The Stolen (50 page)

The mask had once again slipped back over Janus's features; now Destin found it impossible to gauge his emotional reaction at all – but then again, this impenetrability was what the billionaire was famous for.

‘Indeed, I have heard of such things,' he said softly. ‘And how do you think Matthias von Holindt got the object?'

‘I believe he stole it,' Destin answered confidently. There was a pause, during which a very strange flicker of emotion rippled across the arms manufacturer's face, and for the first time since he had stepped into the offices of Zellweger Industries Destin felt some apprehension – there was something here he didn't know, some concealed information. Now he regretted the surrender of his gun to the Russian – a prerequisite to the meeting. Luckily he still had a stick-knife concealed in a pen in his breast pocket; its presence provided some reassurance.

Janus stood and walked around the statuette, and with one thick finger he caressed the surface of the figurine as lightly and tenderly as if it were a real woman. It was like watching a shark circling its prey – and curiously obscene. Even Destin found himself begrudgingly admiring the utterly sinister presence of this man.

‘I'm sure he did,' Janus said finally.

‘You'll be happy to know I only eliminated a couple of minor characters in the process of procuring it, and it's going to be impossible to prove that it originally belonged to the physicist.'

‘Let me guess. Was one of those minor characters the physicist's housekeeper, the other his lab assistant?'

‘Perhaps.'

‘It is so entertaining how life presents these terrible ironies.' Janus continued to examine the statuette.

‘Of course, if you're not interested there are other buyers,' Destin ventured, wondering if he would be able to push the price up further.

‘You really are an amusing man.' Janus was standing back behind his desk. He pushed a suitcase towards Destin, who flicked the catch open and began counting the bundles of hundred-dollar notes. As the Frenchman leaned down, Janus gave Olek the slightest of nods. After five minutes Destin snapped shut the suitcase.

‘The rest will be deposited into your account. Olek will see you out.' Janus's tone left no opening for further discussion. Destin picked up the suitcase and began heading towards the door.

‘Not that way, I have a private lift that will take you out the back.'

 

The two men stood silently as the small steel lift descended. At the third floor it shuddered to a halt. Destin didn't like the way the Russian was standing slightly behind him and he didn't like that the size of the elevator meant the two men were uncomfortably close. Close enough for Destin to smell the Slav's sweat. Olek shrugged. ‘It always does this at the third floor. Just hit the button again.'

As Destin reached out to hit the button again, he felt a slight rustle of air behind the back of his head. A split second later his blood barely splattered the wall. The lift started to move again and Olek removed the silencer from his gun and leaned over the Frenchman's body to press the button for the basement and the incinerator. It was then that he noticed a small cloth doll poking out of the man's pocket. He pulled it out. Two eyes – one green, one blue – the same colour as the dead man's had been crudely drawn on the bunched cloth that made up the puppet's head and a large pin was stuck into the back in the same trajectory the Russian's bullet had made through the body. Olek had seen such things made by Satanists in prison. Shivering with disgust, he dropped the doll back onto the corpse.

 

Janus picked up the silver letter-opener his granddaughter had given him for his sixtieth birthday and scratched at the surface of the figurine. Immediately the layer of sparkling metal wore away, revealing a dull lead colour underneath. He stared at the figurine for a good five minutes then picked up the telephone to order a car to the airfield where his private plane was kept.

 

The Hillman Minx bounced over a pothole, causing Matthias to hit his head against the padded roof of the old car for what felt like the hundredth time, while Helen clutched at the door handle trying to steady herself. Their driver and guide, a loquacious man in his early thirties wearing an ancient Harris tweed jacket over his bare chest and a white dhoti, cursed in Hindi, then apologised.

‘Good sir and madam, we are almost there, almost there. As I promised, this car she is solid as a ship! My grandfather brought her over from Sheffield, Great Britain, in 1958 and she has served my family ever since. Without one complaint. That is the result of the most fantastic British engineering. But you are not British?'

He peered at Matthias through the cracked rear-view mirror, from which hung the most extraordinary collection of good-luck charms; from a plastic Minnie Mouse to Buddha to Ganesh, all twisting and dancing with each jolt of the car.

Helen looked up from under the brim of her sunhat. ‘I am American, my friend is —'

‘German?' the driver asked suspiciously for the tenth time that morning.

‘That's right, German,' Matthias insisted, having decided it would be better to confuse any possible leads to his true identity.

They had arrived in Jaipur at four a.m. local time so had spent a couple of uncomfortable hours in the arrivals hall. Matthias had been worried that Viscon would be following, and had been extremely anxious to start out for the crater site. Finally they'd been directed to a driver, who was originally from Ramgarh, by a supposed tour operator who approached them at the taxi stand and offered to get them there by nightfall. They'd driven straight through Tonk, stopping only to fill the petrol tank with an old can of kerosene the driver kept in the boot, then he had bought lunch in Indergarh and insisted they drive on to Mangrol. There, to Matthias's extreme annoyance, he'd taken a short detour to pick up packages, the packages consisting of some kind of dried meat (the scent of which seeped into the car from the boot), an old fridge tied up with string, sari material and a variety of ancient first-aid equipment. They'd lost about an hour, according to Matthias's calculations, and he'd lost his temper. Nevertheless, his outrage had propelled the driver into suddenly driving at breakneck speed and the dusty outline of Ramgarh village was now on the horizon.

‘Finally we have arrived at our illustrious destination!' the driver yelled over the racket of the engine. ‘There is the gem of all Rajasthan, Ramgarh village.' He pointed to a couple of dusty sienna-coloured mud huts looming at the side of the road. Through the cloud of red dust kicked up by the wheels, Matthias could see a row of small raised hills that seemed to stretch on either side of the village, forming a ring.

‘And over there?' he asked the driver, pointing.

‘Shiva temples, very old, very holy, built into the hillside by the great Raja Malay Varman. Many gods and goddesses are there and some naughtiness,' he finished, with a leer at Helen as he pulled the car up beside a drinks stand – four wooden poles covered by a grass woven mat with a rickety wooden table set up beneath, an ancient woman in a red sari sitting beside it, her face stretched into a toothless grin. A row of bruised mangos sat before her as she switched a palm leaf backwards and forwards in a futile attempt to keep a swarm of flies from settling. An old 1960s sign advertising Pepsi Cola was leaned up against an abandoned oil drum. Tethered to a pole, a stick-thin goat with red, raw udders turned mournfully towards the car as Matthias and Helen climbed out, followed by the driver, who, after collecting the packages from the boot, joined them at the side of the road. Already a swarm of raggedy children had started to appear as they emerged shyly from the doorways of the huts, several running in from a nearby field – little more than a dusty, dried patch of red earth.

‘But I can't take you there, so sorry. It is against my religion, but I will find someone who will. Come. We walk to the town hall.'

It was a dome-roofed white building, with the distinct features of British colonial architecture, next to a small police station. A row of ancient bicycles were parked outside it, and a skeletal mule stood under a tree, its ears twitching away the flies. Three middle-aged men, one in a police uniform, sprawled on chairs in the shade of the town hall, watching a game of chess being played with languid indifference by one very young man in a white turban and an old man in a dark red turban. A cockerel with a flaming purple and red cockscomb strutted on skinny legs behind the table, and squatting in the dusty gutter was a man with an orange and yellow turban, the red and white spot of the holy man painted between his brows, rocking in some private meditation.

As they approached, followed by their giggling and chattering escort of trailing children, the three men stood, staring at the visitors warily, while the chess players, oblivious to their arrival, continued their game. The driver approached one of the men and, placing his hands together in a prayer gesture, he bowed his head in respect.

‘Uncle, I bring you some honoured visitors who wish to explore the Shiva temples and some of the unusual geological features of our wonderful land,' he told him in English.

The man, tall and plump, in his late fifties, seemed to assess both Matthias's strength and size as well as his potential wealth. He didn't even bother to look at Helen. He swung back to the driver and barked something in Hindi before disappearing into the doorway of the town hall. The other men remained stock-still and silent, and even the children stopped chattering to melt away as fast as they had appeared. Matthias glanced at the policeman.

‘They are suspicious of you, so the next guy we have to impress,' Helen said softly under her breath. A second later the man re-emerged, escorted by an even taller and fatter man with a magnificent handlebar moustache and a bright yellow silk turban who was also wearing gold earrings and rings. Immediately a wave of reverence ran through the waiting men and the driver bowed in respect.

‘Arjun Rama Singh, these visitors are waiting for your honourable guidance and advice.' He tilted his head towards Matthias. ‘Arjun Singh is the leader of our village. This is an honour.'

‘You have come to see the Shiva temples?' Arjun Singh stepped out from the shadow of the doorway and now Matthias could see he was younger than he'd thought. He also spoke perfect English with a public-school accent. Heartened by the sophistication of his English and the faint smile that played behind the enormous moustache, Matthias moved forward.

‘Actually, I want to explore an interesting geological formation known as the Ramgarh Structure – have you heard of it?' He fished into his pocket and brought out the fragment from the statuette and held it up, the blue-grey surface catching the sunlight like a beacon. ‘I think this might have come from it.'

It was as if the temperature had suddenly dropped. The reaction to the appearance of the metal fragment was instant: several children covered their eyes and turned away as if they had been caught looking at something that was sacrosanct. The holy man who had been sitting in the gutter was now on his feet, staring over, his eyes glazed as he rocked himself, chanting a mantra.

Arjun Singh reached out and closed Matthias's hand over the fragment. ‘Please, put this away; it does not belong out here under the open sky.'

‘So you have seen it before?' Matthias's voice was harsh with excitement.

Arjun Singh, frowning, brushed a fly from his face, failing to disguise his fury.

‘The Ramgarh Structure does not exist. It is a fiction made up by greedy developers who wish to destroy our culture. I trust you are not one of these?'

The hostility was palpable.

‘No, I'm not. Nevertheless I would like —'

‘Nevertheless,' Singh interrupted him, ‘we will be happy to show you the Shiva temples tomorrow, under the auspices of our official guide,' he indicated the policeman, ‘but in the meanwhile I insist you experience the gracious hospitality of the Ramgarh Hotel and tea garden.' He pointed to a ramshackle building across the road – plaster effigies of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were mounted on two pillars that framed the front gate and a landscaped garden that had seen better days stretched behind it. Beyond that the hotel entrance peeped out between two palm trees. Just then a white, balding peacock strutted out between the pillars.

 

 

Liliane had made her mind up; in fact she'd made her mind up the moment she finally heard what her mother had said out loud only seconds before her death. And no matter how she tried to dismiss the plan as too dangerous or too audacious it had stayed there, growing in strength. But it had only been later in the afternoon that she remembered Destin's gun she'd left hidden at Willi's squat.

She glanced over at Keja. Her grandmother was sleeping, her face pinched in pain, framed by an embroidered bedspread. Momentarily overcome by the spreading cancer, she had taken to her bed. But Liliane was determined. She would leave first thing in the morning – she had no choice – not if she wanted the ghosts to leave her alone.

 

 

The ceiling fan spun slowly, the only respite from the stifling heat. Matthias collapsed in a cane armchair while Helen emptied her rucksack.

‘We can go out ourselves – there have to be some geological features we can spot that will lead us to a potential site,' she said cautiously, having tactfully managed to navigate Matthias's darkening mood for the past hour.

‘Maybe, but I suspect we'd risk getting murdered by the local constabulary. Did you see how people reacted when I produced the fragment of the statuette? We're close, I know it – obviously there's been some local mythology built up around the crater site, negative by the looks of it – even the men seemed scared.'

She stopped, a T-shirt half-folded in her hands. ‘What would be the long-term effect of the ore on the environment? Would it affect people living around it?'

‘Possibly. Remember the Kalderash attributed both positive and negative powers to the statuette itself.'

‘Whatever the reason, whatever the myth, everyone seems petrified here.'

They were interrupted by a loud tap on the balcony door that led onto the grounds of the dilapidated but once grand hotel. A man stood at the window, his painted face pressed hopefully against the glass – a grotesque mask. He gestured for them to let him in.

‘Jesus Christ.' Startled, Helen dropped her clothes. Matthias sprang up from the armchair.

‘Don't worry, it's just that man who was sitting in the gutter – the holy man.' He opened the balcony door.

‘Thank you, professor, thank you.' The holy man stepped in. Near naked, with just a loin cloth around his groin, his hands and feet hennaed red, his ribs a gaunt bone cage, he wore a rosary of wooden beads about his neck and strands of thin grey hair dangled from his dusty orange and yellow turban. ‘You seek the ring of rocks known as the Ramgarh Structure?'

‘You've heard of it?' Matthias asked.

‘Everyone has heard of it in this village – every family over the generations has been touched by its wrath. But we call it something else, professor.'

‘How do you know I am a professor?'

‘I know that you are a professor and the Messenger. I have been waiting for you.'

‘Waiting for me?' Matthias glanced at Helen, concerned that the man might not be in full control of his mental faculties.

‘As soon as you held up a piece of her flesh-made-stone I knew. Please, do not be worried, I am a Sadhu, a follower of the Kalika Purana on the path to purification. My name to you is Ravi, and I am a very good judge of character. I have learned to read people.' He reached over and took Matthias's hands, turning them palm up. ‘Also your hands, they are soft, not a working man's hands, so I know you are a scholar. I am not afraid of the goddess, I am her devotee and we all carry our birth and death within us all our lives; we cannot run from this – better we race towards it with real joy. My time has come. You are to be my heir; I feel this as sharply as the sun on my skin. The signs are in the sky. It is time the goddess woke.'