The branches of the beech trees hang low. Meike Schröder pushes it aside with his hand and slowly climbs through the undergrowth. The policewoman holds on to a trunk and looks out into a small clearing. “It must have been there,” she says. But she’s not entirely sure. “Maybe further over there, it’s brighter.” It’s been a long time since she was here.
She makes her way through the thicket, then stands in a clearing. In front of a birch tree with a crooked trunk there is an elongated hollow in the ground, the size of a grave. Meike Schröder pulls her cell phone out of her trouser pocket and looks for photos from back then. There, the same birch tree, the same hollow. “So yes,” she says, and now she’s sure: “Here lay Maria.”
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