The Stolen (9 page)

‘Cut him down,' he instructed his men.

As they placed the corpse into a body bag, he pulled out his yo-yo and paced the room, yo-yoing as he brainstormed – for a bedroom, even for a priest, it appeared suspiciously empty. Apart from a wooden cross on the wall, a rosary hung over a bedpost and a box with a spare cassock and underwear pushed under the bed, the only item of note was the threadbare rug on the stone floor. Earlier the housekeeper of the boarding house, almost hysterical with shock, had told the detective that the priest could not possibly have been in his right mind to commit a mortal sin knowingly. When Klauser had managed to calm her down, she finally remembered that the priest had received two visitors earlier that evening – two older, well-dressed men.

‘Ever so polite,' she'd told Klauser. ‘Real gentlemen. I thought they must have been rich patrons of the parish.'

After which Klauser had noted the time of their arrival and the curious fact that the housekeeper had not noticed them leave. He had no doubt the priest had been murdered. The question was – why?

Klauser slipped the yo-yo back into his pocket, then threw off the bed's thin cotton blanket, flipped the mattress and ran his hands over it. Halfway down his fingers came across a bulge hidden under the striped cotton. Using his pocket knife he cut along the side of the cover.

It was a leather-embossed book, full of pictures of clocks, its publication date recorded as 1792. A clear plastic cover protected it, printed with a name and address:

Crouching down, Klauser examined the spine of the book. There was a slight kink a third of the way through, and a brown stain ran like fine strata at the same point. He opened the book to the stained pages. The first paragraph was covered by the same rusty-brown mark, as if something had been spilt over the paper accidentally. Blood, old blood, maybe decades old. Klauser could tell by the way it had begun to fade, the words still visible through it. They described a set of box clocks commissioned by Marie Antoinette in 1790. The paragraph finished with the fact that the French queen had been executed before the commission was completed; even more intriguing were etchings of the clocks on the opposite page.

Each one symbolised a different element – a blue case for Water, with waves etched into the glass, a ceramic case for Earth, a gold metal case symbolising Fire and a clear glass case representing Air. Next to each clock was the symbol for that particular element: a blank triangle balancing on a point for Water, another blank triangle sitting on its base for Fire, a third triangle, its base sitting on the ground with its tip marked off symbolising Air, and beside the last box clock, representing Earth, a triangle balancing on a sectioned-off tip.

Klauser recognised the clocks immediately – they were the ones he'd seen in Christoph von Holindt's study only two days ago. He turned to the flyleaf and there, on a card in bold print, were the words:
Given to me for preservation work on the leather by Christoph von Holindt
.

 

 

Liliane leaned over the bar and, shouting over the frenetic guitar and drums, ordered a vodka. The cocaine she'd snorted in the ladies' toilet was roaring through her and she had the added thrill of knowing that by even being in the bar she was breaking the law. Wilhelm was on stage tearing at the struts of his guitar; she'd arrived late and his band was already halfway through their first set. He hadn't yet seen her in the crowd and already a knot of adoring female fans were head-banging in front of the stage. A particularly good-looking blonde in tight leather pants strutted in front of the guitarist.

When the band finished their set, Willi took off his guitar, stepped from the stage and joined the blonde. Liliane started pushing her way to the front.

Destin Viscon, leaning on the wall near the speakers and unrecognisable in black jeans and a tight strategically ripped black T-shirt that displayed his toned torso and tattoos, watched the physicist's daughter make her way through the bobbing heads. He'd been there for an hour biding his time. Her profile had been thorough, it had been easy to locate her school, and both the Rote Fabrik club and Baph Records on the Marktgasse – hangs of the local punk scene. Destin had calculated that she would be at the gig that night. Nevertheless it was intensely gratifying to see the prey flutter so easily into the trap.

The young girl pushed past him, only inches away and he could smell her perfume, her scent. She was far better-looking in the flesh than in the photograph. You'd never guess she was under eighteen. It wasn't just the heavy eye make-up or face powder, it was her poise. There was a confidence and a defiance that lent her maturity. But what really amazed him was how different she looked from her father. Where Matthias was blond she was a striking brunette with thick black hair, pale skin and black eyes. Only the shape of her features betrayed any of Matthias von Holindt's genes. But the most erotic aspect was her anger: angry young girls were somewhat of a speciality of his –
a fatal propensity
, he noted dryly to himself. The girl had muscled her way between the pimply-faced guitarist and the blonde and they appeared to be arguing. Destin moved closer.

‘Go away, Liliane, I'm busy!' Willi slipped his arm around the blonde and turned his back to Liliane. Furious, she pulled his arm off the other girl.

‘Not with her, you're not!'

Willi swung round and pulled her aside. ‘This is so uncool. I'll see you another time, but tonight I'm with Flossi, okay?' He turned back to the gloating blonde and began walking backstage.

‘Wait, Willi!' Liliane tried to follow but a bouncer blocked her path. Just then she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She swung round. The man was older, strikingly handsome, with a French accent. The most noticeable thing was his eyes: one was green while the other was blue.

‘Forget about him; he doesn't know what he's missing. Can I buy you a drink?'

Liliane held out her vodka. ‘I have a drink already.'

‘Another one won't hurt, assuming you're of age,' he said, grinning.

‘Do I look that young?' She kept her tone confrontational, but switched to fluent French, to Destin's delight.

‘Total jail bait,' he countered teasingly.

‘But that just makes it more exciting, right?'

‘Right.'

‘So let's get that drink.'

She turned and began walking back to the bar, Destin following. She slipped back onto the stool, thrusting her breasts forward. It felt good to be provocative with an older man like this; it made her feel powerful, in control.
Fuck Willi
.

‘Barman, another vodka for the lady.' The bartender was over in an instant.

Liliane was impressed; it always seemed to take hours for Wilhelm to get bar staff's attention and it was always her who seemed to have to pay. It was nice being with a man who had money, who wasn't her father or grandfather.

Destin watched her sip her drink. ‘So is this the best Zürich can offer?'

‘Afraid so. Club Hey used to have punk bands a few years ago, Willi told me. It was him that got me into punk, he's a few years older than me. Guess I missed my time.'

‘You should have visited New York, the Mudd Club, CBGB on Bowery – it was fantastic, totally happening. Saw The Sex Pistols at the Hundred Club in London once; that was truly amazing.'

She looked at him with some curiosity; there was something paradoxical about him that she didn't understand but found attractive anyway. For example his indeterminable age. She guessed he was in his thirties, perhaps almost as old as her father, but he felt much younger, in both his attitudes and sensibility. Then there were those strange hypnotic eyes of his… they fascinated her. It was almost as if the two sides of his face didn't quite match, like a puzzle that had slipped. Somehow this oddity underpinned all the other contradictions, like the expensive watch and the tattoo she now noticed half-covered by his T-shirt sleeve: a skull and crossbones with some Latin motto written underneath.

‘God, I would give anything to have been there. Where are you from?'

‘Originally Marseilles, but I travel all over the world for work.'

‘What are you, a spy?'

‘A thief and an assassin,' he cracked back with a straight face, ‘with great taste in music, and women.' He lifted his glass up to toast her. ‘I'm Destin Viscon, and you?'

‘Liliane von Holindt.'

‘Holindt? The watches, right?'

‘My grandfather's company. I'm the black sheep of the family. My father doesn't know what to do with me.'

‘I think I've read about your father. Isn't he a scientist?' He kept it nonchalant, verging on indifferent. It was almost too easy, the way she took the hook.

‘A physicist, famous.'

‘And there was something about your mother…'

‘She died in an avalanche, skiing. The papers were all over it – “What a tragedy, glamorous young wife of Switzerland's most promising scientist and financial officer of the Holindt Watch Company… blah blah blah”. It's like that, being a von Holindt. I hate it. Our lives are public property. Anyway, Papa went weird after that. I mean, he's a great physicist and all that. But now it's all he breathes and lives apart from his fucking flute-playing. He's a Jethro Tull fan – how embarrassing is that? Anyway, we're completely different. I'm like an annoying piece of furniture to him that won't stay in its place.'

‘I'm sure he loves you.'

‘I'm not. They say if he succeeds in his research he's going to change the world, but he's not even functional as a human being.' The drink was making her tell him things she'd never told anyone, and the cocaine meant she couldn't stop, her resentments spilling out of her in a cathartic stream. ‘He's really moral. You know, anti-war, anti-big corporations, but it's hypocrisy, because my grandfather has been funding most of Dad's research up until now, and the Holindt Watch Company is a big corporation. I mean, what's so ethical about making watches for very rich people, right? And Granddad's a borderline fascist, a real racist frankly. I love him but hate him too, if you know what I mean. He expects Papa to take over the company when he dies, but it's not going to happen and Opa hates that.'

‘Really?' Behind her back he indicated to the barman that he wanted another vodka. It was next to her in seconds.

‘Once, after I'd had a really big argument with my father, I broke into his laboratory late one night.'

‘How did you do that?' Destin had to be careful, sound interested but not too interested.

‘I stole his keys.' She downed her third drink, her words beginning to slur slightly. ‘I was so sick of hearing what a genius he was. Anyhow, the lab was really creepy at night. God knows what I expected to see, maybe glowing bits of electricity springing around, but actually it was really boring. He never knew and I never told him.' Her gaze wandered over to the stage. The band had started playing again. ‘C'mon, let's dance.' Liliane took his hand and led him to the dance floor, determined to show Wilhelm what he was giving up by taking the blonde home that night.

Destin let her pull him to the front of the stage. Soon a circle formed round them as they danced provocatively, Liliane rubbing her crotch and breasts against him, her breath on his face smelling of limes, her skin incredibly soft under his fingers. The game she was playing amused Destin, especially as her boyfriend on stage seemed just as determined to ignore her wild antics.
I could take you and snap you
, he thought. But there was something a little too frenetic about her that made him hesitate. She might be easy to manipulate but she was also unpredictable and that could be both an advantage and a liability.

 

By the time Liliane and Destin left the club it had started to snow, big thick flakes. Liliane thought they were beautiful, clean, new. A white world, one she wanted to disappear into, to shrink down as small as a snowflake then melt against the heat of someone's skin, she thought as she held out her hand to catch the damp flakes.

‘The car's over here.'

She followed Destin, stumbling in her stilettos towards an E-type Jaguar sports car; nothing seemed to matter – she was so intoxicated she felt like she was functioning in the past tense, like all of this had happened before. It was a fantastically liberating feeling. ‘Let's go to your house. C'mon, it's not even two yet,' she murmured flirtatiously, touching his crotch.

‘I'm driving you back home. You're drunk; I don't take advantage of drunken women.' He removed her hand.

‘You're just worried about being arrested…'

‘Arrested?' He laughed then pulled away from the kerb. ‘Oh,
ma chérie
, I live above the law.'

‘That sounds fantastic, living above the law.' She leaned her head back on the seat. It felt good being drunk, obliterating all the images, the betrayal she felt over Wilhelm, the anger towards her father. She could sit there for ever watching the night sky flash past as the sports car purred down the narrow streets.