The wind drifted in mild and fragrant from the Bodden, as if carrying the scent of the meadows. Katja and Sven sat on the small wooden deck behind the house, two steaming cups on the old folding table between them. The boards beneath their feet were warm from the sun, somewhere a blackbird chirped. It was one of those rare days when vacation actually felt like vacation. And yet the conversation would not leave them.
“I can’t get it out of my head,” Katja said, resting her chin on her hand. “Faris. Elin. Sina. These hospice volunteers. Life insurance policies that pay out while the bodies are still warm. It’s too much coincidence.”
Sven sipped his coffee, one eyebrow arched. „You mean two people, both officially dead, suddenly turn up out of nowhere, marked with symbols, one naked, the other in some kind of burial sack that smells of the Middle Ages? And oh, by the way, the life insurance pays out two hundred and fifty thousand euros straight away? Yeah. Sounds like a TV special.”
“More like something no one is controlling,” Katja muttered.
“Or something, or someone, is controlling everything.” He stared into his coffee cup as though the answer lay at the bottom. Katja studied him. For a long moment.
“What if…” she began, then broke off.
Sven tilted his head. He reached across the table and stroked her arm gently. “Go on. Say it. You’ve got that look again, the one where I either laugh or open a bottle of wine.”
Katja laughed softly. “What if what is inside Elin is not actually her?”
“Red or white wine?”
She ignored the quip, leaned forward, and met his eyes. “What if this spirit, this… person, really is from then. From 1489. And somehow… entered Elin’s body?”
Sven burst out laughing. “Katja. Seriously? What did you watch last night, Orphan Black, The Ring? Or are we adding UFOs too?”
“Go ahead, laugh,” she said. “But explain to me why Sina knows old language forms. Why she reacts instinctively to Middle Low German words. Why she talks about things no one without historical training could possibly know. And why no one can say who she really is.”
Sven sobered. “Okay. I admit it. This is… strange. Maybe even damn strange.” He leaned back. “But a medieval ghost? Katja, we’re cops. Not exorcists.”
“Exactly. Which is why we have to allow every question.”
For a while neither spoke. Only the wind moving through the apple trees and the faint clink of their cups.
Katja was about to take another sip of coffee when her phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen, then at Sven.
“Marit.”
Sven lifted a brow. “Well, that fits.”
Katja answered. “Hello?”
On the other end, Marit’s voice was soft, a little weary, but clear. “Hi Katja. I didn’t want to interrupt. I… I was at the clinic with her yesterday. And a few things happened I need to talk to you about.”
Katja straightened. “With Sina?”
“Yes. And then Henning showed up, rambling about something no one could make sense of. I don’t think he’s doing well. I can’t explain all of it over the phone. It’s strange. And a little worrying.”
There was a pause before she added, “Are you free this afternoon? I thought I’d fire up the grill. It’s warm, you’re on vacation, and here we can talk in peace. And… I invited Henning too, I feel sorry for him. And I asked Konrad as well. He knows his stuff, and I’d be glad to see him.”
Katja felt herself smiling, a small knowing grin that did not escape Sven.
“Of course,” she said into the phone. “We’ll come.”
“Thank you.” Marit sounded relieved. “Around five? I’ll make potato salad. And it would be good if we were open.”
“More open than usual?” Katja asked dryly.
“Yes,” Marit said. “Maybe more open than ever before.”
Katja hung up and looked at Sven. “Well, something is definitely brewing. I mean Marit and Konrad.”
Sven grinned. “It is. He told me himself.”
Katja planted her hands on her hips in mock outrage. “And you didn’t tell me?”
She grabbed the napkin from the table and tossed it at his head.
“Ouch!” he laughed, catching the cloth. “I was trying to break it to you gently.”
“What a day,” Katja murmured, looking out across the fields of blooming rapeseed.
Sven leaned back. “Maybe it is the right day. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I’m thinking about retiring early.”
Katja turned to him. “What?”
“I’m tired, Katja. I’ve had enough. Murder, power games, bureaucratic nonsense… I want more time with you. With Patrick, with his wife Lisa, and maybe before long you’ll be a grandmother.”
Katja’s eyes grew wide. She knew Sven had built a close bond with Patrick and her parents over the years, but the idea of moving to Mallorca with him felt foreign. Patrick had married Lisa just a year ago, and now Sven was talking about her becoming a grandmother?
“Do you know something I don’t?” she asked warily.
Their old tabby, Schnief, jumped onto her lap. He sniffed at the table, perhaps hoping to find something left behind. Katja held him back, scratching gently behind his ears.
“No, I don’t,” Sven went on, watching the small ritual between his wife and the striped cat, as he always called him fondly. “But I want to be where life really is. There’s more than questions and corpses. What about us, about our lives, my love?”
Katja stayed silent for a long time before she answered softly. “I need time to think.”
She saw how his gaze touched her, and even after so many years it still gave her goosebumps. It was crazy, really.
“Why are you smiling?” Sven asked, still watching her.
“No reason.”
“You get time to think. Five minutes.”
He stood, bent down, and kissed her.
The squeak of the garden gate broke the moment.
Henning Tiedemann stood at the entrance, almost shy. He looked pale, with dark circles under his eyes, his face hollowed out as if the night had spit him back.
“May I interrupt for a moment?” he asked hoarsely.
“Henning. Of course, come in,” Sven said. He sat down again and gestured toward an empty chair.
Katja stood. “Coffee?”
Henning nodded, grateful. “A strong one, please. What I have to tell you… it will knock you flat.”
“Can I offer you Schnief in the meantime?” She set the cat on his lap.
“Schnief?”
“When he came to me as a kitten, he had a cold. So, Schnief.” Katja disappeared into the kitchen. Through the small window she saw Henning stroke the cat while rubbing his forehead with the other hand, as if wiping away something that would not leave him. Sven watched him quietly, his expression attentive.
When Katja returned and placed the steaming cup before him, Schnief leapt down, and Henning clasped the mug in both hands.
“I was at a colleague’s birthday party last night, and it got late, too late. There may have been a drink too many.”
Sven smiled thinly. “That explains why you look like a mummy with sunburn. Bad beer?”
Henning did not rise to the joke.
“When I got home this morning, my place had been broken into. No forced entry. The door was opened cleanly. With the code. Only I knew it. And Meike.”
Sven sat straighter. “Excuse me?”
Lines creased Katja’s brow. “What was taken?”
“Nothing.” Henning’s gaze was steady. “No valuables, no cash, no jewelry. All still there. But Meike’s study, empty. The papers, books, notes, everything gone.”
“Targeted,” Sven muttered. “Someone knew exactly what they were after.”
Henning nodded slowly.
“After we talked at Marit’s,” he went on, “I loaded two boxes of Meike’s papers into my car. There was that strange symbol on them. I thought they might be important. I drove around with them for two days. This morning I put them in Marit’s garage. Quietly. She doesn’t know. I didn’t want to upset her.”
Katja fell silent, stunned. A gust of wind swept through the gnarled apple trees and set the growing grain swaying.
“Did you report it?”
Henning spooned sugar and milk into his coffee. “At first I wanted to report it. But when I called the station, the guys told me that the burlap sack, or whatever it was, from that Sina had been stolen out of Konrad’s lab. And that you’d been ordered to stop digging into the case, since there was no homicide. So… I went to Marit’s and hid the last two boxes there, secretly, without her knowing.”
Sven turned his cane slowly between his fingers, thinking. “If you don’t want to file a report on the break-in, then let’s ask Konrad later to help us off the record. He’s coming to the cookout this afternoon anyway.”
Henning took a sip of coffee. It seemed to steady him. He looked at Katja almost pleadingly. “I honestly don’t know who I can trust anymore. Or who I can’t.”
Katja placed her hand gently on his thinning shoulder. “You can trust Konrad.”
Henning stirred his coffee as if panning for gold. “Maybe I’m exaggerating,” he murmured. “Everything has felt different since Meike died.”
Sven studied him closely. “What are you thinking now?”
Henning swallowed. “I think… Meike’s death wasn’t an accident. And it had nothing to do with my work. Not with Little Bird. It was never about me.”
He lifted his eyes. “It was about her. It was always about Meike. She found something out. Something that cost her her life.”
Katja shook her head, her smile turning bitter. “And we are forbidden to investigate.”