The Eye Collector Read online

  ‘What?’ was all she said, and turned her head in my direction. We were close for the first time and I caught a whiff of the discreet scent she was wearing. It was light and less tangy than I’d have expected.

  ‘Why waste time on me if you don’t believe me anyway?’

  It was a fair question, and I tried to answer it at length. I told her that I’d often interviewed people whom I didn’t at first believe, but who had changed my mind. Checking a source was never a waste of time, I said, especially in the case of a story as exceptional as hers.

  Suddenly, however, everything went blurry before my eyes. They felt as if they’d been staring at a flickering screen for hours on end. I was also feeling nauseous, so I limited myself to asking the one question that could definitely enable me to verify the truth of Alina’s statements: ‘Where did you take the boy?’

  63

  (10 HOURS 40 MINUTES TO THE DEADLINE)

  TOBY TRAUNSTEIN

  The walls of his prison were... soft?

  Toby kneaded his hands together to make sure his sense of touch wasn’t deceiving him. This was more than likely because his senses were currently monopolized by something else: thirst. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious, but it must have been hours. Possibly days. The last time he’d woken up with such a sore throat had been New Year’s Day, after he’d made a pig of himself on all those stupid crisps. But it hadn’t hurt half as much as this.

  And my arms hadn’t exploded either.

  He didn’t know what had woken him, his unbearable thirst or the throbbing pain in his arms. They felt as if he’d been lying on them for a whole week.

  Rolling over on his side in the cramped darkness, relieving his hands of the weight of his body, took a laborious eternity (longer than one of old Hertel’s maths lessons). The blood came coursing back into his numb limbs and he started to scratch the places that smarted most: his upper arms, the crook of his elbow and his wrists. His wrists, especially, felt the way they had when he was looking for his football in the garden next door and reached into that lousy clump of stinging nettles.

  ‘You should only slap them, not scratch,’ he remembered his mother saying. Honestly, Mummy, that didn’t even work with a mosquito bite. This itches so much, I feel like ripping the skin off my bones.

  He made a claw of his right hand, applied it to his left wrist at pulse level, and drew a deep breath.

  Only slap, don’t scratch.

  Stuff it. He dug his fingernails deep into his flesh and groaned with relief when the itching abated a little. It even took his mind off his thirst, if only for a few seconds. He’d scarcely stopped scratching when the flames flared up again and the throbbing, smarting sensation maddened him even more than the impenetrable darkness surrounding him.

  ‘Hello?’ he called, and winced at the sound of his own voice.

  Sniffly and tearful.

  He didn’t want to cry. It would be shaming enough if his friends discovered he’d peed his pants when they let him out of here. In the next ten minutes or so at latest, when Jens and Kevin lost interest in their practical joke. Because that’s what it was, you bet. A stupid, rotten, lousy practical joke!

  What else would it be, you little piddle-pants? Stop blubbing.

  Kevin was always boasting about the knockout drops they sold in the chemist’s shop his parents owned. He must have tried some out on him to pay him back.

  Just because I hid his pants in the girls’ changing room after swimming. But at least that was funny. Not like this...

  Toby tried to stretch. His elbows dug into the walls of his prison. It surprised him again that they yielded under pressure. Had the idiots stuck him in a tent?

  No, it was too cramped for that. Besides, the surface wasn’t smooth. It didn’t feel like rubber or canvas. It was much rougher, more like coarse carpeting or wallpaper, or...

  Or a sack?

  Toby started sobbing again. He couldn’t help thinking of the horror video Jens had showed them during break at school. His parents were filthy rich. (Dad always says their windscreen replacement business makes so much money, they could wipe their arses on banknotes if they ran out of toilet paper.) That was why Jens was the first boy in his class with the latest iPhone. The kind you could use to view internet videos at a moment’s notice.

  They’d all met up behind the gym the very first day, and Jens had proudly showed them the clip where a naked girl was stuffed into a sack by a gang of youths. She tried to defend herself, lashing out with her arms and legs, but they got her into it in the end and tied the neck securely. Toby had joined in the others’ laughter at first, because it really did look as if a dozen snakes were rampaging around inside the sack. But he’d felt sick when the youth with the cigarette in his mouth laughingly emptied a can of petrol over the squirming sack. He’d turned away and walked back to the playground. On his own.

  They’re probably doing the same to me. Because I was too chicken to watch.

  ‘Okay, you win,’ he called into the darkness. He pictured Kevin and Jens clutching their mouths so he couldn’t hear them giggling.

  ‘Come on, let me out.’

  No answer.

  Desperately, he rammed both fists against the material at head height, feeling the sweat run down his face. He was panting even harder than he would have done after running the 400 metres, although he hadn’t exerted himself half as much as that in the last few minutes.

  There’s nothing much anyone can do in here. Except feel scared.

  Toby sniffed and drew several deep breaths. His fingers still tingled as if they were thawing out after a snowball fight. He ran them over the yielding walls around him.

  They weren’t damp and there was no smell of petrol, thank God, so they’d left out that bit of the video.

  So far.

  All at once his fingers encountered something cold: a small metal object was hanging from the side of his cloth prison, roughly on a level with his tummy button. It was the size of the Zippo lighter that his father always topped up at weekends.

  Hey, it even felt like a Zippo.

  But it definitely wasn’t one, because that sort of lighter had a hinged top you could open and a flint wheel you could turn.

  And it certainly wouldn’t be hanging from a cloth ceiling in the dark.

  Toby held his breath so as not to be distracted by the sound of his own hoarse breathing. Then, when he felt the top of the foreign object and came across a tiny U-shaped shackle, he knew what he was holding in his hand.

  It’s a padlock. A little bronze padlock like the one I use to chain up my bike.

  He coughed with excitement. He still wasn’t sure what the discovery signified, but at least it was a discovery. Something that might help to get him out of here.

  Is this a test, then? Are you guys testing me?

  He shook the padlock impatiently, but nothing happened whichever way he tugged at it.

  Brute force is useless! He heard his mother’s voice again, and this time he took her advice. He explored the object cautiously with his fingers. When he ran them over the bottom of the thing, his certainty suddenly evaporated. Was it a padlock? Hell, where was the keyhole?

  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.

  62

  (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.

  61

  (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.