She sent it and went off to fetch a bottle of iced tea from the vending machine. With the drink in her hand, she looked for a peaceful spot outside. The tea was unbearably sweet and so cold that pain shot to her temples with every sip.
She needed to take a break for half an hour, so she drank slowly. She wanted to give him time – if he hadn’t connected to the network so far, then he might do so soon. Then she could respond immediately. The exchange of messages pleased him; that was quite obvious. He enjoyed the innuendos, the surprises he gave her. He would want to see her reaction.
But it wasn’t until three the next morning that the strains of ‘Message in a Bottle’ announced the arrival of a new message. Wide awake from one second to the next, and with her heart pounding at a worrying speed, Beatrice sat bolt upright.
You want to know whether Sigart is alive? He is. So far. But he’s in a bad way. If you’re that fond of him, I’ll keep him for you until the end. I hope you’ll appreciate it.
Until the end. If ever a piece of information was a double-edged sword, then it was this. So there was still a chance of saving Sigart, but at the same time the Owner was saying he wasn’t yet done with the murders. Stage Four was still unsolved, of course, the puzzle they had refused help with. Stefan was continuing with the research, but even if he were to find something, and something quite definite, they wouldn’t question the key figure, but instead have him watched around the clock. If the Owner was lurking somewhere in the vicinity of his next potential victim, waiting for the police to show up, then they might have a chance of catching him.
Would there be a Stage Five?
She read through the message again.
The next thing to find its way into Beatrice’s consciousness was the peeping of the alarm clock. She had managed to go back to sleep after all, her mobile phone clasped tightly in her hand like a talisman.
Kossar didn’t agree with her theory. ‘Keeping him until the end could also mean keeping his corpse until the end. Don’t let him lull you into a false sense of security.’ The gaze behind the slender lenses was full of the psychologist sensitivity Beatrice had found so abhorrent in her lecturers at university. ‘Remember the state of the flat – he lost an awful amount of blood, and I’m sure he carried on bleeding after he was bundled into the car.’
He could spare her the know-it-all tone. Beatrice had no intention of arguing with him. She waited until she was alone with Florin in the office, then called Drasche.
‘Without medical care it would be unlikely he’d survive,’ he said dispassionately. ‘Maybe he didn’t die immediately, but I wouldn’t hold out too much hope.’
‘Was all of the blood his, then?’
‘Yes.’ The answer came without hesitation. ‘AB negative, and you don’t get much rarer than that. The finger and all the traces of blood originate from the same person. I compared my lab data with Sigart’s medical file, and all the parameters match. His finger, his blood. No traces of anyone else’s blood. The perpetrator clearly didn’t sustain any injuries.’
‘Thank you,’ said Beatrice quietly. The small amount of optimism that had visited her in the early hours of the morning had trickled away at Drasche’s words. For the rest of the day, she hoped for a message from the Owner, for another picture message showing that he had answered truthfully, that Sigart was alive. But her mobile remained silent.
According to her kitchen clock, it was just before midnight. When the phone rang, Beatrice was standing in front of the fridge in her bathrobe, her hair still wet.
‘We’ve got another body.’ Florin’s voice sounded incredibly weary. ‘And three guesses as to where it was found.’
‘Oh, shit. Sigart.’ So the Owner had gone against his word and killed him – or let him die of his injuries.
‘No, it doesn’t seem like it’s Sigart, going by the description. But it’s definitely one of our Owner’s victims.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘The body’s at the bridge, at the coordinates where we searched yesterday morning. I’m already on my way. It would be good if you could come too.’
Chapter 4
N47º 26.195, E013º 12.523
The red-and-white cordon tape fluttered in the night wind, while dazzling floodlights illuminated the foot of the bridge. Cold, completely cold, thought Beatrice as she got out of her car. She was shivering, but put that down to her wet hair. She had tied it into a low ponytail, and now felt as though she was carrying around a small, drowned animal at the nape of her neck.
Stefan came running over the bridge towards her. ‘Florin’s down below with the body. There’s not much room to move and they’re all stepping on each others’ toes down there, so I’m pretty sure they’ll bring the guy up soon. It’s unbelievable, Bea. He looks terrible.’
She nodded silently and pulled him along with her to the bridge wall, next to the floodlights.
Pale skin and a stocky body which bore no resemblance to Sigart’s gaunt frame. Twisted legs, naked feet. Beatrice couldn’t make out much more than that, because both Florin and Dr Vogt were leaning over the body, clearly struggling to keep their balance on the sloping embankment. Drasche was there too, more lying on the ground than sitting, busy grappling with the lock of his evidence case.
‘It looks like the Owner just pushed the guy off the bridge,’ Beatrice pondered out loud. He wouldn’t have had the time or the opportunity to place him down there – the road was really busy even at night. Had he not been able to find a better location? Had he decided to give up on his former principle of seclusion when selecting this one?
‘Do we have any idea yet of the dead man’s identity?’
‘No. There aren’t any new missing persons reports. But he was married. Drasche has taken the wedding ring for examination.’ Stefan shrugged. ‘It must have been a really gruesome way to go though. Even Vogt says he’s never seen anything like it.’
The three men were now clambering up the embankment one after the other, while a few uniformed officers got ready to haul the corpse up to the top. Drasche was the first to step over the low wall, holding out a plastic evidence bag towards Beatrice. The wedding ring.
‘Graciella, 19.6.2011,’ he said. ‘Our grieving widow.’
She made a note of the information; the unusual name was a gift that would make their work easier.
‘Hey, Bea.’ In the glare of the floodlight, Florin looked almost as pale as the corpse. He took the cigarette offered to him by Drasche – an absolute first.
‘I’ll come along to the autopsy,’ he said, taking a deep drag of smoke. ‘I want to know what the body looks like internally.’
Why? Beatrice wanted to ask, but the two policemen had just lifted the man over the wall. They laid him down on a tarpaulin, and Beatrice signalled for them to wait before covering him up.
The very next moment, she regretted her decision, but forced herself not to look away.
A red-and-black crater was located where the man’s right eye would once have been. Festering lava had oozed out, burrowing deep grooves and exposing raw flesh.
The dead man was baring his teeth like a bulldog about to bite, and it was only on closer inspection that Beatrice realised the contorted expression wasn’t due to scorn or pain, but a missing lower lip. It was as if it had melted away. The stained tongue protruded out from between the teeth, an oversized, blood-bloated leech. The inside of his mouth was a darkly encrusted wasteland.
‘How did that happen?’ she asked Vogt, who had come over to stand next to her.
‘My guess would be acid, perhaps acetic or hydrofluoric. Do you see the dark crust on the mucous membrane? That’s a typical sign of it.’