The Fear Index

over a red and black carpet, a small chest of drawers with a rucksack resting on top of it, a wooden chair with a scuffed brown leather seat. The radiator under the window was too hot to touch. There was a strong smell of stale cigarette smoke, masculine sweat and cheap soap. The wallpaper around the wall lights had been scorched brown by the bare bulbs. In the tiny bathroom were a small bathtub with a clear plastic shower curtain hung around it, a basin streaked greenish-black where the taps had dripped, and a WC with similar markings; on a wooden shelf was a glass mug with a toothbrush and a blue disposable plastic razor.
    Hoffmann moved back into the bedroom. He carried the rucksack to the bed, upended it and emptied out the contents. It was mostly dirty clothes – a plaid shirt, T-shirts, underwear, socks – but buried among them was an old Zeiss camera with a powerful lens, and also a laptop computer which felt warm to the touch. It was in sleep mode.
    He put the laptop down and returned to the open door. The frame had splintered outwards around the lock but had not broken, and he found he was able to press the housing of the lock back into place and gently close the door. It would fall open again if pressure was applied from the other side, but from a distance it would look untouched. Behind the door he noticed a pair of boots. He picked them up between thumb and forefinger and examined them. They were identical to the ones he had seen outside his house. He replaced them and went and sat on the edge of the bed and opened the laptop. Then, from the bowels of the building, came a clang. The elevator was moving again.
    Hoffmann put aside the computer and listened to the whine of its long ascent. At last it stopped, and then came the rattle of its doors opening close by. He crossed the room quickly and put his eye to the spyhole just as the man came round the corner. He was carrying a white plastic bag in one hand and with the other he was fishing in his pocket. He reached the door and pulled out his key. The distorting lens of the peephole made his looming face seem even more skull-like than before, and Hoffmann felt the hairs rise on his scalp.
    He stepped back and looked around quickly, then withdrew into the bathroom. An instant later he heard the key inserted into the keyhole, followed by a grunt of surprise as the door swung open without needing to be unlocked. In the semi-darkness, through the crack between the bathroom door and the door jamb, Hoffmann had a clear view of the centre of the bedroom. He held his breath. For a while nothing happened. He prayed the man might have turned around and gone down to reception to report a break-in. But then his shadow passed briefly across Hoffmann’s line of view, heading towards the window. Hoffmann was on the point of trying to make a run for it when, with shocking speed, the man doubled back and abruptly kicked open the bathroom door.
    There was something scorpion-like in the way he crouched, legs apart, with a long blade held at head height. He was bigger than Hoffmann remembered, bulked out by his leather coat. There was no way past him. Long seconds elapsed as they stared at one another, and then the man said, in a surprisingly calm and educated voice, ‘ Zurück. In die Badewanne .’ He gestured with the knife at the bath and Hoffmann shook his head, not understanding. ‘ In die Badewanne ,’ repeated the man encouragingly, pointing the knife first at Hoffmann and then at the tub. After another endless pause, Hoffmann found his limbs doing as they were bidden. His hand pulled back the shower curtain and his legs stepped shakily over the edge into the bath, his desert boots clumping heavily on the cheap plastic. The man came a little further into the tiny room. It was so cramped he took up almost all the floor space. He pulled the light cord. Above the sink a neon strip stuttered into life. He closed the door and said, ‘ Ausziehen ,’ and this time helpfully added a translation: ‘Take off your clothes.’ In his long leather coat he looked like a butcher.
    ‘ Nein ,’ said Hoffmann, shaking his head and holding his palms up in a gesture of reasonableness. ‘No. No way.’ The man spat out some swear word he didn’t understand and slashed at him with the knife, the blade passing so close that even though Hoffmann pressed himself back into the corner under the shower nozzle, the front of his raincoat was slashed and the lower part of it flapped