He trundled a three-piece suite and an additional sofa out of a furniture store on the Lerchenfelder Gürtel and manhandled them into the back of the truck. To these he added a massive coffee table, a scroll-fronted TV cabinet containing a TV and a video recorder, two standard lamps with broad bases, and an additional armchair. He put throws and cushions on the sofa and a bound stack of Mort & Phil comics beside it. He pushed a fridge up against the side and plugged the lead into a transformer he’d got from Machine Park South. He also took two generators.
He filled the fridge with mineral water, fruit juice, beer, lemonade, pickled gherkins and other things that tasted better chilled. Beside it he stacked crates of long-life milk, tinned food, vacuum-packed pumpernickel, biscuits, bags of flour and similar stuff, not forgetting such extras as salt, pepper and sugar, oil and vinegar.
More crates were needed. One for cutlery and crockery, another for batteries, a camping stove and cartridges, and several for the cameras he fetched from the Brigittenauer embankment. He unscrewed the tripods and laid them down wherever there was room on the floor. He stacked six-packs of mineral water along the sides.
He checked the stability of his load. Anything that threatened to fall over he secured with tape.
He chained the DS to the vertical load bars. To the horizontal bars on the opposite side he secured a Kawasaki Ninja with only 400 metres on the clock, which he wheeled straight out of the dealer’s showroom and onto the hoist. Last of all, having filled the Toyota’s tank as well, he drove it on board. He might have measured the available space with a ruler, it fitted so perfectly.
*
Jonas put his plate in the dishwasher and turned on the light. He went over to the window. The sun had sunk below the rooftops, the clouds were glowing in various shades of red. He cast a last glance at the truck standing ready below, then shut the window.
He had a feeling that the journey ahead of him was the prelude to a final act. Everything seemed so clear all of a sudden. Tomorrow he would set off in search of Marie. Then he would return here with or without her. Probably without her.
25
At Linz he made a special detour from the motorway to visit the Spider. He climbed through the shattered glass door into the car showroom. The Spider was where it had come to rest, the kilometre reading unchanged.
Jonas got in behind the wheel. He touched the gear lever, touched the heating, air-conditioning and warning-light controls, depressed the pedals. He shut his eyes and cast his mind back.
It was strange. Having thought he would never regard this car as his property, he now recalled the trips he’d made in it. He remembered what it was like to be the Jonas who had sat here and driven this sports car around Vienna.
He recalled the day he’d brought the Spider back here. He had loaded up the Toyota, never thinking he would return. And the Spider had stood here on its own all this time. While he was elsewhere.
He wrenched his eyes open and smacked his forehead with the flat of his hand. If he continued to sit here he would fall asleep in no time. He had woken up so exhausted this morning, he’d kept the truck to the middle lane for fear of nodding off.
He sounded the horn as he drove away and gave the Spider a final wave.
*
A good opportunity to set up the next camera presented itself just beyond Passau. Jutting out from the dilapidated walls of a road maintenance depot was an overhanging roof, beneath which sacks of salt were stored for protection in winter. He set up the camera beneath this with the lens trained on the direction he’d come from and programmed it to start recording at 4 p.m. the next day.
He read the kilometre mark on a post in the ground and recorded it in his notebook, then added the figure 3 and drew a circle round it. The 2 above it referred to a car park near Amstetten, the 1 to a sign between Vienna and St Pölten. Those first two cameras were in the open. He hoped it wouldn’t rain before he returned. If it did, at least the tapes should be intact.
He emptied a bottle of water over his head and drank a can of some energy drink that claimed to contain as much caffeine as nine cups of espresso.
The air was cool, the temperature well below what he was accustomed to in Vienna. Fields of maize stretched away on all sides. A tractor stood abandoned on a farm track.
‘Hello!’
He walked across the carriageway and climbed over the crash barrier. No parked cars. No sign of life. Nothing.
‘Hello!’
Although he shouted as loudly as he could, his voice sounded feeble out here. The moment he stopped, it was as if no man-made sound had been heard here for an eternity.
*
He had lunch at a service area near Regensburg. The café yielded some onions, noodles and potatoes, fortunately, so he didn’t need to touch his stores. After eating he wrote Jonas, 10 August on one of the menu boards.
He set up the fourth camera beside the filling station. He noted down its location, then programmed the tape for 4 p.m. the next day and filled up with diesel. In the shop he spotted a coffee mug with his name on it. He stowed it in a bag, together with some cold drinks.
He was dog-tired. His eyes were smarting, his jaw ached, and his back felt as if he’d been lugging sacks of cement around for days. When he got in behind the wheel he almost gave in to the lure of the bunk behind his seat. If he went to sleep now, however, he would have to drive too far tomorrow, and he didn’t want to be pressed for time.
The next cameras he set up near Nuremberg, one before the exit road and one beyond. The seventh he stationed at the exit road to Ansbach, the eighth at Schwäbisch Hall. Despite the possibility of rain, he left the ninth in the middle of the carriageway near Heilbronn. The tenth, too, was simply left on the asphalt just short of Heidelberg, unprotected and without a tripod.
Half dreaming, he drove through tracts of countryside he’d never seen before. They failed to arouse his interest. Sometimes he was aware of the luxuriant scenery, the dense forests and lush meadows and friendly little houses near the motorway. Sometimes he seemed to be driving through an interminable wasteland, a bleak grey wilderness of ramshackle barns and scorched fields, unsightly factories and power stations. It was all the same to him. With precise, unvarying movements he set up his cameras and got back into the truck.
*
At Saarbrücken he could go no further. His target for the day had been Rheims, which would have meant a comfortable drive the next day. Even so, he’d driven far enough not to have to worry about getting there by 4 p.m.
He parked in the middle lane. Taking last night’s tape with him, he made his way round to the back of the truck. His legs were so weak, he couldn’t clamber aboard and had to use the remote control. The humming hoist carried him up.
He inserted the tape and dug out some biscuits and a bar of chocolate. Although the wound left by the extractions wasn’t hurting, he took two Diclofenac. He sank onto the sofa with a sigh of relief.
He shut his eyes. He meant to do so for only a moment, but it was an effort to open them again. They were smarting with tiredness.
He turned on the TV and selected the AV channel. The screen turned blue. Everything was ready, but he hesitated to start the tape. Something was bothering him.
He looked around but couldn’t put his finger on it. He sat up and had another look.
It was the rear entrance. He couldn’t see it because the Toyota was in the way. The tailboard had been left open to admit daylight, but he couldn’t relax like this. He turned on every available light and pressed the remote control. For a moment he thought he was falling forwards, but it was really the tailboard folding up towards him.