Poachers Road (35 page)

“There are lots of black spots up here, right?” he heard Speckbauer mutter. “And the signal you get here is piddly enough, isn’t it?”

He turned when he heard Speckbauer’s words trail off.

Speckbauer was squinting at the screen. He tilted it against the morning sun that was still slicing the valleys into shadow and glare.

“Excuse me, a text.”

Felix watched him thumb through the message again. For a moment then Speckbauer’s eyes rested on the stones that had been embedded into the side of the cut.

“Well,” he said. “Now that focuses the mind. Yes. Now I am awake.”

“What? Is it about the situation here?”

“Perhaps. It’s a message about something in the first pathology notes. They’re being transcribed, but someone there was smart enough to fire an email to our office.”

“Identities?”

Speckbauer shook his head, and tapped his phone gently in a slow rhythm on his chin. He was soon lost in thought and turned to rubbing his phone over the bristles.

“You know something about the two?”

Speckbauer blinked as though rudely awoken.

“No.Yes. A horseman.”

He looked at the phone again.

“There is a mark,” he said. “No, what am I saying? A tattoo on one. In an armpit more or less. It’s sort of half ragged there, but it’s something.”

Felix shielded his eyes from the sun. His eyes were beginning to burn now from the flood of light and sleeplessness.

“VK,” said Speckbauer. “They’re out of Croatia. Well the one with the mark is. It’s actually a spur, this mark. ‘Vatreni Konji.’ Call them Crazy Horses. It’s got something to do with hunters’ horses, I don’t know exactly. But the exact translation doesn’t work for me.

‘Spirited Horses?’ No: crazy is proper.You won’t understand.”

“Give me the short version.”

“The ‘runner’ the one with the four bullet holes was midthirties. He had a tattoo. That puts him as a member, or a hangeron of some degree, of a bunch of ex-soldiers, bandits, and the like.

He would be no stranger to crime, I say. We have a chance of putting a name on him, with army records in Croatia. It’ll take time.”

Speckbauer pursed his lips and then blew them loose.

“I put in a call to The Hague, to see if there’s a file on him.”

“The Hague? A war criminal?”

“It’s possible. There were guys like that, one picked up in Vienna two years ago. Then, some arrest, or bodies, in Germany.

But one of them up here? It changes things.”

Speckbauer turned on his heels and concentrated on a sharp block of light thrown up by the sun on the wall of the house.

“So,” he said, and nodded at Felix’s mobile. “You still want to phone Gebhart, and get him to sort all this out?”

Felix shrugged.

“I’ll tell you,” said Speckbauer then. “These horsemen guys are big on revenge, and grudges. They make it their business to set an example. And they don’t accept business losses. So, if our guy in the woods was carrying something of value, they are the type to want to get it back. And put away whoever interfered in their operation.”

Felix’s mind lurched, and a cold feeling descended on him again.

“The other guy has a diamond in his guts,” Speckbauer murmured. “And a hole in the back of his head. A clean shot, a surprise.

But Mr. Horseman guy had a chance to run or jump or try something. There’s no lab test telling me he fired a gun. Say Mr.

Horseman has been accompanying Mr. Diamond, but that he is no friend to him. And say he has a deal with a third party arranged for Mr. Diamond to get taken care of . . . ?”

“A third party who knew his way around the area.”

“A person who had his own scheme,” said Speckbauer, nodding. He seemed to be mesmerized by the stripes of hard light across the yard now. Then he wrinkled his nose and his brows lifted. He pointed his index finger to his ear, and made a popping sound.

“‘Kill the two foreigners,’ let’s call the plan,” he said. “Yes.”

“He doesn’t take the diamond out of the first guy’s guts, though.”

“Ah, Gendarme Kimmel. He doesn’t know about diamonds in the guy’s guts. And I think he is quite content with what he did get.”

“Other diamonds,” said Felix. “Cash maybe.”

“I agree. And all that was supposed to be on its way to . . . ?”

Felix hesitated. Then he nodded towards the hills to the north.

“Wrong direction, I say.”

“I give up then. Christ, I’m a Gendarme in Stefansdorf. What do I know?”

“Traffic goes two ways. One way goes drugs, counterfeit.

Human beings. Weapons. Lousy, old-fashioned, lucrative cigarettes.

Other way goes payment.”

“But why are they up here? Nothing goes on up here.”

“It’s not coincidence. There’s some connection. That’s all I’m guessing.”

Speckbauer’s eyes took on an intensity, but the sun’s glare made his face sickly.

“I see three, maybe four, guys involved,” he said. “The two in the woods, one a fool and the other a lesser fool. The lesser fool thought he had an arrangement. The arrangement was with a local guy, or a pair of locals. Any more than that would have made our Horseman fellow suspicious. He wouldn’t have come up here.”

Speckbauer seemed to have used up all his words. He stared at a distant hillside, as though the patches of light and shade there held patterns he intended to read. Behind him, in the shed, Felix heard pigs snuffling and half-heartedly kicking against something.

“Last night’s visitor,” Felix started to say.

“You mean ‘the snooper’?” Speckbauer said without turning.

“That was someone from here. Some local. Someone wants to see if Gendarme Kimmel keeps his work papers in his car. They want to know what that boy told you, the Himmelfarb kid.”

Felix looked up at the window of the bedroom where he had spent the night. He imagined himself skipping upstairs to take the maps down to show Speckbauer, just to see the expression on his face. But no: this was something he had to do himself first after he confided in Gebhart. Gebi had been around; he had the lowdown on Speckbauer and Franzi, the fly-in cops with so much baggage. Gebi would understand.

“Maybe someone thinks,” Speckbauer went on, pausing at each word. “That the Himmelfarb boy wandered the forests at night.

Maybe he even saw the work done on the two. Who knows. But if it was someone who knows about the two dead guys, or the Himmelfarbs, there other things that are heavy on their minds, you can be sure.”

When Felix didn’t say anything, Speckbauer looked over at him.

“This is why I say ‘local,’” said Speckbauer. “For one thing, they are concerned that Mr. Horseman’s friends will be paying a call. Do they know who they’re dealing with, whoever did this?

They know enough, I think. Diamonds are an easy way to take payment. The other thing . . . well another time, perhaps, after we leave this lovely place.”

“What other thing?”

“Well it concerns you, Gendarme. Remember we talked about coincidences? Joked a little too? Is it coincidence that you, a son of Felix Kimmel, is involved here?”

Felix returned Speckbauer’s steady gaze.

“People want to believe the best of others, I find. Colleagues, friends. Family.” “Everyone except a certain type of detective.”

Speckbauer shrugged.

“And someone might wonder, well, why you joined the Gendarmerie. I mean, we have guys who didn’t finish high school.

When we’re one big happy family, the Polizei and us, you’ll be a cop in that new organization. A pretty far-sighted career plan, no?”

Felix bit back an answer.

“Your father, also a Gendarme, with a spotless record. Super guy. But the last few months before his accident, he’s wandering all over the place. He’s out of his area, on the road a lot. He’s having a beer here, a coffee there well, he’s everywhere. And why? Nobody knows. Was he looking for something, someplace? An investigation?

Bored? Now, Judenburg’s a fine place, but was he looking at his retirement package and thinking, Maria, this is going to be less than I hoped”

Felix’s hand had come up without his thinking.

“Shut up,” he said.

Speckbauer didn’t shift his eyes from Felix’s face. Felix let his hand down slowly. He glanced for an instant at where his hand had begun to twist Speckbauer’s collar. Then he turned away, spots bursting in front of his eyes.

The greens from the new shoots and grasses were of different tints, he noticed. Dawn had moved on to morning completely now.

“Anyway,” said Speckbauer. “I’ll finish. If I remember some of the report, there was mention of maps.Your father had them spread out all over the place. Old ones, too, your mother remembers.Your father had an intense interest in them, according to those statements. Very intense. And now, they are not to be found apparently.

Odd.”

Speckbauer’s words seemed to come from far off now. He waited for Felix to look his way before turning back toward the farmhouse. He made a flinty smile.

“Too much talk. It doesn’t settle anything.”

“That shouldn’t have happened,” Felix began. He let the rest of his words go.

“It didn’t happen. Stress? You should see Franzi in action.

Jesus: a maniac.”

He looked over.

“Don’t worry, it’s no big secret. Franzi walloped me so hard I was seeing spaceships with little green men, not just stars. It was a medication thing. He had a lot of pain. Apparently he was sleepwalking.”

“Sleepwalking,” said Felix, numbly. The tiredness had suddenly landed on his shoulders like a dead weight.

“A perfect excuse. ‘Re-enacting’ said the shrink. ‘You mean he’s going to keep doing it?’ I ask. ‘We don’t know.’ ‘I should tie him up? Lock him in? Wear a helmet?’ They don’t have the answers for post-trauma. I sleep with one eye open. Look, I need to use a land phone.”

THIRTY-FIVE

F
ELIX FELT NO MORE AWAKE AFTER A THIRD CUP OF COFFEE, BUT
at least now, with the thought of Gebhart’s wary gaze, he had some kind of direction to follow.

Occasionally he heard Speckbauer’s voice from the hall. Along with a tone of disbelief, or impatience, or both, but there was more often a steady metronomic ‘Ja’ that Speckbauer seemed to employ to speed up a conversation.

“Mein Gött but he is a different man on the phone,” Felix’s oma whispered. She nodded toward her husband. “I thought I’d heard them all from the count here.”

“I keep reinforcements,” said Felix’s opa. “Don’t worry. For when I am too feeble to chase you about.”

“And he is speaking foreign too.”

“It’ll be a hell of a phone bill,” said his grandfather.

“He will pay,” Felix heard himself say.

“They will pay,” said his grandfather. “The state.”

“He writes a lot of things down,” said Oma Nagl behind her hand.

“The Franzi is a character I can tell you, Felix,” added Opa Nagl, also with his hand to the side of his mouth. “He went out to see the pigs. To talk to them, he said. Where do you find such people? You were a bit wild, natürlich. But these are special.”

Felix made a greater effort to appear relaxed.

“An accident with chemicals,” his grandfather whispered. “Lieber Gött imagine the pain. He must be very dedicated to go on.”

Felix realized he had been thinking of the pair, this odd couple of cops, in the same apartment. One, damaged and close to blowing his lid all the time, the other, an amiable pro on the outside but really, as cunning as they come, and impossible to read. But even Speckbauer could not quite cover up the signs that he was also full of some kind of a ferocity. Maybe he was just as messed up in his head as the other.

“‘Kripo,’” his grandmother repeated, softly. “Kriminal Polizei.

It’s like those police shows on the TV.”

“Shows?” his grandfather said, almost indignantly. “The American dreck that half the country watches? But Felix: this has to be good for you, no? They see you work, they see how settled you are now . . . ”

Opa Nagl paused, with an awkward smile.

“When your people, our good old Gendarmerie that we know so well, our fellows – or boys when your team gets together with the Polizei, boy, that’ll be the perfect situation for you. Unbeatable, I say.”

Oma Nagl put her hand over his.

“You have it good, thank God,” she said to Felix.

“Do you know if you’ll keep the uniform though?” asked his grandfather. “The tellerkappe? Christ, if that goes, all is lost.”

“Lieber Gött,” said Oma Nagl. “Why is a little beret like that important? The tradition? Ask the boy about promotions and suchlike.”

“It is important. A symbol is important to ordinary people. I mean, when I see a Gendarme, and there he is under that cap, I can relax.Yes! I know I am dealing with a normal fellow. But Lord Jesus, when I see the Polizei there in Graz, I do not relax. No.”