Five (11 page)

‘Thanks.’

At the door, she realised that her curt request had implied he had all the time in the world, but she left it at that. She was willing to bet anything that the name his research unearthed would be Nora Papenberg.

The evening sun painted stripes across the wooden floor of the balcony. Beatrice shunted the little round wooden table into the pink-tinged light and laid her Friday evening meal out on it: sushi from the Japanese restaurant two streets down. She opened the plastic container, inhaled the aroma of fresh fish and ginger and hoped that her appetite would finally kick in. But no such luck. The only dinner of interest to her was the agency one after which Nora had disappeared, running off into her murderer’s arms. The Owner, the master of the cryptic messages.

The most recent note, meticulously examined by Drasche, hadn’t offered up any new clues. ‘Not one single fingerprint, apart from yours of course,’ were his words. ‘We’re still investigating the ink type, but it seems to be from some bog-standard mass-produced biro.’

Drasche hadn’t been interested in how the very existence of the note told them a great deal about the Owner. That wasn’t his job.

When she had driven home that evening, Beatrice had parked her car a street further up from her apartment, looking around several times to check whether anyone was following her, or even just watching her. She hadn’t noticed anyone, but had double-locked the door behind her just in case.

She sighed, looked at the sushi box on the table and found herself thinking about beef carpaccio and Anneke, even though she’d never met her. Dinner for two by candlelight. She wondered whether she should put a candle on her balcony table.

But she deposited her rattling laptop on it instead and had another look through the photos of the agency dinner, cursing when soya sauce dripped down onto her grey marl jogging bottoms.

She concentrated on the pictures taken around the time of Nora Papenberg’s departure. The last one, which depicted a scene of carefree hilarity, was of Nora and Irene Grabner, their heads close together and tongues stuck out. Like a couple of schoolgirls. After that, Nora’s chair was empty. A few clicks later, Beatrice found a photo in which Nora could be seen in the background, recognisable by her red jacket.

She enlarged the photo. The resolution was very good. The closer Beatrice zoomed in, the clearer the view of Nora Papenberg’s face became – her eyes wide open. She was covering her nose and mouth with her left hand, as if she was shocked or about to throw up. In her other hand, she was holding the mobile to her ear.

The call had come from a telephone box, they knew that now, and it had definitely unleashed a reaction. She clicked through the remaining pictures. There wasn’t even a hint of a smile on Nora’s face, not in any of them.

Had she left to drive to the phone box? To meet the caller? Was he her murderer? Or the man whose blood was found on her clothes?

‘Why didn’t you tell anyone?’ Beatrice asked a distant-looking Nora in the photos that followed. She was pictured with her gaze averted, her thoughts clearly elsewhere, an outsider amidst the laughing group.

According to the records, she hadn’t contacted anyone after the ominous call, at least not from her mobile. Not even a brief message to her husband, letting him know she would be late.

Was it a rendezvous he wasn’t supposed to have known about? Or had she actually left in order to get home as quickly as she could, to reach her safe haven? Had she been intercepted en route?

Beatrice had eaten all of her sushi without having tasted any of it. She went to throw the packaging into the kitchen bin and was just letting the lid drop back down when she heard her mobile. ‘Message in a Bottle’. A text message.

Her pulse quickened. Stay calm. It might just be Florin; he texted from time to time.

She wiped her hands on her jogging bottoms and went back out to the balcony. It could just as easily be her mother.

But a tap of the mobile’s keypad was enough to clarify things. The sender’s number was the same as the one that lunchtime. Feeling as though something was tightening around her neck, Beatrice sank down onto the balcony chair.

Cold, completely cold.

The message consisted only of these three words, without any explanation or further comment.

Beatrice remembered the photo of Nora Papenberg holding her mobile pressed to her ear, hand in front of her mouth.
He sent me the text message from this very phone. A Nokia N8, a present from her husband
.

Suddenly, Beatrice felt as though she was being watched. She jumped up and went over to the main door of the apartment, checking to see if it was definitely locked properly. Pulled the curtains shut. Ran back to the balcony and peered down into the courtyard, but no one returned her gaze.

Cold, completely cold
. The first association that had shot into Beatrice’s mind was the coldness of a corpse’s skin, but the longer she turned the words over in her thoughts, the surer she became that the sender of the message hadn’t meant that.

She thought back to Jakob’s last birthday party, when she had revived all the party games from her own childhood, including a treasure hunt.
Cold, completely cold, warmer now, even warmer, colder, good, warmer, warmer, hot!

Was the Owner trying to tell her that they were on the wrong track?

She resisted the temptation to delete the message, and called Achim instead. In a way, she was relieved that the children weren’t with her, but she had to hear their voices and make sure that—

‘You? What do you want?’ Achim’s words perforated her thoughts. There it was again, the utter contempt.

‘Hello. Put Mina or Jakob on the line, please.’

‘They’re busy.’

She wouldn’t beg. ‘Just for a moment.’

He sighed resignedly. ‘Fine, go ahead then. But it would be better if you could look after them properly while they’re with you instead and leave them in peace for the little time I have with them.’

She stared over at the corner of the balcony, at a red plant pot in which a small conifer was leading a miserable existence. Nothing she would have liked to say to Achim right now would make the situation any better.

He sighed once more. ‘Mina, Jakob, do either of you want to speak to your mother?’

‘Later,’ called Mina, but Jakob’s ‘Yes’ echoed loudly down the phone.

The sound of running, crashing. ‘Hi, Mama!’

‘Hello, my darling! Are you having a good time?’

‘Yes! Papa really did get us a cat! Mina wants to call her Miley, but that’s a totally stupid name! Can we call her Lou? Like Tobias’s cat? I think that’s much better, but Mina says it sounds like
loo
…’

Beatrice listened to him talk, feeling the relief rush through her. Of course the children were fine; what had she expected? Even though the Owner clearly had her mobile number, none of the messages had been personal; no one had threatened her. The messages were a good thing, not a danger. But she still felt safer once she had retreated from the balcony back into the lounge, closing the glass door behind her.

She let Jakob go back to the nameless cat, hung up and looked at the text message again. After staring at the number for a few moments, she pressed the green button. It had barely begun to ring before the recorded voice kicked in.
The number you have dialled is not available right now. Please try again later
.

He hadn’t activated his voicemail, which meant Beatrice didn’t have the chance to say all the things she wanted to blurt out. That was probably for the best.

She was still holding the phone in her hand when it started to ring, prompting her to nearly drop it in shock. Florin.

‘Is there any news? How was this afternoon?’

‘We went to the agency. And it seems like the Owner has made contact with me. Three times.’

‘What?’

She brought him up to date on the events of the last few hours.

‘I’m coming into the office tomorrow,’ he said.

‘No, enjoy your time with Anneke. Stefan and I have things under control. We’ll check out a couple of the choir singers, and if we don’t have any luck then we’ll see the others on Sunday.’

She heard him sigh. ‘You two are making me feel guilty. And Bea, it worries me that he’s sending you anonymous text messages. Are you alone in the apartment?’

The creeping sense of unease from before returned. ‘Yes, but you can’t seriously think that he’ll pay me a visit. That’s nonsense, Florin.’ Good – she had even managed to convince herself.

‘I wouldn’t bet on it. We don’t yet know what makes him tick. Be careful, okay?’

‘Of course.’ Seeing her nod reflected in the balcony door, she pulled the curtain closed. ‘How was your evening? Was the carpaccio a hit?’

‘Don’t try to change the subject.’ But she could hear from his voice that he was smiling. ‘Are you sure about tomorrow? I could come in for an hour or two, at least.’

‘There’s no need. Really. You always have my back when I need to go and pick up the children, so it’s the least I can do to repay the favour now and again. Give my best to Anneke, even though I’ve never met her, I mean.’

‘I will. Have a nice evening, Bea. And remember—’

She interrupted him. ‘You, too. Both of you, I mean.’

Ending the call, she collapsed onto the sofa and closed her eyes.

Schubert’s Mass in A flat.

A noticeable birthmark on the back of the hand.

Why these particular clues? What was their relevance?

They reminded Beatrice of bad witness statements. Sometimes the strangest things stick in people’s memories while they forget the really important ones.

She clapped her laptop shut and went off to bed, not because she was tired, but because she knew she needed the sleep to be able to function tomorrow. She wouldn’t unplug the phone this time; she wanted to be contactable in case something was wrong with the children. Presumably Achim would leave her in peace tonight.

She only hoped the Owner would too.

‘I have no idea what you want from me, and I have no intention of letting you inspect my hands.’ The chubby, angry man in a dressing gown who had opened the door to them was the third Christoph they had called on today, and by far the least cooperative. ‘Show me your ID again,’ he demanded, looking Beatrice up and down in a leering fashion. The fatty was lucky she was feeling well rested, she reflected. She had slept through the night as if drugged. No calls or messages had startled her awake.

‘We’re investigating a murder case,’ she explained. ‘If you don’t want to get this over with quickly, we can happily take you down to the station.’

The man made a big fuss of examining the ID, then stretched his hands out. ‘If this is some hidden camera thing, you won’t hear the end of this,’ he grumbled.

‘Don’t worry.’ Gripping his hands a little more tightly than necessary and prompting an involuntary yelp, she looked at his palms. Nothing.

And the backs? Still nothing, even though she pushed up the sleeves of his dressing gown to be sure.

‘Thank you, we’re done now. Enjoy the rest of your day.’

Clearly the fat man wasn’t content with that. ‘Aren’t you going to at least tell me what murder case this is in connection with?’

‘Sorry, but no. Goodbye.’

The next man on their list wasn’t at home, and the one after that didn’t have any noticeable birthmarks either. Frustrated, Beatrice and Stefan made their way back to the police station, disappearing into their respective offices without another word. As she walked in, Beatrice was surprised to see Florin sitting at his desk.

‘Just a couple of hours,’ he explained. ‘I discovered yesterday evening that if you enter coordinates on Google Maps it shows you the exact location on the map. Look.’ He angled his screen so she could see. ‘This is the place where we found the hand. More or less exactly. This should make the work easier for us in future, if—’

Stefan rushed into the room, waving a piece of paper over his head. ‘This email arrived an hour ago, and you were right,’ he cried, thrusting the printout into Beatrice’s hand.

The Nokia N8 with the International Mobile Subscriber Identity she had investigated yesterday was registered to Nora Papenberg.

‘I knew it!’ exclaimed Beatrice. ‘He’s got her phone, and he’s sending us messages from it.’

‘Not us, you,’ Florin corrected her. ‘Which I still find very worrying, by the way.’

‘And I still think it’s very unlikely he wants to harm me,’ she answered, with a conviction that she only half felt. ‘He’s just trying to demonstrate his superiority.’ All the same, she knew she would be double-locking the door and closing all the windows tonight.

Florin nodded, but still looked doubtful. ‘It’s high time we brought a forensic psychologist onto the case – perhaps he’ll read more into the messages than we’re seeing. I don’t want to risk making mistakes or overlooking anything.’

Midday gave way to afternoon, and the striped pattern on Beatrice’s desk cast by the sunlight stretching through the blinds wandered from left to right. At half-past two, an email arrived from the network provider with a PDF attachment listing the connections made by the owner’s prepaid card.

The pickings were slim; only one number appeared, and that was Beatrice’s own. He had connected to the network cell for just two minutes at a time to send her the two messages, once in Hallein and the second time right there in Salzburg, in the Aigen district. Apart from that, the mobile had been offline the entire time.

‘He knows what he’s doing,’ Beatrice muttered. ‘So far he hasn’t made a single mistake that could give us anything to go on.’ The familiar digits of her own mobile number aggravated her every time the printout caught her eye. ‘So are we in agreement that the text messages and note came from him? From Nora Papenberg’s murderer?’

Florin stared thoughtfully at the reports in front of him for a few seconds, then nodded. ‘Yes. Otherwise it doesn’t make any sense.’

Half an hour later, Beatrice tried to shoo him away from the desk. ‘You shouldn’t even be here today. You have a guest.’

She sounded like her grandmother, but Florin’s smile was one of gratitude.