Ohne jede Spur - Der Fall der Nathalie B. (2025)

Twenty-six-year-old triathlete Nathalie B. resumes training three months after giving birth to her daughter, while her husband Martin looks after their baby. During a training ride on a mountain road, a car catches up with her and hits her. She falls, and the driver knocks her down, ties her up, and abducts her in his car. When she has not returned after two hours, her husband becomes worried. He goes to the local police station to report her missing, but Police Officer Ivanovic and Police Officer Kapfhammer tell him that a search can only be launched after someone has been missing for 48 hours. Martin fears that his wife may be badly injured in a roadside ditch and bleeding to death. He contacts the hospitals and the fire department, which refers him to the police. Martin therefore starts a search on his own, with Georg helping him, while Nelly looks after the child. Martin’s friend Djamel puts out a call for help with the search on social media. Meanwhile, Nathalie regains consciousness, bound, in a remote house. Her abductor introduces himself as Florian. He does not answer her question about why she is there. At first, he tries to win her cooperation with friendly overtures, but soon repeatedly uses violence to force her to do things she does not want to do, such as drink wine with him and undress to take a bath. He promises, however, that she will be free the next day if she does everything he wants. Despite all the coercion, Nathalie does not panic and tries to build some kind of relationship with Florian. Police Officer Ivanovic offers Martin her help, even though she is not yet officially able to launch a search. After a phone call with another police station, Police Officer Kapfhammer discovers that two days earlier a man in a red station wagon or van had followed a female cyclist. By now, the fire department, mountain rescue teams, and around 200 volunteers who responded to Djamel’s appeal on social media have joined the search, and a helicopter is also involved. Meanwhile, at Florian’s house, it emerges that he grows orchids. Nathalie spontaneously expresses admiration for his orchid room, winning Florian’s trust for the first time. He tells her that he never knew his parents and grew up with his grandparents, who are both dead. A few years earlier, he had been to Thailand with a cousin and met a prostitute there who told him that she loved him. Nathalie offers to say that a deer ran in front of her bicycle, and that he found her and took care of her. The two set off by car. During the nighttime search, Police Officer Ivanovic finds Nathalie’s glasses at the roadside, at a spot where Florian had briefly stopped and gagged Nathalie. She checks the red station wagons in the area—one of them is indeed registered nearby. The isolated house is empty, but the red car has meanwhile been spotted by the fire department and has turned onto a forest track. Florian drives Nathalie to her mother’s house. Nathalie immediately runs inside and calls the bewildered Martin, who in turn contacts the police. Florian loudly demands to be let into the house. Nathalie and her mother do not respond and hide inside. By the time Martin and the police arrive, Florian is gone. He is arrested by police at his house later. During the abduction, Nathalie suffered a head injury, a broken arm, and numerous bruises. Even worse, however, is the trauma caused by the violence inflicted on her. At first, for example, she comes close to panicking whenever a car approaches from behind while she is training on her bike, and for a long time she experiences flashbacks on various occasions that remind her of the attack. In the closing credits, viewers learn that the perpetrator was admitted to a forensic psychiatric treatment facility because he was not criminally responsible.