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

by Inge Löhnig

  ‘Nada,’ Meo said. ‘Nix, nothing, niet. I spent almost the whole night looking for it. Kallweit didn’t write the letter. At least not on one of the two dinosaurs you dragged in here.’ He took a bite of the energy bar and continued speaking with his mouth full. ‘I’ve restored all of the deleted files. The letter wasn’t there. He would have had to reformat the hard drive, but he didn’t and even then, I could have found the letter.’

  Dühnfort had not entirely expected it to be Kallweit. It didn’t add up. If he had demanded a ransom, it would have only been to divert attention away from his true motives and leave a false trail. It was unlikely he would risk getting caught at the handover. Kallweit would not have shown up at the handover location. The press had reported the absence of a ransom demand last Friday, and Dühnfort had immediately feared that this might give someone a stupid idea.

  Gina put a mug of coffee and a carton of milk on the table in front of him.

  Dühnfort looked up, surprised. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘No problem,’ she replied and sat down next to him.

  ‘A piggybacker?’ Alois said.

  ‘Possibly,’ Dühnfort replied. ‘How far have you got with the printers?’

  ‘In Mariaseeon and a twenty-kilometre radius around it, there are fourteen print shops. I’ve asked local health-insurance providers about the registered employees. I have lists of names from four printers on hand. I haven’t had a chance to look into their criminal backgrounds yet, though. The employee names from the remaining ten will hopefully come in today and tomorrow. We’re going to continue with the bank enquiries after the meeting. We’ll start at the centre of the action in Mariaseeon and work our way out. Gina got the names of the owners and managers of the print shops from the local Trade Register.’ Alois looked over to Gina.

  ‘They all check out – immaculate records, well, nearly all of them. There’s one with a criminal record for drink driving and one stole a car when he was eighteen and did a juvenile sentence for it. But that’s from ages ago and he hasn’t done anything wrong since.’

  ‘Good,’ said Dühnfort. ‘Keep at it.’

  ‘How’s Kallweit’s interrogation going?’ Alois asked.

  ‘He’s only admitting to what we can prove,’ Dühnfort said. ‘Otherwise, he’s sticking to his usual strategy. Even though the facts clearly speak against him, he comes up with an explanation for everything.’

  ‘How did he explain having Jakob’s T-shirt?’ Alois asked. Dühnfort told him. ‘That could actually be possible.’

  ‘You don’t really believe that?’ Gina said, surprised.

  ‘In dubio pro reo,’ Alois replied. ‘ “When in doubt, for the accused.” We shouldn’t pre-judge.’

  ‘Let’s wait and see what Frank finds. Then we’ll see who’s pre-judging here,’ Gina said. ‘You don’t really think that Kallweit is the innocent lamb he claims to be?’

  ‘What do you think happened? Kallweit happens to see Jakob in his friend’s garden and photographs the boys so that he can use the pictures to satisfy his sexual perversion. But now that’s not enough for him. He waits for Jakob to go home, but by a miraculous coincidence, the boy goes to the climbing tree alone. So Kallweit can strike without being seen. Is that how it went?’

  ‘Could be,’ Gina said.

  ‘Then I’d like to know why he drugged the boy with midazolam. Did he just happen to have it with him? And I’d also like to know how he got him to the final destination. At this stage, we have good reason to believe it was a premeditated act, right?’ Alois asked, looking at Dühnfort.

  ‘Kallweit must have been watching the boy over a prolonged period. After all, he did develop a routine when stalking his victims. He must have quickly figured out that Jakob went to the climbing tree alone. He just had to wait for a suitable opportunity. Which arose on Thursday afternoon. Presumably Kallweit had waited in vain several times. We can all agree that it didn’t happen right away,’ Dühnfort said.

  ‘When Kallweit saw that Jakob wasn’t going home on Thursday but to the climbing tree instead, he went to his house. That would have taken him no more than seven minutes. He got into his car and drove to the climbing tree. That would have taken no more than three minutes. Ten minutes after he left the path behind the Mittermeyer property, he could have been in his hiding place in the hawthorn hedge. That cleverly designed hideaway shows the same handiwork as the equally cleverly adapted cooler bag,’ Dühnfort said. ‘Kallweit kidnapped Jakob. He had the opportunity, he had a motive and he had the means.’

  ‘And then?’ Alois asked. ‘Did he hold hands with him? The boy was not sexually abused.’

  ‘No penetration occurred,’ Dühnfort said. ‘That doesn’t mean that Jakob wasn’t abused.’

  ‘OK,’ Alois replied and held out his hands as if to admit defeat.

  Frank Buchholz came in, plopped down in the chair next to Meo, slammed a folder on the table, placed both hands on top and looked round at the group. Everyone looked at him expectantly.

  ‘To make it brief,’ he said. ‘We’ve found no trace of Jakob in Kallweit’s house so far. Absolutely nothing.’

  * * *

  Dühnfort stood at his office window and looked out, as he so often did, at the Cathedral of Our Blessed Lady, the symbol of Munich. The cathedral clock struck four times and then eleven. As the clock went silent, Dühnfort heard the higher notes of the chimes ringing out from the tower of the city hall. He closed the window.

  So, Kallweit hadn’t hidden Jakob in his house. He must have a second home. Or a weekend house, a hunting cabin, a caravan, or he used the flat of a paedophile friend. Maybe he hadn’t given up his father’s flat when his father moved into the retirement home. Dühnfort put Gina and Alois on the job. It would only be a matter of time before they found where Jakob had been hidden.

  Why had Kallweit kept such significant evidence as the T-shirt and the photo in his house and not in his other hiding place? He knew there were rumours about him. Dühnfort’s visit on Saturday must have served as a warning. But Kallweit was arrogant. He must have felt safe and his perverse desire was stronger than his cautiousness.

  Or was Alois right after all? Were they on the wrong track? They mustn’t just look at this from one angle. Dühnfort picked up the phone and called Gina and Alois. ‘Can you come to my office for a minute?’

  A moment later, there was a knock at the door. Alois and Gina came in and sat down.

  ‘What’s up?’ Alois asked.

  ‘I’d like you to talk to Kallweit. Take the position you adopted at the meeting, build up his trust. Maybe he is ready to confess. Ask him what he did after photographing Jakob and follow up on what he tells you.’

  ‘OK,’ Alois said. Dühnfort saw him straining to maintain an expression of serene indifference.

  ‘I’m going to Hamburg tomorrow,’ Dühnfort said. ‘It’s my father’s birthday. Gina, you will take my place while I’m gone. But I want to be kept informed.’

  Gina’s eyes met his. A warm smile came over her face. ‘But of course,’ she said. Dühnfort waited for the usual ‘boss’ at the end, but it never came.

  ‘Why aren’t we doing an identity parade with Jakob? If the boy recognises Kallweit, everything will fall into place,’ Alois said.

  Dühnfort explained his reasons and told him that an identity parade would be their last resort in their attempt to nail Kallweit. ‘If he confesses, we can avoid that entirely. So see to it that you prove his statements false. He’s only admitting to whatever we can prove against him.’

  Friday, 16th May

  When he woke up the next morning, he couldn’t imagine being in Hamburg in a few hours. The voucher was printed, but Dühnfort didn’t know what to write on the card. Health, happiness, a long life? Or should he thank his father for the good times they’d had? They hadn’t always been good. He’d forgotten about the years when his father was building up the law firm and had little time for his family, the period when he systematically drove away his w
ife. Perhaps they should never have married. He, a conservative who single-mindedly pushed his way into the inner circle of Hamburg society and was cherished by the press as the star defender, and she, the unconventional painter who’d even belonged to the German Communist Party for a little while. She developed her painting style accordingly, portraying Hamburg society as she saw it: as hyenas, jackals, vain monkeys. It couldn’t go well for long. His father was embarrassed by his mother. He shut her out of his life and made fun of her art. He took a mistress. But Dühnfort only found out about that during his parents’ divorce.

  At the birthday party, I might shake not only the hand of a murderer that got away, Dühnfort thought, but also perhaps the hands of several of my father’s former mistresses. He could understand why his mother had pulled out of the party. What he couldn’t fathom was how Julius had managed to get her to say yes in the first place. Presumably he’d used Victoria’s pregnancy as an enticement. What was he supposed to do there? They were all strangers to him.

  Nonetheless, he packed his bag and made his way to the train station. In the station bookshop he bought a detective novel by Henning Mankell and went onto the station concourse. He got a bottle of water at one of the newsstands. He looked for his train on the black display board. He had another fifteen minutes. The intercity express had already come in. Dühnfort sat on a bench and watched the passengers boarding. His mobile rang. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket and glanced at the display.

  ‘Hello, Gina,’ he said. ‘Miss me already?’

  ‘Always,’ she replied. And again he noticed that she didn’t say ‘boss’.

  ‘Something’s going on. I got a call from the branch manager of the Deutsche Bank in Baierdilching. They were on our enquiries list from yesterday. It seems that a printer from Baierdilching that was on the brink of bankruptcy miraculously got help overnight. This morning, the company account was well into the black. The branch manager took a look to see where the money came from, and something seems off to him. I’m driving out there now and I’ll be back in touch later.’

  Dühnfort thought about it. ‘Make a little detour and pick me up at the main station. I’ll wait for you at the side entrance on Bayerstrasse.’

  There was silence on the other end of the line.

  ‘Gina?’

  ‘I’m still here,’ she said.

  ‘Will you pick me up?’

  ‘Taxi’s coming in about seven and a half minutes, boss.’

  Dühnfort put the mobile back in his jacket and picked up his bag. Gina was annoyed. She thought he didn’t trust her. In a stationery shop on the concourse, he bought an envelope and a stamp. He put the voucher in it, filled out the card and threw the letter into the yellow post box at the side entrance.

  He waited for Gina at their agreed meeting place. After a few minutes, he saw her red Golf. She indicated and stopped in front of him on the roadside, then turned on the hazard lights while he opened the boot to stash his bag. Gina got out, took the bag from him, threw it in the boot, slammed the boot shut and sat back down behind the wheel. Dühnfort sat next to her. They drove in silence in the heavy traffic on the A8 motorway.

  ‘Why didn’t you just choose Alois to fill in for you?’ she finally asked, her eyes looking straight ahead up the motorway. ‘If you can’t even trust me to conduct a simple enquiry.’

  ‘It has nothing to do with you.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘You’re a good detective and have more experience than Alois,’ Dühnfort said. ‘But we’re on the verge of solving a case. I wanted to be there for that. So don’t see it as me not trusting you. Maybe it’s just vanity on my part.’

  Gina gave him a surprised look. ‘The status of our investigation hasn’t changed since yesterday.’ She braked sharply. They were now at the tail end of a traffic jam. ‘You would skip your father’s birthday to indulge your own vanity? That doesn’t sound like you.’ She looked over at him.

  She has beautiful eyes, Dühnfort thought. Black, like dark chocolate. Gina had a warm relationship with her parents. She would certainly never skip a family celebration.

  ‘You don’t get on well with him, do you?’ she asked and slowly released the clutch to roll about five metres forward.

  ‘Probably no better or worse than most,’ he said. ‘You’re an exception, Gina.’

  ‘Won’t your father be disappointed?’

  ‘No,’ Dühnfort said. They were moving at a snail’s pace.

  ‘Are you the black sheep of your family?’ Gina looked at him curiously. Again, he noticed her chocolate eyes.

  ‘I never lived up to his expectations. That’s all.’ Dühnfort rolled down the window, grabbed the blue light at his feet and attached it to the roof with its magnetic mount. This was not entirely by the book, but he didn’t care. ‘After all, we have to accomplish something,’ he said to Gina, who was looking at him with raised eyebrows. Then he turned on the light. The siren wailed at a deafening volume. Gina swerved onto the hard shoulder.

  Ten minutes later, she was parking in front of the Deutsche Bank in Baierdilching. At her usual brisk pace, she walked into the bank. Dühnfort followed her. A young woman with red glasses was standing behind the counter. ‘Are you from the CID? Mr Greiner is expecting you. If you would just follow me.’

  She knocked on a wooden door and held it open when she heard a sullen ‘Yes, come in.’ A large man with not much hair on his head was sitting behind a plain desk. His wobbly corpulence seemed to be testing the strength of his suit’s seams. Panting, he stood up, came round the desk and shook hands with Gina and then Dühnfort.

  ‘Good morning. My name is Greiner. I’m the branch manager,’ he said breathlessly. ‘I’ve prepared everything here.’ He pointed to the table beside the window and offered them both a seat. They sat down.

  ‘So, you’ve noticed unusual deposits in the account of a printer?’ Gina said.

  Greiner nodded. ‘Karl Prohacek & Son. If Prohacek hadn’t gone to the bankruptcy court on Monday, I would have taken him to task myself,’ he said. ‘Not to shut him down, although the bank is their largest creditor.’

  ‘But instead . . .?’ Gina asked.

  ‘To save him from being prosecuted for failing to file for insolvency in due time. The Prohaceks are respected people here.’ Greiner heaved his bodily mass into another position.

  ‘So, until yesterday, the company was nearly broke,’ Gina said.

  Greiner nodded and reached for the papers. They were bank statements. He handed them to Gina. ‘At first I thought that Prohacek was clearing illegal earnings via his company account. But he’s not the type. He’s an honest soul. And it’s too much.’

  Gina glanced at the bank statements and then handed them to Dühnfort. The account of the printer Karl Prohacek & Son was nearly a hundred and fifty thousand euros in credit. Dühnfort looked for an older statement. On Wednesday, the account had been nearly fifty-eight thousand euros in debit.

  ‘The credit line is actually only forty-five thousand,’ Greiner said. ‘I made allowances for him there. But it’s been going on like this for more than half a year. And six weeks ago, Prohacek’s biggest customer went bankrupt. Considerable bad debt losses.’

  Dühnfort continued looking through the bank statements. On Thursday, there’d been three transfers into the account, of seventy thousand euros each. They were all declared as private contributions and came from three different accounts that were all under the name of Karl Prohacek. ‘Have these accounts only been set up very recently?’

  ‘The Prohaceks have all of their accounts with us, always have. This here –’ Greiner pointed to a transaction on the statement. ‘This is Prohacek’s private account. Prohacek Junior. He runs the company. Prohacek Senior handed it over to him years ago. The other two accounts are new. They were only opened at the beginning of the week at two Munich banks. I was free so I made a few phone calls before getting in touch with you. It’s not easy for me to be suspicious of Prohacek, you have to believ
e me.’ Greiner wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. His neck was almost as wide as his skull. His double chins reached all the way down to his chest.

  ‘Did he make cash deposits into each of the new accounts?’ Gina asked.

  ‘Also into his old personal account.’ Greiner pulled two faxes out of his pile of documents. ‘The bank managers were kind enough to fax me the statements. Someone made cash deposits at different Munich banks. Always less than fifteen thousand euros. With larger amounts, the depositor would have had to provide identification and fill out a form. It’s a way of preventing money laundering. But below that limit, the party remains anonymous. I counted. There were seventeen payments at seventeen banks.’

  ‘So, he collected the funds in his three private accounts and then transferred it to the company account, declaring it as a private investment,’ Dühnfort said. ‘We can see that more clearly now. Can we take these documents with us?’

  Greiner nodded.

  Dühnfort got the addresses.

  ‘I don’t believe that Prohacek kidnapped the boy. He’s a nice guy. Always helpful. And it’s very touching how he takes care of his elderly mother,’ Mr Greiner said. ‘Hopefully there’s another explanation for this.’ The man reminded Dühnfort of a melancholy walrus.

  * * *

  Prohacek sat under guard in an interrogation room and waited for his lawyer. He would not make a statement without him. Prohacek’s print shop and private home were being searched, a process that had started that afternoon.

  Dühnfort crossed the corridor to his office and looked at the cathedral clock. Just after 8 p.m. The pedestrianised zone was already empty. Meo was working on Prohacek’s computers. The search at the print shop and home would take the whole night. Prohacek could be held for twenty-four hours without charge. They had until tomorrow afternoon to find evidence.

  His wife was waiting on a bench in the corridor. Dühnfort would question her as a witness as soon as he’d interrogated Prohacek. He had already told her.

  Actually, he was supposed to be in Hamburg. His father would be waiting for his call. Dühnfort would finally have to tell him that he wasn’t coming.