The Eye Collector

  ‘Where did he go?’ I demanded, setting off along the passage. The confounded burglar alarm died away at last.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Alina called after me. ‘He’s gone.’ She folded her arms over her breasts with one hand covering the strange tattoo on her neck. In the gloomy passage it looked like a big birthmark.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because TomTom has stopped reacting.’ I looked down the passage to the door of what I assumed, from the sound of running water, to be the bathroom. The dog was lying outside it in a sphinx-like pose. His tail thumped the floor in welcome.

  ‘He can’t scent danger any more. Besides, the balcony door is open, I can tell by the draught. I think he must have gone down the fire escape.’

  I approached the bathroom door. Clouds of steam were drifting out into the passage. I peered through the haze.

  Nothing.

  Nothing of note except an old-fashioned enamel bathtub on the point of overflowing.

  I turned off the tap and and nearly scalded my hand extracting the bath plug. As I went out I caught sight of some make-up articles on the shelf in front of the brightly lit bathroom cabinet. This surprised me, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on it.

  ‘What did he want?’ I asked.

  ‘To persuade us to stop.’

  Alina briefly described what had given her such a shock minutes earlier. ‘“Stop playing,” he told me. He could only have meant his sick game of hide-and-seek.’ She broke off. ‘And you? Why have you come back?’

  ‘I need your TV set.’

  She presented her right ear to me, a gesture that assured me of her full attention.

  ‘What for?’

  I told her about the camera in the art gallery. ‘It films anyone who passes the door of this building,’ I concluded.

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s hooked up to a DVD recorder.’ I pointed along the passage to where I’d left it – stupidly, since she couldn’t see me. ‘A gadget like that can store up to 172 hours of pictures, probably more.’

  ‘Shit, don’t tell me you set off the alarm down there.’

  ‘Amazing what you can do with a loose cobblestone.’ I tried to inject a smile into my voice. ‘Come on, it’ll only be a matter of minutes before the police put two and two together and ring your doorbell.’

  She shook her head and drew a deep breath. A little more of her physical tension seemed to leave her. Although she probably wouldn’t have admitted it, even to herself, I sensed that she found my presence reassuring.

  ‘I must be nuts,’ she said, but she set off towards her TV.

  I followed her once I had hurried back to the chest of drawers and retrieved the heavy HD-DVD recorder. The cut I’d sustained when smashing the gallery window had stopped bleeding.

  Our route through the flat, which was surprisingly brightly light, led past the bathroom and into a living room with an open kitchen adjoining it. I noticed only now that the flat was a duplex.

  Swiftly and unerringly avoiding a downwards-leading spiral staircase, Alina opened a door on the far side of the living room. TomTom had trotted after us but hunkered down beside the living-room sofa.

  ‘Aren’t you going to put something on?’ I asked when we were standing in what was readily identifiable as her bedroom. I was once again surprised by all the mirrors, one of them even on the ceiling.

  ‘Why?’ she demanded, calmly walking over to the big television set facing the bed.

  ‘You’re naked,’ I said. And I’m only human, I added in my head.

  ‘The central heating’s on,’ she replied tersely.

  She bent down to remove the plug of her DVD player. I didn’t know where to look for a moment, not wanting to feel like a voyeur. Piercings and tattoos didn’t grab me as a rule, and shorn heads, even if shaved into a labyrinthine pattern, weren’t high on my scale of what I considered attractive.

  Although Charlie had once tried to explain to me how close sex was to pain, I’d never been able to comprehend this SM fetish idea. Well, perhaps she’d been right. Perhaps sexual desire really could interact, not only with pain but with death itself. That was the only way I could account for my urge, at this of all moments, to touch Alina’s bare flesh, when my senses should have been entirely focused on the thought of escaping from a serial killer.

  And from the police!

  In any event, it wasn’t common sense but my sad recollection of Charlie that reminded me of what I had to concentrate on next.

  Alina got to her feet again and surrendered the television set to me. It took me only a few seconds to hook up the HD-DVD recorder.

  ‘Did you really have to smash the gallery window? The artists who own the place are really nice people.’

  She handed me the remote control and I switched the AV feed on the television.

  ‘I had no option. I’d called Stoya and invited him to watch a video on which the Eye Collector may be visible.’

  ‘And?’

  I sighed. ‘He refused to waste his time on my diversionary tactics.’

  I looked up at Alina, who was now perched on the edge of the bed. She was so slim, there wasn’t a sign of a crease in her tummy even though she wasn’t sitting up particularly straight.

  ‘So I’ll have to check it myself. When did the man turn up here?’

  ‘Just after three.’

  ‘And when did you get rid of him?’

  ‘A few minutes later.’

  ‘He left, just like that?’

  ‘Yes. That surprised me too. He must have noticed something. I was scared stiff when the vision suddenly broke off. I said something about a migraine and asked him to leave, which he promptly did. Rather odd, don’t you think? He didn’t even ask for his money back.’

  I set the hard-disk recorder’s timer at 3.10 p.m., hoping that this would be neither too far after the event nor so far in advance that I would waste time viewing useless footage.

  3.10 p.m. yesterday? I thought. I was in the paper’s underground car park. I had just made myself comfortable on the back seat of my Volvo, intending to take a nap, but I’d had so little sleep in the previous few days, I slept until the five-o’clock conference.

  It took me only a few minutes to find the relevant place. The recorder didn’t operate during fallow periods, luckily, so it only stored what the camera actually shot. Although I still couldn’t fathom what the installation had to do with art, I made a mental note to compensate the gallery owners for the damage as soon as I was in a position to do so.

  If I ever was.

  I stared in disbelief at the picture before my eyes and forgot to blink. It wasn’t until Alina spoke to me that I realized I must have been sitting there like a stuffed dummy, gazing at the screen for a considerable time.

  ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘What can you see?’

  Shit. It can’t be true.

  My mouth went dry as I cast about for a plausible reply.

  ‘See anything?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said hoarsely, but I didn’t want to betray the truth. ‘No... I mean... I’m not sure,’ I stammered helplessly. That was a lie. Of course I’d seen something , but I couldn’t possibly tell Alina what it was, not right now. I welcomed her blindness for the first time. It meant she couldn’t see what I could: that the fellow in the green parka and the down-at-heel Timberland boots – the one whose figure the HD-DVD recorder was currently projecting on the television screen – bore a strong resemblance to someone well known to me.

  Someone very well known to me.

  Myself.

  47

  It was a while before I recovered my composure. Before the blood stopped roaring in my ears and the sensation returned to my fingers.

  ‘I can’t see his face,’ I said, which was true. The man, who had my slightly stooped way of walking and was imitating my mode of dress, had pulled the hood of the parka over his head.

  Something I would never do. Not even in the rain!

  I tried to freeze-frame another p
icture by zapping back and forth, but the view didn’t improve. It was quite impossible to tell whether the man’s height and build were similar to mine because he was too far away from the display window.

  But he’s wearing my parka. My jeans. My boots.

  A fist seemed to clench inside my stomach. The sight of the vague figure on the screen had triggered a disturbing déjà-vu.

  ‘No idea who he is,’ I said, feeling like I was lying under oath at court.

  ‘But it proves he was here,’ said Alina. She was either feeling cold after all or had changed her mind for some other reason. Whatever the truth, she was now standing in front of an open wardrobe and removing various articles of clothing with slow, deliberate movements.

  ‘No, it only proves that someone left your building around the time in question.’

  I pressed the ‘Play’ button in the hope that the unknown man would make a mistake and inadvertently turn to face the camera. Not a bit of it. Probably because of the sleet blowing into his face, he walked on with his head down, eyes fixed on the pavement. But then, just before he disappeared from the camera’s field of view, it happened.

  The collision.

  Perhaps because he looked neither right nor left, he failed to see the guitar case lying at an angle to his line of advance. He must have trodden in it, because some coins cascaded on to the pavement and a scrawny, emaciated young man made his furious appearance on the screen.

  ‘Your patient is having words with a beggar,’ I told Alina.

  ‘This beggar – what does he look like?’ she asked.

  ‘Medium height. Dark, straggly hair but not too much of it, and he’s holding a guitar.’

  ‘I know the man.’

  I turned to her. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘A busker. Plays here every other day. I always give him something, though I’ve never heard anyone sing more off-key.’

  ‘Do you own a printer?’ I asked, momentarily forgetting what a stupid question that was.

  ‘No, and my set-up doesn’t include a PlayStation either.’

  We couldn’t help smiling, either of us. At least Alina saw the funny side. I took out my mobile and quickly reinserted the battery but left the phone in flight mode so it couldn’t log on to a network and betray my position to Stoya.

  Always assuming the cops hadn’t located me long ago.

  Then I photographed the television screen. After three attempts I had a passable, flicker-free photo of the street musician and one of my unknown doppelgänger.

  ‘Ready?’ I heard Alina ask behind me. I turned round to find her fully clothed. She was wearing jeans with leather patches and a red-and-brown checked lumberjack shirt knotted over her midriff. In keeping with her new look, her feet were shod in down-at-heel cowboy boots that looked a size too big.

  ‘Oh no, I’m not dragging you any deeper into this business,’ I said, still rather confused by her abrupt transformation. The left-wing hipster had turned into Annie Oakley.

  ‘Don’t talk bullshit. You think I’m staying here by myself?’

  She made her way out of the bedroom and back down the long passage to the front door with such speed and assurance, I had trouble keeping up with her.

  ‘Here, TomTom, we’ve got to go out again,’ she called. Ignoring my objections, she opened the chest of drawers and deftly identified several wigs by touch. It took her only a moment to decide on a blonde bob with a graduated fringe.

  Then, having put on TomTom’s harness with a few practised movements, she took a fur-lined cord jacket from a hook, went to the door, and opened it. The fact that she kept her eyes shut throughout these procedures made her look like a sleepwalker.

  ‘This is crazy,’ I said, more to myself than to her.

  ‘Maybe.’ She donned the jacket and turned up the collar. ‘But if we hang around here much longer the police will appear.’ She went out on to the landing and the glaring, sensor-operated ceiling lights came on. ‘And then I won’t be able to take you to that busker you saw just now.’

  46

  (7 HOURS 31 MINUTES TO THE DEADLINE)

  ALEXANDER ZORBACH

  Some witless PR consultant must once have convinced Paris Hilton of the necessity always to stand sideways-on to the camera with her chin pointing bosomwards and a spuriously coquettish grin on her face. The elderly barkeep, who had been warily eyeing us ever since we entered his deserted establishment, was standing behind the counter in a similar pose: leaning on his right elbow with his chin on his chest and his head in semi-profile. His rimless glasses had slipped down his nose, accentuating his look of condescension.

  ‘Hi, Paris,’ I said. Even I realized that I’d tried to break the ice with better quips in my time. The guy didn’t bat an eyelid, and I doubted he’d ever heard of the hotel heiress.

  Alina, who evidently knew her way around the gloomy dump, felt for a stool and sat down. Still hoping to break the ice, I was about to boost the bar’s turnover by ordering some drinks when he got in first.

  ‘Know why this world is going to the dogs?’

  That intro’s no better than mine, I thought, but I refrained from saying so. I knew from experience that you never interrupted a barman you wanted some information from, no matter what bullshit he talked.

  ‘Fashion,’ he said with a portentous nod, his rheumy eyes straying to Alina’s cowpoke jeans. ‘Goddamned fashion, that’s what’s ruining us.’

  There was a longish silence. ‘Uh-huh,’ I said dutifully, but it was as I’d feared: the man had far from finished his lecture.

  ‘What does it mean when things go out of fashion? Something that still works gets thrown away just because it’s got a little scratch on it.’

  He slapped the counter with the flat of his hand.

  ‘This counter here is sixty years old. It’s stood up to a lot of things in its time. Glasses, bottles – it’s even fractured the odd skull.’ He chuckled reminiscently. ‘Yes, people have done plenty on this counter. Danced, fought, slept, fucked...’

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Alina smile faintly.

  ‘So it isn’t the finest bar counter in Berlin, but it’s okay. It’s good for another sixty years, like the rest of this stuff.’

  He made a sweeping gesture, familiar to me from those scenes in movies where a father tells his son ‘All this will be yours one day.’ In this case, ‘all’ comprised of some grimy curtains, several ochre-coloured wooden chairs with worn upholstery, a decrepit pinball machine, and an assortment of booze that probably wouldn’t have fetched more than 2,000 euros.

  ‘Nothing in here is broken, so why should I replace it?’

  Perhaps because you wouldn’t be your only customer at this hour?, I thought, but I could tell where he was going.

  ‘“Lounge bar furniture” – that’s what some limp-wristed interior decorator advised me to invest in. “Club sofas” that customers can “chill” on. That’s the “in” thing, apparently.’

  I couldn’t remember when I’d last seen a look of such revulsion on anyone’s face.

  ‘What the hell’s so good about a bar where you trip over people’s legs?’

  I shrugged, trying to sneak a glance at my watch. The bar was only two streets away from the gallery.

  ‘We use up our raw materials, suck the planet dry like leeches, chuck away things that are still in perfect working order. My dumb fuck of a nephew bought three new mobile phones last year alone. And for what?’

  ‘Fashion,’ I said, thankful that he’d let me speak at last. I was now on the same wavelength. Genuinely so, as a matter of fact. I’d had my ear bent by dumber bar room philosophers, so it was a pleasant change.

  ‘Okay, what are you having?’ he asked, finally treating us to a nicotine-stained smile.

  ‘Two G and Ts,’ I said. ‘And we’d like a word with this guy here.’

  I held out my mobile. The barkeep stared at it in surprise, then adjusted his reading glasses.

  ‘This mobile’s over four years old,’ I l
ied, nipping any criticism in the bud.

  ‘And it still takes perfect pictures,’ he said with an approving nod.

  I smiled. ‘Do you recognize the man?’

  ‘Linus? Sure.’

  Linus? I glanced at Alina, glad to have followed her suggestion. ‘Know where I can find him?’

  The elderly barkeep’s smile widened. ‘In there.’

  He jerked his head at a door in the far corner of the murky bar. A door with two crossed pool cues over it.

  ‘Okay if I have a word with him?’

  ‘If you must, but I’m afraid you’re too late.’

  ‘Too late?’ I looked at the barkeep enquiringly. He wasn’t smiling any more.

  ‘Go on in, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  45

  (7 HOURS 26 MINUTES TO THE DEADLINE) TOBY TRAUNSTEIN (AGED 9)

  They had once bet which of them could stay underwater longest. It was just after the school trip to the public baths, when they should really have been taking a shower. Kevin had bet his entire Panini album on the result.

  Toby’s throat was parched. He swallowed hard, then greedily sucked in some air from the darkness around him. It was getting harder and harder to inhale. He was reminded of drinking a thick milkshake through a straw. Breathing had become as difficult as that.

  Kevin’s Panini album had been at stake!

  His own was nowhere near complete.

  So they’d made this bet.

  Me, Jens and Kevin.

  Although...

  He really should have put it the other way round. Kevin, Jens, and me.

  Or Jens first.

  Only donkeys put themselves first, he thought as he reinserted the coin in the head of the screw.

  He’d been told that by Frau Quandt, their German teacher, who had read the story about the thirsty shipwrecked sailor with them. The guy who kept biting his tongue to produce spit.