Denied to all but Ghosts (55 page)

“So we are to assume,” suggested Cavendish,
“that Robert Patterson visited the rented house in Norfolk on
Tuesday, the day before we found Emily. He somehow discovers
Slingsby’s body when Brad and Jasmine were out; unaware that Emily
is incarcerated upstairs. He panics, believing Estelle or Ralph
have set him up, decides to take the Romanov letters for himself as
payment for the double cross, having already employed Asimov to
befriend Miles, and ends up being murdered by the last person he
thought he could trust, his son.”

“Yes, a wicked web had been spun, don’t you
think.”

Cavendish stood in silence as he
pessimistically considered who on the council would have been
prepared to instigate this appalling affair.

“So are you happy your assignment is closed?”
asked Victor. Cavendish pondered the notion before speaking. The
heresy had been dealt with but it threw up many questions about his
future. In typical Cavendish style, he ignored Victor’s question
and asked his own.

“Why did you help me, Hugo?”

“You? I wasn’t helping you, I was helping
Estelle.”

“How convenient that Ralph took my bullet,”
suggested Cavendish. Victor turned and glared at the German as he
replied.

“Ralph was an unloved abuser. It’s no bloody
wonder you’ve upset so many people. You’re a cold heartless
bastard.”

“And you are not, I suppose,” said Cavendish
evenly.

“No, I don’t use people, certainly not my so
called friends.”

Victor left Cavendish to go and search for
Estelle.

Cavendish was alone for some minutes with
Victor’s accusations ringing in his ears. Before his trip to
England the criticism would have been ignored, dismissed as
irrelevant, yet now he suddenly found himself defending his
actions, justifying his reasoning to an accusing self. He was saved
from his conscience by Houghton who materialised by his side.

“How are you, Josh?” asked Cavendish
tenderly.

“I’m alright, Marchel, I just didn’t feel too
good back there, I’m sorry,” he said warily, unsure of which
Marchel Cavendish was present.

“We all have are moments, Josh, it’s what
makes us who we are.”

Houghton was lost for words, he did not know
if Cavendish was simply paying him lip service. All he knew was
that he was seriously going to have to reassess his involvement in
firm cases, especially involving a certain German. This was
supposed to be a straightforward investigation, yet once again,
Cavendish had ensured that it was not.

“Thanks for helping Thomas,” said Cavendish.
Houghton looked puzzled. “I mean the helicopter,” clarified
Cavendish.

“Oh, that,” replied Houghton absently, “that
was nothing compared with what I’m going to have to do to clear up
this fuckin’ mess. It was you who saved him.” Cavendish ignored the
comment.

“How was Thomas?” asked Cavendish, trying not
to sound concerned.

“He was stable. I’ll take you to see him
later. I’m going to seal off the crime scene for now. I’ll get my
people down here; Dobson is in the loop so that will help. Can’t
say he sounded very happy though, having his weekend disturbed.
Blanch can look after the crime scene. Your friend Hugo Victor just
turned up to console Mrs Montgomery. He looked rather upset by it
all.”

“Oh, he is just a big wusser,” said Cavendish
acerbically.

“Some sort of what?” asked Houghton, “is that
a German word?”

“I don’t believe so; it’s a word I picked up
from Thomas.”

“I think the sooner you get back to Germany
the better, Herr Cavendish.”

“You’re right, Josh. I’m beginning to yearn
for the mountains, I’m beginning to miss the yodelling,” said
Cavendish with a wry smile.

“Do you think Blanch will be okay on her own
with the Montgomery kid? Can we trust him?”

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll be fine. Edward is a
breed apart from the rest of his family. She did well today.”

“I know,” said Houghton proudly. Cavendish
then asked a question that would not go away.

“Have you told Beckett’s wife yet?”

“No, I thought that we should go to the
hospital first, you can follow me. I’ve arranged to pick up a WPC
and we’ll pay Mrs Beckett a call later. A shit end to a fuckin’
shit day.”

“You did fine, Josh, you’ll feel better
tomorrow.”

“I bloody well hope so, Marchel.” Houghton
somehow doubted he would.

Thomas Beckett lay in a hospital bed on the
north side of Bristol. It was early evening by the time Cavendish
and Houghton arrived. Cavendish hated hospitals, he hated doctors
for their earnest sincerity and he disliked nurses even more for
their compassionate natures. He hated seeing the distress and
helplessness of the patients.

The German was expecting to see Beckett in a
single room and was surprised when they were steered into a ward
containing four beds, curtained for privacy. All the beds were
occupied and a friendly nurse pointed them towards the first bed in
the corner on the left. Houghton left him to perform the onerous
duty of informing and collecting Susan Beckett. A further surprise
greeted Cavendish when he saw Emily Spelman sitting at Beckett's
bedside where she was holding his hand and quietly talking to
him.

Cavendish stayed back for a moment and
examined Beckett’s savaged face. The Bristolian appeared to be
conscious and was gazing at Emily with his healthy left eye, taking
long blinks as his eyelid closed for a few seconds before
struggling to reopen. Cavendish was seriously considering leaving
the ward before his presence was detected when Beckett’s eye
flicked to glance in his direction.

Cavendish would later swear that he saw
Beckett smile at him even though his mouth was incapable of such
articulation. Emily looked around to establish the source of
Beckett’s sudden distraction and as she noticed the Untersucher,
she offered him a captivating smile.

Although wearing a white bandage, tufts of
hair still managed to bristle stubbornly from Emily's head. A white
doctor’s coat, which she must have acquired to cover her ruined
dress, gave her the appearance of a scalped Doctor. He smiled to
himself when he appreciated that was exactly what she was. She
beckoned Cavendish over to join them and took his hand as she
reached up on tiptoe to kiss his right cheek.

“Thank you,” she said appreciatively.

Cavendish felt overwhelmed by a strange
emotion he barely recognised. He could not speak, he was simply
aware of smiling at Beckett, at Emily and even at the nurse who
came in to check on her patients. The nurse indicated that she
wanted to check Beckett's drip, requiring Emily to step aside. The
movement parted the hands of Emily and Cavendish and with contact
broken the spell under which Marchel Cavendish was temporarily
bewitched vanished.

Cavendish and Emily edged towards the bottom
of the bed where he leant over to speak softly through the bandage
that covered her right ear.

“You haven’t got long, Emily. Josh is
collecting Susan Beckett.”

Emily looked up into his face with a look of
incomprehension before the reality of the situation sank in. He saw
the tears in her eyes as she looked at Beckett, who had traced her
movements to Cavendish side. If the wounded man had heard what
Cavendish had said to Emily, he made no indication of reacting to
the imparted information.

Over an hour elapsed before Houghton returned
with a distraught Susan Beckett. Cavendish had been sitting in the
corridor and upon seeing the arrival of Josh, Susan Beckett and a
uniformed police officer, had quickly darted into the ward to give
Emily the heads-up.

Houghton gave Cavendish a weary roll of his
eyes as he escorted Beckett's wife to her husband’s bedside.
Cavendish left the ward to avoid seeing the reaction of his friend
as his wife made her theatrical entrance.

Sue Beckett was genuinely shocked at the news
of her husband’s illness. The tears were genuine enough, so too the
emotion that swept over her. However, the promise of the dramatic
scenario of a hospital visit as opposed to the undying love for her
husband had prompted the sentiment. After all, how could any woman
not fail to be moved by the attention and the excitement of calling
upon her dying husband in hospital? Even when the nursing staff
assured her that his life was not in danger, the pleasure of the
moment had only been spoilt a little.

Yet she did have a slight reservation as she
walked to her husband’s bedside. She knew the NHS was in financial
difficulties but was it really necessary to have her husband
treated by a doctor with such an obvious head wound and dubious
hairstyle?

She had to confess however, that the way the
doctor’s face hovered close to her husband’s ear and whispered her
words of healing in such a tender way was most moving.

The Monday of the last week of April saw
Marchel Cavendish arrive home. He noted how the trees in the
village had developed a thicker coat of green during his
absence.

Unusually, he had enjoyed the drive home from
the airport and had taken the road from Oberau, driving up the
twisting mountain road that climbed for ten kilometres from the
valley floor before levelling out as it reached the cloister at
Ettal.

He parked the hire car in the small car park
by the Ammer River, where he had arranged for it to be collected
later, and walked the remainder of the journey through the quaint
alpine streets to his apartment. It was during the walk that
depression began to set in. It was an inexorable sadness at the
prospect of the bleak days ahead. He knew his position in the firm
was anything but secure.

He decided to wait before informing his
mother or Magda of his return. He had to finish his report for
Horst Steinbeck before his assignment could truly be said to be
finished. Nevertheless, he made two swift calls en route, one of
which was to Steinbeck to let him know of his return, the other was
a voicemail message.

When he turned the key to open his apartment
door, it was already mid afternoon. The rooms smelt stale after
being uninhabited for the best part of a month. He dropped his
holdall on the floor beside his desk and opened the doors out on to
his balcony. Lighting a cigarette, he rolled his eyes over the sun
kissed summit of Kofel. This was the time he hated the most and he
knew his reaction to this case would be extreme. It had been an
emotional rollercoaster for the normally indifferent
Untersucher.

He set about completing his report, most of
which had been written at Flash and only the subsequent events
required notation. He wrote in a plain simple and honest style and
often wondered if Horst Steinbeck amended his prose for their
mutual benefit. He initially struggled to compose the text as he
relived the moments at Yoxter but soon the words began to flow and
by five o’clock, his initial draught was complete. He knew he
should take some time out before running a final corrective eye
over the report.

The events at Yoxter were much harder to
write than he had imagined, he stumbled over the phraseology as he
attempted to play down the intensity of the moment. He declined to
mention any suggestion of collusion that had taken place between
Estelle and the committee, as he remained unsure of the extent of
their involvement.

He moseyed into the kitchen to make coffee
and as he opened the cupboard door, his eyes alighted upon a bottle
of unopened Polish Wodka. The taste, or perhaps more accurately,
the effect of the drink, seemed a far more appealing prospect than
coffee. He took the bottle and a glass tumbler and returned to his
desk. By the time he had proofread his composition and made the
necessary amendments, over a quarter of the contents of the bottle
had disappeared.

A thought suddenly struck Cavendish. He
reached for his holdall, unzipped it and took out Beckett’s camera.
There was no way he would allow Susan Beckett to get her hands on
that. More by luck than judgment he found the camera’s memory card,
extracted it and placed it into his PC’s card reader.

Beckett’s photos appeared on the computer
screen. There were a few shots of the early days of the
investigation but the majority were of Chesterfield, Wells and
Flash Seminary. He guessed that he should not have been surprised
to see so many shots of Emily Spelman. There were photos that he
had not realised Beckett had been able to take, including several
of the themed evening at Flash. Cavendish smiled forlornly as the
images scrolled before his eyes.

A distant rumble of thunder echoed around the
Alpine range, the sound sustained by the natural acoustics of the
mountain topography. Cavendish sighed deeply, a storm was on the
way and although it was early in the year, the region had enjoyed a
fine spell of weather so it was only to be expected. He looked at
his watch and sighed again, his head already swimming with the
effects of the alcohol. He knew he had better shower now before
apathy ensued.

He languidly removed his clothing in his
bedroom and caught his naked reflection in the full-length mirror.
He had again lost weight during the month, his muscles appeared
knotted and sinewy against his pale skin, he nodded knowingly at
the comments he knew he would undoubtedly receive from his
mother.

The shower failed to reinvigorate him as he
had hoped and he dismissed the notion of shaving and if past
occasions were anything to go by, he would not shave for many days
to come. He pulled on his blue towel robe, returned to his desk,
and poured another drink, which he downed in one gulp before
immediately recharging his glass. The storm had arrived during his
time in the shower.

Cavendish lit a cigarette and stood out on
the wooden balcony, protected by the steep pitched roof of the
apartment building. The rained poured off the roof, the gutter
reverberating like a mountain stream in full flood and the
torrential rain that escaped the guttering formed a curtain of
water before his eyes, as if he was stood behind a crashing
waterfall. A sudden flash of lightning lit Kofel and for an instant
the peak was lit with a surreal majesty that quickened his
heart.