Engel unter Wasser (2015)

Eleven-year-old Anna Kampe goes missing on the North Sea island. Just 24 hours later, her body is found in Michael Brandstetter’s bed, and he is immediately arrested. Nevertheless, Inspectors Lubosch and Steinhilb begin their investigation because they believe Brandstetter is innocent. When they notice inconsistencies in the various statements, their suspicion grows that the body was planted on Brandstetter—who was left intellectually disabled after contracting meningitis as a child—to mislead the police. At the very start of his investigation, Inspector Lubosch meets Judith, the sister of Anna’s mother. She came to the island on the same ferry as he and his colleague Steinhilb. What nobody knows is that she is here to visit her biological daughter, Laura, who has until now grown up with Anne after Judith left her with her sister Sibylle several years ago, overwhelmed by her personal circumstances. One evening, when Judith is putting Laura to bed, Laura tells her that Anna often had to take “medicine” and shows her the tablets in the bedside table in Judith’s sister’s home. Judith confronts Sibylle, who believes the antidepressants would have helped Anna because the child had often been so sad. Judith is afraid that her own daughter may have been given the tablets too, but Sibylle reassures her that this was not the case. She shows Judith letters from Anna, which indicate that Anna wanted to become an angel and would have taken the tablets of her own accord. But Judith senses this is not true, and after discovering that her brother-in-law had cheated on Sibylle with another woman—something Sibylle found out when she once caught her husband in the act—Judith becomes convinced that her sister gave Anna an overdose of pills to punish her husband. Judith begs Sibylle to tell the police the truth, since Brandstetter is being wrongly suspected. He suddenly disappears from his cell, so the islanders begin searching for him. Anna’s father, in particular, is determined to bring his daughter’s alleged murderer to justice. He is certain that Brandstetter is the culprit, and with the help of island policeman Ströver, he gets him out of custody and now intends to shoot him. Walter Steinhilb intervenes, however, and is fatally struck by the bullet meant for Brandstetter. His colleague Lubosch then arrests Kampe and goes looking for Ströver, whom he also arrests. Judith can no longer bear to leave her daughter with Sibylle. She tells Laura that she is her mother and leaves the island with her.