Watching You(16)
And then. That feeling. So fleeting.
Was it as simple as that? So damn banal?
He studied the first photograph. It was shaky. The mobile held in his bleeding right hand, the left one sweaty from the plastic glove. Down by the cordon there were two police vans; the phone’s tremor had stretched the blue lights sideways, in irregular waves. Next to the police vehicles was a throng of cameramen, sound technicians and reporters, together with about twenty indistinguishable onlookers. The second picture was a considerable improvement: the blue lights were now points of brightness and at least one reporter was recognisable from television. Berger zoomed in and revealed face after face, first the media, so clearly identifiable, then the curious spectators. As their faces paraded past on the small screen, he paid close attention to his physical responses. Would the feeling manifest itself again?
After five or six faces it was back, toned down but unmistakable. A woman.
She was blonde, mid-thirties, her face half turned away, as if caught glancing over her shoulder. Her profile was reasonably clear; he could even make out a snub nose. Only her head stuck up behind the front row of onlookers, so her clothes were mostly hidden, apart from the collar of a light-coloured raincoat that might have been beige.
He moved on to the third and final picture taken from the porch, and zoomed in once more. Now the woman seemed to be looking straight into Berger’s raised mobile phone. The men in front had moved slightly, making it easier to see her. Her coat was more off-white, and she seemed to be standing at an odd angle, her legs apart. Only when he zoomed even closer and the picture started to break up into individual pixels did he see that she was straddling a bicycle.
He scratched his head and pondered his reaction.
A strong gut feeling. Yes, this was the woman he had seen. Yes, she was the cause of that strong but fleeting feeling out on the porch. Yes, she was the reason he had pulled his mobile out and started taking pictures.
Berger put his mobile down on the bed next to the three files, two of which he had managed to persuade Syl to pull without Allan’s knowledge. He opened the middle file – Jonna Eriksson – and searched frantically for images. Somewhere there were pictures from a winter forest. There, at last. Three of them, one after the other. The press photograph was mediocre, the resolution atrocious, but behind the blue and white tape a crowd was clearly visible.
Berger picked up the magnifying glass and held it in front of the press photograph. His first instinct was correct – the resolution was much too low. That wasn’t where he had seen it. But it was there in the second picture. The magnifying glass enhanced the view of the cycle. The rider’s head was covered by a heavy fur cap, the lower part of the face wrapped in a thick scarf. But the nose was bare, slightly redder, but with the same upturned angle.
He tossed the file aside and grabbed Julia Almstr?m’s. More photographs, all of slightly chaotic scenes. Biker gangs, cordons, curious onlookers. The magnifying glass again. Shit. Yes.
How the hell had he managed to miss that?
His legs had long since gone to sleep. When he stood up they felt like they were on fire. Ignoring the pain he took pictures, photographs of photographs, sent three emails, made two calls, initially while staggering round the bedroom in an attempt to get his circulation going again. The first call went as follows:
‘Syl? Are you still in the media room? Good. You’ve got mail.’
The second, made as he lurched down the stairs with an overstuffed rucksack, went:
‘Deer? Bring the afternoon meeting forward to eleven … Just under an hour, yes. Try to bring in as many people as you can. But not Allan, whatever you do.’
Just under an hour? He had no idea what the time actually was. Only now, as he was getting into the car and glanced at his wrist, did he realise that he wasn’t wearing a watch. Highly unusual.
As he entered the open-plan office, he could see his watch from an improbable distance. It shimmered beneath the glow of his desk lamp. Deer was sorting things out and clearing space around the whiteboard. Samir was setting out chairs as the officers traipsed in from M?rsta. Berger shut the whole lot out, closed his mind to all the agitated yet soundless activity and gazed at his Rolex as it lay there on its tissue. If anything, the condensation seemed to have spread behind the glass, and more than half the face was now obscured by moisture. Had he by any chance …? He fumbled in the rucksack and took out the magnifying glass. Then in his desk drawer he managed to find a case opener, a special tool that he quickly used to remove the back of the watch. He held the magnifying glass up to the opening and inspected the innards of the watch. The perfectly coordinated constellation of tiny cogs and pinions always lowered his heartbeat dramatically. This was as close to a perpetuum mobile that mankind had got so far. The endless fascination of the self-winding mechanism. The daily movements of the wearer managed to provide the watch with all the power it needed. It remained a perfect mechanism, no matter how rapidly electronics developed. Humanity’s powers of innovation had never got closer to life.
Yet the ticking was utterly empty.
Something found its way into the gentle, perfect ticking. Even before he looked up he’d realised it was someone clearing their throat. And long before he looked into those brown eyes he knew that Deer had everything ready. He carefully turned the watch over. The condensation had both grown and moved, but the top third of the face was still untouched, and there the hands were pointing at eleven o’clock. Precisely.