by Inge Löhnig
‘Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a flower shop,’ he added, looking at the flowers.
‘Thank you, Mr . . .?’ She couldn’t remember his name.
‘Dühnfort. Konstantin Dühnfort.’
She took the pump from him.
‘How’s your knee?’ He looked down at the plaster she’d used to patch up the graze when she came home.
‘How do you know my name and where I live?’
‘The reporter said it. You didn’t seem very keen to speak to him.’
‘They’re all vultures.’ She let the words slip out, but her visitor didn’t seem to catch what she said. He let out a huge yawn.
‘Oh, excuse me. I didn’t get much sleep last night. How would you feel about offering me a cup of coffee as a reward for bringing the pump back?’ A smile crept across his face. One of his front teeth was missing a corner. It made him look like a rascal.
Why not? Agnes thought. After all, she wanted to feel more at home in Mariaseeon, so she should be getting to know her neighbours, and the espresso machine was already on. ‘All right.’
He followed her through the hall and back into the kitchen. You’re being careless, Rainer would have said. You don’t know the guy and you’re just allowing him into the house. ‘Would you like an espresso or maybe a cappuccino?’ she asked.
‘A cappuccino would be wonderful.’ Her visitor leaned against the wall and watched her. He was handsome, despite the fact that she could see a little belly under his Oxford shirt, and he seemed to know it, too. His casual but elegant corduroy jacket was colour-coordinated with his khaki chinos, his greying stubble was carefully groomed and his black hair was cut fashionably short. With its clear, sharp lines, Agnes would have called his face classical, were it not for the crooked smile.
‘Do you live in the village?’
‘No. In Munich,’ he said. ‘I’m here for work. But to live in the country is a childhood dream of mine. Maybe I’ll be able to make it a reality one day.’
The espresso machine hissed as Agnes foamed the milk. She energetically poured espresso and milk foam into two cups and then sprinkled cocoa powder over them. ‘Sugar?’
Dühnfort shook his head. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Then at least a biscuit.’ Agnes didn’t wait for an answer and just placed an almond biscuit on the edge of his saucer. Then she picked up the cups and led him into the living room.
‘You’ve got a nice house here.’ Her visitor sat in the chair she offered him.
Agnes watched as he glanced round the room with its nearly empty shelves and bare windows, noticing how the wrinkles on his forehead flattened in the process. Soon, he would have questions.
‘A brewery owner from Munich had it built in 1911 as a residence for his lover, the actress Fanny Niedermeyer. She passed it on to her daughter, Charlotte. She’s pretty well known around here. She was a sculptor and a painter.’ Agnes put her cup on the coffee table. ‘After that, a group of artists rented it, but not for long. And now I own it. I’ve only been living here since yesterday.’ She sat down, picked up her cup and looked around for the sugar bowl. ‘Are you working in Mariaseeon?’
‘I’m with the CID.’ He looked as if he was expecting a reaction to this revelation.
So, he was looking for Jakob. Suddenly, she had an almost irresistible urge to run away, as she had so often lately. But she couldn’t do that. It was embarrassing enough that she’d nudged Melli out of the door yesterday. She slid around uncomfortably in her chair. Was the sugar still in the kitchen? ‘I’ll be right back,’ she said, happy to have something to do. She got up and went into the kitchen.
When she returned to the living room, Dühnfort was standing at the bureau. He was holding the silver frame. How did he get to that? ‘Put that back immediately.’ Her voice sounded foreign and shrill.
He spun round and the picture slipped out of his hands. It hit the desk and crashed against the glass of paint that Agnes still hadn’t cleared away. Both the glass and picture frame shattered on the wooden flooring. Shards of glass sprayed across the floor, the photo slid out of the frame and paint spread over it.
Agnes gasped for air. When she could breathe again, her lungs felt like they were locked in a vice. The screws tightened. She wheezed as she exhaled, making room in her lungs, but it was impossible to inhale again. She saw the police officer approaching her.
‘Mrs Gaudera, is something wrong?’ he asked with a concerned expression as she gasped for breath.
Her fingertips began to tingle, colourful spots of light danced in front of her eyes, and the pressure on her lungs became unbearable. Panic welled up inside her; her heart was racing. It was all gone. Destroyed. Even the last piece that connected her to her past like a silk thread. Nothing was certain any more.
Dühnfort pushed past her. She heard noises in the kitchen. Suddenly, he was standing next to her again, holding a plastic bag over her nose and mouth. ‘Breathe into this.’ She pushed him away. ‘It helps,’ he said and tried to hold the bag over her mouth again. Still gasping for air, she kicked him. He slapped her across the face. The vice burst open, her lungs exploded. She breathed in voraciously. At the same time, she flew into a mad fury. Like a boxer in the ring, she stood with her head lowered and breathed in until her lungs were full. Then she pounced on him, hit him in the face. ‘You’ve ruined everything! That was all I had left. Go! I should never have let you in here.’ The anger gave way to grief. She couldn’t hold back the tears in her eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
She noticed the colour of his eyes again. She sank down. Now you are pale and cursed to wander winter’s rise, like fumes prevail that always seek the colder skies. The lines from the poem ran through her head. Agnes released herself from his eyes. It was laughable. She was depressed and loved Nietzsche’s poetry, of all things. How appropriate.
‘Are you all right now?’ Dühnfort asked.
She pushed past him and picked up the picture. It had paint all over it. Yvonne’s happy smile was buried under thick blobs. Rainer’s face was gone and only the corner of his mouth was still visible. A tiny remnant of the soft lips that she had kissed so many times. Agnes tried to dab the paint off with a tissue. That only made it worse. The paper fibres got caught in the sticky surface. Her knees gave out. She had to sit down on the floor.
Saturday, 10th May
Dühnfort climbed one of the walls of the Celtic enclosure and stood on the top. It was Saturday morning and there was still no trace of Jakob. There was also no ransom demand. Allegedly. He didn’t want to ignore the possibility that Jakob’s parents were taking action in private, so he had arranged a stake-out at the crack of dawn. Max Kölle and his colleagues Rauchenbichler and Karstensen had taken charge of it.
He heard a car approaching. The engine stopped, the door slammed shut and then he saw Gina trudging up the earth mound towards him. ‘You look so unsure. It’s not like you,’ she said, dropping a roll of barrier tape in the grass.
‘I wonder why the kidnapper didn’t just take Jakob. No one could see him and no one would have heard Jakob crying for help. Instead, he sawed a branch and waited patiently. Why make it all more difficult? He couldn’t even be sure that it would be Jakob who’d do the climbing and falling.’
‘Maybe he didn’t care. The main thing is that it was a little boy, or rather a little boy with rich parents,’ Gina said. ‘But you’re right about the branch. It does needlessly complicate things. And the more times he had to hide near the tree, the greater the risk of being seen. If your hunch is correct, then he drugged the boy. Why?’
‘Maybe he wanted total control.’
‘Or he didn’t want to be recognised,’ Gina said, lost in thought.
Which would mean that he intends to let his victim go once he’s accomplished his goal. In which case it must be about money, Dühnfort thought.
‘It’s probably for a ransom,’ Gina said.
‘I arranged a stake-out to watch the parents,’ he said.
‘And? Did anything happen?’
‘Not so far.’ Dühnfort called Max Kölle. There was nothing going on at the Sonnbergers’ farm. Mrs Sonnberger was with her mother, who was apparently sick with worry about her grandchild and had asked her daughter to come over. Mr Sonnberger was working on the farm. Dühnfort had barely ended the call when his mobile rang.
‘I’ll take a nap,’ Gina declared and lay down on the moss. ‘You can wake me up when you’re ready.’ Yawning, she crossed her legs.
Dühnfort took the call. It was Alois. ‘I’ve found the hiding place. There’s a faint trail that runs from the climbing tree to the hawthorn hedge. The guy cut branches from it and built himself a shelter. It’s not very large and certainly not comfortable. But you can see the trail from the edge of the forest all the way to the village.’
‘Great work, Alois.’ He had discovered what Buchholz had missed.
‘So, our model pupil’s found the hiding place. Not bad,’ Gina said. She dug her little finger into her left ear. ‘And what are we doing with this barrier tape?’
‘I have an idea.’ Early in the morning, Dühnfort had received a call from Dr Claudius Herzog, the head of the Department of Forensic Medicine. He had examined the goat parts and seemed thoroughly amused. Dühnfort told Gina what Herzog had told him. Despite what most people assumed, Herzog had said, he himself was not a butcher, but the person who slaughtered the goat very likely was. The parts that had been found at the site were the bits of a goat that were considered waste when it was butchered. The direct bolt to the brain, the clean, skilful cuts made with a sharp tool, and the build-up of cow’s and pig’s blood all supported this conclusion. Presumably, the butcher had slaughtered cows and pigs on the same day and stored the waste from all of the animals together. There were no traces of human blood. The remains were four to five days old and had initially been kept cool. The maggots were from blowflies that had not yet pupated, so the parts had been hanging in the forest for a maximum of two days.
‘Who the hell hangs animal waste in trees?’ Gina said.
‘That’s exactly what I want to know, which is why we need the barrier tape.’
Gina looked at the trees where the goat parts had been hanging.
Dühnfort picked up the roll. ‘Do you have the photos? We’ll mark the trunks.’
A few minutes later, it was done. Gina scrutinised the results. ‘Two circles. A smaller one inside and a larger one outside. What’s that about?’
‘The trees can be connected in another way, I’m afraid.’ Dühnfort took the roll of police tape and attached it to the northernmost tree of the outer group of five, then strode purposefully to the tree to the southwest, passing two inner-circle trees in the process. He wrapped the tape around its trunk and went to the northeasterly spruce, again passing two inner-circle trees, and wrapped the tape around its bark. An open-ended triangle had formed. Dühnfort saw that his suspicion was correct. He continued his work until all ten trees had been connected, then he climbed one of the enclosure mounds. Gina followed him.
‘It’s not the best vantage point,’ he said, ‘but that’s what it is.’ He massaged his tense neck.
‘What what is?’ Gina squinted down at the trees. ‘It’s a pentagram!’ she cried suddenly.
Fluttering in the breeze, the red-and-white-striped police tape formed a lopsided pentagram. In the centre of the star was a light-coloured boulder.
Dühnfort began to descend. It could be that this has nothing to do with Jakob, he thought, trying to make himself feel better. But a magical space needed an altar.
‘So, it looks like we’re dealing with satanists here.’ Gina ran down the mound after him. He went over to the boulder, which had been sanded smooth by centuries of wind and weather. On the top, there was a small depression. A few dark spots stood out against the pale grey background. They were the remnants of wax, black wax. It was the altar of the magical space. Dühnfort had been holding his breath without realising it and now exhaled. ‘Did Frank actually have anyone search this area?’
Gina made a face. ‘He secured the goat parts. And I took photos of the trees. Nothing else was mentioned,’ she said, chewing her bottom lip.
‘For God’s sake!’ Dühnfort cursed.
‘This has nothing to do with Jakob anyway. He was kidnapped from the climbing tree, not here.’ Gina looked at the ground guiltily. She clearly already knew that this wasn’t a valid argument. She poked around the undergrowth with her foot like a little girl.
‘I have nothing to say to that right now,’ Dühnfort replied angrily.
Gina suddenly stopped and bent down. Without saying a word, she pulled something out of a tangle of dry twigs and overgrown nettles. It was a small teddy bear, about twenty centimetres long and quite beaten up. An eye was missing. Well loved, Mrs Sonnberger had said. Jakob had his well-loved teddy bear with him. It’s missing an eye. Those were her words.
* * *
Here, in this solitary place, there was absolute silence. No sound disturbed his thoughts. He was dressed in black, as was always the case when he entered this space. But he was now there at an unusual time; he had strayed from his daily schedule. Restlessness oozed from him like a stinking sewer, infecting his breath and threatening to pollute the clean air with the pestilence of fear. Holding his breath, he rushed back out again. In the antechamber, he dropped to the floor, breathed into his hand and smelled decay.
Was it the breath of doubt? He listened to himself, but found only strength where he had feared doubt was creeping in. He would prosper in everything he did. It was his time. What was troubling him? Broken structures. Was his world dissolving, like the outside world? But he had designed the structure of his world himself. He could change it, rearrange it, adapt it to suit his task. He quickly rescheduled his days in his head, shifted some things around and entirely replaced others. A new clarity was beginning to emerge. Of course, he would need to develop it and work on it some more, but his thoughts were light and free.
He got up and went into an adjacent room, pulled off his clothing, which had become dirty from sitting on the floor, and put it in a basket. He reached for the coat hanger, removed the protective cover and slipped into clean black trousers and a black shirt. He briefly wondered whether he should take another shower. But he felt clean. He hadn’t been sweating and he smelled of the body oil that he’d had shipped from Eifel.
He considered the purity of his body to be of great importance. Not only externally. He chose his food with the utmost care. He had to be completely pure when he fulfilled his task. As such, he was not to eat anything and could drink only spring water. The waste from food contaminated the body, caused a sulphurous stench to escape through the pores, clogged the intestines and put pressure on the glands, which then released hormones that would pollute him completely and could only be eliminated with a lengthy purification process.
He reached for the pitcher of water, removed the cloth that covered it and poured a glassful. He emptied it with slow sips. He breathed into his hand again. The stench was gone.
Then he entered the space. The square redbrick chamber was illuminated by the warm light of candles that never went out. He wouldn’t allow it. It gave the room a dignified solemnity. The barrel vaulting atop the four pillars was intact. Through some miracle, the bombs that the US Air Force had dropped in April 1945 had spared this small part of the site. The rest had been completely destroyed and after the war had immediately been demolished, filled and levelled.
Through laborious work, he had covered the floor of the vault with ochre sandstone slabs, replaced the broken bricks and repaired the leaks.
He crossed the room and felt the coolness of the stone floor on his bare feet. As always, he placed a white lily in front of the statue. Then he went into the middle of the circle of light, sat down cross-legged and tried to concentrate on being worthy of his task. One way or another. Tomorrow, it would be decided.
He wanted to collect himself, but his mind wandered.
To Jakob. He saw himself in him. Many years ago. So many years that he could hardly piece together the fragments that remained inside him from the time he had been like Jakob. He remembered how he would climb onto his mother’s lap; Bene had to sit next to her on the sofa because he was already too big. Her warm, soft lap was reserved for him. He would snuggle up to her and listen to the stories she read with his heart pounding and his cheeks warm with pleasure. Once he even peed in his pants out of sheer excitement. His mother didn’t scold him but instead just laughed and changed both his clothes and her own.
Then Bene died. After that, everything was different. His death brought their happy life to an end. Something seemed to fill the house, to linger there, to settle in. Something that would not let him reach his mother, like a cold fog that forced its way between them as if she suspected his guilt. When he climbed onto her lap, wanted to hug her, wanted her warmth, she would pull away like a spirit being, as if she could no longer bear his touch.
His father came home less and less. Once he heard his mother whispering with his aunt. ‘He’s drinking you out of house and home,’ his aunt said and he wondered how his father could manage that. He was very small at the time. It was long ago. It was during his other life.
He shivered. He’d been so cold for many years now. He pulled his legs up to his chest, wrapped his arms around them and rested his forehead on his knees.
He had checked on the boy that afternoon. He was awake. He was crying and had snot dripping down his face as he lay there hunched over in his sleeping bag and whimpering. ‘I want my mummy, I want my mummy!’ He had almost opened the door and taken Jakob to his mother. Of course, that couldn’t happen. He’d gone back into the meditation room. But Jakob’s pitiful cries did not stop. They came through the cracks and crevices, wearing down his determination, softening it, melting it like glacial ice in a tropical storm. His hand was already on the lock when he suddenly felt a burst of red-hot anger flaring up inside him: he would not show weakness. It made him pull his hood down over his head, throw open the door and give Jakob a hard slap in the face. In the process, the locket that was hanging from a chain around his neck slipped out from under his shirt. It could betray him. But Jakob hadn’t noticed it. He was instantly silenced.
