Neben der Spur - Amnesie (2016)

Ruiz, head of Hamburg’s homicide squad, is found seriously injured on the banks of the Elbe. An empty motorboat is drifting on the water. Bullet holes and traces of blood are found aboard, suggesting that Ruiz and another person had been on board. The detective has no memory at all of that night, and the uncertainty torments him. Again and again, images he cannot make sense of flash through his mind. In desperation, the investigator clings not only to morphine pills for pain relief, but also to the hope that the man he himself was hunting until recently can help him: Dr. Joe Jessen. The psychiatrist delves into Ruiz’s dark past and uncovers an unsolved case that has haunted Ruiz ever since: a girl was allegedly murdered, and although her killer was convicted in a circumstantial-evidence trial three years ago, the child’s body was never found. Ruiz discovers connections to the night on the boat and sets out once more to search for the missing girl. Young police officer Anna Bartholomé helps him, and is seriously injured while pursuing a suspect. Clues point to a ransom demand, and Ruiz suspects that Lilli Holsten is still alive. The case is to be officially reopened, but Ruiz is suspended for precisely that reason. Entirely on his own, he plans to meet a man named Robert Witte, who called him and identified himself as the blackmailer. But when Ruiz arrives at the agreed location with Dr. Joe Jessen, Witte is already dead. Seeing him brings back fragments of Ruiz’s memory. He does indeed remember a ransom handover that took place on the boat. Alexej Kuznet, a mafia boss and the girl’s father, had obtained the ransom in diamonds, and Ruiz was supposed to deliver the stones according to instructions given over the phone. They were then shot at on the boat, pointing to Alexej Kuznet, who wanted to get his diamonds back. He knew it had all been a scam, because there had already been a blackmail attempt three years earlier, as Ruiz has since learned from Witte’s girlfriend and accomplice. Having run out of money, they decided simply to try it again, which now cost Robert Witte his life. Both Kerstin Fitz and Robert Witte had independently stated that they released Lilli three years ago. But instead of running into her presumed murderer, she had run into her father’s arms. He promptly took her to his brother in Latvia, because his wife wanted to leave Alexej Kuznet, and he had used the kidnapping as a way of not losing his daughter as well. To prevent this from coming to light now because of the renewed blackmail attempt, he had one of his killers try to eliminate everyone involved. After Vincent Ruiz travels to Latvia and has Alexej Kuznet arrested there, he is indeed able to find Lilli Holsten and bring her back to Germany to her mother.