The Rabbit Hunter

88

With his hands trembling, Johan rewinds the footage and halves the speed, and they see the branches of the willow part to reveal the face, then hide it again.

‘A little more,’ Joona whispers.

The leaves sway slowly and then they see the murderer once more, just as he turns away and vanishes into the shadows.

‘Again, from the beginning,’ Joona says.

This time he can clearly see the rabbits’ ears hanging in front of the masked face.

‘Stop... go back slightly.’

The screen is almost completely black, but something grey moves across the murderer’s head and there’s a flicker in the window next to him.

‘What the hell’s he doing?’

‘Zoom in on the darkness,’ Joona says.

‘What’s that?’ Johan asks, pointing at the screen.

‘Must be the back of his ear.’

‘He’s taken off the mask?’

‘The opposite, I’d say... this is where he puts it on, under cover of the shadows.’

The murderer must have figured out that there was a camera shadow in line with the grove of trees, and made his way into the garden using that blind spot before stopping under the willow tree to pull his balaclava over his head.

‘Quite the fucking professional,’ Johan says breathlessly.

‘Try number eight again... there was a glimmer of something in the window.’

The picture goes black and the grey movements sweep across the screen as the murderer pulls on his mask with his back to the camera. There’s a flicker of something in the window before he turns around, the rabbits’ ears swaying in front of his face.

‘What’s that, glinting off the kitchen window?’ Johan asks.

‘It’s a vase. I saw it before, on camera seven,’ Joona says. ‘It’s on the windowsill, next to a bowl of lemons.’

‘A vase.’

‘Zoom in on it.’

Johan makes the vase fill the screen, just as Rex’s face did a short while before. The curved, shiny metal reflects the window and the garden outside. Along one edge of the vase is a trace of movement, no more than a fleeting shift in the light.

‘Back,’ Joona says.

‘I didn’t see anything,’ Johan mutters as he rewinds the footage.

The movement along the edge of the vase forms a curved line, the colour of yellowing paper.

‘That could be his face before he puts the mask on,’ Joona says.

‘Shit me sideways,’ Johan whispers, taking a high-resolution screenshot of the convex reflection.

They both stare at the curved reflection in the vase, a pale arc running vertically down the screen.

‘What do we do? We need to see his face.’

Johan drums his fingers on his thigh and mutters something to himself.

‘What did you say?’ Joona asks.

‘In an almost spherical mirror, the image is so distorted because the rays from the edges and centre of the surface don’t meet at the same point.’

‘Can that be corrected?’

‘I just need to try to find a concave distortion that corresponds exactly with the convex surface, and align that with the main axis...’

‘Sounds like it would take a long time.’

‘Months... if Photoshop didn’t already exist,’ Johan smiles.

He opens the program and starts to flatten the image, little by little.

The only sound is the tapping of keys.

The glare of the reflection is sucked into the white arc, leaving the surrounding space darker. It looks like a peculiar meteorological phenomenon.

‘I’ve got goose-bumps,’ Johan whispers.

The pale face slowly widens and finally crystallises in its original form.

Joona takes a deep breath and stands up from his chair. For the first time, he can clearly see the murderer.