Bad Wolf (16 page)

“Hanna,” she replied, shaking his hand.

Only then did she notice the second man. A glance from disturbingly glacier blue eyes shot through her whole body without warning like an electric shock, making her knees tremble for a moment. She hardly noticed the rest of his face. He was a little taller than she was, but next to the giant, he looked like a dwarf. At that instant, Hanna was only too aware of how she looked—no makeup, her sweaty hair tied in a sloppy knot, T-shirt, jeans, running shoes. She hardly ever left the house looking like this, not even to go jogging.

“What would you like to drink?” Leonie Verges asked. “Water, diet Coke, nonalcoholic beer?”

“Water, thanks,” she said, feeling her initial annoyance changing to curiosity that went beyond purely professional interest in a good story. What was the purpose of this strange team? Why were these two men sitting in Leonie Verges’s kitchen at eleven o’clock at night? Why were they—without knowing her—convinced that she should be included in whatever they were planning? She accepted the glass of water and sat down on the corner bench at the small square table with the checked oilcloth. Mr. Blue Eyes took a seat to her left, and Leonie and the giant sat on the kitchen chairs.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” asked the giant, unexpectedly polite.

“Go ahead.”

He pulled out a pack and snicked his Zippo. A brief smile played across his stony face, as if noticing the craving in Hanna’s eyes.

“Please help yourself.” He shoved the pack over to her. She took a cigarette, thanked him with a nod, and saw that her fingers were trembling. She hadn’t had a smoke in four weeks, and the first drag had the effect of marijuana on her central nervous system. A second and third drag, and the vibration inside her vanished. She felt the gaze of Mr. Blue Eyes like a physical jolt; her skin grew hot and her pulse quickened. She realized that he hadn’t introduced himself. Or had she missed it? Asking him now seemed embarrassing.

For a moment, there was a tense silence as they assessed each other. Finally, Leonie spoke. She was sitting calmly on her chair, almost like in a therapy session, but beneath her laid-back exterior Hanna noticed a nervousness, and lines had appeared around her eyes and mouth—lines that were usually barely noticeable.

“I’ve called you here tonight for reasons that are not entirely altruistic,” she said. “We will tell you what it’s about, and then you can decide for yourself whether you think it might be an interesting story for your show or not. If you aren’t interested, simply forget this conversation. But before we tell you the details”—she paused briefly—“you ought to know that it’s a highly explosive matter, which could be extremely unpleasant and dangerous for a lot of people.”

This sounded like trouble, and right now Hanna needed more of that like a zit on her nose.

“Why did you decide to approach me?” she asked. She reached for the carafe of ice water on the table at the same time as Mr. Blue Eyes. Their hands touched, and she snatched hers back as if she’d been burned.

“Pardon me,” she muttered in embarrassment.

He just smiled briefly, then poured water for her and then himself.

“Because you have no qualms about taking on hot-button topics,” replied the giant instead of Leonie. “We’re familiar with your show.”

“I don’t normally talk about my patients,” Leonie put in. “My oath of confidentiality forbids it, of course, but in this special case I was released from that constraint, and I hope you will understand why.”

Hanna’s curiosity was definitely piqued, but she was still hesitant. This was not the way she usually worked. She and her team found topics that interested her, in the newspapers—on the Web, on the street. But to be honest, lately this type of research had lost its appeal. She’d interviewed Hartz IV families, single-trick cheats, teenage mothers, criminal migrant children, victims of quacks, and the like on her show dozens of times, and nobody was bowled over by them anymore. It was high time for a story that would draw really big ratings.

“What’s this about?” she asked, taking her voice recorder out of her pocket. “If you’re familiar with my broadcast, then you also know what we focus on. Human-interest stories with a fateful twist are what we do.”

She placed the recorder on the table.

“Is it all right if I record this conversation?”

“No,” said the man with the blue eyes, whose name she didn’t know. “No recording. Just listen carefully. If you don’t want to do it, this meeting never happened.”

Hanna looked at him. Her heart began to pound. She couldn’t stare him down for long. In his eyes she saw a mixture of strength and vulnerability that fascinated and disturbed her at the same time. And this time, she saw more than just his eyes. A sharply chiseled, lean face with a high forehead. Straight nose, prominent chin, a wide, sensitive mouth, his hair slightly graying—a remarkably attractive man. How old could he be? Forty-five or forty-six? What did he have to do with the giant biker guy? Why was he sitting here in Leonie Verges’s kitchen? What secret was weighing on his soul?

She lowered her eyes. In that very second, she’d made up her mind. She was interested by whatever the story might be, but something else was the deciding factor. This good-looking stranger with the piercing blue eyes had completely and unexpectedly touched something deep inside her, something she hadn’t thought even existed.

“Tell me what it’s about,” Hanna said. “I’m not afraid of hot-button topics. And I never say no to a good story.”

Thursday, June 24, 2010

The team meetings at K-11 took place in the usual room on the second floor; the ready room behind the watch room had been cleared out a few days before and returned to its original purpose.

Two weeks after the discovery of the girl’s body in the river, they were no closer to solving the case, despite a great deal of effort. The officers in the Mermaid Special Commission had followed up on countless tips and interviewed dozens of people, but nothing had panned out. No one knew the dead girl; no one missed her. An isotopic analysis had shown that the girl had grown up in the vicinity of Orsha, in Belarus, but had spent the last years of her short life in the Rhine-Main area. Even the male DNA that had been secured from under her fingernails and had given them a brief glimmer of hope had brought them no further, because it could not be found in any database.

All ships that had passed along the Main River within the relevant period had been located and inspected, although the police had been forced to restrict themselves to the vessels that had radar or had been registered at the locks. They had even checked the restaurant ships that were anchored in Frankfurt, as well as the tour boats. But there was nothing they could do about all the private sport boats that zipped about on the Main. The options for putting a body directly into the river from a bridge or even from the riverbank were so numerous that it would have required a colossal expenditure of personnel and technical efforts, with little hope of measurable results.

The media, craving results and some progress in the case, accused the police of acting blindly and wasting the taxpayers’ money.

“Unfortunately, even the cooperation with our colleagues in Minsk has not brought us any further,” Oliver von Bodenstein said as he took stock, feeling frustrated. “There is no missing person’s report in Belarus that matches the description of the deceased. A flyer campaign in the region of Orsha has also produced no results so far.”

Neither the girl’s clothes nor the fabric remnants from her stomach had produced any concrete leads in the investigation.

Bodenstein gazed at the silent team. The tension of being constantly in the public eye, along with two weeks of constant work with no weekends off, had taken their toll. He saw exhaustion and resignation in the faces of his colleagues, and he had the greatest sympathy for their state of mind, because he felt exactly the same way. He had seldom experienced a case in which there was so little to go on.

“I propose that you all go home and get some rest,” he said. “Stay in touch, though, in case something does come up.”

There was a knock on the door, and Dr. Nicola Engel came in. At the same moment, Ostermann’s laptop emitted a discreet trill.

“We received permission,” announced the commissioner. “Bodenstein, next week you’ll be going to Munich. Our Mermaid case will be featured on
Germany’s Most Wanted.
In any event, it’s worth a try.”

Bodenstein nodded. He had already discussed it with Pia. Unfortunately, summer vacation started tomorrow in the state of Hessen, and many people would be gone, but the TV show was one last chance for the police to get some helpful information from the public.

“Hey, people,” said Kai Ostermann. “I just got an e-mail from the lab in Wiesbaden. They’ve finally analyzed the water from the girl’s lungs.”

The fact that the girl had drowned in chlorinated water was one of the biggest riddles in this case. Bodenstein wasn’t the sort to rely heavily on lab results, but he’d insisted on an analysis of the water. He harbored the almost despairing hope for some kind of helpful lead.

“And?” he asked impatiently. “What did they find?”

Ostermann scanned the report.

“Sodium hypochlorite, sodium hydroxide,” he read aloud. “Those are the chemical components of chlorine tablets for swimming pools and Jacuzzis. Traces of aluminum sulfate were also found. Unfortunately, nothing that would give us a genuine lead. So I’m afraid we’re still looking for the needle in the haystack.”

“She didn’t drown in a public swimming pool. Somebody would have noticed,” said Kathrin Fachinger. “How about if we start an appeal in the press and ask people to call in if they have a pool on their property?”

“That’s crazy,” Pia countered. “In this region, there must be thousands of houses with swimming pools, and even more with Jacuzzis.”

“We’re not going to get a call from whoever owns the pool where the girl drowned,” said Kai.

“If we try to check out all the private swimming pools, we’ll have enough work to keep us busy for years,” added Cem Altunay, who had postponed his trip home to Turkey to see his wife and kids. “Do you want to make every pool owner submit to a water analysis?”

“Very funny,” Kathrin snapped in a huff. “I just wanted to point out that—”

“All right,” Bodenstein said, interrupting his young colleague. “This may not be a hot lead at the moment, but it could be a valuable piece of the puzzle once we have a specific suspect.”

“Are we just about done, then?” Pia glanced at her watch. “I’ve got a half day of vacation today.”

“Yes, that’s it for now,” said Bodenstein with a nod. “But please remain available just in case.”

Everyone nodded and the meeting broke up. Kai grabbed the investigation folder, tucked the laptop under his arm, and followed Cem and Kathrin down the hall.

“We have to get going, too,” said Dr. Engel.

Bodenstein turned around.

“Where to?” he asked, surprised.

“In my calendar, it says that today at two
P.M.
you’ve got the interview at State Criminal Police headquarters,” she replied. “Have you forgotten?”

“Damn it, yes.” Bodenstein shook his head. At six, he and Cosima had a meeting with the notary and the buyers of the house. They’d already moved the appointment to early evening because of the investigation. He hoped the stupid interview wouldn’t take any longer than an hour.

After the confrontation with Bodenstein ten days ago, Frank Behnke had shut down his provisional inquisition court in one of the neighboring offices and retreated empty-handed to the State Criminal Police. But two days later, an official summons had fluttered onto Bodenstein’s desk:
Hearing to obtain testimony regarding the closing of the police investigation involving bodily injury to Mr. Friedhelm Döring on 7 September 2005, due to the suspicion that certain criminal offenses were not properly investigated and obstruction of justice on official duties occurred.

“Why do you want to go with me?” Bodenstein asked his boss as she followed him down the hall. “It has to be a total waste of your time.”

“I refuse to permit such an accusation to be made against one of my unit leaders,” she said. “Behnke is on a personal vendetta, and I intend to remind him of something, if necessary.”

*   *   *

“Hello there, Hanna.” Wolfgang got up from his desk and came over to her with a smile. “How lovely to see you.”

“Hello, Wolfgang.” She allowed him to kiss her on both cheeks. “Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice.”

“Well, you’ve got me really curious,” he said, offering her a seat at the conference table. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No thanks.” Hanna hung her bag over the back of her chair and rubbed her palms on her bare upper arms. “Well, maybe a mulled wine.”

In the big office, a dim twilight prevailed, and the air conditioning produced a chill that made her shiver.

“It must be a shock for you to go outside. It’s ninety-five degrees out there.”

“By the time I leave the office, it’s eleven at night. Then it’s no longer so hot.” Wolfgang smiled and sat down across from her. “I haven’t heard from you in a long time.”

There was a gentle reproach in his voice, and Hanna felt instantly guilty.

“I know I haven’t been much of a friend lately, but there’s a reason for it.” She lowered her voice. “By chance, I’ve run into a crazy story. A real doozy. But it’s so incredible that first I had to check out some of the details with a couple of people. I swear to you, it could be really big. And I’d prefer to lead off with this topic in the first show after the summer hiatus; then we could hype it big-time in the weeks leading up to it. Half of Germany will be sitting in front of the tube at nine-thirty sharp.”

“You’re all aglow with enthusiasm,” Wolfgang said. He cocked his head and smiled. “Is there more behind this than what you’re telling me?”

“Nonsense!” Hanna uttered a brief laugh, which even to her sounded a bit too phony. Wolfgang knew her well; she kept forgetting that. “But I’ve never had my hooks into such a gigantic story. And I’ve got an absolute exclusive.”