Ursula Archer - Five

He’s a good man to marry.

The flame of the tea light on the coffee table had almost drowned in liquid wax. Beatrice pulled her hand from Florin’s grasp to push the hair away from her forehead. He hadn’t interrupted her even once, but by the end she had felt his fingers clasping more tightly around hers. She searched his eyes for sympathy, or condemnation, but to her relief found neither.

‘You don’t think we’re dealing with Evelyn’s murderer here, do you?’

She shook her head firmly. ‘No. Evelyn was the victim of a sexual crime.’ My God, she sounded like she was quoting a newspaper article. As if that made things more bearable. ‘She was raped, vaginally and anally, and with all kinds of utensils. Then he slashed her with a kitchen knife that her grandmother had given her.’ Red . Beatrice’s mouth was dry. ‘No one ever questioned the motive. The Owner, on the other hand, has shown zero sexual interest in his victims. Neither the men nor the women. His motive is still completely unknown.’

Her last words were accompanied by the sounds of a violin. Anneke’s ringtone.

‘I can call her back later,’ said Florin. ‘No prob—’

‘No, it’s fine, take the call, I have to…’ She gestured towards the bathroom.

Even through the closed door, she could still hear Florin’s voice; earnest and tender. She couldn’t make out the words, and she preferred it that way. He laughed twice. For a few seconds, Beatrice felt betrayed.

Only when she could no longer hear his voice did she flush the toilet and leave the grey-tiled refuge.

‘Are you okay?’ He had made some tea; the dark, fragrant leaves swam on the surface of the shimmering water.

‘No,’ she said, honestly. ‘And I won’t be until we find Sigart. I keep picturing his mutilated hand right in front of me.’ She stopped there, hoping that Florin would understand. He called me because he needed help – does that sound familiar?

‘I’m going to drive home,’ she decided, giving the tea a longing look. ‘I’ll do some Internet research. We’ve got the latest coordinates, so I’m sure there must be something there,’ she added.

‘But you’re not planning to drive out there by yourself, are you?’

She snorted. ‘What would I do out there in the middle of the night? Hope I stumble across something that we missed during the day?’

Florin hugged her and let her go. For a moment, she felt disappointed he didn’t try to persuade her to stay.

It was stuffy in her apartment; the windows had been closed all day. Beatrice longed to be able to go out on the balcony, but every time she went out there she felt as if she was being watched. It was just her imagination, of course. But she felt more comfortable inside the apartment, with the doors double-locked. She set up her laptop on the coffee table and entered the Dalamasso coordinates into Geocaching.com. There was no cache within a two-mile radius. Then she logged into Liebscher’s account and read through his entries, without knowing what she was actually looking for.

Half an hour later, she turned the computer off and exchanged staring at the monitor for staring at the lounge ceiling. Melanie Dalamasso’s reaction had been so clear. If only she could speak to her, show her the photos one by one—

A wish that was certain not to be fulfilled. Beil had been her only chance, the jolt when he had seen Nora Papenberg’s photo. She shouldn’t have let it slip by. Beatrice could hold no one responsible for that but herself.

‘Well, you’ve got yourself into a fine mess now, haven’t you?’ From Hoffmann’s expression, anyone would think it was his birthday. He must have been lying in wait for her behind his office door. Now he was sitting there on his pigskin chair, and she was standing before him like a school pupil who had been called to see the headmaster.

‘I have a complaint here about you, from Carolin Dalamasso. She said you confronted Melanie with photos of the victims. Is that true?’

‘They fell out of my hand.’

‘Then that was very clumsy of you, Kaspary. The girl’s condition has worsened considerably since yesterday, the doctors are worried and her mother’s on the warpath.’ He paused. ‘My God. How could you? Tormenting a sick girl like that! You’re a mother yourself. Would you really use any means to get results in spite of your complete lack of competence?’

She didn’t answer. Anything she said would just make it worse.

‘So what did you achieve through your clumsiness? Any new clues? Did the girl tell you a story?’

‘No.’

‘No.’ Hoffmann rotated a pencil between his fingers. ‘Do you have any idea how much you’ve damaged our reputation by doing this? The reputation of your colleagues, who play by the rules? I’m really disappointed in you, Kaspary. There will be consequences, you mark my words.’ He waited, but when Beatrice just stared at him in silence, he waved her out with his hand.

When she got back to her own desk, Kossar was there, smiling as she approached. He pointed to two folders, a yellow one and a red one.

‘There’s a lot to read here, Beatrice. I went to great lengths to prepare everything for you, but a lot of it is in English. I hope that’s okay.’

‘What is this?’

‘In the red folder, you’ll find everything you need to know on the case of Raymond Willer, a serial killer from Ohio. The most interesting document is probably the interview my colleague from Quantico conducted with him. Willer selected his victims at random, but left behind encrypted messages to make the police think otherwise. He said it was a competition, him against a huge machinery of power. He was highly intelligent, with an IQ of one hundred and forty-seven. He was only caught after the twelfth murder.’

Beatrice shrugged. ‘But the Owner isn’t killing random victims.’

‘The yellow folder,’ continued Kossar as if he hadn’t even heard what she had said, ‘is about the Mike Gonzalez case. He killed nine people with the sole intent of saving them. There are a few cases like that. Religious delusion – the selection of victims only seems to be at random. In the interview, he said he saw a light above their heads and knew they were ready for the kingdom of God. So he wanted to help them get there as quickly as possible. And the fact that he made them suffer beforehand was apparently just to save them from the fire of purgatory—’

‘Our case doesn’t have random victims!’ Beatrice heard herself shout, immediately regretting how loud she was. Losing her nerve was bad, very bad. But at least she had succeeded in halting Kossar’s narrative flow. ‘They knew each other. Not every one of them, perhaps, but Beil knew Papenberg, and Dalamasso knew at least one of the victims. I’m sorry you had to do all this work for nothing.’

‘That’s assuming you’re right.’ It seemed nothing made Kossar lose his cool. ‘And that’s not certain yet,’ he said.

‘It is. You can bet your fucking glasses on it.’

You know everything, and yet you find nothing , the Owner had written . You know everything, and yet you find nothing .

I know that you’re Shinigami. I know that you knew Liebscher, that you went hunting for hidden plastic containers together. And I know you’ve informed yourself about my history, but when? When you realised I was one of the people looking for you? And why?

‘Perhaps you’re connected to the motive in some way,’ Florin had pondered the day before. Beatrice had considered the idea, turning it over and over before discarding it.

No, she didn’t believe that. But he had made her a part of his production, and his messages were predominantly directed at her. Now it was up to her to decipher them.