Bunker by Andrea Maria Schenkel Read Free Book Online Page A

is pushed into the resuscitation unit.

I sit on the bench in the children’s playground opposite the sandbox, waiting. I can see the entrance of the building from here without being seen myself. She’s punctual. As usual, she leaves the apartment block at eight-thirty in the morning. And she’s wearing the beige coat that she wears every day. Bag over her shoulder. Hand around its leather straps. She goes along the path past the playground to the bus stop. I duck slightly. Head lowered, looking at my trainers. I don’t want her seeing me, don’t want her to notice me. She passes me and I watch her go. I see her walking past the refuse bins in the direction of the bus stop
.
    I stand up, follow her, an old newspaper in my hand. I stop level with the refuse bins, open the lid of one of them, throw the newspaper in. I wait. Peering out from behind the open lid ofthe bin. I see the bus coming closer, stopping – she gets in. The bus drives on. I close the lid of the bin and go back to her apartment block
.
    At random, I press one of the many bells. At the third attempt I’m lucky and I hear the hum of a door opener. I brace myself against the door, it opens, and I’m inside
.
    The hall of this building is hardly any different from the hall of my own opposite. The only difference is that instead of the green line running around the walls about a metre above the floor, the line here is red
.
    I take the lift up to the mezzanine floor leading to the fourth storey and climb the few steps up. I tread on them carefully, trying to make as little sound as possible each time I put my foot down
.
    I put my hand in the pocket of my army jacket and take out a small plastic card, which I insert in the groove between the door and the door frame. I bring it down a little way until it meets resistance. Take it a very little way out and then press against the latch, level with where I felt the resistance. A click and the door is open
.
    I look in all directions. Nothing. I disappear into the apartment
.
    In the corridor I stand behind the door, breathing deeply, my heart thumping. Crazy and ridiculous. This isn’t the first timeI’ve broken into a place, yet this time it’s different. I don’t want to steal anything, I just want to look around
.
    The apartment is like my own, except that it’s a mirror image. In the corridor a coat-stand with coats, a jacket, a pair of shoes on the floor. A mirror opposite. A pinboard on the wall. Cards for the theatre and concerts. I look at them more closely. Musicals, straight plays
, The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Starlight Express, Die Fledermaus
and Richard Clayderman. Not my kind of thing
.
    I reach for one of the shoes and pick it up. A light brown leather shoe, the toe pointed, the brown insole slightly worn around the heel area. The heel itself is medium high, slender, slightly trodden down on the outside. I sniff it: a pleasant leather smell. When I was a child I always used to go to the cobbler’s with my mother. His whole shop smelled of leather and cobbler’s glue. My mother said you got addicted to that smell
.
    To the left, the door to her living room, no, the bathroom. Only logical, it’s all a mirror image of mine. Small bottles, tubes and pots all over, under the mirror, on the glass shelf. I spray some of her perfume in the air, smells good, delicious. Clothes for washing dumped in the bathtub. I poke around in them a little. Blouses, tights, panties, a bra. I hold it up. Flesh-coloured, not at all sexy
.
    I go into the living room: three-piece suite, green cord covers,smoked glass coffee table. A shelving unit on the opposite wall, pale pine. I take a good look at the things on the shelves. Romances, cookery books, reference books
, Yoga for Everyone,
self-help manuals and a guide to the opera. In the top row, right in the back corner, something is jammed between the books and the side of the shelf. It looks like a picture