The Camera Killer (2 page)

Heinrich and I erected the net. We warmed up by playing a game without scoring. Then we played a doubles match, changing partners after every game so that everyone played against everyone else. After three and a half hours or so, two of the players—Eva and I—fell prey to exhaustion.

We made our way home, deep in conversation about the most suitable footwear for playing games in. We continued this discussion even after entering the house. I maintained that sneakers were indispensable. Eva kept contradicting me. The healthiest way to play games, she said, was barefoot. She added that the heat had worn her out and she badly needed a shower. Because she had spoken so casually, I failed to grasp that she meant to freshen up on the spot.

To my utter surprise, she stripped off her flimsy red summer dress, and even her bra and panties, in front of me, then stepped into the bathroom shower stall. My response to these activities was to turn away, but I didn’t stop talking about our topic of discussion. Given that I was afforded a momentary glimpse of her dark, bikini-waxed pubic hair, this was more easily said than done. I heard the water being turned on. Commenting on the fact that I had averted my gaze, Eva gave it as her opinion that I was being needlessly prudish. When I didn’t reply, she quickly raised
the subject of the prevailing heat, which was quite incredible. Even insects had already died of heatstroke, she said jokingly.

Having showered, she asked me to hand her a towel. I complied. Our conversation about the sneaker problem seemed to have lapsed, so I left the bathroom whistling the first few bars of the “Radetzky March.”

Outside the house, I sat down on a hammock suspended between an apple tree and a cherry tree and waited for my partner and Heinrich to return, which they did after another hour or so. Eva had just completed her preparations for our Easter lunch and brought out plates and cutlery. She served up smoked pork, dyed eggs, bread, and horseradish so strong that everyone at the table shed tears throughout the meal.

Eva drew our attention to a smell of smoke in the air. The first Easter bonfires were being lit. All the farmers in the vicinity were heathens, Heinrich declared. They misused this sacred occasion by seizing the chance to burn their spring prunings, which was legally prohibited on any other day of the year. At least they had burned witches in the old days, said Heinrich, whereas now everything was just an agricultural measure.

After we had chatted for a while (about the temperature, the lack of wind, the unwonted silence—which was only occasionally broken by the meowing of cats and described by my partner, whom Heinrich accused of undue sensitivity, as sinister—and the prospect of more rain that night), Heinrich was reminded of the murders. He wiped his mouth on a floral napkin and went into the house to see the news. Soon after going inside, he opened a window. (Why this wasn’t already open was inexplicable—it would have been desirable in view of the heat.) Heinrich called to us that the ticker headline read, “Video camera found—boy makes statement.”

Excitedly, he repeated that the police had found the video camera the murderer had used to film his crimes in an autobahn
service area. Would these videos be made accessible to the public? he wondered aloud. He thought they would.

My partner disputed this view, arguing that such scenes would not be broadcast on ethical grounds.

Amid laughter, Heinrich thereupon expressed his belief that my partner did not appear to have a full grasp of the realities of the business world, in general, and the ratings war, in particular.

He was right, as usual, my partner replied.

Heinrich withdrew from the window, but he was soon leaning on the sill again. There was some news. The police had reconstructed the almost inconceivable sequence of events with the aid of statements made by the third child, who had escaped.

On Good Friday morning, the man previously described had accosted the three brothers in a clearing in the forest about a mile from their parents’ home. In a matter-of-fact and not-unfriendly tone of voice, the stranger informed them that their parents were in his power. It was up to them whether their parents escaped with their lives or whether the boys’ behavior would compel him to kill them in a violent and extremely painful manner. The kidnapped boys must do everything he demanded of them, he said.

Just in case they took it into their heads to run away, he would tie one of them—the nine-year-old who later escaped—to himself and, if the other two ran away, put him to death. He expressly mentioned that the cord with which he secured the boy to his belt was two and a half feet in length and ordinarily used for hog-tying.

This done, the man proceeded to film the children and question them. What were their names? How old were they? Which school did they attend, what did their parents do for a living, etc.? The fiend had spent several hours roaming the woods and fields with his weeping victims, questioning and filming them.

He eventually ordered the seven-year-old to climb the tallest tree in the area and got the eight-year-old, who was more agile, to help him. With his older brother’s assistance, the little boy managed to attain a height of thirty-five or forty feet. The older boy then had to climb down again. Still with the camera to his eye, the man ordered the little boy to jump.

This is unbelievable, my partner exclaimed.

Heinrich replied that it was true—he had seen on the Internet a detailed eight-page account of it. My partner told him to go on. Heinrich reported that the man had threatened to exterminate the boy’s entire family if he didn’t jump, beginning with his two brothers. When he continued to hesitate, the man stepped up the pressure and assured him that he would come to no harm; he even promised to catch him. So the little boy eventually jumped and died in consequence. That too was filmed.

At this point, my partner interjected that the killer would soon be caught because his voice was bound to have given him away. She now felt convinced that the video would be shown after all, if only to enable viewers to identify the man by his voice.

This wasn’t so certain, Heinrich replied, because the killer had thoroughly disguised his voice by speaking in a hoarse falsetto. He added that, thanks to the enormity of the crime, television crews were converging on West Styria from all over the world. According to the news, Frauenkirchen, the victims’ hometown, was under siege. “The Crime Goes Global,” ran one headline. A horde of journalists was on the spot, the children’s mother had been committed to the Am Feldhof psychiatric institute, and the surviving boy was in an artificially induced coma.

A cry rang out from inside the house, and Eva came hurrying out in tears. She wanted to hear no more of this frightful business, she wailed, her voice breaking. Heinrich must give the subject a rest—she couldn’t bear it anymore. She was trembling all over,
clenching her fists and sobbing. My partner put her arms around her. Heinrich, who continued to stand at the window, chewed the skin around his fingernails and said no more.

It was eight or ten minutes before Eva could re-devote herself to her hostess’s duties (washing up, etc.). My partner told Heinrich it really would be better if he exercised a little restraint where details of this terrible affair were concerned. It was getting on her nerves too—more so than anything she had read in the newspaper or seen on television for a long time.

This remark gave rise to a discussion of whether one was more affected by tragedies that occurred in one’s immediate or relatively immediate vicinity than by things that happened far away. Heinrich referred to weeping Yugoslavs and compared them to emaciated Ethiopian children. Another example he cited was an earthquake or volcanic eruption (he couldn’t exactly recall which) that had cost fifty thousand people their lives (the toll might have been higher or lower, his memory had failed him yet again). That catastrophe, which had occurred in some remote country in Asia or South America, had scarcely made the news with us. He himself had been far less horrified by it than he was now.

True, said my partner; she also tended to dismiss reports of an earthquake with some indifference, whereas the children’s murder had touched her deeply, probably because it had occurred so close at hand.

They were children, Sonja, Heinrich put in; that was an additional factor. I reminded the other two that we perceive tears only if we actually see them and that we have to be familiar with faces in order to be able to sense their pain. That fitted in with Heinrich’s theory, I said. Yugoslav faces were more familiar to us than those of swarthy desert dwellers. My partner and Heinrich said I was right.

Silence reigned for a while. All present watched the cats promenading across the yard or lying around and periodically scratching themselves.

My partner remarked that Heinrich hadn’t finished his account. Ghastly or not, she wanted to know how the other boy had met his death. Speaking in a low voice so as not to upset his wife again, Heinrich recounted what he had seen on the Internet. He did, however, preface this by mentioning that a special television program would be transmitted from the victims’ hometown, which was less than six miles away, in about twenty-five minutes’ time. He suggested driving over there. In view of Eva’s state of mind, we declined. After a moment’s reflection, Heinrich conceded that we were right.

Accordingly, he went on with his account. The dead boy was exhaustively filmed and then left lying in situ. The man shepherded the two surviving children through the forest and interviewed them with special reference to their brother’s death. At no point was he ever unfriendly. He didn’t hit them, just subjected them to psychological pressure until they yielded to his will and did all he demanded of them.

One particular task the cameraman set them was absurd, Heinrich said. When they were passing an isolated, seldom-used barn containing a small quantity of hay, he ordered them to set fire to the timber building. For this purpose, he turned the hog-tied brother loose. In some manner not described in detail, the killer’s threats had rendered the children so submissive that, when the barn was on fire, the older boy submitted to the leash once more instead of trying to escape with the other one. Once the man had filmed the blaze and questioned the surviving brothers about their emotions on camera, they withdrew into the depths of the forest once more.

The second murder was not long in coming. The eight-year-old was made to climb a tall tree. This he did only because the
killer threatened to cut off the nine-year-old’s ears, underlining the words by holding a knife to his head. Then came a repetition of what had happened in the case of the first brother. The boy on the ground was filmed being asked if he was scared on behalf of his brother up the tree. The latter was also questioned about his feelings and reminded that his parents and his brother would die an incredibly painful death unless he jumped within the next ten minutes. He still had ten minutes—how did that strike him?

What a sadist, my partner put in—what an infamous criminal!

Another eight minutes, said Heinrich—or rather, said the cameraman. Another five. Another three... The camera was not turned off. At zero seconds, the boy jumped.

The silence that followed this account was broken by Heinrich’s injunction to watch the special broadcast. Eva refused and remained in the kitchen. The rest of us seated ourselves on the sofa and in an armchair in the living room. We propped our legs on the knee-high coffee table. Heinrich rose and went to get some chips, which he emptied into a big white bowl. He had only just sat down when he had to get up again. The sun was so low that the television screen reflected it and obscured the picture. After Heinrich had blacked out the windows with some drapes lying ready for the purpose, the program began.

The presenter gave a brief summary of what had happened, largely repeating what Heinrich had already told us. He added that the crime had evoked an incredible response, as viewers would shortly be able to see for themselves. Then came some live shots of the bereaved family’s hometown. A makeshift platform had been erected in Frauenkirchen’s main square and was ringed by thousands of spectators. Standing on it were a woman reporter and the weeping mayor. Easter bonfires were burning in the far distance. The television showed pictures of the crowd. Photographers with flashguns and television cameramen jostled
and shouted wildly in its midst as they tried to go about their work.

Just look at this, Heinrich exclaimed—it’s insane.

The crowd briefly quieted when the reporter started to speak, but uproar broke out after she had said only a few words. People stormed the platform, thrust the reporter aside, and yelled at the camera, swearing to find the perpetrator and kill him. Everyone was shouting at once. We even heard two gunshots. A camera in an elevated position (possibly the window of a private residence rented for the occasion) panned over the mob until it located the gunman just as he loosed off a third round: An elderly man in hunter’s costume and a gray hat fired his rifle in the air. The shot did not, however, have a tranquilizing effect. The crowd continued to yell and rampage and shake their fists in the air with undiminished ferocity, not that it was clear whom their gestures were aimed at.

Just look, just look, Heinrich kept saying, and my partner exclaimed that the whole affair defied belief.

Since the woman reporter had now been swallowed up by the crowd, we were returned to the studio. The presenter said it was incredible what people were capable of. Heinrich wondered aloud if he meant the murderer or the mob. A psychologist was questioned about such details of the crime as were already known. The occupants of the living room promptly agreed that his remarks made no sense.

Cut to the seething mob again. The woman reporter had taken refuge in the mayor’s office. There she interviewed Frauenkirchen’s leading citizen and other persons who were locally prominent or acquainted with the victims’ family. The din in the background was clearly audible.

After that, reports of the hunt for the killer were broadcast from the studio. Various forensic sketches were shown and
telephone numbers screened. The presenter stated that a full-scale manhunt had been initiated and several leads were being followed up. The Ministry of the Interior had, however, imposed a news blackout twenty minutes earlier. Viewers were referred to the
News in Pictures
program at 7:30 p.m., but if any significant new development occurred in the next few minutes or hours, the channel would go live.