Deep Pain

by Marcus Hünnebeck

  Dorfer carefully took the notes and photos from the wall. He did not want Ludger’s parents or any other person to see them. Didn’t want this dark truth to soil the image and memory of his friend.

  Most of the notes on the whiteboard were crossed out. Nevertheless, Dorfer could easily decipher them. Ludger had collected traces on the whiteboard that might lead him to Sandra. Obviously he had been unsuccessful, but at the lower right corner of the whiteboard there was new information. For example the name Till Buchinger, which Ludger had underlined twice. Underneath that, he had written down his thoughts in bullet points.

  Reason why I cannot find my treasure?

  Professional help?

  Pull Buchinger into confidence.

  Build friendship?

  Dorfer photographed the blackboard with his cell phone. He checked the quality of the picture, then reached for a sponge and wiped away the notes.

  After the removal of the photos and the erasure of the blackboard, the room seemed unused, just as quiet as the rest of the house.

  Dorfer closed the door and entered the bedroom. Inwardly, he was expecting more crazed scribblings and photographs of Sandra, but nothing caught his eye. Neither on the bedside tables nor in the cupboards or drawers. Dorfer found nothing that could stain the memory of his friend.

  He looked at the digital clock, which stared mutely back. The kids would not be home from school for two hours. His wife was probably working hard right now. So he could make good use of his time.

  Dorfer took the garbage bag and left the apartment.

  21

  Till Buchinger stood at the coffee machine and started the self-cleaning program. He had consumed enough coffee for today. He rolled his shoulders. His joints did not hurt as badly as the day before, but he still decided to make an appointment for a massage.

  During the last two nights he had been dreaming about Spannberg. In the dream, she promised him freedom, but then shot him anyway. Sometimes she slit his throat and when Till struggled to breathe and scream, it wasn’t his voice that came out, but Johnathan’s. Mixed with blood. Hopefully this nightmare phase would not last forever.

  The doorbell rang at the office door. Till checked the monitor on his desk. To his surprise, Krumm’s partner stood at the entrance. Till pressed the door opener.

  “Hello,” the officer said, “we’ve met before. Chief Inspector Dorfer.” He extended his hand to Till.

  “Come in,” Till said. “How can I help you?” He led his guest to the visitors’ corner.

  “Feeling better now?” Dorfer asked.

  “Right now I’m having some bad dreams. How about you? I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”

  Dorfer nodded. “Ludger and I were friends. Damned hard to come to terms with his death.”

  “What is the status of the investigation? Have you located Spannberg?”

  Dorfer hesitated, but only briefly. “Supposedly she’s in Warsaw.”

  “You don’t believe that?”

  “My opinion no longer counts.”

  “You got kicked off the case,” Till said, guessing.

  “My supervisor has given me leave of absence for the next two weeks. He calls it overtime reduction. A nationwide authority will take over the investigation on Monday. So, yes, I’m off the case.”

  “How stupid is that?”

  “In principle, I’m being put out of action. I don’t believe Spannberg left the country. It makes no sense. Could have done it in January, if that was the plan.”

  Till nodded thoughtfully. “I agree. And all the more important for you to stay on the case. Is there any way I can help?”

  Dorfer smiled. “No, that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Then what?”

  He reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a stack of folded paper. “I was in Ludger’s apartment earlier. This whole pack came from there.”

  He placed the sheets on the table and unfolded them. Till immediately recognized his former client Sandra on a printout.

  “May I?” he asked, to buy time.

  “Of course.”

  Till picked up the stack. The photos interested him less than the notes. After a few seconds he remembered that he hadn’t asked the most obvious and normal question yet. “This isn’t Spannberg. Who is this?”

  “Ludger’s ex-girlfriend. Her name is Sandra Borke. The two broke up a little less than a year ago.”

  “You found all this in Krumm’s apartment?”

  “In a separate room.”

  Till put the printouts aside. “I hate to tell you this. But that doesn’t indicate a very healthy approach to a breakup. I’m sorry.”

  Dorfer nodded. “I see it the same way. You don’t have to mince words with me just because Ludger was my friend.” He pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket. “There was also a whiteboard hanging in the same room. He wrote this down on it.”

  Till picked up the phone and silently examined the picture. “Why are you showing me this?”

  “Did Ludger ask you about his ex?”

  “I don’t understand why you want to know.”

  Dorfer’s eyes shifted off into space, as if he were lost in deep thought. “I guess I just want to understand. I want to know what drove him in the last few days or weeks. I don’t know, maybe it would help put his death behind me.”

  Till thought for a second. How much could he entrust to the chief inspector? Should he brush him off with a lie? He was reluctant to choose the simplest solution.

  “We did have a few conversations,” Till said. “Your partner was very interested in how investigators like me help clients go underground. He gave me a hypothetical. A fictitious stalker terrorizing his ex. What would I do in that case? How would I help the ex?”

  Dorfer looked as if he had just swallowed a terrible drink. “Did he name this fictitious stalker, or the ex?”

  “Of course not. He made his questions all seem related to tracking down Spannberg.”

  “Nevertheless, this stuck in your memory,” Dorfer said. “Why?”

  “Talking about this with him made me uneasy. Call it instinct, I guess. I felt he was after something other than Spannberg. And these pictures prove I was right.” Till pointed to the stack on the table.

  “That’s why you went looking for Spannberg on your own,” Dorfer said. “To not tell him too much about your methods.”

  Now it was time to tell a small lie. “Honestly, it had more to do with you.”

  “With me?”

  “During my visit to your headquarters, you seemed surprised at how involved I was in the case. I didn’t want to get Chief Inspector Krumm into trouble.”

  Dorfer offered a dull smile. “Do you know what I’ve learned over the years? If someone uses the expression honestly, he’s lying. Sandra Borke is your client. Or was. Wasn’t she?”

  “I’m not answering that.”

  “Ludger is dead. What do you fear?”

  “I would always protect the identity of my clients. Unless, in retrospect, they turn out to be felons. Also, you must remember one thing. I only give my clients a jump start. In the vast majority of cases, I don’t know where they end up. For security reasons, I don’t want to know, because anybody who knows is a risk.”

  Dorfer stood up, first tucking away his cell phone and then the sheets of paper. “So, hypothetically speaking, if you know Sandra Borke, and if you ever have contact with her again, you can tell her that Ludger is dead. That will calm her down a bit. Hypothetically speaking. I’ll let myself out, Mr. Buchinger. Have a nice day.”

  Dorfer left the office.

  Till sighed. What a week. He felt the urge to end the working day in order to gain strength at Antje’s grave. But in his present mood he would miss her intensely.

  He looked at the wall clock. Too early to lock the office. He decided to take the next two or three hours to catch up on work he had missed over the last few w
eeks. Unmotivated, he walked to his desk, deactivated the screen saver, and sank clumsily into the office chair.

  He stared at the monitor. Why had Dorfer asked all those questions? Was this how he tried to understand his partner’s death, or were there other reasons?

  22

  Franka Spannberg sat in a car parked about three hundred meters from Buchinger’s office. From here she could see exactly who was entering or leaving the building.

  When Chief Inspector Dorfer appeared in the street, she did not believe in coincidence. She started a countdown on her cell phone. Eight minutes later he stepped back out onto the sidewalk and seemed anything but happy. He got into his car and drove off. What kind of leads was the man following?

  Nine people were still on Spannberg’s list, seven of whom lived in Hamburg, two outside. After a stopover in Poland, she had returned to the Hanseatic city to take care of as many of them as possible. Instead of allowing long periods of time to pass between deeds, she wanted to shed as much blood as possible in a single weekend. Although this minimized the psychological suffering of the inmates, as she wanted to drag out their feelings of helplessness for as long as possible, the circumstances did not allow for any other course of action.

  To be able to act undisturbed, she needed to create confusion. Every minute that the cops followed false leads helped immensely. In this respect, Spannberg welcomed Dorfer’s appearance at the private investigator’s office. When the SOKO worked on Till Buchinger, they wasted valuable resources.

  She remembered the moment she learned who her booby trap had killed. That had been a divine providence. Krumm, of all people. The person she was chasing the most. For minutes she had laughed and already feared that the neighbors could hear her. Even now she grinned at the memory.

  Spannberg opened the glove compartment and took out an unregistered prepaid cell phone she had bought in Poland. She had saved a large file on it. She opened her email program, entered the recipient, and sent the sound file.

  “Have fun,” she whispered.

  Spannberg drove out of the parking space. She had a clear idea of who needed to die first.

  23

  Bastian Dorfer drove aimlessly around the lake, reluctant to drive home. He would probably be alone at this time of day, and it would feel as if he were succumbing to his suspension. He refused to accept it. Dellhorst had made a mistake, but Dorfer had no idea how to convince his boss to give him more time. Or at least to lift the suspension.

  His cell phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. At a red light he pulled it out. A foreign number had sent him a file. At first he thought it was an attempt to foist malware upon him. Until he took a closer look at the area code. Plus forty-eight, the Polish country code. Spannberg allegedly fled to Poland. A coincidence?

  Someone behind him honked. The traffic light had changed.

  “I’m a cop, bitch!”

  Dorfer pulled up and looked for a parking space on the right side of the road. After a good three hundred meters and still no spot, he turned into someone’s driveway.

  The message from Poland contained no text. Only a sound file. Some kind of Trojan horse for malware? The phone had a protection program that hopefully blocked threats. He pressed the start button.

  “Oh, my God,” said a female voice. “That’s awesome. Look at the smoke.”

  “Franka, we have to leave now. Before the cops close everything.”

  “Then drive!”

  Stunned, Dorfer paused the recording. The male voice clearly belonged to Till Buchinger. And Franka, of course, was Spannberg’s given name.

  A car came driving out of the yard. Dorfer raised his hand apologetically, reversed, and let the small car pass. Then he pulled back into his spot and pressed play.

  “I wonder who got it,” asked Spannberg.

  “I hope it was Krumm. Or his partner Dorfer. Oh, that would be too good.”

  “They’ve been right on top of you.”

  “I know how to manipulate people. As if I simply tracked you down. As if it were just that easy. The fact that the cops never questioned me. Pretty stupid! If you go underground, no one will find you.”

  Spannberg laughed. “That’s how cops are. Dumb as toast!”

  “Indeed. What a lovely trap we set for them.”

  “My darling. I could never have done it without you.”

  “With Jonathan, you eliminated my competition. At some point we’ll have to take care of Jessica too. Before she finds out the truth.”

  “We have to be careful. She can’t die so quickly after Albrecht.”

  “We can do this.”

  The sound file ended. Dorfer stared through the windshield. Was it true? Was Buchinger, of all people, Spannberg’s accomplice? Had he deliberately lured the police into a trap?

  Dorfer replayed the file. This time he focused on the background noise. He noticed some subtleties that did not fit well together. They were incoherent. Why didn’t Buchinger laugh at all? Where were the engine noises?

  And maybe the more pressing question, was Dorfer obligated to tell his colleagues about this file? They would consider the Polish telephone number as proof that Spannberg had actually fled to the neighboring country. They would be so busy patting themselves on the back that they wouldn’t ask themselves the most obvious question: Why would the murderess reveal such a damning detail? Dorfer decided he had no moral obligation to inform them. After all, Dellhorst had suspended him. He was not even given the opportunity to actively investigate at least until Sunday evening.

  Dorfer pulled back into traffic. He thought about the sound recording. Who had sent it to him? A witness? Unlikely. No other voices were heard, no noise. So the file had come from Spannberg, or from Buchinger himself. But Buchinger wouldn’t have sent it. The recording incriminated him.

  So why would Spannberg send it? Why betray her supposed accomplice? None of it made sense. Dorfer had received the message shortly after he had left Buchinger’s office. Coincidence? Or was there more to it?

  At the next crossing, he made a U-turn. The closer he got to Buchinger’s office, the closer he inspected the parked vehicles. All empty. No one lying in wait. Dorfer found a parking space. He pulled in and listened to the file a third time.

  Shit—Buchinger.

  Was he in danger?

  Dorfer got out of the car, ran toward the front door, and rang the bell several times.

  24

  Someone rang three times in quick succession. Till looked at the monitor. Dorfer again. What did he want, and why so urgent?

  Till hit the buzzer and waited at the office door. The policeman came closer and suddenly pulled out his gun.

  “Hey!” Till said, instinctively raising his arms. “What the fuck?”

  “Is anyone with you?”

  “With me? What makes you think that?”

  Dorfer squeezed past him and checked the office. Only then did he put the pistol away. “Let’s sit down.”

  “What’s with the Rambo act?”

  Dorfer put his cell phone on the visitors’ table and started the audio file. In the next moment two voices were heard. Till immediately recognized who the second one belonged to.

  “This is fake. Just listen to how I’m talking. I don’t talk like that. I hope you know there’s software that can create this type of fake.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “You need voice samples that you can import into the software and then create any dialogue you want.”

  Dorfer narrowed his eyes. “I know.”

  “She probably recorded our conversation during the trip to Berlin.”

  “Hmm,” Dorfer said.

  “So you don’t think I’m working with her?” Till asked.

  “That just wouldn’t make any sense.”

  Relieved, Till sat down at the table.

  “I got the message just after I left you. That’s why I stormed in here just now. Sorry if I scared you. I was af
raid you were in trouble.”

  “No problem. Who sent you the file?”

  “A Polish cell phone number.”

  Thoughtfully, Till rubbed his stubble. This all sounded like a deception. “She’s trying to distract us,” he said. “But from what?”

  “I guess she’s in Hamburg. Probably either stalking me or keeping an eye on your office,” Dorfer said.

  “And when she’s in Hamburg…”

  “… she takes up her old activity again,” Dorfer said, completing the thought.

  “Have you informed your colleagues?”

  “I rushed right back to you.”

  Till perceived the hesitation in Dorfer’s voice. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Again, I’m suspended.”

  “You’re trying to hide that…” Till paused, realizing something. “They want Spannberg for themselves.”

  Dorfer smiled. “Will you help me?”

  “This is crazy.”

  “The SOKO has filtered out potential death row inmates that she might be targeting. Their families. That’s how we were able to prevent Spannberg’s assassination attempt on Florian Werner in November. The only thing we hadn’t expected was her escape.”

  “How many people are on this list?”

  “Nine. Seven of them live in Hamburg. I know from the Werner family that they’ve now hired a bodyguard. Their son is, in my estimation, out of danger.”

  “So eight.”

  “Well, six if we focus on Hamburg.”

  “Even if Jessica helps us, how are the three of us going to protect these people? Mr. Dorfer, you have to tell your colleagues.”

  “If I got to Dellhorst, we’ll only lose time. He’ll just accuse me of trying to get back in the game.”

  “You don’t know that. Call him! This changes everything.” Till pointed to the phone.

  25

  Spannberg rubbed her eyes and then her face. The last few days had sapped her strength, and the upcoming weekend would take everything from her. Nevertheless, she had no acceptable alternative. The cops were closing in. Her days were numbered. To take revenge, she had to use every opportunity. She had to kill everyone. Now.