Trugspur - Der Usedom-Krimi (2017)

When the police try to bust an illegal car race at the harbor, the participants flee. One of them runs over an uninvolved pedestrian, fatally injuring him, and flees the scene. A little later, Karin Lossow is forced off a country road in Poland by a speeding driver coming toward her, and her car ends up in a ditch. She escapes with minor injuries. But Tomasz, the son of an acquaintance whom she is supposed to look after for a few days, is nowhere to be found. It seems the hit-and-run driver may also have been involved in this second incident. Detective Julia Thiel investigates, but Karin also feels responsible and follows up on the leads that emerge. While searching for the getaway car, the police find it at a Polish auto mechanic’s shop. Sören Wulf, the car’s owner, had driven it there because it had to disappear. He denies the hit-and-run, but the evidence eventually proves he was the driver. However, he continues to vehemently deny causing the second accident or having anything to do with the boy’s disappearance. Even the tire tracks found on the country road match his car. But the tires found on the vehicle are not the summer tires he had recently bought. Karin notices that a Polish police officer is behaving suspiciously. In fact, he caused the country-road accident while drunk and took the boy because Tomasz could have identified him. Since he knew about the hit-and-run in Germany and later spotted the car at the repair shop, the opportunity suited him perfectly, and he put the tires from his own car onto the other vehicle. With the investigators now on his trail, he takes Tomasz onto his boat and sinks the tires. He has tied the little boy to the last tire with a rope, but Karin arrives and persuades him to give up. At last, the boy can return to his mother. During the investigation, tensions arise between Julia and her daughter Sophie. Sophie was involved in the arson in the previous episode and then protected the main perpetrator, Jackie. After Simone, out of affection for Jackie, confessed and now faces conviction, Sophie is consumed by guilt. She knows Simone is innocent and would not betray Jackie because of her feelings for him; Jackie, too, is unwilling to confess. When Sophie decides to testify in court, Julia fears the consequences for her daughter. To protect her, Julia spontaneously decides to testify in court that she forced Simone to confess. Julia is then suspended. Julia’s husband sums it up: “The girl is out, Sophie is out … and you’re out too.”