Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(102)

There had to be a happy ending. There always was. Most of the time, at least. She shuddered as she remembered all the newspaper stories and TV reports that did not have a happy ending. Dead girls buried in the woods, locked inside boxes, raped, tortured to death. Damn, damn, damn. She didn’t want to die, not in this shitty hole, in the dark, lonesome and alone. She wouldn’t starve very fast, but she could die of thirst. There was very little left to drink, so she was rationing the water to occasional sips.

Suddenly she gave a start again. She heard noises. She wasn’t imagining it. Footsteps outside the door. They were coming closer and closer, then stopped. A key turned with a screech in the lock. Amelie wanted to stand up, but her body was stiff with cold and from the dampness that had crept into her bones after so many days and nights of dark imprisonment. A piercing light fell into the room, illuminating it for a few seconds and blinding her. Amelie blinked but couldn’t see anything. Then the door closed again, the key turned with another screech, and the footsteps went away. Disappointment clutched at her and held her tight. No fresh water! Suddenly she thought she heard breathing. Was somebody else in the room? The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood up and her heart pounded like mad. Who was it? Was it a person? An animal? Fear threatened to choke off her breathing. She pressed her back against the damp wall.

Finally she gathered her courage together and whispered hoarsely, “Who’s there?”

“Amelie?”

In disbelief she gasped for air. Her heart leapt for joy.

“Thies?” she whispered, feeling her way along the wall. It wasn’t easy to keep her balance in the dark, although she had tried to memorize every square inch of the room. With outstretched arms she took two steps and flinched when she touched a warm body. She heard his excited breathing as she grasped his arm. Instead of retreating Thies grabbed her hand and held on tight.

“Oh, Thies!” Suddenly Amelie could no longer hold back the tears. “What are you doing here? Oh Thies, Thies, I’m so happy! So happy!”

She flung her arms around him and gave her tears free rein. Her knees felt weak, so great was her relief, finally, finally, not to be alone. Thies let her hug him. In fact, all at once she noticed that he was hugging her too. Cautiously and unpracticed. But then he pulled her close and rested his cheek on her hair. And all of a sudden she was no longer afraid.

* * *



Again the cell phone woke him. This time it was Pia, that merciless early riser, telling him at twenty past six that Thies Terlinden had escaped from the psychiatric ward during the night.

“The doctor called me,” said Pia. “I’m here in the psych ward now, and I’ve spoken with the ward doctor and the night nurse. She looked in on him at eleven twenty-seven on her last round, and he was in bed asleep. When she looked the next time at five twelve, he was gone.”

“What’s their explanation?” Bodenstein was having a hard time getting out of bed. He’d had three hours of sleep at most, and he felt like he could barely move. First Lorenz had called him just as he’d fallen sleep. Then Rosalie, and it took him a great deal of effort to talk her out of getting in her car and coming over to see him. With a suppressed moan he finally succeeded in hauling himself into a vertical position. This time he reached the light switch by the door without running into anything.

“They can’t explain it. They searched the whole place and he wasn’t hiding anywhere. The door to his room was locked. It looks like he evaporated into thin air, the same as all the others. It’s enough to make me sick.”

There was no sign of Lauterbach or Nadia von Bredow or Tobias Sartorius, despite a nationwide APB in print, radio, and TV.

Bodenstein staggered into the bathroom, where during the night he had wisely turned up the heat and shut the window that had been open a crack. His face in the mirror was not a pleasant sight. As he listened to Pia talking, his thoughts kept churning. He had foolishly thought that Thies would be safe in the locked psych ward, but he should have known what danger he was in. He should have had a guard posted for Thies’s protection. This was Bodenstein’s second serious mistake in the past twenty-four hours. If things went on like this, he’d be the next one facing suspension. He said goodbye to Pia, pulled off his sweaty T-shirt and underpants and took a long shower. Time was running away from him. The whole case was threatening to slip out of his grasp. What did it all come down to, first and foremost? Where should he start? Nadia von Bredow and Gregor Lauterbach seemed to be the key figures in this tragedy. He had to find them.

* * *



Claudius Terlinden took the news of his son Lars’s suicide without a flicker of emotion. After four days and three nights in police custody, his relaxed charm had given way to stubborn silence. On Thursday his lawyer had already lodged a protest, but Ostermann managed to convince the judge there was a danger of possible obstruction of justice. They wouldn’t be able to detain him much longer unless there was conclusive evidence that he had no alibi for the time when Amelie disappeared.

“The boy was always too soft, his whole life,” was Terlinden’s only comment. With an open shirt collar, a three-day growth of beard, and straggly hair he had about as much charisma as a scarecrow. In vain Pia tried to recall what had been so fascinating about him.

“But you,” she said sarcastically. “You’re tough, right? You’re so tough that you don’t care about the consequences of all your lies and cover-ups. Lars committed suicide because he could no longer stand his guilty conscience. You stole ten years of Tobias Sartorius’s life, and you terrorized Thies to such an extent that he’s been looking after a dead girl for eleven years.”