Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(82)

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.”