Blood Ties Read online

  Nik would be at Moosen’s flat soon. Hopefully he’d find something on Greta and they could bring this nightmare to an end.

  It was still early in the morning. The sun was low and children were yet to filter into the park. The only child on the bike track was a young girl, riding her scooter in circles, while her mother watched her from the side. The girl was wearing a glittery yellow helmet and a cosy red anorak. The back of the jacket was splattered with mud.

  Clemens Grohnert was also watching the girl, leaning on a tree with his hands in his coat pockets. He and Greta had spent almost every summer weekend at the track. He could never pull the tiny green bike out of the car boot fast enough for her. It would barely touch the ground before she was jumping on to it and racing away. She would cycle around and around the track, her eyes sparkling with excitement, engrossed in her own world. Only when she got thirsty would she cycle back over to where he waited, holding her Gruffalo flask. She’d gulp her juice, pass back the flask and cycle off again without saying a word.

  While she cycled, he would sit underneath a large oak at the top of a little hill. From there, you could look out over the entire park. He usually had his phone in his hand, either to read the news or answer emails. He hadn’t watched his daughter nearly as much as he should have; hadn’t spent nearly enough time with her. And now that she was gone, he felt a gap in his life and saw all too well the mistakes he’d made.

  His work provided no relief from the situation and he could no longer stand the looks of pity everywhere he went; the whispers from behind him as soon as he turned his back, and the way everyone was constantly asking if there had been any news. Since Greta had been kidnapped, he had realised how empty his life had become over the years; how meaningless his success and how worthless his money. He wished more than anything to come back to the park and watch his daughter cycling around the track; to forget about the world around them. He would have given up everything for that. But it wasn’t in his hands. Clemens closed his eyes and thought back to the time when he had no worries. He thought about Greta’s beautiful face and her curly hair, which would bulge out from under her green helmet. And as the tears streamed down his cheeks, he smiled.

  Nik considered pushing every buzzer in the hope that a careless resident would let him in. But there weren’t enough flats in the block for that to be a plausible option. And his trick with the CID badge wouldn’t work here without a legitimate search warrant.

  From the outside, Moosen’s flat seemed inconspicuous. There was a balcony with a plastic chair, a small table and a folded clothes horse. The blinds on the window looking out to the balcony had been rolled halfway down. Nik couldn’t see any movement or light inside that could indicate whether Moosen was at home. If Nik’s latest suspect in the kidnapping really had been involved, it would have been unimaginably stupid to hang around. As such, Nik came to the conclusion he wasn’t going to bump into him.

  Moosen’s red Ford Escort was parked twenty metres away in a residents’ parking space. Nik had walked around the car three times before putting his ear to the boot. He hadn’t heard a thing. The car bonnet was cool, which indicated the Ford hadn’t been driven that day. Nik’s urge to break into the car was strong, but he knew that if Moosen was indeed the wanted man, he couldn’t risk destroying any traces and managed to resist.

  It was just after 11 a.m. and Nik was back in his car. He kept tapping nervously on the steering wheel and checking his phone. If he decided to tell his ex-colleagues in the CID about Urbaniak’s empty flat, it wouldn’t be long until they also stepped up the search for Moosen. A team of investigators would be at his flat in five minutes, only to pull it apart. The press would soon catch on, and not long after, Moosen would find out they were on to him. Nik didn’t want to give him this advantage.

  But then, maybe staying silent about it was wrong. Maybe it would hinder the investigation. It wasn’t as if they were dealing with a murder case where the victim was already dead; Greta was hopefully still alive and her chances were getting worse with every passing hour.

  Nik’s quandary was interrupted by the arrival of a yellow delivery van. An hour ago, Nik had arranged for a greetings card to be sent by express delivery to the flat. He hoped that maybe the delivery person would have more chance of getting inside the building. Nik followed the man and waited behind a bush until he’d pressed the buzzer. Not long after, the door buzzed open and Nik slipped through before it closed. He waited beside the narrow lift until the man arrived downstairs again and left. He then took the stairs up to Moosen’s flat and put his ear against the door. He closed his eyes and listened for around five seconds. Nothing. No radio. No TV. Nik put on his gloves and took out his picklock. Apparently, high-quality locks were not a top priority for the property management and Nik was inside within a matter of minutes.

  He closed the door gently behind him and listened for any noises, but there was nothing to suggest anyone else was in the property. No steps, no snoring, no running water. In the entrance area was a small, scratched-up old cupboard. There were worn-out trainers and a crate of empty weissbier bottles on the floor, and a jacket hanging on a hook on the wall. The air inside the flat was stale, as if the windows hadn’t been open in a good while.

  Across from the front door was a small bathroom with a bathtub and a stained shower curtain. The toilet seat was up and some faded pyjamas had been thrown over the washing basket. The bedroom was just as untidy as the rest of the flat. The sheets were covered in stains, pillowcases that had once been white were yellow with sweat, and dirty clothes were strewn across the floor. Nik turned right into the kitchen and living-room area. There was a small kitchenette in the corner of the room containing a stove with two hot plates, a filthy oven and a microwave. The microwave door was covered in a white cloudy layer, as if a milk carton had exploded inside. Hanging on the fridge, Nik found a list of people’s names. Beside their names was a phone number and their hours of availability. It looked like a list of people who worked for him but there was no mention of Milan Urbaniak. A denim jacket hung over the armrest of a worn-out, fake leather couch, in front of which were dirty grey socks and a pair of slippers. The coffee table was covered in crisps and there was an empty beer bottle lying on its side on the floor. Half the bottle’s contents had apparently dripped out, leaving a dark, sticky patch beside it. It must have been at least two days since Moosen was last in the flat.

  Nik touched the TV and the hi-fi. Both were cold. And the sink in the kitchen was dry. A suitcase stood in the corner of the bedroom and the cupboard was full of clothes. There was nothing to hint at a trip or a hasty departure. After an hour, Nik had finished his search and hadn’t found anything to suggest Moosen was involved in the abduction. But why then had he called in sick on Friday and got someone to cover his shift? Had Moosen known about the planned kidnapping and therefore disappeared out of fear?

  Nik looked at a bunch of keys hanging on a rack on the wall. There was what looked like a house key and a car key, and then there was one labelled ‘Basement’. Maybe Moosen had hidden something down there. Nik grabbed them, opened the flat door and looked into the hallway. He heard steps on the staircase so waited until everything had gone quiet again before making his way swiftly downstairs.

  The rooms in the basement were separated only by wooden planks. Nik opened up the padlock to Moosen’s area. There was a grubby shelving unit with a toolbox, a saw and a rusty portable barbecue. Beside the barbeque was a freezer with a beer crate on top. Nik lifted off the crate and opened the freezer lid.

  Nik didn’t find any food inside. Instead, he found Georg Moosen himself, his wide-open eyes staring up at the ceiling and his lips slightly pursed. His head was twisted unnaturally to the side and his fingers had clawed together in spasm. Going by the jogging bottoms and vest he was wearing, it looked as if his murderer had surprised him while he’d been watching TV on the couch.

  Nik took out his phone and called Jon.

  ‘I need Balthasar to come
over to Moosen’s flat right now,’ he said when Jon picked up. ‘I’ve got a body for him.’

  Chapter 3

  The hands-free phone system started to ring over the speakers in the living room. Nik sat up and answered the call.

  ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ came Jon’s voice.

  Nik picked up his beer from the coffee table while Balthasar appeared from the kitchen with a cup of tea in his hands.

  ‘And a good afternoon to you too,’ said the pathologist politely.

  ‘I contacted the CID anonymously and they’re currently on their way over to Moosen’s flat with a whole team,’ explained Jon. ‘Let’s hope you two didn’t leave any traces.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I barely even needed to move the corpse,’ said Balthasar. ‘It was all over with very quickly.’

  ‘You just need to look at a frozen body and everything’s clear?’

  ‘Well, since Moosen was found in the freezer, I couldn’t determine the time of death.’ Balthasar sipped his tea. ‘You see, if a corpse is frozen, the usual signs of death are of no help: you can forget both livor mortis and rigor mortis, and there won’t be maggots, or any decomposition or mummification. And the body temperature of a frozen corpse also doesn’t tell you much.’

  ‘OK. But a rough guess would be helpful here,’ said Jon.

  ‘Going by the extent of the freezing and accumulation of ice, I’d suggest Moosen was murdered on Saturday morning at the latest. Probably earlier. Maybe before Greta’s abduction. Maybe after. But a dead body reacts differently to cold than a living one so only a more in-depth investigation will clarify things further.’

  ‘How was he killed?’

  ‘I didn’t find any blood in the flat so I’m ruling out brutal force with a weapon,’ said Balthasar. ‘The skin and face don’t suggest poisoning. And I didn’t find any marks on his face or neck to suggest suffocation or strangulation. So this, combined with the unnatural position of his head, leaves the option of a broken neck. It’s possible that somebody strong twisted his neck around.’

  ‘Any signs of torture?’

  ‘I couldn’t get his vest off because of the ice but he didn’t have any bruising on the face, no broken fingers and no burns of any kind.’

  ‘Any signs of resistance?’

  ‘The fingernails were frozen but I didn’t manage to find any skin or blood particles underneath them. The doctors down at forensics might be able to find some microscopic traces but it looks to me like the man was taken by surprise.’

  ‘I reckon it happened when he was watching TV,’ added Nik. ‘There were crisps all over the coffee table in the living room as well as a beer bottle on its side on the floor. The murderer must have crept up behind him.’

  ‘How can that happen to a guy like Moosen?’ asked Jon. ‘He might have been just the Grohnerts’ driver but he’d taken plenty of safety training classes and had worked as a bodyguard.’

  ‘Yeah, that baffled me too,’ said Nik. ‘So I checked the flat for weapons, alarm systems and other security devices but I didn’t even find any pepper spray or a gun. No movement sensors or CCTV. The door wasn’t reinforced and the lock was really poor quality. Plus, the back of the couch was facing the entrance. Moosen was no amateur; if he’d thought somebody was after him, he would’ve been better prepared.’

  ‘OK, so it seems he was too relaxed in general to have been involved in any criminal activity,’ said Jon. ‘Which suggests he also wasn’t involved in Greta’s abduction.’

  ‘But there was one thing,’ Nik continued. ‘When I was searching Moosen’s house, I found a list of people who worked for him. The name Milan Urbaniak wasn’t on the list.’

  ‘So why did he send a text to the Grohnerts saying Urbaniak would cover for him?’ asked Jon.

  ‘He must have been forced to do it,’ said Balthasar. ‘There weren’t any obvious signs of torture but that doesn’t mean to say nobody held a gun to his head. I know that would be enough for me.’

  ‘Or the murderer used Moosen’s finger to open up the phone and then wrote the message himself,’ suggested Nik.

  ‘Why would someone break into Moosen’s flat and kill him just so he could employ a cover driver?’ asked Jon. ‘And who the hell killed Urbaniak?’

  ‘Let’s go through everything we have,’ said Nik. ‘For Moosen, it’s Friday lunchtime. He’s sitting in front of the TV, beer in hand, before it’s time to head off and drive Greta to ballet. It’s easy to open his front door, the volume on the speakers is up, and since the TV is mounted high on the wall, Moosen doesn’t see the intruder’s reflection when he comes in the room. Bang. He’s dead. And the beer bottle falls to the floor.’

  ‘With regards to the time of death, Friday midday is perfectly plausible,’ said Balthasar.

  ‘The murderer gets in easily without a key. It’s an apartment block so it’s pretty normal to see unknown faces now and again. If the murderer comes dressed as a delivery guy or even the caretaker, he’s practically invisible. He listens at Moosen’s door, hears the TV and goes inside. I picked that lock on Moosen’s door in a minute so a pro could do it in less. He walks into the hall, sneaks towards the living room and sees Moosen watching TV. Two swift paces and it’s all over. And Moosen doesn’t even notice a thing. Thanks to the finger ID, the murderer unlocks the mobile and sends the Grohnerts a text message.’

  ‘And what about the body?’

  ‘Our murderer calls up a second guy, who’s downstairs guarding the basement. They load Moosen into the lift, heave him into the freezer and hang the key back on the hook to avoid arousing any suspicion. Then they take his mobile and ditch it.’

  ‘So now Urbaniak’s up,’ said Jon. ‘But what’s his role in the whole thing?’

  ‘That’s where I hit a wall,’ answered Nik, taking a gulp of beer. ‘But whatever the case, there’s no doubt this is all part of something big. Nobody commits murder just so they can drive a property developer’s daughter to their ballet class.’

  ‘Maybe Urbaniak was involved in the kidnapping,’ said Balthasar.

  ‘So why is he shot in the driveway then?’ asked Nik. ‘And who shot him? If he was just some dispensable henchman, they could have waited until he’d dropped Greta off.’ Nik sank back into the couch. ‘Just doesn’t make any sense.’

  Balthasar put down his cup. ‘Can you get hold of more photos and videos of Greta for me?’ he asked Jon.

  ‘No problem. A few are saved on the CID database. Including two videos from a school outing. What d’you need them for?’

  ‘I realised something when I saw that video of Greta on the TV. But before any speculation, I need to check something. Could be the clue we’re looking for.’

  Balthasar used his hoe to scrape listlessly at the dry earth. The metal tip barely entered the ground and the weed stayed firmly rooted.

  ‘Can’t you at least try to look a little bit more like a gardener?’ said Nik spitefully.

  ‘I’m not used to this kind of work,’ replied the pathologist.

  ‘You’ve never done any garden work?’

  ‘We always hired people to do the garden at my parents’ house. The only plant I’ve ever had anything to do with is the basil on my balcony.’ He let out a theatrical sigh. ‘My back is aching. And my hands . . . Oww.’ He removed his gardening gloves and inspected a miniscule red area on the tip of his finger. ‘You see! Look at that!’ he said, turning to Nik and waving his hands in his face. ‘These are the hands of an artist. Hands which use fine motor skills to perform work with a scalpel and not a garden hoe.’

  ‘I’ll buy you an ice cream after, how’s that?’ responded Nik.

  ‘I wouldn’t have expected to get any sympathy from a backward barbarian like you,’ said Balthasar. ‘Oh God, and just look at this outfit!’ He looked down at his green work trousers and black boots and sighed again, loudly.

  ‘Stop complaining, princess. We need to get to Vanessa Grohnert.’

  ‘But why as gardeners? Could we not ha
ve just chatted over a coffee?’

  ‘As you might have noticed, the Grohnerts’ property is sealed off by the police and surrounded by a swarm of reporters. Only relatives and some close friends are getting in. But thanks to Jon’s willingness to pay the gardener, he let us come in with him. So until Vanessa Grohnert appears, we need to look like we’re working.’

  ‘I need a break.’ Balthasar dropped the hoe on the ground and leaned against a tree.

  ‘Again? You just had one five minutes ago.’

  The pathologist pulled a thermos flask out of his bag and poured a cup of tea. He looked up to the sky, shaking his head, as if bemoaning his fate, and took a sip.

  The Grohnerts’ garden was enormous. And rather than opting for a simple grass lawn, they chose to have their own mini wood, the edge of which was lined with beech trees, while chestnuts and spruces filled the space in between. And towering above all of these was an old oak tree that for years had been spreading its solid, mossy roots over and under the ground beneath it. Lavender, rhododendron and ivy had all been planted in the areas that caught the sun and there was a small path leading past the oak, through a rose bed, and over to the wall that backed on to the street. Nik was still attempting to identify some kind of planting pattern when he noticed Greta’s mother.

  ‘Stand up straight, Balthasar,’ whispered Nik. ‘Vanessa Grohnert’s coming.’

  She wasn’t wearing as much make-up as she had been on the television but she was a very attractive woman and didn’t need it anyway. She had shoulder-length red hair and was wearing pearl earrings and a silver neck chain. Her dainty lips were pressed tightly together in contemplation, and worry lines had formed around her bright green eyes. She looked at the rose bed vacantly and let her finger run over the yellow petals. Nik took off his gloves, signalled to Balthasar and started walking towards the woman. Balthasar did the same.