The Stolen (51 page)

‘The goddess?' Helen stepped forward.

‘Kali, Bhavatarini, redeemer of the universe, goddess of birth and destruction, of the infinite beyond and before Light itself.' His voice echoed like the trapped peal of a bell around the hotel room. Matthias watched him, an idea forming in his mind.

‘Ravi, is there a hidden temple, part of the Ring of Ramgarh?' he asked softly. ‘A temple dedicated to Kali.' He held out the fragment. ‘Perhaps the walls are made of this?'

Smiling beatifically the holy man turned to Helen. ‘You see, he
is
the Messenger – he knows all before it is spoken.'

‘As the Messenger I command you to take me there,' Matthias ordered, trying to sound as authoritarian as possible.

The holy man clasped his hands in prayer, touched his own mouth and heart, then placed his fingers on Matthias's mouth and heart.

‘At first light I will take you and your woman, and you will wake the goddess, as is written in the sky.'

 

 

The small private propeller plane shuddered to a halt on the flat field doubling up as an airfield just south of Mangrol. Janus unfastened his seat belt and leaned forward to peer out of the window. Meanwhile, sitting behind him, Olek crossed himself and thanked God for the safe flight. Outside, long grass edged the airfield and a line of cardboard shacks – slum dwellings – were visible beyond the marshland. Janus hated India: the chaos, the blind superstition and the relentless swell of humanity. But it had its secrets, powerful secrets. He'd learned that decades ago from Ulrich, but perhaps he hadn't listened closely enough to his old comrade. He knew one of his weaknesses was to go for the obvious, the literal, the immediate pay-off. Was he now paying the price? He looked at the man sitting opposite him, the man whose banal diatribes on geology and the importance of meteorites had bored him for the long flight from Zürich. The man who had sold his loyalty for a price – and Janus hated disloyalty almost as much as he hated narcissists; this man was both.

‘How long will it take us from here?' Janus asked.

‘From Mangrol, not long,' Jorges Hatiwais replied. ‘But we should leave in the morning; the road is dangerous in the dark.'

‘We leave tonight.'

Keja was still curled up in the twilight of the caravan, her snore a gentle purr. Outside it was dark, although the clock said seven a.m. Liliane dressed as quietly as she could in her school uniform, leaving the traditional gypsy clothes in a neat pile at the end of the bed. Matthias had left her Swiss francs, but she would hitchhike to the city then walk to Willi's. She knew the gun was loaded; after that it would only be a question of time. At the door of the caravan she paused for a moment, staring back at the sleeping woman, and this microcosm of a world in which she fitted and in which she did not; instinct telling her it would be the last time she would be there.

 

 

The mid-morning sun had begun to beat down. They reached the apex of the rocky incline they'd been hiking up for the past two hours; Matthias judging it to be about eleven in the morning. Helen, gasping for breath, leaned against a sapling, disturbing a couple of brightly coloured parrots that flew squawking into the lilac sky. Matthias wiped his brow; the only person seemingly unaffected by the steep trek was the holy man himself, despite the fact that Matthias had seen neither food nor water pass Ravi's lips since they'd left the hotel.

The holy man stood resting on a long gnarled root he'd been using as a walking stick, one foot hooked on the knee of the other leg, watching the foreigners with some amusement – even the flies seemed to stay away from him, Matthias noted ruefully.

‘How much further now?' Matthias asked.

Ravi laughed, a full throaty chuckle, his head tilted back.

‘You must learn to use your eyes, professor. Do you not recognise where you are?'

He pointed to the top of the embankment with his stick. Matthias, following the direction the root was aimed at, scrambled up, trying to balance on the rocky rubble under his feet. Finally he reached the top and looked down. A whole panorama suddenly opened up: two small lakes lay in the crater catching the reflection of the crimson disc of the sun in their mirrored surfaces. Outcrops of trees and undergrowth fringed them. As if sensing Matthias's gaze, a flock of brightly coloured waterbirds flew up from the greenery, swinging as one through the air below them. To either side he could clearly see the curvature of the crater and the valley the meteorite had made upon impact. Helen scrambled up beside him.

‘My God, it's so beautiful.'

‘And it's a crater, Helen, perfectly formed by the impact and the velocity of a meteorite. Somewhere down there, probably buried below the lake itself, is what we're looking for.'

The holy man joined them and pointed with the tree root down to the centre. ‘There was once a village, over there by the temple.' Matthias peered in the direction Ravi was pointing; now he could see a small part-ruined temple in the centre of the crater, its sand-coloured stone pillars catching the light. ‘The temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva, but the villagers followed him only as the husband of Kali,' Ravi said.

‘When was this?' Helen asked excitedly.

‘A long, long time ago, daughter, before there was written history. The villagers were true to the goddess – they lived by her laws, they feared neither death nor the passing of time, but lived for each moment of temporal life. Then the invaders came and these people fled, leaving the big temple and the little temple,' the holy man answered, smiling.

‘That would be around the third century…'

‘The century the Ur-Rom left India,' Helen murmured. ‘Is it possible?' It was a statement made more to herself than the others.

Matthias swung back to the holy man. ‘There is another temple?'

‘The secret hidden heart. Lord Shiva's body covers and hides the true soul of his wife the goddess Kali, which is how the ancients saw it. And it is into that soul that I am taking you now.'

 

 

It had been easy to get into Willi's squat. He lived, with the other band members, in an old storehouse by the river just off Utoquai. They were used to Liliane arriving and leaving at bizarre times of the day, and they tended not to read newspapers or take much interest in the daily affairs of Zürich unless they involved the music world. So when Liliane turned up that morning in a slightly torn dishevelled school uniform with strange marks around her wrists and neck they merely opened the door and mumbled something about Willi still being asleep up in his ‘nest'. Willi's part of the warehouse, partitioned off by plasterboard, served as a rehearsal room and place to store the band's instruments. He slept atop a platform that doubled as a roof, in an alcove he'd painted black with one wall covered in black vinyl, the centrepiece of which was the cover of the band's first single – like a shrine. A fifteen-foot ladder led up to the bed. Beneath the platform, crowded in like unwanted party guests, were a variety of instruments the band used for special occasions: a ukulele, an early synthesiser, a strange instrument made from horsehair and a packing box, and an ancient drum kit. Ignoring Willi – still prone, sleeping and no doubt hungover, his large feet draped over the edge of the platform clad in dirty fluorescent green socks – Liliane went straight to the drum kit. Inside the bass drum, wrapped in old cloth, was the gun she'd stolen from the Frenchman's apartment. She picked it up and slipped it into her pocket.

 

 

‘The crater has two small lakes fringed by forest in which live fantastic wild birds. There is also a temple, very ancient, more than a thousand years old, maybe you like to see this?' The guide, who looked little more than a child to Janus, chatted enthusiastically, as he sprinted up the narrow rocky path, while the others walking behind struggled to keep up.

‘Just get us there,' Janus grunted irritably. It felt like hours since they'd arrived at the base of the steep incline that seemed to curve back towards the horizon on either side.

‘The incline is an illusion,' Jorges explained, whistling and striding out energetically in front of Janus and Olek. ‘We are actually climbing the lip of the crater. Fascinating, isn't it?'

Janus, uncomfortably hot, grunted in the sweltering heat; he'd begun to regret his decision to hunt Matthias von Holindt down personally. There were four of them in the party: the young guide who led up front; Jorges, Janus himself, and Olek. Janus glanced back at the Russian. Sweating, sunburn scorching a red path across his shaven scalp, Olek shrugged back. He looked as if he too were struggling in the heat, but the sight of the mercenary was comforting to Janus. He knew the man carried both a revolver and a silencer, his loyalty and professionalism unquestioning.

They scrambled up a particularly steep incline and the view opened before them as if they'd stepped through some magical peephole. Without a word the guide pointed down to the circular lake and the clear interior of the crater.

‘You are here. I leave you now,' he announced firmly and started to turn back.

Janus grabbed his wrist. ‘I paid you to take us all the way.'

‘You do not understand, sir. Great evil down there, plenty people get sick there. I will not go.' He yanked his arm away. Jorges spoke in Hindi but the guide still shook his head and replied rapidly in the same language.

‘He says this is a bad place, and that strange things have happened because of what's buried below the lake. Trees bursting into flame, floating rocks…'

Olek glanced anxiously at Janus. ‘Maybe he's right?'

‘Don't be ridiculous. It's just local superstitious nonsense,' Janus snapped back, then lifted his binoculars to his eyes. ‘But it sounds like we're on the right path.' He scanned the opposite bank but could see nothing but a few trees and scrub. He turned to the guide. ‘I'll pay you ten times the original fee if you take us down there.'

He instructed Jorges to translate, binoculars still held to his face. But before the astrochemist had repeated the request in Hindi, the youth answered in English. ‘This is not a question of money; this is a question of survival. I thank you for your kind offer, but I go now.' He scrambled down the incline. Olek started after him but Janus grabbed his shoulder.

‘Let him go,' he ordered, then returned to scanning the shores of the lake below through the binoculars. Towards the centre of the crater he caught sight of a bright yellow-orange turban winding its way towards the temple ruins. He focused the binoculars onto the bobbing head, then swung them slightly left. Matthias von Holindt's distinctive figure reaching high above the canopy of bushes appeared, a woman walking behind him – it had to be the American girlfriend, Janus noted with satisfaction. He watched as the three of them disappeared into the temple then lowered the binoculars.

‘We're going down there,' he told Jorges. ‘Why don't you lead? It's your territory, after all.'

Janus waited until the astrochemist was several feet below him, scrambling down the steep slope towards the lakes, then nodded to Olek, who took out his revolver.

 

 

Liliane stared at her reflection in the polished glass of Mueller Bank. She looked years younger, like an innocent schoolgirl, with her hair in pigtails. She'd cleaned herself up in a public toilet and taken off her rings and piercings in an attempt to make herself unrecognisable. She had met Thomas's granddaughter a couple of times and they had the same hair colour and were roughly the same size. It was the only way she could think of to reach the banker himself. She checked herself again, tugging down the hem of her school skirt.
I have succeeded,
she told herself, with a faint smile. She glanced at the bronze symbol of the bank hanging above the heavy glass doors. Inside her pocket the small gun seemed to burn with a heat of its own. Now, without a single qualm, she pushed her way through the heavy door and walked up to reception.

‘Heda Mueller, I'm here to see my grandfather,' she told the receptionist, who reached for the phone. ‘It's a surprise,' Liliane added in a high, childish voice and the receptionist smiled back understandingly then buzzed her through to the inner chambers.