The Furies (4 page)

Gabriel blinked. ‘Good…good,' he finally said, noting a strange half-smile play on her lips. ‘Well, enjoy your afternoon off, Gudrun.'

She did not reply, but the smile faded slightly before she turned away and walked back towards the counter. Peculiar girl, thought Gabriel, as he lifted the cup and inhaled the reviving aroma of fresh coffee. He took a sip, relishing the rich flavour flowing over his tongue, and then, still holding his cup, sat back in his chair as his thoughts returned to General Oskar Potiorek.

Because there was something deeply unsettling about the man, Gabriel reflected. He knew that Potiorek – who had been appointed governor of Bosnia only two years earlier – was an intelligent individual with a good reputation as a strategic planner: his attention to detail and hard work ethos were much admired. But many of Gabriel's fellow officers worried that Potiorek was more of a theoretical soldier, a textbook strategist better placed to produce a detailed war plan than actually carry it out. Despite the array of ribbons and medals on Potiorek's chest, he had little combat experience.

And then there was the ghastly issue of the skull that sat on Potiorek's desk: a barbaric and disgusting trophy. Was that how a civilised and intelligent man was supposed to behave? It had been a shock for Gabriel when he had first seen the skull in the Konak, the governor's Sarajevo residence. He and the chief had been summoned to discuss the Archduke's visit, and it was the first time Gabriel had been inside the imposing redbrick mansion. Four huge ionic columns supported the front of the building, and the heavy oak entrance door – approached by a flight of white marble steps – was guarded by two impressive stone lions. Gabriel and the chief had been ushered into the governor's office; Potiorek was sitting behind his desk, simultaneously speed-reading and signing a stack of letters. But what really caught Gabriel's attention was the ink-stained human skull resting on the desk. The top half of the skull had been removed and the interior filled with ink; watching Potiorek dip his pen in and out of it was most unnerving, almost grotesque. ‘It's the head of an anarchist,' Potiorek had joked, confirming that the skull was indeed that of the Bosnian youth who had tried to assassinate the previous governor, two years earlier. It still sent a shiver down Gabriel's spine to think that the remains of a man, even a criminal, could be desecrated in such a manner…

The pinging of the entry bell broke his reminiscing and Gabriel looked up to see a man with the upright bearing of a military officer standing in the café entrance. Dressed casually in a dark green felt-edged hunter's jacket and trousers, he had neatly trimmed grey hair and beard, and intense eyes which scanned the room before they fell upon Gabriel and broke into a smile of recognition. As Chief Fischer walked towards Gabriel, he briefly turned towards the back of the café. ‘A large coffee please,' he called across to Moritz at the counter. Gabriel had already begun to rise from his chair, but the chief waved a hand to indicate he should stay seated. ‘I thought I might catch you here,' the chief said as he sat opposite Gabriel. ‘Did you have an interesting evening?'

‘It was fascinating, Chief…but first; has Frau Fischer recovered?'

‘Oh, she's fine, Gabriel – just one of her migraines. She gets terribly nauseous and they affect her vision, so I prefer to be with her when they start.'

‘Well it was good of you to suggest I attend the banquet in your place.'

The chief shrugged. ‘I find these formal occasions tedious if I'm honest, so I wasn't too bothered to stay away. Anyway, I knew it would be a good experience for you. A successful career in surgery isn't all about books, you know.' He glanced at the open journal on the table. ‘In Austria, in any professional field,
who
you know is much more important than
what
you know if you want to get on.'

The chief had often made this point, which Gabriel knew to be true, yet felt so wrong. ‘Well, thank you for the opportunity, chief.'

The older man slipped a hand inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a smoker's pipe. ‘So, did you talk to anyone of importance?' he asked, pulling a pouch of tobacco from the other pocket.

‘I sat next to Colonel Merizzi, Governor Potiorek's adjutant.'

The chief nodded, looking suitably impressed. ‘Good man Merizzi.' He began to fill the pipe with tobacco.

‘And Colonel Harrach, one of the Archduke's advisors.'

The chief frowned. ‘Mm, can't say I've come across him before. What was he like?'

‘A very interesting fellow, but quite concerned about the Archduke's safety…' Gabriel stopped talking as Gudrun arrived at the table.

‘Thank you, Gudrun,' the chief said, as she placed a cup of coffee and glass of water on the table in front of him. She smiled at him and turned away from the table, but not before throwing a quick half-glance towards Gabriel. The chief appeared to have noticed this, because as she walked back towards the counter he looked across at Gabriel and grinned.

‘Pretty young thing, isn't she?'

Gabriel shrugged and the chief's grin widened. ‘And she seems to like you,' he said. Gabriel felt the heat rise to his face and fidgeted in his chair; the older man gently laughed. ‘You're spending far too much time with your head stuck in those journals of yours, Gabriel,' he said, teasingly.

Gabriel smiled shyly, and then lowered his eyes and drank some of his coffee. For some time now the chief had been encouraging Gabriel to ‘develop his social skills', by which Gabriel understood him to mean ‘find a bride'.

‘And how is Dorothea?' the chief asked, almost as if he could read Gabriel's mind. Dorothea was the unmarried daughter of Georg Roth, who owned a munitions factory on the outskirts of Vienna. Gabriel was carrying out part of his research in Roth's factory, and it was here that he had first met the wealthy businessman's attractive daughter.

‘Well—' Gabriel had begun to say, when at that moment a sudden explosion from outside made the café window rattle: a gasp of surprise came from one of the women sitting at the other occupied table. Gabriel had also been startled at the sound, and in the short silence that followed the detonation, he heard the rapid fluttering of wings as pigeons roosting on the roof of the café flew away. A moment later a second bang was heard, and then a third, and suddenly Gabriel realised what was happening. A startled-looking Moritz had already hurried over to the window to see what was going on, but the chief calmly pulled out his pocket watch, nodding his head as the explosions continued.

‘It's alright, Moritz,' the chief said. ‘It's not an anarchist attack, but the start, precisely on time, of the twenty-four-gun royal salute, from the cannons on the fortress.'

‘Ach, what a fright,' Moritz replied, his hands on his hips as he looked down at Gabriel. ‘It would have been nice if they had warned us they were going to fire the artillery. And on a Sunday morning as well.'

Gabriel gently laughed at the look of indignant relief on Moritz's face while the chief continued to concentrate on the cannonade. ‘Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four,' the older man counted aloud, and then the echoes faded away to silence. ‘There you go, Moritz,' he said. ‘Twenty-four royal accolades for the Archduke. That will have scared the pigeons away for a bit—'

But now another explosion – sharper, louder, than the others – split the air, and the café windows rattled more violently than before. Gabriel sat up straight, realising immediately that something was wrong.

‘Forgotten our maths, have we, chief?' Moritz teased. But Gabriel could hear shouts and screams from outside, and the smile on Moritz's face vanished as he and the chief stood and hurried past him towards the door and stepped outside. On the opposite side of the embankment, near the bridge, the two gendarmes Gabriel had seen earlier were struggling to wrestle a man to the ground. A smell of cordite and burning oil hung in the air, and fifty yards west along the embankment a stationary red-and-black open-top car was slewed diagonally across the road, greasy black smoke coming from underneath the bonnet. As Gabriel stepped out into the road and began to run towards the vehicle, he heard a sudden roar of a motor engine and then saw another car drive past the burning vehicle and speed towards him. He stepped back onto the pavement as a dark green open-top convertible accelerated past him: General Potiorek was sitting next to the driver and in the rear of the vehicle – wearing his distinct, green-feather-plumed ceremonial helmet – was the visibly unharmed figure of the Archduke; the duchess next to him was also uninjured. Gabriel watched the vehicle disappear east towards City Hall; then he stepped back into the road and sprinted towards the burning car. As he drew near, he saw a gendarme attending a uniformed officer who lay in the road nearby.

From the Prussian moustache and red-cheeked face, Gabriel immediately recognised the officer as Colonel Merizzi, Potiorek's adjutant. The colonel lay on his back, the pale blue uniform of his right arm pockmarked with bloodstains. He was grey-faced but conscious, and as Gabriel approached he waved him forward with his uninjured left arm.

‘Captain Bayer – I'm so glad you're here,' Merizzi said through gritted teeth. ‘Some idiot threw a grenade at the Archduke, but it missed his car and blew up under mine.' His face was contorted with pain and beads of sweat outlined his brow. ‘It's my right arm – the pain is unbearable,' he said, screwing his eyes tight.

Gabriel knelt next to him and took his jacket off, then rolled it into a pillow and placed it under the colonel's head. But as Merizzi lay back, his head suddenly rolled to one side and his eyelids closed. As Gabriel felt for a pulse, the chief arrived at his side, breathing hard from his run along the embankment.

‘It is serious?' he asked breathlessly, looking at Merizzi's ashen face and closed eyes.

‘I don't think so,' Gabriel said, noting the colonel's steady pulse and regular breathing. ‘He's just fainted from the pain, I think.' He quickly checked for other wounds. ‘It's only his right arm that's been injured. He'll live, but we need to get him up to the garrison hospital as soon as possible.'

The chief nodded. ‘I'll go back to the café and use Moritz's phone to call Arnstein and Flieger, get them to come down here with an ambulance.'

Gabriel nodded. ‘Good idea, and tell them to bring a surgical pack,' he shouted as the chief slipped away between the gathering crowd and hurried back towards Schiller's café.

***

It took Arnstein and Flieger five minutes to drive down to the quay in an army ambulance, by which time Gabriel and the chief had ascertained that there were no other injuries to Merizzi. Two other spectators standing on the embankment pavement had also suffered minor wounds when the grenade had exploded, and, using the surgical kit, field dressings were applied to their wounds while Merizzi was given an injection of morphia to ease the pain. All three casualties were placed on stretchers and loaded into the ambulance, ready to be taken up to the garrison hospital. Arnstein and Flieger climbed inside the driver's cab, while Gabriel and the chief – who had decided to accompany Merizzi to the hospital – clambered into the back of the ambulance. As they were about to close the rear door, the colonel finally opened his eyes.

‘Is the Archduke alright?' were his first words.

‘I personally saw the Archduke and duchess drive away,' the chief replied, ‘and both are unharmed. So please don't worry.'

‘And Oskar…I mean General Potiorek…is he alright?'

‘Also unharmed, Colonel.'

‘Thank God,' Merizzi sighed.

‘Don't worry,' Gabriel said, squatting beside him. ‘The chief and I will accompany you to the hospital where you'll receive—'

But Merizzi levered himself up on his good arm. ‘No, please, Captain, I'm not seriously injured. I'm worried for the Archduke and General Potiorek. I have to go to City Hall to make sure they're safe.' He tried to get off the stretcher, but Gabriel gently restrained him.

‘No, you're not well enough, Colonel Merizzi. You need to go to hospital—'

‘Please, I beg you, Captain Bayer – and you too Chief Fischer – let me go, or if not, please stay with the general in case there are further assassination attempts.'

Gabriel saw the distress in Merizzi's eyes and looked up at the chief with a questioning shrug. The chief's expression was grave as he stared down at the colonel, but after a moment his face softened and he smiled.

‘Of course, Colonel,' the chief said soothingly. ‘Captain Bayer and I will stay close to the Archduke until he is safely back in Illidza. But you need treatment at the hospital. So please lie back and don't worry. Major Arnstein and Lieutenant Flieger will go with you.'

Relief appeared on Merizzi's face as he nodded, closed his eyes, and his head sank down onto the pillow again.

Followed by the chief, Gabriel stepped out of the ambulance, secured the rear door, and watched the vehicle drive west towards the garrison hospital. He bent down to retrieve his jacket from the road, shook out the creases and brushed off the dirt it had picked up; then he looked around him.

The fire in Merizzi's car had been extinguished and the vehicle pushed to the far side of the Appel Quay, where it now stood, occasional wisps of smoke still coming from the engine compartment. The crowd on the pavement had largely dispersed and there was only the chief and himself, standing on their own in the middle of the embankment road.

‘So what do we do now?' Gabriel asked.

The chief's face was taut, his expression serious, as he pulled out his pocket watch. ‘The next scheduled part of the royal tour is a visit to City Hall, where the Archduke is due to be welcomed by the mayor of Sarajevo.' He looked east along the embankment, past Schiller's café and the Latin bridge opposite. ‘It's likely they'll decide to cancel the visit and head straight back to Illidza, but I suggest we go to City Hall to find out for certain. It's only a five minute walk from here.'