The Stolen (8 page)

‘Oh, don't worry, I'll be calling you.'

 

 

It was past one by the time Klauser stepped out of the discreet doorway, wiping lipstick from his neck. He started to hum, an old pop song from his early years as a detective, when the whole future seemed to stretch out in front of him, when he thought he was on a real moral quest, when evil seemed simple. Suddenly the words to the tune formed themselves and danced across his tongue: ‘… Like a puppet on a string…' Sandie Shaw, Eurovision winner 1967. Was that what he'd become, a puppet on a string? Had he been played all these years? And was the man in the mask the puppeteer? He needed to start at the beginning again, at the very first clue – the dead gypsy. He glanced up at the street sign then changed direction and began to walk towards the city morgue. As he turned, a young man in an anorak moved out of the shadows and started walking several paces behind.

 

 

The milling journalists seemed to be getting louder and drunker. Pushing his way through, Matthias cornered the assistant, who, in his dark suit, looked like an undertaker at the wrong funeral. ‘Spying on me, Bertholt?' Bertholt's lubricious expression shifted into the semblance of a smile.

‘Not at all, Matthias, but your father wanted a report.'

‘If he wanted to see me fail, he could have come himself.'

‘But I see there's some real interest here.' Bertholt glanced round the room. ‘The military, pharmaceuticals, aviation – all kinds of bedfellows, desirable and less desirable.'

‘Who I partner up with is my own business, not my father's. When he withdrew funding he withdrew his stake in the laboratory.' Matthias ushered one of the hotel staff over. ‘Gustav will see you out.'

He waited until Bertholt had been escorted out of the hotel then went back to Jannick, who was standing by himself.

‘Trouble?'

‘Just some amateur sleuthing. I guess my father isn't as indifferent as he pretends. By the way the French entrepreneur – any luck there?'

‘Maybe, but you won't like his client list.'

‘Why's that?'

Jannick smiled. ‘Well, let's just say they involve nations like Libya and Uganda. And I know you take a certain moral stance on such matters.'

‘Not me, the whole laboratory. I haven't dedicated my life to superconductivity so that the arms industry can have a new generation of weapons.'

‘You really think it's that simple, don't you?'

‘It is that simple.'

 

 

The morgue was cold, inhospitable and a fantastic reminder of how transient life was. It was one of Inspector Helmut Klauser's favourite places, coming a close second to brothels – another venue he found to be a bracing reminder of one's own mortality. One of the benefits of being an atheist, he noted as he waited for the attendant to open the cold steel locker door behind which John Doe No. 457 lay, was to find eternity in strange places. The attendant unzipped the body bag with professional indifference, like a greengrocer about to display an unusual piece of fruit.

‘Still unidentified?' he asked.

‘Sort of.'

‘Well, that sort don't recognise borders, do they?'

‘What sort?' Klauser asked tersely.

‘Jews.' The attendant turned one of the corpse's wrists over so the tattooed number could be seen. ‘The number; stands to reason, dunnit.'

‘There were gypsies in the camps also.'

‘Were there?' The attendant seemed surprised. ‘That explains the hands, then. The calluses. When did you see a Jew with working hands?' Sometimes the attitudes of his own people profoundly depressed Klauser. ‘Though as murders go, this was a top-notch job – professional, one bullet through the brain. He won't even have known he was dead.'

‘Until afterwards?'

‘Exactly my point,' the attendant, missing the irony, retorted smugly. Just then a telephone rang and he rushed off to answer it. Klauser walked round the corpse and looked at the blanched face.

‘So, who are you, and why were you outside the von Holindt store?' he asked quietly, as if the dead man might sit up and reply. He was interrupted by the reappearance of the attendant.

‘You're in luck, detective; there's a young man at front office, looking for his uncle. Thinks he might have ended up in here. Thing is, he's a gypsy.'

 

The detective watched respectfully as Latcos said a prayer in Romanes before covering up the face. The young gypsy had seemed shocked but not entirely surprised to see the corpse.

‘So it
is
your uncle?' Klauser asked gently.

‘He survived so much and to die like this…' Latcos's voice broke.

‘Do you know why he might have been murdered? It was a professional job.'

Latcos, angered by the use of the word
professional
, stared defiantly at the inspector. He didn't like police and he particularly disliked Swiss-German policemen. He'd heard the stories of how the Swiss used to hunt out gypsies like animals, stories handed down by his grandfather and
his
grandfather before him – then in his living memory.

‘Professional?'

‘I think someone paid an expert a lot of money to kill your uncle. Did he have any enemies, for example, in his own community?'

Latcos stared at Klauser. ‘No one even knew he was in Switzerland, but no, my uncle had no enemies; he was very loved. A great man.' Already he regretted sharing that much with the policeman.
Forgive me, Uncle
, he told himself silently.

Klauser pulled out the folded drawing he'd found on the corpse. Crumpled and grimy with dust, it looked rather pathetic.

‘Does this symbol mean anything to you?'

Latcos looked him straight in the eye. ‘No,' he lied.

 

 

Keja sat on the wooden doorstep of the caravan, staring over the river. Zürich glowed in the near distance and the moon was loud above her head, its whispering seeming to weave in and out of her grieving, the rocking of her shrunken body wrapped in her blackest shawl.

‘I am remembering,' she whispered to Yojo's spirit, dancing as it was on the water's surface, ‘my
phral
, I am remembering.'

She leaned back against the cool wood, eyes closed, Yojo's medallion clutched between her fingers, her mind cast back to the day the world changed, the morning her brother, bare-chested, galloped away from the German soldiers.

‘Run,' she willed him, defiant and beautiful in his youthfulness. ‘Run and never be caught.'

When she opened her eyes the spirit was gone, but there was another voice, a girl's, and her soul was calling blindly out from the direction of the city.

 

 

It was past midnight. Liliane waited until she heard the click of Matthias's bedroom door, then smoothed down her studded leather miniskirt. If she hurried she could still get to Rote Fabrik in time to see Willi's band – they wouldn't be on until one a.m. and she was determined to see him. She stood in front of the mirror and gelled her fringe so that it stuck up like a quiff, then painted her eyelids and lips black. After putting on her favourite bangles she slipped her hand under the top drawer of her dressing table and peeled off an envelope that had been stuck to the underside. Inside was a hundred Swiss francs, money she'd made selling on some cocaine to an assistant teacher at school. She tucked the notes into her bra, then after packing her stilettos into her handbag, she slipped on her walking shoes over her torn fishnets, opened the window and climbed out into the chilly night. She looked over at her father's window. The light was off. She jumped, landing neatly on both feet. Somewhere in the dark recesses of the garden an animal shrieked. Holding her breath, Liliane glanced back up at Matthias's window. His light stayed off.

 

 

The body, still in its cassock, swung gently at the end of the rope that had been thrown over a wooden beam. The face, a purple swollen grotesque parody of its living counterpart, spun gently round like a stuffed toy at a funfair arcade. The beam was at least eight feet up and the Spartan iron bed in the corner of the room wouldn't have been high enough for him to have reached the beam or the end of the rope. And, mysteriously, there was nothing else in the room that could have helped him climb. Klauser had seen enough.