Barbara Fr?hlich sat at the kitchen table, trying in vain to concentrate on a crossword puzzle. After three days and nights of uncertainty her nerves were shot. On Sunday she had taken the two younger kids to her parents in Hofheim, and Arne went to work on Monday although his boss told him to stay home. But what was he going to do at home?
The days were dragging by at an excruciating pace. Amelie was still missing; there had been no sign of her. Her mother had called three times from Berlin, though probably more out of duty than concern. During the first two days women from the village had dropped by wanting to console and support her, but since she hardly knew these women they had merely sat awkwardly in the kitchen trying to make conversation. Last night she and Arne had had a terrible fight, the very first since they’d met. She had reproached him for his lack of interest in the fate of his eldest daughter, and angrily had even insinuated that he’d probably be glad if she never turned up. Strictly speaking it hadn’t been a fight, because Arne had merely looked at her and said nothing. As usual.
“The police will find her,” was all he said and vanished into the bathroom. She stayed in the kitchen, helpless, speechless, and alone. And all of a sudden she had seen her husband with new eyes. He had gutlessly retreated into his daily routine. Would he act any differently if it had been Tim or Jana who had disappeared? His only concern seemed to be that he might annoy people. They hadn’t said another word, lying silently next to each other in bed. Ten minutes later he was already snoring, calmly and regularly, as if everything was just fine. Never in her life had she felt so abandoned as during that dreadful, endless night.
The doorbell rang, and Barbara flinched and stood up. She hoped it wasn’t one of the village women again. She knew that they feigned sympathy for her so that later at the grocery store they could present an exclusive report on the situation. She opened the front door. Before her stood a stranger.
“Hello, Mrs. Fr?hlich,” said the woman. She had short dark hair, a pale, serious face with bluish smudges under her eyes, and she wore rectangular glasses. “Detective Superintendent Maren K?nig from K-11 in Hofheim.”
She showed her criminal police badge. “May I come in?”
“Yes, of course. Please do.” Barbara Fr?hlich’s heart was pounding apprehensively. The woman looked so serious that she had to be bringing bad news. “Do you have any news about Amelie?”
“No, I’m afraid not. But my colleagues have learned that Amelie supposedly received some paintings from her friend Thies. Yet nothing of that sort was found in her room.”
“I don’t know about any paintings either.” At a loss, she shook her head, disappointed that the detective couldn’t tell her any news.
“Do you think we could take another look in Amelie’s room?” Maren K?nig asked. “The paintings, if they actually exist, could be extremely helpful.”
“Of course. Come with me.”
Barbara Fr?hlich led her upstairs and opened the door to Amelie’s room. She stood in the doorway and watched as the detective diligently searched the cupboards, then got down on her knees and looked under the bed and the desk. Finally she pulled the Biedermeier chest of drawers a bit out from the wall.
“A hidden door,” the detective said, turning to Barbara Fr?hlich. “May I open it?”
“Certainly. I didn’t even know it was there.”
“In many houses with sloping roofs there’s a cubbyhole like this and it’s used as a storage area,” the police officer said with a little smile for the first time. “Especially if they don’t have an attic.”
She squatted down, pulled open the door, and crept into the tiny space between the wall and the roof insulation. A cold draft came into the bedroom. A moment later she emerged, holding a thick roll wrapped in paper and carefully tied with a red ribbon.
“My God,” said Barbara Fr?hlich. “You actually did find something.”
Detective Superintendent Maren K?nig straightened up and brushed the dust from her stockings. “I’ll take the paintings with me. I can give you a receipt if you like.”
“No, no, that’s not necessary,” Barbara Fr?hlich hastened to assure her. “If the pictures can help you find Amelie, then please take them.”
“Thank you.” The detective put her hand on her arm. “And try not to worry too much. We’re really doing everything humanly possible to find Amelie. I promise you that.”
Her words were so kind that Barbara Fr?hlich had to fight with all her might to quell the rising tears. Grateful, she merely nodded mutely. She briefly considered whether to call Arne and tell him about the paintings. But she was still deeply hurt by his behavior, so she didn’t bother. Only later when she was making herself some tea did it occur to her that she had neglected to look at the pictures.
* * *
Tobias was restlessly pacing back and forth in the living room of Nadia’s apartment. The big TV on the wall was on with the sound turned down. The police were searching for him “in connection with the disappearance of seventeen-year-old Amelie F.,” he had just read on the crawl beneath the picture. He and Nadia had spent half the night discussing what he should do. She thought they should look for the paintings. She fell asleep around midnight, but he had lain awake, trying in vain to remember what happened. One thing was sure: If he turned himself in to the police, they would arrest him on the spot. He had no plausible explanation for how Amelie’s cell phone could have wound up in his jeans pocket, and he still had not even the faintest memory of last Saturday night.
Amelie must have found out something about the events of 1997 in Altenhain, something that could be dangerous for someone. But who could that be? His thoughts kept leading him back to Claudius Terlinden. For eleven long years he had considered the man his only supporter on earth; in the joint he had looked forward to his visits and the long conversations with him. What a fool he’d been! Terlinden was only out for his own interests. Tobias didn’t go so far as to blame him for the disappearance of Laura and Stefanie. But Terlinden had ruthlessly taken advantage of his parents’ plight to get what he wanted: the Schilling land on which he had built the new administration building for his company.
Tobias lit a cigarette. The ashtray on the side table was already overflowing. He went to the window and looked out at the black water of the Main River. The minutes dragged by at an agonizing pace. How long had Nadia been gone? Three hours? Four? He hoped she found what they were looking for. Her plan was his only option. If the paintings actually existed, the ones that Amelie had mentioned on Saturday, then maybe he could use them to prove his innocence and at the same time find out who had kidnapped Amelie. Was she still alive? Was she … Tobias shook his head, but he couldn’t get rid of the thought. What if it was true—what the psychologists, expert witnesses, and the court had all affirmed back then? Was it possible that under the influence of too much alcohol he actually turned into a monster, as he’d been portrayed by the media? In the past, he’s always had a short fuse, and he had a hard time accepting defeats. He had expected to get what he wanted—good grades in school, girls, success in sports. He had seldom showed much consideration for others, and yet he’d been popular, the star of his group of friends. Or was that merely what he believed? Had his boundless conceit made him both blind and arrogant?
The reunion with J?rg, Felix, and the others had awakened vague memories in him, memories of long forgotten events that he had previously considered trivial. He had stolen Laura from Michael without feeling a hint of guilt toward his friend. Girls were nothing more than trophies that served his vanity. How often had he hurt someone’s feelings with his thoughtlessness? How much anger and worry had he caused? He hadn’t really understood until the moment when Stefanie broke up with him. He didn’t want to accept what she told him. He had even knelt down and begged her, but she only laughed at him. What had he done then? What had he done with Amelie? How did her cell phone wind up in his pants pocket?
Tobias sank back on the sofa, pressed his palms against his temples, and tried desperately to put together the scraps of memory into a logical context. But the harder he tried, the less successful he was. It was driving him crazy.
* * *
Although her waiting room was full, Dr. Daniela Lauterbach did not make Bodenstein and Kirchhoff wait long.
“How’s your head doing?” she asked with a smile.
“No problems.” Bodenstein touched the bandage on his forehead. “A little headache, that’s all.”
“If you like I could take another look at it.”
“That’s not necessary. We don’t want to take too much of your time.”
“All right, then. You know where to find me.”
Bodenstein nodded and smiled. Maybe he really ought to switch doctors. Daniela Lauterbach quickly signed three prescriptions that her nurses had placed on the reception counter, then led Bodenstein and Kirchhoff into her office. The parquet floor creaked underfoot. The doctor motioned them to the visitor’s chairs.
“It’s about Thies Terlinden.” Bodenstein sat down, but Kirchhoff remained standing.
Dr. Lauterbach took a seat behind her desk and looked at him attentively. “What would you like to know about him?”
“His mother told us he’d had an attack and was now in the psychiatric ward.”
“That’s correct,” said the doctor. “I can’t tell you much more about it. Confidentiality, you understand. Thies is my patient.”
“We’ve been told that Thies had been stalking Amelie,” said Pia.
“He wasn’t stalking her, he just kept her company,” the doctor corrected. “Thies likes Amelie a lot, and that’s his way of showing affection. Incidentally, from the start Amelie accepted the way he is. She’s a very sensitive girl, in spite of her rather unusual appearance. That’s fortunate for Thies.”
“Thies’s father has bloody scratches on his hands after an argument with Thies,” said Pia. “Does Thies have a tendency toward violence?”
Dr. Lauterbach gave a somewhat worried smile. “Now we’re approaching the area I can’t discuss with you,” she replied. “But I presume that you suspect Thies of hurting Amelie. I consider that out of the question. Thies is autistic and behaves differently from a ‘normal’ person. He is not capable of showing his feelings or even expressing them. Now and then he has these … outbreaks, but very, very seldom. His parents are tremendously concerned about him, and he does well on the medications, which he’s been taking for years.”
“Would you say that Thies is mentally handicapped?”
“Absolutely not!” Dr. Lauterbach shook her head vehemently. “Thies is highly intelligent and has an extraordinary gift for painting.”
She pointed to the large-format abstract paintings that resembled those hanging on the walls in Terlinden’s house and office.
“Thies painted those?” Pia looked at the pictures in astonishment. At first sight she hadn’t discerned what they depicted, but now she could see it. She shuddered as she recognized human faces, distorted, desperate, the eyes of torment, fear, and terror. The intensity of these paintings was oppressive. How could anyone tolerate looking at these faces every day?
“Last summer my husband organized a show for him in Wiesbaden. It was a sensational success, and all forty-three paintings were sold.”
She sounded proud. Dr. Lauterbach liked her neighbor’s son, yet seemed to have enough professional distance to assess him and his behavior objectively.
“Claudius Terlinden supported the Sartorius family generously in the years following Tobias’s conviction,” Bodenstein now took over the conversation. “He hired a lawyer for Tobias, a very good one. Do you think it’s possible that he did this because he had a guilty conscience?”
“Why would he?” Dr. Lauterbach was no longer smiling.
“Perhaps because he knew that Thies had something to do with the disappearance of the girls.”
For a moment it was completely quiet, except for the incessant ringing of a telephone muted by the closed door.
The doctor frowned. “I’ve never looked at it that way,” she conceded pensively. “The fact is that back then Thies was utterly infatuated with Stefanie Schneeberger. He spent a lot of time with that girl, the way he does with Amelie today…”
She broke off when she realized where Bodenstein was going with this. She gave him a concerned look. “Good God!” she said. “No, no, I can’t believe that!”
“We really have to speak with Thies quite urgently,” Pia said emphatically. “It could lead us to Amelie.”
“I understand. But it’s difficult. I was worried he might do some harm to himself in his current state, so I had no other option than to transfer him to the locked psychiatric ward.” Dr. Lauterbach peered over her steepled hands and tapped her forefingers thoughtfully on her pursed lips. “I don’t have the authority to arrange for Thies to talk with you.”
“But if Thies has done something with Amelie, she could be in great danger,” Pia replied. “Maybe he has locked her up somewhere and she can’t get out.”
The doctor looked at Pia. Her eyes were dark with worry.
“You’re right,” she said then. “I’ll call the head psychiatric physician in Bad Soden.”
“Oh, one more thing,” Pia added, as if it had just occurred to her. “Tobias Sartorius told us that Amelie mentioned your husband in connection with the events of 1997. Apparently there was a rumor going around then that he had given the lead role in the play to Stefanie Schneeberger because he was especially fond of her.”
Dr. Lauterbach had already reached out her hand for the phone but now drew it back.
“Tobias was accusing everyone back then,” she replied. “He wanted to get his own neck out of the noose, which is perfectly understandable. But all suspicions lodged against third parties were completely cleared up in the course of the investigation. The fact is that my husband, who was the director of the drama club at the time, was absolutely taken by Stefanie’s talent. Add to that her looks, which were perfect for the role of Snow White.”
She put her hand again on the receiver.
“What time on Saturday did you leave the Ebony Club in Frankfurt?” Bodenstein now asked. “Can you remember?”
A surprised expression flitted across the doctor’s face. “Yes, of course I remember,” she said. “It was nine thirty.”
“And you then rode back to Altenhain with Claudius Terlinden?”
“No. I was on call that evening, so I’d taken my own car. At nine thirty I was called to an emergency in K?nigstein.”
“Aha. And the Terlindens and your husband? When did they leave?”
“Christine rode with me. She was worried about Thies, who was in bed with the flu. I dropped her off down by the bus stop and then continued on to K?nigstein. When I got back home at two a.m., my husband was already asleep.”
Bodenstein and Kirchhoff exchanged a quick glance. Claudius Terlinden had really been lying about the course of events on that Saturday night. But why?
“When you returned from your emergency call, you didn’t drive straight home, did you?” Bodenstein prodded. The question didn’t surprise Dr. Lauterbach.
“No. It was a little past one when I left K?nigstein.” She sighed. “I saw a man lying on the bench at the bus stop and stopped.” She shook her head slowly, her brown eyes full of sympathy. “Tobias was dead drunk and already suffering from hypothermia. It took me ten minutes to get him into my car. Hartmut and I then got him up to his room and into bed.”
“Did he say anything to you?” Kirchhoff wanted to know.
“No,” said the doctor. “He wasn’t responsive. First I considered calling the EMTs and having him taken to the hospital, but I knew he wouldn’t have wanted that in any case.”
“How come?”
“I’d treated him only a couple of days before that, after he’d been beaten up in the barn.” She leaned forward and looked at Bodenstein so urgently that he felt uncomfortable. “I really can’t help feeling sorry for him, no matter what he’s done. The others may say that ten years in prison was too little. But I think that Tobias will be suffering for the rest of his life.”
“There are indications that he may have had something to do with Amelie’s disappearance,” said Bodenstein. “You know him better than many other people. Do you think that’s possible?”
Dr. Lauterbach leaned back in her chair and said nothing for a long moment, without taking her eyes off Bodenstein.
“I wish,” she said at last, “I could say ‘no’ with full conviction. But unfortunately I can’t.”
* * *