Five

by Ursula P Archer

  ‘What?’

  He nodded, almost apologetically. ‘The blood was found on her jacket, blouse and trousers, and there were some small traces on her hands too.’

  The image that Beatrice had created of Nora Papenberg’s last hours in her mind suddenly started to crack. Lonely, frightened, tied up somewhere in the dark – perhaps it hadn’t been like that after all. She had someone else’s blood on her, the blood of a dead man. ‘Were there any scratches, any skin cells under her fingernails?’

  Florin shook his head. ‘Nothing of the sort. She had some grazes, of course, but they probably came from the fall off the rock face.’ He rubbed both hands over his face. ‘You’re thinking there might have been a struggle, right? The man attacks Nora Papenberg, she defends herself, making him bleed in the process – but what then? She kills him and saws him up into pieces? Hides his hand away in a plastic box? And then commits suicide? It all sounds pretty unlikely to me.’

  But the message they had found with the dismembered hand had been written by a woman, Beatrice was sure of it. ‘Well, we should ask the husband for a sample of Nora Papenberg’s handwriting anyway,’ she murmured, looking at her copy of the note. The script was very rounded. Quite girly, even. No man wrote like that. At certain points in the text, you could see that the writer’s hand must have been trembling.

  Beatrice traced the letters with her finger: it may be five years or even six.

  Why were the clues so vague? Did the Owner want to make it extra hard for them so more time elapsed before they found the next coordinates?

  The Owner, a man. Or maybe it was a woman. Maybe it was a woman who was already dead, who had left behind a strikingly unusual legacy.

  Beatrice leant over the photo and propped her forehead in both hands. It was time to come up with some scenarios.

  Let’s assume that the man whose hand they had found really had been killed by Nora Papenberg. That she had mutilated him, written the note, hidden the cache. Had the victim given her the tattoo first? If so, then there might be traces of her blood on the sawn-off hand. Beatrice made a note.

  New scenario.

  Let’s assume that the dead man hadn’t been the one who tattooed her – could Nora have done it herself? Beatrice’s common sense cried out in protest. Why would someone tattoo themselves on such a sensitive place as the soles of the feet?

  Self-punishment was one possibility. A form of penance, perhaps for killing and dismembering the man. And then … Papenberg had fastened her hands behind her back with cable tie and jumped off the cliff face.

  Absolute nonsense.

  ‘Florin, is it theoretically possible to tie your own hands up with cable tie?’

  Florin looked up from his notes. ‘Of course. You’d just need to use your teeth to do it at the front. But behind the back – I imagine that’d be pretty difficult. Impossible, in fact. Unless you’re flexible enough to climb through your own tied-up hands, if you see what I mean. Or … if you had a vice to clamp the ends of the cable tie together, then you could tighten the noose while your hands are in it.’ He frowned. ‘But then you wouldn’t be able to get the clamped end out.’ He pushed his notes aside. ‘Are you wondering whether Nora Papenberg staged the whole thing herself, including her own death?’

  ‘I just want to be certain we can rule it out, that’s all. The way things stand, she seems a plausible perpetrator in some ways: the blood of a murder victim on her clothes and possibly even her handwriting on the note in the cache box.’

  ‘Which we still need to check out.’ He rotated his pencil between his fingers, lost in thought. ‘So far, Papenberg’s record seems completely clean, not so much as a parking ticket. If she did kill the man, then it was probably in the heat of the moment. Or self-defence.’

  ‘Let’s look at the facts. The unidentified man whose hand we found died before Nora, do we agree on that? Good. So logic would suggest that there’s a third person involved.’ With the tip of her finger, she fished a few specks of wood from her mouth which had ended up there as a result of all the pencil-chewing. ‘After all, Nora did get a phone call from someone during her work dinner. Maybe it was a lover? So she fakes a headache and rushes off to meet the guy. But they get caught in the act, the wife tattoos the coordinates onto Nora, kills her husband, saws him up into pieces and hides one of his hands in the forest. Then she pushes Nora off the rock face to her death.’

  Even before she had finished the last sentence, Beatrice was already shaking her head. ‘No, women don’t act like that. A dismembered body suggests a male killer.’

  ‘There are exceptions.’

  ‘True. We shouldn’t rule out the possibility, but still …’ Beatrice reached for her notepad. ‘The ad agency. We need to question every single person who was there that evening. We’ll pester the pathologist’s office to give us the report on the sawn-off hand as soon as possible. And we’ll follow the Owner’s clues.’ She looked at Florin, hoping for his agreement, but he was gazing beyond her into the distance.

  ‘Those five days,’ he said. ‘So much time between her disappearance and her death. If we only knew what happened in that time span …’

  Without breaking eye contact, Beatrice pinned the enlarged printed photo of the letter on the board above their desk. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘In five days, a person can change completely if you push them hard enough. We should keep that in mind with everything we find out about her.’

  The thought stayed with her for the next few hours. Five days. She completed the list of choral Christophs and unearthed contact details for former choirmasters, but those five days kept circling relentlessly in her mind.

  ‘Good afternoon, this is Beatrice Kaspary from Salzburg Landeskriminalamt. Am I speaking to Gustav Richter?’

  ‘Erm, yes. What’s—’

  ‘Don’t worry, nothing’s happened. I just need some information from you. You lead the Arcadia chamber choir, if I’ve been correctly informed?’

  A relieved sigh. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have two rather unusual questions. Do you have a choir member called Christoph? Or a former member? The time period in question would be the last five to six years.’

  ‘Why do you want to know that?’

  ‘It’s connected to a current investigation. Unfortunately I can’t be any more specific than that.’

  ‘Aha. Yes, we do have a Christoph. Two, for that matter – Christoph Harrer and Christoph Leonhart – and they both still sing with us.’ A brief pause. ‘Are they in some kind of trouble?’

  ‘No, absolutely not. Did your choir perform Schubert’s Mass in A flat around six years ago?’

  This time, his answer came more quickly. ‘Yes, that sounds about right. Let me think for a moment – yes. It must be almost six years ago now.’

  Beatrice highlighted the two names.

  ‘You’ve been a great help, thank you.’ Her hand continued to hover over the notepad; one final question was burning on her tongue.

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘Is that all, Frau Kommissarin?’

  ‘Yes. No, sorry, just a moment – there’s one more thing, and it might sound strange, but I’ll ask anyway. Do either of the two men have a birthmark on their hand? Something big, quite noticeable?’

  ‘What? Why do you ask?’

  Beatrice sighed inwardly; it was an understandable reaction. ‘It could be an important detail in the case.’

  ‘A birthmark?’ He sounded slightly irritated, as if she was trying to make a fool of him. ‘I’ve no idea why that might be of interest to you, but I’m afraid I can’t help you there. I tend to concentrate more on my singers’ voices, as it happens.’

  Three further telephone enquiries revealed yet another Christoph. After that, the only choirs left on the list were the very small ones, and the ones whose choirmasters she had been unable to reach. ‘That’s already fourteen we have to check out in person.’ Beatrice flung her pencil down on the desk in exasperation. ‘With my luck the last one
will end up being the one we’re looking for. None of the choirmasters so far knew anything about a birthmark.’

  ‘Same here.’ Florin’s outstretched arm fished for Beatrice’s notes. ‘I’ll just type everything up, then get Stefan to hunt out the addresses.’

  ‘Okay. I really need to grab a bite to eat. Can I bring you anything?’

  Florin shook his head silently, already populating the table on his screen with names. The glum twist of his mouth reflected her own mood: yet another weekend without any time off.

  One steak sandwich later, Beatrice ran into Stefan on her way back to her office. He was eagerly waving a sheet of paper at her.

  ‘I’ve got a few addresses for you, and also the rehearsal times for four of the choirs. Interested?’

  ‘You bet. Thanks!’ She quickly scanned through the information. One of the choirs was rehearsing tonight at seven in the Mozarteum. She could just make it if she picked the kids up first, cooked them dinner and then asked Katrin to watch them for an hour. The neighbour’s daughter’s piggy bank must be almost bursting by now.

  ‘Perfect.’ Florin nodded as she explained her plan to him. ‘I’ll pick you up at a quarter to seven.’

  By seven, after laminating schoolbooks, putting a load of washing on, cooking carbonara and taking a quick shower, Beatrice was sitting in the passenger seat next to Florin, hoping she didn’t still smell of garlic.

  ‘Christoph Gorbach and Christoph Meyer. Blue eyes and a birthmark. It shouldn’t take long.’

  ‘No,’ replied Florin gruffly.

  Beatrice resisted the impulse to give him a friendly nudge – after all, he was concentrating on the road. ‘You’re annoyed because of this weekend, right? Have you already told Anneke about the new case?’

  Florin shrugged. ‘I’m wondering whether I should cancel. I mean, there’s no point her coming all this way if I have to work.’ He turned off into Paris-Lodron-Strasse.

  ‘Why cancel just yet? We’ll bring Stefan onto the team – he’s really fired up by the case and practically working on it already anyway.’ She looked at Florin’s profile. ‘He and I will make sure that we find the right Christoph, then …’

  Florin braked abruptly and manoeuvred into a space that had just become free at the side of the road. ‘Have you considered the possibility,’ he said, his gaze fixed on the rear-view mirror, ‘that this whole puzzle nonsense could just be a red herring? The sick little mind games of a killer who wants to throw us off his scent by sending us on this ridiculous birthmark hunt?’

  The idea had indeed occurred to Beatrice, earlier that evening when she was in the shower. They certainly couldn’t rule out the possibility that they were allowing themselves to be led down the garden path, giving the killer enough time to erase his or her tracks.

  ‘We’ll see. If it turns out there’s no man who meets the Owner’s description, then all we’ll have lost is a little time.’

  ‘Yes, but we’ll have lost it to him,’ Florin objected.

  The plastic container pushed its way back into Beatrice’s mind. The dead hand.

  ‘We don’t have any other choice but to play the game, Florin. I don’t like it any more than you do.’

  They parked up and got out. Florin took her arm as they crossed the road, making their way towards the steel-and-glass cube that housed the Salzburg Mozarteum. ‘The thing that makes me most angry,’ he said, ‘is the feeling that he’s really enjoying all of this.’

  ‘Pia mater, fons amoris’

  Male voices singing in unison. A slow descent into inconsolable grief.

  Beatrice paused in front of the door to the rehearsal room and lifted her hand to turn the door handle. But she couldn’t bring herself to push it down. From all the songs they could have been rehearsing, it would have to be this piece.

  ‘Pia mater, fons amoris

  Me sentire vim doloris’

  The female voices had tuned in now, soaring and full of hope.

  ‘Fac, ut tecum lugeam.

  Fac, ut ardeat cor meum

  In amando Christum Deum,

  ut sibi complaceam.’

  Beatrice hadn’t heard it since that day, but every note was familiar to her, every detail burnt into her memory. The smell of incense and flowers and grief, but above all the bitter metallic taste on her tongue that had stayed with her for months on end. Guilt was something that had to be suffered slowly.

  ‘Beautiful,’ whispered Florin at her side. ‘I don’t know what it is though … Puccini?’

  ‘No. Joseph Rheinberger, the Stabat Mater.’ She could feel that something inside her, something that had to remain hard at all costs, was starting to be softened by the music.

  ‘I’m impressed. Where do you know it from?’

  ‘It’s often sung at funerals.’ She pressed the door handle down brusquely. ‘Right then, it’s time to play. Our move.’

  While Florin asked the two Christophs to step out of the rehearsal room so they could speak with each of them in turn, Beatrice pushed the unwelcome memory back into the hidden recesses of her mind, the place where it usually stayed, and tried to concentrate on the matter at hand.

  It soon became apparent that they hadn’t hit the bull’s eye first time. Christoph Gorbach had only been in the choir for just under two years. The backs of his hands were very hairy, making it hard to tell at first, but on closer inspection there was no birthmark. Christoph Meyer, in turn, was a little hesitant to show his hands to Beatrice initially, but that was more down to his chewed fingernails than any conspicuous changes in skin pigmentation.

  ‘Well, it was always unlikely we were going to find him right away,’ said Florin with a faint smile as they left the rehearsal room and walked back out to the car. ‘Anneke’s flight is landing in Munich at half-two tomorrow, and I was hoping to pick her up,’ he added. Feeling his sideways glance, Beatrice nodded.

  ‘Let’s work flat out in the morning, then you head off whenever you need to. I can carry on with Stefan and come in at the weekend.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. Achim will have the kids.’ He said he might be getting me a cat. She turned her head to the side, gazing out of the car window.

  They were almost there now. As Florin double-parked in front of her building, she nodded to him, opened the door and got out.

  ‘Wait, I almost forgot!’ He turned around and reached for something which, in the dark, just looked like a shapeless lump. ‘Make sure you tell Jakob they’re an endangered species.’

  Grey-brown fur. Huge yellow plastic eyes. ‘Elvira the Second,’ murmured Beatrice. ‘Thank you. You’ve really helped me out there, I’d forgotten all about the massacred owl.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’ His eyes were tired, but he was smiling broadly. ‘Sleep well.’

  Her laptop was whirring so loudly that Beatrice worried it would wake the children, who had reluctantly crawled into bed only half an hour before. Jakob had immediately grabbed the new Elvira, stubbornly refusing to give it back. He gave in eventually, but not without a great deal of tears, for which Mina had called him a ‘stupid crybaby’.

  No, the laptop wasn’t running very well at all. Beatrice gave it a smack, which instead of muting the noise just made it more noticeable. Presumably something had made its way into the ventilation slot and was now rattling around in the cooling system. Another quick smack and the rattling became a hum, considerably quieter now. Good, that had clearly done the trick.

  Beatrice checked her emails, making sure there was nothing that needed an immediate response, then opened her browser.

  She typed www.geocaching.com into the address bar. The site appeared on the screen; the colour logo and, a little further down on the right, an icon in the form of a little television with the prompt: WATCH! Geocaching in 2 Minutes. The link led her to an animation which depicted, more or less, exactly the same things Stefan had explained to them the day before. Watching the little white cartoon figures search for orange boxes amidst a colourful
animated landscape, Beatrice thought about the Owner. It was very likely that he had watched the film at some point too. Had he intended to fill his caches with such macabre contents back then?

  ‘He’. Why is the killer always a he in my head? Her fingers drummed on the touchpad, making the mouse icon dart across the screen in abrupt jolts. On the right-hand side there was an option to select caches in your neighbourhood, but the coordinates could only be shown once you had registered and logged on.

  A Basic Membership on Geocaching.com is free, the site announced cheerfully. Beatrice clicked on the grey button and was redirected to the registration form.

  A username. Reminded of Stefan’s – ‘Undercover Cookie’ – she couldn’t help but grin.

  Lost in thought, she stroked her fingertips across the keyboard. Something inconspicuous, innocuous. The cuddly owl caught her attention. Elvira. Excellent – but unfortunately the nickname was already taken. ‘We won’t let that deter us though, will we?’ she murmured, typing Elvira the Second into the text field.

  The registration process was uncomplicated enough, and soon the coordinates of the hiding places lay before her; it was even possible to look at each individual one on a geocaching Google map.

  The maps were a great deal more helpful than the coordinates. Without hesitating for long, Beatrice searched for Lammertal, the region near Abtenau where Nora Papenberg’s body had been found.

  No, there was no cache listed there. There were a few in the surrounding area, clearly marked by little white box icons with green or orange lids. On the other side of the river, a blue question mark denoted a – what had Stefan called it again? – a ‘mystery cache’, that was it. But none of the hiding places were within 500 metres of the crime scene. Without taking her eyes off the map, Beatrice leant back and dragged the mouse down eastwards. She lost her orientation and accidentally expanded the scale so much she could see half of Salzburg. Your search has exceeded 500 caches, the program complained.

  ‘Okay, calm down, hang on.’ She zoomed back in. The stone chasm had to be somewhere around here. Searching the map, Beatrice noticed that there was a regular cache very close to the place where she and Florin had found the box with the dismembered hand. She read through the profile of the corresponding owner, then the comments of the successful treasure hunters. The container was hidden in a hole under a rock. But the most gruesome object in it was apparently a cross-eyed plastic pig.