Five (30 page)

‘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?’

Graciella Estermann took her time answering. ‘A few days ago, I think. No, Saturday. Could you please tell me what this is about?’

Beatrice brushed the question aside. ‘And you haven’t heard from him since then? Isn’t that unusual?’

‘No.’ This time the answer came promptly. ‘He’s often like that, only getting in touch when he needs to. I want to know what this is about!’

‘Of course. I’d like to come by with my colleague. In an hour’s time, would that be okay?’

‘You want to come here?’ For the first time, the woman sounded unsettled. ‘He’s in trouble again, isn’t he? I don’t know anything about it though. I mean, I hardly ever see him.’

There wasn’t yet any proof that Beatrice really was speaking to the victim’s wife, but she was becoming increasingly convinced. ‘This will probably sound like a strange question,’ she said, ‘but could you tell me when you and your husband got married?’

The woman’s silent confusion didn’t last as long as she expected. ‘It was … in June 2001. On the nineteenth of June.’

‘Thank you. We’ll be with you in an hour. Please wait for us.’ Beatrice hung up. She typed
Estermann
and
Salzburg
into the text field on Google. The first couple of results brought up a Walter and a Rudolf.

Rudolf Estermann sold plant-based slimming drops and figure-shaping moisturisers to chemists’ shops all over the country. He was a travelling sales representative.
Bingo
.

Alongside that, it seemed he also ran a small online shop.
Five kilos in ten days!!!
promised the garish red writing on the homepage. What a load of nonsense.

She pushed her chair back and stood up. Heading out of the office to look for Florin, she found him with Stefan, going through the data on Liebscher’s computer.

‘There doesn’t seem to be anything here,’ sighed Florin. ‘Stefan has already read back through the last three months’ worth of email correspondence, but hasn’t found a thing. No connection to Beil, Papenberg or Sigart.’

‘But I’ve got something.’ Beatrice held up the printout with the telephone numbers. ‘I’m ninety-nine per cent sure that the unidentified dead man is called Rudolf Estermann. He’s a rep for some dubious slimming products and—’

She stopped short. It must be because of how exhausted she was, but the connection had only just occurred to her.

‘Bea?’

She was already out of the door, running along the corridor towards her office and debating feverishly the quickest way of getting the necessary information.

Back at her computer, she typed
Felix Estermann
into the text field on the search engine. ‘Things that no one needs,’ she whispered.

Felix was nine and a member of the Sport Union Judo School. At the last club tournament, he had won third place in his age group. Beatrice clicked on the club’s photo gallery and found him in the fourth image. A slim child with dark hair, tanned skin and a beaming smile.

From left to right: Felix Estermann (9), Robert Heiss (9), Samuel Hirzer (10)
, said the photo’s caption.

‘He has two sons, one of whom is called Felix.’

‘Excuse me?’

Beatrice spun around. Why on earth did Florin always have to creep up like that?

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought you were talking to me.’

No. She had been talking to herself a lot recently; it was as if she could only understand her own thoughts if she voiced them out loud. She rubbed her hand against her forehead and tried to sort through her findings in her mind.

‘He’s the key figure. Rudolf Estermann.’ She rummaged frantically through the photos that were lying next to the computer screen in a disorderly pile. She bit back a curse as some of them slipped down to the floor. ‘“Here – listen. He makes a living by selling things which, as he himself says, no one needs. He’s good at it, too. He has two sons; one of whom is called Felix.”’ She held the picture out towards him and tapped her finger on the section she had read out. ‘It all fits.’

He caught on right away. ‘This Estermann guy is a sales rep, you said?’

‘Yes. He sells diet pills to chemists. His wife hasn’t heard from him in a few days. It all fits, Florin!’ Beatrice pointed her pen at the screen. ‘And that’s the son called Felix. I phoned the wife and told her we’d be coming round.’

‘Good. Vogt wants to start the autopsy at twelve, so we’ve got two hours.’ He picked his keys up from the table. ‘Let’s go.’

They weren’t even out of the door before Beatrice’s phone beeped. The tone was making her skin crawl by now; she would have to change it. As soon as the case was over.

FTF. But don’t let it get you down, chin up.

That was all. And it was yet another caching abbreviation; she remembered having seen it on the list. On their way out, she flung open the door to Stefan’s office.

‘Call the telephone company and find out which network the Owner was connected to two minutes ago.’

He looked up. ‘Okay.’

‘And remind me what “FTF” means?’

‘First to find. If you find a cache first, then—’

‘Great, thanks.’

First to find
. He had been quicker than her, had worked out that they would use all the means they had to protect anyone his clues led them to from now on. But he didn’t want that; he had wanted to pour acid into Estermann …

And then those sarcastic words of consolation.
Don’t let it get you down, chin up
. What a sadistic bastard.

‘I think things are about to get even more gruesome,’ she said, as Florin steered the car out of the car park.

He glanced at her sideways. ‘Not necessarily. Nora Papenberg died quickly, but before that he cut Liebscher’s ear off, and we don’t yet know how he killed him in the end. Sigart has already lost two fingers. Who knows what else he did to him before …’

Even though Florin didn’t say it out loud, Beatrice read the message between the lines. He no longer believed they would find Sigart alive.

Five dead bodies in just a couple of weeks.
My God
.

Stefan phoned shortly before they reached Graciella Estermann’s apartment. ‘Bea? You won’t believe this! The last text message from the Owner – he was connected to the UMTS cell on the roof of police headquarters.’

‘Shit.’ He couldn’t have disappeared again that quickly. Had they driven right past him? Beatrice suppressed the impulse to ask Florin to turn around. There was no point now. ‘Thanks, Stefan. Could you have a walk around and keep an eye on who’s in the building? Just to make sure, I don’t really believe that the Owner is still there, but—’

‘But it can’t hurt just in case. Of course.’

She told Florin what Stefan had said. ‘He’s lurking nearby. It seems like the news blackout is having the desired effect – he’s hungry for information.’ She turned around and peered through the rear window. Behind them was a white Vauxhall Astra with a dark blonde woman at the wheel. ‘When we park let’s pay attention to whether anyone else stops nearby.’

‘Or,’ Florin replied slowly, ‘whether someone’s already here. I mean, I’m sure he’s worked out that we’ll have found out the dead man’s name by now. It’s the logical next step to go and see the widow.’

For the last five minutes of their journey, Beatrice stared silently out of the window. She would have to speak to Kossar again. The Owner’s increasing proximity was an opportunity they couldn’t allow to slip through their fingers.

There wasn’t anyone suspicious around when they got out of the car in front of the house. Nor did anyone seem to be paying them any attention whatsoever. A woman with a shopping basket in one hand and a whining child in the other made her way past them, but that was all.

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.