“Yes, but it’s not the plant’s fault that it’s been furnished with the need it has. It didn’t choose to smell like a morgue. It’s just playing the hand it was dealt by nature, and it’s playing it well. It’s about survival.”

“Okay, whatever.” Heloise gave him a smile. “I’m more into tulips, but to each his own.”

The boy moved to stand between Heloise and the plant. He pushed some of his long hair behind one ear, and Heloise could just see the edge of a hearing aid clinging to the top of the cartilage in his ear.

“Tulips are pretty, but they’re common flowers,” he said.

Heloise was surprised to hear in his voice that he sounded hurt.

“Billions of them bloom every year. They’re nothing special. But this guy here …” He caressed the soft sausage hanging limply down from the plant with his hand. “He’s unique.”

Heloise couldn’t help but smile at him. Apparently, the carrion beetles weren’t the only ones who were spellbound by the corpse flower’s creepy scent. The boy before her was in serious need of a mouthful of fresh air. And a boyfriend.

She thanked him for his time and walked out the exit, which led her back out into the rain.

There was a little three-wheeled coffee cart parked by the stairs descending to the lawn, and Heloise bought a cappuccino. She walked down to the water and stopped in the middle of the white wooden bridge, where she observed the raindrops leaping and dancing on the water lily leaves like corn kernels in a hot frying pan as her clothes and her hair clung to her body.

Ulrich’s contorted face flickered constantly through her mind, and she blinked a couple of times to chase the image away. Schäfer had told her that the results of the autopsy weren’t back yet, that they still didn’t know what they were dealing with. But Heloise felt unnerved.

Why would a man who had been so afraid of dying commit suicide? Wasn’t that like someone with claustrophobia letting themselves be buried alive? And why in the world would Ulrich contact her to warn her and then go right home and hang himself?

No, she didn’t buy it. It didn’t make any sense. Someone must have gotten him out of the way, because he had come too close to something … but what? And why had Anna Kiel murdered Christoffer Mossing? Was it really a coincidence, like the police were telling her? No way. She didn’t buy it anymore. There had to be something beyond Johannes Mossing that linked those two cases together.

And what about Martin?