Charlotte Link - Einsame Nacht (2025)

Part One: “They say forgiveness is the best revenge. But that’s wrong, ridiculously wrong. There are things that cannot be forgiven. You will remember, whether you want to or not. You will regret it, repent, suffer. But then it will be too late.” When 16-year-old Alvin Malory from the quiet seaside town of Scarborough opens the door, he becomes the victim of an extremely brutal assault. He barely survives, but has been in a persistent vegetative state ever since. The case cannot be solved. Ten years have passed. Detective Sergeant Kate Linville is assigned by her new boss, Pamela Graybourne, to investigate the death of Patricia Walters, an elderly woman who died in a fall. Her caregiver, Mila Henderson, has disappeared without a trace since then. The old woman’s daughter has filed a police report. At the same time, Linville is called to investigate the murder of a young woman found in her car on a country lane in the North York Moors. The victim is 25-year-old Diane Bristow, who was killed with several brutally inflicted stab wounds. According to a witness, a man got into the car shortly before the murder. Numerous fingerprints are recovered from the car, including some that had been found at the Malory crime scene at the time. The investigation leads Linville to an unsolved cold case from ten years earlier, investigated by her colleague Caleb Hale, who has since been suspended. In that case, the overweight teenager Alvin Malory was beaten into a coma. Linville would like to consult Hale, but her new boss, Pamela Graybourne, forbids her from working with him in any way. A police sketch, fingerprints, and a piece of jewelry bearing the letter L lead to someone named Aubrey Logan, who has disappeared. Logan soon turns up at Anna Carter’s home and asks her for help. Carter is friends with Dalina Jennings, who runs a dating agency where Diane Bristow was also registered, and where Linville is working undercover. Not long afterward, Carter finds Logan stabbed to death in her house. She asks Sam Harris, her partner, to help her hide the body in the woods. Although Harris objects, he helps her. Anna is also keeping a secret from him, one she cannot and will not talk about. Meanwhile, another body has been found: James Henderson, Mila’s uncle. He was drowned in a plastic tub. Witnesses had seen Mila Henderson near her uncle’s apartment at the time. Further investigation reveals that Henderson had attended the same school as Sam Harris, changed schools in the middle of the school year, and moved away with her family without leaving a forwarding address. Mila meanwhile turns up at the home of her old school friend Sue Haggan-Raymond, who lets her stay for a few days. Mila is attacked there and, terrified for her life, tries to escape. Part Two: Kate Linville has now discovered that Anna Carter was supposedly the one who found Logan Awbrey dead in her house. Carter claims to have buried him alone in the woods, which is not very credible, since Anna is slight. Under pressure, she admits that her boyfriend, Sam Harris, helped her. However, she insists that Sam had objected to what they were doing and had wanted to call the police. It is also now known that Madame Isabelle Du Lavandou has been the victim of a crime. She was the French teacher of Sam Harris and Mila Henderson, and repeatedly reprimanded Sam. Linville hopes to find something by tracing the leads to a pizza delivery service from which Alvin Malory had ordered pizzas over a long period. Dalina Jennings had also worked for that delivery service at the time. Linville talks to her, but she has a suitable answer to every question. At the same time, Pamela Graybourne goes to speak with Mila Henderson’s school friend Sue Hagan, who is now married and goes by Raymond, and finds herself in extreme danger. Gagged and tied up in a cellar, she has to listen to Sue Raymond’s death cries. Anna Carter, who had been temporarily untraceable, contacts Linville and says she cannot take it anymore and urgently needs to speak with her. Anna begins telling her about the day that brought disaster upon Alvin Malory. Logan had been there, as had Dalina and Anna herself. It had been unbearably hot that day ten years earlier, and Dalina had been bored. She said she wanted to mess someone up, and then settled on Alvin Malory. The three of them went to see him. There, egged on by Dalina, Logan kicked Alvin. When Anna tried to get help, the other two stopped her, saying it would ruin her life and they would all end up in prison. After Dalina whispered something in his ear, Logan forced household cleaner down the victim’s throat. Linville puzzles over what connection there might be between the Malory case and the current case. She cannot yet know that Sam Harris is the key to everything. As a child, Sam was severely overweight and suffered greatly because of it. When Mila Henderson joined his class and smiled at him, he fell in love with her immediately. But his feelings were not reciprocated; on the contrary, Mila left the school because of him. One day, when Sam happened to see Mila again, his old obsession was still there. To him, she was and still is the woman meant for him. He had met Diane Bristow in his role as a psychologist. She had sought help because her boyfriend, Logan, had confessed to her that he had been involved in the crime against Alvin Malory. At that moment, Sam knew that he was the only one who could avenge the crime against Malory, and felt that he owed it to him. He knew what it was like to be an outsider. He had to kill Diane because she could have identified him, and the same was true of Mrs. Walters. A clergyman gives Linville documents that belonged to Sam Harris’s mother, who had been dead for five years, although Sam had told Anna something quite different. In them, Linville finds clues to a Harris family caravan at a holiday park where they used to spend time. Mila, whom Harris is holding there and who is injured, manages to escape and comes across an old man in the woods who wants to help her. Linville has by then reached the holiday park and finds the caravan empty. However, while searching for Mila, Harris comes across the old man and kills him too. Mila, hiding in the mobile home beneath some old clothes, remains undiscovered by him. After waiting briefly, Mila tries to continue her escape and runs into Linville; they both flee to Linville’s car. Harris has sabotaged it in the meantime, however, and it is no longer driveable. Their only option is to flee on foot. Sam Harris is close on their heels and catches up with them. Linville tells Mila to run while she confronts Harris. Harris is not fooled by her bluff that her colleagues are on their way and pursues the fleeing police officer instead. He catches Linville and tries to strangle her. At the last moment, Mila intervenes and stabs Harris in the back. Caleb Hale has meanwhile alerted the police, who arrive in force. While Alina Jennings is arrested, Linville goes to see Hale and tells him she is deeply disappointed in him because he let her down (she had sent him a message on his phone) and only called in the police at the very last moment because he had been drunk again. Sam Harris is now in a coma in the hospital. Pamela Greybourne, however, has come through the ordeal relatively unscathed; she was able to attract attention by shouting and was rescued.