Snow White Must Die (4 page)

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.

*   *   *

Amelie left the Black Horse shortly before eleven, going out the back way through the kitchen. She would have liked to stay longer tonight so she could hear more about the topic of the day. But Jenny Jagielski strictly adhered to the labor regulations for minors, since Amelie was only seventeen and she didn’t want to risk any hassle with the authorities. Amelie didn’t care; she was happy to have the waitress job and earn her own keep. Her father had turned out to be a skinflint, just as her mother had always described him, and denied her the money to buy a new laptop. He told her that the old one was good enough.

The first three months in this miserable village had been dreadful. But now that the end of her involuntary sojourn in Altenhain was in sight, she had decided to make the best of the next five months until her eighteenth birthday. By April 21, 2009, she would be on the first train back to Berlin anyway. Then nobody could stop her.

Amelie lit a cigarette and looked around in the dark for Thies, who waited for her every night to walk her home. Their close friendship was like raw meat for the village gossips. The wildest rumors made the rounds, but Amelie couldn’t care less. At the age of thirty Thies Terlinden still lived with his parents, because he wasn’t quite right in the head, as people in the village surreptitiously whispered. Amelie shouldered her knapsack and headed off. Thies was standing under the streetlight by the church, his hands thrust deep in his jacket pockets, his gaze fixed on the ground, but he fell in beside her as she passed.

“What a commotion there was tonight,” said Amelie. Then she told Thies about what had happened at the Black Horse and what she had learned about Tobias Sartorius. She had gotten used to almost never getting an answer out of Thies. People said he was stupid and couldn’t talk; they called him the village idiot. But that wasn’t true. Thies wasn’t stupid at all, he was just … different. Amelie was different too. Her father didn’t like the fact that she spent time with Thies, but there was nothing he could do about it. With cynical amusement, Amelie sometimes thought that her bourgeois father probably bitterly regretted having rescued his wacky daughter from his brief first marriage. He’d only done it at her stepmother Barbara’s insistence. In Amelie’s eyes her father was nothing more than a gray, shapeless blob with no corners, edges, or spine, a man who cautiously proceeded through his humdrum bookkeeper life, always at pains not to rock the boat. It had to be sheer horror for him to have an ex-con seventeen-year-old daughter with behavioral problems, whose face was decorated with half a pound of metal, and who wore only black clothes. As far as her hair and makeup were concerned, she could have been the model for Bill Kaulitz from the band Tokio Hotel.

Arne Fröhlich undoubtedly had excellent reasons for objecting to Amelie’s friendship with Thies, although he had never issued an ultimatum. Not that it would have done any good. Amelie had spent her whole life disregarding other people’s opinions. She thought the real reason her father tacitly tolerated their friendship was that Thies was the son of his boss. She flicked her cigarette butt into a storm drain and continued thinking out loud about Manfred Wagner, Tobias Sartorius, and the dead girl.

Instead of walking down the well-lighted main street she had turned into the narrow, gloomy lane that led from the church through the village, past the cemetery and the back yards of the houses all the way to the edge of the woods. After walking for ten minutes she and Thies reached Waldstrasse, where only three houses stood a bit above the rest of the village on large plots of land. In the middle was the house where Amelie lived with her father, her stepmother, and her two younger half siblings; to the right of it stood the Lauterbachs’ bungalow; and a bit off to the left, surrounded by parklike grounds, was the big old villa belonging to the Terlinden family, right at the edge of the forest. Only a few yards from the wrought-iron gate of the Terlindens’ estate was the rear entrance to the Sartorius farm, which stretched all the way down the hill to the main road. In the old days it had been a real farm, with cows and pigs. Today the whole place was one big pigsty, as Amelie’s father was fond of saying disparagingly. An eyesore.

Amelie stopped at the foot of the steps. Usually she and Thies parted here, and he would then keep walking without saying a word. But today he broke his silence when Amelie was about to go up the stairs.

“This is where the Schneebergers used to live,” he said in his monotone voice. Amelie turned around in astonishment. For the first time this evening she looked directly at her friend, but as usual he averted his eyes.

“Really?” she asked in disbelief. “One of the girls that Tobias Sartorius killed lived in
our
house?”

Thies nodded without looking at her.

“Yes. This is where Snow White lived.”

Friday, November 7, 2008

Tobias opened his eyes and for a moment felt utterly bewildered. Instead of the whitewashed ceiling of his cell, he saw Pamela Anderson beaming at him from a poster. Only then did he realize that he was no longer in the slammer, but in his old room in his parents’ house. Without moving, he lay there listening to the sounds coming through the window that was open a crack. The church bell tolled six times, announcing the early hour; somewhere a dog barked, another joined in, then both fell silent. The room was unchanged: the desk and the bookcase of cheap veneer, the wardrobe with the crooked door. The posters of the Eintracht Frankfurt soccer team, Pamela Anderson, and the Williams-Renault with Damon Hill, who had won the 1996 Formula 1 world championship. The little stereo that his parents had given him in March 1997. The red couch where …

Tobias sat up and shook his head. In prison he had kept his thoughts under better control. Now the agonizing memories caught up with him: What would have happened if Stefanie hadn’t broken up with him that night? Would she still be alive today? He knew what he had done. They had explained it to him a hundred times, after all—first the police, then his lawyer, the prosecutor, and the judge. The findings had been conclusive. There was circumstantial evidence, there were witnesses, there was the blood in his room, on his clothes, in his car. And yet two full hours had vanished from his memory. To this day it was nothing but a black hole.

He remembered quite clearly the sixth of September 1997. The planned parade at the village fair had been canceled as a sign of respect, because in London late that morning Princess Diana had been laid to rest. Half the world had been glued to their TV sets as the coffin with England’s mortally wounded rose was conveyed through the streets of Britain’s capital. Still, in Altenhain they hadn’t wanted to cancel the whole village fair. It would have been better if everyone had stayed home that evening.

Tobias sighed and turned over on his side. It was so quiet that he could hear his heart beating. For a moment he succumbed to the illusion that he was twenty years old again and nothing had happened. His place at the university was waiting for him in Munich. With his top grades he had been admitted easily. Now painful memories began merging with happier times. The boisterous graduation party was held in the back yard of the home of a friend from his class in Schneidhain. There he had kissed Stefanie for the first time. Laura had almost burst in fury and before his eyes had thrown herself at Lars to make him jealous. But how could he think about Laura when he was holding Stefanie in his arms? She was the first girl he had actually made an effort to pursue; usually girls ran after him in droves, to the great annoyance of his pals. For weeks he had wooed Stefanie until she finally gave in.

The next four weeks had been the happiest in his life—until the disillusionment of September sixth. Stefanie had been chosen Queen of the Fair, a silly title that had been Laura’s for years. But this time Stefanie had won instead. Tobias had been working with Nathalie and a few others at the bar inside the big tent, and he had watched as Stefanie flirted with other guys until she suddenly disappeared. Maybe he had already drunk more than was good for him. Nathalie had noticed how much he was suffering and told him, “Go and look for her.” He had dashed out of the tent, but he didn’t have to search for long. When he found her, jealousy had exploded like a bomb inside him. How could she do this to him? Making a fool of him right in front of everyone? All because of a stupid leading role in an even stupider play?

At this point Tobias threw off the covers and jumped out of bed. He had to do something—work or find some other way to distract his mind from these tormenting memories.

*   *   *

Amelie was walking with her head down through the fine drizzle. As she did every morning, she had turned down her stepmother’s offer to drive her to the bus stop, but now she had to hurry if she didn’t want to miss the school bus. November was showing its most unpleasant side, with fog and rain, but Amelie didn’t really mind the dismal dreariness of the month. She liked her solitary walk through the sleeping village. In the earbuds of her iPod the music of the Schattenkinder roared loud enough to shred her eardrums; they were one of her favorite Dark Wave groups. She had lain awake half the night thinking about Tobias Sartorius and the murdered girls. At the time Laura Wagner and Stefanie Schneeberger had been seventeen years old, the same age she was now. And she lived in the same house where one of the victims purportedly had lived. She absolutely had to find out more about the girl that Thies had called Snow White. What had happened in Altenhain back then?

A car came to a stop next to Amelie. Probably her stepmother, who could practically drive her mad with her enervating kindness. But then Amelie recognized Claudius Terlinden, her father’s boss. He had rolled down the window on the passenger side and was motioning for her to come closer. She turned off the music.

“Would you like a ride?” he asked. “You’re getting soaked.”

The rain really didn’t bother Amelie, but she had no objection to riding with Terlinden. She liked the big black Mercedes with the light-colored leather seats; it smelled brand new, and she was fascinated by the technological advancements that Claudius Terlinden was only too happy to demonstrate for her. She inexplicably liked her neighbor, although with his expensive suits, big cars, and ostentatious villa he was actually the prototype of the decadent moneybags that she and her pals back home in Berlin had hated with all their hearts. But there was something else. Lately Amelie had been asking herself whether she was entirely normal, because every time any male was somewhat friendly, her thoughts would immediately turn to sex. How would Mr. Terlinden react, she wondered, if she put her hand on his thigh and made him an unambiguous offer? Just thinking about it made a hysterical giggle rise inside her and she had to make an effort to subdue it.

“Well, come on then!” he called, motioning her to get in. “Climb in.”

Amelie stuffed her earbuds in her jacket pocket, opened the door, and dropped into the passenger seat. The heavy door of the luxury car closed with a satisfying thunk. Terlinden headed off down Waldstrasse and smiled at Amelie.

“What’s eating you?” he asked. “You look like you’re brooding about something.”

Amelie hesitated a moment, then said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course. Shoot.”

“Those two girls who disappeared. Did you know them?”

Terlinden cast a quick glance at her. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “Why do you want to know that?”

“I’m just curious. There’s been so much talk since that man came back. I think it’s kind of exciting.”

“Hmm. It was a sad story back then. And it still is,” he said. “Naturally I knew both of the girls. Stefanie was our neighbors’ daughter. And I had known Laura since she was a kid. It’s just horrible for the parents that the girls were never found.”