Don't Forget Me

by B C Schiller

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by B.C. Schiller

  Translation copyright © 2019 by Annette Charpentier

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as Böses Geheimnis by Edition M in Luxembourg in 2019. Translated from German by Annette Charpentier. First published in English by Thomas & Mercer in collaboration with Amazon Crossing in 2019.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, in collaboration with Amazon Crossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, Thomas & Mercer and Amazon Crossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542009638

  ISBN-10: 1542009634

  Cover design by Emma Rogers

  First edition

  CONTENTS

  START READING

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  3

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  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  ‘Lips that lie kill the soul’

  (Proverb)

  1

  ‘I’m sorry!’

  Five years ago, to the day, since her life disintegrated. Five years ago, to the day, since her husband and their little daughter disappeared. Five years ago, to the day, since her life stopped.

  Olivia Hofmann knew what to expect when she approached the letterbox. She hesitated a few seconds and then opened it. She hoped it would be empty. At the same time, she hoped she did have mail. Should she open it or should she walk past? Ignore it? It sounded so easy but it wasn’t. Not today of all days. The anniversary. And as on every anniversary, the card was lying on top of the mail. As always, there was no stamp. As always, the image on the front brought tears to her eyes. As always, she grabbed the card and ran upstairs. Olivia unlocked the door to her flat, sat down at the desk in her study and opened the bottom drawer. She glanced at the four other postcards. Four years, four postcards. Slowly she placed the fifth on top of the others. She read the words that she knew by heart:

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Only one sentence. For the past five years Olivia had received these handwritten postcards.

  It was all the unknown sender ever had to say.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ Olivia said.

  For how many more years would she receive these cards? For as long as she lived? With the tip of her shoe she kicked the drawer closed, banished the cards from sight and shut down that part of her memory.

  There was now only blackness – a hole that contained neither questions nor answers. An icy black sun that lit up once a year, illuminating a bitter truth, shining a bright light on the facts without giving any answers.

  Five years ago, to the day, since her husband Michael and their daughter Juli disappeared from Olivia’s life.

  2

  The man’s skin looked unhealthy. It had a reddish tint. His wide-open mouth was distorted into a ghoulish grimace, the lips caked with a residue of dried foam. The man’s crooked fingers pointed upwards like spider’s legs.

  ‘This poor fellow went through a long struggle before finally losing his life. His murderer had administered potassium cyanide. Death takes between fifteen minutes and an hour,’ Levi Kant said. Slowly he walked around the steel table on which the body lay. ‘Anything you notice about the corpse?’ The students around the table were pale-faced.

  Levi was fifty-five years old and a lecturer at the police academy. He had once been the chief of the serious crime squad, but a bullet had abruptly ended his career. He’d refused to take early retirement and so they’d shuffled him off to this position as lecturer. This afternoon the students were having a practical lesson in pathology. Levi was very fond of practical work. It could be quite revealing, showing which of the students might be suitable for a future career in solving murders.

  ‘I just want your first impressions,’ Levi said. The students seemed embarrassed, glancing at one another nervously. The large room had a low ceiling and was brightly lit. A noisy fan on the wall sucked in cold air from the outside, but Levi noticed beads of sweat forming on the brows of some of the students. ‘Can anyone tell me anything about the dead man?’ Levi said.

  ‘He was poisoned,’ someone ventured at last.

  ‘Ah, who would have guessed!’ Levi said. ‘Of course, it was poison, as I have already mentioned. I’d like more of an in-depth analysis.’

  ‘The murderer was not a professional,’ another student ventured.

  ‘And why not?’ Levi sounded more interested.

  ‘I’d have done it with liquid prussic acid to cause instant death.’

  ‘Sensitive soul, are you? What if the murderer was a sadist and wanted to see his victim suffer?’ Levi said. ‘With a lethal dose of prussic acid, death occurs within seconds after two or three breaths.’ Levi patted the cold skin with his palm. ‘This man here doubled up with pain and dropped to his knees. He crawled across the floor on all fours and vomited several times. His subconscious told him he was dying but his body wanted to live.’

  Levi unbuckled the rubber strap of his watch and held it up. ‘Let’s assume the victim lived for another two minutes,’ he said. ‘It starts off with heartburn. The heart begins to beat like crazy. Cold sweat all over the body. The breathing gets more difficult. You vomit bile, and only then does your heart stop. That lasts two minutes, but what if this man fought his death for a full half hour?’ Levi stopped and looked around. ‘You need to develop empathy with the victim, feel their pain and suffering. Only then can you develop a cast-iron determination to catch the person who did it.’

  ‘That’s horrible,’ mumbled one of the students, turning his back and retching.

  Levi glowered at the young man. ‘How will you catch the perpetrator if you close your eyes to the victim?’ he asked. ‘Turn around!’

  ‘I don’t think this is the right job for me,’ the student whispered and rushed off for the exit. In his panic he bumped against a table and a limp arm slid out from under the sheet.

  ‘Watch out or the dead will follow you!’ Levi shouted after the man, then turned back to the other students. ‘At the same time, you have to keep a lid on your own emotions and not let them affect your analytical judgement in the course of an investigation.’

  Levi propped himself discreetly against the steel table. The old injury from the bullet hurt when he had to stand for a long time, but he was able to conceal this now. With a little luck and a lot of determination, combined with many hours of ex
ercise, he could now walk without a limp. No way did he want his students to feel pity for him or consider him disabled.

  ‘Now let’s focus on the perpetrator,’ Levi said. His angular face with its grey beard was mirrored in the polished surface of the steel table. ‘What conclusions are we able to draw?’

  ‘The perpetrator was presumably a woman.’

  ‘What makes you assume that?’

  ‘Women prefer to kill by poisoning.’

  ‘OK. What else?’

  ‘I’m guessing it wasn’t done in the heat of the moment.’ Another student stepped forward between the others.

  ‘Interesting,’ Levi said.

  ‘Women tend to be more devious and subtle when planning a crime,’ the student continued.

  ‘There is one other great difference,’ Levi said. ‘Men mostly commit a murder in order to dominate. Women murder to escape oppression. Women frequently kill for self-protection, meaning they commit a murder in order to survive. That’s the reason why such cases often happen in the home.’

  ‘Which also means that victim and perpetrator most probably knew each other.’

  Levi nodded and looked around. ‘A dead body can give us all sorts of information. We’re looking for a perpetrator who knew his or her victim. That means we need to closely investigate the family, friends and acquaintances.’

  His mobile beeped.

  ‘OK, that’s the end of today’s practical. Next week we’ll move on to forensics and learn how to analyse the findings. How to identify an incinerated body.’

  The students left the path lab but Levi stayed on a while in the gloomy basement room. He thought of the corpses waiting to be examined by the forensic pathologists. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d been here in the course of his investigations, nor how often when viewing a body, he’d sworn not to give up until the murderer was caught. He had loved his job and missed his former life with a passion.

  ‘Levi Kant. What a surprise!’

  Levi jumped. It was the voice of Grünberg, the forensic pathologist, a man he’d often worked with in the old days.

  ‘What brings you to our dark catacombs?’ Grünberg asked.

  ‘A practical lesson with my students,’ Levi said. ‘Part of the curriculum.’

  ‘Ah, and you chose the poison victim for that?’ Grünberg pointed to the half-covered body. ‘An open-and-shut case – most likely the wife.’

  ‘Well, that remains to be proved,’ Levi said, ‘though frankly I couldn’t care less. I’m not chasing baddies any more.’

  ‘Your clear-up rate was always spectacular,’ Grünberg said, patting Levi on the shoulder, ‘other than on your last case, though you gave it your very best.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Levi said, although he knew perfectly well what Grünberg was talking about.

  ‘Lisa Manz, the girl who was burned to death,’ Grünberg said. ‘I still sometimes think of the charred body lying here on the table. A dreadful sight. Do you think about her sometimes too?’

  ‘Nope. For me, the case is closed. I’m out.’ Levi tapped his forehead with his finger. It was a lie. Of course, he often thought about that case. His failure to find Lisa Manz’s murderer had been a low point in his life. It was five years ago, but he still couldn’t come to terms with the decisions of his then superiors.

  ‘How is your leg, by the way?’ Grünberg changed the subject abruptly.

  ‘It’s nearly completely healed – I barely feel a twinge these days. I’ll be able to run a marathon soon,’ Levi joked, even though he was glad to be able to walk at all.

  ‘I’m happy to hear it.’ Grünberg’s fingers stroked the poisoned body on the steel table. ‘You could have ended up in a wheelchair.’

  ‘Yes, I was very lucky.’ Levi’s jaw tightened as he tried not to remember. He’d acted like a complete amateur at the time.

  Grünberg looked at him with sympathy. ‘Do you fancy a coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Levi said. ‘Stuff to do – need to correct some student essays.’

  ‘I never saw you ending up as a teacher.’

  ‘Well, life sometimes takes an unexpected turn,’ Levi said, pushing away from the table. ‘Have to go. Nice to catch up with you.’

  He headed quickly for the door, his back straight but racked with sudden pain.

  3

  The patient was acting differently from normal. Something wasn’t right. He was nervous and avoided looking her in the eye. All of a sudden and quick as lightning, the man grabbed the plastic bag at his feet and pulled something out.

  ‘Lisa has come back.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Olivia Hofmann asked. She was a psychiatrist and Jonathan Stade was her patient. ‘I asked you a question.’ She looked at Jonathan, waiting.

  He was staring at her desk as if looking for something, but Olivia’s desk was bare – no papers, no laptop, no lamp, not even a pen. Nothing to distract her patients. They were to focus their attention entirely on their inner lives.

  ‘I took a photo of Lisa today.’ Jonathan held the object towards Olivia. Only now did she recognise that it was a mobile phone in a colourful case.

  ‘Jonathan, since when have you owned a mobile again?’ In her head, Olivia quickly went through her notes from previous sessions. Jonathan Stade liked to expose himself in front of young girls and then take photos of their horrified faces on his mobile to enjoy later. Like many of her patients the clinic had referred him to Olivia’s private practice after he’d done a stint in residential care there, and the state paid his fees. Barely any of Olivia’s handful of friends could understand why she would work with patients like Jonathan who had a dark past and might be dangerous.

  ‘But psychopaths have a soul too,’ was her standard answer. It prevented further questions. She was suddenly overcome with fear and looked up from her thoughts to realise that Jonathan was staring at her.

  ‘Do you want to see the photo?’ he asked, holding the mobile out towards her.

  ‘Yes, show it to me,’ Olivia said, her tone neutral. She always strove to remain non-judgmental towards her clients. There was little to see in the photo. She could just about make out a shabby red rucksack in the foreground of a darkish room. Behind it stood a person, the face blurred and in profile. Olivia thought it might be a woman, but then again, she could have been mistaken.

  ‘So this is Lisa?’ Olivia said, handing the mobile back to Jonathan. ‘Where did she come back from?’

  ‘From hell. She’s been dead a long time.’

  ‘Oh, she’s dead.’ Olivia leaned forward. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Somebody burned her to death.’ Jonathan swallowed hard, then continued. ‘Lisa Manz was a beautiful girl. Not like the others . . .’ He moved his arm in a wide circle, as if to embrace all the other girls in the world. ‘Lisa was totally different.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Lisa was an angel. She died in a fire, but now she’s back. I’ve seen her.’ Jonathan was waving his hands around and becoming more and more agitated.

  ‘Calm down, Jonathan. Was Lisa your friend?’

  ‘No, unfortunately not. She only had eyes for someone else.’

  ‘How did you know her?’

  ‘She was in the same clinic as me.’

  ‘Was she ill?’

  ‘No, not as ill as I was. Lisa’s illness was different. And I really liked to look at her.’ He picked up his woolly hat and kneaded it, embarrassed.

  Olivia looked at him sceptically. Jonathan had probably watched this Lisa girl because she’d seemed an ideal victim, but it also seemed that something had happened between the two, or else Jonathan wouldn’t be this nervous.

  ‘How do you know the person in the photo is Lisa?’ Olivia asked.

  Jonathan felt in the pocket of his parka and pulled out an ornate pendant. It was in complete contrast to the shabby leather strap from which it hung. ‘Lisa always wears this around her neck. It’s her talisman.’

  �
�Where did you get this?’

  ‘It was in Lisa’s rucksack. Take it – please!’ Jonathan threw the necklace onto Olivia’s desk. ‘I can’t keep it. It frightens me.’

  Olivia looked at it, weighing it in her hand. It was heavy, probably solid silver. The engraving was intricate and unusual: two entwined snakes whose heads, in profile, touched as if kissing. Each snake had a ruby-red eye that glimmered maliciously and seemed to follow the movements of whoever was looking at it. Jonathan was right – it was spooky.

  ‘Could you please show me the photo again?’ she asked. Jonathan passed her his mobile. ‘Why did this person not take the rucksack with her?’

  ‘Lisa ran away from me. She’s afraid she’ll have to go back to hell,’ Jonathan said.

  ‘And where is this rucksack now?’

  ‘I took it,’ Jonathan answered, a bit calmer now. ‘It’s safe at my house.’

  ‘Why don’t you bring the rucksack to our next appointment?’

  ‘But that won’t be for another week. It’ll be much too late.’ Jonathan looked panic-stricken. ‘She’ll find me.’

  ‘Lisa?’

  ‘Yes, she’ll just turn up, and it’ll all start again,’ Jonathan said. ‘You have to help me.’

  Olivia pondered a while, watching her patient. What kind of life, what kind of relationship might this man have if he weren’t suffering from a psychological disorder of such severity? Lost in thought, she stroked the pendant on her desk. ‘OK, I’ll come and see you tomorrow, and you can show me this rucksack.’

  Jonathan’s face brightened. ‘You’re a good person, Doctor Hofmann.’

  ‘Don’t flatter me,’ Olivia said, glancing at her watch. ‘Our session is over. I’ll see you tomorrow at nine o’clock at your house.’

  Once Jonathan had left, Olivia took her laptop from the middle drawer of her desk and typed the name ‘Lisa Manz’ into the search engine. A list of articles popped up dating back five years.

  ‘Daughter of surgeon Richard Manz butchered,’ read one tabloid headline. ‘The police have no fresh leads in the murder of fourteen-year-old Lisa Manz. The incinerated remains of the girl were found in a quarry near Lake Neusiedel. Several suspects have been released after extensive questioning. So far there is no trace of the murderer.’