Stralsund – bloodlines

“I couldn’t believe that a person could just disappear”.

When Nina Petersen is called to the site of a body found in the Brandt family garage, she immediately knows who she will find there. Klara Grist, disappeared without a trace in the Achterwasser in 1996 when she was 17. The disappearance of her friend was the reason for Nina to become a police officer. 24 years later, Klara’s body turns up in the house of her best friend Maren. Must Nina look for the culprit in the Brandt family? Klara and siblings Maren and Henrik were an inseparable trio, almost a menage à trois. The disappearance of the girl was to mark the beginning of a downward career for the Brandt family, especially for Henrik, the main suspect at the time. With small and medium crimes he landed in prison again and again. The children’s father, Carlos, also a suspect at the time, had a similar career as a petty criminal and smuggler. Carlos himself had built the garage and poured the concrete in the summer of `96. Had he made the girl disappear? Not only is the case particularly emotionally demanding for Nina, but she also has to deal with problematic innovations in her team. Her new boss is, of all people, her friend and colleague Thomas Jung. While Jung wants to push the investigation in the direction of Henrik, Hidde follows the trail of Carlos Brandt. When he visits the now demented patient in a nursing home, he is not sure: is the old man really demented, or is he faking his illness to have peace from the shadows of the past? Nina feels the same way during her conversations with Maren. Is she hiding something from Nina? Henrik was released from prison on the day the body was found and has since been considered missing. Does Maren know more about the brother’s whereabouts? When Hidde discovers similar murders in the police archives in the period `77-`89, the suspicion against the demented father thickens. But then the events come to a head: an unknown man shoots the owner of a gas station and takes a saleswoman hostage. His description fits Henrik. Nina is almost certain – Henrik made contact with Maren after his release. She pursues Maren and meets the siblings in the backwater. There is an exchange of gunfire, Henrik is able to escape. Only now does Maren begin to talk about the past, giving Nina insight into a family tragedy whose repercussions reach into the present.

Copyright: ZDF/Gordon Timpen