Set in the present day in Rome. At the invitation of her former classmate, Marlen Ammer, an antique dealer Lucas Malberg arrives from Munich to Rome. But when he comes to her apartment, he finds her dead in the bathtub. There’s no doubt it was a murder—he flees the crime scene. Meanwhile, he takes the address book of the murdered woman, thinking there might be his phone number there, but all he finds are strange coded inscriptions in Latin.