Emma instantly thought about the cut-up plush wolf and about Louisa’s recent violent outburst in her in-laws’ garden. She was suddenly freezing and began to tremble inside. When she’d told Florian about Louisa’s odd behavior, he’d dismissed her concern by claiming that it was a normal phase of development. But was it? Her instincts had told her that something wasn’t right with the child. Good God! Her hands were gripping the armrests of the chair. She didn’t dare dwell on the monstrous thoughts that began flashing through her mind. What if Florian had abused his own daughter, who idolized him and trusted him? What if she herself had triggered this abuse by throwing her husband out of the house? She kept reading and hearing about such atrocities that took place behind closed doors, about fathers who raped their daughters and got them pregnant and threatened them into never telling anyone. Emma never would have believed that wives and mothers hadn’t suspected a thing, but perhaps that really was possible.
She couldn’t even look at the man whose child she was now carrying. Louisa’s father. Her husband. He was suddenly as foreign to her as if she’d never seen him before.
* * *
Pia put down the toilet seat and sat down. With a piece of toilet paper, she wiped the cold sweat from her brow and forced herself to breathe calmly and steadily. With great difficulty, she’d managed to make it out of Hanna Herzmann’s room in the intensive care unit and over to the women’s rest room, where she had vomited her guts out. This past year, it had happened to her for the first time while observing the autopsy of a murder victim. Only Henning had noticed, but he hadn’t mentioned it. Since then, it had kept happening; her blood pressure would drop at the sight of a victim of violence and she would feel so sick that she had to throw up.
Pia hauled herself to her feet and stood in front of the sink, peering into the mirror. A pale ghost with dark circles under her eyes stared back at her. She didn’t know why after twenty years on the force she suddenly couldn’t take it anymore. She’d never talked about this with anyone before, not with Christoph or with her colleagues, because she certainly didn’t want Nicola Engel to send her to the psychologist. That might get her condemned to a desk job. Of course she could have avoided situations like this, invented excuses, and sent colleagues in her stead, but she very deliberately had declined to do that. If she gave in to this weakness, she might as well call it quits as a police officer.
Fifteen minutes later, she left the rest room, took the elevator to the ground floor, and walked to her car. Bodenstein had called her a couple of times on her cell. She called him back, but he didn’t pick up.
When she arrived at the station, she was still feeling the effects of her visit to Hanna Herzmann. It was not the same thing to read the results of the most brutal violence in a sober forensic medical report as it was to see the consequences with her own eyes. The woman no longer looked anything like herself. Her face was swollen with bruises, her body covered with lesions, bruises, and welts. Pia shuddered when she thought about Hanna Herzmann’s dull, extinguished gaze, which had met hers for a few seconds before the woman closed her eyes again.
From her own experience, Pia knew the feeling of being violated. The summer after graduation, she’d met a man on vacation who would not accept that their affair had been only a summer flirtation. He followed her to Frankfurt, stalked her, and finally attacked her in her apartment and raped her. Pia had never mentioned this episode to her ex-husband, and she kept trying to repress and forget it, but without success. No woman who had ever encountered the raging determination of a man to harm her physically would ever forget the humiliating feeling of helplessness, the endless minutes spent fearing death, and the complete loss of physical integrity and self-determination. Pia found that she could no longer stand to be in her apartment, where the rape had happened, so she had given up her law studies after two semesters and joined the police force. She had often thought about why she had made this decision at the time. She was sure that the rape had played a significant role, no matter how unconsciously. As a policewoman, she felt in a position to defend herself, and not only because of the pistol she was allowed to carry. Her self-awareness had changed, and in her training she had learned how to win a two-person fight despite physical inferiority.
She entered the office she shared with Kai and was not surprised to see him sitting at his desk, even though it was the weekend.
“The others are still in Schwanheim,” he told her. “Rothemund wasn’t there when they got to his trailer.”
“Oh, great.” Pia tossed her backpack onto one of the visitor’s chairs and sat down behind her desk. Her stomach still felt queasy. “Where’s the boss?”
“On his way to some secret family function. Now you’re the boss.”
The last thing she needed.
“By the way, there are new results back from the lab,” he said. “The semen detected in Hanna Herzmann’s vagina undoubtedly came from Kilian Rothemund—a positive DNA match. I sent a patrol car to Vinzenz Kornbichler’s house, and he picked the photo of Rothemund out of the four mug shots I showed him. He’s the man Herzmann rode away with that night.”
Pia nodded. Rothemund was quickly becoming the prime suspect. Even though she wasn’t surprised, it still didn’t make sense to her. She pulled up the photo of Rothemund from the POLAS database and studied it carefully.
What had Hanna Herzmann done to warrant such hatred? At first glance, Rothemund looked cultivated and rather charming. What sinister motives lurked behind that handsome face and those blue eyes of his?
“You know what I’ve been thinking about?” Kai said, tearing her out of her reverie.
“No.”
“According to the river-current calculation, our Mermaid should have reached somewhere near where the Nidda empties into the Main. The trailer park where Rothemund lives is only a mile or so upriver.”
“You mean he might have something to do with the Mermaid?” Pia asked.
“It may be far-fetched,” Kai admitted, “but the injuries suffered by the Mermaid and Ms. Herzmann are similar. Both were vaginally and anally penetrated; both show injuries caused by blunt trauma.”
Pia’s gaze shifted back to Rothemund’s photo on her monitor.
“And he looks so normal. Almost charming,” she said.
“Yeah. You can only see the surface—you can’t see inside him.”
“What’s the deal with the DNA that related to the Mermaid case?” Pia asked. “Anything new?”
“No.” Kai shook his head and grimaced. “And that shakes up my theory of Rothemund as the Mermaid killer, unfortunately. The DNA was not registered in any public files, not even by Interpol.”
Pia’s cell rang. It was Christian Kröger. He and his team were finished with Rothemund’s trailer.
“Did you find anything interesting?” Pia asked. Her stomach had recovered in the meantime and was growling audibly.
“The trailer was clinically clean. The bed freshly made, everything carefully cleaned with a chlorine cleanser. He even got rid of all the stuff in the drains. We found only a couple of smeared fingerprints on the door. The only thing that might be of interest was a strand of hair.”
“A hair?”
“A long dark brown strand. It was stuck between the cushions of the corner bench. Just a moment. Don’t hang up, Pia.…”
Pia heard Kröger talking to someone.
Hanna Herzmann had long dark hair. Had Kilian Rothemund driven her home Wednesday night? Had she been inside his trailer? But what connected the two? Did Hanna’s research have something to do with the Road Kings?
“What did the owner inquiry on Bernd Prinzler’s car turn up?” Pia asked Kai, as Kröger’s conversation seemed to be turning into a lengthy discussion.
“Another dead end.” Kai took a swig of coffee. He was a caffeine junkie, drinking jet black coffee from morning to night; it didn’t even bother him if the coffee got cold. “The car may be registered to Prinzler, but at Mama’s address. All we can do is hassle him for not registering the proper address on time.”
Pia sighed. This case was getting complicated. Meike Herzmann hadn’t checked in. The main suspect was a fugitive; the second suspect was a prime example of how easy it was in Germany to hide behind post office boxes and fake addresses. Nobody seemed to know what Hanna Herzmann had been working on, and the telecom company was taking its time supplying them with the records for Hanna’s cell phone.
“I’m back.” Kröger sounded irritated. “I
hate
it when state attorneys mess around in my work.”
“A state attorney showed up for the search of a trailer?”
“Chief State Attorney Frey in person.” Kröger snorted.
They talked briefly; then Pia got another call. She was hoping that it might be Meike Herzmann, so she took it, although she didn’t recognize the number.
“Pia? It’s me, Emma. Is this a good time?”
It took Pia a couple of seconds to realize who was speaking. Her old schoolmate’s voice sounded shaky, almost as if she were about to cry.
“Hello, Emma,” Pia said. “No, you’re not interrupting anything. What’s up?”
“I … I … have to talk to somebody,” Emma replied. “I thought you might know what to do or know someone who could give me advice. Louisa, my daughter, had to go to the hospital. And there … the doctor … oh, I just don’t know how to say this.”
She sobbed.
“Louisa … she … she has injuries that might indicate that she … was sexually abused.”
“Oh my God.”
“Pia, do you think we could meet somewhere soon?”
“Yes, of course. How about right now?” Pia looked at her watch. A little before one. “Do you know the Gimbacher Hof between Kelkheim and Fischbach?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I could be there in twenty minutes. Then we can have coffee and you can tell me everything. Okay?”
“Sure, that’ll be fine. Thanks. See you soon.”
“See you.” Pia put away her phone, stood up, and slung her backpack over her shoulder. “So get this, Kai. Chief State Attorney Frey showed up during our search of Rothemund’s trailer.”
“I’m not surprised,” replied Kai without looking up from his monitor. “Frey’s the one who put Rothemund in prison back then.”
“Oh, really? How come you know that?”
“I read documents.” Kai raised his head and grinned. “Besides, back then I was still in Frankfurt. That was right after I went back to work, with my peg leg. It was a high-profile case. The spectacular fall of the handsome Dr. Rothemund. The press really had a field day: Frey and Rothemund had been fellow students, and after passing the second state bar exam, they both began working at the state attorney’s office, before Rothemund switched sides and became a defense attorney. Frey could have handled the whole case more discreetly, but at a press conference he really hung his old pal out to dry. I’m surprised that you never heard about it.”
“At that time, I was on the housewife track, spending my free time mainly in the basement of the forensics institute,” Pia recalled. “Oh well. I’m going to grab a bite to eat. Call me if anything comes up.”
* * *
The heat and thirst were unbearable. Was it a hallucination, a trick that her parched brain was playing on her? Leonie had lived for years in this house; it was almost two hundred years old and had thick walls, which were better insulated than the ones of flimsy Sheetrock that people put up these days. The best part was that the house stayed warm in winter and cool in summer. Why was it so hot in here now? Sweat was running into her eyes, which burned like fire. Twice she had counted to 3,600 so that she wouldn’t lose her sense of time in the dark and go crazy. She had come home at a quarter to four in the morning. Since then, she’d dozed off occasionally, but because she hadn’t peed herself yet, no more than a few hours could have passed in the meantime. Although the shutters were closed, she could see that the sun was shining on the right-hand window of the therapy room, which faced the west. So it was afternoon now. Four or five o’clock. She would know exactly when the sun went down.
Her tongue felt furry and swollen in her mouth. She couldn’t remember ever experiencing such awful thirst. She asked herself who could have done this to her, but the even bigger question was: Why? What had she done to deserve such a punishment? The caller had said she’d picked the wrong friends. Whom did he mean? Did it actually have something to do with Hanna Herzmann or with the case that Hanna had gotten involved in? But they weren’t
friends
; they were
patients.
A huge difference.
The telephone on the desk rang, and Leonie gave a start.
“Leoniiiiie … Oh, you’re still sitting there so nicely on your little chair.”
The sound of this nasty, mocking voice banished Leonie’s fear for a moment and transformed it to rage. If she could have, she would have screamed at him and told him what a sadistic, sick piece of shit he was. Even though it wouldn’t have helped, she would have liked to say that to him.
“Are you nice and cozy warm, hmm? You have to be warm when you die, so I turned up the heat.”
So that was the explanation for this blistering heat.
“Can you remember what I told you about the stages of dying from thirst? I have to correct myself. The higher the heat, the faster it goes. Let me set your mind at ease. You won’t have to suffer more than three or four days.”
A low, filthy laugh.
“And you haven’t even cried. You are really being brave. You’re still hoping that somebody will find you, right?”
How could he know that she hadn’t cried? Could the guy see her? In this darkness? Leonie turned her head back and forth, trying to make out something like a camera, but there wasn’t enough light to see much other than shadowy contours.
“Now you’re looking for the camera, aren’t you? I gave myself away. You know, Leonie, you really ought to die fast. But there are so damned many people in the world who pay a hell of a lot of money to watch an actual struggle against death on DVD. Yours, of course, we’ll have to edit a bit. Who wants to watch an ugly cow like you sitting on a chair for twenty-four hours?” The voice was dark, soft as velvet. No discernible regional dialect. “But the end will certainly be grandiose. The cramps, the spasms … oh, no, I haven’t seen it before. I’m really looking forward to this. And it’ll be truly exciting if nobody finds you. You probably won’t decay, simply dry out and turn into a mummy.”