There is only so much loneliness a human being can bear.

In his Munich apartment, in the dying days of September 2001, Karl Dresner waited. His hands were shaking; salt from beads of sweat stung his eyes. A gun rested on the left hand side of the table, two bottles on the right: one of whisky, one of barbiturates. A coin glinted. The telephone across the room rang; once, twice, three times and then the answer machine cut in.

'Leave a message and I'll get back to you. Maybe,' said a version of Dresner’s voice.

'Are you there, Karl? It’s Lucia.' Dresner picked up the coin. 'I'm going to keep calling. Pick up the phone please. I know you must be there. If you don't want to see me again, it's OK. But I want to know. I want to know you're OK. I need to talk to you, Karl. Please call me when you get this message. Let me know you're all right. Please.'

The tape spindles continued to rotate. The mechanism hummed. Dresner remained seated, turning the coin between his fingers: heads, tails, heads, tails ....

'I'm sure you're there. I'm sure you're listening to this.'

A click, like a safety catch being released, signalled the end of the call. A red lamp blinked, two heartbeats per second, for an unread message. One last time, thought Dresner, standing. His finger hovered over the answerphone controls marked MEMO, STOP, ANSWER and MESSAGE. He pressed STOP. The machine bleated in protest, the indicator lamp continued a pattern that was almost a Mayday: dot-dot-dash, dot-dot-dash, dot-dot-dash.

Why are you making this difficult for me? he thought; we're strangers - you have no right. He flicked open the tape cover, held a spring clip back, prised the microcassette free and held it up towards the centre of the room. The lounge light shone through the gaps in the spindles. He clipped the tape back into place and jabbed the button marked MESSAGE.

'You have ... one ... new message,' announced the machine.

'Are you there, Karl? I'm going to keep calling. Pick up the phone please. I know you must be there. If you don't want to see me again, it's OK.' His finger poised over STOP. 'But I want to know. I want to know you're OK. I need to talk to you, Karl. Please call me when you get this message. Let me know you're all right. Please.'

The tape motor hummed. The spindles whirled the tape back to the beginning. Two seconds of pressure on STOP would delete every word; no bleating this time. He brushed a speck of dust and it floated into the air. A piece of dirt remained across the T and the O of STOP and he scratched it away. His finger stroked the button above the letters, then slid across to another button, the one marked MESSAGE.

'Are you there, Karl ...?'

The cycle began again.

#

There was no outside world any more; at least, not a world that mattered. All that remained was a woman's voice preserved on magnetic tape. Where have you come from? Dresner thought: where have you come from? He placed the microcassette on the right hand side of the table. On the left hand side he moved the gun, the barbiturates and the whisky into the shape of a triangle. In the centre, between the two poles, he slid the coin, marking the borderline.

It seemed like a lifetime's journey had brought him to this place, yet it was only five years. Five years since the event that started it all; less than a month since the attack in New York that had brought the memories back. He remembered a voice, a woman's voice, calling out his name; and water whipped into flecks of white.