Ursula Archer - Five

She tried to remember what was behind her. The noose hanging from the ceiling. Nora Papenberg’s shoes, as red as the picture in Florin’s atelier, as red as the blood on Evelyn’s bedroom floor. Dried bandaging fabric in crusted waves.

No, of course not. The forensics team had taken all that with them.

The saws were gone now too, but Drasche had left the table and chairs, still speckled in places with forensic powder. On the floor, at the foot of the steps, there was something new: the doctor’s bag Beatrice had seen on the passenger seat of the Honda Civic.

‘How are you feeling?’ Sigart asked the question as if he was a surgeon who had just operated on her.

Beatrice decided to play along. She just had to break free from her ties, then she would have an advantage over him. He was weakened; there was no way he could use his left hand.

‘I’m relatively okay,’ she answered. ‘Still a little blurry in the head. And my hips feel bruised.’

‘Yes, unfortunately that couldn’t be avoided.’ Finally, Sigart stepped aside, far enough for her to be able to see him. He was still pale, but he seemed taller than he had before. His left hand was bandaged, the dressing stretching all the way to his elbow. ‘I wasn’t able to carry you, so I had to drag you. I’m afraid that gave you a few bruises.’

‘I see.’ Was he still on painkillers? Probably. ‘You’re clearly doing much better than before. When I saw you in the hospital, I thought—’ I thought what I was supposed to think . Beatrice left the sentence unfinished.

Sigart walked all the way around the table, then sat down. In his right, healthy hand, he was holding a gun, which he now laid on the scratched table, the barrel pointing at Beatrice. ‘I’m pleased that we finally get to talk alone.’

The dull, cotton-wool-like sensation in her head still hadn’t completely disappeared. What did Sigart want from her?

I’m his audience , as Kossar had put it. Hopefully he had been right on that point at least.

‘You probably want to hear that I’m surprised,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you there.’ She held his gaze, even though fear was now stretching its cold feelers out towards her throat. Whatever narcotic Sigart had injected her with, it was losing its effect.

He cocked his head to the side. ‘How long have you known?’

‘Since I went to see you in the hospital. With all the blood you lost, we expected you to be on the brink of death. I might have thought of it sooner if you were a doctor, but you’re a vet.’ She saw a smile creep across his face. ‘But of course you still know how to take blood, how to store it, and how much there had to be to make us draw the right conclusions. Or, rather, the wrong ones. What did you use to create the drag marks in the stairwell? A sandbag?’

‘Something like that.’

‘From the very first time we met you, you were always so pale. But in the hospital, you looked healthier – and it was because you had more blood in your veins than in the previous weeks. The spray pattern on the walls – did you compress the bag of blood and then punch a hole in it?’

‘Precisely. Bravo, Beatrice.’

Something in the tone of his voice unsettled her, but she carried on regardless. ‘You also know how to carry out a local anaesthetic – probably better than any hospital surgeon, who always has an anaesthetist on standby for that. But I still don’t know how you managed to cut your own fingers off.’

He lifted the bandaged hand off the table a little and put it back down again carefully. ‘By imagining this moment, right here and now. Tell me what else you worked out, Beatrice.’

She thought for a moment. ‘That you know about Evelyn and think we have something in common. Guilt as a result of bad decisions. Where did you get your information from?’

‘You have quite a talkative brother. I’m sure you don’t know this, but my wife and I used to eat at Mooserhof quite frequently. We both read about Evelyn Rieger’s murder, and knew from your brother that you were friends with her. Every time I asked about you, he quite willingly opened his heart to me. You were still in Vienna then, trying to get back on your feet, but your brother was convinced you wouldn’t manage. My wife and I had many conversations about guilt back then.’ He shifted his gaze to the two remaining fingers on his left hand. ‘At the time, I was of the opinion that the only person to carry guilt is the one who intentionally harms someone. Miriam disagreed. She said that guilt never falls on just one person alone.’

Beatrice could see that he was withdrawing into himself, hearing his wife’s voice in his mind as if she were right next to him.

‘After her death, I knew she was right. I was immensely guilty. My wrong decisions, my skewed priorities. You know the feeling, don’t you, Beatrice? That’s why I put my case in your hands.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I made sure you would be on duty when Nora Papenberg was found. That granted her an extra day of life.’

A day of fear and despair, of futile hope. She hoped he would give her an extra day, too. ‘Keep me posted,’ Florin had said. When would he expect to hear from her? After an hour? Two? Maybe even sooner? He was probably already pulling out all the stops to find her.

She shifted her weight, trying to feel whether her mobile was still in her jacket pocket. If it was, her colleagues would be able to find out her location.

But she couldn’t feel anything. Perhaps it had fallen out when Sigart had dragged her down the steps, or outside, in the forest. That would be just as good – no, even better, as he would have no chance of finding it…

Then she saw it. On a pile of bricks that someone must have left in the corner of the cellar. It lay alongside Nora Papenberg’s Nokia, and next to it, like small, rectangular playing pieces from a board game, were the batteries.

Sigart followed her gaze. ‘Yes, unfortunately you are un-contactable,’ he said. ‘But you still managed to send your colleague a text from Theodebertstrasse. “Driving home now, I’m shattered. See you tomorrow.” That should have won us a little time.’

She wanted to scream, not knowing whether it was out of rage, panic, or just to lose herself in her own cries. Instead, she bit down on her lower lip until it hurt. Driving home now, I’m shattered . But no word as to whether she had found Sigart. Maybe that would have made Florin wonder. If so, he would have tried to call her back, only getting the mailbox. Was shattered enough to make him leave it? Or would he persevere, maybe drive to her place just to be sure?

She didn’t know.

‘Nonetheless,’ Sigart continued, ‘we don’t have all the time in the world. I asked you what you’ve understood of what’s happened, but you haven’t yet given me your answer. I need you to concentrate.’ He picked up the gun in his right hand, almost playfully. The mouth pointed at the wall, then at Beatrice, lingering briefly, then gliding to the side. After a few moments, Sigart put the weapon back on the table, frowning as if he wasn’t sure quite what he was doing.

‘You lost your family in a forest fire,’ Beatrice began hastily. ‘That was here. We’re in the cellar of the building you rented.’

He nodded. ‘Correct.’

‘You got called away by a client, and that’s why you hold yourself responsible for what happened – but not just yourself.’

‘Another point.’ With the two remaining digits of his left hand, he traced the line of a long cut in the wooden table. ‘To start with, admittedly, it was different. Back then I thought I was the only guilty one, just me alone – but then… what happened then, Beatrice?’