Eye Collector, The (31 page)

‘What would
you
do?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘The deadline’s only fifty-nine minutes away, so tell me what you’d do in my place.’

Beads of sweat were trickling down his forehead. He wiped them off with the back of his hand, staring at me as if he meant to hypnotize me. ‘What if it was your kid?’

We passed the first floor.

‘Would you waste time taking a suspect back to headquarters and wait there for his antisocial brief to turn up while Julian was suffocating in some lousy hole?’

Julian?
Did he know my son’s name from my record, or had we sometime chatted about our children informally?

I tried to recall what I knew about Scholokowsky. He hadn’t been with Homicide for long in my day. I’d never had a proper conversation with him, just a few chance encounters in the
canteen and at the annual police party, but I naturally knew his history – everyone at headquarters did. The press usually made a meal of cases where foreign fathers robbed German wives of
their joint offspring by whisking them off, especially when it was to countries with fundamentalist governments. Scholle’s fate had provided a drastic demonstration that such cases
didn’t always involve the male sex or a particular religion.

‘Christ, Zorbach, you shot a woman in the head to save a baby’s life. What would you do if you were face to face with the Eye Collector?’

I realized to my surprise that I was seriously considering Scholle’s rhetorical question. Looking into his piggy little eyes, I recognized the rage-driven conviction in them and
nodded.

Little though we had in common, I understood what the man was trying to tell me. Scholle was an obsessive who had lost someone because he’d hesitated too long. He wasn’t going to
make the same mistake twice.

Not in my case.

The lift jolted and came to rest. It had reached its destination.

Minus one.

‘That way,’ Scholle told the two policemen. He shoved me, too, along the basement passage to the left, which was coldly illuminated by energy-saving bulbs.

‘Once upon a time,’ I said, ‘I’d have done exactly the same as you – beaten the shit out of the Eye Collector until he revealed his hiding place – but
everything changed after I killed that woman on the bridge.’

Twenty metres along the passage we came to a halt in front of a big brushed steel door.

‘Is that so?’ Scholle told the policemen to wait outside. ‘Why?’

‘Because I now know how it feels when you aren’t sure you’ve got the right man.’

He laughed.

‘You’re making a mistake. I’m not the Eye Collector.’

He brushed some more sweat off his forehead and stared at me, narrowing his eyes. ‘We’ll see,’ he said eventually.

Then, opening the door, he thrust me into the gloom.

(55 MINUTES TO THE DEADLINE)

TOBY TRAUNSTEIN

Babushka... It really was like being trapped inside one of those dolls. Toby had no idea what he’d exchanged for the wooden coffin, but at least breathable air had ceased
to be a problem. For the first time for many, many hours he no longer felt as if his chest were straining beneath the weight of a crate of Coca-Cola. Stars were no longer dancing before his eyes,
either, and he could keep his balance even when he stood up. Which he could, in his new, steel-walled surroundings.

True, the darkness was still as absolute and his head was throbbing even worse than it had in the trolley case. No wonder, after he’d driven the screwdriver into the side of the
‘coffin’ until splinters and then whole chunks of wood came away and the shaft eventually broke through. The tiny hole he’d made at first was only just big enough to admit his
forefinger. Later, when he could insert his whole hand and forearm, he’d realized that he would have to start all over again, a little further to the right and higher up. That was bad luck,
but it could have been worse. If his first hole had been only a few centimetres lower he wouldn’t have been able to feel the bolt that held the lid of the crate in place. His fingers had
touched the thing but were too far away to shift it.

So where am I now?

Toby felt a new wave of fear surge through him. He couldn’t remember ever having been in a room whose walls were so cold and smooth.

A garbage truck,
he thought, panic-stricken.
This is how I imagine the inside of a garbage truck.

It didn’t smell like one, luckily. More like a workshop. Or a boat.

Yes, that’s it! It smells like the motorboat Daddy wanted to buy one time.

Lubricating oil and brackish water, that’s what it smelt of. It was rocking gently, too.

Toby had searched the whole of the floor and walls. He’d even climbed back into the wooden crate, but he hadn’t found anything he could use on the metal walls.

He had discovered a narrow crack on one side of the compartment, but he couldn’t lever it any wider open with the screwdriver. The third time he tried the shaft came away from the wooden
handle and hit the floor with a loud clunk. It was now lying, abandoned and useless, on the floor.

On the
swaying
floor.

At first he thought his sense of balance had gone again. He hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for days, after all, so he was feeling faint and exhausted. It wouldn’t have been
surprising if the floor had seemed to sway beneath his feet. But there were also those sounds. Creaking sounds, like a rope being stretched to breaking point.

There... there it goes again!

Toby struggled with his fatigue, the incredibly heavy, leaden fatigue that had descended on him as suddenly as the darkness in which he’d woken up.

Fear, hunger, thirst, stress, exhaustion – he might have withstood them all for another half-hour, had he not lacked something he needed almost more than the air he’d managed to
regain. And that was... hope.

He couldn’t imagine ever getting out of there. Not unaided. He hadn’t the strength even to get to his feet one last time. He’d heard somewhere that accident victims
shouldn’t go to sleep. They had to remain awake or die.

So I’d better stand up again. I’ve never fallen asleep on my feet, only lying down. I mustn’t...

‘Hey!’

His heart was pounding beneath his T-shirt, which was sodden with sweat.

What was that?

He staggered backwards and felt it touch his shoulder again.

I don’t believe it! Where did that come from?

He must have missed it in the darkness.

A rope? Why would a rope be hanging from the top of this metal compartment?

Reaching up, he cautiously grasped it and slid his fingers down the nylon rope until they were gripping the plastic handle on the end.

What now?

He hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he did what anyone would have done who is offered a helping hand in the dark. He gave it a tug.

Oh no, please not...

He quickly let go of the rope, but it was already too late.

I didn’t mean to... please no...

The floor beneath his feet had started to sway again, but more violently than before.

(49 MINUTES TO THE DEADLINE)

ALEXANDER ZORBACH

Dusty white tiles, matt aluminium tables, extractor hoods over the worktops – I was momentarily afraid I’d wound up in the sanatorium’s pathology lab.

Then I saw the crockery cupboards and the grimy pass-through dishwasher in the middle of the room and began to grasp where I was. Scholle had refrained from turning on the neon lights overhead,
so our only source of illumination was a street light in the grounds outside whose meagre rays slanted down through the semi-basement windows. All I could make out in the gloom were vague shapes
and shadows. I had the feeling I was part of a blurred black-and-white photograph.

‘This used to be the hospital kitchen,’ said Scholle. He indicated three massive cauldrons on his right, which would have looked more at home in a brewery. ‘Nowadays they do
their cooking in the new annexe. The basement is completely deserted, which means we won’t be disturbed.’

A lump of plaster crunched beneath his leather soles as he went over to the island unit that occupied the righthand third of the abandoned kitchen. Roughly the size of a small family car, it
incorporated a stove equipped with four ceramic hobs, twin sinks, and a brown tiled worktop strewn with the kind of rubbish that inevitably collects in derelict buildings: a broken electrical
adaptor, ripped-out lengths of electric cable, dirty cardboard plates, plastic bowls pressed into use as ashtrays, and a half-empty Coca-Cola bottle. Scholle swept the whole of the clutter to the
floor with his elbow.

‘Does Stoya know we’re here?’ I asked.

He laughed. ‘Sure he does, not that he’ll ever say so on the record. He’s too chicken to want to ruin his career by making an illegal arrest. Unlike me, Stoya doesn’t
think it was you. He hasn’t even called the DA.’

An illegal arrest?

‘You mean you don’t have a warrant?’

‘Why do you think I’ve stationed Laurel and Hardy outside there instead of a couple of real pros? Those two owe me a favour.’

He produced a street map from his jacket pocket and spread it out on the ceramic hobs he’d just swept clear of rubbish.

‘Stoya only wanted a chat with you, cop to ex-cop. He wanted to give you a last chance to explain your presence at two crime scenes and your intimate knowledge of the circumstances.
Luckily, I managed to convince him I’m more likely to get the answers out of you in time.’

Of course.
Stoya had probably told him – officially, in front of witnesses – to bring me down to headquarters for an informal chat. Unofficially, he would have winked at
him.

I took advantage of a moment when Scholle had turned his back to look around for the fire exit any industrial kitchen was bound to have, but he’d left the lights off for a reason. All I
could make out were four small skylights I’d never get to before the fat detective hurled himself at me. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have been a match for me. His knowledge
of boxing, unlike mine, was limited to television films. Neither height nor bulk could compensate for years of training. Not so the plasticuffs around my wrists.

‘Let me go, Scholle. It’s not too late, even now.’

‘Sure.’ He glanced at his watch and sighed. ‘Time’s running out, so let’s dispense with the small talk and make a deal: I’ll tell you all I know and you tell
me what I want to hear, okay?’

‘You’re making a big mistake, Scholle, I—’

‘Okay, done, I’ll kick off. We’ve found the car you used to transport the children. A patrol found it about ten minute’s drive from here, in the car park of an abandoned
recycling plant.’

He tapped the bottom righthand third of the map.

‘You’ve got the wrong man,’ I said.

‘The boot contained solid evidence. Hair, fibres, broken fingernails.’

‘Maybe, but the car wasn’t left there by me.’

He wasn’t listening to me. ‘Stoya’s already on the spot.

Eight dog handlers are combing the area, but it’s a helluva big industrial estate, as you can see.’ His lower jaw pumped angrily up and down as he spoke. It was as if he had to chew
over his words before spitting them out at me. ‘Far too big for us to cover in the time that’s left. That’s why I’m relying on your cooperation.’

‘Scholle, please...’

‘Well, that’s my end of the deal. Now it’s your turn. Tell me where the kids are.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where were you planning to drown them?’

Drown them?

‘I’m just as keen to catch the swine as you are, I swear.’

He shook his head with the air of a father who’s gradually losing patience with an obstinate child.

‘Okay, have it your way,’ he said as he folded up the street map. ‘At least the power’s still on down here.’

I heard a click followed by an electrostatic noise like an old-fashioned television set being switched on. Simultaneously, a red light on the front of the kitchen range lit up.

After that, several things happened in quick succession.

First I felt a gust of air. Then my neck was transfixed by a shaft of agony. I couldn’t move my head for fear my spine would snap. Scholle’s forearm had cut off my air supply so
effectively, I couldn’t utter a sound as he dragged me over to the cooking unit by brute force. The hobs were already glowing faintly.

Next, he kicked my legs from behind and I collapsed.

Just as my knees hit the flagstones, the kitchen was suddenly flooded with light.

At first I thought it was pain that had projected its dazzling glare on to my eyeballs. Then, as the flickering neon tubes on the ceiling attained their full luminescence, I grasped that someone
must have turned the lights on.

Stoya?
I thought, praying that Scholle’s verdict on his boss had been mistaken.

But then I saw a pair of muddy boots appear in the kitchen doorway, and my last hope of escaping torture at his hands was dashed.

‘I told you I didn’t want to be...’ Scholle relaxed his grip and laughed. ‘Well, fancy that!’ He sounded surprised.

He thrust me aside and left me gasping on the floor in front of the island unit.

‘I was just getting myself a coffee upstairs in reception,’ I heard one of the cops say, ‘when I heard her ask the receptionist for Zorbach’s mother.’

Damn it, Alina, you should have waited for me in the car.

‘You told us about her, Inspector, so I thought you might like a word with her as well.’

It was a moment before I managed to raise my head. My crushed larynx was hurting so badly and it was as much as I could do to replenish my lungs with air, but I’d already recognized her
scuffed old cowboy boots by the time she spat in Scholle’s face.

‘Take your hands of me, you wanker.’

Scholle thanked the man with a grin and dismissed him. He waited until the door had closed. Then, gripping Alina’s arm, he wrested the walking cane from her grasp and thrust her roughly in
my direction.