*
The tripods clattered together behind him as he pulled up. After a reassuring glance at his notebook he got out, taking two cameras with him.
The flat smelt bad. He held his breath until he was standing on the balcony, then set up the cameras as planned. One was looking down at the embankment road, the other in the direction of the Heiligenstädter Brücke. He’d left his watch at home, so he took out his mobile. It was midday. He checked the times on the camera displays. They tallied. Having estimated how long he would take to set up twenty-six cameras, he programmed these two to start recording at 3 p.m.
He made faster progress than he’d expected. By half past twelve he was setting everything up at Rossau Barracks, at a quarter to one he was driving back over the Danube Canal, and shortly before half past one he was outside his block of flats. He had over an hour to spare, and he was hungry. He wondered what to do. His goose wouldn’t be ready till late that evening.
*
The canteen of the Brigittenauer swimming baths smelt of rancid fat and stale tobacco smoke. Jonas looked in vain for a window overlooking the street, so that he could air the place. He put the contents of two tins in the microwave.
While eating he leafed through a 3 July edition of the Kronen Zeitung. Stale breadcrumbs crackled between the pages, many of which were spotted with gravy. The crossword puzzle was half completed, the five mistakes in the picture puzzle had been marked with a cross. In other respects this edition didn’t differ from the ones he’d come across in other places. An article on the Pope on the foreign news page, rumours of a cabinet reshuffle in the home news section. The TV pages carried a profile of a popular presenter. He had read all these pieces dozens of times without discovering any allusion to unusual events.
As he read the article on the Pope he couldn’t help remembering a prophecy that had appeared in various magazines and programmes since the end of the 1970s, sometimes seriously, mostly ironically: that the present Pope would be the last but one. This prediction had scared Jonas even as a boy. He had tried to work out what it meant. Would the world come to an end? Would a nuclear war break out? Later on, as an adult, he’d speculated that the Catholic Church might undergo a fundamental reform and dispense with an elected leader. He had to try and remember if the prediction had come true.
It hadn’t.
He was convinced that St Peter’s Square in Rome looked no different from the Heldenplatz in Vienna or the Bahnhofsplatz in Salzburg or the main square in Domzale.
Jonas pushed the empty plate away and drained his glass of water. He looked down through the window at the indoor pool. The muffled, regular lapping of water reached his ears. The last time he’d been here was with Marie. That was where they’d swum together, down there.
He wiped his lips on a paper napkin, then wrote Jonas, 31 July on the menu board.
*
At 2.55 p.m. he parked the Spider in the middle of the Stifter-strasse— Brigittenauer embankment intersection. He wanted to be on the move by the time he came into shot. So as not to be filmed as he set off, he had programmed the camera at this intersection to start recording at two minutes past three. A window of two minutes would be enough.
He ambled round the car with his hands in his pockets, kicked the tyres, leant against the bonnet. A strong wind was blowing. Above his head, an unsecured window hit the wall beside it with a crash. He looked up at the sky. Clouds had gathered once more, but they were far enough away, hopefully, for him to collect the cameras in good time. As long as the wind didn’t blow them over.
2.57 p.m. He got into the car and dialled his home number.
The answerphone cut in.
2.58 p.m. He dialled Marie’s mobile number.
Nothing.
2.59 p.m. He dialled a twenty-digit made-up number.
Number unobtainable.
3 p.m. He floored the accelerator.
Between Döblinger Steg and the Heiligenstädter Brücke he reached a speed of over 120 k.p.h. He had to brake hard to make it round the bend leading to the bridge. Tyres screaming, he raced down to the Heiligenstädter embankment. He accelerated, changed gear, accelerated, changed gear, accelerated, changed gear. Although he had to concentrate on the road, he caught a glimpse of the camera as he roared beneath it a split-second later.
The speedometer was reading 170 as he passed the Friedensbrücke and 200 just before Rossau Barracks. The buildings beside the road were just blurred shapes. They loomed up and were there, but he’d left them behind before he could take them in.
On the Schottenring he had to slow down to avoid skidding off the bend and ending up in the Danube Canal. He headed for Schwedenplatz at 140, braked at the last moment and raced across the bridge. His heart was pumping the blood so furiously through his body he started to suffer from a stabbing pain behind the eyes. His stomach tied itself in knots, his arms twitched. Sweat was streaming down his face, and he only breathed by fits and starts.
More bends here, so ease off, was the message sent him by the rational part of his subconscious.
He trod on the accelerator and changed up.
Twice he nearly lost control of the car. He felt he was seeing everything in slow motion. Yet he felt nothing. It wasn’t until he got the car back on track that something inside him seemed to snap. Desperately, he put his foot down even harder. He was perfectly aware that he’d crossed a line, but he was powerless. He could only watch, eager to see what he would do next.
He had thoroughly familiarised himself with the place where the embankment road and Obere Donaustrasse diverged. If he wanted to avoid crashing at the Gaussplatz roundabout, he shouldn’t be doing more than 100 k.p.h. at the intersection before it. He glanced at the speedometer as he passed the traffic lights. 120.
For a second he kept his foot hard down. Then he stamped on the brake pedal with all his might. According to the driving course he’d completed during his national service, the pedal had to be pumped, in other words, depressed and released alternately. Centrifugal force and muscular cramp prevented him from bending his leg. The Spider grazed a parked car and skidded. Jonas wrenched at the wheel. He felt a violent impact and heard a crash. The car went into a spin.
*
He mopped his face.
Looked left and right.
Coughed. Put on the handbrake. Released his seat belt. Pressed the central locking button. He tried to get out, but the door was jammed.
Leaning forwards, he found he’d come to rest on the roundabout’s tramlines. The clock on the dashboard was showing twelve minutes past three.
His fingers trembled as he scratched a dried gravy stain off his trousers. He put his seat belt on again and drove down Klosterneuburger Strasse.
As he passed the Brigittenauer swimming baths he decided to do the whole circuit again. He accelerated away, but he failed to reach the speeds he’d managed on his first tour. It wasn’t the car’s fault. His testosterone level had dropped and he was feeling dazed. Going too fast had lost its charm for him. He found 100 k.p.h. enough.
After rounding the Danube Canal between Heiligen-stadt and the city centre for a second time, driving at a more moderate speed, he set about collecting the cameras, which he’d numbered so he wouldn’t get the tapes mixed up later on. When he got out on the Brigittenauer embankment in order to collect the two cameras from the balcony of the flat, he stumbled. But for a rubbish skip, which he clung to in the nick of time, he would have fallen over.
He circled the Spider. The nearside tail light was smashed and the offside rear bodywork dented. The front of the car had suffered the worst damage. Part of the bonnet had been torn off and the headlights were shattered.