It was a long time since she had been able to enjoy a meal without having to stare at her computer or tame her children at the same time. The roast beef was tender, cut at just the right thickness, and Florin had warmed up a baguette to go with it. Because Beatrice didn’t have the slightest desire to let her enjoyment of it be diminished, she drank another glass of champagne, noticing how light-headed it was making her.
‘Why are you doing this?’ The question slipped out before she could stop it.
‘What exactly am I doing?’
‘Inviting me round after the working day’s over. I would have thought you’d be relieved not to have me under your feet any more.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘I like having you under my feet, as you so nicely put it. And besides—’ He stopped, shook his head and topped up both their glasses.
‘Carry on.’
‘No. It might come out the wrong way. It’s the kind of comment which could lead to a misunderstanding.’
She tried to formulate a question in her mind that would encourage him to be more specific, but he shook his head with a smile before she could come up with one. ‘Wrong day, wrong time, wrong mood.’
Beatrice put her glass down on the table, suddenly aware of how tired she felt. ‘Which door is the bathroom?’
‘The second on the right.’
It was spacious, tiled in elegant grey and far too well lit. The mirror confronted Beatrice with her pale face, tired eyes, and the dark rings beneath them. For a moment, she thought about reapplying her lipstick, but immediately dismissed the thought as ridiculous.
Instead, she splashed a little water on her face and looked at the clock. It was already half-past one in the morning.
‘I have to get going,’ she said as she walked back into the living area.
‘Or you could sleep here.’ He held his hands up reassuringly before she could respond. ‘I have a spare room with lots of space, and no, you wouldn’t be imposing.’ He pointed towards a door behind him. ‘I really would prefer it if you did. After all, we drank more than one glass.’
Beatrice gave in. It was less the thought of the ten-minute drive, and more that of her empty apartment with the nocturnally active telephone.
When Christoph Beil awoke, the world around him consisted of intense darkness. For a few moments, boundless gratitude streamed through him.
He had dreamt it all.
But the very next moment, the pain came back. His sore wrists were burning and throbbing behind his back, and every time he swallowed it felt as if nails were tearing into his larynx. It was all real. He hadn’t survived anything.
At least he seemed to be alone now. He held his breath, listening in case he could still hear breathing in the room. He heard something, but it might have been the wind. A gentle, quiet breeze between the leaves.
Gradually, he began to realise that the darkness wasn’t necessarily synonymous with night. Something had been bound tightly around his head and eyes.
The noose around his neck was gone, and he was sitting now, but the pain in his throat was still unbearable. He tried not to swallow, but that only made it more difficult. His salivary glands worked as though his very awareness of their existence was spurring them on to hyperactivity.
It hurt so much.
He whimpered involuntarily. Thought about the policewoman with the blonde hair who had given him a chance. Wished fervently, with all the energy he had left, that he could turn back time.
There. A noise. He raised his head and struggled to suppress a sob. Tried to speak, but his voice was only a rasp and trembled so much that hardly a word he said was decipherable. At the third attempt, he managed to get a whole sentence out.
‘Will you… let me go?’
He didn’t get an answer. Maybe he was mistaken; maybe he was alone after all and his mind was just playing tricks with him. That would be good. Better than the alternative.
It was only when he heard the cough that he realised his senses were still functioning. He struggled against the ties that bound him. ‘Please, let me go, I’ve told you everything.’
A hand on his head, almost a caress. And then the voice.
‘That doesn’t change the fact that I still don’t know enough.’
The morning was sunny and bright, announcing its arrival through the broad slats of the half-shut Venetian blinds. Beatrice awoke gradually for a change, drifting slowly and languidly at the surface of her consciousness.
The shirt she was wearing smelt of unfamiliar washing powder. Because… she wasn’t at home, but in Florin’s spare room. She sat up, feeling as though she had slept too late, but her watch said it was only half-past six. Her next glance was directed at her mobile, and even though she was sure an incoming message would have woken her, she still checked to be sure. Nothing.
Tiptoeing on bare feet, she made her way out to the bathroom. Florin was standing at the hob frying eggs, his hair still wet. ‘I’ve put towels on the stool next to the shower, and you’ll find everything else by the sink,’ he called.
While she was brushing her teeth, Beatrice wondered why she felt much fresher than she usually did at this time of the morning. And younger. It reminded her of her days as a student, of staying overnight in unfamiliar flatshares after long parties, of—
Pushing the thoughts away, she rinsed out her mouth, got under the shower and started to plan the day ahead. Their main goal was to find the key figure.
‘We worked on it all night.’ Drasche shot Beatrice a look which implied that she was personally responsible for that fact. ‘The apartment wasn’t the scene of the crime, that much is clear.’
‘Did you find fingerprints? The letters on the TV screen were most likely left by the killer.’
‘Who wore gloves, yet again.’ He raised his coffee cup to his lips, took a slurp and pulled a face. ‘All of the prints we’ve evaluated so far are the victim’s. For which, as luck would have it, we have a variety of fingers at our disposal for comparison.’ He laughed. ‘The car hasn’t been much help either. There are some hairs, presumably belonging to Beil’s wife. Unless the perpetrator has long blonde hair – shit!’ In the process of gesticulating wildly to depict the hair length, Drasche had spilt coffee all over his shirt. ‘So, did you two at least manage to get home at a reasonable hour in the end?’
Beatrice felt herself go red. Of course Drasche didn’t know anything about her sleepover – innocent sleepover – at Florin’s. Each of them had driven to work in their own cars. But she still felt as though she’d been caught in the act.
‘There’s no need to look so offended. I know you two work hard too.’
Offended. Smiling, Beatrice shook her head. Drasche was in exactly the right job with the forensics. He wouldn’t have been suited as a psychologist.
As soon as she was out of the room, the first person she saw – appropriately, given that last thought – was Kossar, waiting in front of the door to her office. She sighed and ushered him in.
‘I had a very interesting evening,’ he began. ‘Where’s Wenninger? I think this will interest him too. In fact, I’m sure it will.’
‘Florin’s with Hoffmann. I’m sure he’ll be here soon though, so let’s make a start. Do you want a coffee?’
He did. While Beatrice busied herself with the machine, he sauntered around the room, inspecting everything closely as though he was thinking of buying it.
It was only when she sat down that he too pulled up a chair. ‘I haven’t created a definitive perpetrator profile yet, of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll need to study as many similar cases as I can from the files before I can make a substantiated testimony. But I have managed to establish some first impressions, and in my opinion they should stand up to inspection.’ He looked at Beatrice expectantly.