The Stolen (42 page)

 

 

Helen was woken by the cry of a bird. At least she thought it must have been the cry of a bird as she lay there, the sound still reverberating in her brain more like a vibration than a noise. Something nagged at the back of her mind, a disturbing remnant from a dream she couldn't quite remember. She rolled over and peered at the blue neon digits of her electric clock; it was still only five a.m. Filled with a sudden unease she turned and stared across at the shifting patterns of the branches playing over the curtains, images from the past week running through her mind; Matthias, his face staring down at her as they made love, the depth of those green eyes, his expression as he watched the magnet floating magically above that fragment of mysterious ore; old-fashioned rapture, transformative joy. There was a curious juxtaposition in the physicist that fascinated her – an emotionality that burst through his detached, seemingly over-intellectual façade. She'd never met anyone like him, not at Yale, not in the field, not on the circuit of endless conferences and think tanks, and yet there was a part of him that frightened her. A recklessness she recognised when she'd met him. Like a lot of scientists he was myopic when on the brink of a discovery, blind to potential danger, even to his own mortality: it was as if the value of his life did not matter in the face of scientific achievement. It was then she realised what had been haunting her dream – the inscription on the sword arm of the statuette. She'd managed to translate the arcane Sanskrit late the night before.

To release the goddess's secret is to receive her blessing and free the souls of mankind.
 

The word
free
disturbed her. It wasn't an exact translation, and given the role of the goddess on the battlefield, there was a sinister cast to the whole phrase. When she finally completed the translation her first impulse was to phone Matthias but it had been past one in the morning and she'd been frightened of waking his whole household. There was no doubt in her mind: he needed her even if he didn't know it; her expertise and her protection.

She rolled back towards the clock, allowing the digits to burn into her retinas until they got smaller and foggier, then finally blurred into the haze of sleep.

The doctorate student was early, but she wanted to get in before the others to catch Professor Lund who was supervising her thesis. They'd arranged to meet at seven on Monday but she needed to collect a few samples before going on to his office. As she passed his door she noticed it was ajar – unusual, as it would normally be locked. She paused, wrestling with her ethics; she was curious to see what her two superiors were currently working on, and the office was usually out of bounds.

The first thing that struck her as odd as she pushed open the door was the smell – an acrid smell of something sweet, and over it the scent of urine. The second thing was that the blinds were down; they were never normally pulled shut. Full of trepidation, she switched on the light. Jannick Lund lay slumped on the floor. As she ventured further into the room the side of his purple, swollen face came into view.

 

 

Olek waited as Janus Zellweger crumpled the Coke can he'd just finished into a small ball with his bare hand, the single blue vein that threaded through his balding pate visibly throbbing. Still clutching the crumpled can, the arms manufacturer looked out of his office window, from which he could clearly see the top of the clock tower of the Alte Uhr Kirche, a fact he normally found comforting.

‘Priceless,' he whispered to himself. ‘It is an insult, an insult of the highest order.'

He tried to focus on the face of the clock tower, a small yellow-white disc against the grey-blue of the old stone. Even from this distance it was obvious the clock had no arms. Timeless… It had been his idea to leave it like this – a thousand years they had been promised, a thousand years of a glorious regime.

‘Everything was taken?' he asked softly, too softly.

‘Everything. The vault is completely empty,' Olek said nervously.

Janus's gaze shifted slightly to the east. Here he could see the rectangular windows of the Mueller Bank.
Shall I tell him?
Nothing yet
, Janus reasoned silently.
I will get it all back, quietly and swiftly; there will be no upsetting of the order of things.

There had been four of them, like points of a star, stretching as far as East Germany, watching the waves of commerce rolling over the city for decades without a ripple and now this. Janus could kill a man, and he knew which one. His eyes moved towards Altstadt, to the red slate roof of the showroom of the Holindt Watch Company. Christoph always had been the weak link, Janus observed, and his first mistake had been that aberrant adoption. Nature will always triumph over nurture.
It was something he'd told the company director from the very beginning.
There is no room for sentimentality in the pursuit of superiority, none at all.
He swung round abruptly and threw the can into a bin in the far corner of the room, narrowly missing Olek's head.

‘You want me to deal with the physicist?' the Slav asked.

‘No, not yet, we have to be careful.' Janus picked up the telephone and dialled a number. ‘Put me through to Chief Inspector Engels…' He put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned back to Olek. ‘When you're robbed, you phone the police, right?' he joked bitterly. Janus turned back to the receiver. ‘Johann? Listen, I have a problem with Matthias von Holindt. It seems he might have appropriated some property of mine that could prove deeply compromising if it ever saw the light of day…'

Olek leaned forward slightly, straining to hear the sound of the police inspector interjecting as he watched Janus's face. To his astonishment the arms manufacturer broke into a chuckle. ‘You're joking. When was this? Early this morning? So you have a whole unit on it? Good… obviously his father's death has unhinged him. Let me know when you pull him in.' Janus put the telephone down and turned back to Olek. ‘Matthias von Holindt's assistant has just been found murdered – and all the evidence points to him. All we have to do is wait for his arrest. Engels will make sure we deal with him.'

 

 

It was freezing in Helen's office. Outside she could hear the morning chatter of some of the students arriving for the day. She'd been there since six, driven out of bed by her insistent fear that her translation of the Sanskrit was not accurate enough to convey the true meaning. So now she was at her desk, surrounded by several massive reference books, staring at a colour illustration of the goddess perched on the dead body of her consort, her four arms waving madly, the spear in her lower right hand, the bloodstained, curved sword held in her top-right hand, her left hands clutching the customary severed head and dish of dripping blood, the garland of skulls hanging to her knees. It was both a seductive and repellent image – but Helen was very aware of her own cultural bias; a devotee would not have seen the goddess as destructive, more a destroyer of unreality, of the fear of death. In this way Kali was the great liberator, Helen told herself, but it was the paragraph beneath the text that disturbed her more.

As Helen reread the last sentence a chill ran through her. Was the statuette a weapon? It was a terrifying thought. Could it be used as a destructive force? Perhaps this was why the Nazis wanted it so much?

 

 

Matthias lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, having woken early, a deluge of possibilities destroying any further rest. He knew he should set out for the laboratory to do further tests on the sample he'd taken from the fragment, but the question of the valuables kept hijacking his train of thought. Should he just take the whole lot to the commission on war trading? Or to the UN, or just turn them in to the police? The trouble was that he didn't trust the police, and he didn't entirely trust the government, given the eminence of the individuals involved. No, he reasoned, perhaps the best plan would be to deliver the valuables to the Swiss Restitution and Research organisation, then take the story to the international press so that the government would be shamed into action. And he would make sure the gold coins and other objects were clearly defined as ‘gypsy gold'. The scandal would destroy Thomas and his bank – of that, Matthias was certain. The sound of the telephone broke into his strategising.

‘Herr Professor?'

Matthias recognised the young detective's voice immediately but what was more disturbing was Timo Meinholt's low and anxious tone.

‘Timo?' Why was he phoning so early?

‘You have to get out now… there's been a murder at the laboratory, Jannick Lund…'

‘Oh no…'
So the retaliation has finally started.
All he could think of was Jannick's face when he looked up from the microscope: the same expression of excitement and astonishment he'd known was on his own face. Whom had Jannick told?

‘Matthias, listen to me, focus on my voice, there is a patrol car heading over to your house to bring you in for questioning right now. Engels' men. You don't stand a chance. Leave immediately, go out the back way, don't use any of the main roads, disappear for a while.'

‘What about my daughter?'

‘They want you not her. Is there someone else at the house?'

‘My housekeeper.'

‘Good, tell her not to let anyone in until I get there, which will be in an hour or so. But promise me you get out now.'

‘I'm going, how do I reach you?'

‘You don't. They'll be watching me too. You're on your own.' The line went dead.

In minutes Matthias was in his car, accelerating down the back roads of Küsnacht.

 

Helen tried to call Matthias again. The first time she'd dialled the line was engaged. The phone, she knew, was by his bed. This time the phone just kept ringing out, as if there were now no one there to answer it. Where had Matthias got to?

 

Matthias watched the freeway. There were hardly any cars on the road. The odd commuter roaring past, a tractor, a car with German plates – most workers went into Zürich by train. Still, he had to get off this road. He pulled back out then took the next turn-off. There was no doubt in his mind that Jannick had been murdered for information and that whoever wanted that information also wanted to set Matthias up for the murder. Was it the cartel? Was Engels really involved? Either way he was now a wanted man. His car was registered; they would know his number plate. He'd left Liliane sleeping after telling Johanna to make sure that under no circumstances was Liliane to know about the murder or that the police wanted him for questioning. To his relief the housekeeper, ever unflappable, had remained calm. Matthias's first impulse had been to pack Liliane into the car, and drive across the border. But what good would that do? How would his arrest serve his daughter? They would both be fugitives.
Stop panicking. Think straight, logically.
I can't go to the authorities and proclaim innocence
–
the cartel is too powerful. I have to gather evidence first, finish what I have begun.

There was a car rental place he knew of. Hopefully the police hadn't radioed out a warning on his papers yet. But first he'd have to visit a chemist and buy some hair dye, make a withdrawal at a friendly bank, then find a bathroom at a garage. Finally he would make a few untraceable phone calls from a telephone booth.

 

 

Destin moved round the side of the physicist's house, hugging the walls. He'd arrived some time after eight and parked in the neighbour's empty driveway and waited, concealed by trees. He watched the police come and search the house then depart without Matthias, leaving behind a patrol car parked on the opposite kerb. Idiots.