Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(47)

They caught up with him at the moment he grabbed the bolt of the door. Their blows rained down on his shoulders and arms and the small of his back. His knees buckled and he rolled up in a ball, using his arms to protect his head. They beat him and kicked him without saying a word. Finally they grabbed his arms, pulled them apart with raw force and tore his sweater and T-shirt over his head. Tobias clenched his teeth so he wouldn’t moan or beg for his life. He saw one of the men tying a clothesline into a noose. No matter how hard he tried to defend himself, they had the superior strength. They bound his wrists and ankles together behind his back and put the noose around his neck. Tied up helpless as a package with his torso unprotected, he could offer no resistance as they dragged him roughly across the raw, icy ground to the rear wall, where they shoved a stinking rag into his mouth and blindfolded him. Panting he lay on the ground, his heart racing. The clothesline cut off his air if he moved even a millimeter. Tobias listened for sounds but heard only the storm that was still raging around the barn. Would the three be content with this? Did they intend to kill him? Were they gone? The tension eased off a bit, but his muscles were cramping. But his relief was premature. He heard a hiss and smelled paint. At the same instant a blow struck him in the face, and his nose broke with a crack that echoed through his skull like a shot. Tears sprang to his eyes and blood stopped up his nose. Through the gag in his mouth he could barely get enough air. The panic was back, a hundred times worse than before, because now he could no longer see his attackers. Kicks and blows rained down on him, and in these seconds that turned into hours, days, and weeks he became more and more convinced that they were going to kill him.

* * *



There wasn’t much going on at the Black Horse. Not all the players were present at the usual game of poker at the regulars’ table; even J?rg Richter was missing, which made his sister’s mood sink to an all-time low for the year. Actually Jenny Jagielski was supposed to go to parents’ night at the kindergarten this evening, but in the absence of her brother she couldn’t bring herself to leave the Black Horse to her employees, especially since Roswitha was out sick and only Amelie was helping her out waiting tables. It was nine thirty when J?rg Richter and his pal Felix Pietsch showed up. They took off their wet jackets and sat down at a table. A little later two more men came in that Amelie had often seen with her boss’s brother. Jenny headed over to her brother like an avenging angel, but he blew her off with a few curt words. She turned with her lips pressed tight and went back behind the bar. Angry red patches were visible on her throat.

“Bring us four beers and four Willi shots!” called J?rg Richter to Amelie. They could use a little schnapps with their beer.

“Nothing doing!” Jenny Jagielski retorted furiously. “What a scumbag!”

“But the others are paying customers,” said Amelie innocently.

“Have they ever paid you?” Jenny snapped, and when Amelie shook her head, she said: “Customers my foot. They’re nothing but freeloaders!”

It wasn’t even two minutes before J?rg himself marched behind the bar and tapped four beers. His mood was just as foul as his sister’s, and they wound up in a heated, whispered argument. Amelie wondered what was happening. A subtle sense of aggression filled the air like electricity. Fat Felix Pietsch was beet red in the face, and the other two men wore surly expressions. Amelie was distracted from her train of thought when the three missing poker players came barging in and called to her for orders of schnitzel with fried potatoes, rump steak, and wheat beer as they made their way to the round table. They hung up their wet jackets and coats and sat down. One of them, Lutz Richter, immediately began telling a story. The men put their heads together and listened attentively. Richter shut up when Amelie came over with their drinks; he waited to go on until she was out of earshot. Amelie didn’t attach any importance to the men’s strange behavior, because in her mind she was again thinking about Thies’s paintings. Maybe it would be best to do what Thies had told her, and keep silent.

* * *



He came up to the front door and took off his soaking-wet jacket and filthy shoes on the porch. In the mirror next to the wardrobe he saw how he looked and lowered his head. It wasn’t right, what they had done. Absolutely not right. If Terlinden found out, then he’d be in for it—and the other two as well. He went into the kitchen, found another bottle of beer in the door of the fridge. His muscles ached, and tomorrow he would surely have bruises on his arms and legs, the guy had fought back hard. But in vain. The three of them together were much stronger than he was. He heard footsteps approaching.

“So?” the curious voice of his wife sounded behind him. “How’d it go?”

“As planned.” He didn’t turn around but took a bottle opener out of the drawer. With a hiss and a soft plop the cap popped off the bottle. He shuddered. That was the same sound he’d heard when the nasal bone of Tobias Sartorius broke under his fist.

“Is he…?” She left the sentence unfinished. Then he turned around and looked at her.

“Probably,” he said. The rickety kitchen chair groaned under his weight when he sat down. He took a gulp of beer. It tasted flat. The others would have let the guy suffocate, but he had quickly removed the gag from the unconscious man’s mouth without them seeing. “At any rate we gave him something serious to think about.”