Five

by Ursula P Archer

  Florin’s chest rose and fell slowly and calmly. Beatrice tried to match the rhythm of her breathing with his. All around them, policemen were roaming around the meadow, and from snatches of their conversation she could tell they were looking for Sigart.

  ‘I kept a lookout for your car, but I couldn’t see it anywhere, even though there were plenty of parking spaces free in front of your building. So I rang your doorbell and tried to reach you on your mobile again. Then I drove back to Sigart’s flat and scoured the surrounding streets. That’s when I found your car.’

  And you immediately worked out what had happened? Beatrice tried to get her question out clearly. It took a while, but she managed it.

  ‘It was my first theory, yes. The cellar in the forest. A shot in the dark, to be honest, but when we found your mobile down there I knew I’d been right.’

  ‘M-mine and … N-Nora’s.’

  ‘No. Just yours. But you weren’t there. Then we found the sign on the slats of the shed, a six, and everything became clear.’

  ‘Sigart,’ whispered Beatrice. ‘D-do you already know, w-where …’

  ‘No. I’m not sure, but I thought I saw someone disappearing into the forest as we arrived. Maybe it was him, maybe it was just an animal.’

  Had he waited? To find out how their bet would turn out? ‘I w-w-won,’ she whispered. ‘Florin? My mobile. P-please.’

  ‘Really?’

  She nodded. Sigart had taken Nora Papenberg’s mobile with him and left her own. And I know why.

  ‘Stefan?’ Florin didn’t let her go. ‘Beatrice wants her phone – could you bring it to her, please?’ She felt him stroke her hair gently, and closed her eyes. Maybe she would sleep after all, just for a moment.

  ‘What did you win?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘You just said you’d won.’

  ‘Oh. Something … like a bet.’

  Florin didn’t probe further. Every time Bea shuddered, he held her closer, as if he wanted to absorb the trembling with his own body. Now and then, a drop of water fell from his hair onto Beatrice’s cheek, running down it like a tear.

  Then Stefan came with the phone. He squatted down next to them. ‘The ambulance will be here in a moment. I just called to check.’ He smiled shyly at Bea. ‘Are you feeling better?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. We were so shocked before when we found you in the well. Didn’t you hear us shouting for you?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Florin climbed down straight away, and he would probably have brought you up even without a rope if he had to.’ Now his smile wasn’t so shy any more.

  ‘Thank you, Stefan. Could you give Bea her phone now, please?’

  She tried to sit up straight, but even a hint of a movement hurt; every muscle in her body felt sore. Florin supported her as she reached for the phone, but her fingers were too clammy and stiff to be able to hold it. It fell next to her in the grass. She clasped her whole hand around it, but it was like trying to handle an instrument she had no experience with whatsoever. The mobile slipped out of her fingers again. ‘Did you put the battery back in?’

  ‘No, we found it like that,’ said Stefan. Florin released one of his arms from her and reached for the phone.

  Then it had been Sigart. In case the police turned up. And they had.

  ‘Do it for me,’ she asked Florin, once Stefan had gone back to the squad car on the street with his walkie-talkie. ‘The pin is three seven nine nine.’

  That familiar beeping sound as he pressed the buttons. The melody with which the device signalled it was ready for action.

  But nothing else.

  ‘No new messages?’ she asked, to make sure.

  ‘No. Lie back down, okay?’ He pulled the blanket right up to her neck. ‘Your circulation isn’t stable again yet. Do you think you could manage to eat something? Bechner has some chocolate in his bag, and the emergency doctor said on the phone that the combination of sugar and fat helps to warm the body up.’

  Shivers and laughter shook her body simultaneously. ‘If I pinch Bechner’s chocolate he’ll like me even less than he already does.’

  Florin pressed her against him, but differently this time, as if he wanted to share more than just body heat. ‘I think that’s a risk you should take.’

  ‘Okay,’ she murmured. There was a small, curved scar on Florin’s chest, just below his collar bone. She wanted to reach out and stroke it, but she couldn’t move her fingers. ‘Damn.’

  ‘Hmm? What did you say?’

  Had she spoken out loud? ‘Nothing. Just that I’m tired—’

  All of a sudden, Beatrice’s mobile beeped, and she jumped as if she had been electrocuted. A new message. No question as to who it was from. She was suddenly overcome by the searing fear that Sigart hadn’t kept to their agreement. What if he was sending photos of Mooserhof in flames? Why hadn’t she got a hold of her wits quicker? A squad car could already have been on its way to make sure everything was okay with her family. To make sure they were all alive.

  ‘Bea? Are you feeling worse?’

  ‘No … I – open it, Florin.’ She closed her eyes tightly, pressing her eyelids together. ‘Is it a photo?’

  For a second he didn’t answer, and she felt as though something was about to tear apart inside her.

  ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘But I don’t understand all of it.’

  ‘Show me.’

  Florin held the mobile in front of her face. At first, the words blurred before her eyes, but then the letters became clear and sharp.

  Thanks for the hunt, Beatrice.

  JAFT.

  N47º 28.239 E013º 10.521

  She should have been relieved, but the only relief she felt was for her children. He wouldn’t do anything to them now. Or anyone. It was over. She said the word silently to herself again and again, but it didn’t take away the emptiness that was spreading out inside her.

  ‘He’s sent us new coordinates.’ Florin seemed to be hardly able to believe it. ‘Hasn’t he realised that we’ve initiated a major manhunt for him and that we won’t play his games any more?’

  ‘Yes. He has. No doubt about that.’ She would have to explain to Florin exactly what Sigart had been thanking them for each time. Just Florin. But not today.

  ‘JAFT. What does that mean?’

  Beatrice remembered that particular abbreviation; it was one that had amused her. One that was easy to remember. ‘Just another fucking tree,’ she murmured as the ambulance pulled up on the road above. ‘It’s a tree cache with rope technique.’

  Florin couldn’t be talked out of going in the ambulance with Beatrice. The call came while they were still en route to the hospital. Using the coordinates in the text message, Stefan had found Sigart. Hanging from a tree.

  So quick. He must have prepared it all in advance – after all, it was easier to tie a noose with ten fingers than with seven.

  The doctor checked the drip administering Beatrice with warm saline solution. She closed her eyes. A loser, with scars inside and out. Had he had a chance to win something after all, in the end?

  A bet, perhaps. Or a departure on his own terms. The aeroplane circled around Beatrice’s bed, carrying out daring manoeuvres and making worrying noises.

  ‘I’m a Boeing 767, and I’m just about to land in Africa,’ crowed the plane.

  ‘Be quiet! Mama needs to rest.’ Mina was sitting next to Beatrice, holding her hand carefully, as if she was made of spun sugar. ‘He’s always so loud. Watch out, he’ll knock the drip over in a minute.’

  Jakob really was dangerously close to the drip stand, sweeping the newspapers off the side table with his emergency turn.

  ‘Jakob! Pick those up at once!’ Mina’s usual commanding tone, but by her standards it was almost loving.

  ‘Whoooosh! I’m a deep-sea digger, and I’m pulling the sunken ship up-up-uuuup!’ The pile of papers landed back on the table with a loud clap.

  In two days, Beatrice would b
e able to go home. She longed so much for her release that it almost hurt.

  ‘Shall we go for a special meal when I get out? What do you guys think? Or should I cook?’

  ‘No, you’re not so good at cooking,’ said Jakob, planting a wet kiss on her forehead. ‘I want to go to McDonald’s.’

  ‘And you?’ Beatrice stroked the back of Mina’s hand.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe something at home. Or … we could eat at Mooserhof, and Papa could come too.’ She looked at Beatrice hesitantly. ‘Do you think that would be okay?’

  Well, he doesn’t have to sit next to me, I guess. ‘Of course. Let’s do this – one evening we’ll eat at Oma’s, one at McDonald’s, and I’ll cook on the other.’

  ‘And then we’ll start back at the beginning and do it all again,’ cried Jakob, falling sideways across her.

  There was a knock at the door, and Richard came in. Yellow roses in his left hand, and a newspaper in his right. Since discovering that the man who had nearly killed his sister had used him as the main source of information on her past, he hadn’t once turned up at the hospital empty-handed.

  ‘There’s something new about the case in the paper again,’ he said, lifting Jakob down from Beatrice. ‘An interview with your boss, Hoffmann.’

  ‘Oh, God. What’s he saying? That’s he’s proud of having solved the case despite the incompetence of his colleagues?’

  ‘No. He’s praising everyone actually. Including himself, of course.’

  She would read it later. Or maybe never.

  Richard asked an exasperated nurse for yet another vase and busied himself with putting the roses in water. Mina told new stories about Cinderella the cat and Jakob played at being a steam engine. Beatrice’s thoughts, however, wandered back to Bernd Sigart. The analyses were coming thick and fast in the papers; forensic psychiatrists had given interviews, including Kossar, who had depicted Sigart as one of his post-traumatic stress cases with aggressive behavioural patterns.

  Platitudes. Not wrong, not by any means. But not complete either.

  If I had finished my studies, would I have realised sooner who the Owner really was? The thought had been on Beatrice’s mind for days now. She had asked Richard to get her some information on courses she could do alongside her work, but her request had fallen on deaf ears. She was supposed to be resting.

  Half an hour later, Richard decided she needed some peace and promised the children an ice cream, taking them off to Mooserhof.

  My ex-husband drops them off, my brother picks them up, my mother cooks for them. Beatrice turned over and closed her eyes. Richard was right. Studying on top of her existing workload wasn’t a good idea.

  When she woke up again, Florin was sitting by her bed. She knew he was there even before she opened her eyes; she smelt his aftershave and smiled instinctively. Then she sniffed. There was a second scent in the room.

  ‘The focaccia is still warm,’ she heard him say. ‘Goat’s cheese, prosciutto and spinach. And antipasti with sun-dried tomatoes and chard involtini.’

  ‘Delicious,’ she murmured, still with her eyes closed. ‘And the Prosecco?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. We’ll make up for that later. But I can offer you three kinds of freshly pressed juices. Orange and mango, pear and elderberry, or papaya and kiwi.’

  He had pulled his chair close to her bed and was waiting patiently for her answer, his elbows propped on his knees, his chin in his hands. Beatrice pushed her hair out of her face and sat up. He didn’t want her to thank him for his daily visits with gourmet treats – he had already made that perfectly clear.

  Each day, she resolved to ask him why he was making so much effort, but every time he was sitting next to her she couldn’t get the words out. She didn’t know what answer she wanted to hear.

  ‘Carolin Dalamasso dropped the complaint,’ said Florin, interrupting her thoughts. ‘Hoffmann was a little crestfallen, but he’s enjoying the limelight too much right now for it to have that big an impact.’

  So she wouldn’t be suspended. Beatrice took a deep breath. She had suppressed the thought so much that only the relief she was feeling right now told her how much it had bothered her.

  She reached out for the small fork Florin had laid on a dark blue serviette and speared one of the sun-dried tomatoes. ‘Are you eating too?’

  He looked down at his hands briefly, then into her eyes. ‘No. Anneke’s here, we’re going for dinner in half an hour.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’ Guiding the tomato into her mouth in such a way that the oil didn’t drip down onto the bedding was demanding all her concentration. That was good. The time it took to master the manoeuvre would allow her to regain her composure. ‘Then hurry up, don’t be late. You see each other so rarely, and you see me every day.’

  He didn’t answer, instead handing her a piece of focaccia, warm and aromatic. She took it, gesturing at the door with her head at the same time. ‘Go on, don’t leave her waiting.’

  Florin nodded. ‘Are you sure you’ve got everything you need?’

  There was something in the tone of his voice that made Beatrice think he wasn’t just talking about the food.

  ‘Absolutely,’ she said.

  ‘Okay, then see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Listen, you don’t have to come, if Anneke—’

  ‘I know I don’t have to,’ he interrupted her. ‘See you tomorrow then.’

  At the door, he turned around one more time. ‘I left a little something there for you. I hope you like it.’

  She looked around and couldn’t see anything. But when she turned back to ask Florin, he was already gone. With a sigh, not knowing if it was one of contentment or longing, she leant back onto her pillow and ate until there was nothing left. Then she flicked through the TV channels, not finding anything that interested her, and reached over to the side table for the book that she had started the day before. The Terrors of Ice and Darkness had been lying around unread on her bookshelf for years, but after the night in the well she had asked her mother to bring it to the hospital for her. No one except Beatrice had been overly amused, but she liked the style of writing. She opened it, plunging with the helplessly lost Admiral Tegetthoff into the pack ice of the North Sea.

  All of a sudden, she was interrupted by the warm tones of Frank Sinatra, singing the opening to ‘Moon River’, her favourite song. Looking around, she saw a mobile phone on the bedside table, but it wasn’t hers. Confused, she picked it up and tapped to open the message blinking on the screen: For Bea, it said. Florin’s present. She waited for the song to finish before reading the rest of the message:

  Sleep tight. Florin x.

  She stared at the three words for a long time. Then she laid the book aside, gazed up at the ceiling and listened to the nocturnal sounds of the hospital.

  After a long while, she turned out the light.

  Afterword

  Most geocachers are nice people. I know, because I’m one of them. They love nature, treat it with the utmost respect, and even tend to clear away other people’s rubbish if they stumble across it. I just wanted to say that.

  If you happen to own a GPS device, find yourself near the coordinates in the book, and feel the urge to seek out the places depicted in it, then I hope you have a great time – you’ll get to see some of Salzburg’s idyllic spots. I admit I had to tweak reality here and there for the sake of the story – like moving the odd rock face by a few hundred metres, for example. But in general you’ll find the places look pretty much the same as they did to Beatrice and Florin, apart from the caches and their gruesome contents, that is. A word of warning: if you get to the final coordinates, watch out for the stinging nettles.

  You’ll find a wooden shed there too, by the way, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you what’s inside it (it’s not my shed, after all); here, too, I adapted the facts to fit the story. While I’m on the topic, I’d like to apologise to the owners for what I did to their property in my imagination.

  A thank you to: />
  Ruth Löbner, for driving the indecisiveness out of Beatrice and cracking a few really hard nuts with her. I initially used a good few superlatives here when writing about Ruth, before deleting them because she would probably be embarrassed. But that doesn’t make them any less true;

  Lieutenant Colonel Andreas Huber, who offered me important and fascinating insights into the work of the Salzburg criminal investigation department, an indispensable help during the writing process. But the ‘poetic licence’ which I employed for the novel and any possible mistakes that slipped past me are solely on my head;

  My editor Katharina Naumann, who I overburdened not only with my Austrianisms, but also with number puzzles – the former are probably here to stay, but the latter won’t be. That’s a promise;

  My agency, AVA International, who took my announcement at our first meeting (‘I’d like to live from writing, and I’d like to start doing so quickly’) more than literally;

  Leon and Michael, who roamed all over Salzburg with me searching for good hiding places for body parts.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781448162116

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Vintage 2014

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  Copyright © Ursula P. Archer 2012

  English translation copyright © Jamie Lee Searle 2014

  Ursula P. Archer has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work