Hunter's Rain (23 page)

“Don’t be mad. You will stay here. There is plenty of room. You will stay and we will talk about getting Elisa back, and how to get the bastards who did this.”

“Then I must take my car off the street.”

“No problem,” Neusser repeated. “Plenty of room in the garage. And you were right. I need a drink. A big one.”

In Berlin, the man who had ordered the kidnapping of Elisabeth Jackson, received a phone call.

“Did you receive the upload?” The speaker spoke German with a foreign accent.

“Yes. I am looking at a print at this very moment.”

“Is he the candidate?”

“We thought he could have been. As you know, we were wrong about all the others…”

“He could be taken, and tested.”

“If you will look at your own photograph, you will see a younger man. That is Müller,
Hauptkommissar
. An extremely dangerous individual who has been causing us considerable trouble. The young woman next to him is Lieutenant-Colonel Bloomfield. Those two work together. They killed one of our best men and his entire team, at that very place where you took the picture. I know you want to share our research, but I advise caution.”

“There is a rumour that caution was sorely lacking earlier today. There was a clumsy attempt on Colonel Bloomfield…”

The man reacted furiously. “Have you been eavesdropping…”

The line clicked. The conversation had ended.

The man slammed his phone down, enraged.

Elisabeth Jackson came slowly awake in a bedroom of a house that was a long way from where she had been kidnapped. As she did so, she discovered that she was bound hand and foot, blindfolded, and tape was over her mouth. She felt groggy, but her faculties were all there.

“Ah,” a voice said. “Awake are we, Mrs Jackson? Don’t roll about too much. You’re on a bed. You might fall off.”

The person who had spoken was the same man who had carved the swastika on Josh’s head. He used English.

He had been standing at the foot of the bed in the small room. Now, he moved forward until he was near her head, leaned slightly over, and ripped off the tape.

“Ow!” she cried.

“Sorry.” He did not sound sorry.

“Take…take that thing away from my eyes.”

“I’m afraid I cannot. Be glad I’ve removed the gag.”

“Why…why have you done this? And what did you put into me?”

“The second question first. We gave you something to put you to sleep. It will wear off soon.”

“And the first question?” she asked. “Was it for money?”

The man gave a smile she could not see. It would have terrified her. “How little you do know, Mrs Jackson.”

“My husband will come after you.”

“I very much doubt it. Like you, you war hero has no idea what is going on.”

“You’ve talked with him?”

“No. He will be contacted in due course. We’re letting him stew.”

“You know nothing about my husband.”

“More than you may think, Mrs. Jackson.”

“Your men didn’t know. They were surprised. They…they argued…”

“They do as they are told,” the man said harshly. “And as for the colonel, he is a snare; bait, if you like.”

“
Bait?
For what?”

The man did not reply. Instead, he took out the knife that Josh had seen, and shot the blade out.

“What was that?” Elisabeth Jackson cried anxiously. “What was that sound?”

The man look down at her, studying her bound body. “Why would a woman like you, a
German
woman, marry such a man? You like those kind of men, do you?””

“So you’re one of those,” she said with contempt. Despite being worried about what might happen to her, she was determined not to show it.

“I have in my hand,” he said, ignoring the remark, “the knife I used to carve your boy’s forehead. It is very sharp.”

“Is that how you feel strong? Cutting little boys? Preening over a helpless woman?”

“Don’t try to appeal to my sense of self-worth, honour, or decency, Mrs Jackson. As far as you are concerned, I have none whatsoever. You are not even a bargaining chip. I can do with you as I please.”

There was a sudden, quiet sibilance, and she felt a slight cooling on her right thigh. Then she felt two sections of her skirt slide down.

“Beautiful thigh,” he said in a voice that seemed to come from deep within his throat. He swallowed loudly. “All that wasted on a man like the one you married, and with whom you bred two mongrels.”

Then the door to the room slammed, and a key turned in the lock.

She waited fearfully, listening. Was he still in the room? Was he now getting ready to attack her? She knew he had used the knife to slice her skirt open, and was in no doubt that this was a prelude to what he planned for her.

She lay there, listening as hard as she could, for the slightest sound on movement within the room; but after a long while, she began to realise that he had gone.

She allowed herself a small sense of relief.

“Oh God, Bill,” she whispered in a heartfelt prayer. “Please come and get me.”

Schlosshotel Derrenberg, Saaletal.

Blissfully unaware of these developments, Müller strolled through the gardens with Carey Bloomfield, and Greville. The rain had continued to hold off, and the day appeared to have got brighter, the later it became. The evening was pleasantly warm.

“They’ve brought a lot of stuff with them that will take the forensic people some time to sort out, but…I am looking at a little gem. It’s a knife. Retractable blade, handle black, fits nicely into the palm of the hand. It’s really a small dagger.”

“Why is that ringing bells?”

“Well, it
is
reminiscent of its bigger sisters of yore, and it’s got an embedded emblem…”

“Max believes that the piece of crud who did, put it down in the boathouse and in the hurry to get away, forgot it was there, believing it to be wherever he usually kept it on his person. Probably does not even know it’s missing.”

“Nothing. Their recollections are very unreliable. Probably something to do with the drug that was pumped into them. They seem a bit scrambled according to Max. They’re under medical observation. The stuff is probably more potent than at first thought.”

“Can’t have everything, but good about that knife. We may find a tie-in later, and it adds another piece to the jigsaw. A candidate for the Gallery, then.”

“Great minds,” Pappenheim said.

“Has the GW been screaming for me?”

“He’s been as quiet as a mouse on a full tummy. Mind you, all that could change as soon as he recovers and finds something else to blame on you. I sometimes think he has a dartboard in a secret room at his house, with your picture on the bulls eye, and he…”

“News of some note. A small dagger with scorch marks was found quite a distance from the site of the explosion. Interesting little item. There’s a familiar design embedded within its handle.”

“The
Semper
,” Greville immediately said.

Müller nodded. “Max Gatto, the team leader, believes it was left by mistake. A dagger like that could be more than just a weapon. Possibly, a symbol of rank within the group. If so, it’s not something that would willingly be left anywhere. If it is indeed as important as I happen believe it to be, the person who left it will experience an unpleasant time with his masters.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “It is. I’m amazed you can stay so calm, Greville,” she went on, ”knowing that thing’s working away inside of you, messing with your DNA.”

“My dear, I came to the conclusion years ago, that I had two options: get the screaming abdabs, a certain shortcut to the funny farm where all sorts of experiments would have been carried out upon me, or hang on to my sanity and play this thing out for as long as I’ve got. I chose the second option. So that no one gets to play with my remains, young Jens here, has full instructions about what to do when the inevitable occurs.”

Greville took his arm away from her shoulders, and looked at Müller. “Give the gel a hug. She needs one.”

Before either of them could react, he turned and went back up the gardens towards the schlosshotel, a tiny smile pasted upon his face.

Schlosshotel Derrenberg, 0800 hours the next day.

The Mercedes coupe and the Porsche were in the residential courtyard, ready to leave. Aunt Isolde and Greville were in the Mercedes, Aunt Isolde at the wheel. Carey Bloomfield waited in the Porsche.

Müller leaned on passenger side of the Mercedes, and looked down at Greville. “You’ve got the entry codes for the apartment and the garage, and Pappenheim’s direct number, if any trouble comes your way. Pappi will have a couple of officers on watch. Stay there till I return. There’s plenty of food and…”

“Jens,” Aunt Isolde interrupted from behind the wheel.

Müller peered in at her. “Yes, Aunt Isolde?”

“It’s alright. We’ll be fine. And I do know my way around your apartment.”

“Of course you do.” He straightened. “Well. Greville. You look after her, and after yourself.”

“Will do, old boy. Have no fear.”

Aunt Isolde started her car, pressed remote control button to slide the gate open, and with a little wave, drove through.

Müller hurried to his own car, started it, and went through before the gate had begun to close.

“Do I get a chance to drive later?” Carey Bloomfield asked, giving him a look that was amused, as well as challenging.

“No.”

“That was short and sweet.”

“Nothing to do with being short and sweet. You’re a maniac at the wheel of this car.”

“Scared you, huh?”

Müller, eyes on the Mercedes ahead of them, said, “Are you trying to needle me? If so, it’s a bit early in the day. Weather seems good so far,” he went on before she could respond. “No rain.”

“Give it time.”

He glanced at her. “Why are you so…sharp-edged this morning? What am I supposed to have done?”

She chose to ignore the question. “Anyway, where are we going?”

“To Baden-Württemberg, to see the second newsman. But you knew that.”

Müller turned on the CD player, and made a selection. Taken from his 2001 live tour, the famous 34-year-old opening riff to Clapton’s
Layla
, slammed out of the speakers.

“That riff,” Müller said above the sound of the searing guitar and the rumble of the engine, “is as old as I am! And it’s still great.”

She continued to take refuge in silence.

Müller smiled to himself as they trailed after Aunt Isolde and Greville, enjoying the music. After a while, he noticed that she had relaxed in her seat, head back, eyes closed.

She was clearly listening, though her expression gave nothing away.

Jackson was also on the road, heading for Baden-Württemberg and already on the A81 autobahn, on his way towards Stuttgart. But he would not be going to Stuttgart.

In the house where she was being held, Elisabeth Jackson had been awake for some time.

She had spent most of the uncomfortable night awake, expecting that the man would return at any time, to carry out his implied threat. But to her great relief, nothing had happened. No one had entered the room at all. She fully realised he was playing a sick game with her, aimed at keeping her in constant fear of being attacked.

Though she had not eaten since the kidnap, she did not feel hungry; but she felt unclean, and the inside of her mouth was less than pleasant. Then there was the call of nature.