Ursula Archer - Five

Liebscher’s first cache find was almost seven years ago, meaning that he must have gotten a taste for the treasure hunt long before it had become a trend. His enthusiasm was clearly audible in his log entries, and he had gone out geocaching practically every weekend. Most of the caches he’d found back then didn’t even exist any more: a red line through them meant they’d been archived. Only a small number of caches seemed to last more than four or five years.

Treasure hunting by GPS had clearly been one of Liebscher’s favourite pastimes for a number of years, and then…

Beatrice stopped. She scrolled up, then further down, checking the dates. No, she hadn’t been mistaken. After a weekend in Vienna that had brought him eighteen new finds, there was a break of a year and a half. Not one single cache. Nothing.

Had he been ill? Or had the divorce sapped too much of his energy? She would have to ask at the school.

After the gap, his approach seemed more hesitant. There was around one registered find a month, two at most, and the log entries seemed less detailed than the older ones.

Quickly found, TFTC . Aside from the ones she had read earlier, most were very brief indeed.

But why? Beatrice looked at the clock. It was half-past ten, much too late to phone Romana Liebscher now. Tomorrow.

She clapped the laptop shut and went to the kitchen, where she found herself unable to decide between sparkling water and the last bottle of beer which had been sitting in the fridge door for months on end now.

Water. She drank it straight out of the bottle, enjoying the prickling sensation of the bubbles in her mouth, her throat, her stomach. She suppressed a burp, then wondered who she was trying to be polite for.

Intent on enjoying just ten minutes of free time before going to bed, she walked over to the window and looked out at the night sky over the city. There was almost a full moon, another three days to go at most.

‘Shinigami,’ she whispered to the moon. She took a long slug of water and pulled the curtains shut, just in case she was being watched. Then she smacked herself on the forehead in disbelief and ran back over to the coffee table.

Why hadn’t she checked right away? Now she’d have to start up the laptop again, the rattling old heap.

Google was generous with its answers: A shinigami was a Japanese death spirit, regarded as a bad omen. Beatrice fumbled blindly behind her, grasped the lint-covered blanket from the reclining chair and pulled it around her shoulders.

The Owner had made his intentions clear from the very moment he registered on the geocaching site. He would bring death. But no one had understood his message – not least Herbert Liebscher.

Dagmar Zoubek was one of those women who command respect at the very first glance. Tall, with a taut back and an equally taut bun at the nape of her neck, she reminded Beatrice of the ballet teacher who, with her impatient, bony hands, had pushed Beatrice’s toes outwards when she was six years old. But Zoubek taught the flute, not ballet.

Beatrice had made a spur-of-the-moment decision that morning. The thought of having to plod through endless lists of names had been so unbearable to her that she had decided to go for the direct route. She would look for a torn woman, not a dark-haired woman with a dark name.

They were sitting in one of the small practice rooms, where a Steinway dominated the space.

‘Many students go through difficult times,’ explained Zoubek after giving it some thought. ‘The pressure here is bearable, but some just aren’t up to it. I’ll need you to narrow it down a little more for me.’

‘She was likely to have been studying composition too. And she probably had dark hair.’

To her credit, Zoubek tried to hide the flicker of mockery in her eyes. ‘Dark hair? Do you realise how many girls here change their hair colour on a monthly basis?’

It was hard to imagine Zoubek being popular with her students. A schoolmarmish nature seemed to be inherent to this woman’s character, as firmly rooted as the nose on her face.

‘The problem is,’ explained Beatrice, ‘that I can’t even narrow down the time period. It’s just as possible that the student in question left the institute six years ago as six months. It’s even possible that she’s still here. The information I have is very vague.’

‘I’m inclined to agree with you there.’ But Beatrice’s admission seemed to make Zoubek more sympathetic. ‘Personal crises. Let me think… yes, one student lost her parents in a car crash last year and then went back to Munich. It was very tragic.’ The woman stopped for a moment and lowered her gaze. ‘A very gifted young woman. Although her second subject was singing, not composition, and her hair was always blonde.’

‘Could you tell me her name anyway?’

‘Tamara Kohl.’

If the subject and hair colour had matched it would have been worth a try, but given they didn’t Beatrice could probably rule her out. The Owner was always very precise with his clues.

‘Can you think of anyone else? Was there a suicide attempt, perhaps? Self-harming behaviour? Or aggression towards others?’

The way Zoubek glanced away told Beatrice that her questions had struck a raw nerve. ‘Was there?’ she persevered. ‘Please tell me anything that comes to mind – it could be exactly the information I’m looking for.’

‘There was this shy girl… a little plump and always on a diet. She had dark hair, yes. I taught her in flute, and if I’m not mistaken composition was her second subject. She worked very hard – not as gifted as the others, but she was very diligent.’

Diligence was, if Beatrice had judged her correctly, an indispensable virtue in Zoubek’s universe. ‘What happened to her?’

‘It was such a long time ago now. She wasn’t even in my class at the time it happened – she had switched to my colleague Dr Horner’s group, but I think she had some kind of breakdown. She was picked up by an ambulance and unenrolled from the university shortly after.’

‘Can you remember what kind of breakdown it was? What it was caused by?’

Zoubek shook her head briskly. ‘I wasn’t there. I just heard that she started to scream and cry and that no one was able to calm her down. Maybe it’s better if you speak to Dr Horner – he’ll be able to tell you more.’

I certainly will, thought Beatrice. ‘Could you please tell me the girl’s name?’

With a demonstratively thoughtful expression, Dagmar Zoubek pursed her lips. ‘It was a long name, not an easy one to remember – I’d have to check.’

‘That would be very helpful, thank you.’

Clearly a little disgruntled, the teacher got up from her chair and left the room. Ten minutes later, she came back with a blue ring binder.

‘Here she is. Melanie Dalamasso. Flute and composition. There’s a note here – ex-matriculated due to health reasons, roughly five years ago.’

‘Thank you.’ Beatrice shook the woman’s hand and went out into the fresh air of the Mirabell Gardens, where the sun was shining hazily. She found a bench and stretched her legs out in front of her.

Bingo . There was no need to look any further; Dalamasso was an Italian name, which fitted the dark hair the Owner had mentioned. And Beatrice didn’t even need to bother Google in order to solve the rest of the puzzle. As a child, she used to have a dictionary of names, and would always flick through it eagerly whenever she met someone new.

Her own name had often been cause for amusement, as Beatrice meant ‘Blessed’. Her best friend at school had been called Nadine – meaning ‘Hope’. Sitting a row in front of them in class back then was a Melanie, a girl with strawberry blonde hair and freckles on her face, neck and arms. They had always had fits of giggles about the fact that Melanie meant ‘Dark’.