‘You mean he drank acid?’
‘Or was forced to, more like. I can only say for sure after the body’s been opened up, but I’m expecting to find a corroded oesophagus and perforated stomach, as well as mediastinitis. We’ll see. We also found marks around the hands and ankles indicating that he’d been restrained, similar to those on Christoph Beil, but cutting in more deeply this time. Cable tie, if you ask me.’
Beatrice’s mind recalled the image of Nora Papenberg, lying face down on the meadow, her hands tied behind her back. Cable tie, as white as the dead skin beneath it.
Vogt nodded to the policemen to cover up the body, and this time Beatrice didn’t stop them. ‘What about the eye?’ she asked.
‘The same thing. And downright horrific, because it was ante mortem.’ He saw the unspoken question in her face. ‘The eyelid was corroded. He must have tried to close it in order to protect the eye. Not too pleasant.’ He left her standing there and went over to his car, where he pulled out a muesli bar from the glove compartment.
On the opposite side of the street towered the stone figure of a saint, a woman in long robes holding a tower in her hands and staring down to the ground. Florin was sitting at her feet, another cigarette between his fingers, looking over at Beatrice.
‘Don’t make a habit of that,’ she said.
‘I won’t. Anneke hates it when I smoke.’ He took two more deep drags, then stubbed the cigarette out next to him in the grass. ‘I’d like to call on Konrad Papenberg again. Let’s see if he has an alibi for tonight. Who else is there – Beil’s wife? Would she be capable of hauling along a guy like that?’ He looked at Beatrice, his head cocked to the side. ‘Would you be able to manage it?’
‘Not alone. And besides…’ She tried to formulate her thoughts into comprehensible words. ‘I don’t think it was Papenberg or Vera Beil. Or Liebscher’s ex-wife. It just doesn’t make sense.’
‘That’s not a strong enough argument.’
‘I know. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m wrong. If you look at the messages the Owner’s sent me so far, can you really imagine them coming from Konrad Papenberg? Or from Vera Beil? It’s just not her tone.’
Florin didn’t answer right away. He stared at the crumpled cigarette, clearly regretting having smoked it. ‘That’s irrelevant. We’ve distanced ourselves much too far from our normal method of working. We’ve let the Owner force his games on us and stupidly believed that he’d keep to the rules he himself made. Initially he waited until we’d found his next victim before attacking. But now he’s lost patience – either that or he’s just having too much fun. Who knows, for fuck’s sake!’
A jolt went through Beatrice. For a split second she had grasped onto an important detail, something had locked into place, but then the thought slipped away again as quickly as it had come. At first the Owner had waited, but now he was there ahead of them… there was something behind that, something important. She repeated every one of Florin’s words in her mind, but the thought refused to come back, like a shy wild animal hiding in the undergrowth.
Florin had already stood up and was walking towards the pathologist’s vehicle, which had finally turned up. He stood there, a black silhouette against the floodlight, watching as the unknown dead man was put into a body bag.
We all end up in containers eventually, thought Beatrice.
‘Am I dealing with a bunch of amateurs here, or what?’ Hoffmann’s spit flew right across the table. Even though the day had only just begun, all the people around it looked utterly exhausted.
‘Four dead bodies, possibly five, and in just two weeks! There must be suspects, witnesses, something!’
With that last word, his voice had taken on a pleading tone. He seemed to have heard it himself, as he frowned and crossed his arms in front of his chest.
‘Kaspary! Maybe you could make a contribution for a change. What do we know so far about the new victim?’
She squared her shoulders. ‘Male, between forty and forty-five years old, of stocky build. According to Dr Vogt the cause of death was probably the intake of a strongly corrosive fluid.’
‘I mean his identity! Is there anything to go on yet?’
‘He didn’t have any ID on him, and we don’t have any recent missing persons reports, but we do have a wedding ring and what’s likely to be the wife’s forename.’
‘You’ve been lucky then. So get on with it, okay? Do you have any idea what kind of pressure the Department of Public Prosecutions is putting me under? And several times a day at that!’
‘We’ve already started looking for witnesses who may have driven over the bridge at the time of the crime,’ Florin interjected. ‘It’s virtually impossible that the perpetrator would have been able to park there and get rid of the body without being spotted by someone. And we’re also applying for a search warrant for Konrad Papenberg’s house.’
‘Okay.’ Hoffmann wiped a hand over his sweaty brow. ‘What about the last puzzle? The key figure? Have you found someone who fits the description?’
Stefan raised his hand. ‘We’ve found three people where the most important points match up, but the clues are unfortunately very vague—’
‘And? Check the people out then! For heaven’s sake, don’t be such a girl, Gerlach!’ With an expression of exaggerated suffering, Hoffmann leant back in his chair. ‘As soon as you have something, come straight to me. The press have already got wind of the latest murder, so that means I’ll have to give a press conference tomorrow. And God help you if I have to stand there with empty hands.’
The online telephone register was a speedier source of information than the public registry, so Beatrice started with that, finding only three Graciellas in the entire district of Salzburg. She printed out the telephone numbers and tried to work out which of them was the most likely. One Graciella was listed in the phone book alongside her husband – a Carlos Assante.
The dead man from yesterday hadn’t looked Mediterranean or Latin enough to be called Carlos Assante, so Beatrice moved this number to the bottom of the list. The two other entries only had mobile numbers listed.
‘Hello?’
‘Good morning, Frau Perner. This is Beatrice Kaspary, Salzburg Landeskriminalamt.’
A shocked intake of breath. ‘What’s happened?’
‘I’d like to know where your husband is.’
‘What?’
‘Your husband. Do you know where he is?’
‘Yes. He’s in the bathroom, shaving. Do you want to speak to him?’
‘No, in that case everything is fine. Have a good day!’ Without waiting for the woman to respond, she hung up. Two more numbers, and if neither of them brought results then she would need the registry after all. It would probably be a good idea to look for Graciellas outside Salzburg too, and maybe even across the border in Bavaria.
‘Hello, who’s speaking?’ The woman’s voice was throaty and cheerful.
‘Beatrice Kaspary, Landeskriminalamt.’
‘Oh.’
‘Are you Graciella Estermann?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘Could you tell me where your husband is?’
In the background, Beatrice could hear children’s voices, then a dull crackle as the woman covered the speaker of her mobile. A few seconds later, the tone was clear again and the clamour silenced.
‘What do you want from my husband?’ The question didn’t sound unfriendly, but cautious.
‘Nothing special. I just need to know where he is.’
‘I can’t tell you precisely. He’s been away for the past week, on business.’
Beatrice’s pulse quickened. ‘When did he last get in touch with you?’