Graciella Estermann turned out to be a pretty, dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties, who evidently found it difficult to stay sitting down for even a minute. ‘After your call I took the children to school, then tried another five or six times to reach Rudo, but it keeps going straight to voicemail.’ Her accent was audible, but her grammar was faultless. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and fixed her gaze on Florin. ‘What’s going on?’
There were no photos of Estermann on the wall or any of the shelves, only pictures of the two children – as babies, as clumsy toddlers, as school kids with gaps in their teeth.
‘Before we continue, we’d like to ask you to show us a photo of your husband.’
‘Why?’ Rather than showing any signs of concern, she seemed intrigued. Cool, that was it.
‘We’ll be happy to explain once we’ve seen it.’
It was quite clear that she wasn’t happy with the order of the proceedings, but eventually she shrugged and went to rummage around in the bookshelves, pulling out a small photo album.
‘Madre de Dios,’ she mumbled, laying it in front of Florin and Beatrice on the coffee table.
Wedding photos. Even the first photo was enough to confirm that they wouldn’t need to keep searching. The Rudolf Estermann in the picture looked very much like the dead man, even though he had been younger and slimmer at the time the photo was taken, as well as having two eyes and a lower lip.
Beatrice and Florin’s silence clearly lasted a little too long, and Graciella Estermann immediately caught on.
‘Something’s happened to Rudo, hasn’t it? Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?’
‘We found a dead body last night, without any identification papers. It seems that it may unfortunately be —’
‘Rudo?’ Her voice had become louder, as if the thought made her angry. ‘Was he drink-driving again? What was it – did he drive into a tree this time?’
‘No. There’s a possibility that he may have been murdered.’
That silenced the woman. She slowly lifted her hands to her mouth, as if to make sure that no sound would escape from it.
‘What happened? Was he killed in a brawl? An argument?’ she asked.
A strange question.
‘Is that something you might have expected?’
A look of slight regret crept across Graciella Estermann’s face, as if she would have liked to retract her question. ‘Not expected, no, but it wouldn’t have been a great surprise.’
Beatrice leant forward. ‘Tell me about your husband.’
‘He drinks a lot and can’t keep his hands off other women.’ She stood up and walked over to the window, then from there to the bookcase. She took a book out, looked at it, put it back again, then picked up another. ‘He isn’t a good man. You can ask everyone who knows him.’ She suddenly froze, holding her breath. ‘But I didn’t kill him, in case you think that!’
They didn’t get the opportunity to respond, as Gabriella Estermann just kept on talking. Within ten minutes, they knew the majority of her life history, particularly the story of her marriage. Estermann had met Graciella in Mexico, where she used to work in a hotel. Everything had happened quickly: love, disillusionment, alienation, resentment. Two children.
‘Well, you don’t look too surprised by the news,’ said Beatrice finally. ‘With a murder case, that does tend to make us a little suspicious.’
‘You wouldn’t be surprised either,’ the woman retorted. ‘Rudo had more trouble in his life than any other man I know. If anyone so much as looked at him funny, that was enough to set him off. If someone nabbed a parking space from him, he would smash up their headlights. He once even punched a waiter who brought him the wrong side dish with his steak.’ She looked at the book in her hands.
Trying to be discreet, Beatrice looked for any bruising on the woman’s arms or face. Nothing.
‘He hasn’t laid a hand on me in a long time, nor the children,’ said the woman with a sad smile. She was really sharp; clearly she had picked up on Beatrice’s train of thought despite all her attempts at discretion. ‘Not like that, and not in the other sense either. He was hardly ever at home.’ Her smile disappeared. ‘To be completely honest, I am a little surprised. I always thought Rudo would end up killing someone one day. Not the other way around.’ Her upper body suddenly seemed to sag, a trace of grief visible in her eyes for the first time.
So the man must have had enemies, and had maybe even been involved in criminal activity of some kind. Even though Beatrice was sure to find the information in his file, she asked all the same. ‘Could you tell me where your husband was born?’
If the question had taken Graciella by surprise, then she didn’t let on. ‘In Schaffhausen. His father was Swiss.’
Back in the office, it was time to decipher the coordinates for Stage Four. The ‘S’ had a value of nineteen, the ‘C’ three, and the ‘H’ eight. With an endearing eagerness, Stefan turned his attention to the task. He was perfectly capable of doing it alone. Beatrice tried not to disturb him, speaking quietly into the phone.
‘I think the Owner’s trying to get close to us. He sent me a message today, and his phone was connected to the network directly in this area. Why is he doing that? Does he want to look up at my window while he types?’
‘It’s very possible,’ replied Kossar after thinking for a moment. ‘On the one hand he feels safe enough to risk it, but on the other he enjoys the thrill that it might go wrong. He’s the stranger who lays his hand on your shoulder in the darkness, then disappears again without being caught.’
An icy shiver passed over Beatrice’s arms and back. ‘That doesn’t sound good to me.’
‘No. The Owner picked you as his contact, Beatrice. I think that before his game comes to an end, he’ll seek out a personal encounter with you.’
‘But why?’ She instinctively turned to look out of the window. Everything looked just as it always did. Nothing stood out or caught her attention. Stefan hadn’t noticed anything on his circuit around the building either.
But the Owner wants to show us that we’re slow, thought Beatrice, he wants to send his FTF victory messages and then thank us for our efforts, full of sarcasm. TFTH.
‘Maybe he’s not turning to me as an individual, but as a representative of a group. The police.’
‘We shouldn’t rule that out. Nor should we discount the idea that he finds you attractive, and perhaps that’s the reason why he wants to play his game with you rather than with Florin or even Hoffmann.’ Kossar cleared his throat. ‘If that’s the case, you need to be careful, Beatrice. I know I told you to lure him in with personal information, but that may not have been one of my best ideas.’
Was Kossar admitting to having made a mistake?
‘Don’t worry, I only gave him a date. Even if he understood what I meant, it won’t enable him to get any closer to me.’
‘Good.’ He seemed genuinely relieved. ‘Let’s leave it at that, okay? Don’t give him anything of a private nature.’
As if that would make any difference. As if he didn’t already know much more than I want him to.
Florin returned from the autopsy looking pale and grim-faced. The same hard look from the night before was in his eyes again, but this time there were no calming cigarettes within reach.
‘Estermann’s gullet was black inside. The tissue was completely dead, the stomach perforated. Vogt thinks he died from sepsis, so it would have taken two to three days of unbelievable pain. The whole of the chest area was inflamed and the gullet had developed festering sores.’