Hunter's Rain (16 page)
Authors: Julian Jay Savarin
“She outranks me?”
“She outranks you, Major, retired. She’s a lieutenant-colonel.”
“Ah. The make them so young these days. Do go on, old chum.”
“He was not talking about her. In fact, he was quite astonished to see a woman. I had the feeling that perhaps they got the rank wrong, and really meant you.”
“We both know they tried to get me last May, but…”
“You two!” came Aunt Isolde’s voice. “Stop gossiping. Let’s go in.”
“I don’t think…Vogel, was it?”
Müller nodded.
“I don’t think Vogel meant my good self,” Greville finished in a hurried whisper.
“Then we’ll just have to see.”
“Forewarned, eh?”
“Exactly.”
They halted their conversation. Aunt Isolde and Carey Bloomfield were approaching.
“It’s rude to whisper among yourselves, in company,” Aunt Isolde scolded them with a smile.
“You two were laughing about something,” Müller countered.
“Ah yes. Carey was telling me all about her little drive in your car. Panicked you, did she?”
Müller gave Carey Bloomfield a neutral stare. “I was
not
panicked.”
“You were hanging on to the door handle.”
“I was…”
Whatever he had been about to say was interrupted by the arrival of a white, luxury minibus, with the hotel logo on its flanks.
“We’ve got a convention booked in,” Aunt Isolde explained as they turned to look. “Japanese. They’ve taken the entire hotel wing. Some of them have booked the bus for a trip into the Thüringer Wald. They’ll be gone for a couple of days.”
“What kind of convention?” Müller asked.
“They’re scientists.”
“And their field?”
It was Greville who answered. “Genetics.” He sounded amused.
Müller was about to turn to Greville when the guests for the minibus began to come out. They milled around for a second or so, then one of them spotted the Porsche. He turned to a colleague, spoke excitedly and within moments, a group of them had surrounded the car, eagerly studying it. This went on for several minutes.
“Anyone spot something unusual?” Carey Bloomfield asked.
“Like what?” Müller demanded.
“Cameras. No cameras. Shouldn’t they be snapping away at your Porsche, Müller?”
“Surely, you don’t go in for that old cliché about the Japanese and their cameras when abroad? Besides, these are not tourists.”
The admiring group reluctantly left the car and boarded their bus.
“Seems I wasn’t so wrong, after all,” Carey Bloomfield said, as the bus left. “Someone just took a picture.”
Müller turned to follow its progress down the drive. “Of the car?”
“No. Of us.”
Müller stared after the bus until it had disappeared. “Are you certain?”
“Positive,” she replied. “I would not make a mistake like that.”
“Why us?” Aunt Isolde asked. “There’s nothing special about us.”
Müller glanced at Greville, whose eyes telegraphed a message Müller quickly understood.
“Tell you what, Aunt Isolde, why don’t you and Greville take the Mercedes up to Berlin tomorrow? Stay at the apartment for a few days. We’re not going back to Berlin tomorrow. We’ll be gone some days ourselves, so it’s all yours. What do you say, Greville?”
“Not a bad idea…”
“But we can’t,” Aunt Isolde began to protest. “The hotel…”
“Practically runs itself,” Müller cut in. “You’ve got such good staff, they can virtually do everything in their sleep. Tell her, Greville.”
“He does have a point, my dear,” Greville said to Aunt Isolde. “And you know how - if anybody does - what he’s like when he has a point. The hotel can run by itself.”
“Sounds like a conspiracy to me,” she said.
Both looked at her innocently. “Conspiracy?” they said together.
Carey Bloomfield took her own cue. “Aunt Isolde, why don’t you re-acquaint me with that beautiful room overlooking the stream?”
The stream, a tributary of the river Saale that could, in heavy rainfall, turn into a raging torrent, meandered its way across the huge grounds and passed directly beneath the window of the room in question. The stream was a much-admired feature of the Derrenberg.
Arm in arm, she led Aunt Isolde away.
The Derrenberg’s central section and its right wing, housed the hotel. The left wing was used exclusively as the owner’s residence.
Greville watched as they walked towards the small gate at the side of the large, sliding steel-panelled double gate the allowed vehicle entry to the courtyard.
“Quick on the uptake, your Miss Bloomfield,” he said to Müller.
“She’s no slouch.”
“You say that with pride, old man. Betraying your true feelings, what?”
“Greville.”
“Yes, old man.”
“Shut up.”
Greville allowed himself a huge grin. “Of course.”
“Look after, Aunt Isolde. She’s all the family I’ve got.”
“Goes without saying, old boy. Any…weaponry at your place?”
“My bedroom. Aunt Isolde will show you which one. Bedside cabinet, left. Top drawer. A Beretta 92R. Three magazines, 15-shot.”
“You do like that gun. It’s a cannon.”
“It’s perfect for my uses. The weight, the balance, the firepower. I prefer not to use a gun…”
“But if you have to, you want one that is reliable, and hits hard.”
“One way of putting it.”
“I understand perfectly, old boy. And I’ll see Isolde’s alright. No fear. I won’t let the buggers take her from me; not after all these years. Go in and see how she is, shall I?”
Müller nodded. “I’ll be along.”
In the luxurious bedroom suite overlooking the stream, Carey Bloomfield peered down from her window at the water. It’s gentle rush was soporific. She took a deep breath of air that had the freshness of recent rain, though the grounds were not even damp.
“It’s like coming home,” she said to Aunt Isolde who was standing behind her, looking on with a gentle, speculative smile.
“Then treat it as such. You know you are welcome here at any time.”
“Thank you, Aunt Isolde.”
“And how are things with Jens? I see you still address each other rather formally. Müller. Miss Bloomfield.”
Carey Bloomfield turned round. “In a funny way, it’s not really formal at all. It just seems that way. Actually, I am sort of quite comfortable with it. I’ve waited so long now for him to call me Carey, I think I’d die of shock if he did. Does that make sense?”
“I think it reveals rather more than either of you are prepared to admit.”
“I can’t just throw myself at him, Aunt Isolde. He’d run a mile.”
“Perhaps not as far as you think.”
“Just look at you and Greville,” Carey Bloomfield said. “Müller told me he fell for you in a heartbeat.”
“And do you think he did that all by himself?”
Carey Bloomfield stared at her. “You
suckered
him?”
“My dear,” Aunt Isolde said, smile widening, “all men like to think they did the running. It’s nice to leave them with their illusions, but not to the detriment of our own capability for taking the initiative when it suits us. Now I’ll leave you to unpack, and freshen up.” She paused at the door. “And don’t worry, we shall go up to Berlin tomorrow. I fully realise Jens would not have suggested it without very good reason.”
“You’re the only close family he has, Aunt Isolde. He worries about you.”
“I know he does. But it’s good to know he’s got you too.”
Aunt Isolde left before Carey Bloomfield could respond to that.
Müller, still outside, was on the phone to Pappenheim.
“They’ll be staying at my place. Can you have two people keep an eye on it for me?”
“Berger and Reimer would be my first choice, but they’ve drawn some diplo duty from tomorrow, for the next week. Whoever it was actually asked for Berger and Reimer. Seems they were remembered for a similar duty they pulled ages ago, and impressed notably. They’ve got to dress up.”
“Bet they liked that.”
“Bet they didn’t, is more like it. Berger was cursing, and Reimer moaned about standing his girlfriend up.”
“I think he needs that girlfriend of his just for the pleasure of moaning about his love life,” Müller said.
“And driving us crazy. But he is an excellent cop. This came in only about half an hour ago,” Pappenheim went on. “One of Kaltendorf’s cronies made a request, and of course the Great White jumped. Couldn’t deflect him, even when I tried to convince him I needed them both.”
“And do you?”
“I always need them. But I was forcibly overridden.”
“
You?”
“Me.”
“Were you asleep?”
“I must have been.”
“Alright, Pappi. I’ve tagged along with the game. Why did you allow the GW to ‘forcibly’ override you?”
“Could be because the person they’re supposed to be babysitting has turned out to be one of the names we have.”
Müller digested this piece of news. “Then by all means let them dress up.”
“Thought you’d say that. So I’ll talk with
Kommissarin
Fohlmeister, she of the Ready Group, to see if I can temporarily poach a team from her.”
“And can Ilona help?”
“She will.”
“I like your certainties, Pappi.”
“Certain. That’s me.”
“They’re all coming out of the woodwork,” Müller said.
“Some of them seem to be. But they don’t know we know. That’s the beauty of it.”
“And we’ll keep it that way.”
“Are you quite sure Miss Bloomfield saw what she thought she saw?” Pappenheim asked.
“I’ve no doubt she did see it,” Müller said. “though, I didn’t. I was not looking in the right direction at the time; but in the present circumstances, I’m taking nothing for granted. I’d rather be wrong and prepared, than unprepared and vulnerable. They were all around the car, Pappi. Like excited children. But no one took the expected photograph.”
“They’re scientists, not click-happy tourists.”
“Exactly my thoughts. But a sneak shot of the four of us, from the bus, was definitely out of phase.”
“Well don’t you worry about Wilmersdorf,” Pappenheim said. “I’ll make sure they’re looked after.”
“I appreciate it. And I have to ask. Any news from Max?”
“He and his team have left, and should be there any time now.”
“Thank God for that. And thanks, Pappi.”
“Nada.”
“
Nada?”
“Something Hermann Spyros said earlier.”
“Now you’ve lost me.”
Pappenheim’s chuckle sounded in Müller’s ear as they ended the conversation.
Carey Bloomfield looked down at the stream from the wide window of her room. Slightly to the left was the small, arched wooden bridge that crossed. Both brought back several memories, some of which she would have preferred to forget.
To avoid flooding of the grounds during heavy rain, the banks of the stream had been substantially raised all along the section where it crossed the property. Today, it was flowing peacefully and was so clear, she could see the bottom. But the day she and Müller had faced Dahlberg, the stream had been a torrent in pouring rain; and she had been in it, at night, trying to make her way across to the hotel.
Under fire.
She had been crawling across the bridge, when a bullet had whacked into it, very close. She now wondered whether the bullet were still there, or had been dug out, and the gouge smoothed over. She assumed it had been.
Müller had left her in the car with strict instructions to call Pappenheim, and then leave. But unknown to Müller, she had been after Dahlberg herself, the man who had tortured her brother by peeling him alive; and also unknown to Müller, she had brought her own gun.
She shut her eyes briefly in an effort to blot out the vision of the bloody, mutilated thing her brother had become, in that hell-hole in the Middle East. But the vision was etched upon her mind.
Dahlberg, despite using Aunt Isolde as a shield in a last, desperate attempt to escape, had not made it.
“We got you, you bastard,” she now said, in a barely audible voice.
Both she and Müller had shot at the same time.
She looked down at the stream once more. Dahlberg, dying, had fallen in, to be swept away.
She was still staring down at the stream, when a knock sounded on her door.
“It’s open!” she called, turning to look.
Müller opened the door a crack. “May I?”
“Of course. I was just admiring the stream…and remembering. Seems a long time ago.”
“It does, at times,” Müller agreed, entering. He left the door slightly open, as if not sure that he should be in the room with her, with the door fully closed.
“But if feels good to be back. I love this room.”
“It’s yours any time you want it.”
She nodded. “Aunt Isolde said. It’s very kind of her.”
“She did not say it to be kind. She said it because she wants you to know you can look upon this place as a home.”
“Keep this up, and I’ll be embarrassed by the generosity.”