Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(6)

“I’m going to get that bastard!” Wagner yelled. “I’ll beat that … that … f*cking killer to death.”

His head fell forward and he began to sob.

* * *



Tobias Sartorius stepped out of the shower and reached for the towel. He wiped off the steamed-up mirror with his hand and looked at his face in the dim light produced by the last functioning lightbulb in the bathroom. The last time he had looked in this mirror was on the morning of September 16, 1997. Later that evening they had come to arrest him. How grown-up he had felt back then, that summer after he’d graduated from high school. Tobias closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the cold surface. Here, in this house, where every nook and cranny was so familiar, the ten years he’d spent in prison seemed to have vanished. He remembered every detail of those last days before his arrest as if it had all happened yesterday. It was incredible how na?ve he had been. But until today he’d had those black holes in his memory, although the court had refused to believe it. He opened his eyes, stared into the mirror, and for a second was surprised to see the angular face of a thirty-year-old. With his fingertips he touched the pale scar that ran along his jawbone to his chin. The wound had been inflicted in his second week in prison, and it was the reason why he had spent ten years in solitary, with almost no contact with his fellow prisoners. In the strict hierarchy of prison life the murderer of two teenage girls ranked only barely above the lowest filth, the child murderer. The bathroom door didn’t close tightly anymore; a cold draft struck his wet skin and made him shiver.

From downstairs he could hear voices. His father must have a visitor. Tobias turned away and pulled on underwear, jeans, and a T-shirt. Earlier he had surveyed the depressing relic of the big farmhouse and confirmed that the front part looked downright presentable in comparison to the rear section. He gave up completely his vague plans to flee Altenhain as quickly as possible. He couldn’t possibly leave his father all alone in this mess. Since he couldn’t expect to find a job any time soon, he might as well spend the next few days getting the farm into shape. Then he would see what happened. He left the bathroom, passed the closed door to his room, and went down the stairs, out of habit skipping the steps that creaked. His father was sitting at the kitchen table, and his visitor had his back to Tobias. But he recognized the man at once.

* * *



When Oliver von Bodenstein, the detective superintendent and head of the Division of Violent Crimes at the Regional Criminal Unit in Hofheim, got home at nine thirty, he found that his dog was the only living creature in the house. The greeting he received seemed more embarrassed than cheerful—an unmistakable sign of a guilty conscience. And Bodenstein smelled the reason why before he saw it. He’d had a stressful fourteen-hour day. First there was a tedious meeting at the State Bureau of Investigation; the discussion of a skeleton discovered in Eschborn, which his boss, Commissioner Dr. Nicola Engel called a “cold case”; and last but not least the farewell party for a colleague from K-23 who had been transferred to Hamburg.

Bodenstein’s stomach was growling, because he’d had only a few chips along with a quantity of alcohol. Disgruntled, he opened the refrigerator and saw nothing inside that would gratify his taste buds. Couldn’t Cosima have done some grocery shopping if she wasn’t going to fix him any dinner? Where was she, anyway? He went down the hall, ignoring the stinking pile and the puddle the dog had left, which thanks to the floor heating had already dried to a sticky yellow spot. Then he went upstairs to his youngest daughter’s room. Sophia’s bed was empty, as expected. Cosima must have taken the little girl with her, wherever it was she’d gone. He wasn’t going to call her if she couldn’t bother to leave him a note or at least send him a text message. Just as Bodenstein had gotten undressed and stepped into the bathroom to take a shower, the phone rang. Naturally it wasn’t in the recharger on top of the chest of drawers in the hall, but somewhere else in the house. With growing annoyance he began searching for the phone, swearing as he stepped on a toy that had been left on the living room floor. Just as he located the phone on the couch, the ringing stopped. At the same time the key turned in the lock of the front door, and the dog began barking excitedly. Cosima came in, carrying their drowsy daughter and a huge bouquet of flowers.

“Oh, you’re home,” she said. That was her sole greeting. “Why didn’t you pick up the phone?”

His hackles rose at once.

“Because I couldn’t find it. Where were you, anyway?”

She didn’t answer, ignoring the fact that he was dressed only in briefs, and went past him into the kitchen. She put the bouquet down on the table and then held Sophia out to him. The girl was now wide awake and whimpering unhappily. Bodenstein took his little daughter in his arms. He could smell that her diaper must be full.

“I sent you several texts to ask you to pick up Sophia at Lorenz and Thordis’s.” Cosima took off her coat. She looked exhausted and frazzled, but he didn’t feel guilty.

“I didn’t get any texts.”

Sophia wriggled in his arms and started to cry.

“Because your cell was turned off. You’ve known for weeks that this afternoon I’d be at the film museum for the opening of the photo exhibition about New Guinea.” Cosima’s voice had a sharp edge to it. “Actually you promised to stay home tonight and take care of Sophia. When you didn’t show up and your phone was off, Lorenz picked her up.”