by Alex Archer
She shook her head. “Murders took place twice in the vicinity of his work. Not once, twice. Maybe more times than that for all we know. Don’t say that’s a coincidence. It can’t be. So look at that map, zoom out to view possible destinations and try to recall any connections Kepler might have had with the region.”
Roux fiddled with his phone, eventually working out how to pinch-and-zoom the tracking program to widen its area of search.
He fell silent.
She knew he’d remember something.
“Out with it,” she said.
“Regensburg. That’s where he died.”
“Kepler?”
“Yes. The Thirty Years War was at its height and he was being forced to move from place to place, never getting any peace to devote to his study. Regensburg was the end of his journey. He fell ill and died there soon after arriving.”
“Okay, so where’s Regensburg?” she asked, even though she knew the answer already.
“Dead ahead,” Roux said.
Her theory wasn’t looking so thin, after all.
44
They tracked Garin’s car all the way from the border, losing the signal within minutes of him entering Regensburg’s city limits.
“He’s playing us,” Roux said. “He must have known we’d track him, and decided to let it happen, right up until this point. Right here, right now. I should never have expected anything less. It’s too late to disable the car.” Roux slammed his open palms against the dashboard in front of him. “This has to be Owen. Garin’s outbid me. He’s used the hacker to mess with me. That’s why he drove slowly. He wanted me to get close enough to determine where he’s heading, and now he’s killed our only means of surveillance. We’re blind. He could do absolutely anything and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“But why would he hurt us like that?” Annja asked.
“Because he could. Because he likes playing games. Because he’s Garin Braden.”
“Or because he needs us.”
Roux barked out a short bitter laugh. “Why would he need us? Give me one good reason. And while you are feeling creative, explain away the fact he didn’t just ask for our help?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe he figured we’d be so convinced he was guilty we wouldn’t give it? Whatever he needs us to be here for is something that we would probably have just walked away from if he had come out and asked us?”
“So, what, suddenly he’s the victim here?”
This was an argument that she was not going to win.
Whatever response she offered, Roux was going to be ready to slap it down.
She wanted to prove him wrong. More than anything she wanted to wipe that smug look right off his face and prove once and for all he was capable of getting things wrong when it came to Garin.
“Fine. Where to now?” Annja asked.
“If you are right and there genuinely is a Kepler connection in all of this, then that has to be where we make our start, with Kepler.”
“His grave? His workshop? Wherever he actually died?”
“The churchyard was destroyed in the war. He had only been interred for a couple of years, if that. I believe there is a grave marker somewhere, but that is not where he was buried.”
Annja tried to think.
The answer had to be here.
Garin had drawn them into a puzzle; he wouldn’t just leave the last piece out so they couldn’t possibly solve it.
“You got any ideas?” she asked.
“Beyond the usual sources—library, any museum, the tourist office? Someone somewhere must know, but my guess—this is the kind of stuff that’s been lost through the years. I don’t expect anyone to be able to point to a door and say, ‘Here, this is what you’re looking for. X marks the spot.’”
It was hard to argue with that.
It was also the kind of thing that Garin would expect them to do. Like Roux said, it was a short list of all the usual suspects.
Annja found a space to park the car.
A little way down the street she saw a familiar word on the facade of one of the buildings. It was the same in both German and English: museum.
“Okay, you go in there and see what you can find out. I’m going to check in with Lars.” She didn’t wait for him to argue. She fished her phone out of her pocket and made the call.
Roux clambered out of the car and slammed the door as Lars answered.
“Where are you?” She checked the time on the dashboard clock.
“Almost at the border. I’m assuming that we’re still heading the right way?” he asked.
“Yeah, sorry. There didn’t seem like a lot of point just calling to say keep on going,” she said. “Once you’re over the border, stay on the main road until you reach Regensburg. We’re at the museum there right now. Call me when you get here.”
“Any sign of the thing yet?”
“No. Not yet. We’ve been in town all of ten seconds.” She glanced from the windshield to every window, checking.
“Do me a favor. Don’t do anything stupid before we get there, okay?”
“I’ll save up all of my stupid for when you catch up, promise.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Lars protested.
“I know, but it’s the best I can offer. Like it or not, we’re going to need some decent shots of him if we’re going to make this show work.” And by saying that out loud she realized that it didn’t matter what Roux said. She couldn’t just forget about the show. The show was her life, her ordinary life. Without it she wouldn’t be Annja Creed anymore. She’d be cut adrift of the only anchor that kept her feet in a world that wasn’t filled with the impossible and the miraculous, never mind the deadly. It wasn’t just the mysteries she chased on the show, she realized, or the monsters scattered up and down time. It was a normal life. And that was the most elusive prey.
She needed to buy Lars time to get there with his camera without putting anyone else’s life at risk.
“I’ll call you when we get there.”
Annja said her goodbyes, then hung up. She pocketed the keys and hopped out of the car. Roux had already disappeared inside in the museum in search of answers. She wasn’t sure it would harbor any he was interested in, certainly not the most pressing ones. Annja decided against going in after him—they wouldn’t learn more simply because the two of them were asking the same questions.
She scanned the signs up and down the street, seeing a smoke shop, a fast-food joint, what looked like a more exclusive sit-down restaurant and a beer cellar promising a variety of imported cask ales. On the other side of the street she saw a café. The siren song of coffee called to her, but for once she ignored it to track down a street map of the town center from the smoke shop.
She emerged just as Roux was leaving the museum.
She jerked a thumb toward the café and he nodded, waiting for a gap in the traffic to cross. Annja reached the door as a young mom was wrestling with her stroller, trying to unfold it and juggle bulging bags of groceries without dropping her baby. Annja helped her with the mechanism, then with juggling the bags. By the time she was done Roux had reached the door.
Annja’s plan was no more complicated than spinning the coffee out long enough for Lars and Turek to reach the town.
She moved toward the counter, but a blond-haired blue-eyed waitress gestured for them to take a seat, promising that she would be with them in a moment.
“So, what did you find out? Anything?” Annja asked when they were settled down, coffees in hand. She held the cup to her lips, feeling the steam against her skin.
“They don’t have a great deal in there that was of interest,” Roux said. “But I took a leaf out of our quarry’s book and was charm personified. There was a young gentleman who was only too happy to point me in the right direction for a price, which I happily paid.”
“Come on, enough with the suspense. What’s the right direction?”
“Unsurprisingly, perhaps, there is a castl
e here,” he began, offering a slight smile. Despite everything, he was enjoying himself. He might rage and rail against his erstwhile apprentice, but they were more alike than he’d ever admit. Six centuries in each other’s company would do that to you, she figured. “This one is now the home of the prince of Thurn und Taxis, though they’ve only lived there since 1748. And guess what?”
“Oh, don’t tell me—Johannes Kepler stayed there during his last days?”
Roux inclined his head slightly. “And you say that I am the one who enjoys taking all the fun out of life? At the time it wasn’t a castle, it was a monastery. One of Kepler’s deepest fascinations was an attempt to calculate the true date of the birth of Christ based on planetary movements and the passage of comets. That will have brought him close to the church.”
“Okay, that’s a place to start at least.”
“More than that. My young friend suggested that we might find some journals in the castle that were left behind when the monks moved out. Abbots liked to keep a record of comings and goings. It was a compulsion with them.”
“It would be good to get a look at them.”
“It would. But it would also be very unlikely. He had been doing some research on Kepler’s time there himself some years ago. It took a lot of negotiating before he was even allowed to look at them, but—and this was the interesting part—the abbot made several references to the astronomer’s strange traveling companion whose features—and I quote—would have been better placed on a cathedral wall than on a man’s head.”
Annja was sure the monk hadn’t been suggesting that he was angelic looking. She had seen the strange and twisted features of enough gargoyles to know what those words meant. And there was no getting around the fact that it was proof that the killer they were hunting had been around as long as Roux and Garin.
“Anything else?”
“Not enough for you?”
She held up her hands. “Look, if this really is all part of Garin’s game like you think, do you really believe he would just offer up the connection quite so easily? Like you said, this is just the start of the end, not the end itself.”
Roux paused and took a sip of his coffee.
She knew the look.
He was holding something back from her, deliberately waiting, choosing his moment to reveal it.
“I wasn’t the first person he spoke to about that little detail in the abbot’s writings,” he said at last.
“Let me guess…Garin?”
“The very same.”
“I showed him a photo of Garin. He confirmed it was him.”
“You carry a picture of Garin around with you? The old gentleman definitely doth protest way too much,” Annja joked.
Roux shrugged. “Hardly. He’s the one person in this world I know will either get into trouble or get me into trouble. It’s handy to have it for identification purposes. You never know when you’re going to need to utter the immortal words Have you seen this man? Of course, I don’t mention the fact that the photograph is over thirty years old and all that has changed is the haircut.”
He showed her the shot, teasing it out of his wallet. It looked like it was taken last week. Of course, it could have been taken fifty years ago and it would have been the same. A century earlier and it would have been sepia-tinged, but the subject’s raffish charms wouldn’t have dimmed. “He’s leading us around by the nose, Annja, and no doubt enjoying every damned second of it. We’ll see who’s laughing at the end, though.”
She spread the tourist map on the table in front of her and quickly picked out the castle of Saint Emmeran, placing a finger over it while she located the museum that Roux had visited. “So everything leads us to this castle, which just happens to be within walking distance. Fancy some exercise?”
“We’ll take the car.”
“Right. Your leg. Jeez, I didn’t even think about it. I can’t believe we’re talking three or four hours since you broke it, and it’s like nothing happened.”
“Oh, something very much happened,” he said. “I’m just trying not to think about it. The healing process isn’t exactly painless. Imagine being able to feel the bone knit, fusing together.”
“I’d rather not, if that’s okay. Are you sure you’re up to this?”
“I will live,” Roux offered. It was about the only thing she was sure about, no matter how things went over the next hour or so. The old man would live. It was what he did. “But the car would be good in case we need to beat a hasty retreat.”
Roux saw her take a glance at her watch even though she’d tried to be surreptitious about it. “They are not going to make it in time, and I’m through with waiting. This needs to be over. Sorry, but we aren’t waiting for them.”
“If Garin’s so desperate to get us here, I’m sure he’ll hold off with the fireworks for a few minutes.”
“I have no intention of playing by his rules. From here on in, we make up our own rules. We say where, when and how high we jump, not him. I’m hoping that you want the same thing.”
She knew what she wanted—to unmask the killer on film, and record the whole thing.
“So what’s the plan, Stan? We just drive up there, knock on the front door and ask if Garin is coming out to play?” Annja asked.
“I don’t believe that anyone is even aware Garin has taken up residence there.”
“Why not? He’s a charmer. His silver tongue can open any door…”
“It can open more than just doors,” Roux said with a trace of distaste. The inference was obvious.
“Right. So if we’re not just banging on the front door, what are we doing?”
“We are going to use our heads. Do what we do best. Ask questions, gather answers and make an informed decision about what happens next. We are meeting the librarian at the castle in forty-five minutes.”
“But surely we know all we need to know, don’t we?”
Roux nodded slowly. “I suspect we do, but rather importantly, this meeting gets us inside the castle gates. There are benefits to old-fashioned legwork. Anything we actually learn there will be a bonus.”
There was more to this than he was saying, she was sure of it. There was the beginnings of a plan somewhere deep in the old man’s brain. He’d get them inside the castle gates. What happened when they were there was anyone’s guess. She was banking on it falling into place when the time came.
Roux pushed back his chair, removing a few notes out of his wallet and laying them on the table, again overpaying ridiculously for two black coffees, no matter how good they were. “Time to go,” he said, and he made his way over to the door.
There was no sign of the cavalry.
Annja pulled out her phone and sent a one-word text: Castle
45
She had been expecting someone considerably older. She always did when someone used the word librarian, as if the title came with pince-nez spectacles and a blue rinse.
The man welcomed them with a broad smile, offering his hand. He couldn’t have been more than thirty. Late twenties, with soft hands that had never done a hard day’s work. They did, however, give a warm shake. Annja noticed that his nails were immaculately manicured and varnished. She wasn’t sure quite what she thought about the affectation, only that it lent a peculiarly sexless quality to his hands. The librarian was dressed in a charcoal suit, white shirt and a gray-and-red tie that added a splash of color to his otherwise drab appearance.
“I am led to understand that you are interested in Johannes Kepler?” he said, flashing a smile of perfect teeth. Not only was he younger than she had expected, he was considerably more attractive and obviously aware of the fact.
It took her a second to place who the man reminded her of.
It was Garin, of course.
“We are indeed,” Roux said, effortlessly taking control of the situation.
On the short drive to the castle, he had assured Annja that he did have a few ideas about what they should do, but didn’t deign to menti
on what any of them might have entailed.
“Hopefully the assistant curator—the gentleman you spoke to at the museum—explained that our library here is a private collection. Obviously if you wish to apply for a reader’s card, I will do my utmost to expedite your application with all the necessary pace.”
“But that won’t be today, I assume? We’re only in town for the afternoon.”
“Ah, yes, I’m terribly sorry, but I am sure you understand. There are processes and procedures in place, checks and balances, and despite your companion’s obvious popularity, unfortunately none of these measures either move very quickly or can be circumvented. These things are bound up in rules and rituals that were set in stone long before either you or I were put on this Earth.”
Roux gave no visible reaction, though Annja could imagine what he was thinking.
“Surely Kepler scholars visit the area regularly,” Roux suggested, making it sound more like a statement than a question, where obviously it was leading.
The younger man shook his head. “Actually, no. Despite the fact that this is his final resting place, there’s precious little that remains to be seen here. He was only with us for a very short time.” He spoke as though he himself had held the door open for the astronomer’s visit and laid him to rest at the end of his days. It was as though he considered the building part of his own personal fiefdom. Pure arrogance. It was another reason why he reminded her of Garin.
“Was he working on any particular theories while he was here?” Roux asked.
The man’s expression changed.
It seemed like an obvious question, but clearly it wasn’t one he was used to coming up against, so he didn’t have any carefully prepared answer tripping off his tongue.
