Time Heals No Wounds (A Baltic Sea Crime Novel)

by Hendrik Falkenberg

  “That’s true. But maybe it was done by a professional who wants to throw us off by screwing up the tattoo.”

  “How do you know so much about tattoos?”

  “I have three. Here, for example.” She pulled her shirt up a bit so he could see her tanned, flat stomach. Curled around her belly button was a little dragon with two small flames shooting out of its mouth. “Don’t you want to know where the other two are?” she asked. “One on the shoulder and another on the ankle. What do you think?”

  He didn’t know how to respond and laughed.

  Hannes found some time for practice and headed to the boathouse after his meeting with Maria. This time he properly returned the patrol car and walked to his apartment. He didn’t know if it was snake-free, but he had no choice. Anna had said she would bring Socks by at seven, so he only had an hour to sort out his thoughts.

  He kept thinking of the young woman who was being held captive in a room somewhere. How did Ternheim get her photo, and what did Merle von Hohenstein have to do with him? Hannes had given the photo to Marcel after returning to the city, but his reaction had been lukewarm: “I can’t see anything that would be of much help. The room’s empty. It could be anywhere.” Hannes had remembered Mrs. Olsen’s statement about often seeing a young woman in the area. Marcel had promised to show her Merle’s photos to see if there was a possible match.

  Hannes walked into his apartment and was greeted by that slightly musty smell that comes when a place has gone without fresh air for days. He opened all the windows. Fruit flies swarmed around a rotten apple on the kitchen table.

  He sat down with his laptop and a pitcher of ice-cold mineral water on the tiny balcony. He trusted that Ben was no murderer, and he couldn’t for the life of him see a motive for killing the Ternheims. Although Ben fought neo-Nazis, the siblings showed no such leanings. Their father and grandfather were to blame for the company’s link to the Nazi regime, so why would Ben wipe out the next generation? Was there a connection he didn’t know about?

  He decided to search the forum that Ben had showed him. He had retrieved the paper with the log-in information, so he had no problems opening the page. He immediately clicked on the link to the archives and scanned the contents, file by file.

  He stopped when he came across the photos of concentration camp prisoners. One of the prisoners was holding out his skinny arm, and Hannes could see a series of numbers tattooed on his forearm. As he was well aware, prisoners at Auschwitz had their respective numbers tattooed on their forearms. He quickly counted six digits. If the two murders were actually related to Lagussa’s Nazi past, then the tattooed numbers were definitely a message. Only what was the message?

  He went back to the forum’s home page and scrolled through the various topics. Lagussa was just one of many headings. One entry interested him in particular: Where is a list of concentration camp prisoners and their numbers?, a user called “tapeworm” had asked.

  Several people had replied to this question, and a member named “Ralfa64” recommended a website where you could search for concentration camp prisoners according to various criteria, including names or numbers. Hannes clicked on the link, which opened a search page. He quickly entered the five numbers they could decipher on the Ternheim siblings into a field marked “Prisoner number.” He was unsure what to choose as the sixth number, so he entered zero. No matches. He got the same result when he tried a one and then a two. After typing three and clicking search, a name appeared. Stunned, he fell back in his chair.

  “What do you mean, you found a Maria?” said Fritz over the phone.

  “Old Ternheim had muttered something about a Maria and a Josef. But he wasn’t talking about the Bible! I found some website where you can search for former concentration camp prisoners. I entered the numbers tattooed on the Ternheims’ forearms and added a three for the sixth number. And I got a hit! Now hold tight: the number belonged to a Maria Löwenstein.”

  Hannes heard only breathing on the other end.

  “Did you hear me? The painter recognized the numbers. He must have known it had something to do with Maria Löwenstein. We’ve solved the mystery of the tattoos! The murders are actually connected somehow to Lagussa’s Nazi past. Maybe the murderer tried to extort the two Ternheims, but they refused.”

  “A stroke of genius,” Fritz said. “Did you find out anything about Maria Löwenstein or a connection between her and the Ternheims?”

  “No, I haven’t started researching.”

  “The question now, of course, is who is this Josef? Maybe her husband?”

  “Hold on, I can search for that right now.” He tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder and entered Josef Löwenstein into the search.

  “Nope, nothing. If he was her husband, then he wasn’t in the concentration camp.”

  “Or he was at another concentration camp. Or he isn’t in the database. Try to find out what you can about the prisoner. Maybe you’ll stumble across a Josef Löwenstein.”

  “Okay, will do. Gotten anywhere searching for Ben?”

  “No, we visited the home of Frank Richter, who was caught in the control room. We wanted to question him since he might have been involved with the murders. But we didn’t find him or Ben. Maybe Richter has gone underground now too. We will definitely keep an eye on the apartment and expand the manhunt to include Richter. We’ve just checked the addresses of two other activists who’ve been arrested with Ben at demonstrations. The two allegedly claim they haven’t seen him for weeks, and there was no evidence of him in their apartments.”

  “What about Ms. Ternheim’s car?”

  “Nothing yet. The guys from forensics are trying to save her phone’s SIM card, but they probably won’t get anywhere. The acid really penetrated the device.”

  “All right, I’ll get back to you when and if I find out anything else about Maria Löwenstein or Josef.”

  “Do that. And if you run into Jesus while you’re at it, say hi for me.” Fritz hung up.

  Hannes’s theory initially seemed to lead nowhere. Although he was able to find information on a total of six different Josef Löwensteins, all of them deported to concentration camps, he was unable to connect a single one of them to Maria Löwenstein.

  His phone rang.

  “Hannes, it’s Marcel. Isabelle and I were just at the farm. Mrs. Olsen is certain that the woman she saw walking along the road was Merle von Hohenstein. But that was all she could tell us.”

  “Then maybe she’s still in the area. What are you going to do now?”

  “We’ll ask around and distribute pictures of her. We’ll also visit the old painter again. We have to get him to talk!”

  “Good luck,” Hannes said. “I suspect questioning the other residents will get us nowhere. But keep us up to date if you find anything else out!”

  Hannes heard excited barking on the street, then the buzzer rang. Hannes opened his door. Socks came running up the stairs and jumped in his arms, almost knocking him over, and tried to lick his face. Anna reached the landing.

  “Hey, I saw a small Italian restaurant around the corner. What do you say about getting some pizza? We’ll need to stop by Ben’s place first, though. I think I left my purse there.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  Socks sniffed around the apartment, and Hannes brought the laptop inside. Anna peered over his shoulder. “What are you up to?”

  “Digging into the past. But I wasn’t getting very far. Let’s go.”

  On their way to the pizzeria, he told Anna about his day, even though he felt guilty sharing the details of their investigation. But the pressing need to speak to someone not involved in the case was overpowering, and it felt good.

  “I’m glad to have police protection, and Socks took care of me too. He’s a happy guy.”

  “I’m just glad he’s not lying depressed in the corner because Ben’s gone.”

  “Yeah, but after what you told me, he’s probably used to Ben being away.”


  As they approached Ben’s place to retrieve Anna’s purse before heading to the restaurant, they saw a small group of people standing in front of the gate. They were talking with the two policemen assigned to guard the residence.

  “Hi, Hannes!” Kalle shouted. “Did you bring any food with you?”

  Hannes was confused and then noticed Ines and Elke. “What are you doing here?”

  “What do you mean?” said Elke with a laugh. “You weren’t the only one invited!”

  He slapped his forehead. “I had totally forgotten!” He turned to Anna to explain. “Ben wanted to host a small party at his place tonight.”

  “So why are you here if you forgot about the party?” Ines asked.

  “I, uh, stayed with Ben a few nights and left some stuff here,” said Hannes. “Oh, Anna, this is Ines, Elke, and Kalle. I met them all on Monday night, including Ben.”

  “Found yourself another girlfriend, eh?” Kalle whispered loud enough that Anna could hear.

  “We got to know each other over the course of the investigation,” Anna said. “No girlfriend.”

  “That’s not what you told your neighbor the other night,” Hannes joked.

  “See what can go wrong in just two days?” she said and winked.

  “And does this friendly guy belong to you?” asked Kalle, pointing to Socks.

  “No, Socks is Ben’s dog, we were just watching him.”

  “Where’s Ben hiding?” Ines asked. “We’re curious about his little house, but your cop buddies won’t let us in.”

  “Oh, that’s right, you don’t know . . .”

  “Huh?” asked Elke. “Did Ben get into a fight with neo-Nazis?”

  All eyes were on Hannes, who was already sweating. He took a deep breath and said, “Ben’s on the run.” He then gave a quick rundown of the situation. Everyone was shocked.

  “And there’s no possibility of a mistake?” Ines asked.

  “The fingerprints matched.”

  “What if someone framed him?” asked Elke. “Ben isn’t the type to commit murder!”

  “So what do we do now? We brought wine and champagne, but something to eat would be nice,” said Ines.

  “There’s a small park around the corner,” said Kalle. “This is no time for a party, but we can at least have a small picnic.”

  “Uh, I think I should head home now,” Anna said.

  “Nonsense, you have to eat something! The park’s a perfect place to enjoy the evening. Where are you heading, anyway?” Hannes asked.

  “Tina’s back from the wedding, so I’ll have a safe roof over my head,” she teased.

  “Still, you should join us,” he said.

  “All right. We were going to get some pizza, anyway. We can have it in the park. But I still have to look for my purse.”

  After finding Anna’s purse, Hannes and Anna went to buy the pizza, then the whole group met up at the park and sat down together in a circle. Ben was the topic of conversation for a long time. Elke was unable to come to terms with what appeared to be an open-and-shut case. Hannes sat in silence for most of the time as the topic made him feel uncomfortable. Elke seemed to notice he was taking this all to heart and made a point of paying attention to him that evening. Anna got along well with Ines, especially once they both realized Anna had spent several weeks traveling through Africa as part of her trip around the world.

  “I’m sorry tonight didn’t go as planned,” Hannes said when they were all ready to leave.

  “It’s not your fault,” said Elke as she wrapped her arms around him. “We’ll try again soon. I’ll give you a call! You’re welcome to join too,” she said to Anna.

  Hannes and Anna stayed behind as the others made their way through the dark park.

  “There’s still a bottle of champagne left,” she said. “Should we try to enjoy the rest of the evening?”

  Hannes agreed, and they sat and sipped the champagne.

  “It’s strange,” Anna said. Hannes could see her green eyes glowing in the dark. “The two murders got me thinking. I spent the entire day lost in thought.” She rubbed a blade of grass between her fingers. “You know, I thought about what I really want to do with the rest of my life. Before, I always had one goal: go to school, get a degree, find a job, and so on. There was always something, and there was always change because, well, that’s normal. But now? I’ve been doing the same thing for so many years. I have a secure job, but I still don’t know what’s coming next. So is that it? Have I already achieved my goal in life? Somehow that sounds wrong to me. Funnily enough, I only realized this when I was standing in front of my dead boss. You never know when life ends; it’s out of our hands. So the question is, what’s left?”

  “Or what’s to come,” Hannes said.

  “Precisely! We don’t know. Either there’s something or there isn’t. But in both cases, we should take advantage of our lives as much as possible. When I think about the last few years, there are very few moments that stand out to me. All those years passed without anything special.”

  “Now you sound like my grandmother. She always said, ‘Hannes, when you get older, the years just slip through your fingers.’”

  Anna smiled. “Bad, right? I sound like an old woman already! But it’s true. I tell myself that the biggest challenge of my life can’t be how to spend my best years living so safe.”

  “But that’s what our society’s built on. Most people strive for this kind of life.”

  “Safety is very nice, but isn’t it also incredibly boring? How much do you miss out on because you’re following a known path? Shouldn’t life be a challenge? Shouldn’t we try to discover, to experiment as much as possible? Instead, we spend our days doing monotonous work and then at the end ask where all the time went. Sure, you have weekends and holidays to recover from work, but you’re often so exhausted you don’t have the energy to go explore.”

  “But there are also people who feel comfortable in their job.”

  “You mean the lucky few who were able to turn their passion into a profession? I don’t hate my job. And I know I should be grateful to even have a job, especially in these difficult economic times, and so on, and so on. But ultimately we just spend way too much time at work. And when you think about it, most of it’s just repetition and serves only to profit the company. You can slave away for years working for a company, and if you’re lucky, you’ll get recognized for it. But once you can no longer do what they ask, they get rid of you! It happened to my aunt. She was at the same company for forty years, was committed to the company, and never complained when she put in overtime. Then came new management, and she was laid off. Since then, she’s been taking pills made by Lagussa . . .”

  “But I think many people want security and structure in their lives. Look around: we all work, day after day. That’s how our system functions. If people were so unhappy with this situation, our free society would have undergone radical change a long time ago.”

  “Free society? You’re free only if you obey the rules—that’s not true freedom. The minute you want to follow a different path, you’re faced with limitations. A lot of people are afraid of that. We’re also distracted enough to never even consider if we’re happy or not. I only recently read that last year Germans watched an average of almost four hours of TV a day. On average! That doesn’t leave much time for reflection. Most go to work, where they have used their mind or body for the benefit of a company, and then they come home. Before they go to bed, they veg on the couch and watch lame TV shows that promise glamour and adventure—which very few people will ever experience. The shows are sold as reality. Then there are religions and substitute religions, and every now and then publicly organized mass drunkenness like Oktoberfest, all of which makes people lazy and content.”

  “So if it’s a big conspiracy, then who’s behind it? I don’t think business leaders meet regularly in Frankenstein’s castle to discuss how to keep people subdued.”

  “I don’t think so either. A co
nspiracy has nothing to do with it. We have ourselves to blame. I think we believe too many things are unchangeable, and we tell ourselves, ‘We have this system, so we must deal with it.’ They forget that it isn’t God given, that we were the ones who created it. Who says it always has to be a question of growth, profit, efficiency, money, and more growth? These ideas are almost considered natural laws. It sucks! We see what’s wrong, we see that this system doesn’t lead to a happy, contented life. I see that every day at the company. Sales figures reach new record highs year after year because many people can no longer cope without our drugs. People must now adapt to the system, otherwise it makes them go crazy.”

  Hannes realized once again that there was a lot more to this woman than he had realized. He remembered that he’d recently had a very similar conversation with Ben and Fritz. One of Ben’s arguments sprung to mind.

  “I agree with you on many points. But the real problem is that no one speaks about these things. Look in the papers, watch the talk shows—these fundamental questions are never discussed.”

  “Of course not, because we’ve weaned ourselves or have been weaned. The profiteers of the system cleverly realize that anyone who formulates such thoughts could easily be branded as a crazy fool, a communist, or an enemy of progress. But there’s no progress without critical thinking! And yet you’re ridiculed whenever you express such thoughts. Isn’t it ridiculous that anyone thinking beyond the norm is criticized? Shouldn’t everyone be doing this?”

  “What questions have you asked to get yourself labeled this way?”

  “Well, the fundamental question: What does a system that’s geared to the needs of people and nature look like? So far there hasn’t been one. Communism worked just as poorly as capitalism does. Capitalism didn’t win, it was just left over. I think that says it all.”

  “And what should this new system look like?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, but the starting point should be a discussion about how we want to live. What’s important is that we all have a good life that we can happily look back on. We just waste it as foolishly as we do any other commodity or resource.” Anna looked at her watch. “I have to get going now,” she said. They’d nearly emptied the bottle of champagne. “If I don’t show up, Tina’s going to be worried.”