Ursula Archer - Five

Stefan seemed convinced, albeit a little disappointed. ‘Okay. It’s just that I brought along my GPS device and thought, if we manage to find the guy we’re looking for…’

An idea sparked in Beatrice’s mind. There was still plenty of time before four o’clock, and the opportunity to fill a gap in her knowledge seemed advantageous.

‘You know what? Let’s go and look for a cache. I want to have done it at least once, and you can show me how it works. Okay?’

He looked surprised, but the prospect of taking on the expert role seemed to have cheered him up. ‘Okay, let me fire up my laptop then.’

Christoph Beil stood in the shadow of the basilica, his eyes fixed on the police car. They were leaning over something together, presumably their notes.

With the tips of his fingers, he stroked thoughtfully over the scar where the birthmark had once been. It was the only thing the policewoman with the honey-coloured hair had been interested in. She had searched for it intently, turning his hands over and around like a doctor.

If only he knew what all this was about, but he didn’t dare ask again. He wasn’t used to dealing with the police and didn’t want to take any risks. It might lead them to ideas it would be better for them not to have. He wasn’t under suspicion; the woman had said that very clearly.

Was she the gawky red-haired guy’s boss? It seemed so, for the man had stayed silent the whole time, just listening and staring at him attentively.

‘Have a good afternoon, Christoph! Give Vera my love!’ The hearty slap to his shoulder startled Beil, making his heart skip a beat. Heavens, he would have to be more aware of his surroundings; he didn’t want to end up having a heart attack over something like that. Hopefully he hadn’t yelped out loud. But Kurt, the man responsible for his now-racing pulse, had headed off without noticing the reaction unleashed by his rough farewell.

It was fine. Everything was okay; he hadn’t made a fool of himself. Wiping his hand across his brow, he realised it was wet with sweat and felt annoyed at himself. Where had these sudden nerves come from? After all, he hadn’t done anything wrong; he didn’t need to worry. Not about Vera, either. She wouldn’t leave him – she loved him. And it was very unlikely that the police visit had anything to do with all that. He wasn’t guilty, as he had to keep reminding himself.

And if it really turned out to be necessary, he would just come clean.

The caching game was fun – much more so than Beatrice had expected. Stefan logged into Geocaching.com and searched through the maps for a hiding place that was relatively nearby. ‘Nothing too difficult, nothing too small,’ he murmured. ‘ Voilà! Look, this cache is called “The Hole”, and it’s a regular.’

‘A what?’

‘A regular. That means it’s about this big.’ Stefan sketched something the size of a loaf of bread in the air. ‘Like the one you found the hand in. And it’s also a traditional – which means the given coordinates are also where the box is stashed. No stages, no puzzles. The difficulty rating is two stars, so that means we won’t end up searching for hours on end. Although the terrain is three and a half stars, so it’ll be more than a light stroll.’ He gave her Timberlands an appraising glance, then nodded contentedly. ‘Let’s head off then.’ He connected the navigation device with the computer via a USB cable and clicked ‘Send to my GPS’. ‘Done. The good thing is that we can drive almost all the way by car, so it won’t take too long.’

The GPS device worked with astonishing precision. It led them from their parking space by the edge of the path directly to a wooded slope. Stefan switched into compass mode, and now they could see the distance between them and their target reducing with every step they took. In the end, it was Beatrice who found the entrance to the hole – a gap under a steep crag that she could only reach by lying on her stomach and easing herself along by the elbows.

‘If I crawl in there my T-shirt will be in tatters,’ she said.

‘Yep. That’s all part of the fun. Here’s a torch.’

She took a deep breath, struggled to contain a fleeting impulse of claustrophobia, and crawled into the darkness. She only switched the torch on when she literally couldn’t see a thing ahead of her.

After the narrowness of the first few metres, Beatrice was surprised to see a tunnel open out in front of her. She could even stand and walk along it if she ducked. As she moved forwards, she heard someone following her in the darkness. For a split second, she was convinced it must be Nora Papenberg’s killer, that it hadn’t been enough for him to simply thank them for the hunt this time – he had picked up their tracks and wanted to trap his prey in the hole.

But it was just Stefan, of course. ‘Shine the torch into all the nooks and crannies,’ he advised her. ‘The box is a big one, so it’ll stand out, but any owner worth his salt tries to hide his caches in a well-camouflaged spot so they don’t get muggled.’

Hearing the word ‘owner’ made her jump involuntarily. She shook her head at herself. ‘What does “muggled” mean?’

‘It’s a Harry Potter reference. Muggles are people who can’t do magic – so in this context, the non-cachers. They’ve been known to throw cache containers in the bin if they stumble upon them by chance.’

The light of the torch made every protrusion inside the crag throw shadows that could easily be taken for niches, so a good ten minutes passed before Beatrice found the cache, right at the back of the hollow. A plastic container, very similar to the one they had found at the stone chasm.

‘Well done,’ Stefan praised her. ‘Now open the box. That’s the logbook, you see?’

She nodded, shone the light on the pages and started to read:

Great cache, found it quickly. Out: Smurf. In: dice. TFTC, Heinzweidrei & Radebreaker

TFTC, Wildinger

All caches should be like this! TFTC, Team Bier

At least half the pages in the small spiral notepad were scribbled full.

‘Draw a line under the last comment and write something – whatever you like. People normally leave a note of thanks – TFTC means “Thanks for the Cache”. Then sign off with Undercover Cookie . We can log our find on the website – it’s my eight hundred and sixty-seventh.’ Stefan sounded proud.

Beatrice stared at the notepad, wondering whether it was wise to leave handwritten evidence, then shook her head in disbelief. She was thinking like a perpetrator, not a policewoman.

So she did what Stefan had said, drawing a line under the last entry and writing:

I wish all caches were like this. TFTC, Undercover Cookie.

‘Is that the right plural for cache?’

‘Absolutely. Right, now you pack the logbook back into the plastic bag and see what treasures are in the box.’

A transparent dice, a sticker that clearly belonged in a collection album from the last football World Cup, a glass marble and a broken Matchbox car.

‘Those are the trades,’ explained Stefan. ‘Normal trades. You can take something with you and then put something else in. Do you want to?’

Even though she couldn’t have explained why, she did want to. In her jacket pocket, alongside a rubber band and a tissue, she found a tiny metal heart that had once been part of a keyring. She exchanged it for the glass marble.

‘Okay. Now pack everything up neatly and put it back exactly where you found it.’

Having made a note of the hiding place behind the crag ledge, she put the box back, then turned her attentions to the arduous task of crawling back out.

‘Right then, I’ll have to go and get changed,’ Beatrice determined. ‘Thank you, Stefan, that was very educational. I think I understand the appeal now.’