The Stolen (44 page)

For a moment the two gypsies looked as if they couldn't understand his anger, then a look of sudden comprehension swept across Latcos's face.

‘What? You think I would exploit my own heritage in this manner? Now it is my turn to be insulted!'

‘Then explain why you are taking a mould,' Matthias shouted back. The two men glared at each other; it was like watching two bulls lower horns and pace the ground. Raga, his hand frozen in mid-gesture, the modelling tool held in mid-air, watched on, fascinated.

Finally Latcos broke the deadlock. ‘For security, you idiot. I am not going to make hundreds of her, but just one. The real one my family will hide. Never again will she be taken. This was the best plan of protection I could think of.'

‘Holy Mother, you two might have been born on different sides of the fence, but you are like two peas in the pod – both of you have more balls than brain.' Raga turned to Latcos. ‘The
gadjo
really is your brother.'

Latcos shrugged. ‘So God willed it,' he said unhappily.

‘I apologise, Latcos, I presumed…'

‘What all
gadjé
presume, that we are all thieves,' Latcos, still insulted, concluded.

‘Even if we were, we would never steal from ourselves,' Raga cheerfully elaborated, returning to his modelling.

‘I was just worried about the statuette.'

‘See for yourself. The statue is unharmed – you would be shocked by the value and antiquity of the pieces I have cast,' Raga told Matthias. ‘Not everything in those expensive houses is original. I have very powerful clients in Rome. I have even made replicas that have then been stolen and the insurance for the genuine art claimed for and paid.'

‘I told you he was a genius,' Latcos told Matthias. A frantic knocking at the door interrupted them and Keja burst in, looking frantic. ‘Matthias, Matthias, your woman is here. Your daughter has been taken!'

 

‘Viscon. It has to be,' Matthias said. They were back in Latcos's caravan. Keja brewed coffee on the stove while Latcos stood by the radio listening for news. ‘I knew he was after something,' Matthias continued. ‘I shouldn't have left them this morning; this is my fault.' He paced the caravan, in obvious distress.

‘If it's the Frenchman I know where he lives. I can go for her immediately; he doesn't have a chance against me.' Latcos ran his finger across his throat to illustrate the point.

‘There is something else.' Helen's voice was grim. ‘The inscription on the statuette's arm – I have fully translated it.'

Keja looked appalled. ‘You read it? This is not for
gadjé
eyes,
lazavarde
– shameful!'

‘Forgive me,
dej
, I did not mean to be disrespectful.' Helen turned to Matthias. ‘The inscription is a warning – it reads: “To release the goddess's secret is to receive her blessing and free the souls of all mankind”.'

‘How is a blessing a warning?' Matthias was incredulous.

‘Kali is the great liberator of mortal life; to free the souls of all mankind is what we would know as Armageddon. It is telling you the power of the statuette is destructive.'

‘Only if it is abused,' Keja said.

‘Matthias, we need to take her back where she belongs, to the temple in Rajasthan,' Helen insisted.

‘No, she stays here with her people!' Latcos said angrily.

‘We will go to India to find the source of the ore – after we get Liliane back.' Matthias's stern voice silenced the others. Just then the radio announcer's voice resounded through the caravan:

‘A further body, believed to be that of Johanna Thalsmann, fifty-three, a housekeeper in the employment of Herr von Holindt, was found at the Küsnacht mansion this morning. Von Holindt's fifteen-year-old daughter is also said to be missing, possibly abducted.'

‘Johanna, poor Johanna…' Matthias covered his face with his hands and Latcos turned the radio off.

‘I will go to the Frenchman's house now,' he announced.

‘I'm coming too.'

‘No, Matthias, already you are a big criminal; soon your face will be on every TV station and time is short. If I go now I can be back within two hours. We must get Liliane back and then you must run, my brother.'

‘What does this Frenchman look like?' Keja suddenly asked.

‘Why?' Matthias looked amazed at the question.

‘It is best not to question a
phuri dej
,' Latcos interjected.

‘He's of medium height, youthful for late thirties. Oh, and he has one green eye and one blue.'

Keja nodded thoughtfully, then reached into a basket and began making something with some cloth.

Matthias couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so powerless. ‘Destin won't be at his house – too dangerous.'

‘It's worth a try,' Latcos said.

‘We need a plan for the Bahnhofplatz. It's full of people at nine in the morning and I'm sure it's a trap.'

‘It is only a trap if you walk in without knowing it is a trap, my brother. Remember it is far easier to disappear in a large group of people, especially if you are used to being treated as if you are invisible,' Latcos said cryptically. ‘Trust me, I can make you invisible.'

‘What I don't understand is how he knew about the existence of the statuette,' said Helen.

‘Jannick must have told him before he murdered him,' Matthias replied. ‘Destin probably befriended him to learn about our experiments and Jannick paid for his betrayal with his life. I should have realised he was the weak link.' He turned to Latcos. ‘How fast can Raga make the replica?'

‘Very fast, and when he hears it is to save your daughter he will be faster. We can have it finished by tomorrow morning. It might not look perfect but it will look real enough, God help us.'

‘Destin would never have seen it, right? There were no images in the laboratory?' Helen asked.

‘None, but I'm assuming Jannick told him it was superconductive. Destin claimed he was representing a company interested in SRT superconductivity for industrial non-military purposes. I never believed him. But Jannick was ambitious and we didn't always agree on the way the lab was run or the line of research. I kept him on because his methodology was complementary to mine.'

‘But how are you going to fake the superconductivity? This Destin guy won't just take it blind, surely?' Helen asked.

The test tube with the filings from the statuette was still in Matthias's briefcase.

‘I have an idea. I need to talk to Raga.' He pulled Latcos aside. ‘As soon as we get Liliane and the statuette back, I make my trip and you make that delivery, understand? No matter what happens. Swear it, on my life and your own.'

‘I swear it,
te merav
, may I die,' Latcos said solemnly.

‘Good. Once Herr Rechtschild gets the Nazis' plunder the agency will take over; they will make arrests and prosecute. Trust me on this.'

‘I trust you. But I don't trust the Swiss government, nor any
gadjé
government.'

‘Herr Rechtschild is not the Swiss government. He has a personal investment in such matters and a tattooed number on his arm to prove it.'

‘Okay, I am prepared to wait and see, but until then, my brother, you have to do more than just dye your hair to disappear as Matthias von Holindt. Do you play any instrument?'

‘The flute. I'm very good at it,' he admitted, a little embarrassed.

‘The flute! What are you, a woman?' Latcos looked appalled.

‘Latcos, respect,' Keja said.

Matthias shrugged. ‘So a flute it will have to be – not very Roma.'

 

‘Son, put this under his front door.' Keja pushed a small doll made from cloth and clay into Latcos's hand; the small head had one blue eye and one green eye scrawled crudely on it with ink and a large pin stuck out from its back. ‘It has the power of the evil spirit Cohani within it and will kill him,' she said. Latcos tucked it out of sight in his pocket and turned the key to start the Chevy.

‘Go inside,
dej
, it's too cold for you out here.'

Keja lifted her thin, worn face towards the trees, which rustled in a breeze. She seemed to read something carried on the air. ‘Liliane is still alive; she's frightened but strong. She is using her fear to leave her prison with her mind. This will keep her strong. Don't forget she is of our blood, Latcos.'

 

 

The proprietor of the Kronenhalle, a matron in her early fifties sporting a blonde beehive hairstyle, a faint moustache and bright red lipstick, wove her way through the tables, smiling and chatting to the lunchtime regulars with diplomatic ease.

Janus Zellweger and Chief Inspector Engels sat in a corner booth, hunched over their Zürcher Geschetzeltes mit Rösti. The proprietor knew better than to approach them, and with a fixed, neutral smile she slid past to the next table.

The arms manufacturer jabbed grimly at his veal; it was his first meal of the day and, uncharacteristically, he'd slept badly, his dreams filled with collapsing houses and the roar of an army he'd stood saluting in over thirty years before. He did not like to be reminded of the past and he had the strong feeling it was about to tumble upon him as unpredictably as an avalanche and just as deadly.

‘You've found him yet?' he hissed, barely able to look at the detective; if it had been his men he'd sent after the physicist Matthias von Holindt would be at the bottom of the Zürichsee by now, or at least incarcerated in some third-world holding pen.

‘We've searched all the possible locations but he seems to have vanished,' Engels said, distracted by the russet colour of the wine Janus was now swirling at the base of his glass. He hadn't had a drink for over six months and the scent of the 1978 Clos des Epeneaux drifted over the table, making him salivate.

‘I would say it is virtually impossible to vanish in Switzerland.' Janus stabbed his meat again. Matthias's disappearance was beginning to feel like the otherwise insignificant number in a mathematical equation that suddenly triggered the unravelling of all the other related sums – the equations Janus had built up over time to make sense of his world, more than that, to
thrive
in his world. ‘Especially with a troublesome heroin-addicted fifteen-year-old daughter,' he added emphatically.

‘If the daughter is with him,' Engels added, his focus distracted by the violence of Zellweger's fork-wielding gestures.

‘Of course she is with him! Our professor is an obsessive who's lost it and he'll kill again, Johann. It is your duty to bring him in and quickly.'

‘My men are the best in the country; it's only a question of time.'

‘I haven't
got
fucking time.' Janus's raised voice drew stares and a slight lull in the rumble of lunchtime chatter. He put down his fork and knife, and took a long swig of the wine in the futile hope it would dampen his fury.

Engels waited. He knew the temper tantrums, although potentially deadly, tended to pass quickly. Finally the chief inspector spoke. ‘Janus, there's something else, isn't there?'

‘
Naturally
I'm concerned for the reputation of my dear departed friend Christoph von Holindt – the sins of the son should not be inflicted upon the father and all that shit. And
naturally
there is also the reputation of the Holindt Watch Company; I have shares in that company, considerable shares. Not to mention the impact this is going to have on the canton and its people —'

‘Don't play with me, I know you better than that.'

Janus met the chief inspector's gaze.

‘Christoph and I, well, you know we went back a long way. So, like a lot of art collectors and collectors of antiquities, we came by a few bargains after the war. And, like a lot of the good bürghers of this town, we naturally took advantage of these bargains.'

‘Business is business,' Engels said by way of encouragement.

‘Business was business right up until the last day of the war, you know that, and all was right with the world until 1962. Then both the Swiss and the American Jewish community, as well as Israel, kicked up all that fuss, and we found we had an embarrassment on our hands. So we took precautions. Is that such a crime? And let's face it, Engels, we were not the only ones. And now, Matthias von Holindt has taken advantage of those precautions.'

‘How much, Janus? And how visible?'

‘The works were completely invisible, trust me. But he found them. I was betrayed, Johann, and you know how much I value loyalty – your father was loyal. You are loyal. It is paramount.'

‘I understand.'

‘I hope for your sake you do. Alas, Christoph von Holindt did not. He'd changed towards the end of his life, had regrets. I have none – so don't give me reason to develop any.'

‘I promise we will have the son by the end of the week.'