The Stolen (47 page)

Destin carried the bag carefully over one shoulder; already he'd begun calculating how much he could demand from both the Libyans and Zellweger. Such an object was priceless – the key to a new generation of weapons, the likes of which humanity had yet to witness. Thirty million? Fifty million? It was just a question of conducting a bidding war, and with those two buyers he couldn't lose. Distracted, he wound his way up to the door of the villa. As he approached the mat, he noticed shallow footprints in one of the flowerbeds. The soldier in him froze, extending senses to both the left and right. The garden was empty; a blackbird hopped hopefully across it looking for food, and a stillness had fallen across the lawn. He couldn't feel the presence of anyone – whoever it was had gone, probably a good few hours before. He stepped up to the front door cautiously. The first thing he saw was two cloth legs poking out from the letterbox. He pulled the doll free and stared down.
A voodoo doll
. He'd seen such objects in Africa but this one was different; it had a tiny scrap of red cloth tied around its waist and stared up at him with two drawn eyes – the left one coloured in with blue ink, the right eye with green. A large pin pierced the back.
Superstition is the religion of the desperate,
he thought, smiling.
A child's scare tactics
. Such things had never frightened him; nevertheless it irked him someone knew where he lived.
After this job is completed I'm leaving, maybe back to Paris or New York,
he concluded, switching his thoughts back to the money. He slipped the doll into his jacket pocket and let himself into his apartment. He didn't have much time; there were phone calls to make.

 

 

Chief Inspector Engels did not like attending house searches. Actually he didn't, as a rule, like searches at all, preferring to read the reports and examine the evidence back in the civilised warmth of his own office – it was one of the great advantages of being a chief inspector – an avoidance of fieldwork. But this von Holindt case threatened to destroy all that he had worked for, as well as blowing open the veiled web of wartime business transactions. A revelation that could destroy not just his late father's sterling record but possibly the careers of half the prominent businessmen in the city. Johann Engels, for the first time in his own career, was really beginning to wonder if this time he could control the fallout. To make matters worse, the newspapers had begun to speculate how such an eminent figure could disappear so easily; there were veiled accusations of police incompetence and on top of all that the anarchist journalist Bruno Munster (a close friend of Klauser's and a man Engels personally loathed) had raised questions about the nature and coincidence of Helmut Klauser's ‘suicide' and the suicide of another friend of the detective's – Dieter Schwitters – found hanged on the same day. The left-wing press were demanding an independent inquiry.

Meanwhile the ‘other' police department – the political police, Engels' rivals – had also begun to pressure the Kantonspolizei department, threatening to take over the case. It had taken all of Engels' charm and power to convince them to back down – but even he knew it was only a matter of time before they would take over. It was all getting rather uncomfortable and he'd already wasted hours following a lead from the homicide department involving the grave of Matthias von Holindt's wife. One of the detectives had claimed to have evidence the physicist visited the grave daily, regardless of anything else. Engels had posted a man there until he learned the officer supplying the information was no less than Detective Timo Meinholt – Klauser's old partner, a man he suspected of colluding in some way with the physicist.
Holindt could be as far away as Holland by now
, Engels thought bitterly. All in all it was not a good time to be the top representative of the Kantonspolizei. Weighted down by these troubles that hovered like thunderclouds over his head, Engels stood at the front door, flanked by four officers as the landlady fumbled with the keys.

‘If you didn't have a search warrant authorised by the mayor himself, I wouldn't be opening this door, I can tell you that much. Fräulein Thorton is a nice girl, a good girl and I don't for a minute believe she could have done anything illegal,' the landlady, a tall, willowy, well-spoken woman in her late fifties, insisted, unimpressed by the show of weaponry on Engels' men.

The door swung open, revealing the bohemian furnishings Engels might have expected of an anthropologist. The small living room with the balcony seemed undisturbed, the cushions on the couch neatly stacked, the ashtray empty. Immediately the men fanned out, one climbing onto the balcony, another preparing to dust the glass-topped coffee table for prints. Engels and the other two walked through to the bedroom.

The contrast was extreme: clothes, books and papers lay flung across the room. Engels wasn't sure whether she'd been robbed or had just packed in a panic. Three of the chest drawers were open, clothes spilling onto the floor, hangers scattered everywhere, and the bed looked as if someone had just climbed out of it.

‘Chief Inspector!' One of the officers beckoned him over to the desk, where there was a map marked up with pencil – like routes or tracks. Lying next to it was an open address book.

As he looked at the entries, Engels noticed a business card on the floor. He picked it up. ‘Phone this number and find out if she's booked any flights to France, and I'll contact our French colleagues.'

‘But, Chief Inspector, shouldn't we contact the US Embassy?' the officer said. ‘She's an American citizen…'

‘Who is wanted in connection with the murder on Swiss soil of a Swiss citizen. I think we might find a reason to delay that call, don't you?'

 

 

Matthias woke and lay for an instant not knowing where he was and whom he was with. Then it came to him – his brain lurching to make sense of the lurid print of Jesus with his chest flayed open, his heart studded with the crown of thorns, Sellotaped right next to a postcard of Elvis Presley. The long curve of a woman's body was nestled against him. The gypsy camp, Helen, Liliane's kidnapping. Hiding for hours among the Sinti, almost paralysed. That night he had fallen into one of those deep, dreamless sleeps more akin to being unconscious, surrendering dressed and in Helen's arms. The two of them just fitted into the double-bed alcove, the roof only a couple of feet above their sleeping heads while, in the alcove below, Liliane shared a bed with her grandmother.

Across the caravan Latcos lay on the couch under the window, the bluish light from outside filtering onto his sleeping face. With a shock, Matthias remembered how young his half-brother was, despite his swaggering authority and the fact that he was already a grandfather to a son from his twelve-year-old daughter. Latcos had already lived several lives.

The air was stale with cigarette smoke and the smell of so many clothed people sleeping in the same space. The fire in the pot-belly stove had gone out and it was chilly inside the caravan. Carefully Matthias lifted Helen's head without waking her, then swung his legs over the edge of the bunk and lowered himself to the floor. His watch said five a.m., and outside it was early dawn. They'd gone to sleep around one in the morning, which meant they'd had four hours' sleep, but this was better than nothing. He rubbed his chin, the beard itchy and now thickening from a light growth.
It feels alien, but that is good
, he reminded himself. It was a reflection of how transformed he felt – an observation as perturbing as it was liberating. And so it was with some trepidation he pulled off the black cloth Keja had hung over the sliver of broken mirror above the kitchen sink (out of respect to the deceased Yojo) and looked into it.

A gypsy stared back at him: hollowed cheeks (when was the last time he ate properly?) and haunted eyes ringed by exhaustion. He would shave his beard before leaving. He looked back at himself knowing what he must do, then, after filling the sink with freezing water from a nearby jug, splashed it on his face, the cold jolting him into complete alertness.

On the other side of the caravan, in the lower bed alcove, the beak of her nose just visible beyond his daughter's shoulder, Keja muttered in her sleep. Matthias glanced over, struck by the comforting intimacy of being surrounded by people he had not even known a month ago, yet now was linked to inextricably by blood, even by love. Even in their repose he felt the connections between the sleeping figures and himself weaving in and out, like their breathing. For the first time in his life, he had an inkling of the real meaning of family.

Outside a cockerel crowed. He had to leave, and soon. He glanced at his watch. He knew there was an eight o'clock flight to Paris and from there he could take a flight direct to Jaipur. His stomach growled loudly, insistently. He reached for the coffee pot sitting on the gas ring. There was still coffee in it. He fired up the ring then took up his briefcase, which had been leaning against the caravan wall like some absurdly incongruous prop from a past life. Past life.
Yes, that's what it feels like,
he decided, and all the adrenalin, the fear and the sheer horror of being unjustly vilified faded with the excitement of what lay ahead.

Inside the briefcase was the thousand US dollars he'd managed to withdraw from the bank and a couple of credit cards, a couple of small magnets, the piece from the original statuette, and the information Jorges Hatiwais had given him about the crater site. The only passport he had was the fake one Latcos had made up for the East Germany trip, but it would have to do. The coffee pot's lid rattled and he leaned over and began pouring himself a cup.

‘Off somewhere?' Helen was looking down at him from the bunk, her auburn hair tangled.

‘The airport, as soon as I've washed and changed my clothes.'

‘You're going to Rajasthan, aren't you?' She climbed down, pushing her wild hair away from her face.

‘I don't have a choice; I have to get there before others find it.'

‘I'm coming with you.'

‘Helen —'

‘You'll need me there.'

‘I need you here, to take care of Liliane until I get back.'

‘Bullshit. Liliane will be safer hiding out as Keja's granddaughter here in the camp. I speak a little Hindi, and I know the area. Besides, they're looking for me as well as you.'

‘She's right, Matthias.' Latcos was sitting up. ‘You saw how the police reacted yesterday; Liliane is more gypsy than she is Swiss – she disappears a lot easier than you.' He lit up and inhaled deeply. ‘She is our
chey
, our daughter. We can hide her without a problem. And they will never think of looking here. Find what you need, then come back to clear your name, and I will take the paintings and the gold to Herr Rechtschild later today. By the time you return arrests will have been made.'

Matthias turned back to Helen. ‘But how will you get past security? I have the passport I used to get into East Germany, but they know your name.'

‘I brought my old passport as well and it's in my married name. They're looking for Helen Thorton, not Helen Miller.'

Matthias looked down at the open briefcase, the fragment of the mysterious ore sitting between the map and his papers; even in the low light it glistened like the surface of some far-away planet. ‘I am so close, if I don't go now I lose the chance of ever finding it.' It was a statement made more to himself than the others.

‘Go, it's your birthright as much as mine.' Latcos slipped off the couch and stepped over. ‘I'll drive you both to the airport; at this time the road will be empty.' He reached into his belt and drew out a hunting knife with an ornately carved handle. ‘But you don't go without this, my brother. It belonged to Yojo, the first thing he purchased when he was liberated by the Allies.' He pressed the knife into Matthias's hand.

Overwhelmed, Matthias faltered. ‘Latcos, I can't…'