Five

Chapter 7

N47º 28.275 E013º 10.296

For a moment, Beatrice was tempted to weep, to mourn for everything she would never see again – the sun, the sky, her children’s faces. But crying took too much energy and clouded the mind.

‘Save that for later,’ she told herself. Her voice echoed dully against the well shaft, sounding comforting and sensible. That was exactly what she needed right now, all of her wits and senses.

The water was too deep to be able to stand up in. If she stretched and immersed herself up to her nose, she could just about feel the ground beneath her feet, but it was slimy and soft. She would have to try to swim on the spot, with sparing movements, which would keep her warm at the same time. Or at least ensure that her temperature dropped less quickly.

Underwater, she pulled the shoes and socks from her feet. Good. Now feel around the wall, systematically, the way a blind person would.

There were little protrusions here and there, but none of them big enough to grip onto. The walls were slippery with moss. Even when Beatrice managed to find a stone that was sticking a little further out than the others, her fingers slipped when she tried to pull herself up on it.

But she didn’t give up. The well’s diameter wasn’t that big; if she stretched both arms out to the side, the palms of her hands easily reached the opposite sides of the shaft.

She would be able to lie down diagonally and support herself with her back and feet if she needed to rest. And she would need to. Soon. If she didn’t manage to climb up—

All of a sudden, she realised she no longer knew which part of the cylindrical well shaft the iron rungs were on. She had turned around several times and lost her orientation in the darkness.

But even if I did know, she thought, even if I did – they’re much too high up. I couldn’t jump up to them. The only way up is to climb, and the walls are too slippery for that.

She tried regardless. Tried to imitate the way free climbers negotiate chimneys, their hands and feet propped to the left and right, but she couldn’t get a grip. After four attempts she was exhausted, paddling in the water and wheezing. A fast pulse was throbbing in the wound on her left hand.

She had no choice but to wait, ration her energy and hope that Sigart was underestimating the police.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

Beatrice counted her breaths. If the time was passing down here, it would be up there too, up where the darkness was endless.

But it couldn’t possibly be as slow as down here. She counted on, counted and wished she had a watch so she could see how long she had already managed to hold out.

The worst thing was the cold. Her teeth were chattering uncontrollably and her fingers and toes had long since gone numb, which meant that any more attempts at climbing would be futile. She had already tried, again and again.

I’m so tired.

But going to sleep meant death. Not moving meant death. Despite that, Beatrice turned over onto her back in the water and propped herself against the shaft with her shoulders and knees, still paddling her hands to keep herself awake. She looked up and wondered if she would be able to tell when the sun rose. Whether a beam of light would push its way through the seams of the well cover.

That would give her some hope.

She paddled on half-heartedly. Once the world woke up again, someone would miss her. Florin would wonder why she hadn’t come into the office. He would probably call her at around nine or half-past. So late.

Unless there was news. Then he might get in touch sooner, maybe even around eight.

She flexed her fingers. Open, shut, open, shut. Were they even responding? She couldn’t feel a thing.

She tried to float. It didn’t work; it was much too narrow here. But her arms hurt so much.

Suddenly her mouth was full of water; she spluttered, gasped, spluttered again. Had she drifted off? The cold was paralysing her body and her thoughts; she had to keep herself awake somehow.

Beatrice began to sing. The first song that came into her mind was ‘Lemon Tree’ by Fool’s Garden. Her voice was loud, louder than she had expected, presumably because of the well shaft.

If someone was out there – maybe they would hear her?

She sang whatever songs she could think of, holding her breath now and then so as not to miss any sounds that might make their way down from above.

No. There was only silence, and the endless gurgling of her movements in the water. The world was a long way away and had no idea she was down here.

Beatrice only stopped singing when she realised it was using a dangerous amount of energy. But she could hum at least… the first English song that Jakob had learnt at school came into her mind.

He had sung it to her in the kitchen, hopping around with a beaming smile, and when he got to the words ‘diamond in the sky’ his eyes had got so big and round and…

Was she crying now after all? Her eyes were burning, and her nose felt swollen. The hum stuck in her throat like a cold, half-chewed lump of food.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

One. Two…

Mina doing a cartwheel on the living-room carpet. ‘Look at me, look at me!’

Jakob pulls three squashed dandelion flowers out from behind his back. ‘I picked them for you.’

‘Chin up, sweetheart,’ laughs Evelyn, and Achim says, ‘None of them look as beautiful as you in your uniform.’

Five. Six.

A croissant without jam. Crooked fingers. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ calls Evelyn cheerily. ‘Hold your head high, my girl. Even if your neck’s dirty.’

Head. High. Chin. Up. Cold, completely cold.

A cup with steaming coffee, the milk foam frothing. Florin places his hand on hers, a dark strand of hair falls forwards onto his forehead, uniting with the arc of his brow. ‘Beatrice.’

‘Yes.’ She says. She thinks. Has he heard her?

Jakob flings his arms around her neck. ‘Frau Sieber gave me a gold star.’

That’s true, Beatrice can see it shining. Twinkle, twinkle.

Now something falls. So loud.

Evelyn is singing Spandau Ballet’s ‘Gold’. She has such a beautiful voice.

‘Bea. Look at me.’

David is here too. What does he want? He’s pulling and tugging at her, it hurts. If she could speak, she would say she doesn’t want to see him any more. That she can’t.

He pulls at her, and she can fly.

‘We’ve got her!’

‘Bea!’

Don’t disturb me, not now.

‘We have to wake her up. Bea!’

Shaking. Pressure on her face. Light.

‘She’s opened her eyes. Thank God. Everything’s okay. Can you hear me, Bea?’

Yes. No. Slow.

Then things come back, the shapes, the names. Florin.

The cold.

Beatrice felt firm ground beneath her feet. Headlights cut through the dark grey of an early morning. People were walking close to her, many people. ‘Wha-w-w-’ Her mouth wouldn’t obey her.

Someone lifted her upper body and peeled off her shirt. ‘Where are the blankets? Why is it taking so long? Stefan, give me your jacket.’

The scent of chewing gum.

Florin was kneeling next to her, dripping wet. Bechner handed him a woollen blanket, and he put it around her shoulders, wrapping it so tightly that she couldn’t move her arms. Then he pulled off his own wet shirt.

‘The ambulance is on its way. It shouldn’t be too long now.’ Florin pulled her close to him, holding her tight against his chest. ‘We have to keep you awake, do you hear me? You’re hypothermic.’

‘H-h-how di—’

He held her tighter. ‘Your text message sounded strange. I brooded over it for five minutes and then called you, but your phone was turned off. You didn’t answer the landline, but I know that Achim—’ He left the sentence unfinished. ‘We had to look for Sigart, of course, and I had an uneasy feeling. Who could have kidnapped him from the hospital, completely undisturbed, without anyone noticing? So I spoke to his doctor on the phone and asked him what his condition was. ‘Not bad at all,’ the doctor said. He said he had recovered quickly, that the amputation wounds had been operated on, and that he could be released in two to three days if he didn’t get any infections. I asked about the blood loss and he said it wasn’t that bad. And the wound on his neck? He said it wasn’t that deep, and that no major arteries had been affected.’ Beatrice could feel him shaking his head. ‘Then things started to drop into place in my mind. I got in the car and drove round to Sigart’s flat, but there was no one there. Then I went to your place. I’m not sure exactly why.’

Florin’s chest rose and fell slowly and calmly. Beatrice tried to match the rhythm of her breathing with his. All around them, policemen were roaming around the meadow, and from snatches of their conversation she could tell they were looking for Sigart.

‘I kept a lookout for your car, but I couldn’t see it anywhere, even though there were plenty of parking spaces free in front of your building. So I rang your doorbell and tried to reach you on your mobile again. Then I drove back to Sigart’s flat and scoured the surrounding streets. That’s when I found your car.’

And you immediately worked out what had happened? Beatrice tried to get her question out clearly. It took a while, but she managed it.

‘It was my first theory, yes. The cellar in the forest. A shot in the dark, to be honest, but when we found your mobile down there I knew I’d been right.’

‘M-mine and… N-Nora’s.’

‘No. Just yours. But you weren’t there. Then we found the sign on the slats of the shed, a six, and everything became clear.’

‘Sigart,’ whispered Beatrice. ‘D-do you already know, w-where…’

‘No. I’m not sure, but I thought I saw someone disappearing into the forest as we arrived. Maybe it was him, maybe it was just an animal.’

Had he waited? To find out how their bet would turn out? ‘I w-w-won,’ she whispered. ‘Florin? My mobile. P-please.’

‘Really?’

She nodded. Sigart had taken Nora Papenberg’s mobile with him and left her own. And I know why.

‘Stefan?’ Florin didn’t let her go. ‘Beatrice wants her phone – could you bring it to her, please?’ She felt him stroke her hair gently, and closed her eyes. Maybe she would sleep after all, just for a moment.

‘What did you win?’

‘Hmm?’

‘You just said you’d won.’

‘Oh. Something… like a bet.’

Florin didn’t probe further. Every time Bea shuddered, he held her closer, as if he wanted to absorb the trembling with his own body. Now and then, a drop of water fell from his hair onto Beatrice’s cheek, running down it like a tear.

Then Stefan came with the phone. He squatted down next to them. ‘The ambulance will be here in a moment. I just called to check.’ He smiled shyly at Bea. ‘Are you feeling better?’

‘Yes.’

‘Glad to hear it. We were so shocked before when we found you in the well. Didn’t you hear us shouting for you?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Florin climbed down straight away, and he would probably have brought you up even without a rope if he had to.’ Now his smile wasn’t so shy any more.

‘Thank you, Stefan. Could you give Bea her phone now, please?’

She tried to sit up straight, but even a hint of a movement hurt; every muscle in her body felt sore. Florin supported her as she reached for the phone, but her fingers were too clammy and stiff to be able to hold it. It fell next to her in the grass. She clasped her whole hand around it, but it was like trying to handle an instrument she had no experience with whatsoever. The mobile slipped out of her fingers again. ‘Did you put the battery back in?’

‘No, we found it like that,’ said Stefan. Florin released one of his arms from her and reached for the phone.

Then it had been Sigart. In case the police turned up. And they had.

‘Do it for me,’ she asked Florin, once Stefan had gone back to the squad car on the street with his walkie-talkie. ‘The pin is three seven nine nine.’

That familiar beeping sound as he pressed the buttons. The melody with which the device signalled it was ready for action.

But nothing else.

‘No new messages?’ she asked, to make sure.

‘No. Lie back down, okay?’ He pulled the blanket right up to her neck. ‘Your circulation isn’t stable again yet. Do you think you could manage to eat something? Bechner has some chocolate in his bag, and the emergency doctor said on the phone that the combination of sugar and fat helps to warm the body up.’

Shivers and laughter shook her body simultaneously. ‘If I pinch Bechner’s chocolate he’ll like me even less than he already does.’

Florin pressed her against him, but differently this time, as if he wanted to share more than just body heat. ‘I think that’s a risk you should take.’

‘Okay,’ she murmured. There was a small, curved scar on Florin’s chest, just below his collar bone. She wanted to reach out and stroke it, but she couldn’t move her fingers. ‘Damn.’

‘Hmm? What did you say?’

Had she spoken out loud? ‘Nothing. Just that I’m tired—’

All of a sudden, Beatrice’s mobile beeped, and she jumped as if she had been electrocuted. A new message. No question as to who it was from. She was suddenly overcome by the searing fear that Sigart hadn’t kept to their agreement. What if he was sending photos of Mooserhof in flames? Why hadn’t she got a hold of her wits quicker? A squad car could already have been on its way to make sure everything was okay with her family. To make sure they were all alive.

‘Bea? Are you feeling worse?’

‘No… I – open it, Florin.’ She closed her eyes tightly, pressing her eyelids together. ‘Is it a photo?’

For a second he didn’t answer, and she felt as though something was about to tear apart inside her.

‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘But I don’t understand all of it.’

‘Show me.’

Florin held the mobile in front of her face. At first, the words blurred before her eyes, but then the letters became clear and sharp.

She should have been relieved, but the only relief she felt was for her children. He wouldn’t do anything to them now. Or anyone. It was over. She said the word silently to herself again and again, but it didn’t take away the emptiness that was spreading out inside her.

‘He’s sent us new coordinates.’ Florin seemed to be hardly able to believe it. ‘Hasn’t he realised that we’ve initiated a major manhunt for him and that we won’t play his games any more?’

‘Yes. He has. No doubt about that.’ She would have to explain to Florin exactly what Sigart had been thanking them for each time. Just Florin. But not today.

‘JAFT. What does that mean?’

Beatrice remembered that particular abbreviation; it was one that had amused her. One that was easy to remember. ‘Just another fucking tree,’ she murmured as the ambulance pulled up on the road above. ‘It’s a tree cache with rope technique.’

Florin couldn’t be talked out of going in the ambulance with Beatrice. The call came while they were still en route to the hospital. Using the coordinates in the text message, Stefan had found Sigart. Hanging from a tree.

So quick. He must have prepared it all in advance – after all, it was easier to tie a noose with ten fingers than with seven.

The doctor checked the drip administering Beatrice with warm saline solution. She closed her eyes. A loser, with scars inside and out. Had he had a chance to win something after all, in the end?

A bet, perhaps. Or a departure on his own terms. The aeroplane circled around Beatrice’s bed, carrying out daring manoeuvres and making worrying noises.

‘I’m a Boeing 767, and I’m just about to land in Africa,’ crowed the plane.

‘Be quiet! Mama needs to rest.’ Mina was sitting next to Beatrice, holding her hand carefully, as if she was made of spun sugar. ‘He’s always so loud. Watch out, he’ll knock the drip over in a minute.’

Jakob really was dangerously close to the drip stand, sweeping the newspapers off the side table with his emergency turn.

‘Jakob! Pick those up at once!’ Mina’s usual commanding tone, but by her standards it was almost loving.

‘Whoooosh! I’m a deep-sea digger, and I’m pulling the sunken ship up-up-uuuup!’ The pile of papers landed back on the table with a loud clap.

In two days, Beatrice would be able to go home. She longed so much for her release that it almost hurt.

‘Shall we go for a special meal when I get out? What do you guys think? Or should I cook?’

‘No, you’re not so good at cooking,’ said Jakob, planting a wet kiss on her forehead. ‘I want to go to McDonald’s.’

‘And you?’ Beatrice stroked the back of Mina’s hand.

‘I don’t know. Maybe something at home. Or… we could eat at Mooserhof, and Papa could come too.’ She looked at Beatrice hesitantly. ‘Do you think that would be okay?’

Well, he doesn’t have to sit next to me, I guess. ‘Of course. Let’s do this – one evening we’ll eat at Oma’s, one at McDonald’s, and I’ll cook on the other.’

‘And then we’ll start back at the beginning and do it all again,’ cried Jakob, falling sideways across her.

There was a knock at the door, and Richard came in. Yellow roses in his left hand, and a newspaper in his right. Since discovering that the man who had nearly killed his sister had used him as the main source of information on her past, he hadn’t once turned up at the hospital empty-handed.

‘There’s something new about the case in the paper again,’ he said, lifting Jakob down from Beatrice. ‘An interview with your boss, Hoffmann.’

‘Oh, God. What’s he saying? That’s he’s proud of having solved the case despite the incompetence of his colleagues?’

‘No. He’s praising everyone actually. Including himself, of course.’

She would read it later. Or maybe never.

Richard asked an exasperated nurse for yet another vase and busied himself with putting the roses in water. Mina told new stories about Cinderella the cat and Jakob played at being a steam engine. Beatrice’s thoughts, however, wandered back to Bernd Sigart. The analyses were coming thick and fast in the papers; forensic psychiatrists had given interviews, including Kossar, who had depicted Sigart as one of his post-traumatic stress cases with aggressive behavioural patterns.

Platitudes. Not wrong, not by any means. But not complete either.

If I had finished my studies, would I have realised sooner who the Owner really was? The thought had been on Beatrice’s mind for days now. She had asked Richard to get her some information on courses she could do alongside her work, but her request had fallen on deaf ears. She was supposed to be resting.

Half an hour later, Richard decided she needed some peace and promised the children an ice cream, taking them off to Mooserhof.

My ex-husband drops them off, my brother picks them up, my mother cooks for them. Beatrice turned over and closed her eyes. Richard was right. Studying on top of her existing workload wasn’t a good idea.

When she woke up again, Florin was sitting by her bed. She knew he was there even before she opened her eyes; she smelt his aftershave and smiled instinctively. Then she sniffed. There was a second scent in the room.

‘The focaccia is still warm,’ she heard him say. ‘Goat’s cheese, prosciutto and spinach. And antipasti with sun-dried tomatoes and chard involtini.’

‘Delicious,’ she murmured, still with her eyes closed. ‘And the Prosecco?’

‘Unfortunately not. We’ll make up for that later. But I can offer you three kinds of freshly pressed juices. Orange and mango, pear and elderberry, or papaya and kiwi.’

He had pulled his chair close to her bed and was waiting patiently for her answer, his elbows propped on his knees, his chin in his hands. Beatrice pushed her hair out of her face and sat up. He didn’t want her to thank him for his daily visits with gourmet treats – he had already made that perfectly clear.

Each day, she resolved to ask him why he was making so much effort, but every time he was sitting next to her she couldn’t get the words out. She didn’t know what answer she wanted to hear.

‘Carolin Dalamasso dropped the complaint,’ said Florin, interrupting her thoughts. ‘Hoffmann was a little crestfallen, but he’s enjoying the limelight too much right now for it to have that big an impact.’

So she wouldn’t be suspended. Beatrice took a deep breath. She had suppressed the thought so much that only the relief she was feeling right now told her how much it had bothered her.

She reached out for the small fork Florin had laid on a dark blue serviette and speared one of the sun-dried tomatoes. ‘Are you eating too?’

He looked down at his hands briefly, then into her eyes. ‘No. Anneke’s here, we’re going for dinner in half an hour.’

‘Oh. Okay.’ Guiding the tomato into her mouth in such a way that the oil didn’t drip down onto the bedding was demanding all her concentration. That was good. The time it took to master the manoeuvre would allow her to regain her composure. ‘Then hurry up, don’t be late. You see each other so rarely, and you see me every day.’

He didn’t answer, instead handing her a piece of focaccia, warm and aromatic. She took it, gesturing at the door with her head at the same time. ‘Go on, don’t leave her waiting.’

Florin nodded. ‘Are you sure you’ve got everything you need?’

There was something in the tone of his voice that made Beatrice think he wasn’t just talking about the food.

‘Absolutely,’ she said.

‘Okay, then see you tomorrow.’

‘Listen, you don’t have to come, if Anneke—’

‘I know I don’t have to,’ he interrupted her. ‘See you tomorrow then.’

At the door, he turned around one more time. ‘I left a little something there for you. I hope you like it.’

She looked around and couldn’t see anything. But when she turned back to ask Florin, he was already gone. With a sigh, not knowing if it was one of contentment or longing, she leant back onto her pillow and ate until there was nothing left. Then she flicked through the TV channels, not finding anything that interested her, and reached over to the side table for the book that she had started the day before. The Terrors of Ice and Darkness had been lying around unread on her bookshelf for years, but after the night in the well she had asked her mother to bring it to the hospital for her. No one except Beatrice had been overly amused, but she liked the style of writing. She opened it, plunging with the helplessly lost Admiral Tegetthoff into the pack ice of the North Sea.

All of a sudden, she was interrupted by the warm tones of Frank Sinatra, singing the opening to ‘Moon River’, her favourite song. Looking around, she saw a mobile phone on the bedside table, but it wasn’t hers. Confused, she picked it up and tapped to open the message blinking on the screen: For Bea, it said. Florin’s present. She waited for the song to finish before reading the rest of the message:

She stared at the three words for a long time. Then she laid the book aside, gazed up at the ceiling and listened to the nocturnal sounds of the hospital.

After a long while, she turned out the light.