by Lars Schutz
He’d gone straight to the station at Hachenburg, just in time to see her driving away, but he’d chosen the nonchalant path and followed her in secret.
He had failed.
She’d left Hachenburg on the road towards Bad Marienberg. For two or three kilometres he’d been tailing her, but then she zoomed to overtake a tractor – a risky move – and stepped on the accelerator.
It was the moment he’d lost her.
He’d searched every place he could think of and called her several times on her phone. No luck. When the message came through that Grall had received that strange text, he feared the worst.
Yet one chance remained.
Nora Schneill, of all people, editor of the Wäller Zeitung and his ex-wife, had given him fresh hope.
She’d called as he was on his way back to Hachenburg. ‘Stüter? I just heard something disconcerting.’
‘Hmm?’ he’d simply grunted, his phone clamped between his shoulder and ear. At that moment she was the last person he wanted to talk to.
‘Rabea Wyler, the analyst’s assistant. Her car – the plates end in nine-six-one, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Then one of my contacts has just seen it being driven down a trail deep in the forest north of the wildlife park.’
With a screech of tyres, he’d immediately done a U-turn.
‘Did this contact see who was at the wheel? Was she alone?’
Schneill didn’t know.
‘How do you even know the plates of all the police cars round here?’
‘I have my sources,’ she replied. ‘You of all people should know that.’
He’d gritted his teeth, seeing Daniel Köllner’s face before him. It had been hard to stop himself screaming at her. Then he’d hung up. At that moment, what mattered was Rabea.
Managing to find tyre tracks on one of the trails, already almost covered by the relentlessly falling snow, he’d followed them. On and on.
To Grosse Wolfstein Rock.
He’d wondered whether he should call for back-up, but officially he was no longer on the investigation. He’d only end up incurring Ichigawa’s wrath. Yet every step took him further into danger. Into the heart of darkness.
As teenagers they’d gone camping by Wolfstein. Toasted marshmallows and cooked sausages over the fire, snuggled up in their sleeping bags, told ghost stories and thought about girls.
None of that seemed to have anything to do with the place he was headed to now. For the first time, Wolfstein struck him as a mausoleum. A colossal, archaic memorial.
The tyre tracks grew markedly deeper – this had to be where the car had parked. Drawing his Walther P99 and his torch, he trudged towards the rocks. The basalt stones were stacked to form little plateaus, caves and cracks.
The beam of his torch flickered across the frozen stones. Icicles hung from the outcroppings.
‘Police!’ he bellowed into the howling wind. ‘Show yourself – immediately! Or I’ll use my gun.’
No answer. Nothing. Cautiously he edged around Wolfstein, his narrowed eyes fixed on the tiny sliver carved out by his torch.
Then he found her.
Rabea’s naked, pale body lay half hidden under a jutting rock, covered only by a whisper-thin veil of snow. The torch slipped from his fingers. He lurched towards her, tripping over a root before staggering back to his feet.
A mixture of tears, sweat and snow was freezing on his face.
He sank to his knees beside her. Saw the ‘F’ tattooed on her shoulder blade. Deep black and yawning. The laceration on the back of her head, nearly hidden beneath hair sticky with blood.
He summoned what remained of his hope.
Reached for her wrist.
Felt it. Waited fearfully. Held his breath.
No pulse.
Please, no. Please, please, no . . .
F
‘The shape of “F” is modelled on digamma [. . .] the Romans were hesitant, however, to designate “ϕ” with “f” in words taken from Greek, preferring to use “ph”, while the Greeks replaced the Latin “f” with their “ϕ”, and in ancient words common to both languages “f” and “ϕ” each appear. [. . .] All this indicates that “f” and “ϕ” often stand in for each other.’
The Grimms’ Dictionary
64
8 December, early morning
Soon he’d reach ‘G’.
The alphabet was coming together.
Letter by letter.
On the basement wall hung photographs of ‘D’ and ‘E’. Blurry images of bare skin, blood and the deep blue of the ink.
Only one letter stood between Tugba and death. She’d spent hours scratching the ‘G’ off her skin, until her arms shook with cramp and her back was sticky with blood.
For her the letters were no longer writing. They were symbols of death. Dark marks. Something to be cut from the body like a tumour.
She’d tried several times to make contact with the other woman, hissing and whispering, but she’d never got a response. Maybe she was long dead and part of the alphabet.
Tugba’s eyes darted to the wall of photographs. Was she already up there? Was she ‘D’ or ‘E’?
She thought about how she’d taught her students their ABCs. Giving them colourful cut-out letters they could arrange into words.
‘Very good, that’s A-P-P-L-E!’
‘A-N-I-M-A-L! Absolutely right!’
She swallowed, hugging her arms around her legs. If she tried to make words from the pictures on the wall, all that came to mind were D-E-A-T-H and B-L-O-O-D.
On the floor beside her was a bowl, still with the remains of dried, cardboard-like porridge. She dragged it over, scraped her bloody fingers inside and forced down the greyish brown clumps.
Boots. The trapdoor opened. Bright light flooded inside, burning her pupils. She choked on the porridge, coughing up several chunks.
Her tormentor was enveloped in a thick black jacket, the fur-trimmed hood pulled down low over his face – she couldn’t make out his features beneath the heavy fabric. Each step left a trail of snow which rapidly melted into puddles on the bare stone floor.
He stood in front of his wall of letters, legs planted wide. Unzipped his jacket.
Tugba crawled forward, her heart hammering against her sternum. She was breathing in jerks. No, not now! Not yet!
He hung the ‘F’ on the wall and stepped aside, either deliberately or unknowingly giving her a clear view of his most recent crime. The red letter on a canvas of blanched skin.
Her whole body stiffened. The food on her tongue tasted like ashes.
Her tormentor turned around. She thought she saw his eyes flash for a split second in the shadows of his hood. Fixed on Tugba.
He climbed back up the ladder. The trapdoor fell shut with a crash.
Next time he’d be back for her.
As soon as his footsteps had died away, she leapt up and rushed to the mattress, reaching into the finger-sized hole she’d torn and pulling out the bits of the pen.
She clutched the clip in her trembling hand.
Time to act.
65
‘Excuse me a moment.’ Stüter took his vibrating phone from his pocket and vanished from the waiting room.
‘We were bloody lucky.’ Anita’s eyes followed him. ‘A few more minutes and it would have been too late for Rabea.’
Leaning against the coffee machine, Jan sipped at his plastic cup full of the much-too-bitter brew. It was his fourth. Whenever he was waiting for important news, he needed something to calm his nerves.
They’d been waiting for the doctor’s diagnosis for two hours. Suffering severe hypothermia and with potential brain trauma, Rabea had been rushed to the University Hospital at Siegen, which had more specialist equipment than the hospital at Hachenburg.
‘Did the techs find anything at Wolfstein?’ he asked.
‘Nope,’ replied Anita. ‘No literary quotation, as yet. Although in this weather it w
ouldn’t have lasted long anyway. Don’t get me wrong – I’m very pleased she’s alive, but I’m surprised Stüter found her there. I mean – did he follow her?’
Jan had already formed his own theory. ‘He must have given Rabea a clue. Kept investigating in secret. Then he must have realised he’d put her in danger by doing so.’
Before Anita could pursue the issue, the door flew open. The Indian doctor, followed by a nurse, hurried in, white coat fluttering. His sparse, sweaty hair clung to his brow.
Jan went up to him. ‘How is she doing?’
‘Frau Wyler is out of immediate danger, but her condition remains critical. She has suffered severe hypothermia – her body temperature dropped to below twenty-eight degrees. So low there was no perceptible pulse. It’s deceptive. They’re only lost for good if they’re warm and dead. Now we’ve got to warm her up using a heart-lung machine.’
Jan exhaled and passed a hand across his face. The answer was only slightly reassuring. ‘What about the blow to the head?’
‘She suffered a cranio-cerebral trauma, which in combination with hypothermia is extremely dangerous. We’ll be keeping her in an artificial coma, checking her brain daily with a CT.’
Jan’s knees gave way. He sank down onto a chair. An artificial coma. He never should have gone to Mainz. Never should have left Rabea here alone.
The tears came without warning, streaming as abruptly from his eyes as blood from a fresh wound. His whole body shook with sobs. He covered his eyes with his hands – a last, desperate barrier between himself and the outside world.
‘Can – can I see her?’ he asked the doctor, without looking up.
‘I’m sorry. Not while she’s in Intensive Care.’
The answer Jan had been expecting. Even so, he broke into fresh tears. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wept so unrestrainedly. If he’d ever cried in front of other people as a grown man.
He’d always kept others away from his break-downs. Away from all his emotions.
The gentle pressure of Anita’s fingers on his shoulder. She stroked him cautiously, as though he were a wild animal that might bite.
‘She’ll be all right,’ she said softly. ‘I’m here, Jan, I’m here.’
‘Thanks,’ he whispered, meaning it with all his heart. ‘I – I’d better phone her flatmates. Her family. They shouldn’t hear it on the news.’
‘There’s still a few minutes. Take some time to compose yourself first. Or I can do it, if you like.’
He shook his head. ‘No, it’s my job.’
‘Okay, but then it’s going to be your job to get some sleep, okay?’
This time he nodded.
‘Then we’re going to find him.’
66
8th December, morning
‘Did you really have to bring the kid?’
Jan had entered the operations room about five seconds earlier, and Anita had noticed his companion immediately, of course. ‘I’m certainly not leaving Miriam alone in the hotel.’
‘Hey, guys, I’m right here!’ exclaimed Miriam.
‘Just make sure she doesn’t get annoying.’ Anita seemed barely to notice her. ‘A retired couple found Rabea’s vehicle this morning in a clearing near Langenhahn. The crime scene technicians are on it, but I’m not holding out much hope for usable evidence. Locating Rabea’s phone won’t help us much either. We recovered it burnt to a crisp in the glove compartment. The model is the same.’
Jan dropped his head. Two leads gone. What else did they have?
‘Stüter told me Rabea went to see him,’ she continued. ‘They talked about the first kidnapping victim, Tugba Ekiz. She most likely knew the murderer. Rabea must have been following that trail – and it brought her to the killer. So, we’ll go through everything we know about Frau Ekiz once more. Associates, distant friends, people from the past. Everything.’ Anita’s gaze fell once more on Miriam. ‘I’m really not pleased you brought the girl.’
With that she bustled off to brief a couple of SWAT officers. Jan put his hand on his protégé’s shoulder. ‘She can be nice too, trust me.’
Miriam seemed scarcely to have heard him – instead, she was staring straight across the room. ‘Are we in The Da Vinci Code right now?’
Jan followed her gaze. Brother Timotheus was standing in the doorway, looking lost, flanked by two officers. In his black-and-white habit he seemed as out of place as an altar boy at a Black Sabbath concert.
He’d spent the night in custody. The accusations against him had been dropped, but the possibility remained that he’d been an accomplice. Now he was probably going to be taken for arraignment.
‘Timo,’ Jan greeted him warmly. ‘I’m really sorry about the way they’ve treated you. You should never have been a suspect.’
The Cistercian waved his hand. ‘Forgiveness is part of my remit.’
The monk’s calm baritone, and his eyes, which sparkled with genuine interest, made Jan feel he could trust him.
There were still a few minutes until they had to leave for the arraignment. Time enough, perhaps, for Jan to help him explain. In any case, he urgently needed someone to talk to.
‘Would it be possible for me to borrow Timotheus for a second?’ he asked the officers, putting a hand on the monk’s shoulder.
At first, they hesitated, exchanging dubious glances.
Jan sighed. ‘I’m hardly going to make a run for it with him.’
‘Okay, fine,’ said the older officer. ‘You’ve got ten minutes.’
‘Let’s find somewhere quieter to make use of the time.’ Jan gave Timo a reassuring smile.
Somewhere quieter turned out to be in Jan and Rabea’s brainstorming room. Her Gameboy was still lying on the sofa. Jan felt a stab at the sight of it.
The Cistercian turned around on his heel, giving a muted sigh. ‘I can hardly stand to look at the walls.’
‘Even that’s enough to make me believe you’re not involved in this.’ Jan dropped down onto the sofa. ‘Be glad it’s not your job to examine every detail.’
‘You’re already beaten down.’ Timotheus sat down beside him. His hulking body sank deep into the scratched material.
Jan took his smiley foam ball out of his coat pocket, threw it against the wall and caught it as it bounced back.
‘Want something to drink?’ he asked.
‘No thank you.’
‘You’re in a bit of a pickle, you know. You’ve got no alibi. I’m not sure where you were that night, but maybe I can help you. And that’s not the only reason I’ve kidnapped you. I need to talk to someone about Gero. Somebody who knew him as well.’
Throwing the ball. Catching it. Throwing. Catching.
His lips quivering, Timotheus puffed the air out of his cheeks. ‘Oh God, I’m afraid those things are more closely connected than you think.’
Jan threw the ball, but this time he didn’t catch it. It rolled underneath the sofa. ‘What do you mean?’
The Cistercian put one of his hairy paws on Jan’s hands. ‘First, tell me what you have to say. Maybe it will come out of its own accord.’
‘I went to his grave.’ Jan traced a burn mark on the armrest with his forefinger. ‘Even left some flowers.’
‘Last time I went was three years ago. I don’t have much time for cemeteries. I prefer to commemorate the dead in church. I feel closer to them there, and to God.’
‘You can take confession, right? Meaning you’ll keep everything we say here secret?’
Timotheus nodded. ‘Right. As long as it doesn’t involve a crime, which I’d have to report to the police.’ He glanced around. ‘Which wouldn’t take me too long right now.’
Jan bit his lip. ‘I’m an atheist, so I’m not interested in absolution. Only in your ability to listen.’
‘Fair enough.’ A conspiratorial smile flickered beneath Timo’s beard.
The knot that had been forming in Jan’s throat loosened. He could breathe freely. ‘Thank you – really, thank you.’
There was a brief silence. He admired the monk’s composure. Timo had a God he could turn to for solace. Jan had only his comfortless rationality.
‘Apart from Anita, nobody knows about this,’ he sighed. ‘Okay, first I have to ask you something: you used to be one of Gero’s closest friends. What did you know about him that he’d told nobody else?’
‘I always sensed he was keeping something from me. When I came to visit you, he never let me out of his sight. Got nervous if ever I was poking through his stuff.’ He twirled a few stray beard hairs. ‘At some point I started to investigate.’
Jan’s heart stopped a moment. Now everything was falling into place.
‘And I suppose you stumbled across the same thing I did.’ Jan kneaded his fingers. ‘I was in his study the day of the accident – my birthday. Looking for some stuff on his computer. What I found was something else entirely.’
Timo’s eyes widened. ‘You knew too?’
In response Jan merely buried his face in his hands. His pulse was racing as though he’d run a half-marathon. They’d taken the first step.
‘It was unbearable, wasn’t it?’ he continued haltingly. ‘Torture. Strangulation. Serious stuff. The poor children. And he seemed to have taken a few of the pictures himself. A couple – a couple had even been taken in his bathroom.’
Jan’s voice broke. He laid his head on the table. Breathe. Just keep breathing, somehow. He felt Timotheus’s hand close over his again. Jan took a deep breath. ‘I only found out after his death. When I was going through his things with Stefan. Saw the same stuff you did. Everything I thought I knew about him got flipped topsy-turvy.’ Timotheus smiled sadly. ‘I never would have thought it of Gero. He was a role model for me. A person with ideals. Values.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I’m constantly shaken by this world.’
Jan stared up at him. ‘How can you still believe in God after seeing something like that?’
‘This world would be unbearable if I didn’t believe in Him. Everything this Alphabet Killer has done. The suffering of those children. I wouldn’t be able to stand it if there were no salvation for them. If life with all its cruelty and brutality was meaningless.’
