The screaming turned into sobbing and finally the woman opened her eyes.
“I’m Lina Svenson. We just talked on the phone. It looks as if I arrived in time.”
The woman said nothing, but she still sobbed quietly. Tears were streaming down her face. She had a scratch on her right cheek, and her light T-shirt was covered with twigs, leaves, and dirt. The jeans had dark spots on the knees and the shoelace of the left hiking boot had come untied. A shabby knapsack lay about six feet away, among nettles and ashweed, and Lina noticed a broken cell phone on the footpath. She only listened with half an ear to what the ranger said to the man on the ground. She also saw the woman she had just passed on her run to the crime scene. She stood cautiously at a distance and watched the spectacle with big eyes.
“Do you have a cell phone?” she asked in a gruffer tone than she intended. The woman nodded. “Then make yourself useful and call an ambulance.”
Franziska Leyhausen straightened herself with difficulty and looked over to the man she had whacked with a stone. She turned pale when she saw him motionless on the ground. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
An hour later, Lina was back at her office at Bruno-Georges-Platz. She had just gotten herself a cup of coffee from the cafeteria and sat down to recharge after the chaotic events when the door was flung open and Hanno came rushing in.
“Well done, Lina!” her boss exclaimed. “If ever there was perfect timing. One or two minutes later, and we’d have had another corpse.”
Lina could feel herself blush. To make matters worse, she saw that Max noticed, and her face got even redder.
“This Frau Leyhausen is sitting in the hall with one of our patrol officers. It seems she has a lot to tell us, and the doctor has no objections.” Hanno was bursting with energy. “Lina, go and question her right now, with Alex.”
“What about the man, Hinrichsen?” she asked. “Isn’t he the witness Max interviewed before?”
Hanno nodded. “He’s still in the hospital. He needed stitches, but the wound’s not dangerous. They want to keep him for observation until tomorrow.” He scratched his head. “But there might be some problems with the guy. He’s completely freaked out and they can’t get a sensible word out of him. He’s also quite obstinate. When they wanted to take off his filthy clothes in the hospital, he resisted vehemently.” He looked at Max. “I think you should probably talk with him. You already know him and besides . . .”—Hanno paused, seemingly unsure how to express himself—“. . .you’re our go-to guy for difficult cases.”
“Is that so?” Max raised his eyebrows, but Hanno had already disappeared, with as much bluster as when he had arrived—an unusual sight for the pot-bellied man who was more than six feet tall. Max and Lina looked at each other.
“Well, well. So you’re our man for difficult cases.” Lina grinned. “How did he figure that out?”
Max shrugged. “A vivid imagination.” He grabbed his jacket. “By the way,” he said with a grin of his own when Lina had already thought the danger was over, “you look good in red.”
The female police officer who had waited with Franziska Leyhausen in the hallway brought the witness to Lina’s office. The biologist was in her midthirties, of medium height, and she had long dark brown hair peppered with the first streaks of gray and healthy, lightly tanned skin. She had washed her face and hands, but her T-shirt and jeans were still soiled from her time in the forest. She was holding a paper cup, though the coffee was probably cold by now. Lina asked whether she wanted anything else to eat or drink, but she shook her head.
“Now then, Frau Leyhausen,” Lina began, “please tell us what the altercation with Herr Hinrichsen was all about.”
Franziska Leyhausen put the cup down and wiped her face with her hands. “I . . . think that he saw me with Philip in the woods Thursday night.” She didn’t dare look at either Lina or Alex, who had commandeered Max’s desk chair.
The two exchanged a glance. Lina’s heart was pounding. “So you’re the woman who went into the forest with Herr Birkner after the concert last Thursday?”
Franziska Leyhausen lifted her head. “You didn’t know that?” She looked at both of them in surprise. “But why else did you want to speak with me?”
“I explained it to you on the phone. I wanted to ask whether you came across anything unusual in the course of your work.”
Suddenly Frau Leyhausen started to laugh. She snorted a few times and then the laughter turned into sobbing and she covered her face with her hands. Eventually she got hold of herself, cleared her throat, and straightened up. “Please forgive me, but it all started—yes, it actually started with the fact that I found something unusual, an Aaron’s rod.”
“An Aaron’s rod?” repeated Lina.
“It’s not a rare plant, but it’s mostly found in Southern Germany and the Central German Uplands. I didn’t expect to find it in a much-frequented wooded area like the Niendorfer Gehege.” She laughed out loud again, but it sounded bitter. “So it really was something unusual.”
She had just discovered and photographed the Aaron’s rod when a man approached her. That man was the same who attacked her today. “A strange guy, like a troll,” she said. “Well, you saw him. I showed the Aaron’s rod to him because I was so delighted with it, and we talked for a little while. The man is obviously slightly mentally handicapped, but he seemed to like being in the forest. At some point, though, I started to feel uneasy, so I gathered my things and took a break, even though I still had a lot to do.” She had gone to the Waldschänke to have a bite to eat, and she saw the announcement that the band Ingenia was giving a concert.
“When was that?” Alex asked.
Franziska Leyhausen didn’t have to think about it. “On Wednesday. That evening, I asked two friends whether they’d come to the concert with me. It sounded interesting. Babsi agreed immediately. Daniel said he wasn’t sure he could make it, but he wanted to go.
“On Thursday I drove to the concert with Babsi—I mean, Barbara Schönbek. We chose a table from which we could see the door, in case Daniel came, but he didn’t show up all night. Instead, a vaguely familiar man sat down next to me. And wouldn’t you know it, he turned out to be Daniel’s former boss, Philip.”
Lina sat up straight. “Hold on a sec. This Daniel, is he Daniel Vogler, who used to work for Inoware?”
“Inoware . . . It’s possible that was the name of the place. Daniel is a computer scientist and used to work for a company that went under a few years ago. Is that the one?”
Lina nodded. “And what is your relationship with Daniel Vogler?”
Shrugging, Franziska Leyhausen said, “A few years ago we were an item for a short time, but now we’re just good friends.”
“And you met Philip Birkner through Daniel Vogler?” Lina asked.
“Yes. But ‘met him’ is saying too much. I was Daniel’s guest at the company’s fifth-anniversary party. We were a couple then,” she explained. “The party was at the Steigenberger Hotel—everything superchic and elaborate—but the employees had to drag along all their friends so the place wouldn’t look so empty. At least half of the guests had nothing to do with computers, or at least nothing with that company.” Franziska Leyhausen fell silent, seemingly remembering things from that evening.
“And that’s where your former boyfriend introduced you to Philip?” Lina asked, prodding her gently.
“Exactly. He shook my hand and we exchanged a few words, and that was it.” She grimaced. “I tried very hard for the rest of the evening not to be too bored. They had a cocktail bar and the bartender pushed an absolutely awful drink on me—probably prohibitively expensive, but absolutely gross.” She frowned. “Sorry, I’m sure that’s of no interest.”
“Do you know Frank Jensen?” Lina asked.
“Who?” The woman was frowning again.
“A colleague of Daniel Vogler, another comp
uter scientist.”
“Oh, I know who you’re talking about. At the celebration we briefly said hello, but not more. I don’t think I’d recognize him if I ran into him on the street.”
Lina considered asking Franziska Leyhausen if she knew anything about the events leading to the bankruptcy of the software company, but decided against it. That topic had to wait. “So, let’s talk about Thursday night. You’re in the Waldschänke, Philip is sitting next to you, and you establish that you’ve met before. What happened then?”
Franziska Leyhausen closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. When she started to speak, she was looking at the desk in front of her. She bent forward, placed her hands between her knees, and raised her shoulders. “As long as the music was going, not much happened, other than Philip offering me a glass of wine. He offered one to Babsi, as well, of course, but she declined. She can’t tolerate alcohol.” Frau Leyhausen told Lina that when the music was over, her girlfriend left. She explained that her friend was a sick woman suffering from Crohn’s disease and never knew when her symptoms would occur. That evening something was imminent.
“I had a bad conscience for letting her drive home alone, but she assured me she’d be all right.” She was silent. “Well, she saw that I was having a good time.”
And the fun had continued. Philip ordered one glass of wine after the other and then grappa to top it off. They got on well together, at least in the beginning when they still could conduct a more or less normal conversation. But toward the end, she had been quite drunk. Franziska Leyhausen blushed and her voice got softer and softer.
“At one point we started to make out quite wildly, and then we had to go. It’s quite possible that the people at the Waldschänke threw us out. I don’t remember at all how we got out of there. Total blackout.” She was silent. “All I remember is that at one point we stood outside the joint. It was pleasantly cool and I thought a walk would do us some good—fresh air, exercise . . . I remembered this Aaron’s rod I’d found the day before and suggested a little walk. I would show him an Aaron’s rod, something he’d surely never seen before.” Lina thought of the witness who had watched the two in the parking lot and who stated the woman wanted to show Birkner “her rod.”
“Philip was totally into it,” Franziska Leyhausen said and shook her head. “We were really goofy. We kidded around, smooched, and staggered into the woods like two teenagers.” She was blushing again. “Don’t think that’s something I usually do. I know it was idiotic, but . . .”
Lina nodded sympathetically. “But sometimes one is in a mood like that,” she said.
Franziska Leyhausen looked at her and then shook her head. “I just wish I’d said good-bye to him then, or switched on my brain at least.” She took a deep breath. “So we stumbled through the woods. Even though I was quite drunk, I did find the spot with the Aaron’s rod. Philip tried to kiss me the whole way there and now he began to seriously feel me up.” She shook her head. “I’m thirty-four years old and nevertheless had imagined I could walk in the woods with a plastered man in the middle of the night, talking about the flora and fauna of middle European mixed forests.” She shook her head again. “How stupid can you be?” She was silent for a moment. “When we got to the Aaron’s rod, I showed the plant to Philip, who wasn’t interested in it at all, of course. I think he said at one point, ‘Come here, I’ll show you my rod,’ but I’m not certain. He kissed me again. He pinned me against a tree, kissed me, and pushed his hand under my jacket, under my blouse, and under my bra. I said no and pushed him away, but he simply tried again. At one point I was so angry that I rammed a knee into his balls, with full force.”
Lina didn’t look, but noticed that Alex flinched when she said that.
“At that point he started to puke and fell down. Quite a bit of it landed on my slacks.” She took a deep breath. “Man, was I furious! But at the same time it made me feel good.” She looked at Lina. “Do you understand what I mean? I mean, it wasn’t the first time I’d had an experience like that. There’s a man I like, we have a nice conversation, we share some drinks, and then, the moment we’re alone, the program starts and runs automatically. Step one: gentle kisses on the cheeks. Step two: tongue involvement. Step three: check out the boobs . . .” Franziska Leyhausen blushed and stopped talking.
“What did you do after you kneed Herr Birkner?” Lina asked quietly after a while.
“I went home. My bike was still at the Waldschänke, but I was too drunk to ride, so I pushed it the entire way. It took forever to get home. I live in Barmbek, in the Jarrestadt,” she added. That was, indeed, very far from the Niendorfer Gehege. She looked down. “When I heard on the news on Friday that Philip had been found dead in the forest, I suddenly questioned how harmless my kick had actually been. Can one die from such a thing? Sure, he was still alive when I left—I know that for sure—but . . .”
Lina looked at the woman in front of her for a long time. Franziska Leyhausen had started to cry and wiped away tears with her hand. Lina fished for a handkerchief in her desk drawer and pushed the entire package toward her.
“But he might still be alive if I hadn’t just left him alone.” She blew her nose.
“Why didn’t you come forward when you heard about it?” Lina asked.
Franziska Leyhausen shrugged. “I was afraid you’d arrest me. I was afraid you’d think I was responsible for Philip’s death.” She sobbed. “And in a way . . . I am guilty.”
The reception area of the emergency room in the university hospital at Eppendorf was very busy. Three people injured in a severe car accident had just been brought in. Doctors and nurses rushed, somehow reassuringly calm, along the corridors, and patients who—it was assumed—could tolerate a longer wait sat on plastic chairs in the waiting area. Max Berg went to the reception desk, showed his badge, and explained that he wanted to talk with the patient Niels Hinrichsen.
“You want to talk with him? Good luck with that,” the clerk said and gave him a room number. Max slowly walked along the long hallway. He was about to knock on the door, when his cell phone rang.
“Max, it’s Lina.” He went to a nearby window to talk in privacy. “The Leyhausen woman is our unknown lady from the Waldschänke. And in addition, she knows Daniel Vogler, Frank Jensen’s colleague.” She told him briefly what Franziska Leyhausen had testified to so far.
“And?” Max asked, “Are you keeping her?”
“We haven’t finished the interrogation.” Lina was silent for a moment. “Hanno wants her arraigned, but I think her story adds up. I believe her.”
“You have a strange gut reaction,” said Max.
After an irritated silence, Lina asked, “What do you mean by that?” She steeled herself.
“You have far less evidence against Katja Ansmann.” He heard her breathe in deeply and continued quickly. “Just a thought. Your gut reaction is usually on target.”
Slightly disgruntled, Lina said good-bye. Max returned to the room of a witness who, as he now knew, was also a suspect in the crime.
They had put Niels Hinrichsen in a private room. He wore one of the hospital-issued white gowns and had a huge bandage around his head where they had stitched up the wound to his temple. The man’s eyes were closed and he smelled disgusting. His mouth was moving as if he were chewing on something, and he groaned every now and then.
When Max quietly knocked on the door, Niels Hinrichsen had not responded. When Max now cleared his throat, the man turned toward him but seemed to look right through him. “Good morning,” Max said in a friendly tone. No response.
“Maybe you don’t remember me, but we met yesterday, in the forest, with Herr Barsfeld. Do you remember?” No reaction. But Niels Hinrichsen’s gaze followed Max as he pulled up a chair and sat down. Was Hinrichsen sedated?
“Some horses were on a visit in the woods, a young one and its mother.”
Hinrichsen’s eyes lit up fo
r a second.
“You showed me the stone that a knight hit with his sword a long time ago. Do you know which one I mean? The one with the groove.”
“Yes, the knights. They fought.” The voice sounded hoarse but also strangely young, like a child’s voice. It did not match the wrinkly face with the gray beard.
Max hesitated for a moment. “You’ve also fought today, haven’t you?”
Hinrichsen turned his head away. “Done nothing wrong.”
“I didn’t say you did.” Max paused again. “Fighting isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes you have to do it.”
“The man was evil.”
Max tilted his head. “Which man?”
“The woman scolded him and clobbered him because he was so nasty.”
“Do you mean the woman with whom you fought today?”
“Didn’t fight. Not like knights. I’ve got no sword.” Niels Hinrichsen looked at his dirty hands, which contrasted with the sparkling white blanket. He seemed to ask himself for the first time where he was. He lifted his head and looked around.
“What man was the woman angry with?” Max said, trying again, but the moment had passed.
Niels was scanning his surroundings more and more frantically, as if he were trying to figure out how he had landed here. “Where’s my cap? I wanna have my cap. I need it!” He got louder, sat up, and was about to get out of bed.
“Herr Hinrichsen, you better lie down again. You’re injured. Have you forgotten?”
The man no longer seemed to notice him. He burst into tears and awkwardly fingered the clean cotton of his gown. “Where’s my jacket?” he screamed. “Who took away my jacket?” He started to shake and his lower lip protruded, like a toddler’s when he’s about to start bawling. He clumsily removed the blanket.
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