It was 10.35 p.m. She yawned again and caught herself wishing she could just snuggle up against the furry owl and go to sleep.
The shrill tone of the telephone was like a sudden punch to the chest. Beatrice jumped up from her chair, ran across the lounge and practically ripped the handset from the unit. Had the children woken up? Hopefully not. A telephone call this late could only mean something had happened. Another dead body, or another body part…
She braced herself for anything; anything, that was, except Achim’s nightly onslaughts.
The stupid asshole.
‘How lovely to actually get through for once.’ As always, his voice was dripping with contempt. ‘Make sure they’re ready tomorrow, half-one on the dot. And this time remember to pack a jacket for the kids, and by that I mean one each. Mina almost froze to death last time.’
Don’t let him get to you. ‘Of course. Tomorrow at half-one,’ she said curtly. ‘And stop calling at this time of night – the children don’t just need their jackets, they need their sleep too.’
‘I don’t need parental advice from you—!’
Acting on reflex, Beatrice hung up. Another thing he could use against her. The cosy sleepiness from a few moments ago had vanished; her heart was beating so hard it felt as if she’d just come back from a long run. But at least the children didn’t seem to have stirred. She bookmarked the cache dictionary and shut down the laptop, unplugged the telephone, turned her mobile off and went to brush her teeth. As she brushed, she realised she was humming something, but couldn’t place the sombre melody at first. Then she realised: it was the Stabat Mater.
‘Herr Papenberg? I’m sorry to disturb you, but we need your assistance with something.’ Beatrice strove to inject the right balance of sympathy and efficiency into her voice. ‘Would you be able to provide us with a sample of your wife’s handwriting? A letter, a diary – or something along those lines?’
‘For what?’ He sounded exhausted.
‘We have a note that may possibly have been written by your wife. We need to have the handwriting compared by a graphologist.’
She could hear him struggling to keep his voice steady. ‘A note? Can I see it?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. There’s some information that we can’t even make available to the next of kin. Not yet, in any case.’
‘I understand,’ he said wearily. ‘Okay then. I need to run a few errands and I’ll be in the area anyway, so I’ll drop off a sample of her handwriting for you.’
‘That would be great, thank you very much.’
That morning, Hoffmann had appointed Florin leader of ‘Project Geocache’, a name that had amused Beatrice for several minutes even though she couldn’t have explained why. He now came through the door with Stefan in tow, who was beaming across his unshaven cheeks. ‘I’m officially on board. Give me some work to do!’
‘You’ll live to regret it,’ said Beatrice in mock earnest, pressing the list of choir rehearsals into his hands. ‘We’re still missing the rehearsal times for some of these. It would also be helpful to find out the private addresses of the singers we need to speak with. It’s possible that some of the choirs are performing this Sunday, so I’d like us to check those out together.’
Stefan gave an exaggeratedly snappy salute, already on his way back to his office.
It’s good that he’s motivated, thought Beatrice with a glance at the clock. It was only half-nine, but she felt as if she already had an entire working day behind her. She had slept badly last night, dreaming intermittently of Achim and sawn-off limbs. Then she had just lain awake in the darkness, trying to make some sense of the case.
‘We need to question the people from Nora Papenberg’s work as soon as possible.’ Florin pushed a piece of paper over the desk towards her, a printout of the contact details on the agency’s home page.
‘I know, and preferably today. We can do it as soon as I’ve spoken to Konrad Papenberg. He’s bringing a sample of her handwriting across, and I really need to ask him something.’ She wiped her eyes, too roughly; a few eyelashes were now clinging to the back of her hand.
‘Should we send one of the others? Stefan could do it, or Sibylle, she—’
‘No.’ Hearing the hardness in her voice, she tried to soften it with a smile. ‘I want to speak to them myself, otherwise I’ll lose my sense of the case. It already has too many components as it is. The body, the coordinates. Then the puzzle, dismembered parts of a second body, and blood traces from that body on the clothing of the first. All of these things are connected, but I can’t figure out in what way.’ She inhaled deeply. ‘Not yet, anyway.’ And I don’t want anyone to beat me to it. She didn’t say it out loud, knowing that Florin was a great believer in teamwork and collaborative brainstorming. That was a good thing, of course – for him. But Beatrice found it hard to think clearly as part of a team. She had to do her thinking alone, or with one other person at the most. Any more than that and she just found it disruptive.
The shiny silver ballpoint pen which Florin was rotating between his fingers cast elongated reflections on the wall. ‘Well, I still think it’s possible that one of these threads is designed as a distraction for us, so we confirm the Owner’s belief that the police are incompetent.’
Without saying anything in response, Beatrice began to sort out the files strewn all over her desk. The photo of the hand with its macerated skin, enclosed in plastic shrink-wrap. She placed it to the right of the photo of the stone chasm where they had found the box, and diagonally opposite the photo of the handwritten puzzle. She paused to take it all in. Then she changed the order around, waiting for the pictures to tell her a story. But they kept their silence.
‘I’ll tell Stefan to go with you to the agency,’ she heard Florin say.
‘Perfect.’ She glanced at the clock and wished she could pick the kids up from school and drop them off at Achim’s right away. Then she would have crossed one thing off today’s to-do list. ‘By the way,’ she added, more loudly this time, ‘the new owl was a hit. The children love it.’
‘Good, then at least one of my missions has been successful.’ He pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘Keep your fingers crossed for my next one; I have to go and discuss our plan of action with Hoffmann. See you later.’
Konrad Papenberg arrived shortly before ten that morning, looking as though he had lost ten pounds in the last two days. Beatrice led him into one of the consultation rooms. She apologised for the stuffy air and opened the window.
‘Yesterday I went to… identify Nora.’ After every word he spoke, Papenberg seemed to need to summon up new strength. ‘It was her… and yet it wasn’t. Not properly, do you know what I mean? She wasn’t a person. Just – a thing.’ A jolt passed through his body; he turned aside, took a tissue from his pocket and wiped his eyes.
Beatrice paused to give him a moment. ‘Yes, I know what you mean.’ It wasn’t a lie. She had never subscribed to the belief that dead people just looked as if they were sleeping. They looked like a foreign species. Shockingly different, even if they had died peacefully.
Papenberg forced a smile. ‘Thank you. I realise this is nothing new for you.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant.’ Beatrice searched for words. ‘It’s not something you ever get used to, that’s the thing. It’s always hard, every single time.’ She fell silent. Was she bothering him with her own sensitivities? ‘I’m really very sorry for what you’re going through, that was what I wanted to say.’