Eye Collector, The (29 page)

I didn’t know what to say, least of all in answer to her next question, which disconcerted me.

‘Do
I
exist?’ She grasped the hem of her lumberjack shirt and crumpled it like a sheet of paper. ‘Do I, Alex?’

I hesitated, then took her hand and gently prised her fingers open.

‘Of course you do.’

‘Prove it to me. I want to believe it, so please show me.’

She put a hand to my face. Her fingers caressed my chin, traced the line of my lips, lingered briefly on my eyelids.

I experienced one of those rare moments in life when nothing matters but the present. I forgot about the baby on the bridge and my failed marriage. Even the face of Charlie, whose children I
aimed to rescue from the Eye Collector’s clutches, disappeared from my mind. Instead, I was pervaded by a sensation I’d almost forgotten.

I had last felt it when seeing Nicci for the first time. Not with my eyes or brain – Alina was mistaken if she believed that they were what perceived the truly important things in life.
When you yearn to be so close to another human being you would happily exchange bodies with them, the intellect cuts out and the soul becomes the only sensory organ still in operation.

‘Show me,’ she repeated insistently. ‘Show me I still exist.’

Then she put her lips to mine, and I was surprised to discover how much I’d been wanting her to do just that.

(2 HOURS 47 MINUTES TO THE DEADLINE)

FRANK LAHMANN (TRAINEE JOURNALIST)

‘Shared hallucinations,’ said a grumpy voice. It was issuing from the loudspeakers of a telephone located between them on the interview room’s laminated brown
table. Professor Hohlfort had been connected from his home in Dahlem. ‘My guess is, you’re suffering from an induced delusional disorder.’

‘But Alina exists,’ Frank protested. He looked at Stoya. ‘I saw the blind girl with my own eyes.’

The phone crackled and the profiler’s next words were preceded by a loud atmospheric hiss. ‘Am I right in thinking, Herr Lahmann, that you’ve been working closely with the
wanted man for months?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re stressed? You seldom get more than four hours’ sleep a night?’

This time Frank merely nodded.

‘Well, it has often been found that mentally healthy persons subjected to such pressure will take on their partner’s hallucinations. This phenomenon usually occurs in persons forming
part of a clearly defined pecking order – married couples of whom one is the dominant partner, for instance. However, another possible factor might be the professional dependence of a trainee
on his mentor.’

‘Are you telling me I’m bananas?’

‘No, Frank. You’ve merely taken on the hallucinations of your father figure, for want of a better term. This is unusual but quite conceivable, given the exceptional strain to which
you’ve both been subjected for the last few weeks. After all, you’ve been up against one of the most atrocious serial murderers of recent decades.’

Frank stared at the phone open-mouthed. Was the old fogey being serious?

‘I’m not crazy and neither is my boss.’

‘Well, his medical record says differently, doesn’t it?’

Stoya confirmed Hohlfort’s statement with a regretful shrug. ‘Zorbach and I were colleagues, and there’s little you don’t know about someone when you’ve worked so
closely with them for years on end. It’s an open secret that Zorbach has been undergoing psychiatric treatment since that business with the Ondine baby. He isn’t the first ex-cop whose
name appears in Dr Roth’s appointments diary, and he certainly won’t be the last.’

Frank shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it.’

The phone emitted another hiss. ‘Show him,’ said Hohlfort.

Frank looked at Stoya enquiringly. The inspector opened a small laptop. Less than twenty seconds later, he angled it so that Frank could see what was on the screen.

‘We found this on Zorbach’s office computer.’

Frank raised his eyebrows and stared at the screen. ‘An email?’ he said.

His eyes travelled from the email’s header to its text.

‘He sent it to himself,’ he heard Stoya say. It sounded like a question.

‘He often does that,’ Frank said. ‘It’s his way of creating a backup. Other people store important material on a USB stick. Alex sends it to himself. The advantage is, he
can access it on any computer in the world.’

‘Interesting,’ said Hohlfort, ‘but can you explain the contents?’

Frank stared at the screen for a while, then shook his head.

‘Do you know what he means, Herr Lahmann? What is this love test?’

Stoya had stationed himself behind Frank and was casting a shadow over the screen.

‘No, no idea. He never discussed it with me.’

Hohlfort’s rasping voice issued from the loudspeakers. ‘In that case, I think it’s high time
we
discussed it with him.’

The inspector returned to his place and shut the laptop. ‘Your boss’s inside knowledge is hard to explain, you know that yourself. He had contact with both the mutilated nurse and
the latest victim, Lucia Traunstein, whose mobile he called some hours after her murder. This may be proof of either his innocence or his mental instability. But now it appears he also knows the
Eye Collector’s motive. I’ve no idea what this goddamned love test means and I don’t know how deeply involved he really is, but of one thing I’m absolutely certain: I must
find him as soon as possible. No matter what.’

Stoya planted both palms on the table and looked down at Frank menacingly. Their faces were so close, Frank could see the droplets of blood that had lodged in the fine hairs in the
detective’s nostrils.

‘I’ll find him, Frank, and you’re going to help me. Whether you like it or not.’

(2 HOURS 29 MINUTES TO THE DEADLINE)
ALEXANDER ZORBACH

Just as I felt she was on the point of losing control, she stopped. Just like that. Still astride me, she clasped her hands behind her head and froze.

I was taken aback. ‘What is it?’ I asked, removing my hand from under her shirt.

A moment ago I’d had the feeling I could read her thoughts, we were so tightly fused together, but all at once, although I was still inside her, she was miles away.

‘I don’t feel a thing,’ she gasped.

I stared at her in bewilderment. She had cried out and sunk her teeth in my neck, seemingly overwhelmed by a tidal wave of desire.

‘No kidding?’ I said flippantly, trying to lessen the distance between us. I took hold of her hips and thrust my pelvis at her. She moaned and bit her knuckles.

‘You really can’t feel a thing?’

‘Idiot. I don’t mean that.’

In one swift movement she freed herself from my embrace and climbed off me.

‘What, then?’

Her discarded jeans were lying in front of the sofa table. She felt for them with her foot.

‘Absolutely nothing happens when I touch you. I only touched the Eye Collector’s shoulders for a moment, but I can make love with you and... nothing.’ She shook her head.
‘I’ve had a lot of men. I know, of course, that physical contact isn’t enough on its own. What puzzles me is why it only happens with arseholes who hurt me, not with someone like
you. With you it’s just nice.’

With you it’s just nice... There are times when you don’t need a lot of words to make a poem.

‘I can’t see into
your
past,’ she said.

‘That’s a mercy for both of us, take it from me.’

Alina didn’t laugh. She didn’t even smile faintly. She simply continued to sit beside me with one leg in her jeans and the other on the sofa, sighing.

‘Maybe I don’t have enough negative energy inside me,’ I hazarded. A few hours ago I would have advised her to seek psychiatric treatment for her delusions. Now that her
visions had introduced us to the Eye Collector’s underworld, my sceptical outlook on life had been shaken.

‘No, it isn’t that.’ She finished buttoning her jeans and drew up both legs on to the sofa. ‘Until today I also thought it had to do with negative energy in the people I
touched. But that poor woman in the cellar was full of it, and I felt no more than your own fingertips did. That was when it dawned on me. Sometimes I get these feelings and sometimes I
don’t. I suddenly realized why.’

‘Why?’ I asked softly.

What did you discover about yourself in the cellar?

‘It isn’t just physical contact that enables me to see into some people’s past.’

‘So what is it?’

‘Pain!’

I tried to withdraw my hand, but she hung on to it.

‘I only remember when I’m hurt.’

And then the words came pouring out. ‘I had my first vision when I was seven, just after a car had knocked me down. I only have to think of it and I can still smell the driver’s
breath. It stank of decaying food and cheap spirits when he hauled me to my feet. I tried to put my weight on my right leg and the vision transfixed me like a flash of lightning. I saw a reprise of
the accident amidst the aura of pain.’

‘You
saw
him knock you down?’

She nodded.

‘From the driver’s perspective, with his eyes. I saw him screw the cap back on the bottle he’d just taken a swig from at the last traffic lights. Then I saw a child walking
along the street. I heard him curse loudly. Then came a cut. Next thing I saw, he was bending over the little girl, who was howling with pain in the roadway. Over me.’

‘But earlier on, in the cellar?’

‘I was agitated, frightened, scared to death, but it wasn’t like that time when the man drove into me, or like just before I started to massage the Eye Collector, when I stubbed my
toe.’

‘You mean…’

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘I have to be hurt.’

I stood up so abruptly that TomTom, who had been dozing beside us, gave a jump.

‘I know it sounds incredible, Alex, but when that vase fell on my foot back at the flat it happened again. More details came back to me.’

‘You can’t be serious.’ I looked around for my own jeans.

‘I am.’ She presented her ear to me as she always did when paying full attention to someone. ‘Pain not only summons up new visions. If it’s intense enough it can summon
up old ones as well.’

I found my jeans on the floor and felt in the pockets for my mobile.

‘What are you doing?’ Alina asked.

‘Calling the police. We’re going to turn ourselves in.’

‘What? No!’

‘Yes!’

Enough of this. It’s over.

‘I’m putting an end to this nonsense right now.’

The mobile vibrated as soon as I turned it on.

Seven phone calls. One text message.

There really is a parking ticket!
I read, and quickly opened the rest of Frank’s message.

The police have found the Eye Collector’s car.

My head swam when I read the address.

This makes no sense. Why should he do that?

The Eye Collector had left his car outside my mother’s nursing home.

FRANK LAHMANN (TRAINEE JOURNALIST)
‘You did the right thing.’

Stoya put his hand on Frank’s shoulder and relieved him of the mobile he’d just used to send the text message. The young trainee started at his touch.

‘Really?’ he said. ‘So why do I feel like a two-faced bastard?’

(62 MINUTES TO THE DEADLINE)

ALEXANDER ZORBACH

Something’s wrong here.

I knew it the moment I entered the room.

Alina had remained behind with TomTom in the car, which was parked in a side street behind the sanatorium. It was hard enough for a sighted person to sneak into the ward unobserved. A couple
complete with guide dog and white cane wouldn’t have got past the reception desk.

‘Hello, Mother,’ I whispered, taking her hand. My uneasy feeling that something was wrong intensified. ‘Here I am again.’

Something’s different.

I’d been prepared for the worst throughout the drive, expecting to be greeted by the sight of a nurse making up my mother’s empty bed. She would have turned round, casting her eyes
up to heaven in annoyance because the hospital authorities had failed to inform me in good time and left the thankless job to her.

‘... sorry to say your mother died during the night... It wasn’t entirely unexpected, though... A mercy, actually, from one point of view...’

But it wasn’t like that. There was no empty bed, no nurse, and the gadgets that prevented my mother from dying had not been switched off.

Not yet.

They continued to hum and hiss their electronic hymn of praise to intensive care, a morbid symphony performed for an apathetic audience that had long ceased to register the sounds in its
vicinity.

Everything’s the same.

Almost.

I felt tempted to remove the breathing tube that distorted her face, but I had only to look into those pale green, watery eyes, which were staring up at the dim ceiling lights, to see that it
really was my mother lying there in a waking coma. She twitched occasionally, but that was normal too. They were unconscious reflexes. After-images of the person she was, like the fading speck of
light on the screen of an old-fashioned television set after it’s been unplugged.

Everything’s the same.
Her occasional moans and the smell of the body lotion with which they rubbed her every day.

For all that, something here is wrong.

Just then my mobile buzzed. It informed me, yet again, that a diverted call had been made to my number. I listened to the message.