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.”
Bodenstein had to admit that he had indeed promised Cosima to come home early. He’d forgotten, and that annoyed him even more.
“Her diaper’s dirty,” he said, holding the child a bit away from him. “And the dog pooped in the house. You could have at least let him out before you left. And would it be too much to ask that you do some grocery shopping so I could find something to eat in the fridge after a long day at work?”
Cosima didn’t answer. Instead she gave him a look from under raised eyebrows that really sent him into a fury, because it made him feel both irresponsible and rotten. She took the crying baby from him and went upstairs to change her and put her to bed. Bodenstein stood in the kitchen undecided. Deep inside a battle was raging between pride and common sense, and at last the latter won out. With a sigh he took a vase from the cupboard, filled it with water, and put the flowers in it. From the pantry he got out a bucket and a roll of paper towels and set about cleaning up the dog’s deposits in the hall. The last thing he wanted was a fight with Cosima.
* * *
“Hello, Tobias.” Claudius Terlinden gave him a friendly smile. He got up from his chair and held out his hand. “Great to see you back home.”
Tobias briefly grasped the proffered hand but said nothing. The father of his former best friend Lars had visited him several times in prison and assured him that he would help his parents. Tobias was never able to explain the motives for his friendliness, because at the time of the investigation he had caused Terlinden considerable trouble. The man seemed not to have held it against him; on the contrary, he had immediately engaged one of the best criminal lawyers in Frankfurt to defend Tobias. But even he was unable to forestall the maximum sentence.
“I don’t want to bother you two for long, I just came to make you an offer,” said Claudius Terlinden, sitting back down on the kitchen chair. He had changed hardly at all in the intervening years. Slim and suntanned even now in November, with his slightly graying hair combed back, although his formerly sharply chiseled features had turned a bit puffy. “Once you’ve settled down here, if you can’t find a job, you could come work for me. What do you say to that?”
He gazed expectantly at Tobias over the rims of his reading glasses. He was not an impressive man in terms of either physical size or good looks, but he did radiate the calm self-confidence of a successful entrepreneur. He also possessed an innate authority, which made other people behave courteously, even obsequiously, in his presence. Tobias did not sit down but remained leaning on the door frame with his arms crossed. Not that he could see many alternatives to Terlinden’s offer, but something about it made Tobias suspicious. In his expensive suit, his dark cashmere coat, and with his shoes polished to a high sheen, Claudius Terlinden was like a foreign presence in the shabby kitchen. Tobias felt a growing sense of powerlessness. He didn’t want to become indebted to this man. His eyes shifted to his father, who sat there with his shoulders hunched, mutely staring at his clasped hands like a devoted serf before the lord of the manor. This image did not please Tobias in the least. His father shouldn’t have to bow to anyone, especially not Claudius Terlinden. Half the village felt indebted to him because of his smug generosity, since no one was ever able to reciprocate. But Terlinden had always held the advantage. Almost all the young people from Altenhain had worked for him at one time or profited from his help in some way. In return Terlinden expected only gratitude. Since half the people in Altenhain were employed by him anyway, he enjoyed a godlike status in this one-horse town. The silence turned awkward.
“Well, then.” Terlinden stood up, and Hartmut Sartorius instantly jumped to his feet. “You know where to find me. Let me know what you decide.”
Tobias merely nodded and watched him leave. He stayed in the kitchen as his father showed their guest to the door.
When his father returned two minutes later, he said, “He means well.”
“I don’t want to be dependent on his benevolence,” Tobias replied fiercely. “The way he walks in here, like … like a king bestowing the favor of his presence on his subjects. As if he’s better than us!”
Sartorius sighed. He filled the kettle and put it on the stove.
“He’s helped us a lot,” he said softly. “We had never saved up anything, always put it into the farm and the restaurant. The lawyer cost a lot of money, and then people stopped coming here to eat. Eventually I couldn’t make the mortgage payments to the bank. They threatened to foreclose on the property. Claudius took care of our debts to the bank.”
Tobias stared at his father in disbelief.
“You mean, the whole farm actually belongs … to him?”
“Strictly speaking, yes. But we have a contract. I can buy back the farm at any time and have the right to live here until I die.”
Tobias needed to digest this news. He declined the tea that his father offered him.
“How much do you owe him?”
Hartmut Sartorius hesitated a moment. He knew his son’s fiery temper well. “Three hundred and fifty thousand euros. That’s how much I owe the bank.”
“The land alone is worth at least twice that!” said Tobias, making an effort to control himself. “He exploited your situation and got an unbelievable bargain.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.” Hartmut Sartorius shrugged. “There was no alternative. Otherwise the bank would have auctioned off the farm, and we would have been out on the street.”
Something suddenly occurred to Tobias. “What about the Schilling land?” he asked.
His father looked away, staring at the teapot.
“Dad!”
“Good Lord.” Hartmut Sartorius looked up. “It was just a meadow!”
Tobias was beginning to understand. The pieces were snapping into place in his mind. His father had sold the Schilling land to Claudius Terlinden, and that’s why Mother had left him! It was not merely a meadow, but the dowry that she had brought into the marriage. The Schilling land had been an apple orchard with little true value. But after the change in the land-use plan in 1992 it had become probably the most valuable piece of land in the Altenhain district, because it comprised almost fifteen-hundred square meters in the very center of the planned industrial park. Terlinden had had his eye on the property for years.
“How much did he pay you for it?” asked Tobias in a low voice.
“Ten thousand euros,” his father admitted, hanging his head. A lot that big in the middle of the industrial park was worth fifty times that amount. “Claudius needed it urgently, for his new construction project. After everything he’d done for us, I couldn’t refuse. I had to let him have it.”
Tobias’s jaw tightened as he clenched his fists in helpless fury. He couldn’t reproach his father, because he was the one to blame for the regrettable situation into which his parents had fallen. He suddenly had the feeling that he might suffocate in this house, in this damned village. Still he would stay—for as long as it took him to find out what had really happened eleven years ago.
* * *