by Inge Löhnig
Anselm was doubled over against the wall, his face as white as paper, his eyes dark blue with hatred. He pulled the key out of his jacket pocket and held it out. As he straightened up, he groaned with pain. ‘Come and get it,’ he gasped.
You can bet your ass I will, she thought. I will finish you. I have to knock him out. She looked round the chapel. There! Between the door to the sacristy and the altar there was a heavy brass candlestick. She saw that Anselm had noticed what she was looking at. He was already moving. Agnes lunged between the prayer benches and beat him to the altar by a faction of a second. She reached for the candlestick. It was heavier than she expected and she could barely lift it.
‘You think you’re clever, you dirty cunt!’ he screamed and wrenched the candlestick from her with a single motion. He lifted it. Agnes ducked. He missed. She stood between him and the altar. I won’t make it out of here, she thought desperately. He lifted his weapon again. She ducked again. There was only one escape route: past him. She dived forward and slipped between him and the altar, got caught on the lace altar cloth and pulled it down with her. The vase, lilies and candles fell. A small puddle of wax ran onto the floor and seeped into the lace, which caught fire. The water from the flowers ran right past it. Agnes stood there for a second, paralysed. Fire. Anselm came towards her, brandishing the candlestick. She turned round and raced towards the sacristy. He had almost caught up. She pushed open the door, ran into the darkness, slammed the door behind her and groped around for the lock. No key. Agnes leaned her body against the door. Her fingers felt a latch. She pushed it across. Anselm had reached the door. He pounded on it.
‘You belong to me!’ he screamed in a strange voice. ‘You can’t escape me.’
She was safe for now. She wanted to look round, but the room was pitch black. There were no windows to climb out of. She was trapped. A flickering glow came from under the door.
* * *
Agnes didn’t answer. Dühnfort put the phone back in his jacket pocket. ‘Alois, I need you,’ he said, trying to sound calm. Agnes had probably gone to lie down again. It was Sunday. They’d only fallen asleep at dawn, and now she was probably sleeping in and hadn’t heard the phone. The memory of the previous night sent a warm wave of affection through him, and a wave of panicky fear at the same time.
He had skimmed through Münch’s diary entry on the computer. Anselm’s feelings for Agnes fluctuated between love and hate. The hatred will win out, Dühnfort thought. If he does anything to Agnes, then . . . He didn’t dare finish the thought.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Alois asked.
‘Just come with me.’
Dühnfort raced down to the lake, followed by Alois.
Gina’s car was in front of Melanie Lechner’s house. Dühnfort stopped in front of Agnes’s property and jumped out of the vehicle. He ran up the garden path and rang the doorbell. No answer. He knocked on the door and called Agnes’s name.
‘Do you really think he would have struck again right away?’ Alois said.
Gina came up the path. ‘You were right. The necklace is here,’ she said.
‘Have you seen Agnes?’ Dühnfort asked.
‘She went into the woods,’ Gina said.
‘Alone?’
Gina nodded.
‘Alois, we need the helicopter. You organise that. Then drive to the nature reserve. I’ll drive to the chapel, and Gina, you take the forest road towards Baierdilching. We have to find Agnes before Münch gets her.’
* * *
Agnes wracked her brain in desperation. Her head was throbbing with pain. Thick smoke was pouring under the door. Her eyes watered. She pulled the neckline of her jumper up over her nose and mouth and breathed through the fabric. Anselm was keeping quiet. He’s waiting for me to come out, she thought. To have any chance at all, I’ll have to surprise him and either get the key or somehow break the door down. And quickly, in one go. That won’t work. So, I have to incapacitate Anselm. I have to get out of here. Please. And suddenly she saw an opportunity. The door of the sacristy swung outwards into the chapel room. I can smash it open. If Anselm is standing in front of it, I can knock him over or at least push him to the side. And then . . .?
The smoke was getting thicker. I have to do something. It’s my only chance. She pressed an ear against the door, but all she could hear was her own blood pumping round her body. Slowly, millimetre by millimetre, she pushed the latch to the side. Please, dear God, don’t let it squeak, she prayed silently. Acrid smoke filled her nose. It made her want to cough. She choked and swallowed it down. After an eternity, she got the latch open. Her heart pounded in her throat. She listened. Not a sound from Anselm. All she could hear through the wood was crackling. She felt her way to the back wall of the sacristy and counted her steps. Seven. I have to run through the pitch black at full speed. I cannot miss the door. I have to concentrate. She closed her eyes. Paradoxical, she thought. Concentrate. She tensed every muscle, catapulted herself off the wall and shot forward. Six steps. Now turn your shoulder towards it. Seven. She crashed against the door. It flew open. Brief resistance. A scream. I did it, something cheered inside her. She shot into the chapel room. The brightness blinded her. Anselm lay on the ground in a daze.
Fire. Flames. Everywhere. Greedy red tongues. Agnes froze. She couldn’t breathe. Scorching heat on her skin. The prayer benches were ablaze. A fiery pathway to the door. Run, she ordered herself. But she couldn’t do it. She saw Anselm pick himself up. She saw him speaking but couldn’t hear him. Now we’ve come full circle, she thought. Now I will die like Yvonne. It’s only right. Now I will experience what she had to suffer. Because of me. I am to blame. This is my punishment. Anselm came over to her, candlestick raised, ready to strike. Don’t let it in, Dühnfort had said. Rainer. He smothered her. Murderer. Hatred, glowing like the fire around them, blazed high in Agnes, finally calling her to action.
It was almost too late. Anselm swung and missed. He lost his balance and staggered into the benches. His trousers caught fire. He tried to put out the flames with his hands. ‘Out! Out!’ he cried and hit himself.
I have to help him. I have to get out of here. The key. Anselm.
His trousers burned. He stopped beating the flames. Suddenly, his entire face changed. He stopped and bowed his head as if he was listening. The panicked expression disappeared, his features became smooth and his eyes stared off into the distance. He kneeled down at a burning prayer bench. He was surrounded by flames. His shirt caught fire. ‘Come to me,’ he said in a singsong voice. ‘We’ll go together. Cleansed and purified by the sacred fire.’
‘Never!’ she screamed.
The flames had reached his hair. The stench of it burning stung her nose. Agnes choked.
Anselm began to pray. ‘Hail Mary.’
Agnes’s eyes drifted over to the statue of Mary. She ran to the altar and snatched it.
‘Full of grace. The Lord is with thee.’
There was a passage between the wall and the benches that was only flanked by fire on one side.
‘Blessed art thou amongst women.’
Agnes ran to the door, clutching the Mary statue tight against her. The Madonna smiled up at her.
‘And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.’
With both hands, Agnes lifted the statue above her head, swung it right back and slammed it against the door. The lock shook. But it did not budge.
‘No!’ Anselm screamed. He jumped up and ran at Agnes with his arms spread wide. He was ablaze.
She lifted up the Madonna again and slammed it against the lock. It finally gave way. The door burst open. Agnes rushed out into the open air. She stumbled through the clearing. Anselm, engulfed in flames, followed close behind.
‘Holy Mary, Mother of God.’ He groaned and collapsed.
Agnes came to a standstill. The stench of burning flesh stung her nose and tears ran down her face. Her whole body was trembling and she couldn’t look away from the convulsing thing that w
as Anselm.
‘Pray for me, a sinner,’ he whimpered and stretched his burning arms skywards. ‘Now, at the hour of my death.’ Then there was silence.
* * *
Agnes didn’t know how long she had been standing there. She couldn’t look away. It could have been seconds or hours. Her head was bursting, a burning pain raged in her lungs, and her eyes felt scratchy, as if there was sand in them. She had burns on her hands that should be hurting, but strangely she couldn’t feel the pain. She just saw that her hands were shaking. I have to do something, she thought. But she couldn’t think what. Ambulance, fire brigade, she thought. But how? Run? I can’t. Suddenly, she heard the sound of helicopters and a car at the same time. Then someone came running towards her across the clearing. Dühnfort. He wrapped his arms round her. She felt his heartbeat slowly calming down.
Friday, 20th June
It was pitch dark when Agnes parked her car on Hochäckerstrasse and got out. She was wearing a black tracksuit. She got her backpack out of the boot and glanced inside to make sure she had everything she needed. Then she locked the car and walked over to the path. She pulled the torch out of her trouser pocket and shielded the glow with her hand as best she could. After five minutes, she reached the chain-link fence. She climbed over it and worked her way through the shrubs and bushes to the path ahead. A few minutes later, she was standing in front of the grave.
Agnes put down her backpack, pulled her gardening gloves over her bandaged hands and got out a shovel, a bag of soil and a large plastic sheet that she spread out on the path. She carefully eased out the begonias and placed them on the edge of the plastic sheet. Then she started digging. She put the soil on the sheet. After twenty minutes, she’d uncovered Yvonne’s urn enough to pull it out. She hadn’t even asked whether it was permissible to bury Yvonne’s urn in her own garden. She was determined to do it anyway and didn’t want to make a big deal of it. She wouldn’t let Yvonne lie beside her murderer. She picked up the urn. Dark blue with small gold stars. For a moment, she held the vessel close, saw her daughter laughing in front of her, saw her running across the beach, saw the wind ruffling her hair and could almost smell the scent of lavender. Thank you, darling, she thought.
Agnes shovelled the earth back in. There was no longer enough to fill the hole, so she opened the bag of soil, topped up the remaining space, then put the begonias back in their place. The grave looked just as it did before. She folded the plastic sheet and tossed it and the empty bag into the nearest bin.
Yesterday, she’d visited Gabi and Beppo. Gabi looked terrible. Pale, haggard, ill. The fact that her brother had died in such a gruesome way bothered her just as much as the fact that he was a murderer and had kidnapped Jakob and had been prepared to kill him. She was still in shock.
‘Dühnfort explained to me why he did it. That he had found some sort of way of legitimising the murders of Anna and Melli. And that he saw it as a sign that Jakob, of all people, was involved in this case. He was prepared to kill his own nephew. I don’t understand it,’ Gabi said despondently. ‘I just don’t understand it. It’s complete madness. I ought to have seen that there was something wrong with him. Why didn’t I notice?’
Jakob had been sitting under the table, unnoticed by Agnes and his mother. He came out and climbed onto her lap. ‘But, Mummy, it’s invisible inside his head,’ he whispered.
Gabi gave him a kiss and then sent him off to Beppo, who was feeding the calves in the barn. At least Jakob was doing better. He was speaking again, albeit not much and always in a whisper.
‘My mother’s in hospital,’ Gabi said. ‘A stroke. She couldn’t deal with all the upset. She wanted to read Anselm’s diary. Dühnfort talked her out of it, but he sent a psychologist to try and explain why Anselm turned out the way he did.’
Gabi told Agnes that Anselm was their parents’ second child and that the eldest son, Benedikt, had died while playing in a barrel. ‘My parents never really got over that. My father drank himself to death and my mother shut herself off from everything. She became hard and unapproachable. As a child, I always felt that she did care about me, even though she never showed it.’
Then Gabi told her about the fatal chain of abuse, betrayal and punishment and the supposed salvation by the Mother of God that had led to Anselm becoming a sadistic murderer. ‘I heard the fight they had back then, but I didn’t understand it,’ Gabi said. ‘I was only six years old. I came into the kitchen as Mummy was washing Anselm’s mouth out with soap. I can still picture the scene. A few days later, Anselm moved into the barn, into the farmhands’ quarters. And from then on, there were no more arguments. In fact, they only ever spoke to one other when it was absolutely essential,’ Gabi said.
An owl flew by, close to Agnes’s head. She flinched and went back to the grave. She carefully took the urn and placed it in her backpack, then left the cemetery the same way she came in. She knew she would never go back there. Let the grave become overgrown. Let people see that someone is buried here that no one thinks about.
Agnes had decided to go to therapy. Dühnfort had advised her to do so and she trusted him. Her first appointment was on Monday. She had to come to terms with what Rainer had done to her and Yvonne. She had briefly toyed with the idea of telling Rainer’s parents the truth about their son. But what would that achieve? She didn’t want to have to talk about her own breakdown. It wouldn’t change anything and Rainer’s parents would try and blame her. Agnes couldn’t even tell her own parents, or anyone else for that matter. She didn’t know if she’d get through it.
It was just before midnight when she buried her daughter’s urn beneath the copper beech. She patted the ground smooth and placed a small marble angel on top, which she’d bought from an antiques dealer. Agnes paused for a moment and let the feeling sink in: now she belonged here.
Sunday, 22nd June
Dühnfort parked in the village square but stayed sitting behind the wheel for a moment. A white delivery van drove past. He watched it drive away. They had located the vehicle that had been speeding through the village on the day of Melanie Lechner’s kidnapping. It was a courier’s van and neither white nor cream-coloured but light grey. The white delivery van must have been invented by Münch.
Münch had kept track of the case in his daily journal, so most of the details had now been clarified. He had taken the vials of midazolam from his friend Till Wiessner’s house during their weekly game of backgammon. The nightdress had come from the trousseau chest of Münch’s grandmother, which was still in the attic of the farmhouse. No one knew when or how Münch had come across the old vault, but it must have been shortly after the death of his father. The vault was one of the reasons why Münch had a luxurious house built for his mother on the outskirts of the village. He didn’t want her to discover it, so he banished her from the farm. Even back then, he planned to use the dungeon for things that weren’t to see the light of day. When Buchholz was collecting evidence in the cellars, he came across a wall that looked new. He had it demolished and found a partially collapsed cellar that was filled with the skeletons of countless cats, dogs and pigs that Münch had viciously tortured to death.
I don’t know how much longer I can bear wading through this filth, Dühnfort thought, which scared him. His mobile began to ring. Unusually, he was grateful for the distraction. His father was calling to tell him about the glider trip. He’d had to postpone it several times due to bad weather and had only got to fly it that morning. His delighted enthusiasm was infectious and dispelled the depression that Dühnfort had slipped into while brooding in his car. He promised his father he would come to the holiday house at the beginning of August, then said goodbye and got out of the car.
The sky was blue and the air was pleasantly warm. A perfect day. Dühnfort took the bike off the rack attached to the back of his car. An old-fashioned black roadster with curved handlebars and a comfortable saddle. He would pay off his gambling debt, but not in the way Agnes was expecting. She’s probably just
put on her heart-rate monitor, he thought, and kicked out the foot stand. Then he opened the boot and took out a picnic basket, two blankets and a bag of bathing gear. He used a bungee cord to attach everything to the bike rack. Hopefully the ice packs would keep the wine from getting warm. He locked up the car and jumped onto the bike. He was a bit unstable at first, as he hadn’t ridden a bike in ages, but by the time he turned down the road to Agnes’s house, he was already getting better.
When he rang the bell, Agnes came to the door. As expected, she was in her colourfully patterned racing outfit, helmet in hand and heart-rate monitor on her wrist. She looked at him with surprise. ‘Aren’t we going for a ride?’
‘That doesn’t mean we have to race,’ he said. ‘I thought we could take a nice slow ride out to the pier and swim a bit, to build up an appetite. And then . . .’ He gestured to the picnic basket.
Agnes grinned. ‘Afraid of losing?’ she said.
‘I’m just a man of pleasure,’ he said. ‘So we can do a bit of everything. Cycling, swimming, feasting. There’s scallop terrine, a baguette, cheese and fruit, chilled wine and –’
‘All right, all right,’ she said, laughing. ‘You’ve convinced me. I’ll just go and change and grab my bathing suit.’
A while later, they were sitting on the warm wooden planks, hungry from swimming, the sun hot on their skin. Dühnfort unpacked the picnic basket. During dessert – panna cotta with raspberry sauce – the conversation inevitably turned to Anselm.
‘I don’t understand why Mrs Schulz didn’t do anything at the time,’ she said. ‘The priest was dead. Why did she cover for him?’