The Black Madonna (17 page)

Nazreem slumped on the sofa like a marionette whose strings had been suddenly cut, her face ashen. Marcus put his hand on her shoulder and then turned towards the police lieutenant accusingly, but at the same time questioningly; he too could not believe what he had just heard. The senior policeman returned his attention, as if estimating to what extent the news he had broken was really a surprise.

The quality of disbelief on Marcus’s face, however, would have been hard for even the most accomplished actor to feign: ‘It’s not possible,’ he said simply. ‘There has to be a mistake. We were with her until after seven p.m.’

‘My point exactly,’ the policeman said.

‘I mean, she couldn’t have … What happened? How on earth …?’ Marcus let his voice trail off; the last question was the only one to which he had an inkling of the answer.

‘We were hoping you could enlighten us. Sister Galina had not left the institute for several days. She had been unwell. Nervous tension, a state of shock, following … following the incident, of which I believe you are aware.’

Marcus nodded. Nazreem’s eyes were downcast, focusing on nothing, or something deep in the recesses of her mind, to all intents and purposes cut off from the world around her. But at the reference to ‘the incident’ she twitched suddenly. Marcus was afraid she was about to faint. The second policeman, the one who had remained standing called something in German over to the receptionist who disappeared and then came back with a glass of water, hovering with an expression of concern and ill-concealed curiosity until she was politely but firmly waved away. But Nazreem ignored the proffered water, shaking her head and the policeman left it on the table in front of her.

‘As I said,’ the lieutenant continued, ‘Sister Galina had not been
out of the institute for more than five days. Then suddenly you arrive and immediately afterwards she disappears.’

‘Disappears?’

‘Just like that.’

‘Nobody disappears just like that.’

‘I quite agree. Perhaps you would like to tell us exactly what
happened
when you left.’

‘What? Of course. Nothing happened. We … we said goodbye to her shortly after seven p.m. and then drove straight back to Munich.’ Even as the words were leaving his mouth Marcus realised he was telling the truth but not the whole truth. But how could he even begin to explain about the ‘black riders’? And what was there to tell? They had been hassled by a couple of bikers, that was all. Anything else was his imagination. That was how it would sound. But he could not get the sinister image out of his head. Had there just been the two of them on bikes? Had there been others, agents of whatever or whoever was pursuing Nazreem and her missing Madonna,
lingering
around the square, in the dark shadows of the great churches, watching and waiting? He had thought not, but maybe he had simply not been thinking.

‘She showed you out?’ the policeman asked.

‘Yes. No, not exactly.’ They had said goodbye at the doorway of the little sitting room. The nun had held Nazreem’s hand and looked into her eyes and watched as they opened the door to the street. Marcus was almost certain he had seen her close the sitting-room door again as they left, and said so.

‘But nobody else saw you leave alone? None of the other sisters.’

‘I … no, I don’t think so.’ The hallway had been empty. The nun who had opened the door for them earlier was nowhere to be seen, and there had not seemed any point in looking for her.

‘Sister Amelia, the nun who let you in, says she went back to the room where you held your conversation just after eight p.m. and found it empty. One of the younger sisters, a novice, said she saw Sister Galina go out about half an hour earlier, wearing only a light raincoat. The novice assumed she was going to the chapel, to pray. It was something she used to do in the evenings apparently. The young nun wasn’t aware she hadn’t been out since … the incident.’

Marcus thought back to the night before, the dark clouds and the heavy, almost viscous raindrops splattering on the windscreen
as he gunned the car engine into life in the all but empty square. Empty save for the two men on motorbikes, the two who played tag with them on the country roads and then the autobahn, his sinister ‘ring wraith’ figures in black. He had a vision of that faceless opaque helmet turning to peer in through the passenger window, then pulling back and disappearing, as if frightened away by the bright lights of the oncoming city.

Could the faceless men on motorbikes have been merely a decoy, something to distract him and Nazreem from their real target? Had there been men hiding perhaps by the life-size crucifixes deposited under the awning surrounding the little chapel, malevolent figures concealed among the votive pictures he had found so
disconcertingly
sinister? Men with chloroform-soaked rags, a car with a waiting empty boot, ready to take the near-lifeless body of a
middle-aged
woman in holy orders who had already had the shock of a
lifetime
? But how could they have known she would go out alone? And why did she? Had she really felt so bound by her promise to pray for Nazreem that she had gone out almost immediately, on a wet, unseasonably wintry night, to fulfil it straight away? She could have prayed where she was, couldn’t she?

But no, he realised, not after that conversation, dominated as it had been by the brooding presence of the dark figurine in its niche, surrounded by guttering candles and silver urns of human hearts. No, if she had wanted to pray for the quest she imagined Nazreem to be on, to recover a stolen image of the true Mother of God, and at the same time to exorcise the evil memory of the evidence of
atrocity
, she would have wanted to be in the presence of the Madonna. That was the true purpose that images like that served, he had long ago been told by a Catholic theologian, the excuse for the apparent idolatry, that figures of the saints, the Virgin, even Christ himself, were not objects of veneration in themselves but conduits,
something
on which to concentrate in the act of prayer, mental
conversation
with the Almighty.

He had thought it a lot of hypocritical hokum himself, but he had every reason to suppose that for most intelligent Catholics
something
like that made up part of their acceptance of the Church’s customs. For the more simple-minded, no such construct was
necessary
; they would be content with the painted images. He could not be certain which camp Sister Galina fell into, but he felt wholly
certain that if she had gone out to pray she would have gone to the little chapel in the middle of the great square.

He could see her walking out there, a dumpy little figure, a scarf pulled over her head, bowed against the rain, the thin raincoat pulled tight around her, heading for the witch’s hat chapel in the middle of that great empty square. Empty except for sinister men on motorbikes.

‘Maybe she was feeling better,’ he said, thinking of the way she and Nazreem had seemed to strike up some sort of affinity. But he knew it wasn’t an adequate answer. ‘Time to return to her old routine,’ but even in his own mind he could imagine no good coming from the woman going out to seek comfort from an ancient wooden statue that he could no longer think of in any terms other than as a black-magic talisman. Everywhere they went the symbol of a black Madonna exerted a baleful influence, even by proxy.

‘Yes, I suppose that is possible,’ the policeman was saying. ‘Except that there is no evidence that she went there. The novice who saw her leave says it was shortly before eight p.m. – the chapel normally closes at eight, and the porter who locked up saw no sign of her or anyone else. In fact he says the rain had come on so hard the whole town centre was deserted. On his way back to his own
accommodation
in the lower town he says he saw only one person, a man in a black beret leaving the Gents’ toilets. Do you mind if I ask where you and Ms Hashrawi were by that time.’

‘Not at all,’ Marcus did not like the suspicious tone to the man’s voice: ‘We were halfway back to Munich.’

‘I see. And you came straight to this hotel?’

‘Yes.’

The two policemen exchanged looks.

‘Can I ask what your plans are for the next few days?’ the
lieutenant
asked Marcus.

‘Yes, that is, well, we had intended to go back to Altötting to have another chat with Sister Galina. But under the circumstances …’

‘Quite,’ the policeman said. ‘However, also under the
circumstances
I hope you understand I will have to ask you not to leave Munich without letting us know.’

‘Of course,’ said Marcus automatically before adding: ‘But why? Surely you can’t think we had anything to do with her
disappearance
? Is there some reason to fear something has happened to her?’

The policeman was shaking his head. ‘I’m afraid that’s something we don’t know,’ he said. ‘So if you don’t mind. It would be a courtesy.’ His attitude said it was a courtesy he expected to be heeded. They shook hands formally and left.

The receptionist gave them another glacial smile as they turned from the door and then, almost reluctantly, reached below the desk and handed Nazreem a plain white envelope. It was sealed but only lightly and Marcus could see in the woman’s eyes the temptation to have opened it in the presence of the policemen.

Almost absent-mindedly Nazreem ran a finger under the fold, took out and unfolded a single sheet with a small printed crest at the top. She glanced at it and then quickly at the woman behind the desk: ‘How did you get this? And when?’

‘It was delivered,’ she said, clearly kicking herself now for not having yielded to the temptation. ‘First thing this morning. By hand, a courier. Is there anything wrong? Is there anything I can do?’ Her neck was craning forward in an attempt to make out anything of what was written on the paper, but Nazreem folded it away quickly and turned towards the corridor leading to the lifts. Marcus hurried after her, well aware of the mistrust and suspicion written on the receptionist’s heavily powdered face.

‘I hope there’s no need for me to call back the police,’ she said icily to his retreating back.

‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ called Marcus as he caught up with Nazreem at the foot of the stairs, just out of the receptionist’s line of sight.

‘What is it?’ he said. ‘What’s the matter?’

She shook her head, staring past him at the wall, and handed him the unfolded letter. It bore the plain blue heading of the Institut der Englischen Fräulein, and beneath, written in ink with an
old-fashioned
fountain pen and a clear, steady hand:

‘It’s in Latin, just two lines and some numbers,’ Marcus said: ‘
Nox luxque aeterna
. A poetic phrasing. Eternal night, eternal light.’

‘It’s the bit below that matters.’

‘
Spero in matre dei, regina caeli
. I place my hope in the Mother of God, Queen of Heaven.’

‘It’s from Sister Galina,’ said Nazreem with total certainty. ‘It’s her way of telling us she’s in trouble.’

Beneath was the single word ‘Guadalupe’ and a cross followed by
a series of eleven numbers, all but the last three grouped in pairs. It began +34 91 76 …’

‘And this has to be a coded message of some sort.’

‘I don’t think it’s a very complex code,’ said Marcus. ‘It looks to me like a telephone number.’

The two policemen sat in the unmarked Mercedes on Sendlinger Strasse, a few dozen metres from the hotel. There were noisy
tourists
pouring out of one of the big beer houses and glancing up at the dark clouds gathering above. Munich was in for another downpour. Lieutenant Weinert grunted as he turned the key in the ignition and with more than the usual cursory glance in his rear-view mirror pulled out into the light traffic.

‘What did you think?’ he said to the bulky shape of his colleague.

‘Think?’

‘Of our love birds?’

‘For a start I didn’t think they were that.’

‘Really,’ the police lieutenant raised an eyebrow.

‘I don’t know,’ Hulpe continued. ‘There was just something about them, about the woman in particular, as if she wasn’t involved. Not just with him, with anything. Until you mentioned the nun. Then she looked as if she’d been hit by a train.’

‘Maybe she’d been thinking of going into holy orders herself?’

‘She’s Palestinian, with a name like that, even if her passport is French.’

Weinert shrugged. ‘Who knows? Some of them are Christian, I believe. And why else would she come all this way just to see a statue of the Virgin Mary? If that’s really why they’re here.’

‘You think maybe it isn’t? You think there’s a connection? To the nun’s disappearance? Or to the other thing?’

Weinert turned onto the inner ring road, accelerated into the underpass and through it before turning north over the
Donnersberger
Bridge that crossed the railway tracks, then taking a right and finally a left into Maillinger Strasse.

‘Are you having me on?’ said Hulpe as they pushed through the swing doors into the lobby of the Landeskriminalamt and strode towards the lifts. All the way back in the car he had been trying to make the connection but had so far failed.

‘Don’t you think it’s a bit funny to say the least, the whole
business
? I mean the Palestinian connection. First some nun gets a plastic bag full of mutilated body parts dumped in front of her that turn out to belong to a wanted terrorist who apparently doesn’t die until a day later, in a supposed suicide bombing in the Gaza Strip. Doesn’t make sense for a start.

‘Then within days up pops a Palestinian woman, from Gaza too as it happens, who just decides she wants to make a pilgrimage to a Roman Catholic shrine and happens to drop in for a cup of coffee with the nun in question, who subsequently vanishes off the face of the earth. Yes, I think there’s a connection. In fact I think there’s more than a connection. I think there’s a whole bloody Gordian knot of connections.’

‘A what?’

Weinert sighed. He had long since given up on his deputy’s lack of a decent classical education. ‘Never mind. It was a famous puzzle, a test. They said only the greatest of men could solve it.’

The lift opened, they got in and Weinert waited until his deputy pressed the button for the third floor.

‘And did anyone?’

‘Anyone what?’

‘Solve it, untie the knot?’

‘Oh, just one man, Alexander the Great.’

The lift door opened and they walked out into the big open-plan office that was the main work area for the rank-and-file of Munich CID.

‘He cut through it with a sword.’

‘Sounds a bit like cheating to me.’

‘Yeah. Me too. Later, Monika, later,’ he said to the dark-haired woman who had got up from her desk and was approaching him with several bundles of paper.

Seeing there was little hope of getting the lieutenant’s immediate attention she dumped the lot in his in-tray, on top of an already
substantial
pile and was heading for the safety of her own cubicle when Hulpe caught her by the arm and said, in his best
conspiratorial-cum-ingratiating
manner: ‘A couple of cups of strong coffee would be cool.’

‘They certainly would be by the time you got them. What do you think I am, a secretary?’

‘Sorry, sergeant,’ grimaced Hulpe. He knew when he was being put in his place.

‘Maybe we can all sit down over a nice cup of coffee when he gets his head around that lot.’

‘Anything particularly pressing in it?’

‘Maybe, maybe not. But that just came through on the Europol link,’ she said, lifting one sheet from the pile and thrusting it into his hands. ‘From London. Top priority, it says. And that tends to mean their spooks rather than Scotland Yard these days. I printed it out specially.’

Weinert looked up, wrinkled his nose and snatched the sheet of paper irritably: ‘Fucking hell!’ he said, ignoring Monika’s stern frown. ‘Fucking bloody hell!’

He had found a sword all right, a double-edged one. There were two photographs on the sheet of paper, beneath an urgent request for any information or sightings to be passed to the security services of the United Kingdom. They were unmistakably those of the South African man and Palestinian woman they had left less than twenty minutes ago.

‘Come on,’ he called to Hulpe, turning on his heel and heading straight for the staircase. ‘Let’s hope the birds haven’t already flown.’