The Carnival Master

3.

Ansgar knew where she worked. He had followed her back from the wholesalers on Monday.

He had sat in his car in the car park and waited for her. It hadn’t been as if he had had a plan: pure instinct had impelled him along a destinationless course. Maybe he really could have a normal relationship with Ekatherina. Maybe he could keep order in his daily life by allowing himself this little piece of chaos. After all, he had done that with this woman before. It was like a sign that he had happened across her again, after all this time. She obviously worked in the restaurant or hotel trade. It was a thought that had never occurred to him, that he might at some time encounter this woman again because she was in the same business as him. Ansgar had shadowed her as she pushed her low bed-cart stacked with purchases across the tarmac to where her small van was parked. Then he had followed her through the city to her cafe on the north-west fringe of the Altstadt.

And today he had come back. The cafe had the anonymously trendy look of almost every coffee shop and the name AMAZONIA CYBER-CAFE was emblazoned above the large picture window. Ansgar smiled at the choice of name. He thought about going into the cafe: the chances were that she would not recognise him, but he couldn’t take the risk. Instead he watched from across the street.

Ansgar looked at his watch. His shift started in two hours.

He had until then.