Bad Wolf

by Nele Neuhaus

  “I see.” Dr. Engel scanned the list.

  “We have a complete confession from Helmut Grasser, and I’m hoping that Corinna and Ralf Wiesner and their assistants will confirm everything in the days to come.” Bodenstein rubbed both hands over his face, then looked up. “Frey killed the girl, and Grasser tossed her body in the river. He and Frey attacked Hanna Herzmann and almost killed her, and the murder of Leonie Verges can be chalked up to Grasser.”

  “Very good. You’ve solved all three cases,” the commissioner said with a nod. “Congratulations, Chief Detective Inspector.”

  “Thank you. We’ll also be able to prove that Kilian Rothemund was wrongly accused and convicted. Back in the summer of 2001, when he learned the names of the child molesters from Michaela Prinzler, he turned to Frey, of all people, and asked him for his help. Frey saw the names and was alarmed. He realized that this would be extremely perilous for the whole organization, so he lured his old friend Kilian into a trap. But he and Corinna Wiesner didn’t manage to get hold of Michaela. Prinzler protected his wife by faking her death, staging a funeral, obituaries, and a gravestone. That’s how he took her out of the line of fire.” Bodenstein paused briefly. “Markus Frey did not have a good childhood. He went through several families before he ended up with the Finkbeiners. He was dependent on old Finkbeiner, just like his foster siblings. I suspect that he was also abused and at some point he decided to turn the tables. Perhaps he found satisfaction in wielding power over weaker individuals.”

  “His wife, Sarah, is from India, and she looks like a child herself,” Kathrin Fachinger remarked. “Why didn’t we figure out much earlier that Nicky is actually Markus Frey? We knew that he had a close connection to the Finkbeiners.”

  “I didn’t figure it out, either,” replied Bodenstein. “I learned from Corinna Wiesner that his real name was Dominik. But Renate didn’t like that name, so she renamed him Markus. But his nickname, Nicky, stuck. He added his middle name, Maria, later, because he thought Markus Frey sounded too plain.”

  “Whew,” Kai Ostermann said. “And then he even bought himself a doctorate. How pathetic.”

  “Be that as it may. The system functioned perfectly. Girls who were too old were sold to pimps, turned into addicts, or landed in mental hospitals. Corinna Wiesner had it all under control. Michaela was the only one to escape.” Bodenstein paused as he studied the face of the woman he’d loved many years ago and thought that he knew. “Apart from the fact that we’ve solved our current cases, there’s something else we’ve managed to prove. Thanks to Rothemund and Prinzler, I know why undercover agent Erik Lessing had to die.”

  “Really?” Nicola Engel didn’t seem to be disturbed by this news, and it gave Bodenstein the meager hope that she might not have known the truth. Maybe she had simply been following orders from above. That didn’t change the fact that she had covered up a crime. But Nicola Engel was an ambitious woman, and maybe that explained why she’d done it.

  There was a knock, and in the doorway stood Pia and Christian Kröger, who had changed out of his wet clothes. They stepped inside.

  “How’s the girl doing?” the commissioner asked.

  “So far so good,” said Pia. “She’s asleep in my office. Ostermann is with her.”

  “Well then … nothing remains but to congratulate all of you.” Dr. Engel smiled. “It was really good work.”

  She stood up.

  “Just a moment, please,” said Bodenstein, holding her back.

  “What is it? I’m tired. It’s been a long day,” said the commissioner. “And you should all be getting home.”

  “Erik Lessing, who once went undercover to infiltrate the Frankfurt Road Kings, had befriended Bernd Prinzler. Through him, he learned of the existence of a child-abuse ring that included the deputy police president of Frankfurt at the time, as well as a state secretary from the Interior Ministry, a judge from the state supreme court, and a whole list of state attorneys, judges, politicians, and industrialists. Lessing wanted to make this information public, and that’s why he had to die.”

  “That’s utter nonsense,” Nicola Engel countered.

  “Lessing’s superior always knew his whereabouts,” Bodenstein went on, ignoring her protest. “A raid was organized under the table. Not using the SAU, as is usual for raids on the underworld, especially when the Road Kings are involved. No, they were looking for the perfect officer to follow orders, somebody who also happened to be a crack shot, and an ambitious chief detective inspector who they knew had no moral scruples. Namely you, Dr. Engel.”

  Engel’s expression froze.

  “Be careful what you say, Oliver,” she admonished him, forgetting to use his surname, which she usually did when others were present.

  “You accompanied Behnke to the brothel, having planted a different weapon on him in advance, one that wasn’t registered and would later be found in Prinzler’s car, making it look like the whole thing was just another shoot-out in the underworld. And you ordered Behnke to commit a triple murder.”

  Bodenstein wouldn’t have been surprised if Nicola Engel lost her composure when confronted with such serious accusations, but she remained completely unfazed, just like Corinna Wiesner earlier.

  “That’s a very entertaining story.” She shook her head. “Who wrote it? Behnke? That drunken, vengeful dimwit?”

  “He told us what happened,” Kröger confirmed. “And we didn’t get the impression he was lying.”

  Dr. Nicola Engel gave him a contemptuous stare, then turned to look first at Pia and then at Bodenstein.

  “Making unjustified accusations like this will cost all three of you your jobs, I can promise you that,” she said calmly. For a moment, no one spoke.

  “Wrong.” Bodenstein got up from his chair. “You’re the only one in this room who’s going to lose her job, Dr. Engel. I hereby arrest you on suspicion of inciting three counts of homicide. Unfortunately, I can’t let you leave, because I’m afraid that you might attempt to destroy evidence.”

  * * *

  Morning was dawning outside the windows by the time Wolfgang Matern finished speaking. He’d been talking for almost an hour and a half, hesitantly at first, then more and more rapidly, almost as if under duress. Meike had been listening to him, stunned and upset. He had admitted to her that he was the one who had betrayed Hanna. He was her oldest and best friend, whom she had trusted without reservation, and yet he was responsible for the most devastating experience of her life.

  “There was nothing else I could do,” he’d replied tersely when Meike asked him why he’d done it. “When she gave me the exposé to read and I saw the names in it, I knew it would spell disaster.”

  “But not for you!” Meike sat facing him in an easy chair, her arms wrapped around her knees. “You had nothing to do with the whole mess. Nothing at all. You could have finally freed yourself from your father and this … this shit.”

  “Yes.” He sighed heavily and rubbed his tired eyes. “Yes, I could have. But I didn’t think anything like that would ever happen. I … I thought I could talk Hanna out of it, but before I even had a chance to speak to her, my father alerted the Finkbeiners, and they sent their bloodhounds after her.”

  Wolfgang avoided looking at Meike.

  “I visited Hanna in the hospital. It was so horrible to see her like that,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Meike, you can’t imagine how tormented I feel because I am to blame. I thought about killing myself, but I was too cowardly even for that.”

  Meike saw not a man sitting in front of her, but a shadow.

  “When did you find out what your father was doing?” she asked.

  “I always knew,” he admitted. “At least since I was sixteen or seventeen. At first, I didn’t really understand it. I thought they were meeting with young girls, with prostitutes. My mother always looked the other way. She must have know what my father was up to.”

  “Maybe that’s why she killed herself.” Gradually, Meike was making the connec
tions and realizing what dramas must have played out behind the walls of the beautiful villa in Oberursel.

  “Of course that’s why she did it,” Wolfgang confirmed. He was slumped on the sofa, looking sick. “She did leave behind a farewell note. I was the one who found it and I … I hid it. Nobody but me has ever read it.”

  “You mean you protected your father, that perverted pig who drove your mother to her death, even then?” Meike blurted out. “Why? Why did you do it?”

  For the first time in an hour, Wolfgang looked at her. His face was blank, his expression so dazed and hopeless that Meike was startled.

  “Because … because he was still my father,” he whispered. “I wanted to admire him, not see evil in him. He was … he was exactly how I always wanted to be, so strong, so self-assured. I was always trying to win his recognition and hoped that someday he would like me and respect me. But … but he never did. And now … now he’s dead, and I can no longer tell him that I … despise him!”

  He buried his face in his hands and began to sob.

  “I can never make it right again,” he said, crying like a little boy. Meike felt no sympathy for him after everything he’d done and allowed to happen.

  “Yes, you can,” she said.

  “How? How can I?” He raised his head in despair, the tears flowing down his unshaven face. “How can I make up for all this?”

  “You can go with me to the police and tell them everything you just told me, so that they can catch these guys,” Meike replied. “That’s the least you can do.”

  “But what’ll happen to me then? Won’t I be implicated?” He sounded whiny and self-pitying. Meike grimaced as she stared at this wretched weakling, this coward steeped in denial. How could she ever have loved and admired this man?

  “You’ve got to take a chance,” she said. “Otherwise, you’ll never be happy for the rest of your life.”

  * * *

  Christian Kröger placed the sleeping child carefully on the backseat of Pia’s car. Lilly was sound asleep, exhausted from the most terrifying episode of her young life. Once, she woke up briefly and, groggy with sleep, asked Pia whether Robbie and Simba were in dog heaven now, and then she wanted to know what happened to the kids who were in the cellar. Before Pia could answer, she was asleep again, and now she lay there wrapped in a soft fleece blanket, a tiny snoring angel.

  “I hope she won’t be traumatized for the rest of her life,” said Pia. Christian closed the car door as quietly as he could.

  “I don’t think she will,” he replied. “She’s a robust little thing.”

  Pia sighed and looked at him.

  “Thank you, Christian. You saved her life.”

  “Well…” He shrugged in embarrassment and grinned. “I never would have thought that I’d voluntarily jump into a river, especially at night.”

  “For Lilly, I would have jumped into the Grand Canyon,” said Pia. “I feel like she’s my own kid.”

  “Every woman has a maternal instinct,” Christian Kröger said. “That’s why it’s inconceivable to me how a woman like Corinna Wiesner could do something like that and let it go on for years.”

  “She’s sick. Just like Helmut Grasser and all the rest of these pedophiles.”

  Pia leaned against her car and lit a cigarette. It was over. They had solved all three cases and a couple of old ones, too, and yet she felt no sense of relief nor any real pride in a job well done. Kilian Rothemund would have his conviction overturned, and Hanna Herzmann might someday be healthy again. Michaela Prinzler had survived the surgery, and Emma had brought a baby boy into the world. Pia thought about Louisa. She had loving parents and was young enough that she might be able to forget what had happened to her. Many other children weren’t so lucky. They would have to live with the memory of all the atrocities they’d suffered, they might have mental breakdowns, and the anguish would haunt them like a shadow for the rest of their lives.

  “Go home and try to get some sleep,” said Christian.

  “Yes, I’m going to do that.” Pia took a drag on her cigarette. “I should be happy that we were able to break up a really big child-abuse ring. But I’m not. Child abuse will never end.”

  “Unfortunately, you’re right,” said Christian with a nod. “And we’ll also never be able to stop people from killing each other.”

  The sky reddened in the east. Soon the sun would come up, as it had for billions of years every morning, in spite of all the tragedies played out on earth.

  “I hope that pig is on the bottom of the Nidda River, being eaten by the fish for all the things he did.” Pia dropped the cigarette and ground it out with her foot. “Now I have to go see Christoph in the hospital and take him a few things.”

  She and Kröger looked at each other; then she gave her colleague a hug. “Thank you for everything,” she murmured.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Pia was just about to get in the car, when a red Mini turned into the parking lot. Meike Herzmann and Wolfgang Matern!

  “What are they doing here?”

  “You go home.” Kröger gently shoved her into the car. “I’ll take care of this. See you on Monday.”

  Pia was too exhausted to argue. She fastened her seat belt, started the engine, and drove off. The streets were empty so early in the morning, and she reached Birkenhof in only ten minutes. In front of the gate stood a taxi with its motor running. Pia set the hand brake and got out. Her heart skipped a beat, but this time not from fear. She felt joy and relief. Christoph sat in the passenger seat. He was a little pale, and he had a bandage on his head, but otherwise he looked all right. When he caught sight of her, he got out of the taxi. She gave him a big hug.

  “Lilly is doing fine,” she said quietly. “She’s asleep on the backseat.”

  “Thank God,” Christoph murmured. He took her face in both hands and looked at her. “And how are you doing?”

  “That’s what I should be asking you,” replied Pia. “So they really let you out of the hospital this morning?”

  “The bed was so uncomfortable.” Christoph smiled wryly. “And I don’t need to lie around in a hospital just because of a little concussion.”

  The taxi driver rolled down the window on the passenger side.

  “It’s great that you’re all back together,” he griped, “but could somebody please pay me?”

  Pia got her wallet out of her backpack and handed him a twenty-euro note.

  “Keep the change,” she said; then she opened the gate and got back in her car. Christoph sat in the passenger seat and Pia drove off. The bodies of their dogs and the blood spots on the driveway were gone, no doubt thanks to Hans Georg.

  Lilly stirred on the backseat. “Are we already home?” She mumbled.

  “What do you mean, ‘already’?” Pia stopped in front of the house. “It’s four-thirty in the morning.”

  “Pretty early all right,” said Lilly. Then she noticed Christoph, and her eyes grew wide.

  “Grandpa is wearing a turban! That’s really funny-looking.” She giggled.

  Pia looked at Christoph. It did look pretty funny. The tension of the past few hours fell away, and she started to laugh.

  “Don’t mock the afflicted,” Christoph commented drily. “Okay, out of the car, you silly girls. I really need a cup of coffee.”

  “Me, too.” Lilly heaved a huge sigh. “And I won’t tell Mommy and Daddy.”

  “About what?” Pia and Christoph turned around at the same time to look at her.

  “That you let me drink coffee, of course,” replied Lilly with a grin.

  Epilogue

  “Välkommen till Sverige, Mr. de la Rosa.” The young Swedish officer at passport control gave the man a friendly smile and handed back his Argentine diplomatic passport. “Jag hoppas att ni hade en trevlig flygning.”

  “Yes, the flight was fine, thank you.” Markus Maria Frey nodded, smiled, and left the secure area of Arlanda Airport in Stockholm. She was waiting outside in the departure
hall, and he recognized her at once, although it had been a few years since they’d seen each other. The years had been kind to her, and she was even more beautiful than he remembered.

  “Nicky!” She was beaming as she kissed him first on one cheek, then on the other. “How wonderful to see you. Welcome to Sweden.”

  “Hello, Linda. Nice of you to pick me up,” he replied. “And how is Magnus?”

  “He’s waiting outside in the car.” She put her hand through his arm. “I’m glad you’re here. That whole business in Germany has been causing our friends great concern.”

  “A tempest in a teapot.” Markus Maria Frey, now Hector de la Rosa, according to his passport, dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand. “Things will calm down eventually.”

  A family stood in front of him on the escalator. The father was struggling with several pieces of luggage, and the mother seemed frazzled. The boy looked sullen. The girl, no older than five or six, was hopping about and didn’t notice the end of the escalator approaching. Before she could fall over and hurt herself, Frey quickly reached out and grabbed her, setting her back on her feet.

  “Kan du inte akta dig?” the mother chided her daughter.

  “Don’t worry; she’s all right,” Frey said with a smile, stroking the girl’s hair and then walking on. What a sweet little girl, he thought, even if she’s crying now. Children really make life worthwhile.

  Acknowledgments

  As I was doing research for Bad Wolf, I came across the book Our Father Who Art in Hell [Vater Unser in der Hölle], by Ulla Fröhling (Bastei Lübbe Verlag). I was shocked, shaken, and deeply moved by the protagonist’s terrible fate, and I could see that the story that I originally wanted to write only scratched the surface of what is really concealed beneath the term “child abuse.” I have done a lot of research and reading on this topic.

  I am a supporter of the project 101 Guardian Angels Wanted, sponsored by the FeM Girls House in Frankfurt. I spoke with a therapist at this organization, which cares for traumatized girls, and I learned that cases such as those Ulla Fröhling describes in her book are, unfortunately, not unique. Women and children repeatedly endure this kind of suffering behind closed doors, and on a daily basis within families and in circles of friends and acquaintances. I realized how crucial it is to examine the topic of child abuse, and how immense the fear and distress of these abused girls are.