Marie Brand und die Schatten der Vergangenheit (2015)

Triathlete Jan Seifert is doing his swim training for his next competition when he finds Vera Basten’s body on the banks of the Rhine. After his coach calls the police, Detective Marie Brand and her colleague Jürgen Simmel take over the investigation. Two days earlier, the victim had rented a boat and planned to go on a trip along the Rhine with her husband. At first, however, the boat and Benedikt Basten are both missing. They turn up unharmed the next day. He says that after an argument, his wife left the boat in Koblenz and intended to take the train home. When forensic investigators find blood and hair on the yacht, Basten comes under strong suspicion. Inquiries into his financial situation and his affair with an employee of his wife’s reinforce these suspicions. But it later emerges that it was not Vera but Benedikt Basten who left the boat, because he had arranged to meet his lover and was verifiably at a hotel with her at the time of the crime. Another suspect appears to be triathlete Jan Seifert. The investigators discover that he is selling EPO through Basten’s fitness studio, and that the victim had found out about it. Before they can pursue this lead further, Marie Brand suddenly faces other problems. In the middle of the investigation, convicted murderer Rainer Sperl escapes from prison. Everything suggests that he intends to take revenge on the detective for convicting him. Despite Simmel’s care, Sperl manages to carry out a poison attack on Brand. After he also cold-bloodedly shoots his accomplice, an intensive search is launched, and Simmel manages to apprehend him. But although Sperl is back behind bars, the threat to Marie Brand does not seem to be over. Worried about his colleague, her boss sends her to his weekend house in the Eifel. There, Marie Brand realizes that Fabian, Basten’s adopted son, is disappointed in her because 15 years ago she was unable to help his biological mother, and he has now lost his mother for the second time—especially since the detective seems to be involved again. When he tries to force her to hang herself, as his mother did back then, Simmel intervenes and arrests him. This incident, however, draws Marie Brand’s attention to Kerstin Thiede. She is Vera Basten’s cousin, and the two had inherited an uncle’s property together. Although the land had not been worth much until then, the site was recently rezoned for development, and Vera Basten had paid Kerstin Thiede far too little for it. When Thiede wanted to talk to her again and went to see her on the boat, they argued, and Basten hit her head against the railing. Thiede threw her into the water, which ultimately led to her death.