‘Are we going to Papa’s again this weekend?’ asked Mina, dissecting a broccoli floret into microscopic pieces.
‘Yes, that’s the plan. Why? Don’t you want to go?’
‘No, I do.’ A tiny green fragment had clearly found favour, and was being transported into her mouth on the fork. ‘He said he might be getting me a cat. If it lives with Papa, can I stay there more often?’
Beatrice almost choked. ‘We’ll discuss that when the time comes.’ A cat!
‘Me too, Mama, me too!’ mumbled Jakob, his mouth full.
‘Forget it, doofus, it’s my cat.’
‘Silly moo!’
Mina ignored him. ‘If Papa calls again tonight, can I speak to him?’
‘Me too!’ yelped Jakob excitedly.
‘No. We don’t make phone calls at night-time. Papa will soon realise that.’
She got the children ready for bed and let the CD player read them the bedtime story she had no energy left for today. Then she sat down on the balcony with a glass of red wine and read back through her notes. Again and again, she kept coming back to the coordinates.
Letting the wine swill around in her mouth, she tried to taste the notes of blackcurrant and tobacco touted by the label on the bottle, but didn’t succeed. So she drank the glass down in one long gulp instead. Tiredness pulled at her with its heavy hands.
She turned her mobile off and unplugged the landline from the wall. Achim would have to find another way of amusing himself tonight.
Three yellow Post-its, full of Hoffmann’s indecipherable scrawl, were waiting for her the next morning on her computer monitor. A reminder about the reports. She rolled her eyes.
‘We’ll give Stefan the files, he needs practice anyway. Report writing is character building. Oh, and he’s already checked out the list of Nora Papenberg’s phone calls – and guess what!’ Florin was standing at the espresso machine in a get-up that was very unusual for him – cargo pants, T-shirt and hiking shoes – and was just finishing off his cocoa-powder-dusted masterpiece for Beatrice. ‘The call that we suspect lured her away from the party came from a telephone box on Maxglaner Hauptstrasse. I’ve sent forensics there, although I’m pretty sure they won’t find anything.’ He looked up. ‘Speaking of telephone calls – how was last night? Did you manage to get any peace?’
‘I did actually, but only because I unplugged or turned off anything that could possibly have rung. So I had seven outraged messages from him on the answerphone this morning, telling me he was out of his mind with worry about the kids because he couldn’t get through.’ She took a sip of coffee. It tasted wonderful.
‘Well, the important thing is that you were able to get some sleep. Listen, the pathologist’s report isn’t in yet, so I suggest we concentrate on another aspect of the case first.’
‘The coordinates?’
‘Exactly.’ He waved his mobile in the air. ‘I’ve just installed some new navigation software. It looks like we’re heading off into the sticks.’ He spread out a map and pointed his finger at a section of forest near the Wolfgangsee lake.
‘There? Are you sure?’ Beatrice wasn’t sure what she had been expecting from the location indicated by the coordinates. But certainly something more interesting than trees.
They took Florin’s car. Beatrice lowered the passenger-side window. May had only just begun, but it was acting like a much balmier month. Argentine tango played on the stereo. For a moment, she daydreamed that they were setting off on an adventure, with a picnic basket on the back seat and all the time in the world stretching out ahead of them.
A thought occurred to her. ‘What if the place we’re driving to only has some private significance? Like the scene of an argument? Or quite the opposite – a first kiss, a promise, a sexual act, something that happened between people but left behind no visible trace? Then the location may well be the key to the case, but we’ll never find the lock.’
Florin just smiled. ‘That’s very possible. But I don’t think we should ignore the tattoos either, do you? I can’t imagine that they’ll be of no use to us whatsoever.’
He was right, of course. And, worst-case scenario, they’d be spending a sunny May morning in the countryside, far away from Hoffmann and his Post-its. Just that alone made it all worth it.
‘What do you think we’re going to find?’ she asked, as the car wound its way along the serpentine road up the Heuberg mountain.
He shrugged. ‘Let’s see what jumps out at us. If I get something fixed in my mind I’m more likely to overlook the thing that really matters, just because it looks different to what I expected. By the way, you’ll be pleased to hear I’ve finally made a decision.’ Florin raised his eyebrows. That meant: Ask me.
‘About what?’
‘Carpaccio di Manzo.’
‘Come again?’
‘The antipasti problem, remember? Carpaccio’s the ideal solution; the perfect start to a wonderful meal. Anneke will love it.’
The air rushing past carried the scent of fresh earth and lilacs into the car.
‘I’m sure she will.’
They parked the car opposite a restaurant. The path in front of them led across a meadow, which was flanked by grand estates and a magnificently renovated old farmhouse on the right-hand side. Florin held his mobile out in front of him like a compass. ‘Four hundred and thirty metres as the crow flies if we head north-west. But I suggest we follow the path at first rather than fighting our way through the undergrowth the whole way.’
Apart from an elderly couple kitted out in Nordic walking gear, there was no one else to be seen in the woods that morning. The path crossed an astonishingly clear stream and branched off to the right at a yellow trail sign marked ‘Steinklüfte’, which showed the way to the stone chasm.
‘Not much further.’ Florin showed Beatrice his mobile, where the black-and-white destination flag had already come into view on the display. The path was becoming steeper now, winding upwards through high rocky crags, past fallen trees with toadstools growing out of their stumps. One tree trunk stretched out across the path, forming an archway.
‘All we’re going to find here is pretty scenery,’ murmured Beatrice. ‘How much further is it?’
‘A hundred and twenty metres.’
She started to keep a lookout for something unusual, but it was difficult when she didn’t have the slightest idea what this ‘something’ might be. There were rocks, numerous rocks of differing sizes. And another stream.
‘Forty metres,’ announced Florin.
All around them, huge stones propped one another up. Trees were even growing out of some of the steep, moss-covered formations.
‘Fifteen metres.’ Florin stopped in his tracks. ‘We should be able to see something from here.’ He set off again, but walking more slowly now, his eyes fixed on his mobile. Beatrice tried to ignore the tug of disappointment in the pit of her stomach. Okay, so there was nothing here, but that was only at first glance. It didn’t necessarily mean the coordinates were useless. They would have to take their time, be thorough. Assume that there was more behind the tattoos than a murderer with an unusual fetish for feet and numbers.