Five

by Ursula P Archer

  ‘But I’ve got something.’ Beatrice held up the printout with the telephone numbers. ‘I’m ninety-nine per cent sure that the unidentified dead man is called Rudolf Estermann. He’s a rep for some dubious slimming products and—’

  She stopped short. It must be because of how exhausted she was, but the connection had only just occurred to her.

  ‘Bea?’

  She was already out of the door, running along the corridor towards her office and debating feverishly the quickest way of getting the necessary information.

  Back at her computer, she typed Felix Estermann into the text field on the search engine. ‘Things that no one needs,’ she whispered.

  Felix was nine and a member of the Sport Union Judo School. At the last club tournament, he had won third place in his age group. Beatrice clicked on the club’s photo gallery and found him in the fourth image. A slim child with dark hair, tanned skin and a beaming smile.

  From left to right: Felix Estermann (9), Robert Heiss (9), Samuel Hirzer (10), said the photo’s caption.

  ‘He has two sons, one of whom is called Felix.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Beatrice spun around. Why on earth did Florin always have to creep up like that?

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought you were talking to me.’

  No. She had been talking to herself a lot recently; it was as if she could only understand her own thoughts if she voiced them out loud. She rubbed her hand against her forehead and tried to sort through her findings in her mind.

  ‘He’s the key figure. Rudolf Estermann.’ She rummaged frantically through the photos that were lying next to the computer screen in a disorderly pile. She bit back a curse as some of them slipped down to the floor. ‘“Here – listen. He makes a living by selling things which, as he himself says, no one needs. He’s good at it, too. He has two sons; one of whom is called Felix.”’ She held the picture out towards him and tapped her finger on the section she had read out. ‘It all fits.’

  He caught on right away. ‘This Estermann guy is a sales rep, you said?’

  ‘Yes. He sells diet pills to chemists. His wife hasn’t heard from him in a few days. It all fits, Florin!’ Beatrice pointed her pen at the screen. ‘And that’s the son called Felix. I phoned the wife and told her we’d be coming round.’

  ‘Good. Vogt wants to start the autopsy at twelve, so we’ve got two hours.’ He picked his keys up from the table. ‘Let’s go.’

  They weren’t even out of the door before Beatrice’s phone beeped. The tone was making her skin crawl by now; she would have to change it. As soon as the case was over.

  FTF. But don’t let it get you down, chin up.

  That was all. And it was yet another caching abbreviation; she remembered having seen it on the list. On their way out, she flung open the door to Stefan’s office.

  ‘Call the telephone company and find out which network the Owner was connected to two minutes ago.’

  He looked up. ‘Okay.’

  ‘And remind me what “FTF” means?’

  ‘First to find. If you find a cache first, then—’

  ‘Great, thanks.’

  First to find. He had been quicker than her, had worked out that they would use all the means they had to protect anyone his clues led them to from now on. But he didn’t want that; he had wanted to pour acid into Estermann …

  And then those sarcastic words of consolation. Don’t let it get you down, chin up. What a sadistic bastard.

  ‘I think things are about to get even more gruesome,’ she said, as Florin steered the car out of the car park.

  He glanced at her sideways. ‘Not necessarily. Nora Papenberg died quickly, but before that he cut Liebscher’s ear off, and we don’t yet know how he killed him in the end. Sigart has already lost two fingers. Who knows what else he did to him before …’

  Even though Florin didn’t say it out loud, Beatrice read the message between the lines. He no longer believed they would find Sigart alive.

  Five dead bodies in just a couple of weeks. My God.

  Stefan phoned shortly before they reached Graciella Estermann’s apartment. ‘Bea? You won’t believe this! The last text message from the Owner – he was connected to the UMTS cell on the roof of police headquarters.’

  ‘Shit.’ He couldn’t have disappeared again that quickly. Had they driven right past him? Beatrice suppressed the impulse to ask Florin to turn around. There was no point now. ‘Thanks, Stefan. Could you have a walk around and keep an eye on who’s in the building? Just to make sure, I don’t really believe that the Owner is still there, but—’

  ‘But it can’t hurt just in case. Of course.’

  She told Florin what Stefan had said. ‘He’s lurking nearby. It seems like the news blackout is having the desired effect – he’s hungry for information.’ She turned around and peered through the rear window. Behind them was a white Vauxhall Astra with a dark blonde woman at the wheel. ‘When we park let’s pay attention to whether anyone else stops nearby.’

  ‘Or,’ Florin replied slowly, ‘whether someone’s already here. I mean, I’m sure he’s worked out that we’ll have found out the dead man’s name by now. It’s the logical next step to go and see the widow.’

  For the last five minutes of their journey, Beatrice stared silently out of the window. She would have to speak to Kossar again. The Owner’s increasing proximity was an opportunity they couldn’t allow to slip through their fingers.

  There wasn’t anyone suspicious around when they got out of the car in front of the house. Nor did anyone seem to be paying them any attention whatsoever. A woman with a shopping basket in one hand and a whining child in the other made her way past them, but that was all.

  Graciella Estermann turned out to be a pretty, dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties, who evidently found it difficult to stay sitting down for even a minute. ‘After your call I took the children to school, then tried another five or six times to reach Rudo, but it keeps going straight to voicemail.’ Her accent was audible, but her grammar was faultless. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and fixed her gaze on Florin. ‘What’s going on?’

  There were no photos of Estermann on the wall or any of the shelves, only pictures of the two children – as babies, as clumsy toddlers, as school kids with gaps in their teeth.

  ‘Before we continue, we’d like to ask you to show us a photo of your husband.’

  ‘Why?’ Rather than showing any signs of concern, she seemed intrigued. Cool, that was it.

  ‘We’ll be happy to explain once we’ve seen it.’

  It was quite clear that she wasn’t happy with the order of the proceedings, but eventually she shrugged and went to rummage around in the bookshelves, pulling out a small photo album.

  ‘Madre de Dios,’ she mumbled, laying it in front of Florin and Beatrice on the coffee table.

  Wedding photos. Even the first photo was enough to confirm that they wouldn’t need to keep searching. The Rudolf Estermann in the picture looked very much like the dead man, even though he had been younger and slimmer at the time the photo was taken, as well as having two eyes and a lower lip.

  Beatrice and Florin’s silence clearly lasted a little too long, and Graciella Estermann immediately caught on.

  ‘Something’s happened to Rudo, hasn’t it? Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?’

  ‘We found a dead body last night, without any identification papers. It seems that it may unfortunately be —’

  ‘Rudo?’ Her voice had become louder, as if the thought made her angry. ‘Was he drink-driving again? What was it – did he drive into a tree this time?’

  ‘No. There’s a possibility that he may have been murdered.’

  That silenced the woman. She slowly lifted her hands to her mouth, as if to make sure that no sound would escape from it.

  ‘What happened? Was he killed in a brawl? An argument?’ she asked.

  A strange question.

&nbs
p; ‘Is that something you might have expected?’

  A look of slight regret crept across Graciella Estermann’s face, as if she would have liked to retract her question. ‘Not expected, no, but it wouldn’t have been a great surprise.’

  Beatrice leant forward. ‘Tell me about your husband.’

  ‘He drinks a lot and can’t keep his hands off other women.’ She stood up and walked over to the window, then from there to the bookcase. She took a book out, looked at it, put it back again, then picked up another. ‘He isn’t a good man. You can ask everyone who knows him.’ She suddenly froze, holding her breath. ‘But I didn’t kill him, in case you think that!’

  They didn’t get the opportunity to respond, as Gabriella Estermann just kept on talking. Within ten minutes, they knew the majority of her life history, particularly the story of her marriage. Estermann had met Graciella in Mexico, where she used to work in a hotel. Everything had happened quickly: love, disillusionment, alienation, resentment. Two children.

  ‘Well, you don’t look too surprised by the news,’ said Beatrice finally. ‘With a murder case, that does tend to make us a little suspicious.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be surprised either,’ the woman retorted. ‘Rudo had more trouble in his life than any other man I know. If anyone so much as looked at him funny, that was enough to set him off. If someone nabbed a parking space from him, he would smash up their headlights. He once even punched a waiter who brought him the wrong side dish with his steak.’ She looked at the book in her hands.

  Trying to be discreet, Beatrice looked for any bruising on the woman’s arms or face. Nothing.

  ‘He hasn’t laid a hand on me in a long time, nor the children,’ said the woman with a sad smile. She was really sharp; clearly she had picked up on Beatrice’s train of thought despite all her attempts at discretion. ‘Not like that, and not in the other sense either. He was hardly ever at home.’ Her smile disappeared. ‘To be completely honest, I am a little surprised. I always thought Rudo would end up killing someone one day. Not the other way around.’ Her upper body suddenly seemed to sag, a trace of grief visible in her eyes for the first time.

  So the man must have had enemies, and had maybe even been involved in criminal activity of some kind. Even though Beatrice was sure to find the information in his file, she asked all the same. ‘Could you tell me where your husband was born?’

  If the question had taken Graciella by surprise, then she didn’t let on. ‘In Schaffhausen. His father was Swiss.’

  Back in the office, it was time to decipher the coordinates for Stage Four. The ‘S’ had a value of nineteen, the ‘C’ three, and the ‘H’ eight. With an endearing eagerness, Stefan turned his attention to the task. He was perfectly capable of doing it alone. Beatrice tried not to disturb him, speaking quietly into the phone.

  ‘I think the Owner’s trying to get close to us. He sent me a message today, and his phone was connected to the network directly in this area. Why is he doing that? Does he want to look up at my window while he types?’

  ‘It’s very possible,’ replied Kossar after thinking for a moment. ‘On the one hand he feels safe enough to risk it, but on the other he enjoys the thrill that it might go wrong. He’s the stranger who lays his hand on your shoulder in the darkness, then disappears again without being caught.’

  An icy shiver passed over Beatrice’s arms and back. ‘That doesn’t sound good to me.’

  ‘No. The Owner picked you as his contact, Beatrice. I think that before his game comes to an end, he’ll seek out a personal encounter with you.’

  ‘But why?’ She instinctively turned to look out of the window. Everything looked just as it always did. Nothing stood out or caught her attention. Stefan hadn’t noticed anything on his circuit around the building either.

  But the Owner wants to show us that we’re slow, thought Beatrice, he wants to send his FTF victory messages and then thank us for our efforts, full of sarcasm. TFTH.

  ‘Maybe he’s not turning to me as an individual, but as a representative of a group. The police.’

  ‘We shouldn’t rule that out. Nor should we discount the idea that he finds you attractive, and perhaps that’s the reason why he wants to play his game with you rather than with Florin or even Hoffmann.’ Kossar cleared his throat. ‘If that’s the case, you need to be careful, Beatrice. I know I told you to lure him in with personal information, but that may not have been one of my best ideas.’

  Was Kossar admitting to having made a mistake?

  ‘Don’t worry, I only gave him a date. Even if he understood what I meant, it won’t enable him to get any closer to me.’

  ‘Good.’ He seemed genuinely relieved. ‘Let’s leave it at that, okay? Don’t give him anything of a private nature.’

  As if that would make any difference. As if he didn’t already know much more than I want him to.

  Florin returned from the autopsy looking pale and grim-faced. The same hard look from the night before was in his eyes again, but this time there were no calming cigarettes within reach.

  ‘Estermann’s gullet was black inside. The tissue was completely dead, the stomach perforated. Vogt thinks he died from sepsis, so it would have taken two to three days of unbelievable pain. The whole of the chest area was inflamed and the gullet had developed festering sores.’

  ‘And the eye?’

  ‘Corroded away with forty per cent hydrofluoric acid. The substance Estermann drank was the same kind of solution, just less concentrated. Otherwise the Owner wouldn’t have been able to have his fun with him for as long.’ Florin laid both his hands on the table, spreading out his fingers, and stared at them as he spoke. ‘Hydrofluoric acid was a really good choice. In high concentrations, it can dissolve glass. But even strongly diluted it can eat through everything – skin and flesh. It even corrodes bone. Not very quickly, mind, but over time. Day after day, it eats away at the whole body.’ Taking a deep breath, he balled his hands into fists. ‘Do we have any new information?’

  The change of subject made Beatrice lose her train of thought for a moment, but then she recovered herself. ‘The coordinates. Stefan did the research. This is Stage Five.’ She passed a printout of the Google Maps page across the desk to him.

  ‘Am Wallersee.’

  ‘Yes. A no-through road by a small wood, surrounded by fields. The nearest house is half a kilometre away.’

  They set off forty minutes later. The way Florin was driving began to worry Beatrice just a few blocks down the road. He was driving much too quickly. Much too angrily.

  ‘Shall I take over?’ she asked, trying to sound casual as her hand gripped the armrest on the passenger door.

  ‘No.’ He beeped at a taxi driver who had swerved out of the bus lane.

  When Florin was in this mood, it was futile trying to reason with him. Beatrice turned around to Stefan, who was slouched back in the rear seat, his arms behind his head and eyes closed. If he managed to get a few minutes’ sleep, even like this, it would do him good.

  ‘It’s really starting to get to me, Bea.’ She could only just make out what Florin was saying; his voice was almost entirely swallowed up by the cacophony of traffic. ‘When was the last time it took us this long to at least find a suspect?’ He was driving at a normal speed again now, only accelerating once they reached the autobahn.

  ‘You can’t compare this to other cases. Until now we’ve never had to deal with killers that act anything like this one.’ Even if she couldn’t manage to reassure him with her words, then at least she could reassure herself. ‘The Owner is organised and extremely well prepared. He’s … like a director, staging his own play.’

  Florin didn’t respond. She looked across at him, his profile, the furrowed brow, mouth slightly open. Suddenly she felt the intense urge to stroke the hair off his forehead. She pulled herself together.

  Wonderful timing, Bea, incomparable. So typical of you.

  ‘If we decided not to play by his rules, and not to follow his clue
s,’ she said, persevering, ‘then we would just be standing around empty-handed. Say if you think I’m wrong.’

  A dark look was Florin’s only answer.

  ‘He’s not making any major mistakes. The only one I can think of so far is the bloody footprint in Sigart’s building. And even that hasn’t been of any use so far.’ She was silenced as Florin made a foolhardy attempt to overtake, cutting up a Jeep Cherokee with a Viennese number plate.

  ‘Are the victims just collateral? What do you think, Bea? Is he like the Washington sniper in 2002?’

  A singer. A loser. A key figure.

  ‘No, he’s not. He …’ She tried to make sense of her thoughts. ‘He sees a link between his victims. Perhaps it’s a link that only he sees, and maybe it’s completely crazy, but for him, it exists. I’d bet anything on it.’

  And he sees a link with me, she thought, even if it is one of a different kind. Kossar was right. Sooner or later, the Owner would make himself known to her.

  N47º 54.067 E013º 09.205

  A light wind swayed the grass in the field where the police team had gathered. Drasche, who had installed navigation software on his mobile especially for this case, was engaged in a heated discussion with Stefan, whose Garmin GPS was showing a location that was around fifteen metres away from Drasche’s results for the exact same coordinates.

  So far, neither of them had found anything, and the search dogs weren’t due to arrive for another half-hour.

  Bushes, trees, a lake. There were no rocky crags or hollows that offered themselves up as hiding places. If the Owner had sunk the container in the water, then the coordinates they had worked out were useless anyway, regardless of whether they went by Stefan’s or Drasche’s results.

  Cautiously, putting one foot in front of the other, Beatrice walked along the stretch between the two possible spots. The trees were dense, the ground soft. But there weren’t any indications that someone could have buried something here.

  She took a few paces towards the lake, hearing the splash of the small waves which were being pushed by the wind against the water’s edge. With every step she made, her colleagues’ voices became quieter, their words less comprehensible. Beatrice stopped by a tree stump and sat down.