Five

by Ursula P Archer

  Beatrice was only half-listening to the conversation. Her enquiry with the provider hadn’t revealed any new information. Since the text message that morning, the Owner had kept the mobile turned off.

  Sensing that the ball was in her court again, Beatrice opened a new message on her mobile.

  Thanks for the flowers, she typed. I’d like to compliment you on your attention to detail and ask you to answer just one simple question for me: How is Bernd Sigart?

  Would the Owner think the message was ridiculous? Probably. But she wasn’t in the mood for playing it safe with subtle hints any more.

  For a moment, she contemplated mentioning the coordinates and the bridge, but decided against it. She didn’t want to distract from the main thrust of the message.

  She sent it and went off to fetch a bottle of iced tea from the vending machine. With the drink in her hand, she looked for a peaceful spot outside. The tea was unbearably sweet and so cold that pain shot to her temples with every sip.

  She needed to take a break for half an hour, so she drank slowly. She wanted to give him time – if he hadn’t connected to the network so far, then he might do so soon. Then she could respond immediately. The exchange of messages pleased him; that was quite obvious. He enjoyed the innuendos, the surprises he gave her. He would want to see her reaction.

  But it wasn’t until three the next morning that the strains of ‘Message in a Bottle’ announced the arrival of a new message. Wide awake from one second to the next, and with her heart pounding at a worrying speed, Beatrice sat bolt upright.

  You want to know whether Sigart is alive? He is. So far. But he’s in a bad way. If you’re that fond of him, I’ll keep him for you until the end. I hope you’ll appreciate it.

  Until the end. If ever a piece of information was a double-edged sword, then it was this. So there was still a chance of saving Sigart, but at the same time the Owner was saying he wasn’t yet done with the murders. Stage Four was still unsolved, of course, the puzzle they had refused help with. Stefan was continuing with the research, but even if he were to find something, and something quite definite, they wouldn’t question the key figure, but instead have him watched around the clock. If the Owner was lurking somewhere in the vicinity of his next potential victim, waiting for the police to show up, then they might have a chance of catching him.

  Would there be a Stage Five?

  She read through the message again.

  The next thing to find its way into Beatrice’s consciousness was the peeping of the alarm clock. She had managed to go back to sleep after all, her mobile phone clasped tightly in her hand like a talisman.

  Kossar didn’t agree with her theory. ‘Keeping him until the end could also mean keeping his corpse until the end. Don’t let him lull you into a false sense of security.’ The gaze behind the slender lenses was full of the psychologist sensitivity Beatrice had found so abhorrent in her lecturers at university. ‘Remember the state of the flat – he lost an awful amount of blood, and I’m sure he carried on bleeding after he was bundled into the car.’

  He could spare her the know-it-all tone. Beatrice had no intention of arguing with him. She waited until she was alone with Florin in the office, then called Drasche.

  ‘Without medical care it would be unlikely he’d survive,’ he said dispassionately. ‘Maybe he didn’t die immediately, but I wouldn’t hold out too much hope.’

  ‘Was all of the blood his, then?’

  ‘Yes.’ The answer came without hesitation. ‘AB negative, and you don’t get much rarer than that. The finger and all the traces of blood originate from the same person. I compared my lab data with Sigart’s medical file, and all the parameters match. His finger, his blood. No traces of anyone else’s blood. The perpetrator clearly didn’t sustain any injuries.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Beatrice quietly. The small amount of optimism that had visited her in the early hours of the morning had trickled away at Drasche’s words. For the rest of the day, she hoped for a message from the Owner, for another picture message showing that he had answered truthfully, that Sigart was alive. But her mobile remained silent.

  According to her kitchen clock, it was just before midnight. When the phone rang, Beatrice was standing in front of the fridge in her bathrobe, her hair still wet.

  ‘We’ve got another body.’ Florin’s voice sounded incredibly weary. ‘And three guesses as to where it was found.’

  ‘Oh, shit. Sigart.’ So the Owner had gone against his word and killed him – or let him die of his injuries.

  ‘No, it doesn’t seem like it’s Sigart, going by the description. But it’s definitely one of our Owner’s victims.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘The body’s at the bridge, at the coordinates where we searched yesterday morning. I’m already on my way. It would be good if you could come too.’

  N47º 26.195, E013º 12.523

  The red-and-white cordon tape fluttered in the night wind, while dazzling floodlights illuminated the foot of the bridge. Cold, completely cold, thought Beatrice as she got out of her car. She was shivering, but put that down to her wet hair. She had tied it into a low ponytail, and now felt as though she was carrying around a small, drowned animal at the nape of her neck.

  Stefan came running over the bridge towards her. ‘Florin’s down below with the body. There’s not much room to move and they’re all stepping on each others’ toes down there, so I’m pretty sure they’ll bring the guy up soon. It’s unbelievable, Bea. He looks terrible.’

  She nodded silently and pulled him along with her to the bridge wall, next to the floodlights.

  Pale skin and a stocky body which bore no resemblance to Sigart’s gaunt frame. Twisted legs, naked feet. Beatrice couldn’t make out much more than that, because both Florin and Dr Vogt were leaning over the body, clearly struggling to keep their balance on the sloping embankment. Drasche was there too, more lying on the ground than sitting, busy grappling with the lock of his evidence case.

  ‘It looks like the Owner just pushed the guy off the bridge,’ Beatrice pondered out loud. He wouldn’t have had the time or the opportunity to place him down there – the road was really busy even at night. Had he not been able to find a better location? Had he decided to give up on his former principle of seclusion when selecting this one?

  ‘Do we have any idea yet of the dead man’s identity?’

  ‘No. There aren’t any new missing persons reports. But he was married. Drasche has taken the wedding ring for examination.’ Stefan shrugged. ‘It must have been a really gruesome way to go though. Even Vogt says he’s never seen anything like it.’

  The three men were now clambering up the embankment one after the other, while a few uniformed officers got ready to haul the corpse up to the top. Drasche was the first to step over the low wall, holding out a plastic evidence bag towards Beatrice. The wedding ring.

  ‘Graciella, 19.6.2011,’ he said. ‘Our grieving widow.’

  She made a note of the information; the unusual name was a gift that would make their work easier.

  ‘Hey, Bea.’ In the glare of the floodlight, Florin looked almost as pale as the corpse. He took the cigarette offered to him by Drasche – an absolute first.

  ‘I’ll come along to the autopsy,’ he said, taking a deep drag of smoke. ‘I want to know what the body looks like internally.’

  Why? Beatrice wanted to ask, but the two policemen had just lifted the man over the wall. They laid him down on a tarpaulin, and Beatrice signalled for them to wait before covering him up.

  The very next moment, she regretted her decision, but forced herself not to look away.

  A red-and-black crater was located where the man’s right eye would once have been. Festering lava had oozed out, burrowing deep grooves and exposing raw flesh.

  The dead man was baring his teeth like a bulldog about to bite, and it was only on closer inspection that Beatrice realised the contorted expression wasn’t due to scorn or pain, but
a missing lower lip. It was as if it had melted away. The stained tongue protruded out from between the teeth, an oversized, blood-bloated leech. The inside of his mouth was a darkly encrusted wasteland.

  ‘How did that happen?’ she asked Vogt, who had come over to stand next to her.

  ‘My guess would be acid, perhaps acetic or hydrofluoric. Do you see the dark crust on the mucous membrane? That’s a typical sign of it.’

  ‘You mean he drank acid?’

  ‘Or was forced to, more like. I can only say for sure after the body’s been opened up, but I’m expecting to find a corroded oesophagus and perforated stomach, as well as mediastinitis. We’ll see. We also found marks around the hands and ankles indicating that he’d been restrained, similar to those on Christoph Beil, but cutting in more deeply this time. Cable tie, if you ask me.’

  Beatrice’s mind recalled the image of Nora Papenberg, lying face down on the meadow, her hands tied behind her back. Cable tie, as white as the dead skin beneath it.

  Vogt nodded to the policemen to cover up the body, and this time Beatrice didn’t stop them. ‘What about the eye?’ she asked.

  ‘The same thing. And downright horrific, because it was ante mortem.’ He saw the unspoken question in her face. ‘The eyelid was corroded. He must have tried to close it in order to protect the eye. Not too pleasant.’ He left her standing there and went over to his car, where he pulled out a muesli bar from the glove compartment.

  On the opposite side of the street towered the stone figure of a saint, a woman in long robes holding a tower in her hands and staring down to the ground. Florin was sitting at her feet, another cigarette between his fingers, looking over at Beatrice.

  ‘Don’t make a habit of that,’ she said.

  ‘I won’t. Anneke hates it when I smoke.’ He took two more deep drags, then stubbed the cigarette out next to him in the grass. ‘I’d like to call on Konrad Papenberg again. Let’s see if he has an alibi for tonight. Who else is there – Beil’s wife? Would she be capable of hauling along a guy like that?’ He looked at Beatrice, his head cocked to the side. ‘Would you be able to manage it?’

  ‘Not alone. And besides …’ She tried to formulate her thoughts into comprehensible words. ‘I don’t think it was Papenberg or Vera Beil. Or Liebscher’s ex-wife. It just doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘That’s not a strong enough argument.’

  ‘I know. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m wrong. If you look at the messages the Owner’s sent me so far, can you really imagine them coming from Konrad Papenberg? Or from Vera Beil? It’s just not her tone.’

  Florin didn’t answer right away. He stared at the crumpled cigarette, clearly regretting having smoked it. ‘That’s irrelevant. We’ve distanced ourselves much too far from our normal method of working. We’ve let the Owner force his games on us and stupidly believed that he’d keep to the rules he himself made. Initially he waited until we’d found his next victim before attacking. But now he’s lost patience – either that or he’s just having too much fun. Who knows, for fuck’s sake!’

  A jolt went through Beatrice. For a split second she had grasped onto an important detail, something had locked into place, but then the thought slipped away again as quickly as it had come. At first the Owner had waited, but now he was there ahead of them … there was something behind that, something important. She repeated every one of Florin’s words in her mind, but the thought refused to come back, like a shy wild animal hiding in the undergrowth.

  Florin had already stood up and was walking towards the pathologist’s vehicle, which had finally turned up. He stood there, a black silhouette against the floodlight, watching as the unknown dead man was put into a body bag.

  We all end up in containers eventually, thought Beatrice.

  ‘Am I dealing with a bunch of amateurs here, or what?’ Hoffmann’s spit flew right across the table. Even though the day had only just begun, all the people around it looked utterly exhausted.

  ‘Four dead bodies, possibly five, and in just two weeks! There must be suspects, witnesses, something!’

  With that last word, his voice had taken on a pleading tone. He seemed to have heard it himself, as he frowned and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

  ‘Kaspary! Maybe you could make a contribution for a change. What do we know so far about the new victim?’

  She squared her shoulders. ‘Male, between forty and forty-five years old, of stocky build. According to Dr Vogt the cause of death was probably the intake of a strongly corrosive fluid.’

  ‘I mean his identity! Is there anything to go on yet?’

  ‘He didn’t have any ID on him, and we don’t have any recent missing persons reports, but we do have a wedding ring and what’s likely to be the wife’s forename.’

  ‘You’ve been lucky then. So get on with it, okay? Do you have any idea what kind of pressure the Department of Public Prosecutions is putting me under? And several times a day at that!’

  ‘We’ve already started looking for witnesses who may have driven over the bridge at the time of the crime,’ Florin interjected. ‘It’s virtually impossible that the perpetrator would have been able to park there and get rid of the body without being spotted by someone. And we’re also applying for a search warrant for Konrad Papenberg’s house.’

  ‘Okay.’ Hoffmann wiped a hand over his sweaty brow. ‘What about the last puzzle? The key figure? Have you found someone who fits the description?’

  Stefan raised his hand. ‘We’ve found three people where the most important points match up, but the clues are unfortunately very vague—’

  ‘And? Check the people out then! For heaven’s sake, don’t be such a girl, Gerlach!’ With an expression of exaggerated suffering, Hoffmann leant back in his chair. ‘As soon as you have something, come straight to me. The press have already got wind of the latest murder, so that means I’ll have to give a press conference tomorrow. And God help you if I have to stand there with empty hands.’

  The online telephone register was a speedier source of information than the public registry, so Beatrice started with that, finding only three Graciellas in the entire district of Salzburg. She printed out the telephone numbers and tried to work out which of them was the most likely. One Graciella was listed in the phone book alongside her husband – a Carlos Assante.

  The dead man from yesterday hadn’t looked Mediterranean or Latin enough to be called Carlos Assante, so Beatrice moved this number to the bottom of the list. The two other entries only had mobile numbers listed.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Good morning, Frau Perner. This is Beatrice Kaspary, Salzburg Landeskriminalamt.’

  A shocked intake of breath. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I’d like to know where your husband is.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your husband. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘Yes. He’s in the bathroom, shaving. Do you want to speak to him?’

  ‘No, in that case everything is fine. Have a good day!’ Without waiting for the woman to respond, she hung up. Two more numbers, and if neither of them brought results then she would need the registry after all. It would probably be a good idea to look for Graciellas outside Salzburg too, and maybe even across the border in Bavaria.

  ‘Hello, who’s speaking?’ The woman’s voice was throaty and cheerful.

  ‘Beatrice Kaspary, Landeskriminalamt.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Are you Graciella Estermann?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Could you tell me where your husband is?’

  In the background, Beatrice could hear children’s voices, then a dull crackle as the woman covered the speaker of her mobile. A few seconds later, the tone was clear again and the clamour silenced.

  ‘What do you want from my husband?’ The question didn’t sound unfriendly, but cautious.

  ‘Nothing special. I just need to know where he is.’

  ‘I can’t tell you precisely. He’s been away
for the past week, on business.’

  Beatrice’s pulse quickened. ‘When did he last get in touch with you?’

  Graciella Estermann took her time answering. ‘A few days ago, I think. No, Saturday. Could you please tell me what this is about?’

  Beatrice brushed the question aside. ‘And you haven’t heard from him since then? Isn’t that unusual?’

  ‘No.’ This time the answer came promptly. ‘He’s often like that, only getting in touch when he needs to. I want to know what this is about!’

  ‘Of course. I’d like to come by with my colleague. In an hour’s time, would that be okay?’

  ‘You want to come here?’ For the first time, the woman sounded unsettled. ‘He’s in trouble again, isn’t he? I don’t know anything about it though. I mean, I hardly ever see him.’

  There wasn’t yet any proof that Beatrice really was speaking to the victim’s wife, but she was becoming increasingly convinced. ‘This will probably sound like a strange question,’ she said, ‘but could you tell me when you and your husband got married?’

  The woman’s silent confusion didn’t last as long as she expected. ‘It was … in June 2001. On the nineteenth of June.’

  ‘Thank you. We’ll be with you in an hour. Please wait for us.’ Beatrice hung up. She typed Estermann and Salzburg into the text field on Google. The first couple of results brought up a Walter and a Rudolf.

  Rudolf Estermann sold plant-based slimming drops and figure-shaping moisturisers to chemists’ shops all over the country. He was a travelling sales representative. Bingo.

  Alongside that, it seemed he also ran a small online shop. Five kilos in ten days!!! promised the garish red writing on the homepage. What a load of nonsense.

  She pushed her chair back and stood up. Heading out of the office to look for Florin, she found him with Stefan, going through the data on Liebscher’s computer.

  ‘There doesn’t seem to be anything here,’ sighed Florin. ‘Stefan has already read back through the last three months’ worth of email correspondence, but hasn’t found a thing. No connection to Beil, Papenberg or Sigart.’