The Hermit (17 page)

For a long time she just stands there. But finally he hears her plopping down on the mattress, the chain rattling against the floor. He pours coffee and drinks it, sitting in the chair where he can see her feet.

– Don’t take pictures of me or anything gross, she says.

– Why would I do that?

– Many men do. Then they post them somewhere on the web without permission.

– I’m not one of your disturbed johns.

– You’re just as disturbed. The only difference is that I don’t want to fuck you.

– Stop talking like that, Erhard says, and sips his coffee. – I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t care.

She’s asleep when he walks past. Once again he feels a certain satisfaction, almost delight, that she’s relaxing. Like an exhausted girl in a day-care centre, her arms and legs splaying every which way after a busy day in the playground. He closes the door, though not completely because of the chain.

The Dutch winter holiday began early this year, and suddenly there are two or three flights a day, spitting tourists onto the streets of Corralejo; this means short trips to Las Dunas, the harbour, or the nearby hotel.

After all of Alina’s questions, he suddenly notices cameras everywhere. Customers snap photographs through the car window, of each other in the back seat, of him driving. Out near Las Dunas men with a small video camera film the sun, the sand dunes, and goats. Once upon a time, back when he went on holidays with his mum and dad, he would take carefully planned snapshots. With twenty-four or thirty-six pictures on a roll and only two extra rolls in the suitcase, you had to be selective when on holiday. Ten photographs a day. You didn’t take unnecessary photos of passing goats or sweaty socks or ordinary meals at ordinary restaurants. You didn’t take photographs of people you didn’t know or rubbish along the side of the road or a cloudless sky. Photographs were a rare event. Now it’s completely different: People snap a surplus of photos; everything is photographed. And it sounds as if there’s a place on the Internet where you can develop your photographs. He recalls a girl who photographed her girlfriend with her tongue jammed in a beer bottle outside the discotheque Corralejo Beach in Calle Cervera.

Were photographs taken of the car, of its owner, when they arrived in Cotillo? Images of the boy’s mother or father saying farewell through the car window? Images of the car, alone, as the water edges up the beach?

At six o’clock, he turns on the radio and listens to the news. But it’s just the international news, nothing local. Maybe the hearing was postponed, maybe the boy’s story is no longer newsworthy. He won’t reach out to Bernal again, but he wishes he knew a policeman who could fill him in on what happened at the hearing. The courthouse is in a separate wing of the Palace; the executive and judicial branches are so close that one can hear the judge’s gavel while standing in police headquarters, quite literally.

For dinner he picks a brown rotisserie chicken that has rotated on a spit most of the day, along with a carton of sliced tomatoes mixed with firm goat cheese. He buys enough for two and hopes Alina will like the food. Things will go much smoother if he keeps her calm, more manageable – more receptive to his point of view. He’s heard of the Stockholm Syndrome, but how does it work? How long does it take to go into effect?

Alina knows nothing about the Stockholm Syndrome, and she despises chicken – it tastes like rubber, she says – so she tells him to sod off. She bangs the chain angrily against the floor until he’s close to losing his mind, and considers throwing her back in the shed. When he tells her what he’s thinking of doing, she calls him a pathetic
extranjero
. He can do whatever he wants with her, she says, spitting and hissing at him, yanking on her chain. Erhard has to get away from her, so he goes outside to feed Laurel and Hardy, who’re standing up on the hill licking a rock. It’s like being kicked out of his own house, he thinks, hoping that it’s only a matter of hours before he can release her. He hardly cares what the police will do to him if she reports him for kidnapping. But he hopes she doesn’t. He wishes she’ll crawl into a tiny cave and stay put. No more johns, no more drugs.

Listening to her railing inside the house, however, he’s not sure how it’ll play out.

From the hill, he can see several miles: the mouse-grey water pounding the surf all the way from the West Indies and South America, crashing and ripping against the choppy, jagged coast. As Laurel tries to get at Erhard’s belt loops, his little bell dings. Erhard gently scratches the goat behind one of his long, soft ears and gives it a handful of food from a bag.

Back at the house, he finds Alina sitting on the kitchen floor. She has pulled everything out of the cupboard, so honey, rice, and peppers are strewn across the floor. She’s worse than a naughty child. Luckily, she couldn’t reach the refrigerator. Not that there’s much in it. Her salmon-coloured outfit is unrecognizable now, more like a prison uniform.

– If you help me with one thing, I’ll let you go.

This seems to discourage her, and Erhard doesn’t understand why. It occurs to him that she might feel hopeless, lacking any spark of life. Maybe this lie she was set to tell and her trip to Madrid were all she had left. And now Erhard has snuffed them out.

– You mentioned posting photographs on the Internet. How’s that done?

She squints at him. – What do you want?

– To find a photo on the Internet, where would I look?

– Of me?

– No, he says. She probably thinks he’s looking for a pornographic image; he doesn’t care to know what photographs of Alina he might find. – A photo of the car stranded on the beach in Cotillo. My customers say they find photographs on the Internet, snapshots taken a few days or even hours before, and so I thought maybe I could find some of the boy’s mother or father when they first arrived in the car.

– You’re still stuck on that, Fourfingers?

– Just tell me where I can find the photographs.

– I can’t, she says. – They’re all over. Google it or something. She stands, then plops down on the mattress next to the door. Like a tired dog.

– Help me find it and I’ll give you your cigarettes.

– Fuck you. You’ve already ruined my deal. My trip to Madrid is gone.

– I saved you. You would’ve regretted it the moment you signed your name.

– I regret everything I’ve done since coming to this cursed fucking island. In fact I regret everything that’s happened to me since my mother, may she burn in hell, gave birth to me.

– Help me. Help the boy.

– Are you daft? I don’t give a shit about that boy. If I do anything to help you, it’s only because I want to get away from here.

– I’ll drive you downtown as soon as I’ve found what I need.

– What if I can’t find it? If the photo you’re looking for doesn’t exist?

– Help me and I’ll let you go whether we find it or not.

She studies him at length, then shrugs. Which means yes.

– So how does this work? Erhard asks.

– How should I know? Type it into Google and hit return. She glances around. – Where’s the computer?

Erhard stares blankly at her.

– You don’t have a computer?

– I don’t need one.

– What, you think we’ll search on my mobile? That’s fucking expensive. Will you pay for it?

He almost says yes, but changes his mind. – If you find the photo I’ll remove the chain.

– Get my purse. Where is it?

He doesn’t respond, just saunters into the living room and finds her mobile. He hands it to her. – Cotillo Beach. Right around 7 or 8 January.

– I don’t have much battery left, less than a quarter.

She pokes around on the device. He stands behind her, so he can watch her. It would be easy for her to call the police or send a message to someone she knows. But she’s already found a bunch of photographs, and more emerge as she scrolls down her screen.

She types some more. The date. Images of the beach appear, but nothing that resembles anything from those dates. What he sees are a mix of summer and winter images. You can tell the difference in the sky: white-metallic in the winter, white-yellow in the summer. She shows Erhard a few. One is of the slope, another of the sea as viewed from the beach. Then, a short time later, more surfer photos, two women on a towel, and a man standing up through the sunroof of a rental car. There are a surprising number of photographs, and seeing them appear and disappear makes Erhard’s head spin. They are photographs sent through the air and into air. Cables he sort of gets, but not these new smart phones.

Searching takes time, much more than Erhard had anticipated. He thought it would be like using a card index, where one looked up relevant dates. But Alina keeps reminding him that images are everywhere and that the connection is bad. Each image takes a long time to emerge. She tries to explain this to Erhard, but he doesn’t comprehend. The sun sets. He prepares instant coffee. While pouring water into a mug, he forgets yet again that she’s his hostage, that she’s being held against her will. She’s not some neighbour’s daughter who has stopped by to show him her holiday pictures. He hands her the mug, and she sets it down beside the mattress.

– Maybe there are no photos of the car, he says.

She’s brought up another endless thread of irrelevant images: tourist snapshots of beaches, Las Dunas and its unnaturally blue skies, giant mounds of olives at the market in Morro del Jable.

– I don’t think so, she says.

– I’ll drive you home tomorrow, he says tiredly. He lies down on the sofa.

– You promised you’d drive me home today.

– But you didn’t find anything, he says.

– You promised to drive me home as soon as I helped you.

– I only promised to do that if you found something. I’ll take you home tomorrow.

She kicks her mug across the floor, splashing coffee onto the stove and a stack of books along one of the lower shelves. He lies still, listening for her movements, but hears only her chain. He’s looking forward to getting rid of her, but right now there’s something tingly and strange about having her here. Inside the walls of his home. The walls are too thin, the rooms too cramped. He buries his head between the pillows in the sofa and…

– … Ola, Fourfingers, fetch your car keys.

He wakes up when a pair of shoes and a hat plunk his head.

– I’ve found something.

She’s seated on the kitchen floor, the chain pulled taut, and waving her mobile. It’s not yet dawn, but the sky is brown. Before long, the sun will rise above the sea and shine a cone of bright light through the frosted windows.

– I’m almost out of battery, so you need to see this now. Right now.

He listens for dishonesty in her voice. Why did she keep searching after he fell asleep? What if she hasn’t found anything at all, but just invented some excuse for him to go over there, tired and unprepared?

When he sets his feet on the floor the usual ache in his back returns, part of his routine morning stiffness. He just needs to get moving – to deal with it. He pushes off from the edge of the sofa and stands. She doesn’t seem hostile. Mostly, she seems eager. Her legs are splayed like a little girl playing marbles.

– See. Some surfers from that day. And there’s a car.

With her thumb she sweeps the images downward. When she finds what she’s looking for, she taps the image and hands her mobile to Erhard.

Though he doesn’t show it, he’s impressed. Surprised. He didn’t think she could help him. Her reaction last night had been expected, predictable. Whores aren’t exactly known for their intellectual capacity. But Alina, something tells him, is not like the others.

The image is small, and it’s difficult to make out what it is. As usual, it takes a few seconds for his vision to focus. He lifts the mobile up to his face. It’s an early morning shot, much like now. The sand is shiny, golden, flat. He sees the VW in the background. That’s the one, no doubt about it. It’s black and doesn’t belong on the beach, a foreign object. And the glaring, dark windows conceal the boy in the box.

Erhard feels a jolt. He’s found it. A photo the police don’t know about. A clue. There’s water along the car’s front wheels. Erhard thinks about the boy lying in the back seat. Dead. The photographer wouldn’t know at this point. Or ever. He’s just taking a photograph.

– There are more images, Alina says. – Someone named MitchFever.

Erhard reads the name on the narrow, black band along the top of the image. The name reminds him of a child with a warm forehead. – How do you bring up a new image?

She flicks the photo with her finger and the image becomes that of a boy’s back. He’s wearing a wetsuit and carrying a surfboard on his head. Then the screen goes black.

– Shit, shit, shit, Alina says.

31

Her charger’s in the flat she rents above the bar in Calle Taoro. But instead of going to get it, Alina suggests that Erhard find a computer. Even better: a computer with high-speed Internet. He doesn’t know where to look for one. There’s the break-room computer at work, or maybe one of Raúl’s, or Ponduel’s – Ponduel studied computers. Of course, Ponduel’s an asshole. None of these options sound appealing.

– Anyone with Internet access can help you just as well as I can, she says. – Now that I’ve helped you get started, you have to drive me downtown.

Erhard stands up so fast his head is dizzy. He walks across the room where, because of the chain, she can’t reach him. He wants to drive her downtown so she can help him find the image again. But it won’t do, taking her to dispatch or up to Raúl’s place. How would he explain that? She’d probably try to run, or cry for help.

– I’ll get your charger. No computer.

– So drive me home, and I’ll help you at my place.

He has the feeling she’s got ulterior motives.

– No, you can stay here. I’m sorry.

This makes her angry, but then she holds herself in check.

Before he lets her go, he wants to talk to Diego Navarez or hear on the news that the police are continuing their investigation. But that’s something he doesn’t dare tell her. He can’t bear to hold her hostage.