Ursula Archer - Five

The horror that had distorted Sigart’s existence grabbed hold of Beatrice for a split second, along with the irrational fear that his fate could seize her too.

‘Is it possible,’ she ventured cautiously towards a new thought, ‘that your wife knew Frau Papenberg? Was she perhaps in the advertising business?’

A shake of the head. ‘My wife worked in the practice with me. She took care of the administrative side. It was easy to balance that with… taking care of the children.’ Sigart turned his head to the side. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not able to talk about it.’

‘Of course. And you don’t have to.’ A quick glance at Florin, who shrugged helplessly.

‘We’ll leave our contact details here for you, Herr Sigart,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much for the suggestion about the client files, and for your time.’ He stood up, and so did Beatrice. But as they started to leave, she turned around again.

‘Does the name Christoph Beil perhaps ring any bells?’

Sigart, still trying to regain his composure, shook his head. ‘No. Who is that?’

‘Someone else we hoped might have known Nora Papenberg.’

Whether Sigart had heard them or not was hard to say, for he didn’t react. The last image Beatrice saw before she left the flat was of his hunched, trembling shoulders.

As they drove back to the office, Beatrice took out her mobile and dialled the number of the fire investigation department. ‘Please send me all the files on the fire near Scharten. Yes, the one the family died in. Sorry? No, it wasn’t murder, I realise that, but I still need some of the details for our current case.’

Her colleague promised to bring the files over right away. Returning her mobile to her bag, she leant back in the passenger seat. ‘Why did the Owner send us to Sigart? What does he stand to gain from that?’

‘Time, possibly.’ Florin honked the horn at the driver in front for braking too abruptly at a red light, then drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for the light to turn green again. ‘I think there are two possibilities. One – there’s a connection between Papenberg, Beil and Sigart that we’re not seeing. Or two – he’s keeping us busy by sending us to find people who have nothing whatsoever to do with the murder. But because he’s hiding body parts all over the place for us, we’re forced to follow his damn blood trail.’ He rubbed his hand over his forehead and sighed. ‘I just can’t stop thinking that the Owner is making fools of us, Bea. He’s murdering and dismembering people left, right and centre and leaving clues that no one can decipher.’ Florin turned to look at Beatrice. She had never seen his face look this hard. ‘I know it’s wrong, but I’m starting to take this case personally. If he wants to prove how incapable the police are, I’d rather he didn’t use me as a prop.’

Beatrice was just about to put a hand on his shoulder, but then thought of Anneke and stopped herself. ‘It’s just a question of time until the end of the case is in sight, and the rest will fall into place from there.’ It wouldn’t do her any harm to be the one to strengthen the team morale for a change. ‘It’s almost always like that.’

The lights switched back to green and the engine roared as Florin stepped on the accelerator. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But there’s something about this case that doesn’t feel right. Those threads you always talk about have been woven into a pattern that’s completely alien to me.’

It was as though Beatrice had brought the sensation of heat and smoke home with her along with the reports on the fatal fire. Even though both of the lounge windows were open, she was finding it harder than usual to breathe.

The children had gone to bed half an hour ago. Everything was quiet in the apartment, everything except the water tap in the kitchen, which had been dripping for three weeks now. She opened the file and began to read. The fire had been reported shortly before ten in the evening, by a farmer whose property was a few hundred metres uphill. He had noticed the glow of the blaze; there hadn’t been any smoke fumes as the wind was blowing in the other direction.

Beatrice flicked forwards to the photographs. The burnt-down wood. Remains of tree trunks protruded out of the ground like blackened teeth, with charred wood lying around them. In the background, you could just make out the part of the forest which had been untouched by the blaze.

The investigators had been unable to ascertain the cause of the fire. It was July at the time, and it hadn’t rained for three weeks. The most likely theory was that the reflection of a shard of glass or mirror during the day had created a smouldering fire, which was then transformed into a raging blaze by the evening breeze. A discarded cigarette couldn’t be ruled out, either.

When Beatrice got to the photos of the cabin, she instinctively held her breath. The walls had disappeared; only the thickest wooden beams had withstood the inferno, along with two sections of wall made out of stone.

She lingered longer than necessary over the pictures of the ravaged house, knowing what would come next.

Deep breath. Turn the page. A close-up of the remains of the cracked front door. Turn the page. There.

Four shapeless clumps, as black as their surroundings. Shrunk to a fraction of their body size, no longer recognisable as human beings. Beatrice looked away, then back again. She found details she didn’t want to see. A flash of bright teeth behind charred lips. A burst skull. She clapped the file shut and went to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water.

Had Sigart identified his family back then? She searched for the record of his interview. He had returned when the wood was already ablaze, had tried to run into the fire and was forcibly held back by three firemen. He had been taken off to hospital with severe burns; his conversation with the authorities – which was recorded and later transcribed – had not taken place until nine days after the fire.

Every one of Sigart’s sentence fragments conveyed utter despair. According to the report, the interview had to be interrupted again and again because he began to scream and the doctors had to be called.

But one thing was abundantly clear from the document: he blamed himself for his family’s deaths. He had taken the car on an emergency call-out to a complicated birth at a stud farm, thirty kilometres away. As he drove off, his thoughts were already with the mother animal, which he had been taking care of for four years by then. He considered it possible that he had locked the cabin on autopilot, thereby transforming it into a deadly trap for his family. The investigation had concluded that the door had indeed been locked.

Sigart had initiated legal proceedings against himself, saying that he alone bore the responsibility for his family’s deaths, and had refused a lawyer. But of course – given the tragic circumstances – he couldn’t be held responsible for what had happened. The psychological report, a summary of which was included in the file, spoke of severe post-traumatic stress disorder, and of a high suicide risk. He was given access to therapy sessions, the ones which he was clearly still making use of today.

Beatrice tucked the files away in her bag and went out onto the balcony. Breathe. The sky was starry and clear, the air cool. Goose pimples pricked her arms.

Why had the Owner led her to Bernd Sigart? What was he trying to show her? Was it possible that…?

She sat down and held her face in her hands, trying to think clearly. Was it possible that the Owner wanted to rub one of his own crimes under her nose? Look what I did, and you lot didn’t catch me!

But the fire hadn’t been an arson attack. It was just very bad luck; fires often broke out in the hot summer months. Was he trying to claim ownership of it regardless? Begging for attention, perhaps? Or, as Florin suspected, was he just doing this to confuse the police?