Eye Collector, The (12 page)

The pussy,
as Kevin called the slit you stuck keys in.

There was kind of slit, but it was far too straight and smooth. Just a groove his fingernail fitted into, like the groove in the head of a screw.

Okay, concentrate. It doesn’t matter if there’s no keyhole, you don’t have a key anyway. A screw is much better. Maybe it’ll only need turning, and then...

He coughed, wondering if he’d forgotten to breathe again. For some reason, he seemed to drawing less and less air into his lungs.

...and then that will let the light in and I can tear off this lousy sack, or whatever it is, and breathe properly again. But how? How can I get the screw out?

He inserted his thumbnail in the groove on the underside and tried to turn it, but all that happened at the fourth attempt was that he tore the nail and made his thumb bleed.

Shit, I need a screwdriver. Or a knife.

He laughed hysterically.

Oh sure, Jens and Kevin have put a knife in with you, so you can cut your way out.

He coughed again. It suddenly occurred to him why he was sweating so much, why his throat was burning and he was growing more and more exhausted.

I’m running out of air in here. Shit! I’ll suffocate if I don’t find something hard soon – something I can fit into that lousy groove. Just a minute...

He shut his eyes and tried to breathe steadily.

Something hard.

His fingers started to tingle again as he remembered the coin in his mouth. The one he’d spat out into the darkness in disgust a good hour ago.

(10 HOURS 19 MINUTES TO THE DEADLINE)

ALEXANDER ZORBACH

‘I don’t know where I took the boy,’ Alina said. She had taken my arm and let me lead her up the steps and across the narrow gangway to the shore. The wind
had subsided a little.

How thin she is,
was my first thought as we made our way into the trees. I could feel her ribs in spite of the thick sweaters she was wearing, and my thumb and forefinger would have
encircled her wrist twice over. We paused for a moment so that I could adjust the focus of my torch, and the beam strayed across her jeans. I spotted a dirt-encrusted tear below the knee that had
escaped my notice in the dimness of the boat. She had obviously done it on the way there.

‘If I knew where the boy was hidden, I certainly wouldn’t have been stupid enough to come traipsing out here,’ she said as I strove to walk alongside. The path was so narrow,
it was almost impossible. ‘I could have shown the police I’m not a nutter.’

The further we got from the lakeshore, the denser the Grunewald became. The wind scarcely penetrated the trees, but the snow that became dislodged from their branches concealed the dangerously
icy stretches of path ahead of us. I nearly fell over twice, and once I failed to prevent Alina from stumbling when a fir branch caught her in the face because my torch had picked it out too late.
I marvelled yet again at the willpower that had prompted her to plunge blindly into such an adventure, trained guide dog or no. TomTom was walking slowly and deliberately up the path, undistracted
by snapping branches or other sounds. The area was noted for the numerous wild boar that roamed the woods in search of winter food, but even if we’d flushed a tusker or other wild animal, the
retriever wouldn’t have been put off the scent for an instant; he would have guided us safely back to my Volvo.

‘It’s like a movie,’ said Alina, having removed my hand from her arm and got into the car without my assistance. I started the engine. As I was backing up I saw her take a
handkerchief from her rucksack. She turned and threw the backpack on to the rear seat beside TomTom. Then she mopped her damp face and did her best to dry her hair, which was wet with snow.

Like a movie?

She was obviously waiting for me to comment, so I obliged her while reversing at a walking pace. Only another few metres and I would have to get out again in any case, to roll aside the tree
trunk that blocked my secret entrance.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘My flashbacks. That’s how I imagine a feature film.

Except that I can’t simply fast-forward or rewind the video in my head.’

‘So? How
do
you recall your memories?’

‘I don’t.’

We had reached the bramble thicket that marked the boundary between the track and the entrance to Nikolskoer Weg, so I braked to a halt.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Just now you gave me a detailed account of what the Eye Collector did before he put the boy in the boot.’

She nodded and hugged her chest, shivering. In this temperature the car would take another five minutes to warm up.

‘I’ve no idea why I can always remember the first few minutes of my visions so clearly. After that the film seems to fray. The images become blurred and whole sequences go missing.
Strangely enough, though, the gaps sometimes close and I can recall other sequences days later. But I don’t know how. It happens all by itself. I can’t recall missing the missing scenes
by an act of the will. See what I mean?’

No, I don’t. Right now I don’t understand a thing. I don’t know what you’re doing here, nor do I understand how I’ve suddenly become chief suspect in one of the
most horrific murders of all time.

Instead of replying I got out of the car again and vented my anger on the tree trunk, which I thrust aside in one go.

Damnation! I’d meant to go to ground here in order to put some distance between me and the crazy situation into which – for some inexplicable reason – I had stumbled.
And
now I’m even further up the creek than before.

I wiped my grimy hands on my jeans and got back in the car, which now smelt of cigarette smoke and wet dog.

I felt like gripping Alina by the shoulders and shaking the truth out of her.
Who sent you here? What do you really want from me?

But that, an inner voice told me, would be the least likely way of disentangling the Gordian knot of questions in my head.

And besides, there must be something in her story. Stoya confirmed the deadline, after all.

I swallowed a Maxalt from the pack I’d taken from the passenger seat. Then I drove back along Nikolskoer Weg. My hideaway was blown in any case, so I didn’t trouble to cover my
tracks this time.

‘Once more from the beginning,’ I said when we reached the main road. ‘Your visions are like movies, and this one broke off at the instant you put the boy in the
boot.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

I turned my head. Alina’s had closed her eyes again and was looking utterly serene. She might have been asleep.

‘Not entirely. For instance, I have a distinct recollection of the radio coming on when I got into the car and turned on the ignition.’ She chewed her lower lip. ‘The Cure were
singing
Boys Don’t Cry.
I checked the rear-view mirror to see if I’d picked up a scratch or a bump, but all I saw was my father’s laughing face. He was beating time to the
tune on the steering wheel.’ She gulped. ‘I always see my father when some arsehole is hurting someone. God, how I hate that!’

Nothing could be heard for a while but the sound of the diesel engine as we drove along the deserted avenue, heading for Zehlendorf. There must have been a severe weather warning which the
Berliners were taking seriously for once. We stopped at a red light.

‘What happened after that?’ I asked.

‘No idea. That’s when the movie gets patchy. I remember driving uphill for a bit. We rounded several bends. Then the car pulled up and I got out.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘Nothing. I just stood there and watched.’

I drove on. ‘You watched?’

‘Yes. All at once I was holding something heavy, a pair of binoculars or something. Anyway, the whole scene looked blurred to begin with. Then I suddenly made out what was happening down
below.’

‘What was it?’ I could hardly believe I was seriously asking a blind woman that question.

Alina turned briefly to TomTom, who had started panting, and fondled the fur on the back of his curly head. ‘I saw a car come racing along the road and skid to a halt in the driveway of
the house I’d just left. A man jumped out. He tripped and fell over on the snow-covered gravel – for a moment he crawled along on all fours. Briefly hidden from view by a tree, he
reappeared just in front of the tool shed. I saw his lips mouth a cry as he threw back his head and sank to his knees, weeping, beside his wife’s dead body.’

She shut her eyes, but not quickly enough to prevent a tear from escaping. A small four-wheel drive was ahead of us. Seen in the red glow of its brake lights, the tear resembled a drop of
blood.

‘He kept hitting his head with both fists. Again and again. I couldn’t hear what he was shouting, he was much too far away. But then...’

‘What?’

‘Then he suddenly made contact with me.’

‘How?’

We were approaching the Drei Linden intersection. I decided to keep straight on.

‘He stood up and looked in my direction.’

‘Just a moment.’ I massaged the back of my neck with one hand. ‘He knew where you were?’

‘Yes. I had the unreal feeling that we were accomplices, and it gave me a shock. I was a very long way from him, though, and when I lowered the binoculars I couldn’t even see him as
a tiny speck.’

‘But
he
saw you?’

‘That was the impression I got.’

The dull ache in my head was getting worse. The migraine remedy wasn’t having the slightest effect.

Could there be some connection between the Eye Collector and Traunstein, the father of the kidnapped children?

We passed the Avus turn-off to Charlottenburg. I checked the rear-view mirror. All clear behind me, so I braked hard and sped back along Potsdamer Chaussee as fast as the Volvo could manage.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Alina, who had noticed our sudden change of direction.

‘Making a short detour,’ I replied. I signalled right and turned off on to the city expressway.

Perhaps the Eye Collector isn’t playing his sick game of hide-and-seek solo.

There was only one way for me to find out.

(10 HOURS TO THE DEADLINE)

PHILIPP STOYA

(DETECTIVE SUPERINTENDENT, HOMICIDE)

‘According to Hollywood, serial murderers are exceptionally intelligent, never of Afro-American descent, and only very rarely female.’

Seated in his chrome-plated wheelchair, Professor Adrian Hohlfort looked quite unlike his TV self. He wasn’t smiling, his grey hair wasn’t neatly parted, and he wasn’t wearing
the black necktie that he’d worn on every one of his talk show appearances to date. He hadn’t even shaved, either, presumably because no member of tonight’s audience was expected
to buy his book after the show.
The Serial Murderer and I
had now been on the bestseller list for seventy-one weeks.

‘They only kill members of their own ethnic group and are a largely American phenomenon. All these findings are said to be based on scientific FBI research, and they’re all total
crap.’

Stoya fired a warning glance at Scholle, who was seated beside him at the conference table, vainly trying to stifle a yawn. Unlike his associate, who considered profiling hocus-pocus, Stoya had
faith in the abilities of the sixty-year-old expert, who had personally interviewed numerous serial murderers in the course of his career.

Many more than Zorbach.

Privately, he found the paraplegic psychologist extremely unlikeable, but his professional expertise was beyond dispute. Although their meetings in the last few weeks had not as yet proved
productive, Hohlfort had often been helpful to the police in the past. Now that they had a definite suspect at last, they wanted to hear his expert opinion.

‘Professor, you told us last time that we ought to look for a run-of-the-mill kind of individual. Someone who’s rather retiring and not in the public eye.’

‘That’s right. Forget Hannibal Lecter, he’s a novelist’s invention. Lecter has about as much in common with reality as I do with an Olympic hurdler.’

Hohlfort gave the rims of his wheelchair a gentle slap and grinned at his little joke. No one else did.

‘Serial murderers are the losers of our society. We’re looking, not for an outstanding anti-hero, but for someone at odds with himself and his lot in life. A niche personality, as I
term him. Outwardly quite normal and rather inconspicuous, but inwardly a mass of imponderables.’

Stoya made a meaningless note on the pad in front of him. ‘Could he be a journalist?’

Hohlfort shrugged. ‘Serial murderers pursue a wide variety of occupations. They can be petrol pump attendants, bus drivers or lawyers, supermarket shelf-stackers or civil
servants.’

He glanced derisively at Stoya’s colleague.

‘They can even work for the police.’

Scholle groaned and turned to his partner. ‘Come on, Philipp, we’re wasting our time here. Grandpa’s pearls of wisdom are about as precise as my horoscope.’

If the professor was stung by these disrespectful words, he didn’t show it. He rested his elbows on the arms of his wheelchair and spread his hands with an air of unconcern.

‘I’m not here to do your work for you, gentlemen. You’re the investigators, not I.’ He gave Stoya a look which conveyed that even the best profiler could do nothing if
the police failed to find the hiding place in which the Eye Collector had held and murdered the kidnapped children.

‘Nor have I come armed with a computer that’ll spit out the perpetrator’s profile at the touch of a button once you’ve fed it with information,’ Hohlfort added.
‘I can only provide you with another piece of the jigsaw. It’s your job to insert it in the right place.’

Stoya frowned at Scholle and asked the professor to go on. Hohlfort needed no second bidding. If there was one thing he liked, it was sharing his inexhaustible store of knowledge with other
people. Provided they didn’t dispute it.

‘To return to your question about the murderer’s occupation...’ Hohlfort stared at an invisible point on the room’s bare ceiling and assumed a meditative expression.
‘All I can tell you is this: the Eye Collector enjoys planning and may have some professional connection with projects that have firm deadlines. He’s used to completing things within a
given time.’