Eye Collector, The (39 page)

My thanks, too, to Gerlinde, with whom I’ve been able to give some terrific readings, and who also has the makings of a novelist. Your story is great – it’s high time you put
it down on paper. Go on, take the plunge...

Thank you, Thomas Zorbach, for your wonderful surname, which I was privileged to borrow, and for your invaluable help in implementing some crazy ideas with your boys and girls from vm-people. By
the way, your photo makes you look very well preserved for a man of fifty-six!

My gratitude to Manuela Raschke, whom I always introduce as my brain, but who looks a great deal nicer and has managed my entire life, goes without saying. (I would also mention Barbara Hermann
in this regard.)

Manu, I mustn’t praise you too fulsomely, or your husband Kalle (Rocky Graziano’s one-time personal trainer) will stick me in a punchbag the next time we meet.

Two people whom I can’t possibly leave out, and who have been there from the outset, are Sabrina Rabow (the woman for you if you want to get your name in the papers) and Christian Meyer
(the man for you if you want to get it out again).

My thanks to the family Fitzek, Clemens, Sabine and Freimut – guess which one is my father? – for their professional, but primarily emotional, support. The family plays an important
role in all my books, and not without reason; but I, unlike my heroes, am lucky enough to possess one that is still intact. It also, of course, includes Sandra, who contrives to share her life with
a madman who’ll break off in the middle of a sentence because another thought has just occurred to him...

... erm... were was I? Ah yes... the police!

Thank you, Detective Chief Inspectors Ingo Dietrich and Michael Adamski, for some fascinating insights into criminal investigation.

Finally, I must introduce you to the person who first gave me the idea for
The Eye Collector
: my physiotherapist Cordula Jungbluth, who has been putting me through the shiatsu mill for
the past four years. She surprised me after every session by coming out with some accurate diagnoses of my life and psyche which she claimed to have ‘read’ from my body during
treatment. At first I was merely amused when she told me I’d been an outsider as a boy (who wasn’t?) and that many unresolved conflicts were still warring inside me (you don’t
say!). But then I thought, ‘Hang on, if mere physical contact can really enable her to see into my past, what if I were a serial murderer? Could she tell if I’d murdered someone in my
cellar just before she massaged me?’ And that gave birth to the idea. (Not of going down into my cellar, of course, but of sitting down at my desk...)

I should add that, while giving me a massage me not long ago, Frau Jungbluth broke off to say (not that I’d ever told her anything about
The Eye Collector
), ‘Asphyxia plays a
prominent part in your new thriller, am I right?’ She explained that she’d felt short of breath while manipulating me. I doff my virtual hat to you, Frau Jungbluth, and look forward to
my next appointment!

Well, I now conclude as usual by expressing my gratitude to all the booksellers, salespersons and librarians who saw to it that this book ended up in your hands.

If, after these marathon acknowledgements, you still have the energy to send me your opinion of
The Eye Collector,
you can reach me in the following ways:

(for compliments, requests for autographs, proposals of marriage, etc.)

[email protected]

(for criticisms and complaints, etc.)

naturally functions as before

Sebastian Fitzek

Berlin, March 2010