Chapter 6
At the station, Danny and Markus sat down at the desk again and turned their attention to the videos. Mattes tried to reach Rico by phone, but he did not answer.
All of a sudden, Markus Frings was standing next to Steve and the Düsseldorf police officer again. He had a tablet in his hand and was holding it out to them.
"I think I have something there."
The men looked spellbound at the screen. It was a recording from the underground car park at the hotel. Two men were carrying a box to a white van. One of them was Rico Santos, the other the supposed hotel employee. With his finger, Mattes pulled the image larger. Something white was hanging down the outside of the crate and had been jammed in the lid. It looked like the belt of a bathrobe. When the van doors closed, the license plate was clearly visible.
"Put out an APB right away. Good job, Markus!"
With the discovery of the police chief, the small station was suddenly buzzing like a swarm of bees. Everything was now on the lookout for the white van, which according to its owner, a master painter, had been stolen from his yard on the evening of Mel's abduction.
Mel was no longer trembling, again and again she tried to move and walk a little in spite of her tiredness, but in the meantime she hardly managed more than a few steps. Tired, she lay down again. She tried not to lose her faith that Steve would find her, but her thoughts kept wandering. And anyway Steve was far away. With this thought she fell asleep again.
Mattes had now tried often enough to reach Rico in France. Without further ado, he had asked the French authorities for assistance and to transfer the suspect in a kidnapping case to Frankfurt.
In the meantime, not only the patrols were on the lookout for the white van. Mattes drove the streets together with Steve, Markus with another colleague and Danny with Chris. The van had to have stayed somewhere. But the city area was large, and who was to say that the van was still in Frankfurt at all. Maybe the kidnapper had also sunk it into the Main River. The chief detective tried to suppress this thought. In the meantime, the French colleagues had also contacted him. Rico was not in Brittany. Who knows where the man had gone in the meantime. His car had also been put on the wanted list throughout Europe.
Towards evening, they all returned to the station at the airport. Discouraged and tired, they sat together in the conference room, the mood depressed. Danny tried to build Steve up and that Mel was certainly fine. But he looked sadly at his friend.
"I know Danny, she was missing once before for so long and we had no trace and then we found her and she was fine. But this time. I can't describe it. It, it feels different."
He clutched his chest, "You know, in here." Tears stood in his eyes.
"Don't give up Steve. Mel doesn't give up either. I'm sure she won't. We should get some sleep and then we'll keep looking."
Steve nodded, but the restlessness didn't let him sleep. Then, however, he seemed to have dozed off for a moment, because he startled when there was a knock on the door of the conference room. A young policewoman poked her head in.
"Patrol found the van. It's parked at the old post office site."
"Thank you Masha," Markus thanked his colleague, then looked at the others who had also jumped up.
"Okay, let's go. I'll get a few more people, the area is quite large and the catacombs are a maze."
Mattes, Steve and the others nodded. Ten minutes later, they were in their cars, following Markus. Danny squeezed Steve's hand that was tensely holding the steering wheel.
"I'm sure she's there, you'll see. It will be all right."
Arriving at the site, they checked the van. In the trunk they found a box with the belt of a white bathrobe still in it and some long red hair caught in one of the hinges. Steve took a breath and looked around. A steep crease stood on his forehead. At that moment, four cars pulled into the lot. Two ambulances and two vans that also looked like ambulances. When Markus noticed Steve's look, he put a reassuring hand on his arm.
"Two are our support, that's the local rescue dog team and the other two are for safety. Wouldn't be the first time someone got hurt here, unfortunately." Steve nodded, then watched as four people each got out of two of the vans with a variety of dogs.
Then Markus began to divide the people.
"Danny, you and I will start the catacombs with four people from the dog squad. The rest of you search everything upstairs. You guys be careful, there's light, but nobody knows if it's still working everywhere. This thing is a labyrinth."
He handed each a piece of chalk.
"It's best to check off every hallway you've already examined."
Danny and Steve nodded, then they entered the bunker. It led steeply downhill for a while, and then Steve understood what Markus had meant by labyrinth. Long corridors with heaps of doors, which in turn contained more doors. Aisle by aisle, door by door they checked. They had certainly been underground for an hour and a half when suddenly one of the dogs gave a loud noise and began to pull in one direction. He stopped in front of a locked metal door. Steve swallowed, then took heart and pushed back the latch. Briefly, the smell of vomit and urine made him recoil, but then he saw her lying on a mattress.
"Mel!"
He entered the room through the slightly higher door and knelt beside her. Danny and the others followed. Markus reported their find and asked the paramedics to join them.
"Mel."
Steve pushed her hair out of her face. But she did not react.
"Mel, can you hear me? ... Danny, Danny, she's freezing. We're too late."
Panicked, Steve began to feel for her pulse, but he could feel none. A cold hand reached for his heart. He couldn't let this happen. He couldn't lose her.
"Please Mel, please don't do this to me, please ...," his voice failed.
With shaky hands, Steve continued to try to feel her pulse, but he couldn't find it on her neck or wrist.
Tears ran down his cheeks as Steve held her face in his hands and he kept stroking her hair and cheek with trembling hands. He covered her face with kisses and sobbing whispers of her name escaped his chest. "Mel." And he felt something break deep inside him.
