Ursula Archer - Five

It seemed that Melanie Dalamasso hadn’t just stopped studying, but had also shelved her entire life of independence. She was now living with her parents, and spent from eight in the morning until half-four in the afternoon in a psychiatric day clinic.

‘She’s under observation around the clock, but we won’t question her, not yet.’ Florin looked at each of them in turn, pausing when he came to Hoffmann. Eventually, their boss nodded.

‘Anyone who attempts to get close to her will be checked out by our guys. I’ve spoken to her parents and her doctor, and we’re getting full support from both sides. Unfortunately there’s no information that could be of use to us – no one knows what caused Melanie’s breakdown.’ He took the glass of water Stefan handed to him and sipped at it. ‘Apparently she was always quite difficult growing up, with a tendency for depressive moods.’

Beatrice had read through the parents’ statement before their meeting. They were at their wits’ end. They described Melanie as a silent, withdrawn girl, who had hidden herself away with her flute from a young age. She was eight when she first went to a psychotherapist, because she’d stopped eating after two girls from her class had come up with the idea of nicknaming her the ‘Italian Hippo’.

What might have prompted other children to run in tears to their teacher or parents, or to kick the bullies in the shin, left Melanie reeling for weeks on end. She insisted that a change of schools be the condition for her agreeing to eat again. Her parents gave in and registered her at a private school which specialised in music. A few years followed in which they believed she had ‘grown out of’ the problem, as her mother put it. But when puberty set in, Melanie began to suffer from extreme mood swings that led to renewed anorexic and bulimic episodes. Her parents were convinced that, had it not been for the flute, she would probably have died. Once again it led to psycho therapeutic intervention, and a three-week hospitalisation during the summer holidays.

Six years ago, at the age of eighteen, Melanie had passed the entrance exam for the Mozarteum. She moved into a tiny studio apartment near the Salzach river, dreamt of a career as a soloist and fell in love with a fellow student who, although he didn’t return her feelings, let her down very gently and became a close friend. He introduced her to a group of students who went on hikes, to cafés or the cinema in the evenings, and who also studied together for music theory exams. For a while, Melanie even lived with two of the girls from the group in a student flat share.

‘She wasn’t at the centre of everything, but she was at least part of it, and she was doing so well,’ Melanie’s mother was quoted as saying in the report. What happened next, no one can really explain. She turned her back on the group and went her own way. She retreated into herself again and started another of her numerous missions to lose weight. Questioning and probing her hadn’t helped; it never had. One of the mother’s friends had reported seeing Melanie with a man old enough to be her father. They had apparently been strolling through the Christmas market in Hellbrunn, their arms wrapped around each other, oblivious to the rest of the world.

Melanie’s mother had been torn back and forth between happiness and worry. Her child was in love and happy – but hadn’t thought to introduce or even mention the man to her parents. She stormed out of their regular Sunday lunches any time they tentatively tried to bring the conversation around to him.

Six months later came the breakdown. Frau Dalamasso received the call at ten in the morning, right before the start of the summer holidays. They told her that Melanie had suddenly started screaming during orchestral rehearsals for an upcoming concert, and that she had been inconsolable ever since. When her mother arrived, the ambulance was already there, and Melanie had been sedated by the doctor.

‘She’s been in a completely different world ever since. She hardly speaks any more, and if she does then only sentence fragments that don’t make any sense. The doctors suspect she’s suffered from a kind of autism since birth, and that it’s only now reached its full force,’ concluded the father.

Why would the Owner want to kill someone like Melanie Dalamasso?

‘…speak to the woman anyway.’ Beatrice only heard the last half-sentence of Hoffmann’s objection. ‘Kossar could do it. He’s a psychiatrist, he knows how to handle sick people.’

‘He’s a forensic psychiatrist,’ objected Florin. ‘I don’t think Melanie Dalamasso’s doctors would take too kindly to that. I suggest we leave it for now and instead concentrate on trying to protect Melanie. So far our conversations with the Owner’s targets have brought us either very little or nothing.’ Florin interlaced his fingers and nodded briefly at the photos spread out in front of them on the conference table. ‘I’ve shown the parents the pictures of the other victims, from Papenberg to Estermann. There was no sign of recognition in their faces at all. In order to show the girl the pictures we’d need the approval of her doctors, but even if we get that, we may do considerable damage without accomplishing anything from it. Melanie hasn’t spoken in five years, and that’s not going to change just because we show her a few pictures. So as long as she can’t tell us what she knows, or what she’s thinking…’ He shrugged his shoulders.

A torn woman . Back in her office, leaning over the desk, Beatrice laid out the photos of the victims in front of her, adding a new one: Melanie Dalamasso. Her dark hair framed a round face. Heavy-lidded brown eyes, a nose that tilted slightly upwards. A pretty mouth, the contours of which were out of focus, making it look a little lopsided.

Papenberg. Liebscher. Beil. Sigart. Estermann. Dalamasso. An unsolvable puzzle. With a few brief hand movements, Beatrice shifted the photos around, letting the new order take effect. Papenberg was in the middle now, Beil next to Dalamasso, Estermann on the outside right, Liebscher above him. Sigart’s photo was a little askew, the upper right-hand corner of his photo touching the corner of Papenberg’s mouth.

Beatrice laid the photo of the last message down. The Owner, expressing himself through Papenberg’s hand.

Something connects you all , Beatrice thought. A puzzle behind the puzzles .

But the photos stayed silent. Just like the dead.

N47º 28.813 E013º 10.983

There was no doubt about Dalamasso’s birth year – 1985 – but there was about the accuracy of the coordinates. The members of the team found themselves right by the Bundesstrasse again, just a few kilometres away from the bridge where they had found Rudolf Estermann’s body. A narrow fork in the road led past detached houses, up an incline, then tailed off approximately a kilometre into the forest.

‘He can’t have hidden anything here.’ Drasche was stalking up and down with the GPS device in his hand. ‘This is a residential area. Unless he buried the body parts in someone’s front garden.’

‘Or perhaps he didn’t keep exactly to the coordinates.’ Squinting, Beatrice turned around slowly on the spot. The surrounding area had a number of potential hiding places – at distances of roughly fifteen, twenty and fifty metres there were trees ( fucking trees , she thought to herself), crash barriers and an area of greenery. But there, right on the spot they had calculated, there was nothing but the road and a traffic sign limiting the speed to thirty kilometres an hour.

They must have made a mistake. The Owner had always been very precise. ‘Where’s the second GPS device?’