Der Kommissar und das Kind (2017)

After a cheerful lantern procession, two-year-old Paulina disappears from her room. The daughter of well-known television presenter Caroline Schäfer had been put to bed by the nanny, but now there is suddenly a doll in the crib. Chief Inspector Martin Brühl is notified, and the surrounding streets, wooded areas, and nearby bodies of water are searched. The parents are convinced that their child was abducted and could not have run away on her own. Brühl tries to calm the mother, but finds it difficult: two years earlier, there was a similar case that unfortunately did not end well. LKA psychologist Susanne Koch, however, sees a different motive. In her view, the doll was a message to the mother: “That should be enough for you. You don’t have enough time for your child anyway.” Caroline Schäfer admits that the pressures of her career have already affected her family life, but says she has always taken good care of her child as best she could. Meanwhile, a ransom demand arrives. The police prepare the exchange meticulously, but Brühl fears that no one will come to collect the money, as happened in the Roth case two years earlier. He focuses on Ines Piakowski, the nanny, who is known to have quit her job shortly after Paulina’s birth and gone to work for the Schäfers. On the night Paulina disappeared, she had deliberately left the patio door open, supposedly because the room had been too warm. When Brühl learns that Ines Piakowski’s daughter has been trying unsuccessfully to adopt a child for years, he focuses on that lead. The suspicion against Piakowski’s daughter is overwhelming, but it is not confirmed, because Marie Piakowski was abroad at the time of the abduction. What the police do not know is that there is a boy with Down syndrome in Paulina’s neighborhood who, during the lantern procession, encountered a woman whose stroller held a doll instead of a baby. Janosch had also learned that Paulina had disappeared, and when he encounters the woman with Paulina at the shopping center, he speaks to her. Afraid of being discovered, she lures the boy into her car and takes him with her. Based on several clues, Brühl realizes that the current abduction could be connected to the Roth case. Since Annika Roth was never found, the kidnapper is likely to be Annika’s mother. According to Annika’s father, his marriage had not survived the loss of their daughter. His wife was completely distraught and had just called him, telling him to come home because Annika was back. He admits sadly that this cannot be true. He had buried Annika himself in the garden. She had cried incessantly that night, so he had shaken her briefly… When Brühl visits Anne Roth, she greets him joyfully and says that Annika is back. Brühl goes inside, but neither Paulina nor Janosch is there. After a brief search, he finds both children safe and sound in a hiding place. Not only Paulina’s parents but Brühl, too, is relieved to have successfully solved the case.