matheus.

No. Forensics information. I asked if the victim was . . . you know, dead before he was taken up the spire. Tollmann took Heike's note, . . . apparently he was. He stared at the heavy handwriting.

SYMBOL REPRESENTS LUCIFER

The Wishlist

3

At the periphery of Jankel Farm, on a lightless patch of scorched earth beneath a copse of ancient yew trees, two sprites danced and jigged, bouncing to the throb of rock music. And when they recognised the words they sang along:

I'll meet you on the other side

If you make it that far, yeah

You can make it to the other side

If you sign your life away

Sign your life away, yeah

The merriment stopped when the bushes bristled, the scrub parted and Jennifer Enzo thrashed her way out of a clinging embrace of thorns and thicket. She carried a bloodstained knife, a black cockerel and an astonished glare of ill intent.

Look what I found. She waved the confused cockerel in front of her. It quivered and blasted a cry of avian shock.

How wicked is that? Jenzo attempted a few words in cockerel, but her new friend didn't understand the blubbering string of chicken vocabulary.

Let it go, said Ruby Summer. Or you gonna tell us you're more scared of him than he is of you?

What can we call him?

Christopher.

Christopher? What sort of a name is that for a cockerel. Jenzo noticed the bruise below Shalini Mithra's temple. Who punched you?

Ruby had accidentally whacked her with a wine bottle when the dancing became too robust. Dazed herself from a second bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, she was rubbing the swollen eye socket with a handkerchief.

Jenzo shoved the bird's beak into Shalini's face. Kiss it better, Christopher, go on. . . . Shalini swatted the bird away.

We should have won an award for it, Jenzo. Ruby swiped Shalini's bottle of champagne. It's why we're out here. We can award ourselves, give the arseholes in there . . . something. One champagne bottle between three was never going to last very long. The final drop fell out of the bottle into Ruby's eye.

You're right, Jenzo said. We excelled ourselves. We reached new heights. Bild were spot on. We reached new heights. The Bamberg Award for Disposal. And I tell you something else, the three of them huddled around the cockerel, they're all shit scared of us now.

All of them, said Shalini to the bird. Last year no one gave me the time of day, this year. . . .

This year what?

Dunno.

Had the music been a little quieter they would have heard Sam the Man calling for them to come indoors. Instead, he approached deep into the darkness, into the audio epicentre until he was close enough to touch Ruby on the shoulder. Jenzo saw his creeping silhouette homing in on Ruby, but said nothing. The touch of hand followed by a yew-felling shriek was just what she expected.

You need to come inside. The Wishlist is ready.

Jenzo handed Sam