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The pen he used to sign in to the hotel registry produced not his actual name, though, but a pseudonym, not quite a pen name since, as far as I understand, he wasn’t an author on the sly, although he did write down something else later on at the town’s bus station and then promptly rip it up, in all likelihood not even classifiable as a tiny poem so brief was the scribbling. Peter Bergmann was not the real name of the person standing before the hotel clerk jotting that name down. Nor was his address “Ainstettersn 15, 4472, Wien (Vienna), Austria”, which he also claimed through the same pen on the same piece of paper. Instead here we have someone who wanted to remain anonymous, bound to perform a task that would complete a life no one in the public eye would perhaps ever find out about, set aside these final 4 days. Beginning here — actually beginning in Derry where local CCTV footage also recorded him entering the bus that would take him to Sligo 135 kilometers away in the west of Ireland.

Peter Bergmann never existed, or, better, never existed as the person who came to Sligo, Ireland from his native land to die. And he made darn well sure no one would ever know his real identity.

What happened next? Among the most interesting events: 13 trips out of the hotel carrying the same purple bag which left full but came back, well, not even empty but even visible.

Purple. Hiding something. Keep that in mind.

(to be continued)