Florin scanned through the report that a colleague had laid on his desk. ‘Herbert Liebscher, forty-eight years old, teacher. Divorced, no children.’ He looked up. ‘Who filed the missing persons report?’
‘The school principal. He described Liebscher as being very dependable, and has no idea where he might be. They’ve tried to reach him on his mobile numerous times, but they just keep getting his voicemail.’
‘What about the ex-wife? Has he contacted her?’
‘No. Apparently they’re not in touch any more.’
Beatrice walked up to Florin’s desk and peered over his shoulder. The image showing Herbert Leibscher was a typical old-style passport photo: head dipped slightly, a strained smile, a blurry blue background. A long face with pale blue eyes, a narrow nose and equally narrow lips. Heavy bags under the eyes.
His hands weren’t in the picture, of course.
‘Send a patrol car over to the school and make sure they get a comb or some other personal article that his DNA might be on,’ Beatrice directed their colleague. ‘A full-length photo would be good too, one we can see his hands in. And have someone go to his apartment. If he’s not there, ask the neighbours when they last saw him. It would be helpful to know as precisely as possible.’
Their colleague – what was his name again? Becker? – raised his eyebrows in disbelief. ‘You don’t say. We’re not idiots you know.’ With that, he turned on his heel and left.
Beatrice watched him go, completely baffled. ‘What was all that about? Was I – I wasn’t rude, was I?’ Seeing that Florin was struggling to contain a grin, she couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Come on, tell me, what’s so funny?’
‘You treated Bechner like he was still at the police academy.’ He stood up and gathered the files for their meeting, putting them under his arm. ‘He’ll go off to tell the others and confirm your reputation as a control freak.’
‘Control freak?’
‘Come on. You don’t exactly like letting other people handle things, do you?’
‘Well, when it comes to colleagues I don’t work with very often, I can’t know for certain how competent they are.’ But at least she knew the man’s name now. Bechner. She repeated it to herself a few times, glancing at the clock as she did so. Three minutes past three, they were late – wonderful. She hastily grabbed her notes and joined Florin, who was waiting for her by the door.
‘It would do you good to have a little more faith in others,’ he said softly. Looking at the picture of the shrink-wrapped hand on the top of his pile of documents, Beatrice wondered if he could really mean that seriously.
Their meeting with Hoffmann went like all their meetings with Hoffmann. He demonstrated his discontent with the results they had produced so far by puckering the corners of his mouth and sighing loudly. Florin was the only one he ever found favour in, so he took over reporting the investigations that they had undertaken so far. And he said she didn’t ever let anyone else take control! When Florin got to the part about the text messages the Owner had sent, Hoffmann’s attentiveness increased perceptibly. He trained his pale eyes on Beatrice.
‘Did you try to call him?’
‘Of course. But he had already turned the mobile off again. I’m sure he knows they can be used to locate people. The network he was connected to the second time was about fifteen kilometres away from the one the provider said he used the first time. He’s not dumb enough to use the same location twice.’
Hoffmann wrung out a thin smile. ‘I see. But nonetheless, you’re clearly the one he wanted to make contact with. So I expect you to exhaust all the possibilities that arise from that. Lure him into a trap, provoke him, force him to expose a weakness.’ He turned to Florin again. ‘I’m sure you’ll think of something, right? And you’ll soon have a forensic psychologist helping you too, and then it’ll be child’s play. The killer has given us the fishing rod – now we just have to put the right bait on the hook.’
Drasche was up next, presenting his findings: the fingerprints on the second handwritten document belonged, yet again, to Nora Papenberg. But Beatrice was only half-listening as he explained the details. Hoffmann’s last sentence was echoing in her mind. She doubted that a few well-chosen words would be enough to lure the killer out of his hiding place. She would have to give him something he really wanted.
The vehicle registration office had responded swiftly. By the time they got back to their desk from the meeting, Florin’s inbox yielded a list of cars, including their owners, for which the last three digits of the number plate and model type matched the clues from the cache. It wasn’t a long list: two VW Golfs, one of which was blue – a 2005 model, registered to Dr Bernd Sigart.
‘If this is him, then it was pretty easy this time,’ said Beatrice. She typed the name into Google, scanned through the first few entries and felt her pulse quicken. One more link and she found what she was looking for. There was no question they had found the right guy: someone who had lost everything. With scars inside and out.
‘We’ve cracked Stage Three,’ she said.
‘So why do you sound so depressed?’ Florin had just stood up to turn on the espresso machine, which came back to life with a gurgle.
‘Because when we read the note earlier, I had a different conception of what he meant by a loser.’ She cleared her throat and began to read the newspaper article she had found online.
‘“Three children and a woman lost their lives last night in a fire near Scharten im Pongau. The blaze, which may have been caused by work in the surrounding forest, broke out around 10 p.m. The now-deceased family were staying in a wooden cabin they had rented as a holiday home, and may have been killed in their sleep by the fire. The husband and father Dr Bernd S., a vet, had been called out on an emergency visit and returned only after the forest and cabin were already engulfed by the blaze. His attempt to push his way through into the burning building left him with smoke intoxication and burns of an unknown degree. He is currently in the emergency unit of Salzburg hospital and, according to the doctors, is out of danger. The firemen were on site until the early hours of the morning.”’
She remembered the story. The case had kept the investigators busy for months; it hadn’t been possible to unequivocally determine the cause of the fire, but they had managed to rule out arson.
‘What a tragedy,’ she heard Florin say softly behind her. ‘How long ago was that?’
‘Almost five years.’
He sat back down at his computer. ‘And here we have the next piece of the puzzle,’ he announced. ‘Sigart’s registered address: Theodebertstrasse thirty-three. The street contains a name, just like Nora Papenberg’s note said it would.’
They headed over to the address half an hour later, the story about the fire lying heavy as a stone in Beatrice’s stomach. She resolved to approach their conversation with Sigart with a great deal of sensitivity. The street name alone was enough to find the cache, so they didn’t need to visit him especially for that. But if he had known Nora Papenberg, they urgently needed to hear what he had to say.
Number thirty-three was a multi-storey building with small balconies, just a few degrees away from looking run-down. It seemed a very modest home for a vet. Beatrice rang the bell, and moments later a deep but soft voice came through the intercom.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s the police. We’re from the Salzburg Landeskriminalamt and need to speak to you briefly.’
No answer, nor the buzz of the door release.
‘Hello?’ she persevered.
‘What do you want from me?’
‘It’s about a current case – we have a few questions. It won’t last long.’
‘Okay. First floor.’
The stairwell smelt of rubber and fried garlic; a baby was screaming behind one of the doors on the ground floor. Sigart was waiting for them at the door of his flat, a haggard man whose jogging bottoms were hanging off him loosely. According to his file, he must have been in his mid-forties, but the dee
p lines in his face made him look a good ten years older. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, and it was only when he uncrossed them to stretch out a hand in greeting that Beatrice saw the burn scars. Raised, reddish tissue covering his left forearm from the elbow to the fingers, as well as on his neck, stretching up to just under his chin. She took Sigart’s hand and returned his firm pressure. ‘Beatrice Kaspary, Landeskriminalamt. This is my colleague, Florin Wenninger. We’re investigating a murder case and have a few questions we hope you might be able to answer for us.’
The flat was tiny. One room with a kitchenette and a small bathroom. Not a single picture on the walls, no mirror. In the corner, an old portable TV was perched on a stool. Next to it was a wobbly-looking table with just one chair, which Sigart now pointed to. ‘Have a seat,’ he said to Beatrice.
‘Thanks, but …’ Not wanting to be the only one sitting down, she accepted only when he fetched two folding chairs from the balcony and placed them around the table.
‘You may have heard on the news about the body that was found in a cattle pasture near Abtenau,’ Florin began. ‘It’s about that case. There’s a detail that led us to you.’
Sigart’s gaze wandered across the room. ‘A detail?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid I can’t be more specific than that. You’re not under suspicion – we’d just like to know whether the name Nora Papenberg means anything to you.’
Unlike Beil the day before, Sigart thought for a moment before he replied. ‘No, I’m afraid not. But it’s hard to answer your question properly.’ He spoke slowly, as if he had to check each word was correct before he was able to release it into the room. ‘I met so many people every day at the practice that it’s entirely possible Frau Papenberg was one of them.’ He paused. ‘If you like, I can look back through the files. Dr Amelie Schuster took over my practice and all its patients, and I’m sure she’d be happy to help you.’
That wasn’t a bad idea. Beatrice noted the vet’s name, then pulled the photos out of her bag. ‘This is Nora Papenberg. Perhaps you might recognise her face.’
She watched him closely as he studied the photos. But the tiny twitch, the barely discernible jolt that had passed through Beil yesterday, was absent in Sigart. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘I’m sorry.’
Beatrice tried not to let her disappointment show. ‘It’s very likely that there’s a connection between you and this woman. Maybe there’s something that might come back to you?’
He shook his head. ‘I hardly ever see people now. I’m sure you researched my background before you came here – in which case you must know—’ He stopped abruptly. Then he took a deep breath and continued: ‘I don’t work, I’ve sold everything and I’m living off the proceeds.’ He stroked his left hand over the scars, as if wanting to explore their heights and depths. ‘I only leave this flat when I need to buy food, or to go to my therapy sessions.’
The horror that had distorted Sigart’s existence grabbed hold of Beatrice for a split second, along with the irrational fear that his fate could seize her too.
‘Is it possible,’ she ventured cautiously towards a new thought, ‘that your wife knew Frau Papenberg? Was she perhaps in the advertising business?’
A shake of the head. ‘My wife worked in the practice with me. She took care of the administrative side. It was easy to balance that with … taking care of the children.’ Sigart turned his head to the side. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not able to talk about it.’
‘Of course. And you don’t have to.’ A quick glance at Florin, who shrugged helplessly.
‘We’ll leave our contact details here for you, Herr Sigart,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much for the suggestion about the client files, and for your time.’ He stood up, and so did Beatrice. But as they started to leave, she turned around again.
‘Does the name Christoph Beil perhaps ring any bells?’
Sigart, still trying to regain his composure, shook his head. ‘No. Who is that?’
‘Someone else we hoped might have known Nora Papenberg.’
Whether Sigart had heard them or not was hard to say, for he didn’t react. The last image Beatrice saw before she left the flat was of his hunched, trembling shoulders.
As they drove back to the office, Beatrice took out her mobile and dialled the number of the fire investigation department. ‘Please send me all the files on the fire near Scharten. Yes, the one the family died in. Sorry? No, it wasn’t murder, I realise that, but I still need some of the details for our current case.’
Her colleague promised to bring the files over right away. Returning her mobile to her bag, she leant back in the passenger seat. ‘Why did the Owner send us to Sigart? What does he stand to gain from that?’
‘Time, possibly.’ Florin honked the horn at the driver in front for braking too abruptly at a red light, then drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for the light to turn green again. ‘I think there are two possibilities. One – there’s a connection between Papenberg, Beil and Sigart that we’re not seeing. Or two – he’s keeping us busy by sending us to find people who have nothing whatsoever to do with the murder. But because he’s hiding body parts all over the place for us, we’re forced to follow his damn blood trail.’ He rubbed his hand over his forehead and sighed. ‘I just can’t stop thinking that the Owner is making fools of us, Bea. He’s murdering and dismembering people left, right and centre and leaving clues that no one can decipher.’ Florin turned to look at Beatrice. She had never seen his face look this hard. ‘I know it’s wrong, but I’m starting to take this case personally. If he wants to prove how incapable the police are, I’d rather he didn’t use me as a prop.’
Beatrice was just about to put a hand on his shoulder, but then thought of Anneke and stopped herself. ‘It’s just a question of time until the end of the case is in sight, and the rest will fall into place from there.’ It wouldn’t do her any harm to be the one to strengthen the team morale for a change. ‘It’s almost always like that.’
The lights switched back to green and the engine roared as Florin stepped on the accelerator. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But there’s something about this case that doesn’t feel right. Those threads you always talk about have been woven into a pattern that’s completely alien to me.’
It was as though Beatrice had brought the sensation of heat and smoke home with her along with the reports on the fatal fire. Even though both of the lounge windows were open, she was finding it harder than usual to breathe.
The children had gone to bed half an hour ago. Everything was quiet in the apartment, everything except the water tap in the kitchen, which had been dripping for three weeks now. She opened the file and began to read. The fire had been reported shortly before ten in the evening, by a farmer whose property was a few hundred metres uphill. He had noticed the glow of the blaze; there hadn’t been any smoke fumes as the wind was blowing in the other direction.
Beatrice flicked forwards to the photographs. The burnt-down wood. Remains of tree trunks protruded out of the ground like blackened teeth, with charred wood lying around them. In the background, you could just make out the part of the forest which had been untouched by the blaze.
The investigators had been unable to ascertain the cause of the fire. It was July at the time, and it hadn’t rained for three weeks. The most likely theory was that the reflection of a shard of glass or mirror during the day had created a smouldering fire, which was then transformed into a raging blaze by the evening breeze. A discarded cigarette couldn’t be ruled out, either.
When Beatrice got to the photos of the cabin, she instinctively held her breath. The walls had disappeared; only the thickest wooden beams had withstood the inferno, along with two sections of wall made out of stone.
She lingered longer than necessary over the pictures of the ravaged house, knowing what would come next.
Deep breath. Turn the page. A close-up of the remains of the cracked front door. Turn the page. There.
Four shapeless
clumps, as black as their surroundings. Shrunk to a fraction of their body size, no longer recognisable as human beings. Beatrice looked away, then back again. She found details she didn’t want to see. A flash of bright teeth behind charred lips. A burst skull. She clapped the file shut and went to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water.
Had Sigart identified his family back then? She searched for the record of his interview. He had returned when the wood was already ablaze, had tried to run into the fire and was forcibly held back by three firemen. He had been taken off to hospital with severe burns; his conversation with the authorities – which was recorded and later transcribed – had not taken place until nine days after the fire.
Every one of Sigart’s sentence fragments conveyed utter despair. According to the report, the interview had to be interrupted again and again because he began to scream and the doctors had to be called.
But one thing was abundantly clear from the document: he blamed himself for his family’s deaths. He had taken the car on an emergency call-out to a complicated birth at a stud farm, thirty kilometres away. As he drove off, his thoughts were already with the mother animal, which he had been taking care of for four years by then. He considered it possible that he had locked the cabin on autopilot, thereby transforming it into a deadly trap for his family. The investigation had concluded that the door had indeed been locked.
Sigart had initiated legal proceedings against himself, saying that he alone bore the responsibility for his family’s deaths, and had refused a lawyer. But of course – given the tragic circumstances – he couldn’t be held responsible for what had happened. The psychological report, a summary of which was included in the file, spoke of severe post-traumatic stress disorder, and of a high suicide risk. He was given access to therapy sessions, the ones which he was clearly still making use of today.
Beatrice tucked the files away in her bag and went out onto the balcony. Breathe. The sky was starry and clear, the air cool. Goose pimples pricked her arms.
Five Page 12
