The night before Finkbeiner’s birthday, the leading figures in the child-molestation ring had gathered at the Matern villa—all respected, influential men who had achieved much in their lives and belonged to the upper crust of society. Two of them were now dead, executed by one of their former victims, and the third was still fighting for his life. Rothemund had phoned Prinzler and asked him to bring over as quickly as possible the recorder and the transcripts of conversations that he’d mailed from Holland to Prinzler’s post office box.
Bodenstein, Cem, and Kathrin met at three in the morning at the station. The horror at what they had seen and experienced in the catacombs under the Palais Ettringhausen was written on their faces. Eleven of the “lost kids,” as Michaela Prinzler had called them, had been liberated from Höchst and placed in the care of the child-protection agency. Three additional little girls had been discovered in a basement in Falkenstein. None of them knew her own last name, nor were there any birth certificates. They simply did not officially exist. Corinna Wiesner’s two assistants were already in custody in Preungesheim, and Helmut Grasser was expected to be brought before the judge for arraignment in the morning.
Markus Maria Frey had disappeared. The police had searched the river, and at dawn divers would be called in, but they had good reason to believe that they would find only his corpse.
“Come on, have a cup of coffee first.” Dr. Nicola Engel, who had been holding the fort in her office, sat down across from Bodenstein in the conference room of K-11. “Or better yet, go home and come back to work tomorrow.”
“No.” Bodenstein shook his head. He had talked to Corinna Wiesner, astonished to discover that there were still people who were able to shock him. That woman, so beautiful and friendly at first glance, and a mother of four herself, was in reality a merciless, heartless control freak. Her fascination with her own importance and her power over other people had become an addiction. But for her—unlike Grasser—the driving force for what she’d done was not power over weaker individuals; she was utterly indifferent to the young victims. Instead, she liked dominating powerful men who could not control their perverted desires. With her keen intellect and her organizational abilities, Corinna Wiesner had governed this association of child molesters with absolute efficiency, although in the end, both she and Frey had made mistakes.
Their first disastrous mistake was that they’d lost sight of Michaela Prinzler. Even so, they had safeguarded their gruesome secret for years by establishing connections in all the right places, and by using extortion and intimidation. Frey had made the second mistake when he lost control of Oksana.
Corinna Wiesner did not deny her responsibility for the atrocities. She had absolutely no moral scruples, having firmly convinced herself that there was nothing wrong with what she was doing. She showed no emotion, and she had a ready excuse for every accusation that Bodenstein leveled against her.
Helmut Grasser had told the police how furious Corinna had been when she learned that Frey had drowned Oksana. In her wrath, she had threatened to cancel the birthday festivities. And when she heard from her sister-in-law Emma that Louisa had apparently been abused, she had reproached old Finkbeiner for endangering the whole group with his behavior. A fierce argument had erupted among Finkbeiner, Frey, and Corinna, and it escalated to the point where Frey had even struck his sister.
“I’m not finished yet,” Bodenstein told his boss. “The way things stand, we now have all the names of the inner circle of the child-molestation ring, as confirmed by Corinna Wiesner. Tonight, I want to apply for arrest warrants.”
That was a bluff, because Corinna Wiesner hadn’t said a word when he confronted her with the names, and he was doubtful that they would get anything more out of her. Ralf Wiesner hadn’t said a word. If they were unlucky, they might never be able to prove that the people who were at Matern’s villa on Thursday evening had anything to do with the child-abuse Mafia.
The commissioner raised her eyebrows.
“Arrest warrants? For whom?” she asked.
Bodenstein shoved over to her the list that Ostermann had prepared.
“A few names from abroad are still missing, but we’ve already contacted our colleagues in Holland, Belgium, Austria, France, and Switzerland. Tomorrow we’ll have IDs on all the individuals who were at the meeting on Thursday evening at Matern’s villa.”
“I see.” Dr. Engel scanned the list.
“We have a complete confession from Helmut Grasser, and I’m hoping that Corinna and Ralf Wiesner and their assistants will confirm everything in the days to come.” Bodenstein rubbed both hands over his face, then looked up. “Frey killed the girl, and Grasser tossed her body in the river. He and Frey attacked Hanna Herzmann and almost killed her, and the murder of Leonie Verges can be chalked up to Grasser.”
“Very good. You’ve solved all three cases,” the commissioner said with a nod. “Congratulations, Chief Detective Inspector.”
“Thank you. We’ll also be able to prove that Kilian Rothemund was wrongly accused and convicted. Back in the summer of 2001, when he learned the names of the child molesters from Michaela Prinzler, he turned to Frey, of all people, and asked him for his help. Frey saw the names and was alarmed. He realized that this would be extremely perilous for the whole organization, so he lured his old friend Kilian into a trap. But he and Corinna Wiesner didn’t manage to get hold of Michaela. Prinzler protected his wife by faking her death, staging a funeral, obituaries, and a gravestone. That’s how he took her out of the line of fire.” Bodenstein paused briefly. “Markus Frey did not have a good childhood. He went through several families before he ended up with the Finkbeiners. He was dependent on old Finkbeiner, just like his foster siblings. I suspect that he was also abused and at some point he decided to turn the tables. Perhaps he found satisfaction in wielding power over weaker individuals.”
“His wife, Sarah, is from India, and she looks like a child herself,” Kathrin Fachinger remarked. “Why didn’t we figure out much earlier that Nicky is actually Markus Frey? We knew that he had a close connection to the Finkbeiners.”
“I didn’t figure it out, either,” replied Bodenstein. “I learned from Corinna Wiesner that his real name was Dominik. But Renate didn’t like that name, so she renamed him Markus. But his nickname, Nicky, stuck. He added his middle name, Maria, later, because he thought Markus Frey sounded too plain.”
“Whew,” Kai Ostermann said. “And then he even bought himself a doctorate. How pathetic.”
“Be that as it may. The system functioned perfectly. Girls who were too old were sold to pimps, turned into addicts, or landed in mental hospitals. Corinna Wiesner had it all under control. Michaela was the only one to escape.” Bodenstein paused as he studied the face of the woman he’d loved many years ago and thought that he knew. “Apart from the fact that we’ve solved our current cases, there’s something else we’ve managed to prove. Thanks to Rothemund and Prinzler, I know why undercover agent Erik Lessing had to die.”
“Really?” Nicola Engel didn’t seem to be disturbed by this news, and it gave Bodenstein the meager hope that she might not have known the truth. Maybe she had simply been following orders from above. That didn’t change the fact that she had covered up a crime. But Nicola Engel was an ambitious woman, and maybe that explained why she’d done it.
There was a knock, and in the doorway stood Pia and Christian Kröger, who had changed out of his wet clothes. They stepped inside.
“How’s the girl doing?” the commissioner asked.
“So far so good,” said Pia. “She’s asleep in my office. Ostermann is with her.”
“Well then … nothing remains but to congratulate all of you.” Dr. Engel smiled. “It was really good work.”
She stood up.
“Just a moment, please,” said Bodenstein, holding her back.
“What is it? I’m tired. It’s been a long day,” said the commissioner. “And you should all be getting home.”
“Erik Lessing, who once went undercover to infiltrate the Frankfurt Road Kings, had befriended Bernd Prinzler. Through him, he learned of the existence of a child-abuse ring that included the deputy police president of Frankfurt at the time, as well as a state secretary from the Interior Ministry, a judge from the state supreme court, and a whole list of state attorneys, judges, politicians, and industrialists. Lessing wanted to make this information public, and that’s why he had to die.”
“That’s utter nonsense,” Nicola Engel countered.
“Lessing’s superior always knew his whereabouts,” Bodenstein went on, ignoring her protest. “A raid was organized under the table. Not using the SAU, as is usual for raids on the underworld, especially when the Road Kings are involved. No, they were looking for the perfect officer to follow orders, somebody who also happened to be a crack shot, and an ambitious chief detective inspector who they knew had no moral scruples. Namely you, Dr. Engel.”
Engel’s expression froze.
“Be careful what you say, Oliver,” she admonished him, forgetting to use his surname, which she usually did when others were present.
“You accompanied Behnke to the brothel, having planted a different weapon on him in advance, one that wasn’t registered and would later be found in Prinzler’s car, making it look like the whole thing was just another shoot-out in the underworld. And you ordered Behnke to commit a triple murder.”
Bodenstein wouldn’t have been surprised if Nicola Engel lost her composure when confronted with such serious accusations, but she remained completely unfazed, just like Corinna Wiesner earlier.
“That’s a very entertaining story.” She shook her head. “Who wrote it? Behnke? That drunken, vengeful dimwit?”
“He told us what happened,” Kröger confirmed. “And we didn’t get the impression he was lying.”
Dr. Nicola Engel gave him a contemptuous stare, then turned to look first at Pia and then at Bodenstein.
“Making unjustified accusations like this will cost all three of you your jobs, I can promise you that,” she said calmly. For a moment, no one spoke.
“Wrong.” Bodenstein got up from his chair. “You’re the only one in this room who’s going to lose her job, Dr. Engel. I hereby arrest you on suspicion of inciting three counts of homicide. Unfortunately, I can’t let you leave, because I’m afraid that you might attempt to destroy evidence.”
* * *
Morning was dawning outside the windows by the time Wolfgang Matern finished speaking. He’d been talking for almost an hour and a half, hesitantly at first, then more and more rapidly, almost as if under duress. Meike had been listening to him, stunned and upset. He had admitted to her that he was the one who had betrayed Hanna. He was her oldest and best friend, whom she had trusted without reservation, and yet he was responsible for the most devastating experience of her life.
“There was nothing else I could do,” he’d replied tersely when Meike asked him why he’d done it. “When she gave me the exposé to read and I saw the names in it, I knew it would spell disaster.”
“But not for you!” Meike sat facing him in an easy chair, her arms wrapped around her knees. “You had nothing to do with the whole mess. Nothing at all. You could have finally freed yourself from your father and this … this shit.”
“Yes.” He sighed heavily and rubbed his tired eyes. “Yes, I could have. But I didn’t think anything like that would ever happen. I … I thought I could talk Hanna out of it, but before I even had a chance to speak to her, my father alerted the Finkbeiners, and they sent their bloodhounds after her.”
Wolfgang avoided looking at Meike.
“I visited Hanna in the hospital. It was so horrible to see her like that,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Meike, you can’t imagine how tormented I feel because I am to blame. I thought about killing myself, but I was too cowardly even for that.”
Meike saw not a man sitting in front of her, but a shadow.
“When did you find out what your father was doing?” she asked.
“I always knew,” he admitted. “At least since I was sixteen or seventeen. At first, I didn’t really understand it. I thought they were meeting with young girls, with prostitutes. My mother always looked the other way. She must have know what my father was up to.”
“Maybe that’s why she killed herself.” Gradually, Meike was making the connections and realizing what dramas must have played out behind the walls of the beautiful villa in Oberursel.
“Of course that’s why she did it,” Wolfgang confirmed. He was slumped on the sofa, looking sick. “She did leave behind a farewell note. I was the one who found it and I … I hid it. Nobody but me has ever read it.”
“You mean you protected your father, that perverted pig who drove your mother to her death, even then?” Meike blurted out. “Why? Why did you do it?”
For the first time in an hour, Wolfgang looked at her. His face was blank, his expression so dazed and hopeless that Meike was startled.
“Because … because he was still my father,” he whispered. “I wanted to admire him, not see evil in him. He was … he was exactly how I always wanted to be, so strong, so self-assured. I was always trying to win his recognition and hoped that someday he would like me and respect me. But … but he never did. And now … now he’s dead, and I can no longer tell him that I … despise him!”
He buried his face in his hands and began to sob.
“I can never make it right again,” he said, crying like a little boy. Meike felt no sympathy for him after everything he’d done and allowed to happen.
“Yes, you can,” she said.
“How? How can I?” He raised his head in despair, the tears flowing down his unshaven face. “How can I make up for all this?”
“You can go with me to the police and tell them everything you just told me, so that they can catch these guys,” Meike replied. “That’s the least you can do.”
“But what’ll happen to me then? Won’t I be implicated?” He sounded whiny and self-pitying. Meike grimaced as she stared at this wretched weakling, this coward steeped in denial. How could she ever have loved and admired this man?
“You’ve got to take a chance,” she said. “Otherwise, you’ll never be happy for the rest of your life.”