Then go to hell, Bernd, if you can’t even make time for us on holiday.
And that’s exactly what he had done. He had taken the most direct and harrowing route to hell imaginable.
When he looked up, Anja Maly’s gaze was resting on him, patient and empathetic. He pulled himself together. ‘I wasn’t there, that’s what it comes down to. There’s no way that therapy can erase that knowledge from my mind. If I hadn’t driven to the stud farm, if I’d sent a colleague instead, my family would still be alive. There’s not a shadow of a doubt about that. I could have made sure that everyone got out of the house.’ He took a deep breath, but it was as though none of it was making its way into his lungs. ‘If you knew how often I dream about it. I smell the smoke and see the flames in the forest, but I don’t panic, I just open the door, then I get Miriam and wake the children quickly – Lukas and Hanna run out, and I carry Oskar. We even have enough time to take our most important possessions with us. By the time we’re sat in the car the fire is getting closer, but the route down to the valley is clear, and it only takes us ten minutes to get down there. Miriam has phoned the emergency services on her mobile, and they pass us on the road, two big fire engines, their sirens turned on. I park by the church and know that everything’s fine. I turn around and see the children on the back seat, and I’m almost exploding with happiness, because I did things right this time, I turned back the clock. Miriam puts her hand on my shoulder, and Lukas says: “Do you think there’ll be another fire engine, Papa?” And then I wake up.’
He could feel the tears running down his face, but didn’t wipe them away. He didn’t have the strength to lift his hand. ‘Every time I think – this time it will kill me, that moment when I realise they’re all gone, for ever. Do you know what I do then?’
Anja Maly shook her head, looking moved. ‘Tell me.’
‘I make it worse. In my head, I go back to the moment when I saw what the fire did to my children. Charred, distorted… things. So tiny. Did you know that the heat can make limbs explode?’
His words were clearly getting to her. She had children herself, her assistant had told him that, and he could see in her eyes that she was trying to stop the picture he was so vividly describing from seeping into her mind.
‘Every single time I think the pain is going to kill me, because it really feels like that. Physical cramps, choking fits. But it never happens.’ He sank his gaze down to the parquet floor. ‘Other people die so easily. They have heart attacks, or cancer. My body just keeps living… unless I destroy it with my own hands.’
Maly cleared her throat. ‘You’re punishing yourself for something that isn’t your responsibility. I can understand that you make a connection between your absence and the death of your family, but it wasn’t in your power to predict such a fateful event—’
He interrupted her with a wave of his hand. ‘Let’s leave it. There was something unusual that happened last week, as it happens. It might be of interest to you.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘The police paid me a visit.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘It was about some woman who was murdered. It was really strange actually – the police wanted to know if I knew her. But I didn’t.’
‘So then why is the event significant to you?’
Good question. ‘I don’t know. Maybe because it was the first time in a long while that I’ve spoken to the police. A woman and a man, they were both very considerate.’ He stopped, trying to formulate a thought, and wondered how Maly would interpret it. ‘It was almost a good feeling, somehow, speaking about a murder case that didn’t affect me.’
His quota is over 2,000. He never concedes defeat – or so he claims – he has a loud voice and he refuses to tolerate any contradiction.
Beatrice read through the description of the ‘key figure’ for what must have been the tenth time in a row. The word she kept lingering over was ‘quota’. What kind of quota could be over 2,000? A hit ratio? Was the man connected with weapons in some way?
She rubbed her forehead. Weren’t quotas usually given in percentages? But 2,000 per cent was mathematical nonsense. What was plausible, though, was 2,000 geocaches. In this context, it could be a highly active cacher, a real professional. Someone like that should be easy enough to track down online.
His eyes may be green or blue, but you’ll have to find that out for yourself. He makes a living by selling things which, as he himself says, no one needs. He’s good at it, too.
So he works in sales of some kind. Perhaps the quota was in reference to that? Wasn’t there something like in-house sales statistics in a lot of companies?
It was infuriating: nothing, nothing at all in this clue could be used. Especially not the last sentence of the description.
He has two sons, one of whom is called Felix.
Felix could just as easily be three as twenty-three, and the number of boys named Felix in the surrounding area was probably in the thousands. Exasperated, Beatrice struggled to think clearly. ‘The other two clues were child’s play compared to this—’
At that moment, her phone vibrated.
Beatrice jumped up and grabbed for her phone, feeling her heart pound throughout her entire body.
It wasn’t a message from the Owner, but Achim, who must have somehow found out that the children were at Mooserhof.
You should have custody taken away from you. You’re always offloading the kids, and have been for years. You’re not fit to be a mother.
Feeling raw inside, Beatrice erased the message. Her gaze met Florin’s. He was clearly waiting for her to say something.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s just another message from my ex.’
She put her mobile away again, aware of him watching her. ‘You were expecting something else, right?’ he asked.
All she could manage was a shrug. ‘Well, it could have been the Owner.’ For a few moments, Beatrice was tempted to tell Florin about the lone hand she had played. If you could call it that, but the description seemed to hit the nail on the head. Hoffmann would go mad if he found out she had taken it upon herself to respond to the killer without consulting the others first.
Well, then he would finally have something worth going mad about.
She changed the subject. ‘If we’re not making any progress on the next stage, then how about with Herbert Liebscher? Has anyone questioned his colleagues at the school yet?’
‘Stefan went there with two of our guys. But nothing useful came of it. Three of Liebscher’s colleagues knew that he was a geocacher, so Stefan spoke to them for a good while, but unfortunately he didn’t find out anything we don’t already know.’
Beatrice drew circles on her notepad, lost in thought. ‘Liebscher went geocaching, we can take that as a given. But Papenberg didn’t, unless her husband was lying to us, which would pose the question of why. And we didn’t question Beil about it.’ Beatrice didn’t say it out loud, but she doubted they would ever get the opportunity to remedy that.
Beil’s wife phoned their office for what must have been the fifth time that day – she had been out of her mind with worry ever since hearing that her husband’s car had been found. Luckily for Beatrice, Florin took the call, repeating with seemingly limitless patience the same thing he had already said the last few times. That they were doing everything they could to find Christoph Beil. That they would be in touch as soon as they had any news. Then he paused. ‘Actually, it’s possible you might be able to help us with something. Do you happen to know whether your husband ever went geocaching?’ He turned the phone onto loudspeaker so Beatrice could listen in.