‘That’s… the thing with the navigation devices, right?’ The woman’s tear-choked voice resounded out from the speaker. ‘To be honest, I don’t know. He had so many hobbies. If he did do it, then he never told me about it.’
‘Don’t you spend your free time together?’
A hiccoughing sob. ‘Not always. He’s much more sporty than I am, and I don’t mind when he does things with friends without me. He always says a little distance keeps things fresh.’
‘So that means you don’t know exactly what he’s doing when he’s not at home?’
‘Well, most of the time he tells me. But it’s the same the other way around. I have my hobbies too.’
Beatrice, who had just brought up the geocaching website on her screen, was struck by an idea. ‘Ask her if her husband had a nickname,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps one that his friends gave him at school, or one that she used for him. Something along those lines.’
Florin nodded, but his question was initially met with incomprehension.
‘Why do you want to know that?’ asked the woman. ‘What does that have to do with the blood in his car, and the fact that he’s missing?’
Beatrice pointed to her screen, and Florin caught on. ‘It’s possible that your husband registered on Internet forums with a nickname of some kind. If you can help us a little we can narrow down our search and possibly find some clues. Does your husband have a PC at home?’
The sound of her breathing came through the loudspeaker. ‘He has a laptop. And I always call him my Grizzly Bear.’
There was a ‘GrizzlyBear’ on Geocaching.com, as well as a ‘GrizzleBear’, but neither of them were Christoph Beil. The first had only registered one found cache, which was back in 2009, in Berlin. The second had registered only five months ago, already logging over 500 finds. ‘But all of them in Baden-Württemberg,’ Beatrice declared.
Two hours later they had Beil’s laptop in their possession – his wife had handed it over without hesitation. Stefan took charge of searching for clues, opening the Web browser and looking through the bookmarks. Geocaching.com wasn’t there, not even in the history, which covered the last three months.
‘I’ll check the emails now,’ he declared. ‘He has an inbox stretching back four years. If he was sent messages via his geocaching account during that time, then we might find them here, which would give us his username too.’
But not even rummaging through his email folders brought anything to light. The disappointment was written all over Stefan’s face, even though he tried to hide it. ‘It looks like Beil wasn’t a geocacher then. With your agreement, I’d like to go through all the emails from the last few weeks with a fine-tooth comb. Maybe I’ll find something useful. Then I’ll send the laptop to the IT lab so they can bring any deleted data back from the dead on the hard drive.’
Every single path they pursued seemed to lead to a dead end. The investigation of Sigart’s patient files hadn’t unearthed anything either: it seemed neither Nora Papenberg nor Christoph Beil had taken their pets to him for treatment. Another idea smothered in the cradle. But there was no time to brood over it: one of Liebscher’s colleagues had emailed through some photos taken at a bowling night, including a few close-ups of Liebscher. He was laughing, exposing crooked teeth. Beatrice’s attention was drawn to his ears, her hand instinctively lifting to touch her own left ear as she thought about the cache.
‘Do you want to come and get a coffee with me?’ Kossar had popped up out of nowhere. His question was clearly directed solely at Beatrice.
‘Sorry. I’m busy.’ The way he looked at her made her feel uneasy. Whenever colleagues tried to approach her about anything other than work, she always felt the acute impulse to run away. She turned her concentration back to Liebscher’s photos. Pale blue eyes. They would fit in a very small container. A micro-cache.
Kossar seemed to have noticed her irritation. ‘I don’t mean to impose.’ His tone was significantly more businesslike than before. ‘But a chat over coffee might spark off some more ideas about the case. I’m happy to come back later if you—’
Her mobile beeped, announcing the arrival of a message.
With one quick lunge, she grabbed it from her bag and pressed ‘Read’.
Just one word. She stared at it, the context slowly dawning on her. But maybe she was wrong. Hopefully.
‘Bad news?’
She had to get rid of Kossar. Showing him the message right now would just bring on another of his gusts of hot air. She would tell him about it later. Once she had worked out her own thoughts on it.
‘It’s a family matter. With all due respect, I really must ask you to let me get on with my work.’
He stared at her for a moment. ‘Family, I understand. Yes, Hoffmann mentioned that you had a messy divorce behind you. If you’d like—’
‘Sorry if I didn’t express myself clearly enough, but I really don’t have much time and I have to work.’
‘How about the two of us go get some coffee?’ Florin stood up, walked over to Kossar and clapped him affably on the shoulder. ‘I could use a quick break. Let’s go.’ Beatrice, having known him for so long, was the only one to hear the edge of sharpness to his voice.
Kossar’s laugh sounded forced, but Beatrice barely noticed. The word on the screen of her phone was taking up all her attention:
Archived.
With one click, she found the caching dictionary under her favourites on the browser, opened it and confirmed that her suspicion was correct. An archived cache was one that had been taken out of operation. It was gone and wouldn’t be replaced.
First disabled. Then archived.
Presumably the Owner didn’t mean the container he had hidden for the police. He was being abstract. It was clear he was referring to something they were looking for, and right now, first and foremost, they were searching for Christoph Beil.
Archived. In the unusual peace and quiet of her empty office, Beatrice wondered whether the Owner was trying to tell them, in his own particular way, that Beil was no longer alive.
That evening, she drove to Mooserhof and found the children being kept very busy. Jakob – dressed in jeans and his pyjama top – was sweeping the floor, singing and distributing little packets of sugar among the tables, while Mina was in the process of serving a bottle of water and two glasses on a tray. Her gaze was fixed with the utmost concentration on the load in her hands, as if hoping that through hypnosis she could prevent them from falling.
Beatrice’s mother was standing behind the bar, pulling a pint of beer. ‘I didn’t expect to see you!’ She waited until the foam top was at the right thickness, then put the beer krug down and hugged Beatrice. ‘You look tired. Are you hungry? Hang on, I’ll tell André to bring you a portion of stuffed cabbage leaves – they’re delicious!’
Beatrice was about to protest, but didn’t have the energy. Besides, she really was hungry. Her stomach was practically screaming out for nourishment. ‘Okay. I really just came to see the children quickly though.’
‘But you’re not taking them with you today, are you?’
‘No. It’ll probably be another few days. This new case is… very unusual.’
Her mother looked indifferent to the explanation. ‘That’s fine. I love having them here, you know that.’