She sent a description of Beil to all stations in the area, along with the instruction to keep an eye out for his car. Florin carried out the necessary calls with a dark expression on his face. He didn’t say anything, but Beatrice was convinced he was harbouring the same fear she was: that they would see Beil again sooner than expected. Vacuum-packed in small portions.
That afternoon, they received news from the pathologist’s office that the two hands were a genetic match; they came from the same body. Whether the DNA matched that of Liebscher, the missing teacher, would only become clear in the next day or two, but the colleague whom Beatrice had managed to insult – Bechner, his name was Bechner, she had it fixed in her memory now – had managed to find a comb in Herbert Liebscher’s pigeonhole at the school, next to a tube of cough sweets and numerous packets of antacids.
Florin scanned through Bechner’s report. ‘It looks like Liebscher was… or is known amongst his colleagues as being friendly and conscientious. Not very sociable, but reliable. Although somewhat lacking when it comes to a sense of humour apparently. He teaches maths and physics.’
‘And there’s nothing about any recent changes in behaviour?’
‘No, nothing of the sort. He was planning a two-day trip with his class which was supposed to take place next week. The director said the last time he saw Liebscher he was annoyed about the fact that not everyone had paid yet, which meant he couldn’t book the bus.’ Florin lowered the piece of paper with a shrug.
‘Maybe he’s not our guy after all.’ Beatrice stretched her hand over the desk and Florin handed her the files, including three photos, one of which was a typical class picture. Twenty-six children aged around fourteen, Liebscher standing alongside them with a strained smile. A thin man with thinning hair. Another picture was a portrait shot, and a third had been taken while he was teaching. He was facing the class, a piece of chalk in his right hand, and with the left he was pointing at a functional equation on the blackboard.
Beatrice rummaged around in her desk drawer for a magnifying glass and looked at Liebscher’s hands. Was it possible to ascertain whether they were the same ones that had been found in the caches, tinged with blue?
She scanned the picture at the highest resolution and zoomed in on the section showing his hands, comparing what she saw with the photos of the shrink-wrapped dismembered ones. It was certainly possible that they were the same, but she couldn’t be sure. The hands in the picture were as unremarkable as the man they belonged to. She suppressed a sigh and tried to get through to Drasche again. This time, he picked up.
‘You’ll have your written report soon,’ he boomed, without a word of greeting. ‘It took longer because I had to use every damn method that’s ever been invented, but we still only have Papenberg’s fingerprints.’
‘On a note?’
‘Yep. Do you want to know about the ears? It might interest you.’ That was probably the closest Drasche would get to a friendly tone in this lifetime.
‘Are they from the same victim?’
‘They’re a matching pair, if that’s what you mean. We’ll need to wait on the genetic analysis to find out whether they were cut off from the same guy as the hands though.’ He inserted one of his typical pauses, indicating that he wanted to be asked for further details.
‘Okay.’ She decided to humour him. ‘Is there anything else of interest?’
‘Yes.’ Drasche cleared his throat and coughed. ‘They weren’t cut off with a saw, but a tool with two opposing blades.’ He stopped, giving the information time to seep deeply enough into Beatrice’s imagination to create a vague image. ‘My guess would be a pair of garden shears,’ he added.
All of a sudden, the image was crystal clear. Beatrice swallowed. ‘I see.’
‘That’s only half of the story. The ears weren’t vacuum-packed together, but individually. The pathologist will have to confirm it, of course, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t cut off at the same time. The left one looks much more decomposed than the right.’
Beatrice took a sharp intake of breath through her teeth.
‘You’ve guessed it, right? I think the right ear was cut off while the victim was still alive. One or two days before the left one, in any case.’
‘How wonderful. Okay, please send everything over. The photos, particularly the ones of the letters, and the others too.’
‘Will do.’ He hung up.
A pair of garden shears. Beatrice pictured the monstrosity with steel blades which Achim had always used to trim the boxwood hedge.
‘Are you not feeling well?’ The concern in Florin’s voice made her smile involuntarily.
‘I’m fine. It seems our Owner started to mutilate his victim while he was still alive. One of the ears was probably cut off before the man died.’
‘Shit,’ whispered Florin hoarsely.
‘Yep. Drasche is sending everything over now. Including the clues about the next stage.’ Realising that she had started to arrange the pens on her desk so they were all parallel and aligned, she gave them an impatient shove before standing up and switching on the espresso machine. Caffeine was a better option than indulging in OCD-like behaviour. ‘I wish we had Reichenau in the team instead of that narcissistic fool.’ Beatrice quickly tipped the rest of the coffee beans from the packet into the grinder, causing about a quarter of it to spill out and tumble down onto the floor. ‘Wow, I’m really on form today.’
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ said Florin. ‘And go easier on Kossar too. We barely know him – perhaps he really knows his stuff.’
‘Maybe.’ She cleared up the scattered beans and threw them in the bin. ‘I’ll do my best to be objective, okay? But don’t forget he was holding us up from doing our job earlier.’
The coffee eventually helped to reunite her with her concentration. She drank the cup quickly in the knowledge that she would no longer be able to enjoy it once Drasche’s photos arrived.
She went through the existing files one more time. Hands. And now ears. Was that purely arbitrary, or was there some symbolism behind it? Had the victim touched something forbidden? Heard something he wasn’t supposed to hear? She tried to stop her mind going off at a tangent. Getting to the bottom of questions like those was Kossar’s job, not hers.
A few minutes later, Drasche’s photos arrived in her inbox. The first data files showed the ears: blood-soaked lobes, one more advanced in the decomposition process than the other. Then the letters.
The first was word-processed, as the previous ones had been, and again started with the same words.
Congratulations – you’ve found it!
We’re still playing the same game; you should be getting familiar with it by now. What do you think of this container? I’d like to know if you draw the correct conclusions from its contents. You may well manage to, but it’s unlikely to help you any further.
How are things going with your boss? And the media? Are people getting impatient yet that you haven’t come up with anything?
Come on, police! Try harder.
The noises from the street outside forced their way in through the closed window, while someone wearing high-heeled shoes could be heard walking along the corridor. Clackclackclack. Beatrice waited to see whether Florin would say anything, and when he didn’t she cleared her throat. ‘He’s trying to provoke us.’
‘Well, as far as I’m concerned he’s doing a very good job of it.’ He put his cup down a little too firmly; some of it lapped over the edge and formed a brown lake next to the telephone. ‘Come on, police,’ he whispered.
Just in time, Beatrice managed to save a pile of interrogation minutes from the spilled coffee. ‘He seems to have some personal battle with us. We should go back through all the old files and look for someone who might feel they’ve been mistreated by the police, someone who blames us for their life being ruined.’