The Camera Killer

  ALSO BY THOMAS GLAVINIC:

  Carl Haffner’s Love of the Draw

  Night Work

  Pull Yourself Together (forthcoming)

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2003 by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, München

  English translation copyright © 2012 by John Brownjohn

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  The Camera Killer was first published in 2003 by 2003 Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, München as Der Kameramörder. Translated from German by John Brownjohn. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2012.

  Published by AmazonCrossing

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN-13: 9781612183237

  ISBN-10: 1612183239

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012938784

  Contents

  Start Reading

  About the Author

  About the Translator

  I HAVE BEEN REQUESTED to commit everything to paper.

  My lady friend, Sonja Wagner, and I took advantage of the Easter holiday to make a trip to West Styria. We live near Linz in the north of Austria. Because my partner comes from the Graz area, we have some acquaintances in Styria. We left home by car on Holy Thursday, having arranged to meet up with various friends at an inn near Graz that afternoon.

  In the course of that get-together, my partner consumed an excessive and injurious amount of alcohol (a liter of white wine, six one-ounce shots of tequila, and a questionable amount of beer). Early the next morning, around 5:00 a.m., I had to take a room at the inn and put her to bed.

  It was 2:00 p.m. on Good Friday when my partner emerged from her alcoholic stupor. We drove the relatively short distance to our friends, Heinrich and Eva Stubenrauch, who reside at No. 6 Kaibing, 8537 Kaibing. We got there around 3:00 p.m. and received a warm welcome. A snack was prepared for us and, because of the fine weather prevailing, served on a big wooden table outside.

  We expressed surprise at the fact that the yard was teeming with cats, twenty-five or thirty of them. Heinrich informed us that the animals were the unwanted property of their landlord, a farmer whose house was only some twenty yards away.

  My partner declared that the air and the scenery were glorious and that the snack was doing her sore head good. I had to shoo eight wasps away from my lemonade.

  After the snack, it was around 4:00 p.m. and almost as hot as in summer. My partner expressed a wish to go for a walk because it might improve her condition. There were no good walks in the immediate vicinity of Heinrich and Eva’s house, so they drove us to a pull-off beside the main road approximately three miles away. Beyond it lay some extensive fields of wheat and corn. Heinrich jokingly remarked that this was the biggest stretch of terrain in the locality uninterrupted by hills. We walked along the farm tracks between the fields, conversing about commonplace topics (our health, the news, and suchlike).

  Insects were whirring through the air, crickets chirping. The sun was blazing down with such intensity that I had to don a pink baseball cap inscribed “Chicago” for fear of getting sunburn or even sunstroke. Discounting the sound of insects, absolute silence reigned.

  We left the agricultural land behind us and made our way through some tall grass. There was nothing much to be seen, just a lone tree, a few bushes, and something that resembled a building. On approaching, we saw that it was a small, dilapidated house. Heinrich, who had visited this spot once before, knew all about it. Apparently, it was the remains of a farmhouse that had burned down two decades earlier. Rumor had it that arson was involved. The farmer and his wife had perished in the flames. Superstitious inhabitants of the neighboring village swore that the ruin was haunted and gave it a wide berth. My partner urged us to leave there at once.

  Heinrich chaffed her. Did she believe in ghosts? he asked.

  She said she’d had an awful feeling even before we reached the spot. Although her thick head might be to blame, she said, the place had a sinister aura. She couldn’t account for it, but she felt frightened.

  Heinrich cracked a joke. At that, my partner started to tremble all over and ran off. We had no choice but to follow her. Nobody said anything, and we drove back to the Stubenrauchs.

  That evening the women made spaghetti Bolognese. While they were busy in the kitchen, Heinrich talked to me about fishing. Now and then, a cat would get into the house, causing him to jump up and chase the animal outside. He told me that the creatures were regular pests and could not be allowed indoors because they made everything dirty and unhygienic.

  After supper, we played rummy. During an intermission occasioned by Eva Stubenrauch’s need to obey a call of nature, my partner fetched two packets of Kelly’s chips from the kitchen.

  Heinrich turned on the television and switched to the news channel. The first news item concerned a state visit abroad. The second reported that two children had been murdered in West Styria—an appalling crime, it seemed.

  “Large-scale manhunt in progress. The police are seeking a man of medium height, age thirty or thereabouts, who compelled two children of seven and eight to kill themselves by jumping from tall trees and filmed those crimes with a video camera. A third boy, the deceased children’s nine-year-old brother, managed to escape. Urgent inquiries are in progress.”

  Heinrich encouraged the womenfolk, who had now returned, to watch the news. Eva put her hands over her face. My partner said she had never heard of anything so terrible. Heinrich drew our attention to the fact that the town mentioned in the report was located quite close at hand. He claimed to have heard of the family concerned, whose senior member was the local fire chief, and thought he might have seen the father’s picture in a regional newspaper. We all expressed surprise that anybody could compel someone else to commit suicide and wondered how such a thing could happen.

  It was, therefore, a while before we could re-devote ourselves to our game of cards.

  I won a little money, my partner lost some, Eva won a lot, and Heinrich lost heavily. We ate chips and drank red wine, which Heinrich fetched from the cellar at intervals. Since the cellar was accessible only from outside the house and it had started to rain hard that night, he came back wet every time. This gave rise to general amusement. At around 1:30 a.m., when we had been playing for several hours, Eva replaced the cards in their packet. Before we all took our turn in the bathroom to brush our teeth and wash our faces, Heinrich looked at the news channel again to see if there was anything further about the murdered children. There was nothing new, however. I followed my partner upstairs to the second floor where the bedrooms were situated, taking care to step on the wooden treads with a different foot from her.

  The next morning, the sun was shining again. We breakfasted outside at the wooden table. The Stubenrauchs had fixed us a lavish breakfast, including salami, several kinds of cheese, eggs, toast, butter, marmalade, crackers, and fruit juice. We voiced our appreciation by praising its quality and expressing our thanks.

  The farmer from next door, who was ambling around in grimy blue overalls and a hat too small for him, came over to us from time to time and spoke about the murders committed within such a short distance of us. He said he knew the children’s parents, and anyone who did such a thing should be done away with himself. He mimed a hanging as he said this. He spoke in an excessively loud voice, as if he himself or one of those prese
nt were deaf.

  The farmer’s wife, too, came over to us. Seating herself on the bench beside Heinrich, she put her hands on her lap, which was covered with a stained apron, and shook her head and grimaced to convey how shocked she was. My partner, who had finished her breakfast before me, was standing some six feet from the table at this stage, staring silently into space. Eva nodded at the farmer’s wife to convey that she shared her opinion.

  Everyone sighed. Heinrich, rolling an apple across the bare tabletop, asked if anything more was known about the perpetrator. My partner said she felt thoroughly unwell and couldn’t bear to hear this news talked about. Heinrich advised her to put her fingers in her ears. She was being silly, he said, and she ought to be glad it was such a fine day.

  The farmer’s wife asked Eva if she wanted to accompany her to the Easter food consecration service later on. Eva replied that she couldn’t yet say when she would go and told the farmer’s wife not to wait for her.

  After breakfast, Eva and my partner took it into their heads to play badminton. Heinrich and I were agreeable to this idea but didn’t know where to put up the net, which Eva had gotten out, because the twenty-five or thirty stray cats would very probably spoil our game by jumping up, chasing after the shuttlecock, and engaging in other such activities. What was more, we couldn’t find any expanse of ground within a suitable radius because a court of adequate size was precluded by encroaching trees and bushes. Heinrich suggested returning to the spot we had visited on our walk the previous day. My partner flatly refused to go there, citing the sinister atmosphere of the place.

  Heinrich and Eva hadn’t lived in the district long enough to have a detailed knowledge of the area, which confronted us with a problem. Eva hit on the idea of asking the farmer. He directed us to a spot beyond a nearby hill, saying that it would meet our requirements admirably. We made our way there after we had changed into suitable clothes and footwear and Eva had prepared a picnic and packed it in a wicker basket. The latter receptacle also contained a folded blanket. This was because we might want to play singles, so the other two would have the means to relax in comfort.

  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 identif
y 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.