Ursula Archer - Five

Cautiously, putting one foot in front of the other, Beatrice walked along the stretch between the two possible spots. The trees were dense, the ground soft. But there weren’t any indications that someone could have buried something here.

She took a few paces towards the lake, hearing the splash of the small waves which were being pushed by the wind against the water’s edge. With every step she made, her colleagues’ voices became quieter, their words less comprehensible. Beatrice stopped by a tree stump and sat down.

If I wanted to hide something here, how would I go about it?

She tried to focus on her surroundings, to shut out disruptive thoughts. Water. Trees. Earth . Yes, burying it was the most likely option.

Just a moment – the trees. Beatrice touched the raw bark of the tree trunk rising up directly next to her. There had been something on that list of caching abbreviations. She closed her eyes, concentrating. JAFT .

Just another fucking tree .

Tree hiding places were popular and common, and during her research Beatrice had stumbled across some very creative ideas – preserved roots, hollowed-out branches, nesting boxes mounted especially for the purpose of hiding a cache. It was certainly worth pursuing the idea.

The inspiration came completely out of the blue, at the very moment when Beatrice stood up to go back to the others. You know everything, and yet you find nothing .

We do know , she thought, but only because he’s telling us .

‘Florin!’ Twigs and dry leaves crackled beneath her feet. ‘We have to look upwards, to the treetops! We’ll probably need ladders.’ She positioned herself on the spot Stefan had marked and looked up at the branches of the nearest tree.

‘Why up there?’

‘The Owner told us. I just didn’t understand it.’ She turned to Florin. ‘“Chin up”, he wrote. Does anyone have binoculars with them?’

They discovered the cache – much to Stefan’s pride – directly by the coordinates he had dictated, fastened a good eight metres up a beech tree. The container was bigger than all the ones they had found so far, a box with the dimensions of a small television.

Stefan offered to retrieve it. He clambered up, accompanied by Drasche’s detailed instructions.

‘It’s attached to the trunk with gaffer tape,’ he called down to them from above. ‘I’ll cut it loose, then lower it down to you on the rope.’

Beatrice watched with mixed emotions as the container swayed its way down to them. Even before it had touched the ground, she was pretty sure what it contained. The size was about right, and the Owner’s words…

Even Drasche was impatient this time, and declared that he was prepared to open the box on location. ‘Without taking any risks and destroying important evidence, of course,’ he growled as Beatrice started to edge closer.

The box had four snap locks, which he undid one after another until the lid was open and the contents revealed.

She had guessed right. Chin up could be interpreted in more ways than one.

The part of Herbert Liebscher’s body which had once steered his thoughts, housed his memories and directed his senses was now wrapped in the same strong plastic film that had surrounded all the others.

Beatrice and Florin silently exchanged looks. Vogt wouldn’t need to ponder over the cause of death this time. Half of Liebscher’s head had been shot clean away; a large chunk of the right temple was missing, grey brain mass clinging to the inside of the plastic film.

Less obvious, but noticeable nonetheless, were the missing ears. On one side, the wound was dark red and scabbed, while on the other it was smooth and pale. The uneven teeth, stained a brownish yellow, were bared.

A tea drinker , thought Beatrice, or a heavy smoker .

Gases had collected under the film, swelling out the plastic and threatening to burst it in the not-too-distant future.

‘We’ve nearly got the whole guy now,’ observed Drasche. He carefully pulled the usual two notes out from under the head.

‘You’ll get the photos this afternoon, and the information as soon as I get back. Watch your backs, guys, this is getting more gruesome by the day.’

‘No, stop.’ Beatrice went over to him. ‘I want to read them now, see the handwriting.’ She ignored Drasche’s groan and peered over his shoulder.

Nora Papenberg’s handwriting again, now almost as familiar as that of an old friend.

Stage Five

You’re searching for a torn woman. Indecisiveness has made her sick, and one day it will cost her her life. She is both guilty and innocent at the same time, like most of us, but she bears her guilt more heavily than most .

Look for dark hair and a name to match, for talent in flute and composition .

Once again, the year of birth is the key: add 15 to the last two digits of the number and multiply by 250. Add 254 and subtract the result from the northern coordinates from Stage Four. Multiply the first two digits by the second two digits of the birth year, add the number 153 to the result and then add the resulting sum to the eastern coordinates .

We’ll see each other there .

A woman, for the first time. No, that wasn’t entirely true – the case had begun with Nora Papenberg, but there hadn’t been any search leading to her.

Could it be that the Owner placed significance on symmetry? A woman at the start, four men, then a woman again at the end? No, he’d said he planned to keep Sigart until the end.

Drasche was now reading out the cache note – Congratulations, you’ve found it! This time it was worth it, don’t you think? – but she was only half-listening. Flute and composition. That sounded like a student or teacher at the Mozarteum. Dark hair and a name to match.

Florin already had the car engine running. This time, they would beat the Owner to it.

Torn woman sounded quite worrying, particularly as the Owner seemed to be developing a fondness for the literal. While she and Florin were in the car, Beatrice requested a list of female students studying composition and flute from the Mozarteum. She also requested a second list of the names of the teachers, and a third of alumni.

‘That’s a good start.’ They were the first words Florin had uttered since they drove off. ‘Don’t forget the private academies.’

‘I won’t. But first there’s something else I want to check out.’ She looked through her notes for the telephone number of the conductor for the choir Christoph Beil had sung in.

‘Kaspary here, LKA. Could you tell me where you normally hold your choir practice?’

‘In the church. There are set times when we’re allowed to use the space.’

‘I see. And you never hold them anywhere else?’

‘Well,’ said the man hesitantly. ‘Occasionally, ahead of really important concerts, we use one of the rooms in the Mozarteum.’

‘Thank you.’ Feeling that she finally had something important within her sights, Beatrice tucked her phone away. ‘You’ll see,’ she said to Florin. ‘We’ll find what we’re looking for at the Mozarteum.’

But when the lists arrived, Beatrice’s suspicions weren’t confirmed. Dark hair and a name to match – she had hoped for an obvious choice: something Mediterranean, or literal, like ‘Schwarz’, for example. She hadn’t reckoned with the large number of students from Japan and China studying music in Salzburg. They were particularly prevalent in the flute classes, regardless of whether it was the transverse or wooden flute.

‘Shit,’ groaned Beatrice, leafing through the printouts. ‘It’s going to be impossible to check them all out. The ex-alumni have long since moved away, and the others…’ She rested her head in one hand, closing her eyes for a moment. What if she discounted the international students initially? The clue could refer to one of them, of course, but so far all the victims had been locals.