‘Marc Lucas,’ Emma was saying in a low voice. ‘I’ve found him. We’re now at the Tegel Inn Hotel on Bernauer Strasse.’
Holding his breath, Marc peered through the narrow crack between the wardrobe door and the outer wall of the bathroom.
What the hell’s going on?
No doubt about it: Emma was on the phone to someone.
‘It’s now one minute to midnight,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure if I can persuade him to come with me.’
He drew back. In an even lower voice, she said: ‘It’ll be hard to gain his trust. He’s very suspicious.’
The last words were like a starting pistol. Heedless of what he might be leaving behind in the room, he quietly opened the main door and stole out into the corridor. The overhead light had gone out. The corridor was in darkness, so he had to find his way by means of the thin slivers of light escaping from under some of the doors.
Who was Emma talking to? What was her role in this crazy affair?
He didn’t dare put on speed till he reached the stairs, which he raced down two at a time. He almost lost his footing when he reached the ground floor and slalomed around the reception desk.
‘Oh, you were in all the time…’ the night porter called after him.
Marc continued on his way to the exit, walking backwards. ‘Was it you who knocked earlier on?’
‘Yes. There’s a problem with the hot water, and…’
He didn’t hear the rest. It was swallowed up by the revolving door that propelled him out of the hotel and into the street.
What now? Where to?
The traffic was noticeably sparser. There was no one in sight but a shift worker walking his cocker spaniel.
Where shall I go? Without money, without a car, without a home… without any memories?
He stood beside the kerb at some temporary traffic lights, looking first left and then right like some well-trained schoolboy. Behind him, the hotel’s neon sign deluded potential guests with three stick-on stars.
His wristwatch vibrated, reminding him of another vital necessity he lacked: the pills for the splinter in his neck.
The man with the cocker spaniel was coming towards him, far too engrossed in his mobile phone to notice that his dog had been wanting to relieve itself for a considerable time.
Marc looked up at the third floor, where light showing through cracks in the blind denoted Emma’s probable location. He wondered if he’d left his mobile up there but found it in his jacket pocket.
He opened the phone and decided to go right, guessing that a busier intersection lay in that direction – possibly an Underground station as well. He seemed to have inadvertently turned off his mobile after that last call in the taxi, because the display was dead. It couldn’t be for lack of juice, because when he turned it on he was asked for his PIN number. The first time it beeped a warning he thought he must have mistyped the number. The second beep reminded him of the strange man who had answered his own number – and called himself Marc Lucas! After the third attempt he felt sure he didn’t know the code for the swapped SIM card. He came to a halt, satisfied himself that no one had been following him, and wiped a raindrop off the display.
Input incorrect.
Utterly exhausted, he read the second line of the automated error message.
Phoned locked.
And suddenly knew what he had to do.
27
The man looked less like a hunter than a hunted beast. His eyes swivelled to and fro as he spoke, incapable of focusing on any particular feature of the office. Not that it contained much that was worth a second glance. Neither the walls plastered with ‘Wanted’ notices and street maps, nor the battered regulation filing cabinets, nor the yellowish washbasin on the right of the door, nor the anonymous utensils on the cramped little desk – one of three – at which they sat facing one another. Marc had often wondered if members of the municipal administration were selected for their colour-blindness – those of them, at least, who were privileged to choose the interior decoration of public buildings. The police station was done up in shades of brown and ochre never to be found in nature. It looked as unhealthy as the policemen working there, whose pallid complexions had changed as little in recent years as the surrounding décor.
Marc knew Wedding police station of old. As boys, he and Benny had tried to steer clear of the place, not always with success. He now discovered that it made a considerable difference, when you were waiting to make a statement in these airless rooms, whether you were a perpetrator or a victim. He had never felt as bad in the old days, when they were called to account because one of their gigs had ended in a punch-up. He had always got off with a caution, fortunately, a criminal record would have put paid to his law studies.
‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ said the policeman who had just entered the office trailing a cloud of cigarette smoke and introduced himself as Detective Inspector Stoya. ‘We’ve had enough nutters waltzing in here and wasting our time today, so kindly get to the point. What do you know about this kidnapping?’
Bewildered, Marc watched him vandalize a half-empty mug of coffee with several artificial sweeteners from a dispenser.
‘Kidnapping?’ he said. That made Stoya look him in the face for the first time. For one brief moment he felt he was staring into a mirror that reflected negative features only. Tired eyes, sunken cheeks, pouches that looked heavy enough to drag the whole head earthwards. Marc knew just how tense the policeman’s neck muscles would feel if he touched them. His own ached whenever he moved.
Stoya slid a newspaper from under his mug and pointed to the front page.
Over the photographs of two children, yesterday’s headline screamed -
‘THE EYE COLLECTOR STRIKES AGAIN!’
Marc recalled having heard something about a serial kidnapper on the radio – a psycho who abducted children aged between seven and twelve and gave the parents seventy-two hours to find their hiding place before he killed them and cut out their left eyes. No child had yet been rescued alive from the clutches of the ‘Eye Collector’, and his latest ultimatum was due to run out in a few hours’ time.
‘No, I’m not here about that,’ said Marc. He now realized why the 35th Precinct was so busy at this time of night. The corridors were teeming with uniformed officers and plainclothes men, numerous telephones were ringing simultaneously, and the waiting room was full to overflowing. If he and Stoya had this three-desk office to themselves, it was presumably because the other two occupants were out on the manhunt.
Stoya sighed and glanced at the clock above the door. ‘Sorry, I was misinformed. So what do you want?’
I want to report a crime. To be more precise, a conspiracy.
Marc had spent the long wait trying to think of some suitable preamble, but without success. He had eventually decided to answer any questions off the cuff – a mistake, as it turned out, because what he had to say sounded ludicrous even to his own ears. He could almost predict how the conversation would go.
‘You can’t get into your flat?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why come to the police? Why not call a locksmith?’
‘Because someone’s holding the door shut from the inside.’
‘Who?’
‘My late wife…’
Stoya eyed the clock impatiently. He looked as if he might jump to his feet at any moment, so Marc broke the silence. ‘I want to report a crime.’
He went on to summarize the inexplicable events that had overtaken him, speaking faster and faster the more often the policeman’s facial expressions changed. They ranged from impatience and boredom to astonished incredulity and undisguised scepticism. There were even times when Marc wasn’t sure Stoya was listening to him at all. He had pulled his computer keyboard towards him and spent the last couple of minutes staring at the antiquated box monitor with one hand on his mouse.