The back wall of the house had no windows and was lined with tall hawthorn bushes, making it extremely dark. Nik finally reached a small forecourt, where there was a shelter for the rubbish bins and two parking spaces. And just to the side of that was the back entrance he’d been hoping to find. It was almost impossible in the dark to see if there were motion sensors or cameras. The lock on the door was just a regular Yale. No second dimple lock and no other kind of security device. Things were working out well. Nik took out his mini lock pick and put the clamp in the lock. It was a long, thin instrument that would have looked more at home in a dentist’s surgery and was the part he would use later to untwist the lock. Thanks to the internet, he’d been able to buy an electropick – a battery-powered device that looked much like an electric toothbrush, but instead of a brush it had a vibrating mechanism that would work the cylinder much faster than a normal lock pick. In just ten seconds, the pins in the lock had been pushed down and Nik could turn the clamp. The door opened.
Nik hurried inside, and just as he was about to close the door he spotted two figures standing in the hall. One of them was a large man who was pointing a gun at Nik, and beside him was a woman, equally neat and well dressed. Any hint of friendliness from the man was ruined by the scar linking his left eyebrow to his ear. As the second figure moved towards him, Nik recognised her features.
‘Disappointing, Herr Pohl,’ said the blonde woman. ‘Did you really think the doors didn’t have any cameras?’
Nik groaned regretfully and raised his hands.
‘But please, come on in.’ She gestured towards the hallway that led further into the house. ‘I’d like to introduce you to someone.’
Nik was frisked by Scarface, then the blonde woman tied his hands behind his back with cable ties. He wasn’t going to get away a second time. The man led him along the hall by the arm while the blonde woman walked a couple of steps behind. Nik wasn’t going to leave the place alive if he didn’t get those ties off but they were pulled tight and made of thick plastic. Tearing them would be impossible. He would need something sharp.
They walked through a large kitchen with two hobs, two ovens and an industrial dishwasher. Blondie pushed open a door that led them into a wide hallway with a polished granite floor covered with a red carpet that ran to the front door. On the walls were portraits of men who looked like Eberhard Lossau. Nik had never understood the fascination with displaying paintings like that, but it said a lot about the family.
A large staircase led from the hallway up to the first floor. The high ceilings and elaborate interior all reminded Nik of the old manor houses in Gone with the Wind. It was suffocatingly warm throughout, and Nik contemplated that keeping the house in such good condition and heated in the winter must cost the family a fortune.
He was led into a library full of heavy wooden floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with books. The room felt sinister. Flames were flickering in the fireplace and a candelabra stood proudly on a desk. Other than that, there was no lighting. In front of the fire stood a small, dainty woman with grey hair tied back in a bun. She was looking at herself in the mirror above the fireplace. She wore a long evening gown that fitted snugly at the top but flowed out elegantly on the bottom half. She was playing with a pearl necklace around her neck, trying to decide if it was the right piece of jewellery for her outfit. Scarface shoved Nik closer to the fire then took a step back, submerging into the darkness, while Blondie went to stand beside the woman.
Nik recognised Eberhard’s features on the face reflected in the mirror. The years had dug deep grooves into her face but she was slim and still pretty. She would have been breathtaking in her younger years but there was a pinched expression around her eyes; a look that was filled with bitterness and exposed years of shame and humiliation. Nik scanned the room for something he could use as a weapon. The only things were the logs at the fireplace and the fire poker. But they would be useless with his hands tied behind his back. There was also a large sofa with worn-away leather and a small side table on which stood a crystal carafe filled with water and a crystal glass. The woman put down her pearls.
‘Do you have children, Herr Pohl?’
‘None that I know of but I could call my ex,’ answered Nik.
Scarface hit him on the back of the head. Nik was desperate to retaliate but he also wanted to know why he wasn’t already dead and lying in the snow somewhere and as he didn’t want to spoil his chances of finding out, the hit would have to be ignored. For the time being.
‘But if you did have them, you’d do everything you could to make them happy, wouldn’t you?’ the woman went on. ‘Help them get through life . . . Show them the ways of the world?’
Nik wasn’t sure where this conversation was leading, especially as the woman in front of him didn’t seem to have an ounce of motherly warmth or affection about her. ‘Of course.’
‘And if that child didn’t turn out how you’d hoped. If it was . . . deformed in some way, would you still love it and protect it?’
‘It’s not the child’s fault.’
‘Well, then we understand one another.’ The woman opened another jewellery box and took out a tasteful and exquisitely made silver chain adorned with small diamonds.
‘What’s going on here?’ asked Nik. ‘There’s no way you brought me up here to talk about children.’
‘Perhaps you’re aware that Eberhard is my son.’
Nik gave an impatient hum to say ‘yes’, and subsequently received another blow to the back of the head.
‘Why are you making so much effort to find out everything you can about Eberhard?’
‘Because I believe he’s responsible for the disappearance of three women and that he murdered at least one of them.’
The grey-haired woman put the chain up to her neck. ‘That’s not his fault.’
Nik was surprised. It wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. A denial or an angry retort perhaps, but not a confession.
‘So he was involved?’
The woman sighed. ‘People used to say the Lossau boys were cursed. The villagers were always polite and said hello, but they would hide their daughters as soon as they saw us coming. And quite rightly so.’ She put down the necklace and walked back to the jewellery box. ‘Nowadays they call it a hereditary disease. A genetic defect . . . or a mutation. But nobody has found a cure that will prevent the insanity from being passed down.’ She looked at Nik in the mirror. ‘My father-in-law was a horrible man. Violent, heartless. But he had so much power nobody could do anything to stop him. I knew what the marriage to his son would be like the very first time I met him. Every other woman would have run. But I didn’t have a choice, as it had all been arranged years in advance.’ She ran her fingers over her cheeks. ‘I was lucky, you see, because I wasn’t Willibald’s type. He’d hit me and kick me . . . and tie me up and rape me when he came home after drinking sessions with his friends. But that was nothing compared to what he’d do to all those girls who were stupid enough to get involved with him. Blinded by his money and power.’ She took out yet another necklace. Wild pearls with a dark agate heart at one end. ‘It was so easy to cover things up back then. No DNA tests, no security cameras, no computers. But things are different now.’ She held up the necklace to her neck. ‘When I was pregnant, I prayed to God it would be a girl but he only half answered. I was pregnant with twins. Eberhard and Zita. And while my girl grew into the perfect princess, I recognised the Lossau curse in Eberhard. He was wild and unpredictable and prone to tantrums from a young age. All the typical traits of the male lineage. It wasn’t an easy time and got even worse when he discovered his sexuality.’
Nik was looking at the woman in the mirror. Even behind the harshness, he recognised sorrow and regret, the longing that everything could have been different. ‘That damned blood,’ she said, mostly to herself.
‘That’s your excuse?’ Nik asked. ‘That a hereditary disease turns all the Lossau men into psychopaths?’
�
�Ah, you see. Now we’ve come back full circle to the beginning of our conversation. What would you do if it was your child?’
‘Not allow him to kidnap and kill women.’
‘I didn’t allow it.’ She raised her voice for the first time since Nik arrived. ‘I did everything I could to try and stop it. I had Eberhard tested, went to the top psychiatrists. Even got him a bodyguard to try to prevent the worst eventualities. But it did nothing. What was I supposed to do? Lock him up?’
‘Yes!’ said Nik. ‘And because you didn’t, people died. You could have saved those women’s lives. Viola, Kathrin and Olga. Not to mention Tilo, Leopold and Jon.’
She looked at him in the mirror. ‘Was that your partner, this Jon?’
‘Yes.’ Nik lowered his head.
The woman took her eyes off Nik again and looked at the necklace.
‘Was it worth it?’ asked Nik quietly. ‘Killing all these people for the sake of your son?’
‘If you were a father, you’d know the answer to that question.’
‘Well, I’m a danger to your son,’ said Nik. ‘So why am I still here? Why am I not lying dead in the snow somewhere with a bullet in my head?’
‘Because I need to know what you know.’ She closed the chain at the back of her neck. ‘If you were able to trace Eberhard’s tracks, then so could someone else and I need to close that gap.’
‘And you think I’m gonna start talking now?’
‘No.’
‘So why tell me your touching life story then?’
‘You’ve proved to be a tough opponent, Herr Pohl,’ she said. ‘And now with Tilo Hübner’s . . . absence we will need an able person at the Munich CID.’
‘You might not have noticed, but I’ve been suspended.’
‘That wouldn’t be a problem,’ she explained. ‘You don’t think Hübner made it that far up all by himself, do you?’
Nik turned his head to the right and spat on the floor. ‘Go to hell!’
He saw the hit coming but didn’t try to avoid it. The fist caught him on the cheek and hurled him to the side against the small table. The carafe smashed on the floor and he fell on top of it. Shards punctured his skin painfully. The woman turned to her employee. ‘Sara, deal with him, please. And make sure he’s gone by the time I get back from the reception.’
Sara nodded and waited for the woman to leave the room. Scarface lifted Nik to his feet and shoved him out of the library. ‘We’ve had a lovely meeting room fitted out in the basement for people like you. Thick walls and loads of things we can use to hurt you.’ The blonde woman stood in front of Nik and looked him in the eyes. ‘Or, you could tell me everything I want to know and I’ll just put a bullet in your head. That’s your best option for today.’
‘Fuck you!’ Nik replied.
‘You’re gonna die whatever the case,’ said the woman while Scarface pulled him along the hall.
It was the perfect torture chamber. A floor laid with tiles that sloped down to a drain. A washbasin and steel bathtub. A collection of tools hung on the wall: hammers of various sizes, tongs, screwdrivers, knives and scalpels. In the middle of the room was an examination chair, like the ones you find in a dentist’s surgery. It was lit with a halogen lamp that hung from the ceiling. Scarface pushed Nik on to it, and he noticed, grimly, that it smelled of chlorine. Leaving his hands tied behind his back, Scarface tied down his ankles and chest with leather straps. He didn’t pull them as tight as they could go but enough to stop Nik from raising himself off the chair. Before Nik could say anything, Scarface hooked him in the face with his right hand. It was a hard blow and Nik could taste blood in his mouth. But if that was where the torture stopped, then he’d be able to hold out a little while longer. The large man took two steps back and let Sara take the stage.
‘Let’s start then, shall we?’ she said with a smile. ‘Do you want to tell me everything about your investigation or should he hit you again?’
‘I’ll tell you everything. But first just let me ask your friend something.’
She nodded her permission.
‘What’s it like running around the whole day with such an ugly face?’ Nik smiled. ‘Do you throw up when you’re shaving in the morning? Or did you just get rid of the mirror?’ The next punch broke Nik’s nose and the one after threw his head to the side. Nik tried hard to stay conscious. Another thud to the stomach left him unable to breathe and he started to wheeze.
‘We can go on all night,’ said Sara. ‘You wouldn’t believe what the body can endure before finally giving up.’ She pushed Scarface out of the way. ‘But don’t worry. The caretaker here has some experience in burying bodies. Good old Joseph will make sure you get a nice spot.’ She straightened out her suit. ‘So, back to your investigation. How did you come across Viola Rohe’s case?’
Nik’s head was slumped over. Blood was dripping from his nose on to his trousers. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and mumbled something.
‘You have to speak louder,’ said Sara.
Nik said something again. Barely audible.
She grabbed his head with both hands and pulled it up. ‘Louder, or I’ll fetch the hammer and crush each word out of you.’
Nik opened his eyes. ‘I just wanted you to come closer.’ His right hand shot out from behind his back, ramming a shard of glass into her throat, while his left hand went instantly for her gun halter. Before Scarface had time to get out his gun, Nik had already shot him twice. First in the shoulder and then through his forehead. Sara stumbled backwards, holding her hand up to her throat. Blood gushed between her fingers. Nik untied the leather straps, keeping his eyes fixed on Sara, then he walked past her towards the cupboard as she fell to her knees. Just as he’d expected, the cupboard was brimming with cleaning products. He took out a bottle of bleach.
‘That was lucky,’ he said. ‘Now I can wash away all my traces.’
Sara gasped, trying to push out a reply.
Nik got down in front of her on one knee. ‘And then I can deal with Eberhard,’ he whispered calmly.
She fell to the floor. Her hands dropped from her throat but the blood kept running. One last breath and she was still.
Nik wiped his prints from the gun, placed it in Sara’s hand and used her finger to fire one more shot against the wall. Now her prints were on the trigger. He then took the bleach and washed away his blood from the chair and the floor. Using everything he’d learned during his years in the CID, he organised the crime scene to make it look like there had been a fight between the two employees. It wasn’t perfect, of course. The wound on Sara’s throat didn’t fit the knife he’d placed in Scarface’s hand, after wiping it in her blood. But leaving the shard of glass would have made the investigator suspicious. It was entirely plausible that a guy like Scarface would have carried a knife in his pocket. That way, nothing suggested there had been a third person in the room and that was the important thing.
Happy with his work, he took Scarface’s gun out of its halter and applied a dressing to his own nose. He didn’t want to have to wash away any more traces. He wiped down his trousers and made his way upstairs. He wondered if Eberhard was already sleeping. The house was quiet and Nik didn’t see any servants or anyone else from Sara’s posse. It was possible the house was empty, but there was also the chance the others were hiding. Looking out of a high window, Nik could see that the snow was heavier now, blanketing the surrounding woods in a deep layer of pure white. It looked idyllic. The only sound interrupting the silence was the low drone of a television. He followed the noise and ended up in a large living room with an old-fashioned interior that matched the rest of the house. Eberhard sat on an armchair with his back to the door. He had a glass of whisky in his left hand and the remote control in his right. Every couple of seconds he would flip through to another channel. Nik went over and stood in front of the chair, pointing the gun at Lossau’s forehead.
‘Hello, Eberhard.’ He smiled with true satisfaction. ‘So nice to finally meet you
.’
A look of surprise flashed across Lossau’s face but then the corners of his mouth started to curl upwards and his eyes became bright. It was as if he’d realised what had happened to his employees, and the thought pleased him.
‘I always told my mother—’ A punch to the stomach shut him up. The whisky and remote control fell to the floor and he sank to his knees, bent over in pain.
‘Now, that felt pretty good,’ said Nik, relishing the moment. He went over to the whisky decanter and took a gulp. The strength of the alcohol made him cough. ‘Oh, delicious,’ he said approvingly. ‘I’ll need that again in a minute.’ He jammed the decanter underneath the arm he was using to hold the gun while using his left hand to pull Eberhard up by his hair. ‘Awfully loud in here, don’t you think?’ Nik said. ‘Let’s go to the library.’ Eberhard squealed like a child as Nik dragged him to the library. He thrashed about and cried, and beat his hands against Nik’s arm, but Nik carried on hauling him through the house.
When they got to the library, Nik shoved Eberhard into the middle of the room, where, only a couple of hours earlier, he’d stood speaking to his mother. The broken glass was still on the floor, meaning it was very unlikely there were any employees in the house. Lossau had probably sent them home for the night. The fire had gone out. Nik picked up a piece of wood, held it down in the embers until it was lit, and used it to light the candelabra. He put the whisky down on a bookshelf and turned to Eberhard, who was rubbing his head, trying to straighten out his messy hair.
Broken Glass Page 23