Nebelwand - Der Usedom-Krimi (2017)

A homeless woman who had sought shelter aboard a sailing ship in dry dock suffers severe burns when it catches fire. Chief Inspector Julia Thiel, who is in charge of the case, begins investigating the cause of the arson. The ship, which had been undergoing a major overhaul, had recently become the property of a social-education association that aims to help at-risk young people reintegrate into society through experiential learning. As gradually becomes clear, the same sailing ship was involved in a terrible accident ten years earlier, in which a vacationing couple died and only their six-year-old son survived. Former prosecutor Karin Lossow vividly remembers the case, because she herself was aboard the stricken ship at the time. A wall of fog was said to have caused the ships to collide. Could that boy have now returned to avenge his parents’ deaths? And might he be the same person as “Jäckie,” a young man with a criminal record who roams around Usedom and whom Julia’s teenage daughter Sophie has fallen in love with? For now, however, the police suspect 17-year-old Simone, one of the young people in the program, who is an outsider in the group. She was at the scene during the arson and beat out the flames on the homeless woman’s clothes, thereby saving her life. At the same time, though, she cannot plausibly explain why she happened to be at the scene at precisely the time of the arson. So she may be the one who started the fire out of resentment over the bullying in the group working on the ship repairs. The police take her into pretrial detention. Once it becomes clear that Jäckie really is the orphaned boy from back then, and that his presence on Usedom at the time of the crime is also confirmed, he eventually becomes the focus of the police investigation. Meanwhile, Karin Lossow sets out for Jäckie’s foster family in Poland. At first, Jäckie flees from her, but after causing a car accident during the chase, he agrees to a compromise: first, the truth about the ship accident from years ago will come to light, and then he will turn himself in to the police. They go together to the ship’s owner at the time, who admits that the accident was his fault. Karin Lossow also acknowledges her own share of the blame for the shipwreck, since at the time she covered for her husband with a false statement, afraid that otherwise she would lose him. Jäckie then turns himself in to the police as agreed and confesses to the arson. But when Simone hears about this from Julia Thiel, she unexpectedly confesses to the arson herself in order to protect Jäckie.