Flammenmädchen (2021)

For several months, there have been arson attacks, with barns going up in flames in several fires. The arsonist has not yet been identified. After a charred body is found in the burned-out remains of an abandoned house, police officer Franzi Heilmayr brings in Martin Merana from the State Criminal Police Office. The victim is Basti Moser, a Salzburg business student and the son of fire chief Andreas Moser, who found and identified the body. Andreas Moser initially suspects that the crime was aimed at him. Basti had taken a semester off to oversee a project of his own at his father’s construction company. Among those with a possible motive to kill him is children’s book editor Marlis Hochgatterer, whom Martin Merana has known since they were young. She had sold the Mosers a plot of land that was subsequently rezoned for development and sold for twenty times the price. After Martin Merana’s grandmother tries to set him up with Marlis, the two begin an affair. The same accelerant used in the other fires was used in the latest one, and shoeprints and racing oil—a special motorcycle oil—were also found at the scene. The toxicology report shows that the victim was under the influence of knockout drops. Sophie Fenks is an outsider and the daughter of Hannes Fenks, the proprietor of the Kirchenwirt inn. Her authoritarian father treats her badly, and she feels invisible and ignored. After Sophie happens to hear from Franzi that Basti Moser died in the latest fire, she is devastated. She also steals the investigation files from Franzi, but Franzi catches her. Sophie claims it was a bet with some other teenagers, who wagered that she wouldn’t dare steal the police officer’s bag. Andreas Moser leads the investigators to Theo Jagner, who runs a motorcycle repair shop and says that motorcycle oil has repeatedly gone missing from his workshop lately. However, after he is temporarily held in a jail cell while another fire breaks out, he is cleared of suspicion. A little girl witnessed the latest arson, but her statement that she saw a white mouse is initially of no use to the investigators. The investigators later learn that Basti had been in a car accident some time earlier; the passenger, Theo Jagner’s brother, had died instantly. Franziska’s father, former station chief Heilmayr, had been paid by Andreas Moser to stop investigating. While Moser continues to believe that someone was trying to take revenge on him, Merana thinks Basti Moser’s death was not planned and that Basti was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Later, Franziska remembers that Sophie’s backpack has a picture of a white mouse on it. Sophie discovers that Theo Jagner had installed tracking software on her smartphone to follow her. Theo had been using Sophie. He had known she was the arsonist ever since he found the ingredients for a Molotov cocktail in her backpack at the workshop. Theo used the fire to murder Basti Moser and get revenge for his brother’s death, and he had given Basti knockout drops. Sophie and Theo are arrested.