Marie Brand und der Duft des Todes (2018)

Detective Marie Brand and her colleague Jürgen Simmel are called to a bank burglary. Two perpetrators tried to loot the safe-deposit boxes, but the alarm system interrupted them prematurely, and they made their escape. As they fled, one of the men shot a woman in the stairwell; she later died in hospital. The getaway car is quickly found burned out, leading the investigators to Falk Ziegler, the car’s owner. He says it was stolen during the night. Marie Brand hopes the thieves will try to sell their loot soon, so she contacts the owners of the three safe-deposit boxes ransacked in the burglary. They are a young entrepreneur who is currently making a successful line of perfumes with his brother-in-law, a lawyer, and an actress. The latter two can give very specific descriptions of the stolen items, but the contents of the third safe-deposit box are unclear. It belonged to Julia Gronwald’s brother, who died in a mountaineering accident in the Himalayas three months earlier. She can only inspect it once the probate court has confirmed her authority, which is no longer possible. In the meantime, Brand and Simmel identify the previously convicted Roland Born as one of the burglars. When they go to look for him, they find him beaten to death in his apartment. Brand suspects the second perpetrator, who has just resurfaced and is trying to sell a watch. An alert jeweler notifies the officers, but the man—who is in fact the owner of the getaway car, Falk Ziegler—realizes what is happening and evades arrest. Nevertheless, the investigators manage to track him down: research into Born’s past reveals that the two went to school together. When Brand and Simmel go to Ziegler’s apartment, no one is there. They search the place and find the stolen goods hidden there, but there is no sign of Ziegler or his underage daughter, who lives with him. Julia Gronwald tells Marie Brand that an extortionist has contacted her, demanding €50,000 for the contents of the safe-deposit box. Her husband, Peter Gronwald, instructs his head of security, Jürgen Wegert, to deliver the money. The arrangement seems suspicious to the detective, and an inquiry with the Gronwalds’ bank reveals that a total of one million euros has been withdrawn from the company account. They suspect this may be connected to possible patent rights for the perfumes they developed and learn that the man who died had planned to sell his company. Julia Gronwald says that her brother had lost interest in the business. She runs a sporting-goods store, while her husband developed most of the fragrances. Marie Brand discovers that Jürgen Wegert used to be a police officer and worked on the burglary case that led to Roland Born’s conviction. Simmel concludes that Wegert had incited Born and Ziegler to break into the safe-deposit boxes so he could get his hands on what was inside. Brand and Simmel keep watch on the money drop, but Wegert manages to outwit them. He had already taken Ziegler and his daughter to a hiding place, where he now intends to kill them with an explosive device, thereby eliminating the last witness. Through another ruse, Brand and Simmel nevertheless manage to follow Wegert’s trail and rescue Ziegler and his daughter in time. Ziegler will have to answer for the burglary. The investigators are able to prove that Jürgen Wegert murdered his accomplices. He had learned that Gronwald had patented the fragrances Wegert had created under Gronwald’s own name after hearing about the planned sale of the company. During an argument over this, his brother-in-law fired him and initiated legal proceedings. The documents and evidence relating to the dispute were in the safe-deposit box. After his boss’s accidental death, Wegert wanted to seize the opportunity to blackmail Gronwald with what he knew and with the documents.