by Lars Schutz
She took a scrap of paper out of the bucket, a fragment of which was still legible.
‘A train ticket,’ muttered Stüter.
Jan caught a glimpse of the fragment. . . . furt a. M. to Montabaur St. Immediately below that were the date and time when the ticket had been used: 6.12., 9.28 a.m.
‘A ticket from Frankfurt,’ observed Anita. ‘Tamara came from there, didn’t she?’
Stüter shrugged. ‘The killer probably tried to burn everything Tamara had on her when she was kidnapped.’
‘Didn’t you see the date?’ asked Jan.
They paused, staring at the scrap of paper.
‘Oh—’ breathed Anita.
‘Exactly,’ said Jan. ‘The date is after her abduction. So, it can’t be the ticket she used to come to Westerwald.’
‘Then one of the killers travelled from Frankfurt that day. But why try to burn it?’ asked Stüter.
An itch at the back of Jan’s mind. Something deep inside was pressing its way forwards, fighting its way towards the daylight. The sixth of December. St Nicholas’s Day. The date had prompted some memory – something connected to Frankfurt.
Exactly. The pieces of the puzzle slotted together. He remembered the message on his answering machine back home. The detective from Frankfurt had said Dr Sapkowski was killed on the seventh of December.
Could it be connected to the Alphabet Murders?
‘Anita, I need to use your phone for a second.’
She handed it to him. ‘Who are you calling?’
‘Thanks!’ He put it in his pocket and reached for the first rung of the ladder. ‘I’ve got to call the Frankfurt Police. We might have something.’
On the gravel outside the barn he dialled the number of a colleague at the State Office of Criminal Investigations. As he did so, his eyes fell on his brother’s house – and his brain spat out another connection to Frankfurt: hadn’t Kathi said Gero’s girlfriend had moved to Frankfurt?
‘Rheinland-Pfalz State Office of Criminal Investigations, how can I help you?’ crackled a voice in his ear, but he didn’t reply.
What if they were looking not for another man, but for a woman?
78
Miriam walked past the fountain in Hachenburg market square, which was dominated by a golden, two-tailed lion. There were bound to be dozens of stories and legends around it, but Miriam was in no mood for sightseeing. Her stomach had been growling for ages.
She turned down Zeitzengasse, her footsteps echoing off the walls of the houses. The narrow alleyway, still full of tourists and shoppers, wasn’t much good if you were claustrophobic. She turned down Judengasse, which finally led into Wilhelmstrasse.
This had to be what passed for their main shopping street. Besides the usual chains there were also plenty of small independent retailers and cute little shops squeezed into the ground floors of the ancient buildings. The window displays, warmly lit and adorned with Christmas decorations, radiated an atmosphere Miriam had only seen in kitschy postcards.
She was bound to find something to fill the hole in her stomach. Dodging a guy dressed as Santa and collecting donations, she discovered a café that adjoined some sort of gallery. They had to have sandwiches or something.
As Miriam stepped inside, she was enveloped in the aroma of coffee and freshly baked stollen. The furniture in the café seemed to date from the fifties. Floral patterns and faux-fur as far as the eye could see.
Ordering a piece of spiced cake and a cappuccino at the counter, she grabbed the last free table in the tiny coffee shop.
Miriam wolfed down the first bite of cake and sipped her cappuccino. It was so hot she burnt her tongue, but right now she didn’t care. She leant back and savoured the coffee slowly warming her belly.
An elderly woman with hair as white and bushy as cotton wool was eyeing her from the neighbouring table with an indignant expression.
Sorry my clothes don’t fit your boring beige-coloured dress code, thought Miriam, winking at the old bag and raising her cup as though to toast. ‘Is there something on my face?’
Cotton-wool lady averted her eyes guiltily. A small victory.
Suddenly somebody was blocking her view of the elderly woman. Miriam looked up. A woman was carrying a cup of coffee towards her table, enormous sunglasses resting on the bridge of her nose.
‘May I sit here?’ asked the woman with a sugary smile that instinctively made Miriam loathe her. ‘The café’s absolutely crammed – nowhere else is free.’
Rolling her eyes in irritation, Miriam gestured reluctantly towards the seat opposite.
‘I knew you were a nice girl,’ said the woman ingratiatingly, sitting down and putting her handbag on the table. Even now she made no move to take off her sunglasses. There were only two kinds of people who wore sunglasses indoors: blind people and arseholes.
She inspected the woman. The half of her face not covered in oversized Gucci sunglasses was almost unnaturally pale and shot through with finely graven lines. Her dark trench coat was typical of what women the other side of forty considered fashionable. Elegant, but understated. Only the sleeves were oddly worn.
‘Come here often?’ asked the woman.
‘Don’t bother with small talk.’
Miriam gulped down the cake in record time. She didn’t fancy spending any more time than necessary with this weirdo.
As the woman put her cup back in its saucer, her arm jerked awkwardly and she knocked her leather handbag off the table. It thudded to the floor next to Miriam’s feet.
‘Oh, sorry, I’m so clumsy!’ she cried. ‘Would you mind?’
Miriam sighed, but bent down and picked up the surprisingly heavy bag. Was the woman taking bricks for a walk?
‘Oh, thank you! You’re so sweet.’ The woman patted dirt and crumbs off the bag before putting it in her lap.
Miriam knocked back the rest of her cappuccino. Time to scram.
‘Soooo lovely to meet you,’ she purred sarcastically. ‘I’m afraid I must be going.’
‘You know, I met Jan the same way,’ said the lady, just as Miriam was pulling on her jacket. ‘I simply came and sat down at his table too.’
Miriam paused. The uneasy feeling that had been nagging her this whole time now surged over her with a vengeance. ‘How do you know Jan? Who – who are you?’
‘Tamara,’ answered the stranger with a grin. ‘And I’m glad to finally meet you, Miriam!’
79
‘Are you currently working on the murder of Dr Arne Sapkowski?’ asked Jan when he got through to the head of the Frankfurt Homicide Division. ‘I’m sorry to be blunt, but we’re under enormous time pressure.’
The woman at the State Office had swiftly put him through to the police station in Frankfurt. He was still hoping his theory was incorrect.
‘I’m glad you called, Herr Grall,’ said Chief Superintendent Altunbas, whose voice sounded astonishingly young for his senior position. ‘We were planning on seeing you anyway, because you were one of the last people to have any contact with Sapkowski.’
‘I’m afraid I still don’t know what he wanted with me.’ Jan sighed. ‘But that’s not why I’m calling. There’s a possible connection between this case and the Alphabet Murders.’
For a few moments there was silence on the other end of the line. ‘How can that be?’ asked Altunbas finally. ‘Sapkowski was found strangled at his practice. Signs of a struggle, including DNA, but no matches in the database. Nor any trace of letters in the apartment or on the body of the victim.’
‘It would take too long to explain everything now. I just need to know one thing: is there a woman called Tamara Weiss on Sapkowski’s list of patients?’
‘Understood. Hang on a moment, I’ll hunt out the list.’
Jan lowered the phone. His lips quivered, but he couldn’t tell whether it was with cold or agitation. In the distance the mountains of Westerwald loomed dark against the red sunset. He never should have come back here. If his suspicions were co
rrect, it was exactly what the Alphabet Killer had wanted.
‘Herr Grall, are you still there?’
He clamped the phone back to his ear. ‘Yes, I’m here. Did you find anything?’
‘The name was Tamara Weiss, wasn’t it? I remember now why it sounded familiar. She’s the kidnapping victim in your case, correct?’
Jan’s free hand convulsed around the material of his coat. The tension was almost tearing him apart. ‘Correct – but is she on the list or not?’
‘She is. Her last visit to Sapkowski was on November the thirtieth.’
He’d made an enormous mistake. Like a housefly buzzing straight into a spider’s invisible web. Every attempt to wriggle free had only entangled him further.
‘Do you need anything else?’ asked Altunbas.
‘No, no,’ murmured Jan. ‘That’s fine. Thank you.’
Without stopping to hear another word, he hung up. Instantly the truth was as plain to see as the Westerwald landscape.
The whole time they’d been looking for the trigger – the reason why Maik had started killing. Now it seemed as though the trigger and the accomplice were one and the same: Tamara Weiss.
Probably she hadn’t merely been Maik’s accomplice but Gero’s as well, helping out with his video projects. The person for whom Timotheus had searched so long. But why?
‘Jan, what’s wrong?’ Anita and Stüter had appeared beside him. The snow crunched beneath their shoes.
‘I had to check something.’
‘And? Good or bad news?’ asked Stüter.
‘Depends.’ Jan leant back against the barn. ‘I know who she is, the accomplice. But you won’t like it.’
Anita cocked her head. ‘Hang on, she?’
‘Correct. We’re dealing with a woman. With Tamara Weiss, to be exact.’
Rolf Stüter’s jaw dropped. ‘How do you figure that?’
‘She manipulated us. Primarily me and Maik.’ Jan was freezing. The cold was creeping up his legs. Until now his body had felt numb.
Never had he seen Anita’s face so anxious.
‘Jan, please explain to us what’s going on. This is taking on a life of its own, and it’s worrying me.’
Unshakable Ichigawa, he’d always called her when they were together. If something worried her, the situation had to be serious.
Taking a deep breath, he let the frosty air circulate through his lungs. If only Rabea were here. She knew exactly how to put his unfocused musings on the right track.
‘I’m not quite sure how it all hangs together either,’ he began. ‘But Katharina, Maik’s mother, told me Gero had a girlfriend. After the accident she moved to Frankfurt. I’m assuming this girlfriend was Tamara Weiss.’ He paused. The shouts of the SWAT officers as they loaded their equipment into the vans had broken his train of thought. And he was thinking feverishly whether to tell them about her possible involvement with Gero’s films but decided against it. After a few seconds he continued. ‘Clearly Tamara never forgot about Gero, even after all these years. She never processed the shock of his death, and it turned into an obsession that fundamentally altered her.’
Jan looked into the confused faces of Stüter and Anita. What he’d given them so far was an interpretation of Tamara’s behaviour, not an analysis. Sometimes human psychology was like an abstract painting: you could read meaning into it, but never decode it entirely.
‘Shall I go on?’
They nodded.
‘At some point Tamara returned to Westerwald and started looking for traces of Gero and this brought her in contact with his son. Now I can only speculate here, but I believe the two of them entered into a relationship. She saw in him a reflection of Gero. An ally. But also, someone in need of protection.’ He gave a sigh. ‘With Maik at her side, she could take revenge on the world. For all the injustices apparently committed against them both.’
‘Okay, okay,’ interrupted Stüter. ‘That’s the backstory to the whole thing. But answer me one question: why the alphabet? And how come this Tamara was kidnapped by her own boyfriend?’
Anita crossed her arms over her chest. ‘And while we’re on the subject, why did she sleep with you?’
‘There’s an obvious reason for the alphabet.’ Jan raised his forefinger. ‘Maik’s anger at people who could write. People who had mastered language. Tamara would have manipulated him in that direction. Who knows what she whispered into his ear. But there’s a second, more pragmatic reason.’ He raised another finger. ‘It was the ritualistic and grotesque aspects of the murders that made you, Anita, think of calling in a behavioural investigative advisor. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come. And ultimately it was all about me, for both of them. I’m the epicentre of their hatred. I’m “Z”.’
He lowered his eyes, remembering the elegant woman in the revolving restaurant who had surprised him with her urbane sophistication. He was filled with shame and horror in equal measure. How could he have let her pull the wool over his eyes?
‘The rest I can figure out for myself,’ said Anita. She was the consummate professional once more. ‘The kidnapping was staged – a distraction tactic. Cutting out a piece of her own skin merely underscored her determination. And the night with Jan – you look a bit like your brother, don’t you?’
‘A lot, actually.’
‘Then she wanted to experience a moment with him through you. She toyed with you like a cat playing with a mouse.’
‘So, you believe Grall’s theory?’ Stüter wanted to confirm.
‘It all fits.’
The Chief Superintendent rubbed the back of his bald head. ‘I’ll issue a warrant and set up checkpoints around the town.’
Anita tucked her thumbs under the straps of her bullet-proof vest. Her lips were so tightly pursed her mouth looked like a thin line.
Jan knew that expression all too well. ‘There’s something on your mind. What is it?’
‘This whole time Tamara has been focused on you,’ she replied. ‘Why would she suddenly stop? What if she finds out Maik is dead? How will she react?’
‘But she can’t get to me right now,’ he said. ‘Or to Rabea. At best she—’
Oh no.
80
Miriam’s phone was playing I Fought the Law by The Clash. She reached out her hand, but Tamara was faster. The creepy woman switched off the ringtone and looked at the display.
‘Unknown number. Ooh, there’s a text as well,’ she trilled. ‘It’s Jan. Wants to know if everything is all right. How sweet. Almost fatherly.’
Something in the stranger’s expression and gestures had transformed. She was no longer a human being; she was a predator. The way she kept her insect-like sunglasses fixed on Miriam, the suppleness of her movements.
Miriam’s heart was booming. She felt like liquid nitrogen was rushing through her veins, flickering incomprehensibly cold. A high whine pierced her brain. She had to get out of here. It was the only clear thought she could grasp.
She pushed back her chair, supporting herself on the table. Stood up. Instantly her legs gave way. Everything spun. Like a wet sack she slumped back down into her chair. What was wrong with her? Why was she so weak?
The woman with the cotton-wool hair at the neighbouring table glanced over, her arms outstretched. ‘Everything all right, child?’ she asked.
Nothing was all right. Somebody had to call the fucking police! ‘Help!’ Miriam wanted to scream, but her tongue wasn’t working either; it was a slippery cloth inside her jaw. All that came out of her mouth was some unintelligible babble.
‘Looks like an allergic reaction,’ said Tamara with false concern. ‘My car’s just outside – I’ll take her straight to hospital.’
Again, Miriam tried to scream, to make the woman aware of her, but all that came out of her mouth was saliva and groans. The café flickered around her like an ancient computer monitor, colours blurring, and all the voices sounded dulled.
Grabbing her under her arms, Tamara pulled her up. Easy with a flyweight
like her. Despite her petite frame, Tamara’s grip was impossible to escape.
Outside on Wilhelmstrasse, they were lost in the sea of shoppers. Tamara held Miriam close as they slipped through the crowd. A gesture that must have looked affectionate and motherly to unwitting observers.
They headed for the car park at Neumarkt. Tamara fished a car key out of her bag and pressed it. A black SUV opposite Westerwald Bank responded with a flash of its lights.
‘No—’ gasped Miriam, surprised she could get the word out.
‘Oh yes, dear. We’re going for a little drive.’ Tamara flung open the car door and forced Miriam onto the back seat before getting behind the wheel and immediately activating the central locking.
‘Do you want to know why you’re feeling so peculiar all of a sudden?’ Tamara took off her sunglasses and stared at Miriam. ‘I put Rohypnol in your cappuccino while you were picking up my handbag. You probably know it better as roofies. You’ll be out of commission for a little while. I’ve had practice turning drifters like you into tiny, helpless dolls. I used to do it all the time with Jan’s brother. Gero. He made his own alphabet out of them.’ Tamara leant forwards. ‘Is Jan the same way inclined? Is that why he picked you up?’
What was the woman talking about? How could this have happened?
‘How—’ she stammered faintly.
‘You’ve finally recognised me, eh?’ Tamara started the engine and steered the car out of the parking spot. ‘Now you’re wondering how I could be here. Why I’m suddenly no longer in danger. It’s simple. I was never in any danger. I am the danger.’
Miriam’s heart raced. She was hot and cold in turns. Her body seemed to recognise the danger while her mind was slipping further away. Tamara evidently didn’t care whether she was conscious or not. She continued: ‘In Mainz you got away from me. You weren’t there when I went to pick you up. In the end I had to make Jan’s apartment look as though your druggie friends had broken in. But now, now it was shockingly easy.’ Tamara’s laugh sounded like a hyena’s howl. ‘Jan’s never been very good at protecting the ones he loves.’