This coin-operated viewer is facing South. The instruction manual says to insert twenty…

This coin-operated viewer is facing South. The instruction manual says to insert twenty five centims and pull the handle while looking inside, then use the focus knob to zoom in if necessary.

Insert a coin.

Your money disappears into the coin-slot. A clunk, the ring of metal...

Pull the handle and look inside.

The curtains on the display open. You lean in to catch the view -- it's blurry, different blues and greens. In the middle of the shimmer stands a drab grey shape, like a ghost.

Turn the knob to focus your vision.

The lenses shift, the ghost sharpens into an islet in the bay. In the ruins a man-made structure is visible: a half-sunken sea-fort, its concrete almost reconquered by nature.

It looks as if it was abandoned quite some time ago, nothing but a rotten tooth remains of the anti-aircraft tower. A lonely birch tree grows out of it.

Its leaves ripped from it by the winter wind...

[Leave.]

Could the shot have come from there? Then entered the window upstairs the Whirling-in-Rags?

"Can you tell? From this distance? I don't think it's possible."

It's not. The details are blurry, there's water vapour in the way and waves cut into the islet...

It's not possible to know from this distance. The details are blurry, there's water vapour in the way and waves cut into the islet...

"Hang in there, little one."

The little brave birch-tree seems to wave back in the wind.

"There are ruins of some kind of building there..."

"Really? I don't have the eyesight to make it out..." The lieutenant takes off his glasses and cleans them.

"What's a tourist attraction doing... here?"

"There was a revitalization project in '49. A design studio tried restoring Martinaise to its pre-war glory." The lieutenant looks around and concludes: "It didn't stick."

"What happened?"

"They got as far as the street lamps and the statue on that intersection. Then something went sour." He lowers his voice. "I suspect that something was Evrart Claire -- the Union leader. He muscled them out. It's how it usually goes around here."

"Can't we... do something about it?"

"We should have done something about the Union ten years ago. That ship has sailed, officer."

"Cool. I dig organized crime. It's the best."

"That's odd. I could swear you were a police officer..."

Say nothing.

The lieutenant adjusts his collar. It's frisky outside.

[Leave.]

Why place a tourist attraction in the middle of such poverty?