Five

Chapter 6

N47º 28.813 E013º 10.983

There was no doubt about Dalamasso’s birth year – 1985 – but there was about the accuracy of the coordinates. The members of the team found themselves right by the Bundesstrasse again, just a few kilometres away from the bridge where they had found Rudolf Estermann’s body. A narrow fork in the road led past detached houses, up an incline, then tailed off approximately a kilometre into the forest.

‘He can’t have hidden anything here.’ Drasche was stalking up and down with the GPS device in his hand. ‘This is a residential area. Unless he buried the body parts in someone’s front garden.’

‘Or perhaps he didn’t keep exactly to the coordinates.’ Squinting, Beatrice turned around slowly on the spot. The surrounding area had a number of potential hiding places – at distances of roughly fifteen, twenty and fifty metres there were trees (fucking trees, she thought to herself), crash barriers and an area of greenery. But there, right on the spot they had calculated, there was nothing but the road and a traffic sign limiting the speed to thirty kilometres an hour.

They must have made a mistake. The Owner had always been very precise. ‘Where’s the second GPS device?’

Stefan had taken the day off, on Florin’s strict advice. ‘Your eyes are so red they’re competing with your hair,’ he had commented, prescribing him a twenty-four-hour break.

Their younger colleague had given in with a mixture of reluctance and relief, pressed his navigation device into Florin’s hand and set off home – by bus rather than car, as he was worried about falling asleep at the wheel. But even Stefan’s Garmin, tried and tested on so many caches, still came up with the same answer as Drasche’s mobile software.

With the last coordinates, it had been the right place but the wrong time. They’d got there before the Owner had dumped Estermann’s body. Would he do the same thing again?

Beatrice tried to tune into the surroundings, looking from the wet asphalt up to the sky. Until just now, thin threads of rain had woven a grey cloth across the landscape. Now the clouds were slowly starting to break apart.

Dalamasso is the solution to the new puzzle, she thought. But it was virtually impossible that the Owner could kidnap her, kill her and dump her here. Two armed guards were keeping an eye on her around the clock, both in the day clinic and at home. When Melanie first noticed them she had burst into tears, a wordless howl. After that, at her mother’s request, they had relinquished uniforms for plain clothes and kept their distance. Now Melanie just stared right through them, as if they were invisible.

The sun came out, making the road glisten. Beatrice shielded her eyes with her hand, not having reckoned on needing sunglasses. Something was blinding her. A round, reflective sticker on the traffic sign, placed right in the middle of the zero, beside to three. Next to it, someone had scrawled ‘Don’t eat animals’ with a black marker.

‘Maybe we’ve thwarted his plans this time.’ There wasn’t much hope in Florin’s voice, but Beatrice nodded all the same.

‘Yes. Maybe he thought we’d take longer to find Melanie Dalamasso, or didn’t predict that we’d put her under police protection.’ But she didn’t believe that one bit. The Owner must know that they wouldn’t – couldn’t – let the young woman out of their sight for a second. They should have acted sooner and convinced Sigart of the necessity of accepting police protection.

‘Search everything within a hundred-metre radius,’ Florin ordered. ‘We’re keeping a lookout for containers, paper, anything that could be a message. It’s possible that it’s very well disguised.’ Three officers from the dog team set off obediently with their animals. If there were any body parts hidden around, they would find them.

But something was different this time. She felt her mobile vibrate in her pocket. Her heart skipped a beat. There it was, his next text, his next move in the game – but then she saw the number and sighed, rejecting the call.

It had only been a matter of time until her ex-husband got back in touch. But now wasn’t the time for an argument.

The clouds were chased across the sky by the wind, blocking the sun again. Beatrice put her mobile back in her jacket pocket with the same guilty feeling she always had when she ignored a call. Maybe it had been important. An emergency.

Evelyn jumped into her mind. But she couldn’t allow her mind to be clouded by what had happened back then. She had to focus. To concentrate. This was a different story, and it would have a different ending.

The dogs didn’t find anything. ‘Liebscher’s body parts are old enough by now and the temperatures high enough for the plastic film to inflate and eventually burst,’ Drasche had prophesied. ‘And even if they haven’t – the dogs would smell the caches anyway. We did some tests.’

‘But what would the Owner be hiding now?’ Beatrice interrupted the despondent silence that had so far dominated the drive back to headquarters.

Florin turned his head slowly in her direction without taking his eyes off the road. ‘What do you mean? We’re far from having found all of Liebscher. There are still the feet, the limbs, the torso – if the Owner wants to he still has enough for another twenty or thirty caches.’

‘But we already have the head. So there’s no more suspense. It’s more essential than any other part of the body and clearly answers the question of his identity. Would you play the feet or even inner organs after you’ve already done the head? It would be like taking a step back.’

‘Play?’

‘Yes.’ She hadn’t intentionally chosen the word, but it hit the nail on the head. He plays a hand, they play a hand. And given that he didn’t have to play by the rules, he was always at an advantage. It was costing them one round after the next.

She thought about the puzzle spread out on her desk. She would make the next move alone.

‘My daughter is being driven home by your colleagues. I get the impression she doesn’t feel entirely comfortable about it, but I tried to explain to her that it’s important.’ Carolin Dalamasso was a pretty woman, not much older than fifty. She had willingly agreed to Beatrice’s request to stop by, and had clearly used the time to bake a cake. The sweet aroma filled the apartment.

Beatrice tried to smile through her guilty conscience. Strictly speaking, the visit to the Dalamassos wasn’t necessary – Florin had asked all the important questions and compiled the information into his report. But he hadn’t spoken to Melanie, hadn’t even caught a glimpse of her. That wasn’t enough for Beatrice. She wanted to – no, not wanted, had to – get some impression of the young woman. A torn woman. Could you sense it just from standing opposite her?

‘Would you like some coffee? I have decaf too.’

She had neither the desire nor the need for her fifth coffee of the day, but she had to play for time. If necessary, she would make small talk until the daughter arrived home. ‘I’d love one. With plenty of milk and a little sugar, if that’s okay.’

The woman nodded and smiled. There was a watchfulness in her eyes, which Beatrice suspected wasn’t new, but rather stemmed from constantly looking out for her psychologically ill daughter.

It was 4.40 p.m. Melanie could arrive home any moment now, depending on how busy the traffic was.

‘What can I tell you that I haven’t already told your colleague with the lovely dark eyes?’ With swift energetic movements, Carolin Dalamasso cut three slices of cake and put the cups on the table. Then she sat down.

‘I’d like to know how Melanie was doing before her breakdown. Were there any events that, in hindsight, could be interpreted as warning signs?’

The woman’s smile was suddenly streaked with pain. ‘Of course. You always know better afterwards. Carlo and I have thought of dozens of situations in which, looking back, we should have sought medical assistance for Melanie. But back then we thought she was just a little sensitive because she was in love for the first time. She had a boyfriend, you see? Unfortunately we never met him, and my theory is…’ She sighed and looked out of the window, where a blackbird had settled on the balcony railing. It looked around jerkily, then flew away again. ‘I think he broke up with Melanie. She was still living in the flat share back then, and one evening she called us, but we couldn’t make out a single word. She was sobbing, almost howling. We drove over there right away of course, but she was in her room and didn’t want to talk to us. Her flatmates were just as clueless as we were. They were relieved in the end, I think, when she was admitted to the clinic. That was five days later.’

‘And there was never any clue as to what might have caused it?’

‘No. But I’ve already told your colleague all of that.’ The vigilance in her eyes increased in direct proportion with the narrowing of her smile.

‘Did you give him the names of Melanie’s flatmates?’

‘Of course.’ She took a sip of her coffee.

Beatrice decided to push further. ‘The case we’re working on is exceptionally challenging. I hope you understand. For that reason, communication between the investigators is not as thorough as we’d ideally like it to be.’ Was that the sound of a car stopping in front of the house? Hopefully. ‘I do know, however, that Florin Wenninger showed you these photographs.’ She pulled the photographs of the Owner’s victims out of her bag. ‘I also know that you don’t believe you know any of these people. But sometimes a day’s distance can help, and maybe something might occur to you, even if it’s about only one of the faces.’ She laid the photos in front of Carolin Dalamasso on the table. The unsolvable puzzle.

‘We’re convinced that these people had some connection to your daughter, but we just don’t know what kind. So far no one has been able to help us with this. That’s why I simply have to ask you once again. I hope you don’t mind.’

With a helpless shrug, Carolin leant forwards to look at the photos. ‘And these people have all been murdered?’

‘Four of them, definitely. One of them could still have a chance.’

‘My God.’ She picked up the photo of Nora Papenberg and stared at it intently. Then she shook her head and put it back down on the table. ‘I’m so glad you’re protecting Melanie,’ she said softly. ‘I just can’t understand why anyone would want to harm her. Her, of all people.’

‘We’re doing everything we can to find out. Absolutely everything.’

Beil’s photo, Sigart’s photo. Always the same shake of the head.

‘Does Melanie still play the flute, by the way?’ asked Beatrice.

‘Yes. But not like she used to. The sounds she produces now are a long way from being music, they—’ The woman paused and listened. Beatrice heard it too, a muffled whirr, then a metallic, rushing sound. The lift.

‘I think that’s them now.’ Carolin stood up. ‘You can’t question Melanie, you know that, right? She’s stable right now and the doctors are hopeful that her condition will improve. It was much worse, you see, far worse, and—’

The doorbell rang. The woman went into the hallway and opened the door. Beatrice gathered the photos up. Her guilty conscience was making her feel sick, but she had to do what she had come to do.

She heard the police officer’s affable voice. ‘Everything’s fine, no incidents. Have a nice evening!’

Beatrice knew the two policemen would now take up their position in their car in front of the building, nourish themselves on hot dogs and Red Bull, and wait for the night shift to come and relieve them. They were the good guys, and Beatrice envied them.

A girl with a chubby face appeared in the doorway, stopping abruptly as she saw Beatrice. Her dark hair was tied in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her eyes spoke of confusion, an impression that her lopsided glasses only intensified.

‘We have a visitor, Melanie.’ Carolin Dalamasso grasped her daughter gently by the shoulders and pulled her towards her. ‘This is Frau Kaspary.’

Beatrice pulled her bag over her shoulder and stood up, the photos in her left hand. The girl’s gaze flitted over to her, away, then back again. Although she’s not really a girl, thought Beatrice, in a few years she’ll be thirty. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Melanie.’ She stretched her right hand out, but Melanie didn’t take it. She didn’t say a word.

‘I think I’d better go then, but it’s possible that I might come by…’ Now. Beatrice unclasped the fingers of her left hand. Felt the photos slip away from her, heard the soft clatter as they fell to the floor.

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

She bent over. The photos of Papenberg, Estermann and Beil were lying face up. The others had turned rear-side up as they fell. Beatrice acted as though she was trying to collect them together, but Carolin Dalamasso must have realised by now that she was taking too much time over it, that she was hoping—

A gasp. Beatrice looked up, directly into Melanie’s face, which was distorted into a grimace. She stared at the pictures and let out a howl, a long-drawn-out noise, like an animal. Her glasses fell to the floor.

‘Get out!’ hissed her mother furiously.

‘I didn’t mean to—’

‘Out!’

Melanie’s howl transformed into something more high-pitched, something more shrill. She covered her face with both hands, and her mother had to stop her from banging her head against the door frame.

‘I’ll be making a complaint about you!’

Beatrice closed her eyes and nodded wearily. ‘Contact Walter Hoffmann. He’ll welcome you with open arms, believe me.’

She practically ran from the apartment, the building, down the street, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of nausea.

There was no doubt that Melanie had recognised someone, and she hadn’t liked it one bit.

But there was nothing Beatrice could do with this information. She sat in her car, the photos still in her hand, the taste of bile forcing its way upwards into her mouth. She had no idea which of the photos had unleashed Melanie’s reaction. Had it been one of them, several of them, all of them? One thing had become completely clear: the Owner wasn’t killing his victims at random. The connection between them, however, was still enshrouded in darkness. And there was little hope that Melanie would be able to offer any explanations.

‘I might well have done the same thing.’ Florin was trying to comfort her, but she knew him better than that. From the very start he had only wanted to protect Melanie, not question her. His work had never resulted in a screaming girl. Or the threat of suspension.

‘Shinigami,’ she said, without responding to his words. ‘When is Stefan planning to come with the information?’

‘Any moment now. The site’s admin team is being very cooperative, he said. They’re sending us the email address the Owner used for his registration, as well as the IP addresses he logged on with. If it takes a while then that’s because the last login was over three months ago. The geocaching website gets a huge amount of traffic.’

Perhaps, thought Beatrice, this is a trace the Owner forgot to erase. We’re due a bit of luck.

Stefan indeed appeared just five minutes later, beaming contentedly: ‘The email address is gerold.wiesner@gmx.net. I found a Gerold Wiesner registered in Salzburg – he’s fifty-eight years old and works on the national Bundesbahn railways. Looks like we’ve hit the bull’s eye, people!’

They were tentatively hopeful, but even that was short-lived. Beatrice knew only too well how simple it was to open an account with Geocaching.com. And creating a fake email address wasn’t exactly tricky either. They went through the police records and soon found the information they needed: whoever had concealed himself behind the nickname ‘Shinigami’, it certainly wasn’t Bundesbahn employee Gerold Wiesner. On 25 February this year, he had fallen onto a power line while carrying out maintenance work at the central train station, just a few months before his retirement was due to begin. He was survived by a wife and two grown-up daughters.

25 February. Shinigami had registered on Geocaching.com on the 26th. He must have been sitting in front of the computer, the newspaper open next to him, and seen the report. He hadn’t even needed to make up a fake name. So simple. So unremarkable.

Her hope now rested on the IP address, but the Owner hadn’t shown any weakness there either: the computer he had used was in an upmarket Salzburg hotel, available for guests to use around the clock without having to pay.

‘Of course, people who visit the hotel café could theoretically use it too,’ explained the hotel manager. ‘It’s part of our service, you see?’

‘And if I were to ask you who used the computer on the twenty-sixth of February at 15.42, would you be able to tell me?’

‘I’m afraid not.’ If the manager’s regret wasn’t genuine, he at least acted it well.

‘I understand. The man we’re looking for must have also used the computer on the ninth, fourteenth and twentieth of March, and then a final time on the third of April. So it’s possible that someone may have noticed him.’

‘That’s true. I’ll check right away who was on duty in the café on those dates, then give you a call back.’

They were clutching at straws, nothing more than that.

And to the rest of you: TFTH. The Owner had known three months ago that he would kill Liebscher at the very least. He had thanked his pursuers for the hunt before they had even begun.

To Beatrice’s surprise, the hotel manager called back twenty minutes later. When the telephone rang she was talking to Bechner, asking him to check whether there might be another Gerold Wiesner who could be a suspect – she seemed to automatically assign all the menial tasks to him.

‘On two of the days you mentioned, Georg Lienhart was on duty,’ explained the manager. ‘He said he did notice someone. The dates may match up.’

‘Excellent!’ Beatrice signalled to Bechner, who was trying to use the opportunity to head back to his own office, that they weren’t yet finished. He sighed demonstratively; she beamed at him equally demonstratively.

‘Can I speak to Herr Lienhart?’

‘Yes, he’s right here.’

The waiter sounded very young, but on the ball. ‘There was this really tall man with a beard, and he never took his coat off even though it’s really well heated here. He ordered coffee and drank it really quickly, each time at the table next to the computer. Then he paid right away and left much more of a tip than most guests do.’ The boy fell silent for a moment, perhaps thinking about his unexpected financial windfall from the stranger. ‘Then he sat down at the computer and went to great lengths to spread himself out as much as he could, if you see what I mean. I thought right away that he’d kept his coat on for that reason, so it would be easier for him to keep the screen hidden.’

‘You didn’t happen to catch a glimpse of it regardless, by any chance?’

‘We’re told to be discreet.’

Beatrice could almost picture the young waiter in front of her, including his grin. ‘But you did it anyway, in keeping with the need for discretion, of course?’

Georg Lienhart hesitated. ‘No. Although I was of course curious about what all the secrecy was for. That’s why, after the man came back the second time, I opened up the browser history and had a look.’

Fantastic. ‘And?’

‘I couldn’t find anything, unfortunately. The whole session was erased.’

Beatrice ran her hand through her hair and tried to suppress the irritation welling up inside her. But it didn’t matter. It spoke volumes that the man had erased everything which could provide clues as to what he was doing.

‘You’ve been a great help. Now I just need to ask you for a description of the guest, as precise as you can be. Any detail you remember could be very important.’

The young man gathered his thoughts. ‘The coat he had on was dark blue, and his shoes were black. I noticed that because they didn’t match, although the items looked very expensive. He had pale gloves on, and a pale scarf.’

‘Can you remember his hair colour?’

‘He was bald. Completely, as if he was ill. But his beard was brown with a bit of grey. He had a full beard, a really thick one.’

If only all our witnesses had such good memories. ‘You’re doing a great job, really. Is there anything else that stood out? Birthmarks, warts, tattoos?’

He thought again before giving his answer. ‘No. All I really saw was his head and face, so if he had a tattoo on his arm, I don’t…’

‘Of course.’

‘He said something strange though. Probably that’s why I remember him so well… and because it fits in with what’s happening now. At the time I thought he was crazy.’

Beatrice leant back. ‘Yes?’

‘He said: “It’s possible that they might ask about me. If they do, tell them they could be making life much easier for themselves. And tell them: Thanks for the hunt.”’

The sky above him was blue, and the swallows were soaring high. The weather was good, and would probably hold for another two or three days.

Days of waiting. His thoughts wandered to the policewoman, as they often had recently. It couldn’t last much longer now, if she had followed his clues, if she had finally understood them.

Looking up at the sky made him dizzy, almost making him stumble. Take it easy, be careful, he reminded himself. The thought wasn’t without a comic element. It was a shame he couldn’t share it with anyone.

Except the woman, perhaps. Everything was ready. He was throwing the fingerless man out as bait. His predators would fall into the trap; they had no other option.

He waited until his senses were obeying him again, then looked upwards. Directly above him, an aeroplane was sketching its white line in the perfect blue, a long minus sign which frayed out at the end, dissolving, dissipating. Five minus two was three, minus one…

It couldn’t be avoided. With a shrug of his shoulders, he let the sky be sky and turned his attention to more earthly matters. Severity. Blood. Pain.

The past weeks had been filled with those things. The most surprising realisation he had drawn from his experiences was just how much reality could differ from imagination.

Not when it came to the plan itself. That had gone perfectly. But in practice, the action felt so different from any fantasy.

He looked around one more time before he went back into the darkness, smiling into the strengthening breeze. So beautiful.

Someone sighed, and it took him the duration of a heartbeat to realise it had been him. A man who had to go back to his work. Brutal, harsh, gruesome, painful. Not willingly, never willingly – how could he? But it was the safest way. Everything was ready; there was no reason to wait any longer.

After he had done what was necessary, just two hours had passed by. He was getting better at it. It wasn’t even that difficult any more.

He cleaned up, using three buckets full of water to dispose of the blood. Good. Now just the message. The picture had turned out well, even though the sight of it almost winded him. He gasped for air and waited until he felt better, then put the mobile in one pocket and the battery in the other. Looked for and found the car keys. There was no rush. He could take his time. Ten or fifteen kilometres would be enough. Then back. And sleep, at last.

Jakob kissed and hugged her before he disappeared back to the neighbours’ farm, but Mina was querulous. She reminded Beatrice of herself at that age, almost thirty years ago now. Or even just thirty minutes ago. She’s a smaller version of me. Maybe that’s why we clash, she thought.

‘If you don’t have any time for us, you can give us to Papa. He likes having us there, he told us.’

‘I thought you liked being with Oma?’

‘I do. But…’ She panted for air, and for the words. ‘You always say it’s just for a few days, and then it’s always much longer, every time.’

If this was Mina’s way of telling her mother she missed her, then she was doing her best at hiding it. Everything she said came out as an accusation.

‘You’re right,’ said Beatrice. ‘It’s already taken far too long. But now we’re nearly there, I’m sure of it. And this weekend Papa will come and get you, and you might be going sailing if the weather’s nice.’

The idea seemed to appeal to Mina, as she summoned up a nod and a half-smile. ‘That might be nice. So when are we going to do something together?’

‘Once the case is over I’ll take some time off and you guys can pick what we do. Is that a deal?’

‘Anything we want? And we can do it?’

‘If I can afford it and it’s not illegal, then yes.’ She pulled Mina close to her, feeling resistance at first, then little arms around her waist.

‘I don’t think it is,’ mumbled her daughter from down by her stomach.

Richard, in a gracious mood today, found some reassuring words once Mina was out of earshot. ‘She’s perfectly happy here, don’t worry. And if you were to come more often in the evening, instead of just phoning, then that would be—’

He broke off as her mobile beeped loudly.

‘Shit.’ Beatrice rummaged around in her handbag, found the phone and muted the sound. A picture message. At first, all she saw was the number – the number – then the picture appeared. Beatrice heard herself gasp for air.

‘What is it?’ Quickly, too quickly, Richard was beside her, catching a glimpse of the screen. ‘Oh, God, Bea, what is that? A person? Or… yes, look, that’s an arm! Horrific. It looks like something in an abattoir.’

She freed herself from his grasp on her wrist as he tried to get a closer look at the photo.

An abattoir.

‘I have to go.’ She grabbed her bag and rushed out to the car without saying goodbye. She turned the engine on, the phone slipping from her fingers. She picked it up and dialled Florin’s number. ‘Are you still in the office?’

‘No, I just got home, why? Should I—’

‘I’ll come to your place, see you in fifteen minutes.’

A severed middle finger, swimming in blood, next to the mutilated hand. A fresh wound, a bloody stump. The amputation cuts on the ring and little fingers seemed to be inflamed rather than healing. The thumb and index finger, the only ones still attached, were crooked towards each other like the two halves of a pair of crab scissors. Or the tips of a croissant. Beatrice took a deep breath, in and out.

Enlarged on Florin’s laptop, the picture showed details that hadn’t been visible on the small screen of her mobile phone. There was a newspaper, partially saturated with red, and when they zoomed in today’s date was visible on it.

‘Sigart’s still alive.’ It was hard to tell whether Florin saw that as good news or bad. Without tearing his gaze away from the photo, he scrolled from the top to the bottom and from left to right. ‘It’s a wooden table, and the background is quite dark. The photo was taken with flash.’ He pointed at a light reflection in the pool of blood. ‘The killer put something underneath, it looks like a white plastic tablecloth. He’s doing everything he can to maximise the impact of the picture.’

Although it could have been even more horrific if Sigart’s face had been in the shot. But, like last time, the picture ended at his shoulder.

Was that because Sigart had actually long since died of blood loss? ‘Can you zoom in on the wound?’

On closer inspection, Beatrice’s theory didn’t stand: the flesh where the fingers had been severed was pink, not sallow. The hand was pale, but not grey. And it was definitely Sigart’s hand, unless another of the Owner’s victims also had severe burn scars.

Florin reached for his phone and instructed Stefan to find out where the mobile was at the time the message was sent. He forwarded the photo, and then sent it to Vogt and Drasche. All the usual actions that had so far brought them zero results.

‘Why isn’t he showing us Sigart’s face?’ murmured Beatrice.

‘I’d prefer to know why he’s sending us these pictures at all. No, I’ll be more specific – why is he sending them to you?’

‘Because it’s possible he thinks we have something in common.’ The thought felt like ice on the back of her neck. ‘Because he thinks I’m a perpetrator too, in some ways.’

Until now, she had kept quiet about the text the Owner had sent to accompany the picture, as if she were concealing a flaw she didn’t want Florin to see. She pulled her phone back out of her bag and read the words to herself once more, silently, before uttering them out loud.

‘“Omission to do what is necessary, Seals a commission to a blank of danger.”’

Now her own wound was almost laid bare. But Florin didn’t yet catch on.

‘He sent that with the picture? Is it Goethe again?’

‘No. Shakespeare. It doesn’t matter anyway. The important thing is what the Owner means by it. And he means me.’

Florin turned to face her, took her hand in his and held it tight. ‘He means you and Evelyn?’

‘I don’t know who else he could mean.’

She hasn’t noticed that dark has fallen outside. David is still lying on top of her, his mouth buried in the curve of her neck. He’s humming or murmuring; she can feel the vibration on her skin. A moment of complete and utter contentment. Thank you, she mouths silently, feeling as though she’s about to laugh. Or cry.

‘Beabeabea,’ whispers David, rolling off her and pulling her with him, holding her head close to his shoulder. ‘Let’s stay here for ever. Just the two of us. We can shut the world out and make our own.’

She lays an arm across his chest, breathing in his scent, never having smelt anything better. ‘For ever isn’t long enough.’

‘You’re right. Beautiful, clever Bea.’ David’s kisses on her closed eyelids are so gentle, just a whisper, not enough. She seeks his lips with her own, sinking into them.

‘I’d fetch us something to drink, but for that I’d have to let you go,’ he says when they surface again.

‘Dying of thirst isn’t a good idea,’ answers Bea, nudging his shoulder affectionately. She doesn’t take her eyes off him as he stands up and crosses the room, naked and beautiful, much too beautiful for her. She’s always thought that, keeping to friendly kisses on the cheek whenever they met and said goodbye, only wondering occasionally in her daydreams what it would be like. What it could be like. With him.

Until last night. When his hand had suddenly rested on hers. She had spread out her fingers, and his plunged into the space between, tearing the blue-and-white checked paper tablecloth at the pizzeria.

‘He’s been crazy about you for months, sweetie.’ Evelyn had followed her to the bathroom, of course, pulling silly faces as she touched up her mascara. ‘Was I right or was I right?’

‘Okay, okay!’ Something inside Beatrice had jumped around in excitement, and if she wasn’t careful she would join in, like a little kid who had just been given a lolly. ‘And you really think… I mean, you reckon it’s not just a whim?’

‘This is David we’re talking about, not me,’ Evelyn had grinned, ruffling Beatrice’s hair and then pulling a hairbrush out of her bag. ‘He’s just a tad too respectable to be my type, otherwise you’d have competition.’ She plucked out a few long, deep red hairs that were entangled in the brush.

‘Here you go, sweetheart, make yourself pretty for him. And don’t feel like you’re lucky to be with him, okay? If anything it’s the other way around. You’re gold, don’t forget that.’

Beatrice hums the Spandau Ballet hit to herself as David walks back from the kitchen. He has a tea towel over his arm like a waiter, and he’s carrying a bottle of cheap sparkling wine and two mismatched water tumblers.

‘Not very stylish, I’m afraid,’ he says, pressing the prettier of the two glasses into her hand. ‘But I hope you can see the charm in it.’

She can. Paradise is now a badly ventilated bachelors’ pad with unwashed dishes in the sink and piles of dirty washing in the bedroom. But she doesn’t care about any of that.

For a while, the cork is reluctant to leave the bottle. They struggle with it, giggling, and once they’re finally victorious a good third of the contents shoot out. But they don’t care about that either, snuggling up to one another, drinking from the old glasses and each other’s mouths, kissing each other’s bodies.

Then her phone rings.

‘I’m not answering it.’ She holds her empty glass out towards David and he fills it up halfway. They drink. The phone continues ringing – beeping, to be precise – boring shrill holes in the mood.

‘Fine then.’ Beatrice swings her legs out of bed. Where was her bag?

‘Why doesn’t your answerphone kick in?’

‘Because I deactivated it. Otherwise I’d never receive any calls – by the time I’ve found the phone the mailbox has always picked up.’

Evelyn. Oh, God, yes, the stupid party. She’d completely forgotten.

‘Hi, Eve.’

‘Hey, sweetie, where are you?’

‘I’m… um, I’m busy.’

‘Busy… oh, I get it, with Michelangelo’s David. Understood. How long will you be there for?’

‘That’s hard to say.’ He’s behind her now, lifting the hair from the nape of her neck and kissing the sensitive spot. ‘It’s likely to be a while. A very long while.’

‘Does that mean you’re not coming to Nola’s? I’m already there, and I can tell you you’re missing a good party.’

She suppresses a blissful sigh. ‘I very much doubt that.’

‘Oh, come on. Just bring him with you. Make everyone else jealous of how happy you are.’

‘That’s a good idea in theory, but…’ Did she really have to spell it out?

‘Fine then, stay in bed for all I care. The only thing is, I don’t know how I’ll get home later, this place is in the middle of nowhere. I was counting on you.’

Just like you always do. For the first time that day, her elated mood is starting to deflate. I’m the one with the car and the driving licence, and you’re in absolutely no hurry to get yours. That way, the question of who’s drinking and who’s the designated driver never even comes up.

‘There are loads of people there. I’m sure someone will give you a lift.’

‘Yes, probably.’ Evelyn giggles. ‘There’s a really cute blond guy with dark brown eyes, so let’s hope he lives near us.’ She hangs up.

‘Evelyn?’ asks David. ‘The fiery-headed flatmate?’

‘That’s the one. I stood her up, and she’s not used to that.’ Smiling, she goes back to bed, into David’s arms, into the space beyond the passing of time, into the chaotic paradise.

Four hours later, the phone rings again. ‘Hi, sweetie. Listen, I can’t get a lift home. Some people left early and the others are sleeping here.’

Beatrice had been sleeping too – not for long, maybe fifteen minutes or so. Her mind is foggy and she’s barely able to grasp what Evelyn is saying. ‘Then sleep there too.’

‘No way. There’s no space left, apart from on the floor. And there are two drunken, annoying guys I want to get away from. Would you be an angel and pick me up?’

You can’t be serious. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m tired and I’ve been drinking and—’

‘And David is about to ravish you again.’ She hears Evelyn sigh. ‘I’m happy for you, really I am. It’s just a difficult situation – but I know it’s my own fault. I really have to get around to doing my driving licence. Never mind, it’s been a while since I hitch-hiked. So, hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow and hear all the dirty details?’

For a split second Beatrice considers giving in. Getting dressed and driving twenty miles through the night to pick up her friend from a party and take her home. Then David’s hands win out, on her back, around her waist, on her buttocks, moving down and in between.

‘Sure. See you tomorrow.’

‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.’ Evelyn blows her a kiss down the line before hanging up.

Their night comes to an end shortly after seven the next morning. David has to get up and start work at the call centre job with which he’s financing his medical studies. She leaves the house with him, breathing in Vienna’s morning air and scraping together a few coins to buy croissants for breakfast. She plans to brew some fresh coffee at home, hoping that there is still some of the raspberry jam left that her mother had sent her.

‘Will I see you this evening?’ David whispers into her hair. She’s happy that the question comes from him; otherwise she would have had to ask. She nods, kisses him and is still warming herself with his words even once she’s sitting on the metro.

Five stops on the U6. David’s place is in Vienna’s ninth district, her flatshare with Evelyn in the sixth. She can still smell David on her. She closes her eyes and smiles, breathing in his scent. In the small branch of one of the large bakery chains, she buys four croissants, pleased to find they’re on offer. As she skips down the narrow Turmgasse towards her home, she feels like bursting out into song.

Evelyn is evidently already back and awake. Pink Floyd’s The Wall is blaring out into the hallway, and old Frau Heckel glares at her as they meet at the main door. ‘I’m going to call the police at some point, you know, if you keep making such a racket all the time. It’s been on for hours – it’s just not acceptable!’

‘I’m sorry, Frau Heckel. It won’t happen again.’ She feels the urge to hug the old woman, wanting her to be cheerful too. Her happiness won’t tolerate any sullenness today.

She dashes up the stairs to the third floor, feeling as though she could run for ever, The Wall accompanying her on her climb. She and Evelyn have been listening to the CD constantly over the last few weeks, and know every song by heart. ‘One of My Turns’ is a favourite, even though its sombre lyrics are laughably inappropriate this morning. She spins around as she reaches the front door, her eyes closed, smiling indulgently at Roger Waters’s depressing contemplations on life.

She fumbles her key out of her bag and puts it in the lock. Frau Heckel did have a point; the music was on really loud. Luckily the other flats in the building are rented to students, so hardly anyone ever complains.

The door now open, the song blares out into the hallway.

Beatrice sings along to the words. She holds the paper bag filled with croissants up in front of her face like a microphone.

She smells it before she sees it, and wonders why her heart has suddenly begun to beat faster, why something within her wants to turn back.

Ignoring the feeling, she closes the door. It smells… smells of…

‘Evelyn?’

No answer. She passes through the tiny kitchen and is about to knock on Evelyn’s door, but it’s already standing ajar so she pushes it open.

Evelyn isn’t there. The room has been trashed and it looks as though an animal has been slaughtered on the bed, splattering the walls with blood, dripping all over the floor, all over the room.

The thing, whatever it is, is splayed out on the bed amongst the duvet and pillows. It’s well disguised amidst all the red, glistening in parts.

Something smacks against Beatrice’s head. The door frame, but why? She grabs onto it, the breath streaming out of her body with a whistling sound. Now something hits her left knee. The floor. A speck of red is just a few centimetres away; she can’t tear her eyes away from it. What if it creeps and flows over to her, touches her?

Summoning up all her strength, she lifts her gaze to the bed.

There! Silver. It glistens and shines, brought to life by a beam of sunlight.

Nail varnish.

Evelyn’s…

nail varnish.

The floor comes closer and everything falls, falls slowly towards the red: first the croissants, landing in a saucer-sized puddle, the red eating greedily into the paper bag, the printed image of the baker grinning away as it reaches his mouth, his eyes…

She only realises she’s screaming when someone grabs her from behind, turns her around, pulls her in towards them. Her screams are smothered by a sweaty body in a washed-out T-shirt. She hits out, bites and scratches until she catches a glimpse of the face above the T-shirt. Holger from next door. His hands tug at her, trying to drag her into the kitchen, MyGodmyGodohmyGod, he cries.

She tries to close her eyes but it won’t work, she can’t, she’s forgotten something. But what?

The croissants.

One of them has tumbled out on the floor, the left tip saturated with blood. Raspberry jam, thinks Beatrice, vomiting on the kitchen floor.

The policewoman speaking to her is focused and friendly, but Beatrice can see her own horror reflected in her eyes. She hates her for that. And for the fact that every single one of her words confirms something that should never have happened.

‘You lived here with Frau Rieger?’

Rieger, pronounced like Tigger but with a long ‘e’ instead of ‘i’ and Rrrrr, says Evelyn in Bea’s head. ‘When did you last see her?’

‘Yesterday lunchtime. We were planning to—’ She stops as she sees two men in white overalls walk into Evelyn’s room wearing masks and gloves. Anonymous, veiled figures.

‘They’re my colleagues,’ explains the policewoman. ‘You were just about to say you were planning to do something together?’

Go to a party. Again, Beatrice’s body reacts more quickly than her mind, crumbling into sobs.

The policewoman is patient. ‘Take your time.’

Gradually, Beatrice manages to choke out words. The address of Nola’s house, where the party was held. The rough times of Evelyn’s first and last call.

It is around this time that Beatrice’s brain begins the ‘what if’ game. For years to come, it will be her constant companion. The ‘what if’ game can last hours, and never fails to unleash its exhausting impact.

If I had picked her up, if I had driven there with David, if I hadn’t left her alone, if…

‘We’ll get you some counselling,’ says the policewoman as Beatrice breaks down yet again.

In the end, it’s an injection which erases the red images in her head and stops the ‘what if’ game. For a short while. After that, the whole thing starts all over again.

The police reconstruct Evelyn’s last night. The party guests provide detailed statements, and it soon becomes clear what must have happened. The phone call at half-past three, the one that reached the sleepy and love-drunk Beatrice, was the last Evelyn had made in her life. She hadn’t tried to call a taxi or any other friends.

‘She said she was going to hitch-hike,’ sobbed Nola on the phone. ‘But she could have stayed here – the first bus into town would have left at five.’

New what-ifs for Beatrice’s game. If Evelyn had waited, if she had been more careful…

But it was Beatrice, and only Beatrice, who Evelyn had asked for help.

She can no longer bear David’s presence; he has become an accomplice. She hardly eats and sleeps very little, walking through the streets and staring into people’s faces. Which of them could be capable of it? Maybe it’s the man standing next to her in the metro, or the man letting her go ahead of him at the supermarket checkout. Maybe it’s the young guy on the other side of the street pushing the blue polka-dot pushchair, or the bald man with the worn-out trousers reading the newspaper as he walks along. Of course. He’s looking for reports about what he did.

Beatrice besieges the investigators with phone calls. The policewoman gave her the direct line in case she thinks of anything else that might be relevant, and she calls three times a day. She reports minute details from Evelyn’s life, things that suddenly seem to be full of significance. But above all, she just wants to know, know, know.

No one tells her anything. All she finds out is the same information that’s in the paper. That the murder of Evelyn Rieger resembles another case from three years ago which was never solved. On that occasion, too, the victim was raped, slashed and practically disembowelled.

Alongside the article, they always print the same photo of Evelyn, taken by Beatrice barely two months ago. Such a beautiful picture of her. An angel with deep red locks and bright green, knowing eyes.

At the funeral, she tries to imprint the face of every man present on her memory, but the crowd of people is too big. There are two policemen there too, but they keep their distance, looking on awkwardly.

Her mother and Richard have come, even though they barely knew Evelyn. They’ve closed Mooserhof for two days, which Beatrice is very grateful to them for. She told them about her guilt. I could have prevented it. So easily.

‘There’s no way you could have known,’ said her mother. ‘The only guilty party is the man with the knife. The knife killed her, and the man who used it. No one else.’

The thought comforted Beatrice for a mere five minutes, but then it became stale, like over-chewed gum.

David comes to the funeral too, wearing a black polo-neck jumper despite the twenty-four-degree heat outside. He comes over to stand next to Beatrice and tries to hold her. She pushes him away.

‘There’s nothing I can do to change what happened,’ he says sadly. ‘And neither can you.’

He has no idea what’s going on in her mind, but he does seem to have genuine feelings for her. And that just makes it worse. She avoids looking at him, punishes herself by looking at Evelyn’s mother instead. She lets Rheinberger’s Stabat Mater soak into her, trying to swallow away the metallic taste in her mouth. Guilt tastes like blood.

In the weeks that follow, she waits. The case gradually disappears from the news, and the police don’t arrest anyone. David has given up on trying to see her again, while she has given up on trying to finish her studies. After a while, Richard turns up on her doorstep to take her back to Salzburg.

She doesn’t try to protest. She calls the policewoman in Vienna just once a week now, and there’s never any news. She hates the police. At some point, four or five months after Evelyn’s death, she tells the woman, ‘You’re an incompetent waste of space.’

Hearing the policewoman’s sharp intake of breath, she prepares herself for a strong retort. But the answer, when it comes, is totally calm. ‘You know what?’ she says. ‘You try and do a better job, you know-it-all.’

‘Fine, I will!’ Beatrice hangs up. But the thought sticks in her mind. Every time she thinks about it, it lifts a little of the weight off her shoulders. After six months of therapy, when she finally makes the decision, she is welcomed with open arms.

It happens during the first year of her training. Along with five of her colleagues, she’s on duty at a ball at the Hohensalzburg Castle. A blond man in a tuxedo keeps strolling past her, smiling. She can see his hesitation.

‘There are hundreds of women dressed in expensive dresses in that ballroom, but none of them look as beautiful as you in your uniform.’ Achim Kaspary is the junior manager of a saw factory just outside Salzburg. He treats her well, doesn’t rush things. He’s not anywhere near as exciting as David, and he’s not the kind of man she would let down a friend for.

He’s a good man to marry.

The flame of the tea light on the coffee table had almost drowned in liquid wax. Beatrice pulled her hand from Florin’s grasp to push the hair away from her forehead. He hadn’t interrupted her even once, but by the end she had felt his fingers clasping more tightly around hers. She searched his eyes for sympathy, or condemnation, but to her relief found neither.

‘You don’t think we’re dealing with Evelyn’s murderer here, do you?’

She shook her head firmly. ‘No. Evelyn was the victim of a sexual crime.’ My God, she sounded like she was quoting a newspaper article. As if that made things more bearable. ‘She was raped, vaginally and anally, and with all kinds of utensils. Then he slashed her with a kitchen knife that her grandmother had given her.’ Red. Beatrice’s mouth was dry. ‘No one ever questioned the motive. The Owner, on the other hand, has shown zero sexual interest in his victims. Neither the men nor the women. His motive is still completely unknown.’

Her last words were accompanied by the sounds of a violin. Anneke’s ringtone.

‘I can call her back later,’ said Florin. ‘No prob—’

‘No, it’s fine, take the call, I have to…’ She gestured towards the bathroom.

Even through the closed door, she could still hear Florin’s voice; earnest and tender. She couldn’t make out the words, and she preferred it that way. He laughed twice. For a few seconds, Beatrice felt betrayed.

Only when she could no longer hear his voice did she flush the toilet and leave the grey-tiled refuge.

‘Are you okay?’ He had made some tea; the dark, fragrant leaves swam on the surface of the shimmering water.

‘No,’ she said, honestly. ‘And I won’t be until we find Sigart. I keep picturing his mutilated hand right in front of me.’ She stopped there, hoping that Florin would understand. He called me because he needed help – does that sound familiar?

‘I’m going to drive home,’ she decided, giving the tea a longing look. ‘I’ll do some Internet research. We’ve got the latest coordinates, so I’m sure there must be something there,’ she added.

‘But you’re not planning to drive out there by yourself, are you?’

She snorted. ‘What would I do out there in the middle of the night? Hope I stumble across something that we missed during the day?’

Florin hugged her and let her go. For a moment, she felt disappointed he didn’t try to persuade her to stay.

It was stuffy in her apartment; the windows had been closed all day. Beatrice longed to be able to go out on the balcony, but every time she went out there she felt as if she was being watched. It was just her imagination, of course. But she felt more comfortable inside the apartment, with the doors double-locked. She set up her laptop on the coffee table and entered the Dalamasso coordinates into Geocaching.com. There was no cache within a two-mile radius. Then she logged into Liebscher’s account and read through his entries, without knowing what she was actually looking for.

Half an hour later, she turned the computer off and exchanged staring at the monitor for staring at the lounge ceiling. Melanie Dalamasso’s reaction had been so clear. If only she could speak to her, show her the photos one by one—

A wish that was certain not to be fulfilled. Beil had been her only chance, the jolt when he had seen Nora Papenberg’s photo. She shouldn’t have let it slip by. Beatrice could hold no one responsible for that but herself.

‘Well, you’ve got yourself into a fine mess now, haven’t you?’ From Hoffmann’s expression, anyone would think it was his birthday. He must have been lying in wait for her behind his office door. Now he was sitting there on his pigskin chair, and she was standing before him like a school pupil who had been called to see the headmaster.

‘I have a complaint here about you, from Carolin Dalamasso. She said you confronted Melanie with photos of the victims. Is that true?’

‘They fell out of my hand.’

‘Then that was very clumsy of you, Kaspary. The girl’s condition has worsened considerably since yesterday, the doctors are worried and her mother’s on the warpath.’ He paused. ‘My God. How could you? Tormenting a sick girl like that! You’re a mother yourself. Would you really use any means to get results in spite of your complete lack of competence?’

She didn’t answer. Anything she said would just make it worse.

‘So what did you achieve through your clumsiness? Any new clues? Did the girl tell you a story?’

‘No.’

‘No.’ Hoffmann rotated a pencil between his fingers. ‘Do you have any idea how much you’ve damaged our reputation by doing this? The reputation of your colleagues, who play by the rules? I’m really disappointed in you, Kaspary. There will be consequences, you mark my words.’ He waited, but when Beatrice just stared at him in silence, he waved her out with his hand.

When she got back to her own desk, Kossar was there, smiling as she approached. He pointed to two folders, a yellow one and a red one.

‘There’s a lot to read here, Beatrice. I went to great lengths to prepare everything for you, but a lot of it is in English. I hope that’s okay.’

‘What is this?’

‘In the red folder, you’ll find everything you need to know on the case of Raymond Willer, a serial killer from Ohio. The most interesting document is probably the interview my colleague from Quantico conducted with him. Willer selected his victims at random, but left behind encrypted messages to make the police think otherwise. He said it was a competition, him against a huge machinery of power. He was highly intelligent, with an IQ of one hundred and forty-seven. He was only caught after the twelfth murder.’

Beatrice shrugged. ‘But the Owner isn’t killing random victims.’

‘The yellow folder,’ continued Kossar as if he hadn’t even heard what she had said, ‘is about the Mike Gonzalez case. He killed nine people with the sole intent of saving them. There are a few cases like that. Religious delusion – the selection of victims only seems to be at random. In the interview, he said he saw a light above their heads and knew they were ready for the kingdom of God. So he wanted to help them get there as quickly as possible. And the fact that he made them suffer beforehand was apparently just to save them from the fire of purgatory—’

‘Our case doesn’t have random victims!’ Beatrice heard herself shout, immediately regretting how loud she was. Losing her nerve was bad, very bad. But at least she had succeeded in halting Kossar’s narrative flow. ‘They knew each other. Not every one of them, perhaps, but Beil knew Papenberg, and Dalamasso knew at least one of the victims. I’m sorry you had to do all this work for nothing.’

‘That’s assuming you’re right.’ It seemed nothing made Kossar lose his cool. ‘And that’s not certain yet,’ he said.

‘It is. You can bet your fucking glasses on it.’

You know everything, and yet you find nothing, the Owner had written. You know everything, and yet you find nothing.

I know that you’re Shinigami. I know that you knew Liebscher, that you went hunting for hidden plastic containers together. And I know you’ve informed yourself about my history, but when? When you realised I was one of the people looking for you? And why?

‘Perhaps you’re connected to the motive in some way,’ Florin had pondered the day before. Beatrice had considered the idea, turning it over and over before discarding it.

No, she didn’t believe that. But he had made her a part of his production, and his messages were predominantly directed at her. Now it was up to her to decipher them.

I’ve overlooked something, she thought. I should go right back to the beginning, but I don’t have time for that, and the most important figures are already dead.

But why not look back at the first appearance of the Owner himself, as least in so far as Beatrice was familiar with it?

26 February, enter Shinigami. He registers with the geocaching website – why? Just to make contact with Herbert Liebscher, or so it appears. For after seven collaborative finds, the website doesn’t seem to interest him any more.

The caches are part of the solution. Otherwise all the hiding places, abbreviations and coordinates would just be pointless.

Would he really do all that just because it was Liebscher’s hobby? Beatrice’s instinct protested against this theory; it wasn’t that, it couldn’t be that.

She rummaged through her notes, a thick folder of them by now, looking for her jottings from Konrad Papenberg’s first interview.

There it was: Nora had been a nature lover. She was sporty and loved going hiking. But geocaching hadn’t been one of her hobbies. Not if her husband was telling the truth – and presumably he was, because even after a thorough search there had been no sign of a geocaching membership on Nora’s computer. The site owners had confirmed it too: there was no Nora Papenberg registered with them. And that was key, because without a computer, without registering with the online community, geocaching was pretty much impossible.

Something made Beatrice linger over this thought, preventing her from moving on. What if…

She read through the husband’s statement once more.

Married for two years, they had known each other for three. Nora’s computer was three years old, which by today’s standards made it practically a Methuselah in the world of technology, but still—

A glance at the clock revealed it was technically too late to call Stefan, but she didn’t care – it was important. She dialled his mobile first, then his landline, but every time it just went through to a mailbox with a recorded message of Stefan asking the caller to leave their details.

Damn it. She wrote herself a note so she wouldn’t forget any of her thoughts.

We haven’t found anything, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything, thought Beatrice, as she laid down her pen. It’s much more likely that we were looking for the wrong thing.

‘Passwords, nicknames, forum pseudonyms – make me a list, please.’

Stefan’s hair was standing up at a strange angle, as if he had only just woken up. His unshaven chin supported this theory, but his eyes looked wide and alert. ‘For Papenberg? Sure.’

‘For Beil and Estermann too. Sigart and Dalamasso don’t have computers, but we should check out Dalamasso again just to make sure.’ She reached out and tried to tame the unruly strands of his hair, but they resisted all of her efforts. ‘I didn’t wake you last night, did I?’

He shook his head, grinning from ear to ear. ‘No. I put my phone on silent. I wasn’t at home.’

Aha. ‘Are you going to tell me her name?’

The left corner of his mouth wandered upwards, followed by the right. ‘I think you’ll have to content yourself with Nora Papenberg’s nicknames for now.’

She had the office all to herself. Florin was leading another interrogation marathon. Someone had seen a red Honda Civic parked by the Wallersee lake two weeks ago, late in the evening.

Nora’s car. Had she gone there with the Owner in order to hide Liebscher’s head in the treetops? Nora, alias NoPap1; Norissima; radishes_are_red.

Beatrice raised her eyebrows as she looked at the last lexical invention – how did someone come up with something like that?

FrankaC. Wishfulthinker28.

These were all Nora’s nicknames, as found by Stefan so far. Names she had used online. There were possibly more to come. ‘But five is quite a lot, already too many to keep track of,’ he had observed. He was right, as Beatrice realised a few minutes later. She could no longer remember what nickname she had used to register on Geocaching.com, until she eventually thought of Jakob’s cuddly owl. Elvira the Second.

She logged onto the site and went to Find User. NoPap1 didn’t bring up any results, and nor did Norissima. FrankaC had one hit, but she was clearly in excellent health and had found her most recent cache just two days ago. There was a detailed profile, including photos showing her at a number of different locations – particularly around Hamburg, where she lived.

Wishfulthinker28. Type and enter. Beatrice crossed her fingers. Bingo.

There was no information on the profile, nor any photos – maybe it had never been updated, or even deleted. But the user clearly existed. There were 133 smiley faces denoting 133 successfully found caches.

Feeling as though she’d finally found the hidden door leading to the right path, Beatrice opened the list. As always, the most recently logged find was at the top.

Wishfulthinker28 had been out caching near the Mondsee lake. The entry was red and crossed out, meaning that the cache was now archived, as were the majority of the user’s finds. No wonder, for the last one had been five years ago. Wishfulthinker28 had clearly found another hobby.

Okay, thought Beatrice. Let’s go with this for a moment. Let’s assume this is Nora Papenberg’s account. The area was correct, as most of the found caches were in or around Salzburg. Five years ago, Nora Papenberg hadn’t even met her husband – so she would have had a different surname then.

Within seconds, she reached Stefan on the internal line. ‘Before she got married, Nora Papenberg’s surname was Winter, if I’m not mistaken. I need the site admin team to tell us whether there’s a Nora Winter behind Wishfulthinker28.’

Beatrice circled the cursor around the last entry. Great view, I’d definitely come back. The hiding place for the container is really inventive, but I still managed to find it quickly. Had fun! TFTC!

It didn’t sound like a farewell comment, nor did it suggest she had lost her enthusiasm for geocaching. Okay, there were a number of reasons why someone might give up a hobby – a new boyfriend, a new job, a pregnancy or illness. But she didn’t believe that, because…

Following a sudden flash of inspiration, Beatrice opened Herbert Liebscher’s profile and scrolled through the entries that DescartesHL had made at around the same time. Inside her mind, something began to lock into place.

There it was, the connection. Barely perceptible, but it was there nonetheless, like a thin strand of light in the darkness.

Nora Papenberg’s last entry was on 3 July. Herbert Liebscher had been in Vienna between the 6 and 8 of July that same year, had found eighteen caches – and then stopped. For one and a half years. Papenberg had stopped for ever.

That’s no coincidence, no doubt about it. There has to be a common cause.

Beatrice printed out the profile pages and compared the caches listed on each – yes, there were overlaps, but that was no surprise with two people who lived in the same city. There wasn’t a single entry, however, where one of them referred to the other. With the caches that came up in both DescartesHL and Wishfulthinker28’s lists, there were months, if not years, in between each of them finding the same cache. There was nothing at all to indicate that the two of them had known each other.

‘You were spot on,’ announced Stefan shortly before midday. He was still very chirpy, and had even managed to clamp down the rebellious strands of hair. ‘Wishfulthinker28 is a Nora Winter with an Austrian postal address – I just got the confirmation through.’ He laid a printout on Beatrice’s desk, shaking his head slightly as if trying to chase away an unwelcome thought. ‘Do you think we’re dealing with someone who’s targeting and killing geocachers?’

‘It’s too early to say. But could you please do something for me? Ring Carolin Dalamasso and ask her whether her daughter used to be a geocacher before—’

She stopped. Of course. It all fitted.

‘Before the breakdown, you mean? Of course, will do. What’s up?’

The dates. ‘Sorry, Stefan, I have to check something.’

Melanie Dalamasso’s breakdown. Yes, that was it. The same summer. Twelve days after Nora Papenberg had found her last cache.

Four cups of coffee later, Beatrice was no longer sure whether her agitated state was a side effect of the caffeine or whether she really was on the brink of what she and Florin called the ‘last twist of the kaleidoscope’. One more detail, one more piece of information, and the chaos would give way to meaning: the picture would become clear. Beatrice could feel the moment drawing close, just as she did every time. She wished the realisation would come, but at the same time she was afraid of it. Because, in most cases, the final picture was a particularly ugly one.

When she packed her bag at around half-past nine that evening, the moment still hadn’t come. If anything, that afternoon it had taken a step backwards. It may have been surprisingly simple to find out Nora Papenberg’s cacher alias, but their attempt to do the same with Christoph Beil and Rudolf Estermann had been fruitless.

Beil had been active on very few Internet forums, and he hadn’t concealed his identity in the slightest. The different combinations of forenames and surnames he had used online hadn’t brought up any results on Geocaching.com. And nor had Grizzly Bear.

When it came to Estermann, it seemed he had only used his computer for business purposes. His browser history was a mix of the homepages of pharmacies and beauty salons.

‘Rudo’, as his wife had called him, had been a damp squib too, regardless of the combinations they tried. Beatrice had got tired, worrying that her dwindling concentration might make her miss something if she continued to push.

She was just putting on her seat belt and about to turn the key in the ignition when her phone rang.

‘I’m taking the children to my place tomorrow,’ said Achim, without a single word of greeting. ‘What on earth goes on in that head of yours? Do you really think you can just shove them aside whenever it suits you?’

The goodwill he had shown during their last encounter had clearly evaporated.

‘I’m not shoving them aside. I’m battling one of the most difficult cases I’ve ever worked on. This isn’t normal day-to-day life.’ She sighed. ‘This is an exceptional circumstance. I thought you understood that.’

When he replied, his voice was less cold, but flat and toneless. ‘This is all so messed up, Bea. I think I could provide Mina and Jakob with a more stable life, one without any exceptional circumstances. The only thing standing in the way of that is your egotism.’

If it hurts to hear it, does that mean it’s true?

‘You’re being unfair.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Fetch the children tomorrow then. I’ll tell my mother. Then I’ll come see you the day after tomorrow and we’ll discuss everything. It’s possible that everything here will have settled down by then anyway.’

He laughed, sounding genuinely amused. ‘As if that were ever true. Who are you trying to kid, Bea? If it’s me, then don’t bother. That train left the station a long time ago.’

Half-past ten. She showered – hot, cold and then hot again – but the raw feeling in the pit of her stomach remained.

No more Internet research for today. She lay down naked on the bed, feeling the cool linen against her back and wishing the children were asleep in the next room.

A blurry shape moved on the ceiling. A spider’s web? She resolved to clear it first thing tomorrow with the broom; it would be good to be able to clear something up in a quick, uncomplicated manner…

Her mobile ringtone catapulted her out of a deep sleep. Her heart was beating fast and frantically against her ribs, something must have happened—

‘Did I wake you, Frau Kommissar?’ His enunciation was slurred.

‘Achim, I swear I’ll report you.’

‘I don’t care. I spoke to my mother, she—’

Beatrice ended the call and put the mobile down next to her on the bed. She looked at her shaking hands in the light of the bedside lamp, which was still shining brightly.

To hell with it. She would call in sick tomorrow and spend the day with the children. Bring the exceptional circumstances to an end. Things couldn’t carry on like this.

Her pulse was beating far too quickly and far too hard. Damned coffee. After a glance at the clock – it was only half-past midnight, thank God – she curled up, pulled the blanket over her shoulders and closed her eyes. Some breathing exercises would steady her pulse; she just had to concentrate on not letting any other thoughts come into her mind, and then she would be able to switch off.

But in the darkness behind her closed eyelids, Melanie Dalamasso appeared, screaming, trying to bang her head against the door frame…

No. Enough.

She couldn’t get Dalamasso out of her mind, though. She was the one they were looking for, the torn woman – so why hadn’t there been anything at the coordinates? Were they just a clue to future events, as they had been once before? Had the Owner planned to dump Dalamasso on the Bundesstrasse?

Beatrice turned over in bed. Shut up, she ordered her inner voice.

Dalamasso’s breakdown had occurred, Liebscher hadn’t gone near a GPS device in a year and a half, Papenberg had given up geocaching for ever. Caesuras, both small and large, within a short space of time.

But not on the same day.

Beatrice gave up. The chance of sleep had retreated from her like the sea ebbing away from the shore. She pulled on a T-shirt, fetched a glass of water from the kitchen, and turned on her laptop.

The green of the geocaching website banner shone out into the darkness of her living room. Without knowing what she was looking for, she opened Nora Papenberg’s profile page. Some users entered their home town under Location. Wishfulthinker28 hadn’t, and nor had Herbert Liebscher.

She would go through the 133 caches in reverse order, reading every entry closely. Maybe she would stumble across something, maybe there would be a meeting with Shinigami or a clue about other cacher friends. Christoph Beil, for example.

A very amusingly disguised container, my compliments to the owner! Nora had written about her penultimate find. I almost gave up, but a flash of inspiration at the last moment pointed me in the right direction. TFTC!

Next entry, 18 June: Simple, but not entirely without its challenges – TFTC!

Another one that same day: Tricky, but we were victorious in the end. Woohoo! TFTC, Wishfulthinker28.

There was no indication of who ‘we’ referred to. Beatrice clicked on the page of the archived cache and found a certain BibiWalz who had also entered the find on 18 June. She was still active, with the number 1877 in brackets next to her nickname and a gallery containing over thirty photos, which Beatrice looked at one by one. BibiWalz was blonde, freckled, chubby and a complete unknown. But she made a note of the name just in case.

Working backwards the next cache was from 15 June. Nora’s entry conveyed sheer excitement. My first night cache! Found together with CreepyCrawly. We set off on our adventure armed with chocolate, crisps and a torch, and arrived at our destination in just over an hour. The path signs reliably showed us the way, and we weren’t afraid for even a second. Compliments to the owner of the listing. TFTC times a thousand!

CreepyCrawly? Beatrice searched for the owner of this strange pseudonym, but his or her profile was just as sparse as those belonging to Nora and Liebscher. Again, she made a note regardless.

The next cache, a week before that: This was a really great cache; I never knew this beautiful church was here, TFTC!

Gradually, the tiredness began to creep back into Beatrice’s body. Ignoring it, she clicked on the next link in the list. Blinded by the ceiling light, she leant back and squinted.

A memory returned to her mind with the force of a hammer. Light. Reflection. Where was it again? She looked for the right page. Yes, there it was; Nora’s enthusiasm about the adventure… there were even photos of the cache, not from her, but taken by other cachers. View the Image Gallery of 25 images.

One click and it all became clear. Beatrice clapped her laptop shut, pulled on her jeans and a jacket over her T-shirt and was already at the door by the time she realised she’d forgotten the most essential tool: a torch.

Achim had given Jakob one for his birthday, an LED torch in which the batteries were alleged to last for ever. Where was it again? Hopefully he hadn’t taken it…

No, here it was. Beatrice put it in her bag and grabbed her mobile as she left.

Once she was sitting in the car, she remembered that she’d only be able to reach the emergency team at this hour. Which was possibly for the best – her intuition probably didn’t hold up to closer inspection.

Nonsense. You’re right and you know it. We know everything, and yet we find nothing – the Owner made himself very clear.

But nonetheless, Beatrice wasn’t comfortable about going in without any backup. No one would give her an approving pat on the back for playing a lone hand again; quite the opposite, in fact.

It was 1.45 in the morning. She phoned Florin, preparing herself for drowsy disorientation. She let it ring twice, three times, five times, then hung up before the mailbox kicked in.

Never mind. It was better that he got some sleep. She wouldn’t put herself in any danger; she would just drive out there to see if she was right. It was entirely possible that her hunch was just a figment of her imagination.

She hadn’t even driven 500 metres by the time her phone rang.

‘What’s happened?’

She almost laughed out loud with relief. Florin sounded wide awake and completely alert.

‘Did I wake you?’

‘Yes, but it doesn’t matter. What’s going on?’

‘I’m driving out to the Dalamasso coordinates. We found something there – we just didn’t realise.’

‘What?’ She heard him take a deep breath. ‘But why now? In the middle of the night?’

‘That’s the only time it will make sense. Trust me.’

She picked him up fifteen minutes later. He had insisted on coming, and she hadn’t protested for very long.

‘Morning,’ he said as he opened the passenger-side door. He didn’t seem to have had enough time to brush his hair or button up his polo shirt, but he did have his gun with him.

‘Thanks for calling me back. It feels better if there’s two of us.’

‘No need to thank me. But it would be even better if there were twenty of us, so we’ll phone the base once we’ve made sure you’re right.’

‘Okay.’ She turned the radio on. Phil Collins was singing ‘In the Air Tonight’, the song with the best drum intro of all time. Evelyn used to play along to it with her cutlery and plate at every opportunity she got.

Speed limit: 30 km/h. The reflective circular sticker in the middle of the zero was illuminated by Beatrice’s torch, a tiny full moon in the darkness.

‘A night cache.’ Beatrice pointed the beam of light down the road. ‘It starts here. If I’m right, we need to find another reflector nearby…’

‘And then another and another.’ Florin turned slowly around on his own axis, holding his torch at head height. ‘There!’ He pointed towards a tree at the edge of the road, a good fifty metres away. Behind it, a pathway forked off.

‘We’re not waiting until tomorrow,’ said Beatrice as she saw Florin’s hesitation. ‘It’ll be dark for another four or five hours, so maybe we’ll be able to find Stage Five before sunrise.’

Without giving an answer, Florin went over to the marked tree. He nodded. ‘Call Stefan. If he’s awake, he should come join us. I’ll report back to base and say we’ll check in at hourly intervals.’

Stefan’s mobile went straight to the mailbox. ‘You’re missing something here,’ she said in her message. ‘Stage Five is a night cache. I’ll bet you’ve never done one of those before, have you?’

They parked the car in a clearly visible spot near the fork in the road, then set off. The path was narrow and zigzagged up the hill past cattle pastures and farms. Beatrice discovered the next reflector on the wall of a wooden barn. ‘The owner is marking all the turn-offs,’ she realised. ‘We have to go right here.’

They followed the trail of shining clues into isolation. The beams of light from their torches danced along the path, intermingling against a grey, brown and green background. They heard the muffled sound of a cowbell nearby. Beatrice couldn’t help picturing Nora Papenberg’s corpse again, on her stomach in the meadow, the cows alongside her. Was the tinny clang of a cowbell the last sound she had heard in her life?

The path plunged into the even deeper darkness of the forest. A reflective gleam from the knothole of a tree trunk confirmed that they were on the right path. Something scurried past them, disappearing with a rustling sound into the bushes to their left. Birds protested the disturbance at such an unusual hour.

The path wound its way steeply upwards, and Beatrice began to regret not bringing along anything to drink. The gentle sound of a nearby stream could be heard amidst the nocturnal rustle of the leaves, but to find it they would have to fight their way through the undergrowth.

After an hour, they stopped for a rest, and Florin called back to base to report that everything was under control. ‘I’ve only got two bars,’ he said with a frown after hanging up. ‘How’s your mobile reception?’

‘Not much better. There aren’t very many radio masts out here.’

Nor were there many houses or farms. Beatrice and Florin had passed the last one about twenty minutes before, and since then they hadn’t seen any signs of human dwellings. But at least the path was in good condition, albeit not tarmacked, as it had been at the start of their climb.

Before long, they found themselves searching around another fork in the path, and for a few moments Beatrice felt as though she was deep underwater, too deep to ever get back to the surface. They shone their torches into the forest, but the beams only penetrated the first row of trees; behind it, the world was absorbed by darkness. Above them, rustling sounds and the gentle sway of the treetops in the night-time breeze. Beatrice was freezing beneath her light jacket. Where was the next damned reflector? To the right, she hoped, for the path there seemed fairly even. But of course they soon realised they had to go left, where it looked much steeper. She was the one to spot the small shining disc, impaled on a thorny bush.

They spoke only when necessary now, battling their way further into the solitude. Something around them had changed in the course of the last few minutes: the forest had taken on a new form of darkness. It wasn’t so dense any more. It was bleaker, sparser. Beatrice pointed her torch at the trees. Stunted, dark trunks, interspersed with young spruces and their vibrant green. Then, the blackness again.

It reminded her of something. Some painful research she had undertaken.

He’s mocking his victims. He’s mocking us. He wants us to find Sigart’s severed fingers and some witty message about how strange life can be.

Without realising, she had quickened her pace. Her breath came out in gasps and her heart was racing, but she didn’t stop. Florin caught up with her. She felt his questioning look and shook her head. First they had to get there. First, certainty.

They almost missed the next reflector. They had just emerged from the forest and it was there, right in front of them, fastened to a flat stone at the edge of the path.

Beatrice was convinced the cache must be hidden beneath it, but she was wrong. The only things they found as they lifted it up were a worm and two beetles, who fled in panic from the beam of light. A loud, snapping sound, like the lashing of a branch against wood, announced that they had probably startled even more wildlife.

‘I think the path must go down there.’

‘Here? But there’s nothing.’ The terrain sank down before them, densely overgrown with bushes and hip-high brambles. ‘We’d need a machete to get through there.’

‘Then we’ll have to manage without.’ Florin looked at his watch and pulled his mobile out from his trouser pocket. ‘Hi, Chris.’ He spoke in hushed tones. ‘We’re okay, we’re leaving the path now and heading off into the thicket. In an hour… Hello? Can you hear me? Okay, yes, I’ll call again in an hour.’

Florin took a tentative step forward into the undergrowth. ‘Come on, Bea, we can go through here.’ He stepped down a little and took her hand. ‘There must have been a path here once.’

A step. Another. A third. They made their way slowly, unbearably slowly, down an overgrown slope, until Beatrice got her foot caught in a tree root. She dropped the torch and grasped around for something to hold onto, feeling a searing pain shoot from her right palm to her elbow as she finally found her grip.

At first she thought it was barbed wire, but it was only stinging nettles. Florin pulled her up, and that was when she saw it.

A shining number five. She pointed towards it in silence, then groped around on the ground for her torch. The number was fixed to a small wooden shed, and seemed to be swinging back and forth.

‘Stay behind me.’ Was it a gust of wind that had set the ‘5’ in motion, or someone who was lying in wait for them here? Florin pulled out his gun, and they both listened into the night. Wind. The gurgling of the stream. The sounds of birds, more distant than before. And the soft scraping sound which accompanied the movements of the swaying number.

They walked over to it. Slowly, thought Beatrice. Yet, unfortunately, not without making a noise. Dry twigs and rustling leaves betrayed their every step.

‘It’s just the wind,’ said Florin, as they reached the wooden shed. A cut-out of the number five was affixed onto a battered tin container, which in turn was dangling from a thin, rusted wire. Beatrice pulled a pair of silicon gloves from her jacket pocket.

Fingers, she thought, like before. Eyes, toes. What else could fit in a tobacco tin?

She carefully pulled the looped wire from the wooden ledge it was wrapped around. The wire wouldn’t relinquish its grip on the tin itself; it was wound around the entire cylinder and fixed with several layers of thick tape.

‘It doesn’t look new,’ observed Florin.

‘No.’ Beatrice struggled with the screw cap, twisting several times before it loosened with a grinding sound. Preparing herself for what was to come, she lifted the lid. For the first few moments, she couldn’t comprehend what she was looking at in the beam of torchlight.

A pale blue hairband. A one-yen coin. A key. A heart-shaped stone. Beneath all of that, a plastic bag with something orange inside. ‘The logbook.’ Beatrice pressed her torch into Florin’s hand and pulled the small book out of its wrapping.

It was a little damp despite the packaging, but the pages could still be turned without needing to be prised apart.

‘It’s just a normal cache,’ she said, reading through the various thank-yous. ‘Why is Stage Five suddenly the odd one out?’ She flicked further back. The cache was old; the first entries had been made over six years ago.

Following her instinct, she turned the pages without reading, on and on, until she found the last entry in the logbook.

There it was. The connection they had been searching for all this time, in black and white. Nora Papenberg’s handwriting was unmistakable.

‘On the twelfth of July five years ago, they were all here, all the Owner’s victims.’ Beatrice spoke in hushed tones, trying to order her thoughts. ‘Since then, no one else has found the cache. Except us. Nora Papenberg gave up her hobby afterwards, just like Herbert Liebscher, although he did start up again later. And do you know what, Florin? Neither of them registered having found this cache.’ Something must have happened, and it must have been after Nora wrote the note in the logbook. She held it up, ‘ChoristInTheForest’ – that must be Christoph Beil, no question…’

Blackened trees. Destroyed lives. Beatrice went through the signatures. Five stages. Five names.

That’s one too few.

She shook her head. Did she know what had happened, or did she just think she knew? 12 July: she would have to check the date, but it was possible – no, probable – that it had been the day of the forest fire.

Five deaths. Five names. The joker in the pack.

The words of the logbook entry hammered inside her head as she shone the light towards where the slope began to even out. There was something there, something angular, stony. ‘Down there.’

Step by step by step. Beatrice thought she would recognise the place as soon as she was standing before it, but she would have walked straight into it if Florin hadn’t pulled her back by the arm.

A foundation built of stone, half in, half outside the forest. In the middle was a cover of sorts, square and made of metal. It was pushed a little to the side, just far enough for someone to be able to put their hand through. From the space beneath, a faint shimmer of light forced its way out, making the opening a pale grey gash in the blackness of the night.

They communicated with a quick glance. It had been a mistake to assume they would only find a cache container. There was someone here, and he must have been listening to them. Florin pulled out his gun.

‘We’re not going in without backup. Two cars, maybe three. No risk-taking,’ he whispered.

They retreated back into the forest, into the darkness between the trees. Mobile reception here was bad, but at least there was some. Beatrice listened to the dialling tone and her own breathing, both of which seemed much louder than usual. ‘We’ve found something, send us some backup. There’s a cellar with a light burning, and we have reason to suspect someone’s down there, even though we’ve seen no signs of life yet.’

While she described their location, Beatrice replayed her own words in her mind. No signs of life. She remembered the mobile photos of the hacked-off fingers, only half-listening as the base announced that there would be three cars with them in around twenty minutes.

‘You know what that cellar is, right?’ she whispered after she had ended the call.

‘I think so. There are still scorch marks in the forest.’

The moon shone above them, the clear sky saturated with stars. In comparison, the shimmer of light making its way up to the surface from below the ground was hazy and milky. Beatrice didn’t take her eyes off it for a second, waiting for it to expand and then darken behind a looming figure. But no one appeared.

The minutes seemed to pass at a painfully slow pace. Everything within Beatrice wanted to creep towards the crack, open it wide and climb down. If it is the Owner’s hiding place, then we’ll probably find Sigart there too.

The thought intensified her impatience. Florin’s hand grabbed her wrist, and she realised she had already started to crawl out of the thicket. He pulled her back and laid an arm around her shoulder. ‘No going it alone this time.’

‘But what if Sigart’s down there?’

‘Then he’ll have to hold on for another five minutes.’

Beatrice fingered the round metal cache tin through her jacket pocket. Its contents shed new light on the events, although she couldn’t yet figure out how, not conclusively at any rate. She closed her eyes and counted the minutes. Was that the sound of someone whimpering? The wind carried a quiet, feeble noise towards her – but maybe it was just the sound of the wind itself, a plaintive, restless whisper.

By the time the three police cars were parked on the path, Beatrice was already kneeling down by the cellar opening. She had heard the approaching engine sounds, and from then on had been deaf to Florin’s warnings.

Could she hear anything? A voice, breathing?

She laid her ear against the crack, recoiling involuntarily as a puff of air wafted out of the cellar towards her.

All of a sudden, she was back in Evelyn’s bedroom with the smell of blood – but here it was mixed with the stench of putrid flesh. Beatrice sat down, took a deep breath and tried to banish the unwelcome images. Images of red.

Shadowy figures armed with lights climbed down the slope. Whispered instructions, hushed voices.

Then Florin was standing next to her. ‘Let’s go in.’

They were only halfway down the steps before Beatrice cursed herself for having waited so long.

Sigart was lying on the floor, shaking. He was pressing his maimed left hand to his chest, his mouth moving silently.

‘Call an ambulance!’ Florin shouted to one of their colleagues.

Beatrice knelt down next to Sigart. There was a cut on the side of his neck, but they didn’t need to worry too much about that as it seemed to be healing well. She ignored the stench coming from his hunched-up form. And she only half took in the surroundings: the noose hanging from the ceiling, the wooden table she recognised from the Owner’s photos, the saws on the wall. She concentrated all her attention on Sigart, touching his forehead gently. He flinched away from her as though she had electrocuted him. Then he lay there, motionless, wheezing and trying to say something.

I have to calm him down. Explain that we’ll talk later. But her curiosity was stronger. She leant over to him, tried to breathe evenly and put her ear next to his mouth.

‘Please,’ he whispered. ‘Not… another… one. Please don’t…’

Ashamed, Beatrice sat back up. Florin had come over to her side. ‘What’s he saying?’

‘Nothing that can help us. He’s pleading with us not to cut another of his fingers off.’

When the ambulance arrived, the emergency doctor diagnosed wound inflammation and severe dehydration. ‘He probably hasn’t had anything to drink for two days now. But if he doesn’t get sepsis then he has a good chance of surviving.’

Only once Sigart had been taken away did they pay more attention to the cellar. It was roughly twenty square metres. Around the wooden table were three chairs, and towards the back of the room Beatrice discovered a device which was roughly the size of a laser printer. She only realised its purpose – the wrapping of food products – when she saw the vacuum bags lying next to it. In a corner, half covered by bloody muslin bandages, was a pair of red women’s shoes.

Drasche arrived as dawn was breaking. He worked silently, and they left him in peace. He did the same, knowing that they had to get an impression of the place where Liebscher, Beil and Estermann had been killed. On a small stainless-steel bottle which Drasche was in the process of sealing away in his evidence bag, there was a sticker with the letters HF. Hydrofluoric acid.

The table’s surface was ploughed with notches and covered with red and brown flecks. If Beatrice stood in front of it, a little to the side, the perspective was exactly the one she knew from the picture messages, only without the hand and severed fingers.

The noose on the ceiling brought to mind the strangulation marks on Christoph Beil’s neck.

So this was where it had all happened.

Drasche had taken the tobacco tin cache, but the signatures in the logbook were firmly etched in Beatrice’s memory: Wishfulthinker28, AlphaMale, GarfieldsLasagne. DescartesHL, ChoristInTheForest.

Five.

The feeling of having stumbled upon a critical gap in her line of thought, the feeling which had crept chillingly up her spine the first time she read the entry, was no longer as intense as it had been initially, but it was still there. It lurked, ready to be summoned, in the recesses of her mind.

At the hospital, they were optimistic. They had treated Sigart’s wounds and he was responding well to the antibiotics they had given him. His psychological condition, however, was described as critical, veering from distracted and depressed to completely apathetic. ‘You’ll have to wait a little longer to speak to him,’ explained the doctor.

So Beatrice immersed herself yet again in online research. Stefan had already explained a while back that profiles set up on Geocaching.com couldn’t be erased: once you were registered, that was it. And true to his word, the pseudonyms from the cache log were all still there. AlphaMale – such a humble codename could only belong to Estermann. His quota was indeed over 2,000 caches. 2,144, to be precise – not a single unconquered find. In comparison, Christoph Beil’s 423 finds seemed downright modest. GarfieldsLasagne – had Dalamasso been witty enough to name herself after a plump cartoon cat and his favourite meal? Her profile showed only twenty-four caches; according to the log entries she had found them all with ChoristInTheForest.

They were a couple, thought Beatrice. Christoph and Melanie; they must have met at the Mozarteum, after a choir rehearsal perhaps.

A man old enough to be her father, as Carolin Dalamasso had put it. And married, so no wonder Melanie hadn’t wanted – or been able – to introduce him to her parents.

She was the last one, the one who had remained unharmed. It was hard to imagine the Owner would give up now, but so far no one had tried to get close to her. Her watchers hadn’t reported any unusual events.

‘Blood traces from Liebscher, Beil, Sigart and Estermann. And small amounts from Papenberg too. The saws were used to cut up Liebscher’s body, and Nora Papenberg’s fingerprints were found on the handle. A vacuum-packing machine has been taken off for investigation. The bags match those we found in the caches.’ Drasche stood in the conference room, leaning against the back of his chair as if he couldn’t carry the weight of his body without help. ‘So it’s as good as proven that the cellar was the scene of the crimes. You’ll have to work the rest out yourselves – all the evidence is there.’

‘And you say the Owner imprisoned Sigart in the building his family burnt to death in?’ Hoffmann’s question was directed at Florin.

‘In the cellar of the building. Yes, it looks that way.’

‘A particularly perfidious form of sadism?’ That, in turn, was addressed to Kossar.

‘I’d interpret it like that, yes.’ Beatrice noticed, not without a degree of satisfaction, that he had become more cautious since his ‘random victim’ theory had been proven so grossly inaccurate.

‘It would also be supported by the fact that he let Sigart live longer than the others. In his mind, they’re all connected with the fire – the five geocachers who passed through the area on the same day, and Sigart, who blamed himself for the deaths of his wife and children, both to himself and to anyone who would listen.’

Hoffmann nodded. ‘Then we’re dealing with someone who was also affected by the fire, in some way or another.’ His gaze slid from one person to the next, skipped Beatrice and stopped at Florin. ‘You’re working closely with the guys from the fire service, right, Florin?’ Without waiting for an answer, he smacked both hands down on the table to signify their dismissal. ‘Good. Then the case will soon be closed.’

The first detective to exchange a few words with Sigart was Florin. He managed to catch him at a good moment during a routine visit, and had a five-minute conversation while two doctors sat alongside, ready to usher him out immediately if their patient’s condition worsened.

‘I asked him about the Owner, but he said he didn’t know him. He described him though, as well as he could. The description matched fairly precisely with the one given by the hotel waiter. Bald, a full beard, medium height. Sigart wasn’t sure about his eye colour. Blue or green, he thinks. He said he spoke without any regional accent, and the voice was neither particularly high nor deep. He wore gloves the whole time. That’s as much as I got in five minutes.’

Florin’s disappointment was clear to see. If Sigart had known the man and been able to name him, the case could have been closed very quickly indeed. Hoffmann’s ideal scenario.

‘If I were a man,’ said Beatrice slowly, ‘and I wanted to disguise myself without using wigs and false teeth, then I’d grow a beard and shave off my hair. Everyone who sees me would then remember me as a bearded bald guy, even though I’m normally clean-shaven with a full head of hair.’

A smile twitched across Florin’s face. ‘Hoffmann would be very happy if you grew a beard. “Don’t be such a girl, Kaspary.”’

They laughed, and it did them good. ‘But you’re completely right,’ Florin continued. ‘The description doesn’t necessarily help. The Owner isn’t making it easy for us.’

She sat on Sigart’s bed and waited for him to wake up. He’d been in the hospital for three days now. His condition was stable, according to the doctors. They had allowed Beatrice to pay him a visit, but now he was sleeping, while the IV released one drop of electrolyte solution into his veins per second. The sight nudged something within Beatrice, something like the precursor to a realisation. She waited, but it didn’t come.

Sigart stirred. His eyelids fluttered softly before they opened. He turned his head and looked at her, and Beatrice knew that he had recognised her right away.

‘It’s good to see you alive, Herr Sigart,’ she said.

He didn’t smile, but looked at her steadfastly.

‘Can you speak?’

A shrug of the shoulders, followed by a pain-filled grimace. He cleared his throat. Had the tilting of his head been a nod? Beatrice decided to interpret it as such. ‘That’s good. I don’t want to disturb you for too long, but there are so many things on my mind. I’m sorry we didn’t get there soon enough to prevent you from being kidnapped. We came as quickly as we could, but the perpetrator was unbelievably fast.’

Sigart’s eyes closed again. His breathing sounded worse; the memory was clearly causing him distress.

‘The thing is,’ Beatrice continued, ‘I’d like to know why you ignored our warnings. We offered you protection, and when you didn’t want it we pleaded with you to be careful. Not to open the door to anyone. But the killer still got to you, and there was no sign of forced entry.’

She gave him time to process her question. His eyes were still closed, and after a few seconds he turned his head to the side, away from her.

‘That’s why we have the theory that you must have known the killer,’ she continued. ‘And there are a number of additional reasons why I still believe that’s the case. But you told Herr Wenninger he was unknown to you.’

He didn’t stir. Beatrice felt impatience welling up inside her, and counted silently to five. She gave herself, and him, time. Took a deep breath. Sigart no longer stank of blood, vomit and urine, just of disinfection fluid.

‘If you didn’t know him, why did you open the door? I just don’t understand.’

Had he gone back to sleep, or were her questions too painful for him? Beatrice tried again, as gently as she could, but Sigart was no longer reacting.

The Owner hadn’t been in touch since the picture message showing Sigart’s severed middle finger. The dog team had searched the woods around the cellar where Sigart was discovered, but hadn’t found anything. Drasche had been completely baffled by the prints found in the cellar. ‘We found fingerprints from all the victims, but not a single one from the killer. He must have worn gloves the whole time.’ That, at least, matched Sigart’s statement.

Lost in thought, Beatrice worked through the Owner’s text messages once more, reading one after the other.

Was his sudden silence connected to Dalamasso? Was he frustrated that he couldn’t get close to her?

No, she thought. He could have got to Melanie before we solved the puzzle that led us to her. Like he did with Estermann.

Melanie. Beatrice had saved her mother’s number in her mobile. She’d have to act fast, otherwise she’d lose her nerve.

‘Dalamasso.’

‘Good evening, this is Beatrice Kaspary from the LKA.’

A deep sigh. ‘Yes?’ Just one syllable, filled with contempt. But at least the woman hadn’t hung up.

‘I’d like to apologise for my behaviour. It was unacceptable. How is Melanie?’

‘She’s… she’s doing a little better. But she’s still trying to self-harm, and is hardly sleeping at all, except with the help of strong sedatives.’

‘I’m very sorry.’

No answer this time.

‘Did you want anything else?’ asked Carolin Dalamasso eventually. Curt, icy, clearly hoping that she didn’t.

‘Yes, to be honest. I’d like to ask you something.’ She took the silence at the other end of the line as consent. ‘Did Melanie used to react to things that extremely? Were there any events or triggers that upset her as much as those photos?’

She was expecting a dismissive answer, or none at all, but she was wrong.

‘Children.’

‘Sorry?’

‘She had strong reactions to children a few times, particularly loud ones. But only in the first year after her breakdown, and then it seemed to pass.’ Carolin Dalamasso sighed. ‘When she was at school, there were some children who bullied her a lot. The doctors think these memories might have been triggered by the sight of children.’

‘I understand.’ Yes, I really believe I do, but not in the way you think. ‘Thank you, Frau Dalamasso. I wish Melanie all the best. My colleagues will continue to look out for her.’

‘I know. Are we finished now?’

‘Yes. Thank you again. Goodby—’ The rest of the word was swallowed by the beeping of the disconnect tone. Carolin Dalamasso had hung up.

The suspicion which Beatrice carried around with her that evening and the whole of the next day was much too vague to be uttered out loud to the others. When Florin questioned her on how quiet she was, she fobbed him off with an answer as brief as it was nondescript, and after that he left her alone with her thoughts.

Several times, Beatrice caught herself sitting and staring at the surface of her desk. To any onlooker, it must have seemed as though she wasn’t doing a thing, but inside her mind the kaleidoscope was turning incessantly, equipped with a few new fragments.

Drasche’s surprise about the fingerprints. The Owner’s silence. An IV needle.

The varying difficulty levels of the puzzles. And what was the point of them anyway?

Then the references to Evelyn, which she should have understood a lot sooner.

‘Coffee?’ Florin was standing next to the espresso machine, holding up two cups.

She stopped herself from snapping at him for interrupting her train of thought. ‘Yes, please. Strong.’

He pressed the buttons. ‘When are you going to tell me what’s going on in your head?’

‘When I’m sure it’s not just nonsense.’

‘Okay.’ It was clear he wasn’t content with the answer. ‘But I’d really prefer it if we could all discuss new approaches as a team. Or at least between the two of us.’

‘We will. When I’m ready.’ He would just have to be annoyed at her. Some threads of thought are so delicate that they tear and blow away if you try to put them into words. ‘Give me another few hours.’ In her mind’s eye, she saw the needle stuck into Sigart’s vein. It seemed inconceivable. If you’re that fond of him, I’ll keep him for you until the end.

The end, thought Beatrice, can’t be that far away now.

She left the office earlier than usual; Florin’s probing looks were too off-putting. The feeling that her thoughts were going round in circles evaporated as soon as she stepped out into the fresh air.

The children were spending the evening at Mooserhof again; Achim had to take a client out for dinner. In those circumstances, of course, handing over the children was completely fine. Everything was always fine if he did it. But at least he had taken them to her mother’s, where they would be content.

When she arrived at the restaurant, Jakob clung to her like a monkey on a tree. ‘I want to go home,’ he mumbled. ‘Are you taking us with you tonight?’

Soon. Next week. Tomorrow. She pulled him close and buried her face in his hair. ‘We’re almost finished. Listen – either we catch the guy in the next three days, or I’ll tell Florin that he has to keep looking by himself. Then I’ll just do a few smaller things and I’ll even be able to pick you up from school every day too.’

‘Honest?’

‘I promise.’ The thought of giving up the case she had been so intensely involved in from the start made a painful hole in her pride. But it had already had too much of an impact on the children.

‘Cool!’ Jakob jumped down to go and tell his Oma the happy news.

Beatrice hugged Mina. ‘I’m so looking forward to having you both back with me,’ she said, feeling Mina nod against her chest.

They spent the evening eating and playing cards in the restaurant. Beatrice tried very hard to lose at Mau-Mau, and ate fried beef and onions in gravy, realising with surprise that she was incredibly hungry. Richard served her a taster dessert plate, of which she didn’t leave a single crumb.

‘Three days?’ Jakob checked, as she put him to bed.

‘Three days and not one more.’

On the way home, she tried with all her might to convince herself that she wouldn’t mind taking a step back. Stefan could take over her tasks and pass his own to Bechner. And then I’ll do Bechner’s stuff, she thought. All those menial tasks I give him.

Before she had a chance to smile at the thought, her mobile rang.

‘Sigart has disappeared.’ Florin sounded fraught. ‘The hospital has already been searched. Theoretically it’s still possible that he just pulled the IV line out and decided to go for a walk, but no one has seen him for two hours.’

The information sank in Beatrice’s stomach like a stone. The kaleidoscope turned yet again. ‘Okay, I’m near Theodebertstrasse right now, so I’ll drive past his flat and see if there’s a light on.’

‘Okay. Keep me posted.’

Beatrice looked at the clock. It was just before 10 p.m. She could park the car opposite the postal depot and walk across to Theodebertstrasse on foot.

At number thirty-three, it was dark behind the windows of the first floor. She stopped in front of the entrance and thought of the blood they had found here last time. AB negative, rare and precious. Her thoughts raced on. Blood transfusions. IV needles.

A car drove past, and for a few seconds the headlights blinded her, making her feel strangely vulnerable. Then the beam of light fell on something else.

A red Honda Civic, parked diagonally opposite.

It wasn’t a rare model of car by any means. But it was an interesting coincidence nonetheless. Beatrice quickly crossed the street and could already feel the disappointment bearing down on her shoulders as she approached. It couldn’t be Nora’s car; it had Hungarian number plates. But just to make sure she wasn’t overlooking anything, Beatrice leant down to peer into the passenger-side window. The hazy street lighting fell on two empty, crumpled-up water bottles, a newspaper and a leather bag.

She squinted, trying to see more clearly. So perhaps it was Nora’s car after all. It wasn’t yet hard proof, of course, she would need to break into the car and—

‘How convenient. I was just on my way to you.’

She didn’t get a chance to turn around towards the voice. A blow to her neck, a sharp, burning pain, and the world disappeared into a racing vortex, a whirlpool tugging her away into nothingness.

Blows all over her body. Her legs, her back, her behind. As if through thick cotton wool. Everywhere but her head. Then emptiness again.

Come up for air. Time has vanished. Open eyes… can’t. Darkness. Drifting in and out of consciousness.

Her breathing was slow and heavy. It was the first thing she became aware of, and it filled her with a vague sensation of gratitude at still being alive. She tried to grasp what had happened, wanting to remember, but the thoughts slipped out of her mind like wet soap through her fingers.

At least her body was obeying her. She flexed her toes, coughed. She wanted to hold her head, but her hands wouldn’t move. Beatrice opened her eyes.

She knew this place. But where from? She didn’t like it, but she knew she had been here before. With… a man. Not her ex-husband, another man – Florin.

As if his name had been the password to her memory, everything rushed back to her, not neatly ordered, but in a torrent. She swallowed, with difficulty, and deliberately ignored the ridged, filthy wood of the table in front of her. Once again, she tried to move her hands away from her body.

A dull pain shot through her; she still couldn’t do it. I’m tied up, she thought, picturing the woman in the cow pasture in her mind, the cable tie around her wrists. She just couldn’t remember the woman’s name. Everything was blurry and out of focus, as if she was floating through murky water. But she was sitting down. On a chair, and her hands were… behind her.

Nora Papenberg, she finally remembered. That was her name.

She closed her eyes, trying to find her way back into her mind. But now the pain was breaking out of the thickly insulated room it had been lurking in. It bit hard into her back. Into her hips. Her wrists. Beatrice tensed her shoulder muscles. It was bearable, just about. A small price to pay for a clear head. She listened.

Someone was here. Quiet footsteps in the background, a rustling sound. If she twisted her upper body just a little, she would be able to see him. But it was too soon for that; she had to get a grip of herself first. If he gave her enough time, that was.

‘Good evening,’ said a voice behind her. Quiet and polite.

So she had been right.

‘Good evening, Herr Sigart.’ She waited for him to come over and sit opposite her at the table, but he didn’t move. No footsteps on the stone floor.

She tried to remember what was behind her. The noose hanging from the ceiling. Nora Papenberg’s shoes, as red as the picture in Florin’s atelier, as red as the blood on Evelyn’s bedroom floor. Dried bandaging fabric in crusted waves.

No, of course not. The forensics team had taken all that with them.

The saws were gone now too, but Drasche had left the table and chairs, still speckled in places with forensic powder. On the floor, at the foot of the steps, there was something new: the doctor’s bag Beatrice had seen on the passenger seat of the Honda Civic.

‘How are you feeling?’ Sigart asked the question as if he was a surgeon who had just operated on her.

Beatrice decided to play along. She just had to break free from her ties, then she would have an advantage over him. He was weakened; there was no way he could use his left hand.

‘I’m relatively okay,’ she answered. ‘Still a little blurry in the head. And my hips feel bruised.’

‘Yes, unfortunately that couldn’t be avoided.’ Finally, Sigart stepped aside, far enough for her to be able to see him. He was still pale, but he seemed taller than he had before. His left hand was bandaged, the dressing stretching all the way to his elbow. ‘I wasn’t able to carry you, so I had to drag you. I’m afraid that gave you a few bruises.’

‘I see.’ Was he still on painkillers? Probably. ‘You’re clearly doing much better than before. When I saw you in the hospital, I thought—’ I thought what I was supposed to think. Beatrice left the sentence unfinished.

Sigart walked all the way around the table, then sat down. In his right, healthy hand, he was holding a gun, which he now laid on the scratched table, the barrel pointing at Beatrice. ‘I’m pleased that we finally get to talk alone.’

The dull, cotton-wool-like sensation in her head still hadn’t completely disappeared. What did Sigart want from her?

I’m his audience, as Kossar had put it. Hopefully he had been right on that point at least.

‘You probably want to hear that I’m surprised,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you there.’ She held his gaze, even though fear was now stretching its cold feelers out towards her throat. Whatever narcotic Sigart had injected her with, it was losing its effect.

He cocked his head to the side. ‘How long have you known?’

‘Since I went to see you in the hospital. With all the blood you lost, we expected you to be on the brink of death. I might have thought of it sooner if you were a doctor, but you’re a vet.’ She saw a smile creep across his face. ‘But of course you still know how to take blood, how to store it, and how much there had to be to make us draw the right conclusions. Or, rather, the wrong ones. What did you use to create the drag marks in the stairwell? A sandbag?’

‘Something like that.’

‘From the very first time we met you, you were always so pale. But in the hospital, you looked healthier – and it was because you had more blood in your veins than in the previous weeks. The spray pattern on the walls – did you compress the bag of blood and then punch a hole in it?’

‘Precisely. Bravo, Beatrice.’

Something in the tone of his voice unsettled her, but she carried on regardless. ‘You also know how to carry out a local anaesthetic – probably better than any hospital surgeon, who always has an anaesthetist on standby for that. But I still don’t know how you managed to cut your own fingers off.’

He lifted the bandaged hand off the table a little and put it back down again carefully. ‘By imagining this moment, right here and now. Tell me what else you worked out, Beatrice.’

She thought for a moment. ‘That you know about Evelyn and think we have something in common. Guilt as a result of bad decisions. Where did you get your information from?’

‘You have quite a talkative brother. I’m sure you don’t know this, but my wife and I used to eat at Mooserhof quite frequently. We both read about Evelyn Rieger’s murder, and knew from your brother that you were friends with her. Every time I asked about you, he quite willingly opened his heart to me. You were still in Vienna then, trying to get back on your feet, but your brother was convinced you wouldn’t manage. My wife and I had many conversations about guilt back then.’ He shifted his gaze to the two remaining fingers on his left hand. ‘At the time, I was of the opinion that the only person to carry guilt is the one who intentionally harms someone. Miriam disagreed. She said that guilt never falls on just one person alone.’

Beatrice could see that he was withdrawing into himself, hearing his wife’s voice in his mind as if she were right next to him.

‘After her death, I knew she was right. I was immensely guilty. My wrong decisions, my skewed priorities. You know the feeling, don’t you, Beatrice? That’s why I put my case in your hands.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I made sure you would be on duty when Nora Papenberg was found. That granted her an extra day of life.’

A day of fear and despair, of futile hope. She hoped he would give her an extra day, too. ‘Keep me posted,’ Florin had said. When would he expect to hear from her? After an hour? Two? Maybe even sooner? He was probably already pulling out all the stops to find her.

She shifted her weight, trying to feel whether her mobile was still in her jacket pocket. If it was, her colleagues would be able to find out her location.

But she couldn’t feel anything. Perhaps it had fallen out when Sigart had dragged her down the steps, or outside, in the forest. That would be just as good – no, even better, as he would have no chance of finding it…

Then she saw it. On a pile of bricks that someone must have left in the corner of the cellar. It lay alongside Nora Papenberg’s Nokia, and next to it, like small, rectangular playing pieces from a board game, were the batteries.

Sigart followed her gaze. ‘Yes, unfortunately you are un-contactable,’ he said. ‘But you still managed to send your colleague a text from Theodebertstrasse. “Driving home now, I’m shattered. See you tomorrow.” That should have won us a little time.’

She wanted to scream, not knowing whether it was out of rage, panic, or just to lose herself in her own cries. Instead, she bit down on her lower lip until it hurt. Driving home now, I’m shattered. But no word as to whether she had found Sigart. Maybe that would have made Florin wonder. If so, he would have tried to call her back, only getting the mailbox. Was shattered enough to make him leave it? Or would he persevere, maybe drive to her place just to be sure?

She didn’t know.

‘Nonetheless,’ Sigart continued, ‘we don’t have all the time in the world. I asked you what you’ve understood of what’s happened, but you haven’t yet given me your answer. I need you to concentrate.’ He picked up the gun in his right hand, almost playfully. The mouth pointed at the wall, then at Beatrice, lingering briefly, then gliding to the side. After a few moments, Sigart put the weapon back on the table, frowning as if he wasn’t sure quite what he was doing.

‘You lost your family in a forest fire,’ Beatrice began hastily. ‘That was here. We’re in the cellar of the building you rented.’

He nodded. ‘Correct.’

‘You got called away by a client, and that’s why you hold yourself responsible for what happened – but not just yourself.’

‘Another point.’ With the two remaining digits of his left hand, he traced the line of a long cut in the wooden table. ‘To start with, admittedly, it was different. Back then I thought I was the only guilty one, just me alone – but then… what happened then, Beatrice?’

She remembered the tobacco tin. TFTC.

‘Then you stumbled upon the cache and found out that five people must have been here on the day of the fire.’

‘Not just that. Think, Beatrice, you know everything. Draw the correct conclusion. Don’t disappoint me.’

She thought. Struggled to swallow. ‘And… there was a key in the cache. It was… the key to the cabin?’

‘Yes. Which had been used to lock it. From the outside, as I now know.’

Against her better judgement, Beatrice struggled to accept the conclusion that logically followed. ‘But they were just geocaching! Didn’t you read the entry? What makes you think it was those five who locked the cabin? What would they have gained from doing that?’

‘We’ll get to that in a moment. But for now let’s just leave it as this – it was them.’ He took a breath, short and sharp. He tentatively touched his bandages, checking the amputation wounds. ‘I asked myself the same thing at first, of course I did. Was it just a coincidence? Was there really a connection? After all, I didn’t want to make any mistakes. So I looked at the accounts on Geocaching.com, one nickname after the other. Once you’re registered on there, you can’t delete the account, did you know that?’

‘So did one of them log the discovery of the tin and write something incriminating?’

Sigart shook his head. ‘No. But they all deleted the information from their profiles. Only DescartesHL remained active. From the remaining four, there wasn’t a single entry after that day in July. So I knew they had to have had something to do with the fire. And when I spoke to them they all confirmed it, here at this very table.’ Sigart suddenly closed his eyes, as if he was in pain. ‘Please excuse me for a moment.’ He took a small bottle of serum from his medical bag, drew some up into a syringe and injected it into his left arm. ‘The last few days have been rather painful, as I’m sure you can imagine.’

She watched him, every one of his practised movements. Her mouth was bone dry, and she wanted to ask him for something to drink, but she knew he wouldn’t take too kindly to his carefully staged finale being interrupted to fetch water from the well. And there didn’t seem to be any down here in the cellar.

‘Why did you bring me here?’ she asked quietly, once he had put his utensils back in the bag. ‘Are you planning to kill me too?’

He didn’t say no, but instead tilted his head thoughtfully. Regretfully, almost. Beatrice’s blood ran cold. ‘You’re going to kill me?’

‘Calm down. You have a chance of getting away alive. Not a particularly big one, admittedly, but it exists. Are your colleagues on the ball? Are they bright? Then you don’t need to worry.’ He smiled. ‘First and foremost, you’re here so I can thank you. Thanks for the hunt, Beatrice. Thank you very much indeed.’

‘You’re the first person to ever thank us for hunting them.’

That seemed to amuse Sigart. ‘You still don’t get it, do you?’ He leant over, as if he wanted to confide something in her that no one else was supposed to hear. ‘You didn’t hunt me.’ He looked at her, his gaze full of expectation.

Was this a new game? ‘We were hunting the man who killed Nora Papenberg, Herbert Liebscher, Christoph Beil and Rudolf Estermann,’ she said. ‘Presumably, Melanie Dalamasso was supposed to be his last victim. And it certainly seems like you are this man. The Owner.’

‘That’s what you call me? How sweet. And yet so ironic, for I own hardly anything now.’ He propped his elbows on the table, about to put his fingertips together into a steeple when he suddenly seemed to realise it was no longer possible. ‘I thought you would call me Shinigami. I was very particular about my selection of nickname, but then you can’t control everything.’ He sighed, yet this time it had a contented tone to it. ‘You weren’t hunting me. Think about it, Beatrice – you know everything you need to figure it out. So, I found the cache and was on the brink of finding out who was guilty for the death of my children, right? I found out the most important details.’

‘Yes. The names.’

‘Correct.’ He smiled at her, like a teacher who knew his best pupil could do better. He was eagerly awaiting what she was about to say.

And all of a sudden, Beatrice realised what had happened, what Sigart had been thanking them for all this time. The realisation lay in front of her like a steep precipice she was slipping helplessly towards.

The cable tie cut deeply into the skin of her wrists, but she still wrenched against it. It refused to give by even a millimetre.

‘Please don’t.’ Sigart lifted his claw-like left hand. It was probably intended to be a calming gesture. But only when the pain became really bad, the unrelenting material chafing away at her skin, only then did Beatrice give up her futile attempt at freeing herself.

Sigart responded with a contented nod. ‘I knew you wouldn’t take it very well.’

‘We played right into your hands,’ whispered Beatrice. ‘You had the names, but not the real ones. Only pseudonyms, and you couldn’t do anything with those.’

He didn’t say a word, but his eyes demanded that she keep talking.

‘We solved the puzzles for you, from the few little details you knew about the five. We found out their true identities so you could kill them. You… you used the results of our investigations for your own revenge. You followed us, didn’t you? And that’s how you knew who we were questioning.’

His face spoke volumes. She had hit the bull’s eye. But what else could we have done? Not work on the case? Not look for the people in the puzzles?

She thought for a moment, her mind still foggy, then remembered her previous discovery. ‘But you found one of the cachers without any help – Herbert Liebscher. He was stupid enough not to leave the caching scene and you contacted him.’

‘Yes, by email, via his geocaching account. Descartes, what a joke. I told him I was a new member and that I wanted to do my first outing with an old hand. I said we were both from Salzburg and that his nickname suggested he was an intelligent guy. He took the bait right away.’

And you took your time, lulled him into a false sense of security… for the duration of seven whole caches.

‘Did you knock him out to bring him here? Or drug him with something?’

‘The latter, like I did with you. I wanted his head to be unharmed, I wanted all of his memories from the twelfth of July, all the names.’

The kaleidoscope had come to a halt; the picture was now clear. ‘But there was a problem with that. He didn’t know the others.’ Beatrice groped around for ideas. ‘He only knew – Nora Papenberg.’

Sigart’s eyes reflected genuine admiration. ‘Bravo. That’s exactly how it was. The two of them had arranged at some caching meet-up to go on this trip together. It was quite a trek, and they didn’t even find the cache. They were already halfway back when the other three turned up, GPS device in hand. So they all returned together. There wasn’t much time to chat, and people hardly ever remember names the first time they hear them.’

But Liebscher had known Papenberg, at least by her maiden name, and maybe he also knew the name of the ad agency where she worked. He had told Sigart, filled with fear, probably screaming in pain… and then Sigart had gone to fetch Nora. Used some ruse to call the agency, find out her current surname and maybe even her mobile number. None of that was too difficult; if he had trodden carefully it would probably have taken just twenty minutes.

The photos from the agency meal were still clear in her memory. Nora’s shocked face as the past came back to haunt her.

‘What did you say to her, that night on the phone?’

‘That Herbert Liebscher had told me what had happened on the twelfth of July five years ago. That I knew what role she had played in the whole thing. That I would keep quiet if she gave me ten thousand euros, a very modest sum for being able to keep everything hidden. If not, I said I would have no qualms about sending the evidence to her husband and boss – and to the police too, of course.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She tried to placate me. She said she didn’t have ten thousand euros, that she didn’t believe there was any evidence because she hadn’t done anything. We arranged a place to meet, and she came.’ He shrugged. ‘She was terrified of losing everything she had worked so hard for. I told her I could understand that, and that the loss would be a hundred times worse than she could ever imagine. Once she was unconscious, I took her car and brought her here.’

Just like that. Beatrice inhaled deeply and felt a stabbing pain in the muscles of her right shoulder.

‘Was this a prison for your victims?’ she asked. ‘The whole time, when you were in your flat or with your therapist?’

‘I couldn’t have found a better one. The stone walls swallow up every scream, every cry for help. And even if they didn’t – hardly anyone ever comes out here. There used to be two farms, just a few hundred metres away.’

‘Which also burnt down that night.’ Beatrice remembered having read it in the report. No victims, but immense damage to the properties.

‘Nora,’ she continued. ‘The puzzles we found were written in her handwriting.’

Sigart shrugged. ‘She was an ad woman. I liked the way she phrased things. You could almost feel the mystery behind the words. She also knew the most about the other three – women pay much more attention to these things than men do. For two days, the three of us had an intense brainstorming session. Liebscher wasn’t much use, except as a means of exerting pressure on Nora.’

She swallowed. ‘Is that why you cut his ear off?’

‘It certainly sped things up. After that, she suddenly remembered the birthmark and the Schubert Mass. It turns out people do share the odd detail about their lives when they spend an hour hiking together.’

The birthmark. A piece of recently studied choral music. A casual comment about an unfulfilling job, children’s names. Beatrice went through the letters in her mind, including the one about Sigart. A loser.

‘You made it very easy for us to find you.’

‘Why waste time? I was eager to meet you, Beatrice. And you gave me something even at our first meeting, by asking me if I knew Christoph Beil. I had already followed you when you went to his house to question him. The next morning, I walked up and down his street, waiting for him to come out, and then asked him for directions. But I couldn’t see a birthmark. I was unsure, but then when you mentioned the name I knew you would have checked everything and that he was the one. So that enabled me to identify the third person.’

We did his work for him. Looked for the victims. Although…

‘What about Estermann? We didn’t find him, the clues weren’t specific enough – no, wait. Of course. Beil knew him.’

Sigart’s gaze wandered over to the hook that the noose had been hung on. ‘Christoph Beil filled in most of the blanks that Papenberg and Liebscher left open. He was loosely acquainted with Estermann – they had chatted over a beer at a couple of caching events. They spoke on the phone after you questioned Beil, so to a certain extent Estermann had been warned. But just about the police, not about me.’ Lost in thought, Sigart began to tug at his bandage. ‘At the very end, Beil told me a great deal about everything that happened.’

‘You tried to hang him, didn’t you?’

‘I hauled him up there, but then brought him down again. I was never the sadistic type and it wasn’t enjoyable for me, in case you think that.’

‘Where did the graze wounds on his thighs come from?’

Sigart leant back in his chair. He stroked the barrel of the gun over the scarred flesh on his left forearm. ‘He claimed never to have seen the key. So I introduced them to one another.’ He inserted a strange little pause, as if he was trying to work out whether a laugh would be appropriate at this point. ‘He loved his wife a great deal, did you know that? Loved her and betrayed her, but there’s no need to tell her that.’

She didn’t know what he was getting at. He loved his wife? ‘Is that why you killed him with a stab to the heart? Did you give all your victims a symbolic end like that?’

‘After a fashion.’

All of a sudden, the unwelcome memory of Estermann’s corpse leapt back into her mind, and Beatrice wondered whether he had been sitting in the same chair as her when the acid was trickled into his eye.

‘So why the acid with Estermann?’ she asked softly.

Had Sigart not heard her? He was staring past her, at the floor, his expression numb.

‘Because I wanted him to burn,’ he said eventually. ‘From the inside out. And he did.’

The key figure. ‘Was he the one who locked the cabin?’

Sigart didn’t answer. Judging by the look on his face, Estermann was dying again right now in his mind’s eye.

‘What about Melanie Dalamasso?’ Maybe this name would make him carry on talking. ‘She’s severely ill, and you know that. A torn woman. What would you have done with her – cut her up into pieces?’

Wherever he had been in his thoughts, the last few words brought Sigart back to the present. ‘I’m the only one I tore to pieces.’ He raised his mutilated hand. ‘I wouldn’t have killed Melanie Dalamasso. I wouldn’t have touched even a hair on her head.’

‘Because she had already been punished enough by her illness?’

‘Wrong.’ He sighed. ‘Don’t do that, Beatrice. No half-baked theories. Stay on safe ground.’

Was he losing patience? That would be bad. She needed time; the conversation could be made to last all night if she played it right. Her mind grasped for the first scraps of certainty it could find. ‘Nora Papenberg had traces of Herbert Liebscher’s blood on her person. So you forced her to kill him? And then to…’ Her gaze twitched over to the place where the saws had been just a few days ago.

‘Correct.’ Sigart’s healthy hand played with the gun, turning it round and round on the table, always anticlockwise. ‘Tell me why,’ he demanded.

‘So that we came to the wrong conclusions. It gave you more time.’

‘That was certainly a welcome bonus.’

Beatrice was struggling to drag her gaze away from the gun. The thought that he could wound her or kill her if she gave the wrong answer suddenly didn’t seem so far-fetched any more. It was in his eyes. Vengeance for his family might include killing her, even though she didn’t understand why.

‘It’s all connected to guilt,’ she said carefully. ‘I just don’t know what Nora did to make her so guilty that you would do that to her.’ The tattoos on the soles of the woman’s feet came to her mind, the first coordinates that Sigart had left for them. And on such a sensitive spot; every step must have been incredibly painful.

Every step.

Beatrice looked up. No half-baked guesses, Sigart had said. But she risked it.

‘Nora ran away, that day. She could have fetched help or taken the key and opened the cabin, but she ran off.’

A muscle twitched in Sigart’s face. ‘Not bad. And why did I leave Liebscher to her?’

She tried to think, but none of her ideas seemed even the slightest bit logical. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.

Sigart leant over the table, gripping the gun tightly in his right hand. ‘She wasn’t very decisive. She wasn’t the kind of person who acts when it’s necessary. So I gave her something to do and left the decision to her. No, two decisions – gun or knife. Him or her.’ He leant back again. ‘In the end she chose him and gun. Nora Papenberg’s personal choice.’

He stretched, a little awkwardly, as if he had cramp. ‘It’s time for us to go up now.’

That was a surprise. And an unexpected opportunity – he would have to untie her hands for that. As soon as her circulation was flowing again, she would have an advantage over him, at least enough for her to flee.

‘Please don’t get your hopes up.’ The mouth of the gun wandered to the right again, until it was pointing at Beatrice’s chest. ‘I have a very precise plan for how this will play out. If you try to deprive me of it by running away or putting up a fight, I’ll shoot you on the spot. Reluctantly, but I’ll do it.’ He pushed back his chair and stood up. He looked taller than ever. ‘If you do force me to do so, you won’t be the only one to die. I went back to Mooserhof recently, and Mina brought my coffee. She’s a pretty little girl. And she’s already starting to know it. From all the toys I brought with me, the only thing she wanted was Hanna’s mirror.’

Beatrice gasped for air. The memory rushed back. Mina got a really pretty mirror with sparkly flowers around the edge.

‘And you gave Jakob a little globe.’ Was that her voice, that hoarse rasp coming from deep inside her throat? Beatrice struggled against the sensation of falling into an abyss, saw Mina and Jakob in front of her, sleeping in the loft, the loft which was entirely made of wood…

‘I thought that since your children and mine might have to share the same fate, then they might as well share a few toys too.’ Sigart looked at her searchingly. Was he waiting for a reaction? If her hands had been free, she would have attacked him right there on the spot.

‘That’s not what I want, of course,’ he continued in a friendly tone. ‘I just want to make sure you cooperate. If you do, then nothing will happen to your children, I promise. If not, everything is already prepared for my Plan B. I think it’s only fair that you know that.’

It took some time before the black flood of panic in Beatrice’s mind began to ebb away, leaving her able to think clearly again. She would have to wait until there was a fail-proof chance of overpowering him. ‘Okay. I’ll do what you ask.’

‘Until the end?’

What end? she wanted to ask. Mine? Yours?

But she swallowed all her questions and took a deep breath. So deep it was as if she was scared it might be her last. ‘Yes. Until the end.’

He cut through the cable tie with the help of a Stanley knife, a task which took some time as he only had the two remaining digits on his left hand to work with. In his right hand, he was holding the gun against her head. Beatrice felt the steel pressing against a spot behind her ear. She didn’t move, taking shallow breaths and fully expecting the knife to slip and plunge into her palm, but he worked slowly and carefully until her hands were freed. The cable tie clung to the wounds on her right wrist. Beatrice pulled it off carefully, having to make several attempts as her fingers were completely numb.

Sigart stepped to the side, withdrawing the gun from her head. ‘Tell me when you can grip things properly again,’ he said, ‘because you’ll be responsible for the torch.’

‘Okay.’ Beatrice bent and stretched her fingers, sensation gradually returning amidst stabbing pain. She massaged one hand with the other and avoided looking at her raw, grazed wrists, concentrating instead on Sigart and his weapon. If I quickly duck away, push him over or pick up the table and throw it at him…

It was too risky. She wouldn’t be able to take him by surprise. The concentration with which his gaze was fixed on her didn’t falter for even a second.

Once her fingers felt as though they almost belonged to her body again, Beatrice nodded at Sigart. ‘I’m okay now.’

‘Good. If you turn around, you’ll see a woollen blanket in the corner, and a torch on top of it. Take the torch and go up the steps ahead of me.’

It was an LED torch with black aluminium casing. It wasn’t heavy and hardly qualified as a weapon. But what if I blind him with the light?

They were just wild thoughts. She wouldn’t do anything unless she could be sure she would succeed in incapacitating him.

Holding the torch in one hand, she used the other to open the hatch door. Cool night air rushed towards her.

Turn the light off and run. But she dismissed that thought immediately, too. She wouldn’t have a chance on this terrain in the darkness; she wouldn’t be able to orientate herself, while Sigart knew every tree and every stone.

‘It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?’ she heard him say behind her. ‘So much open space all around, and yet it’s still a prison.’

She knew he didn’t just mean for her. ‘What happens now?’ she asked. The beam of the torch moved across tree trunks and bushes, searching for the path from which help would come. If it came.

‘Now let’s fill in the gaps in your knowledge. Do you remember where you found the cache? The tin with the shining five on it?’

‘Yes.’ She pointed the torch at the wooden shed. Unlike last time, today it was open. Inside it lay something low, something stony.

‘The cache was originally hidden there. In the well, you see? The tin had wire wrapped around it and had been lowered almost two metres deep into the well. That’s why it wasn’t destroyed by the fire.’ Sigart came over to stand next to Beatrice, but not near enough for her to be able to surprise and overpower him. ‘On the twelfth of July, Nora Papenberg, Herbert Liebscher, Christoph Beil, Melanie Dalamasso and Rudolf Estermann were here shortly before six in the evening. It was a hot day, and the weeks leading up to it had been very warm. All five of them were tired, but in good spirits and intent on finding the cache. Nora showed them all the nooks and crannies and trees they had already searched in vain, including the shed surrounding the well, which was the first thing to catch the eye. But only now, together, did they find the cache hidden down it on the wire. They all laughed, happy to have finally found it. Dalamasso took out some snacks and shared apples and pretzels with the others. We’re on safe ground so far, for all their stories are unanimous up to this point. Now, shine the torch a little further to the left.’

She did what he said, but there was nothing there except dense shrubbery, raspberry bushes, twines and the stinging nettles she had already made her acquaintance with.

‘From now on their accounts differ a little, but the main point is that someone had a full hip flask with them. Beil said it was Estermann, while Estermann said it was Beil. The only thing they agreed on was the contents: pear schnapps. They sat right where you’re pointing the torch, Beatrice. Except back then there was a meadow, with bluebells, marguerites and wild dianthus. Then Lukas came running out of the forest.’

‘Your son.’

‘Yes. Beil said he had a bow and arrow with him, and that he was covered in dirt. They chatted with him for a bit, apparently. He told them he was on holiday here, that his parents had just argued and that’s why he wanted to go hunting in the forest instead. Then Estermann offered him a sip from his hip flask.’

Sigart’s voice had become quieter now, then he cleared his throat and continued in a normal tone. ‘Estermann said it was Beil, of course. The others may not have noticed, because they were sitting some distance away, although Papenberg said she remembered the conversation between Lukas and the two men getting a little loud. In the end, he drank some and then ran back to the cabin.’

Beatrice pictured Jakob in Lukas’s place, then hastily shook away the image.

‘Miriam, my wife – she was a wonderful woman. But when she got angry she was so unpredictable. I had already annoyed her a lot that day, and then Lukas came in the door and told her some man had just given him alcohol… so you can imagine how she reacted. Papenberg described what happened next very precisely: she said Miriam came storming out of the cabin, shouted at Estermann, grabbed the flask from his hand and emptied the contents onto the grass.’

Had Sigart’s attention waned? He seemed to be lost in his thoughts, in the images that his story was summoning up, but at the same time he reacted immediately to every one of Beatrice’s movements, and still had the gun pointed at her. She decided to wait.

‘Estermann didn’t take Miriam’s outburst very well. He screamed back at her, saying that she’d stolen his property and would have to replace it. Fifty euros and they could call it quits. Miriam said the only thing he would get from her was a report to the police for bodily harm, for giving alcohol to a child.’

All Beatrice could see in the beam of the torchlight were the thin, swaying branches of a young spruce, but the scene was almost tangible. He isn’t a nice man, Graciella Estermann had said.

‘Threatening him with the police was Miriam’s big mistake,’ Sigart continued. ‘She went back into the cabin and he jumped up and followed her. The others may have tried to placate him. Beil and Liebscher both told me they tried to hold him back, but apparently Estermann just shoved them aside. He ripped the door open, turned the cabin upside down, and only came out once he had found Miriam’s mobile. “You’re not reporting anyone,” he said, smashing the phone up with a rock. That was something else that everyone remembered very clearly.’

Almost without realising, and without prompting any protest from Sigart, Beatrice had turned around, pointing the torch at the place where the cabin used to be.

‘By now the children were crying, all three of them. While Christoph Beil, the only one who knew Estermann a little, tried to calm him down, Melanie Dalamasso spoke to Hanna and Lukas, trying to sing them a song, but she was shaking all over. Miriam was busy with Oskar, who was screaming his head off. Liebscher and Papenberg kept their distance – could you please shine the light to the left? A little more? That’s it, thank you. Round about there.’

On the spot indicated by Sigart, a raspberry bush and mulberry bush were fighting for supremacy.

‘Papenberg just wanted to get away. She thought the “arsehole in the checked shirt”, as she called Estermann, was repulsive and the situation made her feel sick. Liebscher agreed with her, but said they should make sure the woman from the cabin wouldn’t report them. He was a teacher, and his principal didn’t take any nonsense when it came to disciplinary actions. He hit a sore spot with Nora by saying that, because she had just started her job at the ad agency and there was no way she wanted to risk being involved in something unpleasant. They decided that as soon as Estermann left, they would talk to Miriam and try to find a way to compensate her for the damaged mobile phone.’

A good idea, thought Beatrice. So what went so terribly wrong?

‘Estermann cursed and grumbled for a little while longer, trying to provoke Miriam, ruffling his feathers – but he was close to letting it go and leaving. “She can’t report you,” Beil kept saying to him. “She doesn’t know your name.” In one of our long conversations, he said that Miriam must have heard him. She came out of the house, pale with rage, and ran up the hill saying that she was going to fetch help from the neighbours.’

Sigart’s voice started to falter. Suddenly he looked smaller, hunched, as if he had sunk into himself. The gun was still aimed at Beatrice; he was supporting it in the crook of his left elbow, where it lay peacefully. Just one shot would be sure to reach its target.

But still. This is the first viable opportunity.

She took a breath, tensing her muscles, but Sigart’s attention snapped back to her, almost palpably. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re not finished yet.’

‘Of course. I know that.’

‘At the beginning, when I only had Liebscher with me and he told me how Miriam had stormed off, I wondered whether he had made it up, or at least exaggerated things. To reduce his own responsibility. But later all of them described it the same way, every one of them. I always knew it was true deep down. Miriam was like that. Always so impulsive, with no consideration for what the consequences might be. If she had calmed down and waited until they were all gone, or if she had at least not told them what she was planning to do—’

If.

If I hadn’t driven to Sigart’s alone.

If the children weren’t with my mother, if…

She hated this game. ‘Did Estermann stop her?’

A cold look swept momentarily across Sigart’s features. ‘No. He grabbed Oskar and put a thumb against his eye. He said he would push it in if Miriam didn’t come back to the cabin. The others said they pleaded with him to stop. Apparently Melanie Dalamasso started to cry, loudly – too loudly for Estermann’s taste, and he ordered her to shut her mouth, saying that she could start sewing an eye patch for the little one if she didn’t.’

An eye for an eye. Pushed in or corroded away. Beatrice’s stomach cramped up. Estermann had children himself, how could he be capable of something like that? ‘So did Miriam come back?’

‘Of course. Estermann locked all four of them in the cabin and pulled down the window shutters. Wooden shutters, painted green and white. You could pull them down from the inside, but they were secured on the outside. He sealed the whole place tight, then sat down next to the well. Beil said it was the first time he looked truly content.’

She had only seen Estermann as a corpse, that horrifically disfigured body, but now she had to actively fight against the hate welling up inside her. No, don’t let yourself be manipulated. Even though he was the one who locked them in, Estermann is still a victim along with the other three.

‘By that point, it was all too much for Papenberg. She said she was leaving, and ran off right away without paying any attention to Liebscher, who she had come with and who wasn’t as swift to react. Melanie called after her to contact the police as quickly as she could. According to Beil she was clamping her hands against her ears to block out the sound of the hammering on the wall and the children’s cries. But as soon as anyone took a step towards the cabin, Estermann positioned himself in between. “They can come out once the old bitch has learnt her lesson,” he said. And he reminded Beil that it was in his interest too to put this unpleasant event behind him without any outside interference. “Or do you think your wife will be pleased when she finds out you’ve found yourself a younger woman?” Beil told me he hadn’t thought of that. He was suddenly in just as much of a hurry to get away as Nora had been.’ Sigart looked over at the narrow path that ran above them, the path Beatrice kept glancing at in the hope that the blue light of the squad cars would make itself seen through the trees.

‘Nora had shouted out a few words of reassurance to them as she ran off, saying she would get help, and not to worry, that she would hurry. Beil took the same line, but Melanie thwarted his plans. She wanted to stay until the children were safely out of the house. And then Liebscher joined in. He had stood on the sidelines the whole time, Nora said later, as if he was in denial about what was happening. When he rejoined the others, he was clearly nervous. He tried to convince Estermann to open up the cabin, saying that there must be some sensible way of resolving the argument. In response, Estermann took the key from his trouser pocket, pulled the cache out of the well and put the key in it. Then he lowered the tin back down almost two metres.’

‘But they could have brought it back up, couldn’t they? If it was on a wire?’

‘Yes. I think Melanie would have done that if there had been enough time.’

Another ‘if’. She couldn’t bear to hear any more.

‘Liebscher was still talking to Estermann, using all his usual teacher’s tricks, but he was just running up against a brick wall. While he was talking, he lit a cigarette. He told me later at least a hundred times how much he regretted that afterwards. He was concentrating only on Estermann, he said. Beil, on the other hand, realised at once how dry the forest and surrounding area were. He tore the cigarette from Liebscher’s hand and threw it on the ground to stamp it out.’

Beatrice guessed what had happened. ‘On the spot where Miriam had emptied out the schnapps?’

‘According to what they all said, yes. When I held the glass of acid to his lips, Estermann cried out that he was completely innocent. After all, Liebscher was the one who had lit the cigarette, and Beil had caused the fire. Until the very end, he was convinced I was doing him an injustice.’

Because he hadn’t meant for that to happen, at least. Beatrice felt sick, from Sigart’s story, from her own fear, and from the images of charred and corroded corpses she was picturing in her mind. ‘My colleagues’ reports made no mention of fire accelerants. But alcohol is one.’

Sigart shrugged. ‘And that surprises you? It must be obvious to you by now that the police weren’t exactly thorough in their investigations.’

Something threatening flashed up between his words, something that applied directly to Beatrice. ‘So did none of them try to put out the fire?’ she asked hastily, trying to change the subject.

‘The well wasn’t in use any more. There wasn’t a bucket they could have drawn up. They tried to put out the flames with their jackets, but that just wasted valuable time. It must have got very hot very quickly, and the flames were so close to the well that no one dared to go after the key. Apparently Melanie tried, but Beil pulled her away with him.’

The torchlight was now dancing over the wooden shed surrounding the well again, which someone must have rebuilt after the fire. Presumably Sigart himself. She looked into his face; it was wet with sweat and tears, but showed relief at the same time.

‘Why didn’t you content yourself with just killing Estermann?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ He waited, only continuing when she shook her head. ‘After all, you read the file. The call to the emergency services was made by one of the two farmers whose farms burnt down that night. Before and after that – nothing.’

For a moment, it seemed as though Sigart was about to break down; he lost control of his facial muscles, but then gathered his composure again after a shaky breath. ‘They knew who had been trapped up there amidst the flames. But not a single one of the group reported the fire. Not even anonymously. Not a single one.’

There was nothing that could be said in response to that. Silently, she wondered what would have happened if Nora had informed the police as she had promised, if Liebscher had been less worried about his job, if Beil had been less worried about his marriage. If…

‘But Melanie,’ she said. ‘Why did she keep quiet? Was she so sure that Nora would get help? I mean, Nora didn’t even know about the fire.’

She thought back to the moment when she had let the photos fall, remembering Melanie’s horror.

‘She struggled out of Beil’s grip again because she couldn’t bear the screams from the cabin. She wanted to go back and warn the neighbours, but Beil and Estermann wouldn’t let her. That’s how Liebscher told it. Melanie was screaming like crazy, he said, and Estermann slapped her; then Beil was trying to persuade her to leave and practically carried her down the hill.’ With his bandaged hand, Sigart stroked the barrel of the gun. ‘I don’t know exactly what they did with her then. Presumably Beil told her they could never see each other again if she didn’t keep her mouth shut. And Estermann’s threats would have been a lot less subtle than that. But those are only my presumptions.’

Melanie, torn between her love for Beil and her con science. It was entirely possible that Estermann had turned up at that rehearsal for the Mozarteum summer concert, thought Beatrice.

‘Why did you cut Liebscher up into pieces?’ she whispered. ‘Surely not just because it was his cigarette?’

A brief laugh. ‘No. But you see – the others at least felt guilty enough to feel incapable of going caching any more. Or let’s call it a fear of being discovered. Either way, none of the others were still active when I compared the entries from the logbook with the profiles on the website. But Liebscher was. So because those cursed little containers were clearly so important to him, I thought it was only logical that he ended up in them.’

The arm with which Beatrice was holding the torch was slowly going numb. ‘And what about the parts that didn’t fit in the caches? Legs, arms, torso?’

Sigart’s lips were parted by something which was almost a smile. ‘Burnt,’ he murmured.

Of course. Every one of Sigart’s actions told the story they were rooted in; not a single decision had been made at random.

The torch in Beatrice’s hand trembled, painting loops of light in the forest. If he was finished telling his story, then it was now time for what he had referred to as ‘the end’. Straining her ears, she listened into the night. No engine sounds, no sirens. It seemed that the text message Sigart had sent from her phone hadn’t aroused Florin’s suspicions.

She cleared her throat, trying to sound confident. ‘I think I can just about follow the steps you took. But I don’t fit into the pattern. I wasn’t there that day, I had nothing to do with the case.’ Let me go were the unspoken words hanging in the air.

His silence gave her hope, but at the same time haunted her with fear. Was he contemplating sparing her? Before, in the cellar, he had told her she had a small chance of surviving. At least that means he’s not going to shoot me point blank in the head. Beatrice tried to drag her gaze away from the gun and look at Sigart instead.

When he finally spoke, it was in such a quiet voice that it was almost drowned out by the whisper of the trees. ‘Four years,’ he said. ‘That’s how long I asked myself whether I could have locked the cabin myself. By accident, because my thoughts were already with the pregnant mare. The fact that I wasn’t here at the decisive moment to tackle Estermann, that will haunt me as long as I live.’ He looked at Beatrice thoughtfully. ‘Can you imagine what it’s like to ask yourself, for four long years, whether you set the trap that your wife and children burnt to death in with your own hands? Every single day, I tried to remember each movement I made from the moment I left the house to when I got into the car. Do you know what it’s like to never come to a clear conclusion? Sometimes the cabin door was open in my memory, other times it was closed, the keys were in my hand – or were they in my bag after all? Every day, endlessly. I could have spared myself all that if the police had just been more thorough in their investigations.’

Behind her, Sigart took a step closer. Beatrice expected to feel the barrel of the gun at her head or against her neck, but all she could feel was his breath. ‘I found the cache in the well. So why didn’t your colleagues? I questioned the suspects, uncovered the circumstances leading to the deaths of my wife and children – I did everything that should have been the police’s job.’

She couldn’t help but retort, even though she wasn’t sure if it was wise. ‘But by using methods that we would never employ.’

‘You have other ones, better ones. A whole infrastructure of technicians and labs, with all the equipment that money can buy.’ He placed his mutilated, bandaged hand on her shoulder, making her jump.

‘But I didn’t work on that case,’ she said, suddenly enraged with the injustice of the situation. ‘I had nothing to do with it!’

‘Correct. But there was a time when you felt just the same as me,’ whispered Sigart. ‘Your brother said you were so angry with the police that you swore at them down the phone and then eventually decided to take matters into your own hands. That’s why we’re here today. Because you can understand me.’

What did he want? Did he need an ally? A kindred spirit? She had to concentrate, had to make sense of what he had just said. ‘You’re right. I can understand that you want to speak to someone who lost a loved one in an equally brutal manner, and I’d be happy to talk to you about it.’

He laughed softly. ‘No, Beatrice, we’ve talked enough. Now we’re going to do something different.’

The barrel of the gun bored hard into her spine. Instinct was threatening to overpower her common sense; she needed all her willpower just to stop herself from running away. He would shoot her in the back just as he had warned, and she would have lost her chance. In despair, she looked over at the top of the hill; maybe Florin wasn’t coming with squad cars, but on foot, stealthily, just with Stefan, or two or three others?

But there were no shadows, no footsteps, and still no engine sounds.

‘It’s like a bet, you see? You’re relying on the skill of your colleagues, and I’m betting against them. I’m intrigued to see who will win.’ He pushed her, just a light shove with the gun, and she took a step forwards.

‘The police didn’t find the tin in the well – but fair enough, it was small and inconspicuous. You, on the other hand, Beatrice, are not.’

A further shove made it clear to her that she had understood the significance of his words correctly. ‘You want to—’

‘Hide a cache, that’s right. A big one in place of a small one. One that should be more worth your colleagues’ efforts than an old tin can with a key in it. Unfortunately though, this cache is a little less robust. So let’s hope the police are more resourceful this time.’

He directed her towards the shed, the light of the torch flickering over the planks. My coffin, thought Beatrice. When would someone next pass by here? Forensics had done their work; there were still a few yellow partition tapes here and there, fluttering in the night breeze. Would anyone think of looking for Sigart here? It was unlikely. Why would he go back to the place where his life had been destroyed for ever – his prison, the hiding place the Owner had clearly relinquished?

Beatrice had stopped in her tracks. The path was becoming steeper now, and she felt as though she couldn’t take another step. ‘How deep is it?’

‘About four metres to the water’s surface. There’s an old iron ladder fixed to the wall, and after that I’m afraid you’ll have to jump.’

She would stand in the water. But that would be the best-case scenario, she told herself. In the worst case it would be too deep and she would have to swim on the spot. ‘Please. Don’t do this. You have your certainty now, and you’ve had your revenge. Let me go, I’ll—’

‘You’ll make sure I get help,’ he interrupted her, ‘and a fair judge. The exceptional circumstances of my situation will be taken into account, my disturbed state due to the severe loss I suffered – that’s what you wanted to say, right?’

Yes. That, and that she had children who were waiting for her to pick them up tomorrow. No, today. It must be well past midnight now. You can forget about telling him that. He knows you have children.

She took another step upwards. Another and another, then her foot got caught and she stumbled. She held tightly onto the torch with her right hand and managed to break her fall with the left. Something sharp bored into the ball of her thumb.

‘Have you injured yourself?’ Sigart sounded genuinely concerned, which almost made Beatrice burst into hysterical laughter.

‘A little.’ The desire to laugh vanished as she assessed her bleeding hand in the torchlight. ‘It must have been a stone.’

‘Yes, there’s certainly enough of them around here.’ With a brief jerk of the gun, Sigart ordered her to keep climbing.

Beatrice struggled to her feet. There were just another few steps to their destination. This was her last chance – if she fell over again, on purpose, and dragged Sigart with her, if she could get to the gun.

He must have sensed her intentions. ‘The gun is pointing right at your back,’ he said abruptly. ‘If you turn around now, I’ll shoot you. It’s not an empty threat, Beatrice. I’ll see this through to the end.’

His serious tone made her abandon her plan. Another step, then another. The wooden shed was directly in front of her now, and she could smell the musty air. Four more steps, and she felt the rough wood. Thinking quickly, she pressed her bleeding hand against it. It was a quick, sweeping movement, all she could manage. Hoping that she had managed to leave a mark, she avoided shining the torch nearby, trying not to draw Sigart’s attention to it.

In order to go into the shed, she had to duck. The cover was already lifted up; the well came up to knee height. ‘Climb down the first two rungs,’ ordered Sigart, ‘then give me the torch.’ The mouth of the gun was now pointed directly at her face.

She did what he said, pushing away her fear and trying to heighten her senses. If she memorised every detail inside the well, every spot she could get a grip on, then it should be possible to climb back up again. If she could make it up to the iron rungs, then she would be able to get out.

Holding tightly onto the edge, Beatrice stepped onto the first rung. It was rusty and crooked. Then the second. She handed Sigart the torch. ‘Are you going to light my way?’

‘Of course.’

The third iron rung. The fourth. Now her head was below the edge of the well. The smell of cellars and mould engulfed her. Half an arm’s length to the left, Beatrice discovered a stone protruding out of the wall which she would be able to grip onto. Good.

The next rung and the next. Then the last. Even though Sigart was still shining the torch, it had become difficult to make out the details of her surroundings. Her own shadow was darkening the shaft of the well.

‘You’ll have to jump from there.’ Sigart was now just a silhouette behind the beam of the torch.

She had known what was awaiting her, but it was completely different from how she had imagined it. Beneath her lay a dark, narrow abyss, which could just as easily be bottomless as two metres deep. She hesitated.

‘It’s only water. You won’t hurt yourself.’

He must have been a good vet once, thought Beatrice vaguely. He has the kind of voice that makes it easy to trust him.

But she didn’t jump, instead grasping the last iron rung with both hands and lowering herself down carefully. Yes, there was water all right; her ankles were immersed in it.

‘You have to let go.’ Sigart’s voice echoed through the well shaft, followed by an unmistakable click. He had released the safety catch on the gun.

Beatrice loosened her grip and dropped. The icy water pressed the air from her lungs, completely enveloping her.

There! There was ground under her feet; she pushed against it, reached the surface again, gasped noisily for breath.

‘Take care, Beatrice.’ A drawn-out scraping sound from above. Sigart closed the lid of the well. No light any more, nothing. Just the sound of her own breathing and the gurgling of the water in absolute darkness