Ursula Archer - Five

She was interrupted by Beatrice’s phone beeping.

Beatrice quickly pressed the red button in order to stop the message tone. ‘Excuse me for a moment, please.’ She turned away, recognising the Owner’s number, and felt her face start to burn up.

This time it was a picture message. The text said NM. Just those two letters, nothing more. The attached picture took around three seconds to load, but even once it appeared Beatrice wasn’t sure at first what she was looking at. She rotated the phone a little, then suddenly everything became clear. She suppressed the noise that was trying to force its way out of her, something between a curse and a groan.

‘Something urgent?’ asked Florin.

‘Yes. I’m afraid we’re going to have to excuse ourselves, Dr Maly. Thank you very much indeed for your help.’

The therapist accompanied them to the door. ‘Could you let me know when you find out where he is?’

‘Of course. Thank you again.’ Beatrice practically pulled Florin out of the practice, down the steps and over to the car, where she leaned against the driver’s door.

He stood next to her. ‘I take it that was from the Owner.’

‘It certainly was.’ She opened the picture and handed Florin her mobile. ‘You tell me whether that’s good or bad news.’

‘Oh, God.’ He looked closely at the picture, then gave her the phone back. ‘It looks terrible.’

The image was sharp, and in spite of the small display, new details jumped out at Beatrice every time she looked. The pale arm with the dirty sleeves, pushed up to the elbow. The pile of bloody gauze bandages, crumpled on the brown tabletop. And the hand. Three fingers and a gruesome wound where the little and ring finger had once been. Dark red, almost black in places.

‘Let’s drive back to the office and enlarge the photo as much as we can,’ said Beatrice. ‘Some of the background is visible, so maybe it will give us some clues.’

‘NM.’ Frowning in concentration, Florin pointed at the message attached to the photo. ‘Could it be initials this time? Is he giving us clues to his name, or perhaps the next victim’s?’

‘I don’t think so. If I remember rightly, it’s another geocaching abbreviation and means “needs maintenance”.’

‘This guy has a pretty sick sense of humour,’ muttered Florin. He flung open the car door and sat down behind the wheel. ‘Let’s go. We need some extra people on the case to question the neighbours again, shine a light on the other victims’ social circles and search through the geocaching sites. We have to find Sigart before the Owner kills him.’

The photo was easy to enlarge and revealed further chilling details. They had summoned Vogt from the pathologist’s office, and he was now sitting in front of Beatrice’s computer, his hands folded into a steeple in front of his mouth.

‘I can’t be completely certain, but I suspect the fingers were severed with one single blow. Have a look for an axe or a sharp kitchen knife as possible weapons.’

Florin pointed at the image. ‘The man is likely to also have a neck wound and has lost a lot of blood. I know you can only see the arm in the picture – but do you think he’s still alive?’

Vogt zoomed in further on the section showing the hand and moved his face so close to the screen that his nose was almost touching it. ‘Well, he at least lived for some time after the fingers were severed, because the edges of the wound seem slightly inflamed, and you can see the first stages of the healing process.’ He pushed his glasses right up to the top of his nose. ‘It also looks as though the hand muscles are tensed. So it’s likely that he was still alive when the photo was taken. I can’t give you any guarantees though.’

Guarantees weren’t necessary. For Beatrice, Sigart was alive until proved otherwise. ‘We’ll speak to Konrad Papenberg again,’ she said after Vogt had left. ‘This whole thing started with his wife – her handwriting is on the cache notes and Liebscher’s blood on her clothing. In one way or another, she must be the key to this case.’

‘But she’s not the key figure, at least not according to the Owner,’ Florin interjected. His fingers were drumming out a speedy rhythm on the surface of the desk. ‘He hasn’t yet given us any false information in his messages, have you noticed that? He doesn’t lie to us, so if he says someone is the key figure, then we should identify that person as quickly as possible.’

‘Yes, except that might take for ever,’ answered Beatrice. ‘I think Sigart is our priority, and the path to him is via the other victims.’

Konrad Papenberg’s face had turned a deep red and was just ten centimetres at most from Beatrice’s. ‘Get out of my house right this second! I won’t allow you to slander my dead wife under my roof!’ A drop of spit landed next to Beatrice’s right eye. She didn’t wipe it off. Instead of backing away from Papenberg, she took a tiny step towards him. It had exactly the desired effect: he stepped back, putting more distance between them.

‘I understand that you’re upset,’ she said in a decidedly calm voice. ‘Nothing has been proven, of course. But there was someone else’s blood on your wife’s hands and clothing, and we’ve since been able to match that blood to another victim. I hope you can understand that we have to investigate this.’

‘Perhaps she was trying to help him!’ roared Papenberg. ‘Had you thought of that? No, you’d rather believe that Nora is a murderer, my Nora, my…’ His voice failed him and he sank down onto the couch, burying his face in his hands.

Beatrice nodded to Florin. It was a silent request for him to take over the questioning. She hadn’t counted on such an extreme reaction, and although she felt sorry for Papenberg, his lack of control didn’t necessarily have to mean an end to the conversation if Florin took the right approach.

Florin sat down next to the man on the sofa and spoke to him softly. Beatrice removed herself from his line of sight as much as possible, positioning herself over by the window in an attempt to let him forget she was there.

It was clear that nothing had been cleaned or tidied in the apartment since their last visit. There was dust on the furniture, clothing scattered on the floor, newspapers, unemptied ashtrays – all evidence of how Konrad Papenberg’s life had been turned completely upside down.

‘Of course your wife was a victim,’ Beatrice heard Florin say. ‘We’re just trying to understand what happened. I’d like to show you photos of two men, perhaps you might know one of them. Would that be okay?’

Papenberg didn’t answer. Beatrice could hear the sound of papers being shuffled, so presumably he had nodded.

‘No, I’ve never seen them before. Which of them is Nora supposed to have murdered, according to your colleague?’

‘This man here, Herbert Liebscher.’

‘I don’t know him. I swear to you – if I did, I’d tell you.’

Beatrice looked around and saw that the photos were shaking in Papenberg’s hands. His face was wet. ‘No one wants the murderer to be found more than I do. I want to help you, but when you say things like that about Nora…’ He fumbled around in his pocket, pulled out a crumpled tissue and blew his nose. ‘She was the most gentle person I’ve ever known. She could barely hurt a fly, and felt bad about the silliest of things. Sometimes she would burst into tears when bad news came on the TV, and then would be inconsolable for hours. About car crashes, for example, even if she didn’t know the people. She was so compassionate, you know?’ He scrunched the tissue up in his hand. ‘She could never have been an accomplice to murder.’

Beatrice turned around from the window. ‘Was she always that way?’ she asked. Her question was one of genuine interest.