Hinter blinden Fenstern (2010)

In Munich’s Neuhausen district, the young Linda Gabriel disappears after getting into a man’s car. Shortly afterward, Dinah Schmidt is murdered. She was the partner and live-in companion of Clarissa Weberknecht, who ran the S&M club “Dinah.” Chief Inspector Polonius Fischer is assigned to the case, with Liz Sinkel, Neidhard Moll, and Georg Ohnmus assisting him in his investigation. Two years earlier, he had already dealt with Clarissa Weberknecht in another case: she had severed a customer’s carotid artery while whipping him and was given a two-year suspended sentence for bodily injury resulting in death, since investigators determined that it had been an accident. The next day, there is another death: a homeless man has been murdered. Polonius Fischer speaks with Anita Soltersbusch, who found the malnourished man in the garbage shed. The inspector’s conversation with the embittered woman proves difficult. Her husband, Rupert, founded the neighborhood association “Aktion Achtsamer Mitmensch,” which claims to keep order in the district but seems more intent on spying on people. The autopsy shows that the man was beaten to death with great force. The autopsy results for Dinah Schmidt are also in by now: she was stabbed with a sharp blade. It emerges that Anita Soltersbusch knew the homeless man, identified in further investigations as Josef Nest, a former car-repair shop owner. She had been having an affair with him at the time. Soon afterward, former private detective Berthold Gregorian goes missing. According to the police investigation, he had watched Clarissa Weberknecht and Dinah Schmidt through binoculars. The apartment he had rented was directly opposite the two women’s. Weberknecht tells Fischer that she had once been involved with Gregorian, during a time when she was vulnerable. That was long over, however, and he had actually accepted it. Meanwhile, Linda Gabriel has been found. She had been kidnapped by shopkeeper Arthur Fallnik. She firmly insists that she was held against her will only at first and that Fallnik did not abuse her. She did sleep with him, but willingly; moreover, she wants to stay with him. Nevertheless, Fallnik is arrested. After fingerprints belonging to Clarissa Weberknecht are found on Gregorian’s bag and clothes, Polonius Fischer arrests her. In a conversation, he learns that she had immediately suspected Gregorian of killing Dinah Schmidt out of jealousy. She had gone to confront him. A fight broke out, during which she strangled Gregorian with a towel. When she tried to dispose of his body in the garbage shed, Josef Nest got in her way, so she beat him to death and left him there. She buried Gregorian’s body in the woods. Clarissa Weberknecht, who did not like being held against her will, as Liz Sinkel comments, is found hanged in her cell. Polonius Fischer is met outside the detention facility by his partner, Ann-Kristin Seeliger, a former journalist who now gets by as a taxi driver.