Prison: T.a.p.e.r. E-Book

Pascal Ringstahl

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 428

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

In Prison: T.a.p.e.r., we follow single criminal investigator Zora Beckers through what seems to be an ordinary day that quickly turns into a nightmare. A junkyard with unidentified bodies, brutal bank robberies, and a bustling city living in fear—all of this defines Zora's daily life. Looking for a distraction, she picks up a 17-year-old hitchhiker named Tim, unaware that this ride will become a dangerous roller coaster. A planned bank robbery transforms into a deadly game of cat and mouse as Zora and Tim are pursued by the bank robbers. The criminals stop at nothing to reach their goal: Tim! Meanwhile, Zora's colleague, Benno, takes over the investigation, but the research leads to a new dimension of terror that exceeds all expectations. With Prison: T.a.p.e.r., Pascal Ringstahl dives into the dark world of crime. The reader is confronted with old acquaintances and experiences how a new form of hopelessness unfolds, interspersed with humor and numerous allusions from the world of film and literature. Immerse yourself in this captivating work and experience a crime novel that pushes the boundaries of what's expected.

Leseprobe

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

For Jürgen Thaler - I hope that this story is to your taste! If you could still read it, I'm sure you'd have a great time and understand every little allusion to the movie world. I mourn the wonderful time we all spent together, which will never come back. In the end, we all realize: what remains is a good feeling, a nice memory, nothing else. No return, no return or revenge. Mindy Macready couldn't have said it better: 'The show's over, motherfuckers!

R.I.P. 1969 - 2019

Pascal Ringstahl

Prison

T.a.p.e.r.

© 2025 Pascal Ringstahl

Cover, illustration: Pascal Ringstahl

Editing, proofreading: Pascal Ringstahl

Translation: Pascal Ringstahl

Printed and distributed by:

tredition GmbH, Heinz-Beusen-Stieg 5, 22926 Ahrensburg, Germany

ISBN

Paperback978-3-384-58276-8

Hardcover978-3-384-58277-5

e-Book978-3-384-58278-2

The work, including its parts, is protected by copyright. The author is responsible for the contents. Any use without the author's consent is prohibited. Publication and distribution are carried out on behalf of the author, who can be contacted at: tredition GmbH, Abteilung “Impressumservice”, Heinz-Beusen-Stieg 5, 22926 Ahrensburg, Germany. Kontaktadresse nach EU-Produktsicherheitsverordnung: [email protected]

Chapter 1

“Tim! Get up,” someone breathed kindly and encouragingly into his ear. Tim winced slightly, stretched loudly in protest and simply couldn't believe that the beautiful, sunny weekend was already over. He opened his eyes to a narrow slit and saw his mother standing next to his bed, smiling. He didn't want to get up, preferring to stay in his beautiful dreams. But his mother stayed by his bed and took a quick look around his room. As Tim slowly woke up, she looked over at his desk, where school books and magazines were lying in a messy heap. She took a deep breath. Tim had no sense of order and she wondered what she had done wrong in his upbringing. She went briefly to the floor-to-ceiling windows and pulled aside the white loop curtains so that the morning light fell into the room and onto his bed, so that he would finally wake up. She stood next to his bed again and continued to look around. His worn clothes were scattered all over the room, the wardrobe door was open and it looked just as messy as his whole room. Games for his games console, Blu-ray discs without protective covers, tattered booklets, CDs, DVDs and magazines lay everywhere. She glanced from a Star Wars Episode 5 poster hanging on the wall at a slight angle with tape to a Terminator Judgment Day poster showing the muscular Sarah Connor with a shotgun. She didn't understand why he liked this movie character. Then she briefly shook his upper arm because he had closed his eyes and was breathing heavily. A clear sign that he had fallen back into a deep sleep. She shook a little harder. Now he had to stand up involuntarily. It wasn't unpleasant, but it could become very intrusive if he didn't hurry. Because it was now taking Tim a long time to get ready for the day and school in the bathroom. He had just celebrated his seventeenth birthday, and as was usual for a growing young man of that age, he wasn't getting out of the bathroom any time soon, and besides him, his stepbrother and stepfather also wanted to get into the only bathroom. Tim pushed aside the dark blue comforter and looked annoyed at the alarm clock next to his bed, which read six o'clock. He unfolded his almost six-foot-three frame from the narrow youth bed he’d been sleeping in since he was thirteen. He still slept in his old pyjamas. They weren't squeaky yellow and didn't have any Simpsons characters printed on them, but they still took some getting used to. They were lime green and the pants had become a little short due to a growth spurt. They reached just above his knees. His mother had picked him out. In the meantime, she had left the room when he sat up in bed and hurried to the bathroom before Tim blocked it for a long time. He needed a lot of time to get his hair in the right shape with lots of hairspray and gel. He also had to take a long, thorough shower as he found his body odor very unpleasant at the moment. He had already had his voice break and his voice sometimes sounded a little too dark and sometimes a little croaky. Tim's tall figure seemed a little gangly and not yet properly developed. He was very slim, but a little wider at the hips and a little narrower at the shoulders. Tim walked barefoot across the dark marble floor into the bathroom with his big feet. He looked down at himself and decided to take a footbath that evening. He didn't know why, but recently he had been looking at his feet more and more often and had noticed that most people didn't look after them enough. That's why he had started taking a footbath at least once or twice a week some time ago to do something good for his feet. Because when he was playing on the games console, he had enough time to put his feet in a small tub and let them soak. His mother Petra, who at six-foot-one wasn’t exactly short herself, stepped out of the bathroom and quickly pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Hurry up or you'll miss the school bus,” she said kindly but firmly. Tim took her in his arms and hugged her tightly. Yes, he was an easy mama's boy. Next door in the kitchen, he could already hear the dishes clattering. It was his stepfather. His mother had divorced her first husband, his biological father, after he couldn't get his drinking problem under control and became increasingly abusive. That was almost 8 years ago. During the separation, Tim still saw his father regularly, but at some point Tim no longer wanted to see him. He always reproached him for not doing enough for school, why he didn't have a girlfriend yet and, of course, he always blasphemed about Tim's mother, his wayward ex-wife. After the divorce, Tim's mother soon met her current husband Matthias and his son Kay. Matthias was an insurance agent and was very good at his job. They quickly moved into a luxurious top-floor apartment. Spread across nearly 1,500 square feet on the fifth floor, the spacious living room sat just behind the heavy, double-secured front door. From there, the doors led to the kitchen, the master bedroom, a study, Kay's room, a large bathroom, Tim's room and a guest toilet. The entire apartment was tiled in dark marble and looked very elegant. There were floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere and the rooms were flooded with light. The modern and bright furnishings in particular made it very cozy and homely. However, there was one small disadvantage: the apartment had neither a balcony nor a terrace. The only option was to climb onto the platform of a fire escape, which was located directly in front of the four large windows in the living room. Although the house had an accessible flat roof, there was no way for the residents to access the roof as the entrance was through the elevator shaft. For safety reasons, no one was allowed to use it. Petra's new husband was slightly shorter than her and stocky, with a small belly that he tried to hide as much as possible under his fine shirts. Tim hurried to the bathroom, even though he didn't feel like going to school. His mother had enrolled him in grammar school, even though he would have preferred to go to work after middle school. She insisted because she believed her only son had the potential for something great and would give it away. After spending what felt like an eternity in the bathroom and getting dressed in his room, he came into the white lacquered kitchen, his dark blonde hair combed neatly to one side in a slight wave and fixed with lots of hairspray. He had been wearing the same drop-crotch trousers for weeks, with a blue hoodie and his beloved white Nike sneakers, which would have been more black than white if his mother hadn't cleaned them in between. She just looked at him and said nothing as he sat down wordlessly at the kitchen table. He gave his stepbrother Kay, who was deep in thought, a pat on the shoulder. At first he looked up, startled and angry, then he smiled at him. Tim got on well with his stepbrother. Kay was the only son of Matthias, Tim's stepfather. He was a quiet young man in his mid-20s who was still living at home or had moved back in after giving up the apartment he shared with his girlfriend. Kay had cheated on his girlfriend and she had broken up with him immediately. Kay was not a food lover and looked after every woman, regardless of whether she was pretty or not. It was probably a slight feeling of inferiority he'd had since childhood. He never talked much, so people mostly avoided him and didn't seek his friendship. Perhaps it was also due to his fixed gaze with his blue eyes, which seemed soulless, as if he was staring holes in the air or not even present. When his short-sightedness was recognized, he initially corrected it with contact lenses. But he listened to the wrong colleagues who advised him to try glasses. He did and believed the others that he looked more intelligent. In reality, they made him look like a fool. He always tried to be fashionable, but he just couldn't manage it. Either he didn't follow a fashion trend and was just smiled at tiredly, or he followed the fashion trend. At some point, he decided to shave the sides of his blond hair down to almost nothing. He left the top hair long, dyed it dark and combed it back with gel. He looked like a chav, even though he wasn't one. His body also caused him problems because he was a pyknic, a bacon. No matter how much he worked out, he couldn't get a grip on his bacon figure. He loved to eat grilled meat, sweet things, anything that accumulated on his hips in the form of rolls of fat. At some point, he adopted a strange gait. Tim often called it 'duck ass' because he always pushed his butt back to conceal his hollow back and his slight belly. He always walked very slowly and clumsily. He usually played with his bunch of keys, which were attached to his waistband with a chain. Tim had never seen him walk. Kay was calm. Or did he? In reality, he was only pretending to be calm, because Kay was afraid. Afraid of not being accepted, afraid of making mistakes. It had started at school and he had never had many friends. Perhaps even then it was his laugh, which simply didn't seem genuine to those around him. When he started to change his voice, that was the end of it. His voice didn't match his appearance. It was raspy, sometimes a little angry and far too melodic. After leaving school, he didn't want to go to university, but instead looked for an apprenticeship. He entered a completely new world and believed that his new friendships would last. But in reality, they only lasted as long as he danced to their tune. He was promoted and eventually got an undeserved management position because he was really very lazy. He knew that himself. But he couldn't hold on to that position because it immediately went to his head, and when his supposed friends dropped him, he lost his job and was back where he started: at square one. He had his family, yes, but he missed his mother. After his parents divorced, he had seen her briefly a few more times, you could count them on one hand. Then she moved away with her new partner and contact broke off completely. He liked his new stepmother, but nothing more. She was there for him, nothing more. His father was his father, but far too busy with his work and with his new, slim wife, his stepmother, to play much of a role. Then he had his shoulders and upper arms tattooed, for personal reasons, as he said. But he wanted to attract more attention for himself. It made him look like a redneck, even though he wasn't one. After he lost his job, he went to university and took on a part-time job without his parents' knowledge, earning a lot of money and working for the good of the population. But he never said a word about it. He told them that he worked on cars and motorcycles on the side, even though he didn't really know anything about it. But they left him alone and didn't ask any unnecessary questions. Tim sat down at the kitchen table and looked at Kay, who was lost in thought again. He was dressed all in black today, very elegantly. It made his skin look even lighter, with lots of small birthmarks. He wasn’t as tall as Tim — a bit shorter, standing around five-foot-nine. Kay sometimes seemed very strange to Tim. When Tim told him something, he sometimes didn't seem to understand or listen at all. He also never said much about himself or what he was doing. Somehow he was always unapproachable, no matter how hard Tim tried. Of course they had done something from time to time, but it wasn't much. Lately, he had also been walking more and more strangely. He let his arms stick out slightly from his upper body, like a bodybuilder. Because Kay had built up a few muscles recently. It was probably a habit, or perhaps a show-off pose. But you got used to everything, including the eternal bruises that Kay brought home with her. Tim suspected that they came from his hobby, as Kay loved tinkering with cars and motorcycles. His father stood at the coffee machine and leafed through the daily newspaper while he drank one black coffee after another. “Honey, sit down,” said his wife, but he just waved her off. “Mom, he's already sitting in the office enough,” Tim said, looking mischievously at his stepfather. But he didn't react, the article he was reading with great interest in the newspaper was probably too exciting. “Kay, what about your exams?” asked his mother. Kay was torn from his thoughts and quickly wolfed down his cornflakes dipped in milk, then nodded in agreement. “Good, very good. Almost runs itself.”“Don't you need some pocket money this week?” his father asked without looking up from his newspaper. Kay waved him off. He seemed to have enough. Tim wished Kay wouldn't get upset right away. His moods were sometimes unbearable. He suspected that Kay was secretly injecting himself with steroids that affected his moods. After all, if he was studying so much, how could he train so much that he got muscles so quickly? What's more, his skin was now covered in thick pimples. Not so much on his face, but on his back and shoulders. Tim had seen it once when Kay came out of the bathroom after showering with just a towel around his hips. He had a tattoo running all the way around his upper left arm. Somehow it reminded Tim of Pamela Anderson's Barb Wire tattooand he had teased Kay about it more than once. Tim looked at his stepfather. “I could do with something else. I wanted to buy a new pair of pants so I don't always have to wear the same ones.” His stepfather waved his disinterest away. His mother looked at him. “If you buy a decent pair of pants, that's no problem. But they hang down at the crotch as if you were wearing a diaper underneath. Fashion or not, I'm not giving you any extra money for that,” said his mother, shaking her head in the negative. “Besides, I'm sure you have enough pants in your closet. Oh, I forgot: on the floor, not in the wardrobe.” Tim breathed heavily. There it was again, the fashion and tidying police who had been getting on his nerves over the last few months. The trousers were so trendy and he just wanted to show them off to his friends. Of course, he also hoped that girls would be interested in his fashion trend and that he could attract attention with it. He would love to have a girlfriend, but somehow it didn't seem to work. Either he was too shy and taciturn when he liked one, or the interest wasn't mutual. His mother got up and walked around the kitchen table to her husband, took him in her arms and looked at the newspaper to see what he was reading that was interesting. As both of them now had their backs to their children, Kay went to his rucksack, which was next to the kitchen door, bent down, took something out of his wallet, stood next to Tim again and quickly handed him a hundred. Tim looked astonished, then at his parents and waved him off. Kay didn't go for it, crumpled up the bill and tucked it into the collar of Tim's T-shirt. Tim always wondered how he had so much money. He didn't work part-time so that he could concentrate fully on his studies. But he didn't get any more money than he earned himself, as far as he knew. Maybe he got money by working on other people's cars or motorcycles? He lifted his T-shirt and fished for the bill from underneath, wanting to give it back first. But his mother turned back to them and unnoticed, like a shadow, Kay quickly disappeared into his room. Tim quickly put the bill in his pocket and smiled at his mother, who was watching him suspiciously. Kay came back, his bright red hooded SuperDry jacket on and his black leather rucksack over his shoulder. “I'm going now, I'll see you tonight or tomorrow morning,” he said quickly from the doorway in the kitchen. Before anyone could say anything, he had already disappeared through the heavy white front door. “Tell me, Matthias, we don't see your son that often anymore. It's been like this for months. He only comes home late tonight, when we're already asleep. We see him here for a few minutes in the morning and at the weekend he just sleeps or isn't here at all. Don't you find that strange?” asked Tim's mother. Matthias looked up from his newspaper, scratched his black stubbly beard and thought for a moment. Before he could say anything, Tim spoke up. “Sometimes after school, I still meet up with him. It's all right. He just has a lot to learn,” he said, knowing he was lying. But he really liked his stepbrother and wouldn't let anything get to him. Petra, his mother, looked at him. “Well, teenager. Maybe I'm just worrying too much,” she said and sat down again. Matthias put down his newspaper, watched as his wife sat down at the kitchen table again, came and bent over her from behind and took her in his arms. He gave her a long kiss on the cheek and took a deep breath, then went to the coffee machine and ran another coffee through for himself. Petra looked at the wall clock hanging above the kitchen door. Then she looked at Tim: “You have to hurry, otherwise the bus will be gone soon.” Tim also looked at the clock, got up quickly and went to his room. He thought it was warm enough now in summer to go out of the house in his hoodie. He grabbed his Nike backpack, walked quickly to the kitchen, said goodbye to his parents with a hug and a kiss, left the apartment, walked down the hall, took the elevator downstairs, left the house in a hurry, and when he was around the corner, he pulled the hood of his sweater over his head and walked more slowly towards the bus stop. Tim heard the bus pull up in the background and slowed his pace once more. He smiled, knowing that he would be late for class this morning. Tim reached into his backpack, pulled out a pack of cigarettes that he always hid from his parents, and lit a cigarette as he leisurely strolled along. Only his stepbrother knew that he smoked outside his parents' house. He looked around once more to make sure no one from his parents was following him, then he inhaled the smoke with relish and casually walked to the bus stop where he saw the bus, his school bus, just pulling away. He smiled again and walked past the bus stop and down the street towards the main road.

Chapter 2

Zora opened her eyes when her light alarm clock rang loudly and woke her from her deep sleep. She turned to the side and looked at the alarm clock. It read 6:00 am. Zora briefly lolled under the comforter in her huge double bed. Was the weekend already over? Actually, it wasn't, because she had worked late into the night on Saturday. What was that all about? She had bought a light alarm clock to simulate the sunrise and wake her up gently. But not with that horrible ringtone. “Another waste of money,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head in disappointment. She lived alone in a 3,200-square-foot villa right in the heart of the city. She had turned 38 in April and worked for the police as a detective superintendent. Zora loved her work and the feeling of ensuring justice and fighting for it every day. She was corrupt, she wasn't righteous, she did a lot of things she wasn't allowed to do to solve a case, but she didn't care. Her father was a single parent after her mother died of cancer a few years after she was born. Immediately after Zora was born, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Chemotherapy caused her to lose her hair and her energy. Then came the devastating diagnosis that the cancer had affected her whole body. This left her helpless. Her mother lived for another six years after giving birth just to see her daughter grow up. Zora faintly remembered a few moments with her mother. She couldn't remember her full head of hair, only that she always wore a headscarf to hide her bald head. She remembered one birthday. Months earlier, she had accidentally found a present in the living room cupboard. That's why she acted very surprised on her birthday when she received a police car and a battery-operated traffic light as a present. The birthday candle was light blue, but she couldn't remember the number. The three of them had never done much together. The day before she died, her father was out and about in the city with Zora. In a sinfully expensive bakery, he bought Zora a little lion made of marzipan on her mother's behalf, sitting on its hind legs, nicely wrapped in a plastic bag. Her mother wanted her to be as strong as the lion, and as Zora loved marzipan more than anything, she wanted to enjoy it one day when she ate it and be reminded of her mother. But Zora never ate the marzipan lion. She always hid it in a drawer. When her mother was ill, her father was very sad and often cried. On the day her mother died, he sat Zora on his lap, showed her an ad he had prepared for the newspaper, and read it to her. She remembered his heartbreaking tears that her mother, his beloved wife, had gone to be with God. “One day we will see her again,” he said through his tears. But at the funeral, when she saw the coffin disappear into the ground, she knew that she would never see her mother again. She didn't cry at the funeral either, but only days later. When she was alone and no one could see her. Her father hadn't cried since the funeral, he just focused on his daughter and that she would always be strong. He had trained her from an early age, but had always kept her on a long leash. He wasn't a helicopter father. He didn't want to hover over her and then leave her alone at some point. He wanted to strengthen her and prepare her for what life, with its good and bad sides, had to offer. He had brought her to her current position in the police force and taught her so much that she never wanted to let him down. A few years ago, he had died suddenly of a heart attack and left her completely alone. Now she was the sole heir to a large villa built in 1890 and had no shortage of money. When the will was opened, she had a good look at where her father had invested all his money. She could have resigned from the police force immediately and lived off her father's money for a very long time. But she didn't want to do that. She had no interest in men. However, she did like men who were younger than her. She didn't know why. Maybe she just didn't want older men as relationship partners because they seemed like a father substitute. She didn't need that. Back then, after the death of her father, she didn't want to be alone, and when she happened to be at Bully in Need with a friend, she found a black and white French bulldog. It was a female dog, and the sweet puppy approached her without fear and full of pride. Zora called her Rita. According to the fake vaccination papers, the bulldog's real name was Luna, but the name only reminded her of a singer who had a summer hit in the 90s. She found Rita much more fitting. Besides, it was a great name to shout across the meadow when the dog ran away. Unfortunately, her already small stumpy tail had been cut off, but at least it was cut in such a way that the meagre remainder lay nicely on her rump and didn't hang out. She wagged her stumpy tail with joy when she saw Zora for the first time. She remembered the drive home with the little puppy and how Rita loved driving the car straight away. Her best friend sat in the passenger seat and held the little one tightly in her arms. On the way, they had to stop without a lead because little Rita was whimpering and probably wanted to go for a walk. They stopped in a large field and what did the dirty little dog do? Instead of making a pile, she strutted her white-haired stubby legs through the mud of the field and slowly tried to run away. The big wide world was probably more interesting than the two humans she had just picked up. “Gosh, how small and helpless she was back then. She literally fitted into two hands,” thought Zora. Now she was lying in her raffia basket next to Zora's bed, snoring to herself. Her tongue was hanging out of her flat snout and had already dried out in the air. She always found it interesting to watch when Rita woke up at some point and tried to bring her dry tongue back to life. That was very funny. But at first she continued to snore, because the dog didn't care whether she woke up or not. Rita usually woke up much later. Zora got up motivated as the first rays of sunlight fell through the window onto her bed and her face, and went into her large bathroom. She quickly got ready. She combed through her long blonde curls once and tied them into a plait, ran a quick shower, put a little make-up around her eyes and was done. Then she went back into the bedroom, checked on Rita, who was still asleep, strolled to the closet and put on a pair of classic blue Levis 501 jeans, a tight white top, plain black NewRock boots and a light-colored denim jacket over them. She finished and went downstairs to the kitchen. As her bedroom was on the second floor, she had to go down two flights of wooden stairs. Each staircase had ten steps. On the landing of the second staircase down was a security door next to a huge stained lead glass window. From the outside, the security door was discreetly clad in wood so as not to attract attention and perfectly matched the waist-high cherry wood paneling along the staircase. She had to enter her seven-digit security code into the electronic keypad next to the door, then the heavy security door opened. The room behind it was not particularly large. Big enough to stand in and turn on your own axis. She had only kept her weapons there and installed an alarm system for burglars. There were several surveillance cameras around the house. Several small screens were installed in the chamber, showing live images from the cameras. In the past, when her father still lived here, there was a black Bakelite W48 house telephone with a dial. It was annoying to climb the ten steps up the wooden staircase every time the phone rang in the room and usually stopped just as you reached the top of the last step. The house had old, heavy wooden shutters on the bottom floor that jammed at least once a year or the shutter belt simply broke due to material fatigue. But that also had its good side. Nobody could get in from outside when the shutters were closed. They were too heavy to push up and were guaranteed to jam. She took her badge, which was lying there on a ledge, and hung it on her belt. She strapped her Heckler & Koch P30 service weapon with protective pouch right next to her name badge. Then she took the double shoulder holster with two modified Beretta 92FS fully automatic handguns with 20 rounds per magazine from the security room, slung it over her shoulder on one side, closed the heavy door again and went down the last flight of stairs and then to the right into the huge kitchen. There she hung the shoulder holster over one of the four chair backs around the large kitchen table in the middle. The two Berettas were not allowed. Nobody knew she had them. They were among the many things her father owned, and she loved those two pistols. She made herself a Nutella sandwichwith a cup of cocoa. Every morning it reminded her of the past, of her happy childhood. Even if it seemed childish for a grown-up woman, she always did what she liked and not what others expected of her. That's why she hardly had any friends. She had broken up with her last boyfriend, Alexander Ekkart, a few months ago. Or rather, he had broken up with her. Alexander had been given the chance of a very lucrative job abroad, so he had cut her out of his life without further ado. She couldn't understand how quickly someone could just throw away two years like that, but she didn't shed a tear for him. After him came many one-night stands. She had forgotten all their names. There was no one she was interested in. They were all interchangeable. But for the moment, they were good enough to satisfy her desire and longing for togetherness. Zora knew that this wouldn't be a permanent state of affairs, so she wanted to throw herself into work. It wouldn't be bad to earn a bit more money. The house was old, the roof would soon have to be redone and, given the height, it wouldn't be possible without scaffolding. In particular, the tower on the side where the staircase was embedded had to be scaffolded in order to cover the roof. Then the façade could be repainted at the same time, as it also needed a new coat of paint. The white was no longer so white, and as the house was located directly on the main road, it had darkened somewhat. She had enough money thanks to her father's inheritance, but she wanted to put some aside to be on the safe side, because you never knew what might come your way. The kitchen door was pushed open by a little snub nose and with a loud snort, Rita came lumbering into the kitchen. Her claws always made a funny noise when she scampered across the white, old tiled floor of the kitchen. That's why Zora was surprised that she hadn't heard Rita coming down the stairs. Perhaps her hearing had already been damaged by the loud gunshots. She stopped in front of Zora and looked up at her. Then she yawned heavily and played a little with her tongue, which was still quite dry. “Well, you little mouse, did you sleep well?” asked Zora, bending down to her and stroking her thick, black and white patterned dog's head. Her fur was nice and soft because Zora showered her regularly. Rita always tried to drink the water from the shower tray, for whatever reason. Rita had no problem with the water underneath her anyway. She jumped right in and sometimes even dived under. But water that came from above, like rain, she couldn't stand. Rita yawned again very hard and looked over at her water bowl. When Zora stopped stroking her, she shook herself briefly, stomped over to her water bowl and slurped up some water to cool her tongue, which had fallen asleep. Then she looked at Zora again, put her head a little to one side and licked the last drops of water from her lips. Zora smiled. “No, there's nothing left of the table yet,” she said, pointing to the food bowl, which was right next to the water bowl. Rita took one look at the bowl, shook herself, took a quick sniff with her flat nose and went to the kitchen door that led into the garden. Rita squeezed through the small hatch, which was just big enough for her stocky body, and slipped outside. Zora looked after her and still found her solution with the flap for the dog incredibly practical. It was too small for a human to squeeze through and the resistance of the hinges too great for a cat or other animal. Outside, Rita had a wonderful run. The property surrounding the large house measured nearly 13,000 square feet. Toward the back, a small patch of woods stood in front of a concrete wall that rose more than ten feet high. This formed the boundary to the housing estate behind the property. On either side, six-foot-high fences marked the boundary between the property and the neighboring lots. A brick garden shed stood in the middle of the grove. At the front, facing the busy main road, there was a waist-high wall with an iron railing so that you couldn't just walk onto the road. So it wasn't so bad when Zora left Rita alone. There was plenty of food and she could run around. There were hedgehogs, birds and the neighbors' cats in the garden. Rita always had plenty to do. Rita loved water and in the middle of the property there was a fountain close to the ground where she could jump in and let off steam. Zora finished her cocoa and went back up the two wooden stairs to the bathroom on the second floor to brush her teeth. The bathroom was right next to her bedroom. The old house was built in the 18th century and was a kind of manor house. There was a water connection for a washbasin in almost every room. These had all been removed over the years, but there was still one in the guest room with an under-sink unit. The second floor consisted of her bedroom, which faced the quiet garden at the back, directly adjoining the large bathroom, which was accessible from both the hallway and the bedroom. There were also two guest rooms. One of them was her former teenage bedroom. She had swapped rooms after her father died. Her study, which faced the street, was adjacent to the guest room. She had lots of cupboards with files there and, with her electric toothbrush in her mouth, she walked through her office to the large window, pulled the curtains a little to one side and looked out onto the main street. There wasn't much going on yet, a few passers-by on their way to the train were walking past her house on the sidewalk and a few cars stopped in the parking spaces to quickly buy bread rolls from the bakery across the street. Everything was normal, nothing special. Zora dropped the curtain again and went back into the bathroom, spat out the foam, rinsed her mouth with mouthwash and went back down the two wooden stairs into the kitchen. Rita was just squeezing through the hatch, panting, and walked slowly and happily towards her. Zora smiled at her. “Well, fatty, have you been running too much again? You know you can't breathe with your overgrown, flat nose,” she said, bending down to her and giving her a little scratch behind the ears. Rita sat down and scratched her ears with her hind legs. Zora laughed. At some point, she had found the spot behind Rita's ears that triggered a stimulus that caused the dog to scratch itself behind its ears over and over again if you touched it there. She did this a few times and Rita snorted angrily because she couldn't stop scratching, which was very tiring for the small, stocky French bulldog. Scratching and panting at the same time was simply not an option. Then Zora finally stopped. She went to the old ceramic double sink and washed her hands, looking at Rita, who was sitting on her bottom, her head tilted to one side, looking at Zora questioningly and continuing to pant for air. “Right, sweetie, I'm going now and you watch everything here,” she said to Rita as she dried her hands. Rita stood up and wagged her stubby tail. Her ears stood straight up like a bat's. Zora looked around to make sure everything was all right and reached for her shoulder holster. Then she left the kitchen and followed Rita into the hallway, which was covered with beige-colored old marble tiles. Rita skipped down three small steps to the front door. It was an old front door with two locks, a security bar and a security chain from the inside. There were two windows in the door, one at the top and one at the bottom, set in stained glass like a church window. The security bar was installed in the door when she was a child. Zora had once accidentally opened the door for a beggar without looking, because she had actually assumed a playmate was behind it. Zora was so frightened, even though the beggar didn't mean to hurt her, that her father immediately had the safety bar fitted. The safety chain was actually only there for decoration. If you were to push against the front door from the outside a few times, then the security chain would definitely give way. Zora unlocked the door with the key she had inserted the night before and Rita stood behind her, waiting. “No, you can't come with me, you know that,” she said, and Rita barked a short protest, but stopped when Zora removed the key, went out and locked the front door behind her. Rita was a calm dog. She hadn't always been like that. That's why Zora was glad that she had a detached house and plenty of space to the neighbors on all sides. The dog could bark until it was hoarse. No one would feel disturbed. At some point, however, Rita realized that Zora would always come home anyway, so she didn't have to worry. Zora went to her car, which was waiting for her in the long driveway. A Mazda Miata MX-5, built in 1994, with folding headlights, painted diamond black and tuned by Flyin' Miata. In addition to the eye-catching 17-inch chrome rims (205 x 45), a legendary V8 engine from a Chevrolet Corvette slumbered under the hood. 532 hp made this Miata a dangerous projectile, which could only be heard from the deep, evil rumble when she started the engine and the two chrome-plated exhaust pipes on the right and left vibrated under the concentrated power. She opened the trunk with the remote control. Under the lid was a Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun and plenty of ammunition for her Beretta. Zora had used the pump shotgun a lot. She did not prefer this weapon, but sometimes there were situations in which she liked to use it. If she had to choose between her life and someone else's, she would always choose hers. She had done that many times before. She tried never to think about it when she shot someone on duty, but sometimes it caught up with her in her dreams. Otherwise, she always had night-vision goggles and binoculars in her trunk. She added the shoulder holster with the two Berettas, closed the trunk lid and opened the driver's door, where the door sill with the dark blue illuminated MX-5 logoshone out at her. Zora swung herself into the black leather driver's seat and, at five-foot-ten, fit perfectly into the car. There was a garage at the end of the driveway where she could have easily parked the car, but it wasn't an automatic gate, it was a double wooden gate like the ones in a barn. That was just too much work for her, the constant getting out, opening, getting in, locking. No, it was more convenient this way. There was a carport next to the garage, but it also had a door that had to be closed. At the time, her Mazda was always parked in the carport and a high-powered Audi AS 6 in bright blue in the garage, which she eventually sold. With the money she got for the Audi, she had her car converted to the look she always wanted. Zora put on her mirrored silver sunglasses, undid her plait, ran her hand through her curls, threw back the folding roof in just two seconds, started the engine with the starter button and reversed out of the long driveway onto the main road in the direction of the police headquarters. It was a warm summer morning and a light breeze blew through her loose hair as she drove along the road at excessive speed. She heard a new version of Ally Main's song 'Remember us this way' on the radio. Ally was the new megastar of the music world and had become famous after her husband hanged himself with a belt after a failed alcohol withdrawal. On a two-lane highway leading to another part of town, she had to stop at a red light. Next to her was a highly tuned Golf that kept pressing down on the gas pedal to draw attention to the many horsepower under the hood . Zora just smiled boredly, and when the traffic lights turned green and she sped off with a kickdown, the driver of the Golf could only rub his eyes in disbelief, because he no longer understood the world. Zora laughed and turned up the music. As she drove into the next residential area, she slowed down as instructed. Behind a crossroads, she saw a very tall boy standing at the side of the road with his thumb outstretched. She drove past him without paying attention to him. But then she braked abruptly, put the car into reverse and drove back: “He actually looked quite cute,” she said to herself. Tim put his outstretched arm down and stared speechlessly at the sports car that came to a halt right in front of him. “What an engine sound,” he thought. Only then did he look at the driver. Zora had turned the car radio down. “Aren't we a bit too young to hitchhike?” Zora asked reproachfully. Tim didn't say anything, but just looked at her without making a face. Zora waited a few seconds, but there was no reply. “Can I take the young gentleman with me so that nothing happens to him?” she asked in an ironic voice. Tim stopped staring at her, nodded, opened the passenger door and squeezed his six-foot-four self into the small two-seater. Zora laughed when she saw that it was quite cramped in the car. “Thanks,” he said curtly. Zora drove off slowly, she didn't want to speed when she had a passenger. Responsibility was a must. “Where should I take you?” she asked. “To the city school. I'm running a bit late and missed the bus.”“Do you often hitchhike?” she asked him. Tim became a little more talkative. “No, only when I miss the bus, but that doesn't happen often.” Zora smiled and accelerated slightly, as she didn't want him to be late for class. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. Tim had a nice view of the street. She guessed that he was not yet eighteen years old. He had a slight growth of beard, nice, young, fair skin, a few small spots around his mouth and beautiful green eyes. He had styled his hair with so much gel that not even the wind blowing through the passenger compartment could harm it. She didn't have a wind deflector in the car, because that was the only way she felt a little free. And so Zora's blonde curls swirled back and forth in the wind. “My name is Zora,” she said curtly and looked briefly at Tim. He looked at her with a smile and held out his right hand: “Tim, nice to meet you,” he said. She shook his hand and laughed. “Someone's got good manners. How old are you?” she asked curiously. “Seventeen,” he said and looked back down at the road. Zora just nodded. That was too young for her. She already found him very attractive. He was taller than her, slim and very good-looking. But that was probably puppy protection at that age, when all the boys still looked pretty. She was annoyed that she had taken him with her and was a little ashamed of her thoughts. She also didn't know what to say to him now. Zora must look very old in his eyes. Tim looked cautiously at her again. He saw the gun on her belt and was startled. Zora noticed it, just smiled and tapped her badge on her belt. Tim looked skeptical and just nodded. He didn't really understand, but didn't want to ask any more questions. “We're almost there,” she said, turning right without braking and accelerating into the bend. Tim smiled and held on to the A-pillar. “This thing's going off, damn it,” he laughed. Zora reached the school and braked with screeching tires in front of some students. The pupils turned and looked at Tim, who got out of the car, fascinated. “Thank you,” he said cheerfully. Zora nodded with a smile and put the car into first gear. “Maybe we'll meet again,” said Tim, but Zora roared off with the engine revving and only briefly raised her hand to say goodbye. Tim looked after her and wondered what her license plate '2GQI124' might mean. He turned to his classmates, who were still looking at him in amazement. Tim reached into his jacket pocket and took out a packet of cigarettes. He lit a cigarette and inhaled the blue smoke with relish. “What kind of old woman was that?” asked one of his classmates. “She wasn't that old,” Tim said defensively. “And she certainly wasn't twenty either,” said the classmate scornfully. Tim looked at him and blew smoke in his face. “How ageist are you?” Tim asked him with a grin. “You think she's nice, don't you? Hey guys, Tim fancies a MILF. Tim's in love.” Everyone turned and stared at him. The classmate started a chorus. “Tim's in love, Tim's in love, Tim's in love.” Tim just looked at him and took another drag on his cigarette. “I thought she was nice.” Then he went into his classroom, quietly humming Ally's song that he had just heard in Zora's car.

Chapter 3

The clock in the center console of the Miata read 8:45. During the drive, Zora briefly thought about Tim. She thought he was very cute, but quickly pushed the thought aside. She could be charged with seducing a minor. No, she didn't want that, and it wouldn't help her career either. Besides, she would never see him again. She had driven the route so many times and he had never been there. Tomorrow she would drive a different route and then she would forget him very quickly. She was annoyed with herself that she hadn't told him about the dangers of hitchhiking. What a stupid thought, she suddenly felt very old. “What is this, a mothering instinct? God, I'm old,”