Eye Collector, The Read Online Free PDF Page A

a potholed forest track. I had often played tennis near here in the old days, so I was familiar with the area. It
wasn’t the direct route to Kühler Weg, but in cases like this it could be an advantage not to blunder in through the front door.
    ‘But that incident...’
    The incident on the bridge.
    ‘... it destroyed something inside you. You were acquitted on all counts, but not by the court in your own head, am I right? We went over it again and again: you acted in good faith. You
were right to do as you did. There was even an amateur video that corroborated your evidence.’
    I silently shook my head.
    ‘But instead of accepting it as a stroke of fate and changing your life, you go on chasing after criminals. Not with a gun, maybe, but with a dictaphone and a ballpoint. You’re still
dredging the depths.’ Nicci’s voice shook. ‘Why? Tell me! What fascinates you so much about death that you neglect your own child, your family – even yourself?’
    My trembling hands tightened on the steering wheel.
    ‘Is it because you want to punish yourself? Do you seek out evil because you think you’re an evil person?’
    I held my breath and said nothing, just stared through the windscreen and thought hard. When I finally tried to answer, I found that the woman who used to believe that only death would us part
had hung up.
    To judge by the hoof prints, the track had dwindled to a path used by riders only. On my left was a succession of small allotments; on my right were the Borussia tennis courts.
Ignoring the sign that denied access to motor vehicles of all kinds, I coaxed the jolting Volvo slowly round a bend.
    The worst of it is, I thought as I spotted the flashing lights of the convoy of patrol cars that was blocking the access to Kühler Weg some 200 metres away ... the worst of it is,
there’s a smidgen of truth in Nicci’s cockeyed view of the world.
    I reversed the Volvo and parked it alongside the muddy wire-mesh fence that separated the track from the deserted tennis courts.
    There were reasons why I’d spent so many years with Nicci despite our differences – despite our everlasting arguments over how to bring up children and plan our future together.
Although we’d been living apart for the last six months, she was, of course, still closer to me than any other adult on this planet.
    I got out, opened the boot, and took out my crime-scene kit.
    She sees through me, I thought as I put on the protective clothing designed to prevent me from contaminating a crime scene: a snow white plastic coverall and a pair of pale green plastic
overshoes, which I pulled on over my old, worn Timberland boots.
    Evil does attract me.
    Irresistibly.
    And I don’t know why.
    I shut the boot and peered along the track leading to the crime scene. Then I turned and disappeared into the trees.

78
    (44 HOURS 6 MINUTES TO THE DEADLINE)
    PHILIPP STOYA
    (DETECTIVE SUPERINTENDENT, HOMICIDE)
    Stoya could hear the dead woman’s screams as he looked into her eyes. He sensed the mute reproach, of which the lecturer on forensic medicine had always warned his
students at police college. Even if you succeeded in detaching yourself sufficiently from the horror that occasionally overwhelms the most hardened detective at the sight of a corpse – even
if you tried to tell yourself you were looking at a piece of evidence, not an individual, when confronted by a body violated, abused, robbed of life by human hand and abandoned like garbage to
insects, the elements and marauding animals – you couldn’t fail to hear the admonitory cries hurled by corpses at those who discovered them. The bodies screamed with their eyes.
    Philipp Stoya was tempted to turn away and put his fingers in his ears because the scream was louder than usual today.
    Lucia Traunstein was barefoot and wearing only a flimsy dressing gown with no bra or panties beneath it. A young woman, she was lying where her husband had found her outside their urban villa
that