Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(93)

“I’m not demanding that of you,” Gregor Lauterbach whispered. “I just want to talk to Thies. That’s all. He simply has to continue to keep his mouth shut. You’re his doctor, they’ll let you in to see him.”

“No.” Daniela Lauterbach shook her head. “I’m not going to get involved. Leave the boy alone. He’s got enough problems. Actually it would be best if you removed yourself from the scene for a while. Go to the house in Deauville until things have settled down here.”

“But the police have arrested Claudius,” Gregor Lauterbach told her.

“I know.” She nodded. “And I ask myself why. What did you really do on Saturday night, you and Claudius?”

“Please, Dani,” he pleaded. He slipped off the chair and got down on his knees before her. “Let me talk to Thies.”

“He won’t answer you.”

“Maybe he will. If you’re there.”

“Not a chance.” She looked down at her husband cowering in front of her like a scared little boy. Once again he had lied to her and betrayed her. Her friends had prophesied even before the wedding that it would turn out like this. Gregor was twenty years younger, he was strikingly handsome, an eloquent speaker, and possessed plenty of charisma. Women worshiped him because they saw something in him that he was not. Only she knew how weak he really was. That’s where she got her power, as well as from his dependence on her. She had forgiven him under the condition that nothing like that would ever happen again. A relationship with a schoolgirl was taboo. His ever-changing parade of lovers, on the other hand, didn’t interest her at all—she found it amusing. Only she knew his secrets, his fears and insecurities. In fact, she knew him much better than she knew herself.

“Please,” he continued to beg, looking at her with big, pleading eyes. “Help me, Dani. Don’t leave me in the lurch! You know what’s at stake for me!”

Daniela Lauterbach heaved a deep sigh. Her determination not to help him dissolved into thin air. As always. She couldn’t stay mad at him for long. And this time there really was a lot at stake; he was right about that. She bent down to him, stroked his head, and dug her fingers into his thick, soft hair.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do. But now pack your things and go to France for a few days, until everything is sorted out, okay?”

He looked up at her, grabbed her hand, and kissed it.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you, Dani. I don’t know what I would ever do without you.”

She smiled. Her anger at him had ebbed away. She felt a deep, peaceful joy rise up inside. Equilibrium had been restored, and she would conquer the threat from outside effortlessly—as long as Gregor was smart enough to appreciate what she was doing for him.

* * *



“The cultural minister?” Pia had expected a completely different answer from her colleague and was flabbergasted. “How do you know him?”

“My wife is his wife’s cousin,” Andreas Hasse explained. “We see each other a lot at family gatherings. Besides, we’re both in the men’s glee club in Altenhain.”

“Oh great,” said Bodenstein. “I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in you, Hasse.”

Andreas Hasse looked at him and stuck out his chin defiantly. “Really?” he replied in a trembling voice. “I had no idea that I could disappoint you, since you’ve never shown any interest in me.”

“Excuse me?” Bodenstein raised his eyebrows.

And then it came bubbling out of Hasse, now that he realized his days in K-11 were numbered.

“You’ve never said more than three sentences to me. I was supposed to become the head of K-11, but then you showed up from Frankfurt, so arrogant and smug. First you turned the whole place upside down, as if it was all rotten—everything that we dumb hick policemen had done before. You don’t give a damn about any of us! Just a bunch of stupid cops, far inferior to the noble Herr von Bodenstein,” Hasse retorted. “You’ll find out soon enough where it gets you. People are already planning to pull the rug out from under you.”

Bodenstein looked at Hasse as if he’d spit in his face. Pia was the first to come to her senses.

“Are you off your rocker?” she laid into her colleague.

He laughed caustically. “You’d better watch out. At the station everybody has known for a long time that you two have something going on! That’s at least as much of a breach of regulations as Frank’s moonlighting job.”

“Shut your trap!” Pia snarled. Hasse grinned lewdly.

“I knew from the start that something was going on. The others didn’t notice it until recently, when you started calling each other by your first names.”

Bodenstein turned and left the house without a word. Pia made a couple more furious remarks to Hasse, then followed her boss. He wasn’t in the car. She walked down the street and found him over by the woods, sitting on a bench with his face buried in his hands. Pia hesitated, but then went over to him and sat down quietly next to him. The wood of the bench was glittering with moisture from the fog.

“Don’t listen to that crazy shit. He’s just a bitter, frustrated idiot,” she said. Bodenstein didn’t answer.

“Am I doing anything right?” he murmured dully after a while. “Hasse is plotting with the cultural minister and stealing transcripts from the files. Behnke has been working in secret for a year in a bar and I didn’t even know it. My wife has been cheating on me for months with another guy…”