The part of Herbert Liebscher’s body which had once steered his thoughts, housed his memories and directed his senses was now wrapped in the same strong plastic film that had surrounded all the others.
Beatrice and Florin silently exchanged looks. Vogt wouldn’t need to ponder over the cause of death this time. Half of Liebscher’s head had been shot clean away; a large chunk of the right temple was missing, grey brain mass clinging to the inside of the plastic film.
Less obvious, but noticeable nonetheless, were the missing ears. On one side, the wound was dark red and scabbed, while on the other it was smooth and pale. The uneven teeth, stained a brownish yellow, were bared.
A tea drinker, thought Beatrice, or a heavy smoker.
Gases had collected under the film, swelling out the plastic and threatening to burst it in the not-too-distant future.
‘We’ve nearly got the whole guy now,’ observed Drasche. He carefully pulled the usual two notes out from under the head.
‘You’ll get the photos this afternoon, and the information as soon as I get back. Watch your backs, guys, this is getting more gruesome by the day.’
‘No, stop.’ Beatrice went over to him. ‘I want to read them now, see the handwriting.’ She ignored Drasche’s groan and peered over his shoulder.
Nora Papenberg’s handwriting again, now almost as familiar as that of an old friend.
Stage Five
You’re searching for a torn woman. Indecisiveness has made her sick, and one day it will cost her her life. She is both guilty and innocent at the same time, like most of us, but she bears her guilt more heavily than most.
Look for dark hair and a name to match, for talent in flute and composition.
Once again, the year of birth is the key: add 15 to the last two digits of the number and multiply by 250. Add 254 and subtract the result from the northern coordinates from Stage Four. Multiply the first two digits by the second two digits of the birth year, add the number 153 to the result and then add the resulting sum to the eastern coordinates.
We’ll see each other there.
A woman, for the first time. No, that wasn’t entirely true – the case had begun with Nora Papenberg, but there hadn’t been any search leading to her.
Could it be that the Owner placed significance on symmetry? A woman at the start, four men, then a woman again at the end? No, he’d said he planned to keep Sigart until the end.
Drasche was now reading out the cache note – Congratulations, you’ve found it! This time it was worth it, don’t you think? – but she was only half-listening. Flute and composition. That sounded like a student or teacher at the Mozarteum. Dark hair and a name to match.
Florin already had the car engine running. This time, they would beat the Owner to it.
Torn woman sounded quite worrying, particularly as the Owner seemed to be developing a fondness for the literal. While she and Florin were in the car, Beatrice requested a list of female students studying composition and flute from the Mozarteum. She also requested a second list of the names of the teachers, and a third of alumni.
‘That’s a good start.’ They were the first words Florin had uttered since they drove off. ‘Don’t forget the private academies.’
‘I won’t. But first there’s something else I want to check out.’ She looked through her notes for the telephone number of the conductor for the choir Christoph Beil had sung in.
‘Kaspary here, LKA. Could you tell me where you normally hold your choir practice?’
‘In the church. There are set times when we’re allowed to use the space.’
‘I see. And you never hold them anywhere else?’
‘Well,’ said the man hesitantly. ‘Occasionally, ahead of really important concerts, we use one of the rooms in the Mozarteum.’
‘Thank you.’ Feeling that she finally had something important within her sights, Beatrice tucked her phone away. ‘You’ll see,’ she said to Florin. ‘We’ll find what we’re looking for at the Mozarteum.’
But when the lists arrived, Beatrice’s suspicions weren’t confirmed. Dark hair and a name to match – she had hoped for an obvious choice: something Mediterranean, or literal, like ‘Schwarz’, for example. She hadn’t reckoned with the large number of students from Japan and China studying music in Salzburg. They were particularly prevalent in the flute classes, regardless of whether it was the transverse or wooden flute.
‘Shit,’ groaned Beatrice, leafing through the printouts. ‘It’s going to be impossible to check them all out. The ex-alumni have long since moved away, and the others…’ She rested her head in one hand, closing her eyes for a moment. What if she discounted the international students initially? The clue could refer to one of them, of course, but so far all the victims had been locals.
Using this approach, she looked through the list again, but the darkest name she came across was ‘Wolf’. Alexandra Wolf. Dark in a mystical sense, perhaps? She requested the girl’s details, but instinct told her she hadn’t yet found who they were looking for.
She read through the Owner’s message once more, and then again. A torn woman. Sick with indecisiveness, both guilty and innocent. Perpetrator and victim?
Look for talent in flute and composition. Talent, not qualifications.
A picture began to form in Beatrice’s mind. Someone haunted by a past event, someone who felt guilty and distraught. Torn. Or perhaps they had been torn from something – their studies, for example. Beatrice picked up the phone.
‘It’s Beatrice Kaspary again. Do you happen to have any records of female students who interrupted their studies there at the Mozarteum? I’m thinking in particular of the flute and composition classes.’
The woman at the other end of the line sighed. ‘That’s a difficult one. We can of course find out who quit, but it’s a time-consuming task when you don’t know who you’re looking for.’ It seemed quite clear that she wasn’t contemplating making the effort. ‘Do you at least know when the girl in question broke off her studies?’
‘No.’ Don’t get discouraged, Beatrice told herself. ‘Send me the files from the last ten years. That should be enough.’
Another sigh. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘His nickname was “DescartesHL” and his password “skyblue”.’ The air in Stefan’s office was sticky. Bechner, who he shared the room with, had an issue with open windows – a pollen allergy.
‘He found over nine hundred caches, most of them here and in Bavaria, but it seems he used to go caching while he was on holiday too.’ Stefan scrolled down the page to a bar chart that showed which countries Liebscher had gone cache-hunting in: Italy, France, Great Britain. Even the USA.
‘Most geocachers love their statistics,’ explained Stefan. ‘Look, there’s a percentage calculation of which days of the week he was most active on. Sunday is at the top, which is no surprise.’
‘This is great work, thank you.’ Beatrice noted the details down on a scrap of paper.
Descartes. Everything that is entirely probable is probably false. The Owner knew the nickname and had built it into his game; he had known about Liebscher’s hobby. Is that why he’d hidden his body parts all over Salzburg, as if his corpse was a puzzle they had to piece together?
No. That was too simple. Too banal.
‘DescartesHL,’ she reported to Florin shortly later. ‘It’s pretty clear that HL stands for Herbert Liebscher. And Descartes, well, it seems he couldn’t let go of the mathematician in him even on his days off.’