It was time-stamped 2:24A.M.She said, “I don’t see anything.”
“Across the street.” He pointed at the screen where a tiny figure in the distance was walking along the sidewalk on the far side of the road, illuminated by a streetlamp.
“That’s, like, five pixels.”
“Light-colored coat and a hat,” said Brodie. “Back it up a little more.”
She rewound the footage. The figure had come from the side street, barely visible in the corner of the frame.
“Harry had a kind of funny gait,” said Brodie. “You remember that about people. A big stride even though he wasn’t that tall. See how that guy is walking?”
They watched the figure walk along the road. Taylor said, “I think you’re desperate.”
“Maybe. But that’s still him.”
“He’s not even going into the metro stop.”
Brodie pulled up a map of Berlin on his phone and zeroed in on the area around the Prenzlauer Allee station. He switched the view to a satellite image. “Look. There’s another metro entrance farther east. Probably to access the other side of the tracks. He just crossed the street at a different spot and used a different staircase that didn’t have a camera.”
Taylor looked at the satellite image. “Maybe.”
“And look at this.” He pointed on the map to the side street that the figure had emerged from. “It’s a dead-end street.”
Taylor nodded but didn’t seem convinced.
“Pull up the previous file and let’s watch that street.”
She pulled up the midnight to 2A.M.file and ran a high-speed playback as they kept their eyes on the distant side street. A few people came and went, but not the same figure in the light-colored coat.
Brodie said, “He was staying at her place that night. And her place is on that side street.”
“This is a stretch.”
Brodie pulled up a street-view image and showed it to Taylor. “It’s ashort street with fewer than twenty buildings, and some of them look like single-occupancy homes. We could spend another eight hours here, or we could go check out this single city block where Harry Vance’s lady friend might be living.”
Taylor still didn’t seem convinced, but she nodded.
Brodie said to Officer Lindoff, “We’re done here.”
Lindoff looked up, pleasantly surprised. “Yes?”
“I didn’t touch the hard drive.”
“This is good.”
Brodie and Taylor stood and put on their coats. Taylor said, “It’s a thin lead, Scott.”
“A lead is a lead. Especially when you don’t have any others. Let’s go find Anna.”
CHAPTER 22
Brodie and Taylor worked their way along the east side of a narrow cobblestone street that dead-ended at a tall brick apartment building. It was a residential street except for a trendy-looking Japanese ramen restaurant that didn’t open until evening.
Brodie inspected the call box in front of a narrow, cream-colored apartment building, looking for an Anna. He said to Taylor, “Last names only.”
“Let’s check the next one.”
The next building was a five-story nineteenth-century apartment building that was painted orange with white trim. Brodie looked at the call box. “Okay, this one has first initials, and two A names. ‘A. Schiller’ and ‘A. Albrecht.’?”
