Denied to all but Ghosts (2 page)

Her brown hair was worn short and showed
signs of having recently been expensively styled, whilst her
exquisite makeup complimented rather than enhanced her silky
features. The black dress, unlike the older woman’s, gave no hint
of mourning, instead its cut and length accentuated the sexuality
of her slim yet fulsome figure. Ehlers placed her, along with
Cavendish, as being somewhere in her thirties, some ten years older
than himself.

“Frau Klum, my name is Marchel Cavendish;
this is my colleague, Holger Ehlers.” Cavendish stiffly nodded his
introduction to the woman before continuing. “May we offer you our
condolences. Herr Klum was a much admired and respected member of
the firm and will be greatly missed by all who knew him.”

Dagmar Klum nodded her acknowledgment of
Cavendish’s formal commiseration yet her expression remained
indifferent to the insincerity of his words.

“Thank you, Herr Cavendish. I hope your
journey has not greatly inconvenienced you.” Dagmar Klum offered
her hand and a dazzling smile. Cavendish stepped forward and,
accepting her hand, bowed and brought his heels smartly together.
Dagmar confidently took his hand before repeating the process with
the younger visitor. Ehlers felt his face blush as he held her
manicured hand and noted her amused reaction to his discomfort in
her deep brown eyes.

“May I introduce my family,” Dagmar Klum
extended her arm to point to the group sitting on the left hand
couch. “My late husband’s mother, you have already met. My
stepdaughter, Alicia and her husband, Kurt Meyer.”

Dagmar’s stepdaughter, in her late twenties,
was sitting between her infirmed grandmother and her vulpine
husband. Ehlers observed how she attempted to sit impassively but
betrayed her nervousness by the fluttering of her eyelids and her
gauche inability to hold his gaze. Meyer sat impassively, patently
more accustomed to such tense formal occasions.

To his honourable shame, Ehlers concluded
that it was clear that Alicia Meyer was the product of a wholly
disparate gene pool than the present Frau Klum, such was her
distinct plainness, prompting him to speculate upon her
relationship with her late father’s trophy wife.

“And this gentlemen, is my son, Hans.” Dagmar
made no attempt to conceal the pride in her voice as she pointed
out the pre-teen boy who had been sitting by her side on the other
couch. Ehlers easily discerned from whom the boy had inherited his
attentive brown eyes.

An awkward silence followed the
introductions, punctuated only by the crackling of burning logs.
Ehlers looked at his superior, he noted that Cavendish had adopted
his inscrutable visage that seemed to come so easily to him and
made him almost impossible to read.

“Frau Klum,” said Cavendish, taking the room
by surprise with the abruptness of his pronouncement.

“Dagmar, Herr Cavendish, please call me
Dagmar,” her lips remained resolutely set in a stubborn smile.

“Frau Klum,” continued Cavendish, ignoring
her request. “You know why we are here; I assume you have received
the formal letters.”

“If you are referring to the last letter sent
before Christmas outlining your employer’s position, then yes.”
Ehlers thought Dagmar’s smile had receded by the faintest jot.

“Then you know the items that your husband
procured have to be returned,” stated Cavendish. Her smile
vanished; a slight tremble animated her bottom lip.

“And to what items might you be referring?”
she asked mulishly.

“Frau Klum, we have not travelled all this
way to be played games with. If you did not know what items I am
referring to, which I find highly unlikely, then the letter
reiterated them, so there is no room for confusion.”

Cavendish’s blatant antipathy was clear to
everyone in the room. Ehlers thought it unnecessary to be so
aggressive with the recent widow and glanced towards Alicia, who
was finding it hard to suppress a grin, taking vindictive pleasure
in her stepmother’s blatant discomfort.

With the banishment of her engaging smile,
the smouldering intensity of Dagmar’s eyes remained her most
expressive attribute.

“It will come as no surprise to you,” stated
Dagmar confidently, “that I have taken legal advice with regard to
my husband’s possessions.” Cavendish rolled his eyes upwards in a
display of feigned exasperation.

“Frau Klum, do you know how many times I have
stood before a grieving widow, explaining what must happen? You
will return the items as per the contract that your husband entered
into. Upon his death, the lease expires and they are returned to
the firm. You have the option of having items replicated, as per
the contract. There is no get out clause; there is no room for
negotiation. One of my colleagues has visited you already on
several occasions, I’m sure he explained everything to you. You
have twenty days of the original ninety in which to comply.”

“And if I don’t?” interjected Dagmar with
what Ehlers considered was admirable defiance in the face of his
superior’s restrained yet resolute onslaught. Cavendish now looked
at Ehlers and again rolled his eyes, the theatricality of his
gesture compelling Ehlers to smile impulsively.

“Oh, you find this amusing do you, young
man!” spat Dagmar with contrived indigence.

“I’m sorry,” stuttered Ehlers, stung
especially by the ‘young man’ taunt, “I didn’t mean to
cause...”

Ehlers perceived Cavendish’s icy glare before
he glimpsed into the cold pale blue eyes. He knew instantly that he
should not have spoken. His attention was drawn away from Cavendish
towards Dagmar, who had sunk her face into her hands and begun to
weep. The cry morphed into sobs of anguish, which he fully
appreciated, put Cavendish’s eye rolling antics in the shade.

“Well done, Holger,” whispered Cavendish
acerbically. He scanned Ehler’s crestfallen face. “Don’t worry,
Holger. Been here before,” added Cavendish in a reassuringly mellow
tone.

“What do we do, Marchel?” whispered Ehlers
anxiously.

“Wait for her to get bored, shouldn’t take
too long.” Cavendish led Ehlers over to the window that looked out
onto the street. The room was noticeably chillier here away from
the fire and Ehlers followed Cavendish’s lead of turning his back
on the room to study the snow that continued to fall with little
sign of abating.

A few minutes elapsed and the sobbing ceased.
Cavendish pretentiously faced the pretty widow and watched Dagmar
staring back at him audaciously.

“Is there somewhere we could talk in private,
Dagmar?” Cavendish coolly enquired. His sudden use of her first
name momentarily threw her off guard.

“Where would you suggest?” she asked, her
face losing some of its defiance.

“Somewhere a little more civil,” replied
Cavendish whilst glancing at the Klum clan behind her.

“My room upstairs, perhaps?” she suggested
warily, Ehlers thought he noted an allusion of grudging
capitulation in her voice and body language. Cavendish raised his
blonde eyebrows and smiled knowingly at Ehlers, from which the
youngster took encouragement.

She led him up to the second floor and her
bedroom, which Cavendish discovered was quite out of context with
the rest of the house. It was contemporary in taste and style and
there appeared to be little to allude to the existence of the late
Herr Klum.

Dagmar perched timidly on the edge of the
expansive bed. Cavendish strolled slowly over to the window to
resume his scrutiny of the winter landscape, as if in search of
something he had mislaid.

“So what do you expect from me, Herr
Cavendish?” There was now a hint of resignation in Dagmar’s
voice.

“What do you mean, ‘what do I expect’?” asked
Cavendish, continuing his vigil at the window, thus failing to
notice her submissive deportment.

“How much do you want?” she asked. She was
unable to see Cavendish’s open mouth snap shut as he stifled his
reply, or the way he closed his eyes as he processed the inferences
of her enquiry.

“I don't want your money, Dagmar. What I
require is something far more pertinent,” replied Cavendish,
referring to the late Herr Klum's possessions.

Equally, he failed to observe neither
Dagmar’s compliant shrug nor the way her shoulders drooped in
abject surrender as she unzipped her black dress with trembling
hands. Dagmar realised that she had clearly been deceived regarding
Cavendish’s sexual orientation.

“I see you are in the same mould as Herr
Klauss, your colleague. I somehow thought, or hoped you might be
different,” stammered Dagmar as her bravado finally failed her.

It was the wretched tenor of her voice that
compelled him to face her. By the time he had turned, the top half
of her dress was around her waist and she was endeavouring to draw
the tight fitting fabric over her broad hips. Cavendish frowned as
he gazed with unintentional veneration upon the vulnerable woman
before him.

“Dagmar, please stop!” he demanded. She
looked up at him, confusion evident in her expression as the tears
edged slowly down her cheeks.

“Please, I’m sorry if I have misled you,
there is no need for this,” said Cavendish softly but
unequivocally. For the first time she detected a suppleness and air
of compassion in his voice.

“I don’t know what my colleague expected of
you, but I make no such demands. Please...” Cavendish did not avert
his eyes as he watched Dagmar turn away from him and clumsily
rearrange her dress.

“Christ, what have they done to you...” he
muttered to himself. He felt consumed with anger, a rage against
the obscenities of his gender yet equally, with a selfish
prejudice, at his lack of briefing or insight relating to the
history of the assignment. He also felt highly aroused but banished
the sentiment as ill timed.

“What’s going on, Dagmar,” he asked quietly
as he walked across the room and placed his long fingers lightly on
her shoulder, “why have you not returned the items as
instructed?”

Dagmar chewed her lower lip and stared hard
up at Cavendish, evaluating whether he was a man to be trusted. The
scarred face gave him a superficially intimidating appearance,
which she realised he used to good effect, yet now she noted his
pale blue eyes conveying an empathetic warmth and curiosity that
had earlier been lacking. She spoke quickly, her words running into
a remorseless torrent, accented with relief at being able at last
to confide in someone.

“I don’t have them. Herr Klauss and Kurt
Meyer took them. Herr Klauss explained he would sort things out...”
She looked down at the floor in shame as she recalled the price
expected for his help.

“And he obviously exacted his payment?”
enquired Cavendish gently, the answer already blatantly apparent.
Dagmar gazed absently at the window but remained ominously
silent.

Cavendish knew that it was acute appendicitis
that had prevented his colleague, Dieter Klauss, from completing
this assignment. Cavendish and Ehlers were simply stand-ins.

“I think I get the picture,” said Cavendish
sensitively whilst tracing the line of his scar with his left index
finger.

“Don’t worry, despite what you may have been
told, this is very easy to resolve, you have my word that this is
about to end.” He smiled at her and despite his baleful appearance;
she warmed to his gesture and returned his smile.

She felt the burden, shame and humiliation of
the past weeks easing with the knowledge that this man was on her
side. They left the bedroom to rejoin the others in the study where
Death waited with indifference.

The Laber mountain summit station rapidly
approached and the cable car gondola slowed at the end of its
ascent. An apathetic attendant opened the door and Cavendish strode
apprehensively into the white walled lobby.

Ignoring the cafeteria to his left, he made
for the familiar exit doors to access the outdoor viewing area. A
stunning vista of pine covered slopes opened up before him, framed
by the distant snow-capped peaks of the Alps. From the west, a
cooling breeze, absent in the village below, gave purpose to his
steps as he zipped up his old brown leather jacket and adjusted his
thick-rimmed sunglasses before heading towards the elderly man
already sitting at a patio table.

The man, in his early sixties, fixed his gaze
on the distant Alpine range above Garmisch. The snow still lingered
in the month of April on the Hausberg of Oberammergau, which lay in
the green valley far below them. The mountaintop appeared to
inhabit a different season from the village where spring was
clearly on its way. It felt akin to travelling back several months
in time.

“Grüß Gott, Marchel, good to see you,” said
the deep toned Bavarian accent of Horst Steinbeck.

“You too, Herr Steinbeck,” replied Cavendish
as impassively as he could. Steinbeck resumed his casual survey of
the surrounding peaks, his eyes coming to rest on the distant
Zugspitze, the highest German mountain in the Alps.

A group of schoolchildren, who had hiked
their way up the mountain, disdainfully passed them by, rendering
the alpine tranquillity with a cacophony of disparate shouts and
competing conversations, en route to the cafeteria.

Cavendish had not seen Steinbeck since late
January. Steinbeck had been away, preparing and fighting
Cavendish’s case at the tribunal convened in Vienna to hear and
pass judgement upon the events that had unfolded in Prague.

“Please sit down, Marchel. You’re making my
old neck ache,” insisted Steinbeck. Cavendish obliged, twisting his
long legs through the wooden framework of the picnic table.

“How long have you been suspended now?” asked
Steinbeck absently.

“Since January,” scowled Cavendish irritably,
knowing that his boss knew full well how long he had been idle.