Five

Chapter 4

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.’

‘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.

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.

‘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 clues,’ 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.