‘Why didn’t you report your husband missing?’

‘I didn’t miss him,’ she replied quietly.

‘But you noticed that he was no longer there?’

‘Yes, I did, but I didn’t miss him.’

After she had left, the investigators looked at each other. It didn’t sound like love. Not like a grieving widow either. But not like a happy widow either.

The trapdoor slammed shut. He climbed the ladder to open it. No chance, no matter how hard he tried, it didn’t give way a millimetre. Who could have dared to lock him in here? Well, he’ll get a thrashing he won’t forget in a hurry.

The investigators had decided to question more people in the club and its surroundings. They started with the caretaker.

‘When your president disappeared, didn’t it occur to you to look under the trapdoor in the room?’ ‘No, that was absolutely forbidden.’

‘Who forbade it?’

‘Well, the president.’

‘And you didn’t want to ignore the ban?’

‘No, forbidden is forbidden.’

‘And the thought that he could be in a helpless situation didn’t occur to you?’

‘He forbade it.’ He looked at her blankly.

‘Were you afraid of your president?’

‘Everyone was afraid of him.’

The investigators looked at each other.

‘You can go now.’

When the caretaker had left, they discussed the situation and how to proceed. It seemed that this president was a tyrant. But why didn’t they vote him out, why did everyone kowtow to him? But they only had two statements so far, maybe their first impression wasn’t right, objected Inspector Renate Schmidt. Her colleague Manfred Meyerhoff suggested continuing with the interrogations for now.

He woke up. Still quite dazed. Where was he? Slowly he regained his bearings. He was at his retreat. Suddenly it came back to him: he was locked up, couldn’t get out. He lay there, paralysed.

‘How do we proceed?’ asked Inspector Schmidt. “First the children, or the teenagers, or the adults? Do we question everyone individually or in groups?” “Children’s mouths tell the truth, but we can’t question them without their parents.” “I would start with those whose parents aren’t in the club,” her colleague replied.

She looked into a shy child’s face. Michelle had come with her parents.

‘How old are you?’ ‘Nine,’ she replied quietly.

‘You don’t need to be afraid. We just want to have a chat with you. Tell us what it’s like at the club, what you like, and what you do.’

She sought eye contact with her parents. They nodded. She began to talk.

She started with what she liked best: that she enjoys her group, that the relationship with each other and with her trainer is great. That she likes to train and even more to play. When asked if there were any things that were not so great, she reported that her trainer had once come out of the president’s office crying. You comforted her. When asked if she knew why, she shook her head: ‘No, she wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it.’

Interviewing other children confirmed the picture. The president was feared but not liked. The investigators decided not to interview any more children. And now to move on to the teenagers first.

He woke up bathed in sweat. Who could have dared to lock him up here? And when would they open the door again? But if the door didn’t reopen, he would die down here. Not immediately, he had plenty to drink. But he would starve. Who hated him so much that they would do this to him? Yes, he ran the club with a firm hand. But discipline was important.

But who to pick on? Were there some who had a special relationship with the president? Or question them in groups? Questioning all members of the club would be very time-consuming. The youngest member of the investigation team, Tassja Schneeberger, had an idea: ‘How about checking social media first to see if anything stands out?’ The others liked the idea and gave her the task of doing the research.

It was a lot of hard work scrolling through the many posts. So far, she hadn’t noticed anything in particular, just posts like there are an infinite number of them. She yawned. A coffee first. They were now interviewing an older trainer. He already thought the president was a hard dog. But he had also done a lot for the club, organised sponsors, and thus created many opportunities for the members. Yes, he was anything but easy to deal with.

‘Just not easy to deal with, or also abusive?’

Pause.

‘Yes, also abusive.’

‘Also sexually?’

Another hesitation. Then he replied that today everything was considered sexually abusive, you couldn’t even give a compliment anymore. But that was all she could get out of him. He blocked and refused to accuse anyone of anything.

Did the president have reason to hate him more than just his despotic way of running the club? In the meantime, she had noticed one thing during her review of the mail: there was too much praise. Not a critical word in it, in short, the club was the best and greatest, and that was thanks to the great president. You might think he was an über-president, almost godlike. But then you wouldn’t have to be afraid of him. Were the praises anticipatory obedience, or an expression of intimidation?

The investigators conferred. They had since found out that the president was feared but not liked. But did that mean someone would kill him? And who knew about the hidden room under the trapdoor in the storage room anyway? And if someone called for help in there, who could have heard the cries?

On-site visit. They broke the seal and opened the trapdoor. It still smelled unbearable. Go down there now? Do we want to draw lots? Nobody wanted to do it. What to do? ‘We have a remedy for autopsies that we can smear under our noses.’ The suggestion was not convincing either. Finally, Schneeberger had an idea: ‘Can we borrow a breathing apparatus from the fire brigade? Then we don’t have to breathe the air.’ It was a good thing that they had a good relationship with the fire brigade, so they were able to borrow a breathing apparatus through the back door. Meyerhoff had also received instruction in the past, so it was not too much for him to climb down into the room.

After the trapdoor was closed, he tried shouting. But his voice was only heard very muffled. Via radio, they told him to try knocking. But here, too, he could only be heard softly. Probably not at all outside the storage room. But what if he took an object? He looked around. His eyes fell on a broom. He now pushed the trapdoor with its handle.

The others looked at each other. It was already significantly louder outside. But how could he be heard outside? They told him to continue, and they would now see, or rather hear, where the blows could be heard.

Their listening tests at various locations showed that the blows were only clearly heard in the storage room itself, and otherwise they were lost in the ambient noise. At night, when it was quiet, it might be different.

‘Phew, it’s good to get some fresh air again,’ Meyerhoff sighed. ’Despite the respirator, the smell was terrible. Especially when I had to take it off to call out.’

That drastically reduced the number of people who could have known that the president was locked in. Probably most members didn’t even know about the room’s existence. After all, the access was not visible, and only a few members of the association had anything to do with the storage room at all.

‘In principle, we are dealing with two different offences: murder, if someone locked him in on purpose, and failure to provide assistance, if someone realised that he was locked in and did not free him.’

‘If someone acted intentionally, the storage room was not locked separately, so anyone could have got in. You didn’t go in by accident, and there was no passage to get to other rooms either.’ How long had he been down here? He had lost all sense of time. Neither light nor sound structured time. And he didn’t have a watch either; he had left his mobile phone in the office and didn’t wear a wristwatch.

The investigators summarised: Most people had noticed that the president was missing. But nobody missed him. Many had the opportunity to lock him up, but despite the fact that he was a creep, more was needed than playing a trick on him to kill him, and so far there was no visible motive.

He tried to push the trapdoor open again. But it didn’t budge. He tried again and again. Finally, exhausted, he lay down again.

‘So we are looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. Or, to put it another way, the blade of grass in the haystack. If it was murder, who had a sufficient motive?’ asked Renate Schmidt.

‘To question all club members individually would be a huge undertaking. It would take us weeks. But if someone had a motive, then it is possible that not only the culprit knows about it. Should we not offer the possibility of anonymous reporting to us?‘ suggested Tassja Schneeberger.

‘That’s a good idea. But I think we should offer the option of giving anonymous information as well as offering a reward for information,’ added Manfred Meyerhoff.

They decided to write to all members of the association and also to inform the media. With the large number of people involved, it would become known anyway, and maybe there would be a tip from someone who was not a member of the association and who they had therefore not yet considered. But who had a relationship with the association or its president. Maybe there was someone who still had a score to settle from the past.

A week later, they reflected on the information they had received. Although they had divided up the processing of the information, they would not discover connections if they worked in isolation.

They had roughly categorised the information: those based on prejudice, on origin or other characteristics, constructed a suspicion. Those where someone wanted to make themselves important, where imaginative stories were told instead of concrete observations. And those that provided clues about motives.

They wanted to follow up on the following clues first:

Had the former innkeeper of the club restaurant, whom the president had driven out, now settled an open account?

Several clues contained hints of sexual assault? Had someone taken revenge here?

Not only one person had been publicly humiliated. Here, too, revenge could be a motive. ‘Maybe it wasn’t intentional to kill him. Maybe they just wanted to teach him a lesson. And then they missed the right moment to let him out again. Because his reaction would certainly have been violent,‘ Renate Schmidt noted.

‘And the number of those who might have wanted to teach him a lesson was certainly much greater than those who would commit murder,’ Schneeberger noted.

‘Strictly speaking, we are at absolute zero. All we have so far in terms of possible motives are everyday motives for conflicts. No motives for murder. No motives for treachery.’

‘Weekend. Maybe it’s good for us to get some distance first. When you’re right up against the wall, you don’t see much.’

Monday morning.

‘So? Did you have a revelation?’ ‘I noticed a girl who was constantly present everywhere, and then suddenly no longer. The question is why. I would still like to clarify that.’ ‘Maybe the innkeeper’s anger is greater than we thought. We should look into that again as well.’ ‘And we should also question the young trainer who came out of the office crying.’

They decided to conduct the interviews together this time. First, they went to see the innkeeper. It was still the morning, so he shouldn’t have any guests at his new restaurant yet, so they could talk to him undisturbed. They found him together with his wife. The two ran the restaurant together, just as they had previously run the club restaurant together.

‘Why were you let go after so many years?’

‘I don’t want to say anything about that.‘ The innkeeper was curt, while his wife looked grim. ‘And why don’t you want to comment?’

‘If you can’t prove something, it’s better to remain silent. Otherwise you’ll just end up looking stupid,’ the innkeeper replied calmly.

‘But the president can’t harm you now anyway.’

Then the landlady blurted out: ‘He wanted money from us. In addition to the rent. Right on the paw, for him personally, not for the club.’

‘So you had a motive to get revenge on him!’

‘Yes, that’s true. But he wouldn’t have been worth ruining our lives over. Yes, when we received the notice, I could have taken a bottle to his skull. But it was sent by registered mail, he didn’t even have the decency to deliver it in person. Yes, it was very bitter to lose the restaurant after all these years. The long-standing relationships with the guests, who were mostly members of the club, they weren’t just guests, they were almost family.’

‘And you?’

Meyerhoff now turned to the woman.

‘Have you come to terms with it, too?’

‘We both haven’t closed the book on it completely. I don’t know what would have happened if I had met him, when everything came up again. It’s one thing to lose fairly, quite another to have a knife stuck in your back. But no, we handed over the restaurant properly, and that was the last time we saw him. We haven’t been back to the club since.’

‘So you have had no contact with the club since then?’

‘None officially. But quite a few club members come here as guests. And then you hear things.’

‘For example, about the president?’

‘Of course, we also talk about him. Many have a problem with him. But since he raises a lot of money for the club, he also has a lot of power. That’s why he was re-elected again and again. Not out of sympathy.’

‘And of those who come to you to vent their anger, do you think any of them are capable of murder?’

Both shook their heads vigorously.

‘At least not in that way. In the heat of the moment, you can’t put anyone’s hand in the fire, not even your own. But so insidiously? No, not then.’

‘But you knew about the room under the trapdoor?’

‘Yes, of course. But everyone knew about this room. It was an open secret that the president liked to have a drink here, his alcohol consumption was problematic, and nobody should notice that. But what he didn’t manage to hide, even if he thought he did.’

‘And how did he behave when he was drunk?’

‘If you’re a pig when you’re sober, you’re a pig when you’re drunk.’

On the way back, they wondered whether the innkeepers had really resigned themselves to the unfair dismissal. They had a motive, but would they really have committed such an act?

This afternoon they had the appointment to interview the young trainer.

Now she was sitting opposite them, nervous. You could feel how uncomfortable she was. She answered the question about her relationship with the president with the word ‘normal’. She would do her job, he would do his. Then the investigators became more explicit:

‘We know that you came out of his office crying. Surely you wouldn’t describe that as normal!’

She hesitated with her answer, ran her tongue over her lips, and then began haltingly:

‘He was often abusive. Verbally, but the night before he’d been drinking, also physically. He’d summoned me to his office and threatened me that I wouldn’t be able to set foot in the club again if I didn’t keep quiet about it. And I couldn’t prove anything anyway.’

‘And you couldn’t ask other club members for support?’

She gave a tortured laugh.

‘A problem that you don’t talk about isn’t a problem. And if you make it public, then it’s not the assaults that are the problem, but the fact that you’re naming them. You’re then the one besmirching your own nest, not the perpetrator.’

‘You must have been very angry.’

‘Yes, that too. But mostly worried about the other girls.’

‘And that’s when you decided to put an end to it?’

‘Yes, but not in the way you think. I have an appointment at a counselling centre for tomorrow. How to proceed in such a case. It’s no longer necessary now. But I’ll go anyway, you never know when something like this will happen again.’

‘Did you know about the room?’

‘Of course, everyone knew.’

‘Then you would have had the opportunity to lock him up?’

‘No, when he disappeared I was at a conference. So I wasn’t even there.’

‘And it didn’t occur to you to check?’

‘When I came back, he had been gone for a few days. And since everyone knew about the room, I also thought that they would have looked there first. But to be honest, I didn’t think about him being gone, I was much more afraid of him returning.’

‘Okay, you can go now.’

If her alibi was correct, then she couldn’t be the culprit.

‘But she could have incited someone to do it.’

That was a possibility. But on the other hand, she had decided on a different approach, wanted to get external help.

That evening, they wanted to question a girl and her parents who had been constantly present on all of the club’s PR channels for a while, and then stopped from one day to the next.

They were sitting in the living room of the flat. Katja’s mother began.

‘We don’t understand how we can help you find the culprit. We left the club and haven’t been back since.’

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