Eye Collector, The (16 page)

‘Tied up?’

‘With an extension lead.’

‘Tell me you’re kidding!’

Stoya’s voice was trembling with anger. In the background I could hear the medley of noises typical of a busy police headquarters: phones ringing, a babble of voices, doors slamming,
computer keyboards clicking. It sounded unusually loud – more like eleven in the morning than late at night – but all available staff must have been on duty. Metaphorically speaking, it
was always five minutes to midnight when the Eye Collector had issued an ultimatum.

‘There’s a DVD in the player in his living room. You should take a look at it.’

‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ Stoya bellowed into the receiver.

I lowered the phone and gestured to Frank to turn left at the next intersection.

After Alina and I had been waiting outside Traunstein’s villa for what seemed an eternity, my trainee had turned up just as Stoya took my call, so we’d got into our new getaway car
as quietly as possible and without a word of greeting.

‘Where are you?’ Stoya demanded, his voice still at parade-ground pitch.

‘Wrong question. You’d do better to ask why Traunstein has been getting blotto instead of helping to look for his children. The DVD could provide you with a clue.’

By this time, however, I seriously doubted whether there was any connection between Traunstein and the Eye Collector – and not only because Alina’s visions had come to nothing. The
garden shed wasn’t made of timber and the crime scene wasn’t near enough to the Teufelsberg, so her knowledge of the odd ultimatum was probably just a fluke.

Stoya changed his tactics. ‘Come down to headquarters,’ he said in a lame attempt to win me over. ‘I promise we’ll give you a fair hearing.’

‘You’re just wasting time. Forget about me. You should question the dead woman’s husband.’

I swallowed hard, feeling my eyes grow moist.

Oh Charlie...

‘Listen Stoya,’ I said. ‘I’m still on your side, believe me. That’s why I’m now going to tell you something potentially incriminating, okay? I’ll tell
you it in confidence, as a former colleague.’

To help me retain my composure I opened the passenger window a crack and let the icy headwind blow into my face. ‘Traunstein’s wife had affairs. Lots of them.’ Then, so softly
that the wind and engine noises almost drowned my words, I added, ‘I knew her well myself.’

‘What is this, a joke?
You
had an affair with Lucia Traunstein?’ Stoya sounded flabbergasted.

‘No. At least, not in the way you mean.’

I saw out of the corner of my eye that I’d failed in my attempt not to be overheard. Frank glanced at me and raised his eyebrows.

‘I’m only telling you this because I don’t want your investigations to get sidetracked. The children’s father may know where they are, understand? Traunstein has a
motive, I don’t. His wife had affairs with other men and he doesn’t think the kids are his.’

‘Tell me at once where you are!’ Stoya’s tone of voice had changed. The anger had receded into the background. Unless I was much mistaken, he sounded far more impersonal, as if
I’d finally dispelled his doubts about my guilt.

‘I’m on the move, but don’t bother looking for my Volvo. It’s in Kühler Weg. The keys are in it.’

I looked at Frank, who was just signalling right and threading his way into the Theodor Heuss Platz roundabout. My own car was at least ten years younger than our new getaway car but far less
spick and span. The Toyota looked as if it had spent its life in Frank’s granny’s garage except for the occasional Sunday airing. Not a scratch on the dashboard, just 12,000 kilometres
on the speedo, and floormats that had been vacuumed after every outing. The glove compartment was neatly adorned with platitudinous stickers:

The early bird catches the worm

I treated Stoya to a final piece of advice: ‘Give my car a going-over. You won’t find anything that connects me to the Eye Collector.’

‘I reckon I’ve already got enough on you to—’ I heard him say before I cut him off. Then I turned to Frank.

‘You mean you had it off with—?’ he started to say, but I hurriedly interrupted him by jerking my head in Alina’s direction.

‘Thanks for coming so quickly,’ I said.

Frank gave a nod that conveyed he’d understood. ‘I had to wait for a suitable moment before I could sneak out of the newsroom,’ he said. He managed to stifle a yawn, but he
couldn’t conceal his look of fatigue. Work-related lack of sleep had imprinted dark smudges under his eyes, and the rest of his appearance reminded me of my own reflection after a night on
the juice. It had taken only a few months in a newspaper office to transform the wholesome youth into a typical Internet junkie: hair unwashed, cheeks unshaven and clothing sketchy (his shoes
lacked laces and all he wore beneath his anorak was a faded Depeche Mode T-shirt), but incredibly focused on his work. I doubted if he had a girlfriend who would tolerate her partner coming home at
half-past two in the morning – not to sleep, just to have a quick shower before embarking on the next of his research projects for me.

‘By the way,’ I said, turning round in my seat, ‘allow me to introduce Alina Gregoriev, the witness I told you about. The character sitting beside her is TomTom, her
tail-wagging satnav.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Frank, glancing at the rear-view mirror. ‘And I’m the idiot who’s allowing his boss to paddle him up shit creek.’

‘Welcome to the club,’ said Alina.

I put my hands up. ‘No need to panic, people. I haven’t been arrested or convicted, I’m merely under suspicion. In this country, no suspect is under a legal obligation to turn
himself in, so none of us is currently committing an offence.’

‘What about the trespassing and torture you involved me in?’

‘You tortured Traunstein?’ Frank gasped incredulously.

I ignored the question. ‘You touched him for a moment, Alina, that’s all.’

She hesitated, thinking hard, then turned to face the window and slowly shook her head.

‘Nothing?’ I asked her again as I had at the villa, when she removed her hands from Traunstein’s shoulders. ‘You really saw nothing at all?’

‘No.’

‘No images? No light?’

I wondered if I’d seriously counted on getting a different answer to my question from this blind girl.

‘I didn’t recognize him,’ she said.

‘Hey, hello? Anyone?’ Frank changed lanes and glanced at me. ‘Can someone explain what’s going on here?’

‘But you can’t say for sure that it
wasn’t
him?’ I persisted.

‘I can’t exclude
anyone
from being the killer,’ Alina retorted angrily. ‘And now, can you please stop asking these stupid questions? I mean, first you call me and
ask me to meet you in the woods...’

‘That wasn’t me,’ I cut in, ‘it was...’

...someone who wants to pin something on me. But why? If the Eye Collector is really trying to make me his scapegoat, why should he complicate matters by sending me this blind kook?

‘... and then,’ she went on, ‘after I’ve almost broken my neck getting there, you can’t remember calling me and try to throw me off your houseboat – only to
lure me into a house and make me maul the father of the kidnapped children. And all this even though you believe me about as much as the police did yesterday.’

‘The police? One moment...’ The car swerved dangerously to the right as Frank turned his head to look at her. I grabbed the wheel and kept us from straying out of our lane.

‘I don’t believe this,’ he said, looking ahead again. He switched on the interior light and glanced in the rear-view mirror.

‘What?’ Alina and I asked almost simultaneously.

It had started to sleet again.

‘I know who you are,’ said Frank, turning on the windscreen wipers at minimum speed. The rubber blades squeaked like fingernails on a blackboard. ‘I think we ran into each
other.’

‘Really?’ Alina stretched. She had removed one of her three sweaters and tossed it carelessly on the seat beside her. Beneath her remaining rollnecks I caught
another glimpse of the strange tattoo and wondered what could have prompted a blind girl to go in for body art.

‘It was you that blundered into me at police headquarters yesterday, wasn’t it?’ he demanded.

‘Frank?’ I cleared my throat.

‘You bumped into me and didn’t even turn to look.’

He changed lanes.

‘Frank!’

‘Anyone would think you’re blind.’

‘Fraaank!’

‘What is it?’ he asked brusquely.

‘She
is
blind!’

‘You’re kidding...’ He looked round in a hurry.

‘Really?’

We both nodded and Alina opened her eyes. Two polished marbles that looked as if the corneas had been replaced by frosted glass.

‘I... I never noticed,’ he stammered.

‘Thanks,’ Alina said drily.

I turned off the interior light. For a while nothing could be heard but the monotonous hum of the engine, the hiss of tyres on wet asphalt and a sporadic squeak from the windscreen wipers.

Frank tried again. ‘I mean, now you come to mention it, I do remember your cane.’

We had left Ernst-Reuter-Platz behind and were driving along Strasse des 17. Juni.

‘But man, you were so purposeful. I mistook you for some kind of Nordic walker when you brushed past me.’

‘I was furious.’

‘You looked it.’

‘How do you do it, though?’ he asked. ‘Yesterday you went running down the steps at police headquarters and today you get into this car unaided.’

‘I’m blind, not paraplegic.’

Frank turned as puce as if she’d slapped his face. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.’

‘You didn’t. No more than anyone else does, anyway.’

Alina seemed aware of the slightly acidic undertone in her voice, because it had gone the next time she spoke. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve had a lifetime’s practice at taking the
piss out of people. For instance, if I’m trying to pick up a guy in a club where the lights are really low, I make bets with my girlfriends on how long it’ll take him to notice
I’m blind.’ She laughed.

Frank’s curiosity seemed to have been aroused. ‘Know something?’ he said eagerly. ‘I did my national service as an orderly in a nursing home, and a group of blind people
used to turn up there every Saturday. Sorry to be so blunt, but compared to you they looked kind of...’ – I guessed he was going to say ‘dumb’, but he corrected himself
before I could clear my throat again – ‘... well, kind of
odd.
Some of them wagged their heads and others kept rubbing their eyes. And most of their faces were stiff – like
masks. I mean, they were quite expressionless, like after a Botox injection. Whereas you...’

‘What about me?’ Alina rested her elbows on the back of our seats and leant forwards.

‘The first time I spoke to you, you nodded and raised your eyebrows. Now you’re smiling and running your fingers through your hair. Which looks pretty cool, by the way.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, smiling more broadly. ‘I’ve practised them.’

‘What?’

‘Gestures and facial expressions. I think that’s the problem when blind or partially sighted people are segregated too young. My parents fought tooth and nail to prevent me from
being sent to a special school after the accident. Sure, I went to a summer camp for blind kids once a year, but the rest of the time I attended an ordinary school and horsed around in the
playground with my sighted friends. There were differences, of course. I had my own computer for making notes in class, and I had to cycle between two girlfriends so I could get my bearings from
the sounds they made, but I
did
ride a bike.

Although I fell over more often than the others, my classmates soon got used to the sight of the little lunatic who bumped into the climbing frame in the playground but didn’t let it get
her down and scrambled to her feet right away.’

She sank back against the seat. With its brown loose covers and the emergency loo roll on the parcel shelf, the car could only have belonged to an old age pensioner. I would have bet a
year’s salary on what I would find in the glove compartment if I looked: a scrupulously maintained service record together with all the right documents and the phone numbers to call in the
event of a crash or breakdown. Me, I didn’t even have a regulation warning triangle in my boot.

‘I don’t know what it’s like here in Germany, but in the States there are a lot of institutions where the blind are more or less left to themselves. If sighted kids get bored
they start picking their noses, pulling faces, chucking building bricks at each other – things like that – but there’s usually someone around to tell them off. When blind kids are
among themselves, nobody notices if they act strangely. Often, even their supervisors are blind too. Or uninterested.’

She fondled TomTom’s head. The guide dog was dozing. Like a soldier in combat, he was clearly used to grabbing some sleep whenever he could.

‘By the time rubbing your eyes and rocking to and fro have become second nature, they’re very hard habits to get out of. Most normal folk assume that this “hospitalism”,
this institutional behaviour, is part of a blind person’s clinical condition and don’t dare say anything. They’d find it even more embarrassing than telling a person they’ve
got some snot dangling from their nose.’

She laughed loudly. TomTom raised his big head in surprise.

‘Right from the start I was lucky enough to have the help of a good friend at nursery school. John always corrected me if I behaved oddly – if I looked sour when I was simply
concentrating, or if I unconsciously rolled my eyes and made people nervous. He was my reflection, so to speak.’

I instinctively looked in the rear-view mirror and Frank glanced over his shoulder.

‘He taught me gestures and facial expressions – showed me all the tricky conversational tactics.’

Alina leant forwards again. She made a moue and ran her tongue lasciviously over her lower lip, then fluttered her eyelids coquettishly with her head on one side, looking demure.