Their new case leads Verena and Otto to Berlin-Lichtenberg, a part of the city where people live in anonymous high-rise buildings, many of them collecting social welfare. A young man, Carsten Bubenberger, is found dead between the garbage cans, having been beaten without defending himself - something that is hard to understand for the police. To be nearer to the case, Verena's and Otto's team "move in" with their district colleagues, who are less than happy about the addition. Especially policemen Hellmich and Schwendt feel uneasy, seeing that they are employing rather unorthodox methods to watch over their sheep - turning a blind eye to a brothel as long as they make sure the girls there aren't mistreated, overlooking the dealings of a fence as long as he keeps them informed. Hellmich's life is made further uncomfortable by his ex-girl-friend Yvonne, who has run away from rehab. After having spoken to the dead youth's father and his friends at the tattoo parlour, the police first concentrate their efforts on pimp Rosinski. It seems that Carsten had wanted to "free" one of his girls, Svetlana. But it turns out that Rosinski's crimes are solely in the vice department. Witnesses confirm that Carsten was still alive after his nightly encounter with Rosinski, because they saw him climbing into a police car. This doesn't convince Carsten's father, however, who has to be stopped from shooting Rosinski. Meanwhile, Sara and Bastian at the tattoo parlour are getting more and more nervous: They invested all their money in a load of crack which Carsten was supposed to deliver, but neither at his place of death nor in his apartment are any traces of the stuff. Sara has her hands full to keep fence and money-lender Tom appeased. It takes Vera and Otto some time to figure all this out, but the question remains: Where is the crack? Only when they find Hellmich threatening Sara do they realize that he must have more to tell than he has so far. The policeman confesses that he didn't intend Carsten's death, he just wanted to keep him from starting to deal drugs in the area - sparing others the sorry fate of Yvonne. Before Verena and Otto can arrest him in his apartment, Hellmich chooses his own death by jumping out of the window. více |