The conference room at the Stralsund precinct looked like a place that had forgotten people ever worked there. Bare, almost sterile. A room meant for reports, not warmth. On the large table lay folders, printed photos, a tablet, and a stack of blue notepads. In the middle someone had placed a round glass bowl, filled to the brim with gummy candies and licorice, as if to offer the smallest counterweight to the cold.
Outside, the sky had turned deep purple, edged in faint red. It was past ten, the windows still carrying the heat of the long summer day. Inside, the air was cool, almost too cool, as though the air-conditioning sought to strangle every emotion at its birth.
Katja Sommer leaned against the sill, arms crossed. Her short, fire-red hair gleamed in the muted light. The khaki blouse and simple black pants fit her like a uniform, practical, without frills. Her eyes were sharp, but tiredness traced the corners.
Sven Widahn sat at the table, his left leg stretched out. He pulled the candy bowl closer and fished out three green gummy frogs, lining them neatly as if even his snacking belonged to some quiet discipline. His hair, once long and blond, was now cropped short, almost white. The lines around his mouth and eyes told of pain, stubbornness, and the moments when he thought he would never see Katja again.
At the table sat Michael Heinrichsen, broad and square, his weathered face carved by years and his Pomeranian dialect giving every sentence a rough edge of finality, and Babsi Hammlot, the young intern with a blond braid. She typed on her laptop, sipped from a green organic smoothie in bamboo, and glanced now and then at Sven’s sticky frogs, not in disgust but with an attentiveness that seemed to record every detail in the room.
Beside her, Konrad Vohwinkel, head of forensics, leafed grimly through a report.
“Let’s sum up,” Katja began. “Sina Fehrmann, mid-thirties, found this morning in the old cemetery in Bergen. Beside her, a naked male body. No ID. Victim: Middle Eastern appearance, no visible signs of violence.”
“No blood at the scene,” Sven added. “No struggle. Only a puncture wound above the solar plexus. Ulrich thinks it could be some kind of intelligence service trick, MI6, BND, GRU, CIA, Mossad. Or maybe NASA. Who knows.”
Heinrichsen leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, mouth tight. “So nothing ordinary?”
Sven shook his head, kneading one of the frogs between his fingers. “More like something dreamed up in a classified research lab, then buried again as if it never existed.”
Katja raised her brows. “So more than just a curious pinprick.”
“Much more.” Sven still toyed with the frog, undecided whether to play with it or eat it. “If Majonika is right, the stuff leaves no trace. We could turn the body inside out and never learn what was injected.”
“And the symbol?” Vohwinkel asked.
“Tattoo, tiny, on the left thigh,” Sven said. “An eye, a circle, roots, strange runes.”
Katja tapped her pen against the table. “We should have the state office and international databases run a search.”
Babsi nodded, fingers already moving. “I can scan through the major tattoo archives too. Might just be some niche fashion thing.”
“And,” Sven pushed the autopsy report across the table and finally popped the frog into his mouth, “the man was terminal. Pancreatic cancer, final stage. Most likely natural death. No trace of the injection. He had probably been dead for a while before ending up in the cemetery, kept cold beforehand.”
Heinrichsen leaned forward. “After Sven’s call I checked with the Sana clinic. I think I found him. Two weeks ago they had a patient matching the profile exactly. Faris Mertens. Born 1986 as Faris Al Kazemi in Baghdad. Fled to Germany in 2016. Married in 2018 to Diana Mertens. Two daughters. Studied physics and math. Six months ago came the diagnosis.”
“What a fate. But don’t you think it’s unusual, a Iraqi man taking his wife’s name?” Katja asked.
“Sure. But what’s ordinary here?” Heinrichsen stole one of Sven’s frogs and ate it. “He also had a hospice placement lined up. Then two days before, he discharged himself, against medical advice.”
“Maybe he just wanted to die at home,” Babsi offered quietly. Her fingers hovered above the keys as Heinrichsen’s gaze flicked her way. “It happens. People change their minds.”
Heinrichsen narrowed his eyes as if weighing whether to respond, then let it drop. “What is interesting is that the clinic’s file was only recently updated to say he died a few days ago. The family is waiting for cremation and an anonymous burial in a forest cemetery. Supposedly his express wish. The whole thing looks too smooth, too polished.”
“Then we pay the widow a visit first thing tomorrow,” Sven said dryly. “She can tell us which funeral home she hired, the one that misplaces its dead.”
Katja looked up from her notes. “And whether the body in Greifswald is even Faris Mertens at all.”
Konrad spoke up. “Let’s go back to the woman. Between the fibers of the linen sack Sina was wearing, we found a piece of tanned leather. Pigment traces, no modern tanning agents. Likely very old.”
“How old are we talking? A little more precise, if possible?” Sven asked.
“Pre-industrial, I’d say. Maybe medieval.”
Babsi typed the details quickly into her laptop.
“But there’s more. We found remnants of yarrow, wormwood, juniper. Also blood, human waste, and urine. Whether from Sina, I can’t say, since I still don’t have her DNA,” Konrad went on, giving Katja a pointed look. “And we found traces of what seem to be historical preservatives: different resins, beeswax. Needs more testing, but I’ll send the sample to the open-air museum at Groß Raden. They’re the real experts when it comes to the Middle Ages. As for the textile: coarse weave, undyed, stitched with animal sinew. My first impression is a medieval burial garment or something similar. But again, that’s for the museum staff to confirm.”
“You’re saying it might actually be a kind of shroud?” Michael asked.
“My guess, yes. My certainty, no.”
Katja rubbed her lower back. “Who puts a living woman in something like that and abandons her on a cemetery?”
Konrad lifted his hands. “Not my field.”
“Marit’s taking her to a doctor tomorrow,” Katja said. “Once the lab results are in, you’ll get everything. Including your DNA, Konrad.”
Sven tapped his pen lightly against the table. “So: Faris Mertens and Sina Fehrmann. No papers, no records. A medieval sackcloth, a strange tattoo, and she speaks a dialect no one can place.”
Michael gave a low whistle. “Like she slipped through a hole in time.”
“If this were science fiction, I’d agree with you,” Sven muttered.