Ursula Archer - Five

‘We’ve got another body.’ Florin’s voice sounded incredibly weary. ‘And three guesses as to where it was found.’

‘Oh, shit. Sigart.’ So the Owner had gone against his word and killed him – or let him die of his injuries.

‘No, it doesn’t seem like it’s Sigart, going by the description. But it’s definitely one of our Owner’s victims.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘The body’s at the bridge, at the coordinates where we searched yesterday morning. I’m already on my way. It would be good if you could come too.’

N47º 26.195, E013º 12.523

The red-and-white cordon tape fluttered in the night wind, while dazzling floodlights illuminated the foot of the bridge. Cold, completely cold , thought Beatrice as she got out of her car. She was shivering, but put that down to her wet hair. She had tied it into a low ponytail, and now felt as though she was carrying around a small, drowned animal at the nape of her neck.

Stefan came running over the bridge towards her. ‘Florin’s down below with the body. There’s not much room to move and they’re all stepping on each others’ toes down there, so I’m pretty sure they’ll bring the guy up soon. It’s unbelievable, Bea. He looks terrible.’

She nodded silently and pulled him along with her to the bridge wall, next to the floodlights.

Pale skin and a stocky body which bore no resemblance to Sigart’s gaunt frame. Twisted legs, naked feet. Beatrice couldn’t make out much more than that, because both Florin and Dr Vogt were leaning over the body, clearly struggling to keep their balance on the sloping embankment. Drasche was there too, more lying on the ground than sitting, busy grappling with the lock of his evidence case.

‘It looks like the Owner just pushed the guy off the bridge,’ Beatrice pondered out loud. He wouldn’t have had the time or the opportunity to place him down there – the road was really busy even at night. Had he not been able to find a better location? Had he decided to give up on his former principle of seclusion when selecting this one?

‘Do we have any idea yet of the dead man’s identity?’

‘No. There aren’t any new missing persons reports. But he was married. Drasche has taken the wedding ring for examination.’ Stefan shrugged. ‘It must have been a really gruesome way to go though. Even Vogt says he’s never seen anything like it.’

The three men were now clambering up the embankment one after the other, while a few uniformed officers got ready to haul the corpse up to the top. Drasche was the first to step over the low wall, holding out a plastic evidence bag towards Beatrice. The wedding ring.

‘Graciella, 19.6.2011,’ he said. ‘Our grieving widow.’

She made a note of the information; the unusual name was a gift that would make their work easier.

‘Hey, Bea.’ In the glare of the floodlight, Florin looked almost as pale as the corpse. He took the cigarette offered to him by Drasche – an absolute first.

‘I’ll come along to the autopsy,’ he said, taking a deep drag of smoke. ‘I want to know what the body looks like internally.’

Why ? Beatrice wanted to ask, but the two policemen had just lifted the man over the wall. They laid him down on a tarpaulin, and Beatrice signalled for them to wait before covering him up.

The very next moment, she regretted her decision, but forced herself not to look away.

A red-and-black crater was located where the man’s right eye would once have been. Festering lava had oozed out, burrowing deep grooves and exposing raw flesh.

The dead man was baring his teeth like a bulldog about to bite, and it was only on closer inspection that Beatrice realised the contorted expression wasn’t due to scorn or pain, but a missing lower lip. It was as if it had melted away. The stained tongue protruded out from between the teeth, an oversized, blood-bloated leech. The inside of his mouth was a darkly encrusted wasteland.

‘How did that happen?’ she asked Vogt, who had come over to stand next to her.

‘My guess would be acid, perhaps acetic or hydrofluoric. Do you see the dark crust on the mucous membrane? That’s a typical sign of it.’

‘You mean he drank acid?’

‘Or was forced to, more like. I can only say for sure after the body’s been opened up, but I’m expecting to find a corroded oesophagus and perforated stomach, as well as mediastinitis. We’ll see. We also found marks around the hands and ankles indicating that he’d been restrained, similar to those on Christoph Beil, but cutting in more deeply this time. Cable tie, if you ask me.’

Beatrice’s mind recalled the image of Nora Papenberg, lying face down on the meadow, her hands tied behind her back. Cable tie, as white as the dead skin beneath it.

Vogt nodded to the policemen to cover up the body, and this time Beatrice didn’t stop them. ‘What about the eye?’ she asked.

‘The same thing. And downright horrific, because it was ante mortem.’ He saw the unspoken question in her face. ‘The eyelid was corroded. He must have tried to close it in order to protect the eye. Not too pleasant.’ He left her standing there and went over to his car, where he pulled out a muesli bar from the glove compartment.

On the opposite side of the street towered the stone figure of a saint, a woman in long robes holding a tower in her hands and staring down to the ground. Florin was sitting at her feet, another cigarette between his fingers, looking over at Beatrice.

‘Don’t make a habit of that,’ she said.

‘I won’t. Anneke hates it when I smoke.’ He took two more deep drags, then stubbed the cigarette out next to him in the grass. ‘I’d like to call on Konrad Papenberg again. Let’s see if he has an alibi for tonight. Who else is there – Beil’s wife? Would she be capable of hauling along a guy like that?’ He looked at Beatrice, his head cocked to the side. ‘Would you be able to manage it?’

‘Not alone. And besides…’ She tried to formulate her thoughts into comprehensible words. ‘I don’t think it was Papenberg or Vera Beil. Or Liebscher’s ex-wife. It just doesn’t make sense.’

‘That’s not a strong enough argument.’

‘I know. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m wrong. If you look at the messages the Owner’s sent me so far, can you really imagine them coming from Konrad Papenberg? Or from Vera Beil? It’s just not her tone.’

Florin didn’t answer right away. He stared at the crumpled cigarette, clearly regretting having smoked it. ‘That’s irrelevant. We’ve distanced ourselves much too far from our normal method of working. We’ve let the Owner force his games on us and stupidly believed that he’d keep to the rules he himself made. Initially he waited until we’d found his next victim before attacking. But now he’s lost patience – either that or he’s just having too much fun. Who knows, for fuck’s sake!’

A jolt went through Beatrice. For a split second she had grasped onto an important detail, something had locked into place, but then the thought slipped away again as quickly as it had come. At first the Owner had waited, but now he was there ahead of them… there was something behind that, something important. She repeated every one of Florin’s words in her mind, but the thought refused to come back, like a shy wild animal hiding in the undergrowth.

Florin had already stood up and was walking towards the pathologist’s vehicle, which had finally turned up. He stood there, a black silhouette against the floodlight, watching as the unknown dead man was put into a body bag.

We all end up in containers eventually , thought Beatrice.

‘Am I dealing with a bunch of amateurs here, or what?’ Hoffmann’s spit flew right across the table. Even though the day had only just begun, all the people around it looked utterly exhausted.