The woman’s hands wandered over to a tea-light holder shaped like a wooden boat and began to fiddle with it, turning it over and over. Right, left, right. ‘Hardly at all. I’ve been in a new relationship for years now. Herbert and Dietmar don’t exactly get on—’ She looked up, clearly struck by the sudden awareness that she could have just made her life partner a suspect. ‘But they never really argued,’ she added hastily.
‘I understand what you mean.’ Florin’s smile had the desired soothing effect, and Beatrice willingly left the remainder of the usual catalogue of questions to him: when had she last seen him, did he have any enemies, debts, shady acquaintances…?
The answers Liebscher’s ex-wife gave painted the picture of a nondescript life without any particular highlights. A teacher who enjoyed his job, sometimes doing extra tutoring to bring in some extra money, and who went hiking or mountain biking in his free time. He had no debts and was neither loved nor hated by his pupils.
‘Why did you decide to get divorced?’ asked Beatrice. The answer was no surprise: tedium, monotony. They had grown apart, and then Romana Liebscher had met another man.
‘We’ve been divorced for three years and have seen each other perhaps five times since, the last time was eight or nine months ago,’ she said. ‘It sounds terrible, but I can’t tell you anything about him. Not even whether he had a girlfriend.’ Now, and to her own relief it seemed, she burst into tears.
They gave her the time she needed to gather her composure.
‘Will I have to identify him?’ she whispered.
‘No, that won’t be necessary.’ Florin’s answer came a little too quickly and firmly. The woman looked up.
She’s not stupid, thought Beatrice. She’s realised it would be better not to ask for details.
‘It’s a complicated case, and we can’t allow the details to make their way into the public eye yet,’ explained Florin. ‘But I promise we’ll let you know when we find out who did this, and the circumstances.’
‘Could you not at least tell me how it happened? Was he shot… or beaten up? Did he go quickly?’
Beatrice thought about the ear. The garden shears.
‘I’m sorry.’ She filled those two words with genuine sympathy. ‘At the moment we don’t yet know. But you would be helping us very much with our investigations if you could look at these photos for us.’
Without holding out any great hope, Beatrice fetched the pictures of Nora Papenberg from her bag. But Nora’s face was completely unknown to Romana Liebscher.
A sombre mood dominated the car journey to Herbert Liebscher’s apartment, even though Florin was constantly searching the radio for a station playing upbeat tunes. It was already getting dark outside. Beatrice looked at her watch; it was after eight. They would have a quick look around the apartment and search for contact details of any friends or acquaintances. Take the computer with them, if there was one. Speak to the neighbours.
The apartment was on the second floor, and there was no lift. As they opened the door, they were met by the smell of kitchen waste in urgent need of disposal.
‘I’ll go in first, if that’s okay with you,’ said Florin. A quick glance through the few rooms was enough to clarify that they were alone.
Liebscher had clearly been content with a modest amount of space. A living room, a bedroom, a kitchen with a small table, and a compact bathroom. On the kitchen table stood a full ashtray and the crockery from Liebscher’s last breakfast – the half-eaten marmalade on toast had developed mould, while the remains of his coffee had dried up in the mug to form a congealed black layer. Beatrice was overcome by the same sadness she had felt at the sight of Nora Papenberg’s unfinished bar of chocolate. She turned away, gave the stinking bin a wide berth and went into the bedroom.
An unmade bed. Wide enough to fit one person com fortably, but too narrow for two. A neat and tidy computer workstation, on which, alongside the keyboard and mouse, there were three piles of books. A bookcase, predominantly stocked with biographies, but with a few travel books and novels too – all the usual bestsellers. Amongst them, Beatrice spotted a small wooden box, like a mini treasure chest. With her gloved fingers, she picked it up off the shelf and opened the lid.
Coins. They were all in transparent plastic coating and displayed a variety of motifs – a ship, a wolf’s head, a logo—
‘Florin!’ Beatrice held one of the coins up into the light to make sure, but there was no doubt – there was the logo, and it was on the plastic coating too. ‘He was a cacher. Liebscher went geocaching!’
Geocoinclub: TFTC was inscribed on the copper-coloured coin, with a little stick man, hiking, depicted beneath in white enamel. Engraved on the edge, Beatrice found a combination of letters and numbers, a kind of code. On the other side, the stick man again, followed by another inscription: Track at Geocaching.com.
‘This is great.’ Squinting, Florin looked at the coin and then placed it back in the treasure chest. ‘Now we might finally be able to make some progress.’
Hopefully they would, as Stefan’s online research still hadn’t borne any fruit. He was reading through the geocaching forums on a daily basis and had made contact with a number of their members, but so far without success. There were no clues about anyone having left abnormal objects – like dead animals or excrement, perhaps – behind in caches before. No one had heard of any incidents like that. ‘The geocaching scene is incredibly clean and environ mentally aware,’ Stefan had declared, not without a certain degree of pride.
Beatrice searched through the desk, then went into the living room where there was another bookcase. There was also a sofa suite with a garish brown–green pattern, and in front of it a glass coffee table from which no one had wiped away the water rings. Opposite it was a dusty old-fashioned tube TV left on standby mode.
She didn’t see it right away, but her eyes were drawn back to the spot almost involuntarily. She stopped and stared.
TFTH
Someone had written the four letters on the TV screen, swirled through the dust.
‘Florin? Look at this!’ Beatrice pulled her camera out of her bag and shot five pictures in close-up, then another six from different distances and angles, before grabbing her phone and calling Drasche on his home number.
She heard the TV on in the background as he answered.
‘We’re in Liebscher’s apartment and we’ve got the computer, but you should come here too. It seems like the Owner has been here.’
After a short conversation with Drasche (‘Don’t touch anything else and get the hell out of there!’) Beatrice retreated to a quiet corner of the apartment and leant on the wall between the kitchen and the bathroom.
Maybe she was about to make a huge mistake. Or maybe it was exactly the right move. But she would only know afterwards. Hoffmann himself had said that she should exhaust all the possibilities, and Kossar hadn’t made a single suggestion. She was fed up of waiting. The Owner’s messages had been sent to her personally, so it was time to react personally.
She opened the last text he had sent her – Cold, completely cold – and pressed ‘Reply’. Debating for a moment exactly what to say, she realised that, given where they were, there was only one possibility.
Herbert Liebscher
It looked like the beginning of a sentence, of a newspaper report, as if she were about to write: ‘Herbert Liebscher was murdered in early May; it was a week before anyone noticed he was missing.’ Or perhaps: ‘Herbert Liebscher: You cut off his hands and ears. We may be slow, but we’re getting closer.’