Marie Brand und der schwarze Tag (2018)

One morning, Inspector Marie Brand receives a call from her colleague Jürgen Simmel, who urgently needs her help: after spending the night with his new girlfriend Daniela, he found her dead in the hotel bed, and the evidence points to him as the perpetrator. Brand helps him keep the matter secret from their boss, Engler, for the time being, since otherwise Simmel would not be allowed to work on the case and help prove his innocence. Someone is clearly trying to frame him for murder, and the only person Simmel can think of is businessman Grave, whom he had unsuccessfully investigated during his time in Rostock. Grave has recently moved to Cologne and knows Simmel still has him in his sights. Brand’s suspicion that this is a honey trap is confirmed when she discovers that Daniela was a prostitute who had been sent after her colleague. There is proof that Daniela worked for Grave. Although he has an alibi for the time of the murder, he could have ordered it. Another connection is prosecutor Dr. Carolin Kersting, who has recently been transferred to Cologne and investigated Grave alongside Simmel in Rostock. Their close collaboration led to a brief affair between them. She, too, supposedly believes Grave is behind the scheme, in order to get Simmel out of the “line of fire.” Although she assures Simmel that she is on his side, she does nothing to prevent his arrest as a murder suspect. This gives him pause, and he realizes that she wants revenge on him as well as on Grave, who had made their relationship public at the time. Brand is not entirely convinced, but promises her colleague she will do everything she can to help him. First, she examines the hotel’s surveillance footage and guest lists. She notices a woman who checked in the day before the murder and checked out the following day, had stayed in the same hallway as Simmel, and paid in cash. Marie Brand is sure the woman was indeed Prosecutor Kersting. She learns that this woman had ordered two bottles of Prosecco on the afternoon before the murder and bought a master key card from one of the chambermaids for 100 euros. This supports Brand’s theory that Simmel and Daniela were incapacitated with knockout drops and that the bottle was later replaced so no sedative could be detected. Brand plans to set a trap for the prosecutor. She gets Simmel out of pretrial detention and sends him to Kersting to draw her out. Kersting attacks Simmel and tells him how bitter she still is that her husband took his own life because of her affair, and that her daughter has never forgiven her. Brand secretly witnesses the argument. Kersting is arrested afterward, and Simmel also finds evidence against Grave that finally proves the man’s involvement in various financial crimes.