Her pulse quickened. Stay calm. It might just be Florin; he texted from time to time.
She wiped her hands on her jogging bottoms and went back out to the balcony. It could just as easily be her mother.
But a tap of the mobile’s keypad was enough to clarify things. The sender’s number was the same as the one that lunchtime. Feeling as though something was tightening around her neck, Beatrice sank down onto the balcony chair.
Cold, completely cold.
The message consisted only of these three words, without any explanation or further comment.
Beatrice remembered the photo of Nora Papenberg holding her mobile pressed to her ear, hand in front of her mouth. He sent me the text message from this very phone. A Nokia N8, a present from her husband.
Suddenly, Beatrice felt as though she was being watched. She jumped up and went over to the main door of the apartment, checking to see if it was definitely locked properly. Pulled the curtains shut. Ran back to the balcony and peered down into the courtyard, but no one returned her gaze.
Cold, completely cold. The first association that had shot into Beatrice’s mind was the coldness of a corpse’s skin, but the longer she turned the words over in her thoughts, the surer she became that the sender of the message hadn’t meant that.
She thought back to Jakob’s last birthday party, when she had revived all the party games from her own childhood, including a treasure hunt. Cold, completely cold, warmer now, even warmer, colder, good, warmer, warmer, hot!
Was the Owner trying to tell her that they were on the wrong track?
She resisted the temptation to delete the message, and called Achim instead. In a way, she was relieved that the children weren’t with her, but she had to hear their voices and make sure that—
‘You? What do you want?’ Achim’s words perforated her thoughts. There it was again, the utter contempt.
‘Hello. Put Mina or Jakob on the line, please.’
‘They’re busy.’
She wouldn’t beg. ‘Just for a moment.’
He sighed resignedly. ‘Fine, go ahead then. But it would be better if you could look after them properly while they’re with you instead and leave them in peace for the little time I have with them.’
She stared over at the corner of the balcony, at a red plant pot in which a small conifer was leading a miserable existence. Nothing she would have liked to say to Achim right now would make the situation any better.
He sighed once more. ‘Mina, Jakob, do either of you want to speak to your mother?’
‘Later,’ called Mina, but Jakob’s ‘Yes’ echoed loudly down the phone.
The sound of running, crashing. ‘Hi, Mama!’
‘Hello, my darling! Are you having a good time?’
‘Yes! Papa really did get us a cat! Mina wants to call her Miley, but that’s a totally stupid name! Can we call her Lou? Like Tobias’s cat? I think that’s much better, but Mina says it sounds like loo …’
Beatrice listened to him talk, feeling the relief rush through her. Of course the children were fine; what had she expected? Even though the Owner clearly had her mobile number, none of the messages had been personal; no one had threatened her. The messages were a good thing, not a danger. But she still felt safer once she had retreated from the balcony back into the lounge, closing the glass door behind her.
She let Jakob go back to the nameless cat, hung up and looked at the text message again. After staring at the number for a few moments, she pressed the green button. It had barely begun to ring before the recorded voice kicked in. The number you have dialled is not available right now. Please try again later.
He hadn’t activated his voicemail, which meant Beatrice didn’t have the chance to say all the things she wanted to blurt out. That was probably for the best.
She was still holding the phone in her hand when it started to ring, prompting her to nearly drop it in shock. Florin.
‘Is there any news? How was this afternoon?’
‘We went to the agency. And it seems like the Owner has made contact with me. Three times.’
‘What?’
She brought him up to date on the events of the last few hours.
‘I’m coming into the office tomorrow,’ he said.
‘No, enjoy your time with Anneke. Stefan and I have things under control. We’ll check out a couple of the choir singers, and if we don’t have any luck then we’ll see the others on Sunday.’
She heard him sigh. ‘You two are making me feel guilty. And Bea, it worries me that he’s sending you anonymous text messages. Are you alone in the apartment?’
The creeping sense of unease from before returned. ‘Yes, but you can’t seriously think that he’ll pay me a visit. That’s nonsense, Florin.’ Good – she had even managed to convince herself.
‘I wouldn’t bet on it. We don’t yet know what makes him tick. Be careful, okay?’
‘Of course.’ Seeing her nod reflected in the balcony door, she pulled the curtain closed. ‘How was your evening? Was the carpaccio a hit?’
‘Don’t try to change the subject.’ But she could hear from his voice that he was smiling. ‘Are you sure about tomorrow? I could come in for an hour or two, at least.’
‘There’s no need. Really. You always have my back when I need to go and pick up the children, so it’s the least I can do to repay the favour now and again. Give my best to Anneke, even though I’ve never met her, I mean.’
‘I will. Have a nice evening, Bea. And remember—’
She interrupted him. ‘You, too. Both of you, I mean.’
Ending the call, she collapsed onto the sofa and closed her eyes.
Schubert’s Mass in A flat.
A noticeable birthmark on the back of the hand.
Why these particular clues? What was their relevance?
They reminded Beatrice of bad witness statements. Sometimes the strangest things stick in people’s memories while they forget the really important ones.
She clapped her laptop shut and went off to bed, not because she was tired, but because she knew she needed the sleep to be able to function tomorrow. She wouldn’t unplug the phone this time; she wanted to be contactable in case something was wrong with the children. Presumably Achim would leave her in peace tonight.
She only hoped the Owner would too.
‘I have no idea what you want from me, and I have no intention of letting you inspect my hands.’ The chubby, angry man in a dressing gown who had opened the door to them was the third Christoph they had called on today, and by far the least cooperative. ‘Show me your ID again,’ he demanded, looking Beatrice up and down in a leering fashion. The fatty was lucky she was feeling well rested, she reflected. She had slept through the night as if drugged. No calls or messages had startled her awake.
‘We’re investigating a murder case,’ she explained. ‘If you don’t want to get this over with quickly, we can happily take you down to the station.’
The man made a big fuss of examining the ID, then stretched his hands out. ‘If this is some hidden camera thing, you won’t hear the end of this,’ he grumbled.
‘Don’t worry.’ Gripping his hands a little more tightly than necessary and prompting an involuntary yelp, she looked at his palms. Nothing.
And the backs? Still nothing, even though she pushed up the sleeves of his dressing gown to be sure.
‘Thank you, we’re done now. Enjoy the rest of your day.’
Clearly the fat man wasn’t content with that. ‘Aren’t you going to at least tell me what murder case this is in connection with?’
‘Sorry, but no. Goodbye.’
The next man on their list wasn’t at home, and the one after that didn’t have any noticeable birthmarks either. Frustrated, Beatrice and Stefan made their way back to the police station, disappearing into their respective offices without another word. As she walked in, Beatrice was surprised to see Florin sitting at his desk.
‘Just a couple of hours,’ he explaine
d. ‘I discovered yesterday evening that if you enter coordinates on Google Maps it shows you the exact location on the map. Look.’ He angled his screen so she could see. ‘This is the place where we found the hand. More or less exactly. This should make the work easier for us in future, if—’
Stefan rushed into the room, waving a piece of paper over his head. ‘This email arrived an hour ago, and you were right,’ he cried, thrusting the printout into Beatrice’s hand.
The Nokia N8 with the International Mobile Subscriber Identity she had investigated yesterday was registered to Nora Papenberg.
‘I knew it!’ exclaimed Beatrice. ‘He’s got her phone, and he’s sending us messages from it.’
‘Not us, you,’ Florin corrected her. ‘Which I still find very worrying, by the way.’
‘And I still think it’s very unlikely he wants to harm me,’ she answered, with a conviction that she only half felt. ‘He’s just trying to demonstrate his superiority.’ All the same, she knew she would be double-locking the door and closing all the windows tonight.
Florin nodded, but still looked doubtful. ‘It’s high time we brought a forensic psychologist onto the case – perhaps he’ll read more into the messages than we’re seeing. I don’t want to risk making mistakes or overlooking anything.’
Midday gave way to afternoon, and the striped pattern on Beatrice’s desk cast by the sunlight stretching through the blinds wandered from left to right. At half-past two, an email arrived from the network provider with a PDF attachment listing the connections made by the owner’s prepaid card.
The pickings were slim; only one number appeared, and that was Beatrice’s own. He had connected to the network cell for just two minutes at a time to send her the two messages, once in Hallein and the second time right there in Salzburg, in the Aigen district. Apart from that, the mobile had been offline the entire time.
‘He knows what he’s doing,’ Beatrice muttered. ‘So far he hasn’t made a single mistake that could give us anything to go on.’ The familiar digits of her own mobile number aggravated her every time the printout caught her eye. ‘So are we in agreement that the text messages and note came from him? From Nora Papenberg’s murderer?’
Florin stared thoughtfully at the reports in front of him for a few seconds, then nodded. ‘Yes. Otherwise it doesn’t make any sense.’
Half an hour later, Beatrice tried to shoo him away from the desk. ‘You shouldn’t even be here today. You have a guest.’
She sounded like her grandmother, but Florin’s smile was one of gratitude.
‘Okay, okay. But you should call it a day now, too.’
‘I will soon.’ She started to rearrange the papers on her desk. ‘Just another half-hour.’ Seeing the look on his face, she added, ‘I have a child-free weekend, so let me make use of it, okay?’
Half an hour turned into two, but beyond that she couldn’t make sense of anything; none of her thoughts managed to find a tenable link. Frustrated, she flung her pen across the desk.
She took a deep breath and shut down her computer. After letting Stefan know that she was stopping for the day, and noticing with a guilty conscience that he carried on working regardless, she finally walked out into the sunshine. It hadn’t been this warm for a long time. Beatrice pulled her sunglasses and car keys out of her bag, almost making her mobile fall out in the process.
All of a sudden, the thought of driving home, bunging on a DVD and putting her feet up was far less appealing than it had been five minutes ago.
What about living a bit for a change? she asked herself, looking through the contact list on her mobile. A coffee in town, an hour or two chatting to a girlfriend … Lisa or Kathrin perhaps?
Fat chance. Both of them had families – children and a husband – so there was no room for spontaneous activities on the weekends any more. But perhaps Gina, who didn’t have kids and was recently separated? Without hesitating a moment longer, Beatrice pressed the dial button.
After three rings, Gina picked up. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi, it’s me. Bea. Do you fancy going for coffee in the Bazaar? In half an hour perhaps?’
‘What? Oh, sorry, I’m in Rome right now. You wouldn’t believe how gorgeous the weather is! Next week, okay? I’ll bring you back a bottle of grappa.’
Beatrice swallowed down her disappointment. It was her own fault; she had let the friendship slip, hadn’t responded to emails or invitations for a while now.
You’re still afraid, aren’t you? Bea, you coward.
Her mobile was returned to her bag. She unlocked her car – no notes under the windscreen wiper this time – and wound down the windows.
There was nothing stopping her going for a coffee by herself, buying a magazine, enjoying the spring sunshine. She drove through the quiet Saturday afternoon traffic towards the old town, crossed the bridge over the Salzach and found a parking space on Rudolfskai.
Walking over to Residenzplatz, Beatrice noticed how the jet of water shooting up from the baroque fountain had been transformed by the sun into a golden fog, completely enveloping the four marble horses which sprang forth from its basin. The tourist season was already in full swing. A living statue in a Mozart costume, painted in glittering silver from head to toe, bowed in front of a Japanese tour group who seemed to have mistaken themselves for paparazzi. Beatrice paused for a moment to take in the scene. Three English students walked past, chattering and laughing, each with a beaker of ice cream in hand.
Ice cream, yes, that was a good plan.
There was a fantastic ice cream parlour a few streets away, with plenty of galleries and boutiques lining the route. Beatrice looked at the fancy clothing in the window displays, but without feeling any urge to shop. There was no point; the opportunity to wear things like that didn’t really come up in her life. Evading another group of tourists, she joined the queue for ice cream.
Hazelnut, caramel and pumpkin brittle in a large beaker, with chocolate sauce. The perfect remedy for her frustration.
Enjoying the explosion of flavours in her mouth, she allowed the first genuine smile of the day to tiptoe across her face.
It didn’t even last five minutes. On her way to the cathedral square, where she was hoping to find a peaceful and sunny bench, she saw Florin. From behind, but there was no doubt it was him. His arm was draped around the waist of a tall, slim woman with blonde shoulder-length hair. As they walked, he leant over and said something that made her burst out laughing. A laugh that was much throatier than Beatrice would have attributed to the Anneke in her imagination.
They were crossing Residenzplatz and veering off into the narrow, cobbled Goldgasse. Amongst the crowds, Beatrice kept seeing Anneke’s fair hair gleam in the sunlight. Without giving any thought to what she was doing, she followed them, taking care not to get too close. She had completely forgotten her ice cream by now, and only remembered it as the sticky mess began to drip onto her fingers.
‘Shit.’ She threw the beaker into the nearest bin and tried to pull a tissue from her bag without making everything dirty in the process. In front of her, Florin and Anneke turned in to a lane on the right. Beatrice watched as Anneke put some coins into a beggar’s bowl, watched as she stopped with Florin in front of a window display full of shoes, as he brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear and—
Had she lost her mind? What was she doing? Was she seriously stalking her colleague?
She abruptly turned on her heel and ran back down the cobbled street in the opposite direction, as quickly as she could, before Florin had a chance to spot her.
Why, Beatrice? What is it? Why does the sight of two loved-up people torment you so much?
She couldn’t answer her own question. It wasn’t jealousy, not really; she didn’t begrudge them one single minute of happiness. Longing, perhaps … that was more to the point. But she couldn’t allow herself to lose her composure like this.
She paced hastily all the way back to her car, then took the fastest route home. Browsing h
er bookshelves, she found a historical novel she had bought two years ago but never opened since. She took it to the sofa with her – that and a glass of Chardonnay. Sleep stalked her with its silent steps; within an hour, it had laid the book down on her chest and pressed her eyelids shut.
The next morning, shortly before eleven, Beatrice and Stefan’s search led them to Christoph Beil, a brawny man in his mid-forties who sang Beethoven’s Mass in C major with his choir in the Maria Plain basilica. They only noticed the birthmark on his hand after closer inspection – or, to be more precise, the scar from where a birthmark had once been.
‘I did used to have one, yes, a naevus, as the doctors called it. It was really dark and looked horrible, so I’m really glad my wife convinced me to have it removed.’
Only an uneven, violet-coloured fleck remained. ‘How long ago was that?’ Beatrice enquired.
‘About two and a half years,’ the man explained. He answered cautiously, visibly unsettled by their questioning and the fact that he didn’t know what it was about.
Beatrice glanced at Stefan. ‘We’d like to speak with you privately, Herr Beil. Don’t worry, you’re not under suspicion of having committed a crime, but you may be able to help us with a current case.’
Beil hesitated. ‘Could you not at least give me some idea of what it’s about?’
‘Later,’ replied Beatrice. ‘In private.’
Something resembling protest flickered in the man’s eyes, but only briefly. Then he tilted his head to the side and smiled. ‘Of course, when would be good for you?’
‘This afternoon, around four?’ Stefan suggested. ‘Florin could be there then too,’ he said, speaking more softly as he turned to address Beatrice.
‘That’s fine. Do you want to come to my house? My wife has been baking, and we could sit out in the garden.’
‘You call Florin,’ said Beatrice, once they were sitting back in the car.
Stefan raised his eyebrows in surprise, but did what she had asked.
‘Four is fine,’ he said after hanging up. ‘He’s dropping his girlfriend off at the airport now, so he can come round to us at half-three.’ Lost in thought, Stefan played with the car keys. ‘Why didn’t you just come out and ask him right away?’
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