The Wages of Sin: A Kidnap, a Crucifixion, a Murderer on the Loose

by Inge Löhnig

  She sat on the sofa and tried to analyse the feeling, but the ringing doorbell tore her away from her thoughts.

  She wasn’t expecting anyone, but maybe Dühnfort wanted more information from her. She had since come up with an idea of how he could honour his bet.

  Agnes got up and opened the door, but it wasn’t Dühnfort. Gabi Sonnberger and Jakob were on her doorstep. He had a colourful bouquet of spring flowers in his hand, which he held out to her. She greeted Gabi Sonnberger, then crouched down and took the bouquet from Jakob. ‘Thank you. The flowers are beautiful. Did you pick them yourself?’

  Jakob nodded.

  Agnes invited her guests in and they followed her into the kitchen. She put the flowers in a beer glass, since she had no vase. She mentally added that to the Ikea shopping list. Then she offered Jakob’s mother a cappuccino.

  ‘Would you like something to drink too?’

  Jakob nodded.

  ‘Let me see what I have.’ Agnes looked in the fridge. ‘Would you like a Coke?’

  Jakob nodded eagerly.

  Agnes immediately realised that she’d made a mistake. As a mother, she’d been careful about healthy eating. Coke was not a part of that. She shot Gabi Sonnberger a questioning look.

  ‘One glass,’ she said. ‘We make exceptions for special days. But maybe every day is going to be special now. I probably won’t be able to ban him from anything ever again.’ She smiled and pushed a strand of dark hair behind her ear.

  By the time the cappuccino was ready, Jakob had already emptied the glass. He held it up to Agnes for more. She looked over at his mother.

  She laughed. ‘Just as I predicted! One more glass and then that’s really it.’

  Agnes refilled the glass and then led them into the living room. Jakob stopped in the middle of the room and looked around. Something seemed to be bothering him.

  ‘Unfortunately, I don’t have any toys,’ Agnes said. ‘But I do have coloured pencils and paper. Would you like to draw something?’

  Jakob nodded.

  Agnes went with him into the adjacent office, leaving the door open so that Gabi could still see her son. She got out the paper and pencils. ‘Do you want to draw in here or would you prefer to go in there with us?’

  Jakob sat down on the floor. Agnes went back to his mother.

  She reached out her hand. ‘I’m Gabi.’

  Even though she barely knew Jakob’s mother, Jakob had connected them. What had Anselm said? You’re practically one of the family now. Agnes shook Gabi’s hand. ‘Agnes.’

  They drank their coffee. Agnes’s cappuccino was already lukewarm. Jakob drew. It was quiet in the room. Jakob hadn’t said a word since he’d arrived. ‘Does he not speak any more?’ Agnes asked.

  Gabi shook her head. ‘The psychologist says it’s a very normal reaction and that he will speak again. Soon, hopefully. This silence scares me.’ She rubbed her temple as if she had a headache.

  Agnes understood what she meant. You could interpret anything from such a silence. Your questions went unanswered and your imagination ran amok.

  ‘But they’re sure to get the kidnapper soon.’

  Gabi withdrew her hand from her temple and reached for her cup. ‘You probably heard that I paid a ransom. It’s made its way around the village quickly.’

  Agnes nodded. ‘Melli told me. Why did you do that? I mean, on your own, without the police?’

  Gabi described how she’d been shadowed very obviously and how she was afraid that the kidnapper would also notice that and would then kill Jakob.

  That’s exactly what he planned to do, Agnes thought.

  ‘When he starts spending the money, he’ll attract attention,’ Gabi went on. ‘He’ll be dying to spend it all. Just like that man who kidnapped the banker’s son in Frankfurt. I think he’d already ordered a new car before he’d even actually kidnapped the boy.’

  He killed his victim minutes after kidnapping him, Agnes thought. In such a gruesome way that just the memory of it made her uneasy. ‘Jakob is all right, that’s what really counts.’

  ‘Yes, of course. When I imagine . . .’ Gabi put her hand over her mouth.

  ‘Don’t imagine it,’ Agnes said. Look at him, your nice boy. You’ve got him back safe and sound. Be happy and don’t think about what could have happened. You have no idea what it’s like, she thought.

  ‘Naturally, Dühnfort was angry that I went ahead and did my own thing,’ Gabi said. ‘He said that the kidnapper wanted to kill Jakob. That can’t be. I don’t believe it. It would be so unfair.’

  Yes, it is unfair, Agnes thought as Gabi continued talking. I brought your child back. No one gave me back my daughter.

  ‘I did everything exactly as the kidnapper requested. So he had no reason not to stick to the terms he himself had set.’ The longer Gabi spoke, the more confident her voice became.

  Agnes couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How could Gabi be so blind?

  ‘He took Jakob into the woods so that he would be found. Not right away, of course,’ Gabi went on.

  She seemed to have entirely blocked out the fact that Jakob could have been a liability for the kidnapper. Her son could identify him and his hiding place. That had to be obvious to her. But Agnes began to understand.

  ‘That’s why the location was so remote and Jakob was tied up and he made sure he was asleep. So that Jakob couldn’t cry out for help or run away. He needed a head start,’ Gabi explained.

  Gabi put her son in terrible mortal danger, Agnes thought. What would have happened if I hadn’t got lost? If something had happened to Jakob? Gabi would have had to live with that guilt. She must know that, but the truth is simply unbearable, so she ignored it.

  ‘And now his plan is finished,’ Gabi said. ‘Because you found Jakob.’

  ‘Yes,’ Agnes said. And I didn’t get the impression that he wanted to let him go. I have been suppressing the image of him being burned alive. But she couldn’t say that to Gabi. ‘You’re right. Why would he want to do anything else to Jakob? He got what he wanted,’ she said instead.

  A smile of relief spread across Gabi’s face.

  ‘I’m happy you see it like that too. You’re a better judge, given it was you that found Jakob and not the police. Dühnfort is bound to be biased. After all, he has to deal with terrible things all the time in his job. He’s not used to them working out.’

  Jakob came out of the office and with a timid smile handed Agnes the picture he’d drawn.

  ‘Is that a present for me?’

  Jakob nodded.

  ‘Thank you.’ Agnes looked at the drawing. Jakob had drawn a crooked heart in front of a green background. There were red and orange scribbles above it. The picture was drawn with happy colours, but it still had an unsettling effect on Agnes. The scribbles looked like tongues of flame. As if the heart was on fire.

  Thursday, 15th May

  The following night, a bank of cloud came in from the west, rained on Munich and then dispersed in the grey of morning. Dühnfort had opened the bedroom window and was woken at half past five by chirping birds. He got up, made breakfast and sat out on the balcony. It was still cool, and the air was damp, but the sky was a silvery blue, promising a nice warm day. I miss the sea, he thought suddenly.

  The young couple that had moved into the flat to the left of the one below him a few weeks earlier had raised the shutters on one of their windows. The coffee was steaming. Dühnfort took a sip.

  Kallweit had collapsed during questioning the previous day. As he’d already been arrested, he was taken to the infirmary at Stadelheim Prison. Dühnfort had expected Kallweit to confess. The evidence was overwhelming. But he’d only admitted to what couldn’t be denied: that he photographed children. He saw nothing wrong in it and couldn’t understand what the fuss was about. As far as he was concerned, the photographs were harmless. Dühnfort pointed out that he hid himself and had to use a cooler bag as camouflage for his camera. Kallweit replied by saying that unfortunately
people reacted just like the police had and insinuated perverse motives, when he just wanted to capture the beauty of the children.

  ‘So, you take pleasure in the beauty of young boys?’ Gina asked.

  ‘That’s not prohibited.’

  ‘And then you harmlessly have a wank.’

  ‘I won’t respond to such filth.’

  ‘And you don’t need to. The sperm on Kevin’s swimming trunks speaks for itself. And I am sure we’ll find more. We’ve only just started looking.’

  Kallweit looked pale and worn out. Dühnfort remembered that he hadn’t slept the night before because he’d been at his father’s bedside. His father had been nearly ninety-eight years old and had died in the nursing ward of a Munich retirement home. Dühnfort had looked into it. He offered Kallweit a glass of water and a sandwich. Kallweit turned him down.

  ‘In that very well-hidden room in your house, we found an item of clothing that Jakob Sonnberger was wearing on the day he was kidnapped. And you also photographed Jakob just before he was kidnapped. These are very serious pieces of evidence. You should make a confession.’

  Kallweit continued to deflect the questions and stuck to his guns. But everything was stacked against him. He admitted to having left the doctor’s office before three. On the way home, he had seen Jakob and Dennis in the sandpit, then hid on the footpath behind the hedge and photographed the children.

  ‘We know that. We found the pictures. How did you get the T-shirt?’

  Kallweit sighed, just as he might have done in the past with foolish students. ‘Mrs Mittermeyer came out into the garden. She made the children get dressed and go inside. Then I found the T-shirt. It was lying in the grass and so I took it.’

  Dühnfort didn’t believe him and wondered whether an identity parade would solve the problem. But he dismissed the idea immediately. The boy was psychologically unwell; Dühnfort didn’t want to put him through an identity parade. Besides, they would need more than the testimony of a young child to bring Kallweit to court.

  The balcony door on the floor below and to the left of him opened. The young man came out. He was wearing boxer shorts. He greeted Dühnfort with a nod and Dühnfort nodded back. The coffee had gone cold in the cool morning air. The young man leaned over the balcony railing and looked out into the cemetery. His girlfriend came out of the flat and stood behind him. She was wearing underpants and a T-shirt. She wrapped her arms round his chest from behind and began to nibble one of his ears. He turned round and kissed her. The kisses got more passionate. The young man broke away from his girlfriend and gestured towards Dühnfort with his chin. She looked up and smiled at him. Then they both disappeared into their flat. Dühnfort went into the kitchen and made some fresh coffee.

  Yesterday, he’d put Kallweit through the wringer, ignoring the state the man was in. He kept getting paler and paler. A dull film of sweat covered his forehead. ‘If I could maybe have a glass of water . . .’ he said and then silently tipped out of his chair.

  Well, we’ll see, Dühnfort thought. Those tactics won’t work for long.

  Buchholz had gone in with a team of eight to take a closer look at the house. He’d been there since yesterday. Not even Kallweit, who cleaned so thoroughly, could have eliminated all traces of Jakob’s presence. There would be a meeting at 10 a.m. Then we’ll know more, Dühnfort thought. He drank the fresh coffee, ate a croissant and got in the shower.

  At a quarter to eight, he left his flat and started walking towards headquarters. Earlier, he had looked up train times for Hamburg and bought tickets online. The train would get to Hamburg shortly before five. Plenty of time to find a hotel room when he got there. But he still had no idea what to get his father as a present. He had become a stranger. Dühnfort suddenly felt guilty. One day, he would die. And perhaps I’ll be there at his deathbed and we’ll have nothing to say to each other because there’s nothing that connects us any more.

  Lost in thought, he walked down Sendlinger Strasse. There was actually something that the growing distance between them couldn’t erase: the time when he was the little son that his father loved and adored. Back when his father read him legends, fairy tales and adventure books. He even continued reading them aloud after Konstantin was old enough to read them for himself. His father had a talent for giving each character their own voice and he’d used the power of words to carry Konstantin away to the most adventurous of worlds. He introduced him to Odysseus, Achilles, Paris and the beautiful Helena. He took him to Troy and the Minotaur’s labyrinth. He led him to Gondor and set him down on Mount Doom beside Gollum and Frodo.

  His father had read him thousands of pages. No one could take that away. A long-forgotten feeling of security emerged from the depths of Dühnfort’s memory. It was comforting and painful at the same time. That time was long gone. The time when his father would read to him, the time when he’d spend entire weekends with him in the crafts room building model gliders. Weekends when Julius whined because he wanted to play football instead. Konstantin and his father sawed round the balsa-wood components, glued parts together, covered wings with fabric and coated them with stretching lacquer. And when the planes were ready, it was time for the maiden flight. That had been a dream of his father’s – to fly in a real glider. But it had never happened. Why not? Had he completely forgotten about it or had he just never found the opportunity during his hectic life at the law firm?

  Dühnfort walked past the newspaper building that housed the Süddeutsche Zeitung and turned the corner. My father gave me a happy childhood, he thought. Maybe that’s why I’d like to be a father myself. I want to be able to pass on what he gave me. He imagined what it would be like to construct model aeroplanes with his own sons. Suddenly, he knew what to get his father that would make his day.

  * * *

  Shortly after eight, Dühnfort closed the door to his office and opened the window. Then he sat at his desk and started up the computer. After a few minutes, he’d found what he was looking for.

  He ordered a voucher for a flight on a glider that his father could redeem at a gliding club near Hamburg any time in the next year. He paid online with his credit card and had a PDF on his computer minutes later, which he forwarded to his private email account. On the way home he would get some nice paper to use when he printed out the voucher.

  Then he filled out his request for time off and gave it to his superior. We’ll charge Kallweit today, he thought, and if we don’t, Gina can take over the case until I return. There should only be routine stuff left to do. He returned to his office and dealt with some paperwork he’d been putting off. Just before ten, he gathered his papers and made his way to the conference room. He bumped into Alois in the corridor on the way. He was wearing a charcoal-grey suit and a white shirt but no tie. The top button was undone. How casual, Dühnfort thought. He was still annoyed about Alois’s ignorant and self-important behaviour over the last few days.

  ‘Have you got a minute?’ Alois asked. Dühnfort nodded and they stepped aside to a window.

  ‘I can understand that you’re angry with me,’ Alois said. ‘You were right about Kallweit. I overstepped my authority. I screwed up. Mea culpa. You’ve shown me who’s in charge around here. I’ve learned my lesson and would now like to cooperate properly again.’

  So, Alois is capable of admitting he’s made a mistake. ‘Good,’ Dühnfort said. ‘And it’s not about whether or not I’m right.’

  They walked to the conference room together. Their shoes squeaked on the worn linoleum floor.

  ‘I looked into the midazolam thing again,’ Alois said. ‘Jakob’s uncle, the pharmaceutical rep, doesn’t actually work with it. Presumably he would have come across the stuff when visiting doctors and chemists. And nothing is missing from the ward where Beppo Sonnberger’s sister works. Should I continue looking into it?’

  ‘Yes, do that. Ask Dr Wiessner about it,’ Dühnfort said. He entered the conference room alongside Alois.

  Gina was already there. She wa
s standing in the coffee corner, where the coffee machine was rattling away. ‘Frank called,’ she said. ‘He’s stuck in traffic and will be ten minutes late.’

  Meo Little came in. ‘Mornin’,’ he said. He placed a stack of documents on the oval table and went over to Gina. ‘Is the coffee ready yet?’ He looked like he hadn’t slept. He was pale and had dark rings under his eyes. Frizzy blond hair fell into his face. He was in his early twenties, which made him the youngest of the computer experts, but he was also one of the best. He was wearing baggy jeans and a very wrinkled grey jumper that was two sizes too big.

  ‘It’ll take a couple more minutes,’ Gina said. ‘Were you up all night working?’

  ‘Not quite,’ he replied. ‘But I won’t survive two more minutes without a hit of the good stuff.’ He took the pot from the machine. Coffee dripped onto the hotplate and evaporated. Meo filled a mug, put the pot back in place and shovelled three spoons of sugar into his coffee before drinking it.

  Meo’s name was actually Romeo. He bitterly resented his parents for it, as he’d explained to Dühnfort at the Christmas party the previous year. ‘Romeo is bad enough,’ he’d said, ‘but the combination with Little is hard to beat. Little Romeo. No teacher could resist the joke.’

  Alois sat next to Meo. ‘Did you crack Kallweit’s PC?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course. It was child’s play.’ He dug into his trouser pocket and pulled out an energy bar with a silver wrapper.

  ‘And?’ Alois asked.

  ‘The guy is a paedo. One hundred and twenty gigs of nasty pictures and videos.’

  ‘And the ransom note?’ Dühnfort asked as he sat down at the table with Alois and Meo.