Free The Camera Killer by Thomas Glavinic Page B

the fuss they had made last night. No, he added, it really wasn’t necessary to scare our womenfolk stiff. If we were clever, we could use pure conjecture to persuade them not to put too much of a brake on our research.
    We re-devoted ourselves to the news and the newspaper, respectively. The paper described the killer as an inhuman, bestial, camera-wielding devil, a criminal from another planet. His atrocities were the focus of every columnist and commentator. Even a picture of the victims’ mother had been printed. The article informed us that this photograph was considered scandalous. The photographer had sneaked into the Am Feldhof psychiatric institute disguised as a nurse and photographed the murdered boys’ mother, who was strapped to a bed and internally suffused with medication. According to the article, the chairman of the Press Council and the leader of the Liberal Party had stated that this conflicted with their ethical principles.
    After Heinrich and I had read each other some interesting excerpts from various newspaper columns, we went outside again. The women greeted us with sullen faces and reproachful expressions. Heinrich ignored them.
    Excitedly, he announced that the killer had been identified but the police were still unwilling to reveal who he was. Did that mean they had caught him? Eva demanded. Heinrich said no, but they thought they knew roughly where he was—namely, in this area. He had been sighted on Rössel Road between Frauenkirchen and Kaibing.
    My partner agitatedly inquired the source of this information. Heinrich said we had heard it on the radio. My partner sprang to her feet, as did Eva, and hurried into the house. She turned on the radio and asked which station had broadcast the news. Austria 2, the local Styrian station, Heinrich replied. My partner tuned the radio on, but in order to receive the station she had to change frequencies. This aroused her suspicions.
    Heinrich hastened to reassure her; in search of further information, he had gone looking for another station. Then my partner found Austria 2. Blaring folk music could be heard. Startled, she turned the sound down. Eva had joined us by now.
    Heinrich urged the two of them not to be concerned—nor to make such a spectacle of themselves as they had last night after the din in the loft. My partner irritably retorted that they hadn’t made a spectacle of themselves and that the camera killer’s potential proximity genuinely alarmed her. Heinrich replied that the killer had every reason to be more frightened of us and everyone else than we were of him. Yes, Eva added, and it was broad daylight now too.
    So no one need be frightened, said Heinrich, and a good thing too.
    Eva said she must nip over to the farmer to fetch some milk fresh from the cow. My partner volunteered to accompany her,saying that it was a long time since she’d seen such a thing. Eva said she wouldn’t actually be milking the cow—the milk came from a churn—but my partner insisted that this, combined with the smell of stables, would give her equal pleasure.
    Once the two of them had left the house, Heinrich beckoned to me and hurried into the living room. He wanted to watch the end of the video, he said; he was feeling full of beans and less squeamish today, and he hoped the killer would soon be caught. So saying, he turned on the television and the video recorder.
    3:59. The cameraman was interviewing the hog-tied brother about the emotions that had beset him since his brother’s death. When he received no satisfactory answers, he reminded the boy that he could have saved his brother’s life. Tears were the sole response.
    The cameraman then told him that he at least had an opportunity to save his mother from being boiled alive and his father from being dismembered. He, the cameraman, would shut his eyes and count to a hundred. It was up to the boy whether he remained where he was or ran off. If he stayed, he would be put to death in the most