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

by Inge Löhnig

  Now Dühnfort had to go to Munich to visit the last person on the list, an accountant in the Harlaching district. Since Baierdilching was on the way, Dühnfort decided to pay Aiblinger a visit. He parked in front of the police station and was sitting with Aiblinger soon after. Aiblinger proudly told him that he had served that district for thirty-one years. Dühnfort explained the situation. Aiblinger remembered that a number of cats had disappeared over twenty years ago, one after the other. That had gone on for a few years and eventually stopped without any suspects having been identified.

  A number of cats, Dühnfort thought, when he was back in his car and driving along the A8 motorway towards Munich. If that was him, why did he suddenly stop? Dühnfort took the Middle Ring Road towards Harlaching. He called to tell the accountant he was on his way and arrived at his office around four o’clock. Fifteen minutes later, he left again, with no success.

  At headquarters, Gina told him that Sebastian Köhnig had flown to New York on Monday and wasn’t expected back until next week.

  Wednesday, 11th June

  Dühnfort and his team had spent the last eight days searching for the delivery van, scouring Mariaseeon and the surrounding area for reports of animal cruelty in recent years, giving a photo of the nightdress with a request for any information to the press and tracking down an expert in antique linen.

  The Frankfurt police department came up with no new evidence when they questioned Sebastian Köhnig. The search for reported or convicted animal abusers was unsuccessful, no further information on the origin of the nightdress was elicited from the public and the antique linen expert had nothing more to say than that it came from the Alpine foothills in the twentieth century.

  The fear that the murderer could strike again informed everything they did. They had finally received Dr Wiessner’s list of patients that had visited the practice or received a home visit during the period in question. Four hundred and twelve names, one hundred and eighty of which were men. They ruled out the very old and very young, but there were still seventy-two men remaining. All of them had to be questioned. Dühnfort requested three more officers from other districts for reinforcement. He hoped to get it done within two days.

  There was a briefing at three o’clock. Dühnfort wanted an alibi for the time of the kidnapping from every man on the list, in addition to details of what vehicles they drove and whether they were religious. ‘I want you to take pictures of all of them. Note anything that seems unusual. I also want to know who is married and who isn’t, and whether these partnerships or marriages are intact or if there is evidence of abuse, and what kind of attitude these men have towards women in general. Also check for criminal records, keeping an eye out for assault and battery in particular.’

  ‘That means that we also have to visit the wives,’ groaned an overweight colleague.

  Dühnfort distributed the lists of names and addresses, keeping the last one for himself.

  Thursday, 12th June

  Agnes tried to block out Melli’s murder. She didn’t read the paper or turn on the television. When she met Gabi at the shop, she steered the conversation towards other topics when Gabi wanted to discuss the details. She didn’t even go to Melli’s funeral. It wasn’t until the next day that she placed flowers on the grave. She didn’t want to get too involved because deep down she worried that if she did, she might not be able to live there any longer. She couldn’t give up her new house, she couldn’t move again. Where would she go, anyway?

  So she spent her days obsessively working on the village history book. Often deep into the night. At dusk she shut all the windows and doors and shutters and frequently fell asleep with the light on. Dühnfort ran into her twice in the village when she was out and about, but there wasn’t enough time for a long conversation. He seemed like he was chasing shadows, acting irritable and tense. She was sure he had neither the time nor the interest in their planned bike ride.

  Agnes went cycling by herself, but she was afraid to go running on her own. But she also didn’t want to give it up. On the spur of the moment, she designed a sign and hung it in a few shops. Anyone who wanted to go for a jog but didn’t want to go on their own should meet at the maypole at 7 p.m. On the first evening, eight women and two men showed up. They also felt the fear that was spreading through the village. Gates remained closed. The electrician installed new alarm systems every day and demand was so high, he had to hire an employee to help. No one went out after dark and children only went out with adults. The frightful question of whether someone in the village could be the murderer hung unspoken in the air.

  Agnes felt safe in the group, but she didn’t go running every night. The irresistible urge to run had subsided. For some reason, the endorphin kick isn’t important any more, Agnes thought, as she looked for the folder in which she wanted to put the printouts of the first three chapters. In half an hour, she was going to present the first part of the book to Anselm.

  The telephone rang in the living room. Agnes temporarily gave up the search and took the call. It was her mother, saying that she’d given Agnes’s new address to a Munich notary’s office. ‘They want to send you something. Is that all right? Or should I have asked first instead?’

  ‘That’s fine, Mum,’ Agnes said. ‘It must be some formality to do with buying the house.’

  ‘If only you hadn’t taken it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now. I have to do a presentation in half an hour,’ Agnes said and ended the conversation.

  When she was standing in front of Anselm’s door five minutes too early, she felt a bit guilty about it. She’d clearly had enough time for a chat. And then she wondered why the secretary at the notary’s office had asked for her address. She already knew it because of all the documents associated with the purchase. She rang the bell. Anselm let her in and led her to his office.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked abruptly. He pushed a strand of hair from her face without touching her cheek. It was a slow, precise movement. There was an energy in his eyes that Agnes hadn’t noticed before. They had an intensity that attracted her.

  No. I feel terrible, she would like to have said. Melli is dead. I’m afraid of the lunatic who did this. I feel unable to cope with what is happening here in the village. ‘Yes, of course,’ she replied instead. ‘I have the first part of the book with me. I’m sure you’re eager to see how it’s turned out.’

  They went through the pages. He studied each one thoroughly. There were only small things that he wanted to change. Agnes was relieved and felt good about her work.

  ‘The book is beautiful. You’ve understood exactly what I want,’ Anselm said. ‘We are a good team.’ He started talking about the book about chapels that Agnes was going to design next. ‘I wanted to show you the votive tablets,’ he said. ‘I have time on Sunday morning. Does that work for you?’

  Agnes nodded. They arranged to meet at half past nine at the Chapel of Our Lady. Anselm walked her to the farm gate and shook her hand. She could smell lavender and eucalyptus, which reminded her of Provence.

  * * *

  Dühnfort was in Mariaseeon working through his list of patients to question. He’d already done three. Now he was in need of a coffee and was considering whether to pay Agnes a visit when his telephone rang.

  It was Gina. ‘I’m sitting here with a girl at the priest’s house. She is not only a member of the church choir but is also wearing an amulet with a pentagram. When I grilled her, she first wanted to speak to the priest and now wants to talk to a real officer.’ Gina snorted into the phone. ‘What has happened to women’s lib? So, will you come?’

  Five minutes later, Dühnfort was following Schops into the living room. A girl that looked around fifteen years old was sitting next to Gina on the sofa. She had a defiant expression on her face and was tearing a crumpled tissue into little pieces.

  ‘So, this is Korinna.’ Schops introduced the girl.

  Korinna was wearing hipsters, the must-have jeans that
summer, and a short pink top that showed off her midriff. Her face was childlike. She looked up at Dühnfort warily.

  ‘Hello, Korinna,’ Dühnfort said and took a seat across from her.

  ‘I guess I’m not needed here any longer,’ Gina said. ‘I’m going to drive to the office and do some filing or whatever it is policewomen are supposed to do. I might also clean the windows.’ She winked at Dühnfort and left.

  Schops sat down next to the girl. ‘Do you want your mother here, too?’ he asked.

  ‘No. She banned me from seeing Cyril.’ White snippets of tissue landed on the carpet like snowflakes.

  ‘What is it you’d like to tell us?’ Dühnfort asked.

  Finally, she looked up. ‘You can’t tell anyone. Especially not Cyril.’

  ‘Cyril Maierhofer was one of my altar boys. He’s doing an apprenticeship at the butcher’s,’ the priest explained.

  Dühnfort remembered that Gina had talked to him. ‘Why not?’

  ‘After Jakob’s kidnapping, I already told him that we should go to the priest. Or the police. But he didn’t want to. But now, with Mrs Lechner . . .’ Korinna dropped the rest of the tattered tissue on the carpet and looked Dühnfort in the eyes. Fear was written all over her face. ‘It will keep going if no one does anything. Cyril can’t do anything about it. He doesn’t know the incantation.’

  ‘So, Cyril is a satanist,’ Dühnfort said.

  ‘What?’ the priest said.

  Korinna nodded and reached for the amulet she was wearing on a chain around her neck. ‘But he hasn’t been doing it long. He doesn’t know it that well.’

  ‘You silly kids have been invoking the devil.’ A grin spread from the priest’s mouth to his eyes. ‘ “I have need of Thee! From the spirits that I called, Sir, deliver me!” You think that I can drive the devil that you’ve summoned back into his place?’

  Korinna nodded.

  ‘Now tell me what happened,’ Dühnfort said.

  Korinna explained that Cyril had seen a film about satanism that sparked his interest in the subject. He looked for more information about it on the internet and came across a satanist forum. He absorbed everything written there like a sponge and then shared it with his closest friends.

  ‘He said that we live in a time when scientists are the new rulers because they can explain everything. Reality is their God. They only believe in what can be proven. We’re so sure of this reality that it’s like a new faith, preached to us by new priests in white coats. That’s what he told us.’ Korinna got a new tissue from her jeans. ‘But in the past, scientists also preached that the earth was flat, so it’s all nonsense. Then Cyril said that the shadows of chaos appear at the boundaries of scientific belief and that they would tell of what could also be.’

  ‘And that is supposed to be a world of darkness and magic. The world of the devil and demons, whose power can be summoned and used?’ the priest asked.

  Korinna nodded. The priest grinned.

  ‘So, you summoned the devil?’ Dühnfort said, as all this nonsense started to take shape in his imagination. ‘Cyril took the slaughter waste from the butcher’s shop. Then you hung it in the trees in the form of a pentagram and created a magical space. We found it.’

  ‘I know,’ Korinna said. ‘Your assistant has been telling everyone in the village.’ She continued explaining how she, Cyril and a few friends that she didn’t want to name had performed a ritual in the Celtic enclosure. Cyril had found the instructions for it on the internet.

  ‘Did you use a teddy bear for this incantation? Where did you get it from?’

  ‘We found it.’

  ‘On Thursday, when Jakob disappeared?’

  ‘Yes. We all met in the Celtic enclosure at five thirty. He’d already done all that stuff with the goat’s head on Tuesday, but I got to help him with the candles. That’s why we rode out earlier. On the way there, we found the teddy bear. Cyril thought it would be cool to sacrifice it. We couldn’t have known that it belonged to Jakob and that using it would deliver him to Seth.’

  ‘Seth?’ Dühnfort asked.

  ‘That’s the name of the devil that Cyril summoned.’

  ‘When exactly did you find the teddy bear?’

  Korinna thought about it. ‘It must have been just before four.’

  ‘And where?’

  ‘On the path behind the tree that the boys always climb.’

  So, they must have been there just after the kidnapping. ‘Did you see anyone near the climbing tree?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And no car?’

  Korinna thought about it. ‘Yes, there was a car, I think. But it was so far away.’ When Dühnfort pressed her for more details, she thought she remembered that there’d been a large, dark car there. Probably a van.

  Friday, 13th June

  He woke up one minute before his alarm went off and pressed the button to stop it from starting to wail. The silence seemed sublime to him. Still, it would have been all the more sublime if bells had rung in the day as they had in the past. Today in particular. He got up and took a shower. There was a specific choreography to cleansing his body. He soaped himself from top to bottom, starting at the neck, then the torso and back, then down to the space between his toes. That way, the soap never came in contact with the contaminated, dirty foam that was left behind on his skin, which he would thoroughly wash away. After that, he rubbed his body with oil that he purchased from the Abbey of Maria Frieden in Eifel.

  As he brushed his teeth, cleaned out his ears, cleaned under his finger and toe nails and then finally rinsed his nose with salt water, he thought about what he would do that day. It had worked this time. He had knocked her down and dripped the midazolam into her nose. The mucus membranes absorbed the drug quickly. An intravenous dose would have been even faster, but he couldn’t give injections, so he’d settled for this method. Now the bitch was chained to the camp bed.

  He went into the bedroom, slipped into clean undergarments and put on black cotton trousers and a black shirt. In the kitchen, he drank a glass of water, took the lilies out of the vase where he had placed them the previous evening and then left the house. Six thirty. On the dot. He loved precision. Today he felt calm and strong. He was taking it one step at a time. This time, everything would go according to plan.

  He opened the door, entered and carefully closed it behind him. Then he went down into the vault. He silently pushed aside the panel. Her shiny brown coat peeked out from under the sleeping bag. It lay motionless in the flickering light of the paraffin lamp. The kitty was asleep. Good. It wouldn’t make any trouble. But there was still time.

  He went into the meditation room, placed the flowers in the vase and sat down. Instead of praying, he threw his arms around his shoulders and imagined it was Agnes hugging him. He could almost feel her warmth in the cold. When he saw her, his thoughts stood still, the fantasies, how he tortured, tormented, how much he enjoyed the suffering that he inflicted, how he hated them all, how he took revenge . . . Oh, God, what was he thinking! He threw himself on the ground. ‘Hail Mary,’ he gasped, ‘full of grace.’ Tears ran down his cheeks and dripped onto the sandstone slabs. ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for me, a sinner, now and at the hour of my death,’ he whimpered. A thread of saliva fell from his mouth and slid to the floor.

  * * *

  The sky had taken on the dreary grey colour that meant it might chuck it down with rain at any time. It was Friday morning just after eight and Dühnfort was once again parking his car in the village square. He wanted to speak to the remaining candidates on his list. He got out, walked down the road and rang the bell at the converted barn. Münch answered after the first ring and let him in. Dühnfort followed him down the hall into the living room. A basket of laundry was on the coffee table. Münch walked over to the ironing board and picked up the iron.

  ‘I hope it won’t bother you if I continue with this?’ he asked and gestured to the half-ironed pillowcase lying on the board.

>   Dühnfort shook his head. ‘Don’t you have anyone to do that for you?’

  ‘I like ironing,’ Münch said.

  ‘You live alone?’

  ‘It just hasn’t happened,’ Münch replied.

  ‘That’s too bad.’

  ‘Maybe I’m too demanding or too . . . romantic.’ Münch smiled. ‘I don’t want someone to marry me just for my money. Do you have a partner?’ Münch let the iron glide across the fabric.

  ‘No.’

  ‘And why is that?’

  Dühnfort shrugged. He certainly wasn’t going to discuss that with Münch. ‘Have you always lived here on your own?’

  ‘Why are you actually here?’ Münch folded the ironed pillowcase. ‘Surely you don’t want to discuss my sex life with me?’

  ‘You don’t seem to have one,’ Dühnfort said and awaited the effect of this provocation.

  Münch put the pillowcase on a pile of ironed laundry. ‘You live alone, too. How do you solve the problem?’ he asked. ‘Manually?’

  ‘Would you consider that reprehensible or a sin?’

  Münch looked up and grinned. ‘Ah, now comes the big question. You want to know how I feel about religion?’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Münch put a duvet cover on the ironing board.

  ‘Of course.’

  Münch shook his head. ‘Very well. I attend Mass at Easter and Christmas. That’s all.’ He reached for a spray bottle and spritzed the fabric.

  ‘You forgot about the prayer service for Jakob.’

  ‘Sure, but that was different.’

  ‘You like your nephew?’

  ‘What are you trying to get at? You don’t really think I kidnapped Jakob. You’d do better to keep an eye on Kallweit. Gabi is convinced it was him.’