The Nightwalker: A Novel

by Sebastian Fitzek

  ‘This is very embarrassing,’ grinned Natalie’s killer all of a sudden. ‘But could I use your toilet? It’s just that I have diarrhoea.’

  As he chuckled, Leon finally recognised who was doing all of this to him. ‘I’ll leave the entertainment running for you,’ said the man who had once pretended to be a courier. Once he had started the video again, he went to the bedroom door.

  Feeling faint, Leon had to watch the psychopath leave the room knowing full well that it didn’t give him any advantage. He tried to pull himself up on the rope, but he was exhausted from over-exertion and lack of sleep. His arms were too heavy; he would never be able to do it. There was no point contemplating the backrest of the chair; it would tip over as soon as he stepped on it. And he couldn’t jump either.

  There are no words to apologise for what I’ve done to you, Natalie continued. So I’ll just come out and say it: I betrayed you. With a man I’ve fallen for. No, a man I fell for, past tense. The two of us never had to speak about my desires, Leon. We both know I have a dark side that’s unknown to you. One I lived out secretly. At first it was wild, exciting and exotic. At first I thought he was fulfilling my needs. But I was wrong. And now everything, as you can see, has got completely out of control.

  She pointed to her injuries and her face contorted into a pain-filled smile.

  His name is Siegfried von Boyten. He’s the owner of this building, and he’s the starting point, the core and the source of all my lies. We never applied for this apartment, my darling. He provided it for me; I had already been with him for a while by then.

  Her confession was like a knife to the gut. Leon wondered how much more he could take.

  Siegfried approached me in Dr Volwarth’s waiting room. He was receiving psychiatric treatment. Just like me.

  Natalie swallowed heavily.

  Yes, I’m in therapy, and I’m afraid that’s far from the only thing I’ve kept from you. My desires became more and more extreme, more and more bizarre. I was scared of talking to you about it. I was afraid of myself. I was with another doctor originally, but he referred me to Dr Volwarth. Back then we weren’t yet married, so he didn’t realise I knew you. He helped me a great deal, by the way.

  Her expression became bitter.

  It’s thanks to him that I now know what a bastard my father is. How he destroyed my childhood and why I’m now easy prey for sadists like Siegfried. The man I betrayed you with.

  She paused, then added quietly: The man who made me pregnant.

  ‘No!’ screamed Leon, as loudly as the noose around his neck would allow.

  He felt an icy gust of air rush through his body. His legs became numb, he couldn’t feel his toes any more, couldn’t hold himself up any longer. Pressure forced down on his Adam’s apple as he sank, but it was no longer the noose choking him; it was Natalie’s confession.

  Do you understand now why I can’t look you in the eyes? I didn’t just betray you. I let you believe that we had lost our child. But it was his baby I aborted. And it looks like now I’m getting the punishment I deserve. Von Boyten is a psychopath, Leon. He beat me, tortured me and raped me.

  She held her thumb up to the camera.

  This has nothing to do with my fantasies. Von Boyten is a sadist who loves dominating weak people. Tormenting them and watching. He’s a perverse voyeur, and assumes other identities to manipulate people. Once he pretended to be a courier to demonstrate to me how powerful he is; he wanted to be close to me while you were standing alongside.

  Leon shook his head, disbelieving, uncomprehending. With every movement, the noose cut deeper into his neck, but he didn’t care. Nothing had any meaning any more. Not even the fact that he wasn’t a twisted murderer after all. Natalie had betrayed him and she was dead. And in a few moments he would share her fate.

  I think Siegfried, has a spare key to our apartment, and he snoops around when I’m not there. I have no idea how he does it, but he’s like one of those ghosts of the Twelve Nights you told me about, in the very worst form. First he poisoned my fish. Then me. And finally us.

  Leon looked at the destroyed aquarium and wondered if the water damage had reached Ivana below yet, and if she would fetch help.

  He watches me. He knows things I’ve never told him. About my father. And about your sleep disturbances.

  From the tone of Natalie’s voice, it sounded like she was coming to the end of what she wanted to say.

  I love you, Leon. I tried so often to end things with him, and I accepted your proposal far too quickly because I thought that he would let me go if we were married. But we had already gone too far. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. Until today. Now I’m not giving him a choice. I’ll go to the police and report him. I’ve got no idea what I’ll do after that, and I don’t know when I’ll speak to you again. I’m so ashamed, and so scared, but it’s what I deserve.

  ‘No,’ retorted Leon, pain shooting up his legs. He couldn’t stay on his tiptoes for much longer.

  No one deserves this.

  Everything she said, everything she had done, none of it changed his feelings for her. Not even in the face of the death that had entered their lives because of her betrayal.

  Especially not in the face of death.

  Under normal circumstances, he would never have been able to forgive her. They would have divorced, broken off all contact, moved to different cities and only heard from each other if a trick of fate had wanted it to be so.

  But, and Leon was sure of this, they would never have stopped loving each other.

  Don’t wait for me, demanded Natalie. If she had seemed surprisingly composed up until this point in the recording, now the dam broke. She looked upwards and jutted out her lower lip, but otherwise made no attempt to stop the flow of her tears.

  I’m not worth it. I know that we have no future any more. I’ve destroyed everything. But if my betrayal was good for anything, it was to show me how much I love you. How much I will always love you.

  ‘How sweet.’

  Leon twisted round to the door, and in his shock at the psychopath’s words started to teeter. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He didn’t know whether the man whose name he now knew had been standing in the doorway for a while, or whether he had only just come back.

  Natalie’s lips formed into one last kiss. Then they contorted, and beneath the tortured grimace Leon was able to recognise an echo of the smile he had fallen in love with years before.

  There was a noise, and the monitor went black. Siegfried von Boyten sat down in front of the computer again.

  ‘Why?’ rasped Leon.

  No reaction. Natalie’s murderer brushed his fingers over the keyboard, humming.

  Why are you doing this? Why are you destroying our lives?

  And why did you just show me that?

  Leon watched as von Boyten took the DVD out of the laptop and opened an editing program, then realised that the maniac had not played the recording for his benefit.

  He just wanted to make a copy.

  Clearly it was the soundtrack that held the sadist’s interest, as he now began to edit it. Siegfried made a few, purposeful cuts, shortening the entire audio file to the length of a few seconds. In the end, only a sound file remained, its meaning distorted, with an aim as gruesome as everything else the psychopath had done.

  39

  Right. Left. And right again.

  Regardless of how great the pain is. Regardless of how much blood there is.

  Leon had realised what the sadist intended to do, which was why he didn’t have any choice. He had to move while there was still time. Before Siegfried von Boyten succeeded in committing the perfect murder.

  No! he heard Natalie scream, and knew it was only in his memory. The memory of a dream in which he was in a basement room that looked exactly like this bedroom here.

  So the bastard could film the video clip there that he then forced me to watch.

  No! screamed Natalie even louder in his thoughts. In his dream
(no, in the third stage!), he had thought she was afraid of him. Of him falling asleep again and doing something to her. But it was exactly the other way around. He was supposed to wake up and help her. Because as a sleepwalker, he was useless and unable to rescue her.

  Von Boyten had gone back into the corridor, so Leon couldn’t see what he was doing, but he didn’t need to. He could hear it.

  ‘Hello, you’ve reached Natalie and Leon. Please leave your message after the tone.’

  He’s playing it on to the answerphone machine! Fuck, he’s PLAYING IT ON TO MY ANSWER-PHONE MACHINE!

  Leon was right. A few seconds later, he heard the compilation of Natalie’s last words in that distorted tone typical of recorded messages.

  Leon, darling . . . I’m so sorry. There are no words to apologise for what I’ve done, so I’ll just come out and say it: I betrayed you. With a man I’ve fallen for. He’s fulfilling my needs. We have no future any more. I don’t know when I’ll speak to you again.

  ‘You won’t get away with this,’ croaked Leon, choking. But he knew he was wrong.

  A computer expert would be able to recognise the edits on the soundtrack, but who would even bother to order such an expensive analysis with an obvious suicide? The case was clear-cut: the cheating wife admits her betrayal. Her husband loses his mind. A crime of passion. Then, to end it all, he hangs himself. It was the oldest story in the world.

  And to clear up any last doubts, there is even a video of proof. Oh God.

  Everyone who saw the recording of Natalie’s execution would think it was Leon who had rammed the pen into her neck. After all, even he had fallen for the deception at first. Admittedly Siegfried would have to erase the final seconds after Natalie’s murder – the part in which he climbed through the door behind the mirror and into the bedroom – but that was child’s play compared to how he had directed their lives for the whole of the last year.

  Left. Right.

  Keep moving. Just don’t make a sound. Even if the pain tears you apart.

  Leon was shaking all over. He stopped, so as not to pass out from the pain, while in the hallway Siegfried checked the recording one more time.

  By now he had managed to manipulate the time record on the answer machine. According to the digital voice, Natalie’s call had been received several days ago.

  Long before her death.

  Left. Right. Turn again.

  Even with the pain, Leon’s thoughts wouldn’t stop coming.

  Damn it, there are even witnesses to incriminate me. I admitted to Sven that I had hit Natalie and filmed myself in the labyrinth.

  But at least Sven would confirm his confused mental state.

  Left. Right. Left.

  Leon couldn’t bear the torment for much longer. Neither the physical nor the mental.

  How much longer is this going to go on? he screamed in his thoughts, biting his tongue until it bled.

  How many video recordings did you fake? How much longer are you going to manipulate me for?

  He heard steps from the hallway, saw a shadow and turned towards the bedroom door.

  ‘Right then, now it’s your turn—’ said von Boyten, stopping short, his sarcastic grin dying away midsentence.

  Leon was sure that von Boyten would have kicked the chair away from under his feet there and then if he hadn’t been so shocked by the sight before him.

  Left. Right. And left again.

  ‘What are you doing?’ screamed Siegfried, hit by the realisation that his perfect plan wasn’t functioning so perfectly any more.

  Right. Left again.

  No matter how much it hurts.

  Leon had lacerated his neck with the rope, and even now he didn’t stop moving his head.

  Left. Right.

  The coarse rope was scraping against his raw flesh like steel wool. Blood was running down over his chest and stomach, so much that he could even feel it on his scrotum, dropping down in gloopy threads on to the seat of the chair.

  ‘Stop it. Stop that at once.’

  Leon had no intention of stopping. Every cut into his flesh was a signal that he was still alive. Better than that: he was creating proof that he had struggled. No forensic in the world could overlook this. No one would assume suicide with these injuries. If there had been more time he would have taken the gloves off too, but wounds on the hands could also be seen as the suicide’s attempt to escape after a change of mind. But with the lacerations to his neck, this assumption wasn’t possible.

  ‘Fuck. You arsehole.’

  Leon started to laugh.

  Bound, hung up and bleeding, he was at the pervert’s mercy, but he still had the advantage. It was something the sadist just couldn’t bear. He had wanted to humiliate, control and feed off his victim’s death throes, but Leon was changing the course of events.

  ‘Now I’m really going to hurt you,’ screamed von Boyten, lifting his hands above his head in despair. ‘Now you’re going to know what pain is, you stupid bastard.’

  His unremarkable face had transformed into an ugly mask. Spit collected in the corners of his mouth as he shouted. He wandered aimlessly around the room.

  Siegfried appeared not to know what to do next, and this made him furious. That and the fact that Leon had lost all his fear of death and was laughing mockingly in von Boyten’s face.

  Siegfried stopped in front of the chair. His face reddened, the pulse on his neck pumped, and his eyes became dull, losing any hint of human emotion. Leon knew he had only seconds left. Von Boyten was no longer following a plan, apart from the desire to kill him in the most torturous manner possible.

  Whatever the murderer wanted to do, Leon knew he couldn’t let the psychopath out of his reach. Even in his rage, Siegfried had not made the mistake of getting close to Leon’s arms. Von Boyten had stopped for a moment a metre from the chair, but he turned away again, towards the rope tied to the heating pipe. Leon could almost hear his thoughts: was there another position in which he could torture Leon better?

  It’s now or never.

  Just one more step and it would be too late.

  ‘Hey,’ yelled Leon, but his voice wasn’t strong enough to get through to the crazed killer, which turned out to be a stroke of luck. If Siegfried had turned round, he would have seen the imminent danger. But instead, when Leon clamped his legs around von Boyten’s neck it took him completely by surprise.

  Leon, who had nothing more to lose, had jumped from the chair with the very last of his energy and was holding the murderer in a stranglehold with his thighs.

  Siegfried let out a cry of shock and stumbled backwards, then instinctively tried to rear up and shake the burden from his shoulders – which was his mistake.

  If he had kept calm or fallen forwards, Leon’s fate would have been sealed. But he was carrying his victim piggyback. The rope lost its tension and began to ride up the hook on the ceiling, eventually looping free.

  Siegfried lost his untied boot, stumbled over it and twisted as he fell, taking Leon down with him.

  Realising that he could be strangled in a matter of moments, Leon reached up to grasp the rope and was stunned when it didn’t stop his fall. Holding the rope, his feet hit the chair, and he fell hard, head first, on to the wet parquet. His last thought was – The rope came free from the hook – before the world behind his eyes transformed into a ball of fire.

  40

  Leon couldn’t see anything, couldn’t catch his breath, and the pain had reached a new high point. But he was still expecting the torture to get much worse, as soon as von Boyten had struggled to his feet beside him.

  For now he was satisfying himself with hefty kicks to Leon’s lower body. Protecting his genitals with one hand and holding the other in front of his face, Leon wondered why Siegfried’s kicks were so untargeted.

  He tried to open his eyes. The world looked blurred, which was no great surprise given the impact the fall must have had on his head.

  What is he waiting for?

  Von Boyt
en screamed something that Leon was unable to understand, because the whistling inside his head had reached the volume of an exploding kettle. He tried to prop himself up, and his hands touched a puddle that he hoped wasn’t blood.

  Siegfried’s kicks, meanwhile, were becoming quicker but weaker. And his cries louder.

  What is he going to do? What does he want, for me to look him in the eyes as I die?

  Leon’s vision had improved marginally, so now he was at least able to make out the contours of Siegfried’s body. They were lying next to each other as if lovers, on their sides, their faces turned towards each other.

  Leon blinked, but the sensation that he was seeing the killer through a pane of glass refused to disappear. Because it couldn’t.

  No more than von Boyten could stop kicking around wildly and making incomprehensible noises.

  Unlike Leon, he had tried to brace his fall with his hands. Angel fish, Natalie’s favourite, needed a high-sided aquarium, and Siegfried’s arms hadn’t been long enough to stop a tall, still-standing spike of glass at the front of it from slicing through his throat as he fell into the remains of the aquarium.

  But he’s still alive. The hastard’s still alive.

  Leon struggled to his knees. Thick blood was seeping from von Boyten’s throat, and he was twitching uncontrollably.

  ‘Hah!’ Leon loosened the noose around his neck and sucked air into his lungs, gurgling.

  Loud. Despairing. Hysterical.

  With both hands he grabbed the dying Siegfried von Boyten by the hair and roared his murdered wife’s name again and again. When his voice failed him, he smashed von Boyten’s head back on the shards of glass, impaling him even deeper.

  He waited until the twitching had stopped, until Siegfried had drawn his last breath.

  Then he stood up, the shards of glass cutting his bare feet.

  Bloody footprints marked his path across the hallway into the stairwell, and down the steps. It was too late. The working day had come to an end. There were no more workers to be seen.