The Nightwalker

  Ivana craned her head upwards and gestured at the ceiling. ‘Can you hear that?’

  He shook his head, but then he heard the scales, much more muffled down here than in his apartment.

  ‘Tareski will be the next one to lose his mind, I fear. He keeps practising the same piece over and over again. That’s not normal, is it?’

  Leon shrugged his shoulders. After everything he had experienced in the last few hours, he was certainly in no position to differentiate between normal and irrational behaviour.

  ‘And then there’s the Falconis on the first floor,’ Ivana continued.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Have you ever noticed that the two of them are obsessed with keeping their door closed whenever someone walks by? And if you ring the bell they poke their heads out of the smallest gap possible, so you can’t see in. I recently made the mistake of accepting some post for them, a heavy package that I carried downstairs all by myself. Do you think they thanked me?’ Ivana Helsing stirred her tea energetically. ‘They didn’t even open the door. I was just expected to put the package down and disappear again.’

  ‘That’s strange.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it just? I’d love to know what they have to hide. Sometimes I think . . . Oh, never mind.’

  She waved her hand and gave an embarrassed smile.

  ‘What?’ asked Leon.

  ‘It’s not worth mentioning. I’m an old tattletale, anyway. Would you like some more tea?’

  She reached for the pot.

  ‘No, thank you very much, though.’ Leon went to look at his watch and saw to his surprise that it was no longer on his wrist. While he was still thinking about whether he had taken it off or lost it, Natalie’s phone beeped in his pocket, muffled by the blood-soaked blouse that he had stuffed into his overalls. The warning signal for the steadily dying battery acted like a wake-up call.

  ‘Thank you very much for the tea, Frau Helsing, and sorry again for my rather abrupt entrance here, but I really must go now.’

  ‘Of course, I understand,’ said Ivana, a trace of melancholy in her voice, as though she didn’t often have someone to talk to, let alone someone who actually listened. ‘Please don’t let me keep you.’

  She accompanied him to the door, where she looked in amazement at the chain again, and Leon almost thought she was going to ask him why he hadn’t realised he was in the wrong apartment as soon as he secured it. After all, a women’s quilted jacket was hanging on the inside; but Ivana just said softly, ‘Leon, could you do me a favour?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You seem to be a good man. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow.’

  She glanced quickly through the spy hole, before adding quietly: ‘This house is like a magnet. It holds on to you with all its might. And the longer you stay, the harder it is to get away.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you don’t really believe that,’ said Leon, with a forced laugh.

  ‘Only very few have the strength of will to get out. Like Richard. Like your wife.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about Natalie and me,’ exclaimed Leon, a little more brusquely than he had intended.

  Ivana opened the door and checked to see if anyone was in the stairwell. Then she whispered to him, with a conspiratorial look on her face: ‘That may be true, but I’m too old to mince my words, so I’ll be straight with you. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t wait for her to come back – go after her.’

  ‘You’re saying I should move out?’

  Ivana gave him a meaningful look. ‘First the nightmares, then they come true, Leon. Get out of here while you still can. If you stay too long, the house will change you, and the evil in you will come out.’

  She grabbed his hand and came so close that he could see the fine hairs on her top lip and feel her warm, stale breath on his face as she bid him farewell with this mysterious prophecy: ‘First the nightmares, then the reality. Don’t wait too long, otherwise you won’t be able to fight it.’

  22

  As Leon climbed the steps to his apartment, he was thinking about what he needed to do not to lose his mind completely. But he didn’t have much time to deliberate. As he went around the corner between floors in the stairwell, he heard someone calling out his name.

  ‘Herr Nader?’

  Leon looked up and took the last flight at a slower pace. The man standing in front of his apartment door had an intimidating look about him, and Leon wasn’t sure if it was down to his bulky physique, the Gestapo-like coat or his self-assertive tone. As so often with men who were losing their hair, the age of the stranger was hard to guess, but he looked to be in an age bracket in which a receding hairline was no longer a disadvantage in the attraction stakes, certainly closer to forty than thirty.

  ‘Leon Nader?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me,’ answered Leon with a nod as he took the last step.

  The stranger sighed in a way that could only be interpreted as finally, then pulled out his identification badge.

  ‘Kroeger, Criminal Investigation Department,’ he said, stretching out his hand. In the dim light of the hallway, Leon didn’t have to worry about the policeman seeing how dirty his hands were, but he still felt sick with nerves. After all the inexplicable events, the last person he wanted around was a cop. He had just been thinking about calling Sven. He needed an ally, a friend at his side. Not someone whose job it was to uncover the darkest of secrets and pull them into the light of day to the disadvantage of their owner.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Are you just coming home from work?’ asked the policeman, as if he hadn’t heard Leon’s question.

  ‘Yes . . . I mean, no.’

  Leon brushed his sweaty hair from his forehead, then gestured at his overalls and worker’s boots.

  ‘I’m renovating,’ he said, hoping this would explain his deranged appearance.

  The policeman looked at him, his eyes containing a variety of green tones, reminiscent of camouflage fabric. Leon avoided his gaze.

  ‘I tried to find you an hour ago, but you didn’t answer the door. Your bell’s broken.’ As proof, Kroeger pressed the brass button next to the door, and he was right. No sound came from inside the apartment.

  ‘I went out to get a bite to eat and decided to try my luck a second time.’

  ‘Was that you knocking earlier?’ asked Leon, remembering the sound he had heard when he was clambering down into the shaft. He regretted his unguarded observation at once.

  ‘If you heard it, then why didn’t you come to the door?’ Kroeger looked him up and down with suspicion.

  ‘I wasn’t feeling well. I was on the toilet.’

  The detective instinctively took a step back and wiped his hand on his coat, obviously regretting having shaken hands with someone who was potentially contagious.

  ‘You do DIY while you’re feeling unwell?’

  ‘No, I . . . well, it came on quickly. I felt sick all of a sudden. That’s why I stopped.’

  ‘I see,’ said Kroeger, although his face said that he didn’t.

  ‘What did you want to speak to me about?’ asked Leon, trying to take back the upper hand in the conversation. He felt a little dazed again, as if he had been drinking, and his tongue seemed to get heavier with every word he said.

  ‘I want to show you something,’ declared the policeman.

  Show?

  ‘Perhaps it would be better if we could . . .

  ‘What?’ Leon looked at the door as the detective jerked his chin towards it.

  ‘Oh, right. Yes, of course.’

  As he realised what Kroeger was getting at, he abruptly became aware of the next problem. ‘I’m afraid I can’t ask you in,’ he said, patting his empty pockets under the policeman’s suspicious gaze. ‘I forgot my key.’

  Am I slurring?

  His own voice suddenly sounded foreign to him.

  ‘You’ve locked yourself out?’

  ?
??Yes, I just wanted to fetch the post . . .’

  Inside the apartment, the telephone began to ring.

  ‘After you were in the bathroom and decided to stop renovating?’

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed Leon flatly.

  The detective looked amused.

  ‘Then it seems like today just isn’t your day, huh?’

  You could put it like that . . .

  ‘Man, oh man. I think you really are a little out of sorts. Not only did you forget your key, but . . .’

  The detective put his foot against the door, and the ringing from the telephone became louder.

  ‘. . . you also forgot to lock up.’

  The door opened with a creaking sound, although it could just as easily have come from Leon’s throat.

  ‘But that’s impossible,’ he exclaimed, making yet another blunder.

  ‘Why?’

  Because I checked it was locked yesterday before going to bed, and have only left the apartment since then through my wardrobe.

  As they walked in, he heard his own voice coming from the answering machine in the hallway: ‘. . . reached the home of Natalie and Leon Nader. Please leave a message after the tone.’

  A moment later they could hear the dulcet tones of a young woman speaking with exaggerated politeness on the tape: ‘This is a message for Herr Nader from Geraldine Neuss at Bindner Jewellers. Please excuse the interruption during the holidays, but we just wanted to let you know your wedding ring is ready to be collected and hopefully won’t be quite so tight any more.’

  There were two beeps, then the connection was broken. Leon grasped the ring finger of his left hand, no longer feeling even the imprint on his skin. It had disappeared, along with any recollection of having taken the ring in to be adjusted.

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked Kroeger, and Leon realised he was standing there staring straight through the detective.

  He was suddenly overcome by the urge to confide in somebody, and perhaps it wouldn’t be so wrong to speak to a policeman, even if he would immediately become a suspect if he showed Kroeger the entrance to the tunnel system. Maybe Natalie had got lost in there and needed help? If that were the case, it would be negligent of him to hesitate too long purely out of fear of incriminating himself.

  ‘Why don’t we sit down in the living room?’ suggested Leon, unsure as to whether he should open the door to his bedroom in the man’s presence.

  What if he hadn’t committed a crime after all? What if everything sorted itself out and Natalie came through the door laughing in the next moment?

  Oh, really? And what would she say? ‘Sweetheart, did you find my mobile down in the shaft? I must have lost it when I tore off my thumbnail.’

  Leon shook his head, incapable of finding any explanation that would put his world back into place.

  ‘Excuse me?’ asked Kroeger, looking around the living room.

  ‘I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘Yes, you did. You mumbled someone’s name, I think.’

  Shit, now I don’t even notice when I’m thinking out loud any more.

  ‘You must have misheard.’

  ‘Hmm.’ The inspector nodded ponderously. ‘I could have sworn you said “Natalie”. Is your wife at home?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where can I reach her?’

  Leon hesitated, then decided to tell the truth; it was already on record, after all.

  ‘I have no idea. She hasn’t come home for the last few days, that’s why I called the police.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware of a missing person’s report.’

  ‘The officer said that with adults you have to wait at least fourteen days, unless there are unusual circumstances.’

  Kroeger nodded again. ‘That’s correct. Otherwise we would waste all our time with marital crises.’

  He stepped towards the mantelpiece and picked up a silver frame. ‘This is a nice photo.’

  ‘Yes. Natalie took that one.’

  On the day we met.

  ‘I only see pictures of you here,’ said the detective in surprise. ‘None of your wife.’

  ‘Hazard of the job. Natalie is a photographer, she prefers to be behind the camera.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  Practically able to feel the policeman’s mounting suspicion, Leon decided to find out the reason for his visit before saying anything else.

  ‘What exactly did you want to show me?’

  ‘This.’

  Kroeger pulled a mobile phone from the pocket of his leather coat and handed it to Leon.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ asked Leon, immediately recognising it as his own. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed it was missing.

  ‘We seized it.’

  Seized it?

  ‘When?’

  Kroeger posed an unexpected counter-question. ‘Is everything OK with your eye, Herr Nader?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You keep blinking. And you’re avoiding making eye contact.’

  ‘I have nothing to hide,’ lied Leon, changing the subject quickly by pointing at the phone. ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘Given that it’s part of a criminal investigation, I’m not able to say for investigatory reasons.’

  A criminal investigation?

  ‘Your contact details weren’t saved, so it took a while before we were able to identify you as the owner via the network provider.’

  Investigatory reasons?

  Leon gripped the edge of the dining table. His nausea was growing by the second.

  ‘Thank you for going to the trouble,’ he murmured flatly. The phone lay in his hand like a foreign body. It had only 10 per cent charge left. As soon as he keyed in the pin code, a ringing sounded out. It wasn’t coming from his hand, but the breast pocket of his overalls.

  ‘You have another mobile?’ asked Kroeger in confusion.

  ‘What? Erm, yes.’

  ‘Don’t you want to answer it?’

  ‘It’s not important.’ He shook his head.

  He might be able to explain having Natalie’s mobile in his possession, but if he pulled it out of his pocket together with the blood-soaked blouse, it would be another matter . . .

  ‘Right then!’ Kroeger was now stood next to him at the dining table, no longer interested in the frame on the mantelpiece. He waited for what seemed a painfully long time, until the phone had stopped ringing, before continuing.

  ‘As I’m sure you can imagine, the police have better things to do than act as delivery boys. I’m not here to give you your phone back, but because we stumbled across some strange content while evaluating your saved data.’

  ‘Content?’

  ‘Pictures, to be precise. Open the photo gallery.’

  Leon did as he was told, and the first image was like a stab to the heart. Casual acquaintances would hardly have recognised him and Natalie on the photograph, because they were both in disguise. He looked like an old man: with a walking stick, hunched back, a double chin and a red, alcoholic’s nose. She was dressed as a beggar and also looked years older. Her masquerade was deceptively real; only her broad smile exposed her true identity.

  ‘We took that at Halloween, just before leaving for a fancy dress party,’ explained Leon.

  Alongside her studies, Natalie had trained as a make-up artist, and that evening she had created a genuine masterpiece. He thought back wistfully to the preparations. His favourite part had been the almost intimate caresses as she applied the make-up, the tender brush-strokes on the cheek, the stroking movements on the eyelids; her dark eyes and lightly parted mouth so close to his own lips.

  ‘Lovely,’ Kroeger said drily. ‘But let’s skip the first twenty snapshots. I’m not interested in how you spend your free time, but more in this.’ The detective gave him the mobile back once he had scrolled down to the final pictures in the folder. Leon’s eyes widened.

  ‘That’s private,’ he said, his voice cracking.

  ‘I know. But believe me, I wouldn’t be here if it were mer
ely a matter of your sexual preferences.’

  The badly lit photo had been shot without the flash and showed Natalie sitting by the upholstered bed-head of their double bed. She was cross-legged, with her arms stretched wide above her head like someone bound to a cross, which in a way she was, for her wrists were in leather handcuffs, attached to the bed-posts with chains. She was wearing a man’s vest ripped at the collar bone, which revealed more than it concealed, for her breasts were either wet or soaked with sweat. Either way, her erect nipples were plain to see despite the poor quality of the image.

  Leon felt ashamed, a new feeling after all the worry, fear and panic he had suffered in the last hours. But the problem was not that Kroeger had trespassed into their intimate sphere and now knew about his wife’s most secret sexual fantasies. The problem was that Leon had never seen this picture before. Nor all the others that Kroeger was about to show him.

  At the behest of the policeman, he opened the next three images, each one worse than the last.

  On the first, Natalie was completely naked, a rubber ball in her mouth. On the next, her eyes seemed about to pop out of their sockets, so tight was the dog’s collar around her neck. But the real shock came from the last photo in the unknown series, taken three days ago, at 3.04 in the morning.

  When I was sleeping . . .

  If it had been possible – with some effort – to interpret Natalie’s facial expression as sexual arousal before, then on this her eyes were filled with raw pain. She was bleeding from her closed mouth, her right eye was swollen, and if Leon wasn’t mistaken, her thumb was injured too.

  ‘Is there something you can tell me about this?’ asked Kroeger.

  ‘Only that it has nothing to do with you.’

  ‘We’ll see about that.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Leon, now certain he would not be showing this man the door to the labyrinth under any circumstances. Too great was his fear of finding out what he was capable of.

  What have I done to Natalie?

  ‘You can take whatever pictures you want,’ said Kroeger. ‘As far as I’m concerned you can hang from the ceiling fan by your knotted balls. As I’ve already mentioned, Herr Nader, the police aren’t there to get mixed up in marital issues. But you don’t need to be investigator of the month to figure out that something’s not right here. Your wife disappeared shortly after these photographs were taken.’