‘You cannot.’
‘For god’s sake Walter! I will be so close! Is there no way?’
Walter stares but doesn’t comment. He draws on his cigarette and looks down at his papers.
‘Where is he, exactly? What do you mean by a few kilometres?’
‘Ingolstadt.’
The train has picked up speed, the carriage is rocking. Walter walks to the end of the carriage, touching fixed objects with his fingertips to steady himself the way a drunken man might do. He stops, stands with his legs astride, and pulls out a drawer in a wide metal map chest. He slams it shut, opens another and then another. Eventually he finds what he is seeking and drags out a large map. Theo goes to him and helps spread it out.
‘Show me,’ Walter says, his finger on Munich. ‘Where is this place, this Ingolstadt?’
Theo shoves Walter’s hand away and studies the map. There is Munich, there is the autobahn.
‘Here,’ he says, with his finger on the paper. ‘The farm is to the east of Ingolstadt. There is a village. It is near the Donau River.’
Walter says nothing. A small circle has been drawn on the map in purple pencil, one hundred and fifty kilometres to the north of Theo’s finger. Much further south is another circle, not far from what was once the border between Germany and Austria.
Theo points to the northernmost circle. ‘Is this Schloss Veldenstein?’
Walter nods. ‘It is. The other is Berchtesgaden.’
He uses a bell push to call a steward from the kitchens. When the man arrives Walter orders more coffee.
‘This time bring the good stuff, do you understand me? Do not bring that swill you serve to those uniformed peasants.’
When they are alone again Walter speaks in a near-whisper. Theo strains to hear.
‘We will stop at Neuhaus,’ he says. ‘It is near Schloss Veldenstein. At Neuhaus the crates will be offloaded onto three trucks. You will accompany the truck that goes to the Schloss and I will travel to Munich with the other two. It is no coincidence you hold the rank of Hauptmann, Theodor. All offloading and transfers of crates must be witnessed by a trusted officer of at least that rank. The reason I cannot take you to see your son because I need you to witness the handover at the Schloss.’
‘Can’t someone else do it? Can’t you drop me off at the farm and collect me later?’
‘That is not possible. The only way that could happen is if you were to sign the handover documents in advance. I cannot believe a man like you would be prepared to do such a thing.’
Theo frowns. ‘I don’t understand. I thought we were travelling together to Munich and the Schloss.’
‘I’ve changed my mind. There will be two separate convoys, therefore two separate cargo manifests. When you hand over the contents of your truck you will obtain a signature on yours.’
‘I am not five years old, I understand all that. What I don’t understand is your suggestion that I can sign the manifest without witnessing the transfer. Is that what you are suggesting? You are responsible for the treasures. You – ’
‘Stop calling them treasures, you sound like a pirate. The cargo we carry consists only of paintings.’
‘Why did you suggest it?’
Walter shrugs. ‘Suggest what?’
‘That I sign the manifest in advance?’
‘I simply said that the only way it was possible for you to visit your son was if you signed the manifest in advance. That is a fact, not a suggestion.’
‘I don’t understand why you mentioned it.’
‘Despite what you believe I am still your friend. I have been thinking about your son. After all, a signature is a mere formality, a trivial thing in these times of war. I say again, if you wish to see your son you simply have to check what is loaded onto your truck and then sign the manifest. You will watch the truck depart for the Schloss. What can possibly go wrong? This is the Reich, not Mexico. The truck is unlikely to be attacked by masked bandits.’
‘And what happens when the truck arrives there? Whoever unloads it will see I am not there. They will know the signed manifest is a fake.’
‘They will never see the manifest. It will not go with the truck. I will place both your manifest and mine in an envelope that will be returned to Carinhall.’
‘Why are you doing this? You said I had no chance of seeing my boy. Now you seem to be encouraging it.’
‘To be honest with you I hadn’t realised we would be travelling so close to him.’
Theo grapples with the implications of what they are saying. He shakes his head, in confusion rather than refusal. Walter watches him closely. Then he picks up the map, folds it up and hands it to Theo.
‘Here, take it. Fold it small and tuck it inside your jacket. Now, go to your room and sleep. If you want pills for your head then look in Christa’s room. You are no use to me half asleep and hung-over.’
‘Tell me again. If I sign, you will take me to the farm? You will let me stay there for at least one night?’
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
QUINN WAS WRONG when he said the police had finished at Spargo’s house. When Spargo arrived home a white van with Crimestoppers on its side was standing at the kerb, blocking his drive. Unusually, there was plenty parking space in the road so perhaps his neighbours didn’t want to get too close in case finding bodies in basements was contagious. His front door was ajar and he gave it a push. Saw Quinn and a man in blue overalls standing in the hall.
‘Thought you might have stayed here last night,’ Quinn said as a greeting. ‘Seeing as I told you we’d finished.’
‘You told me you weren’t sure about the key.’
‘Later I realised you wouldn’t need it. I remembered your daughter has one.’
‘I stayed over, in Inverness. Didn’t fancy driving down last night in that rain.’
Quinn gave him a raised-eyebrows, all-right-for-some look.
‘As I said, we’ve finished. I came back to look at something one of our people found yesterday. You said your alarm wouldn’t work. Want to know why? Come outside.’
The man in overalls led the way. The ladder from Spargo’s basement was propped against the side wall of the house. At the top of it, within easy reach, the cover of his burglar alarm box hung like a pendulum on a short length of flex, rubbing the wall as it swung in the breeze. Quinn looked up at it.
‘It wasn’t like that,’ he said. ‘We unscrewed and checked it out.’
Spargo stayed looking up.
‘It failed around the same time I found my front door wasn’t double locked, I think I told you. I pressed buttons to reset it but it didn’t respond. There’s a back-up battery, that white thing. Even if the mains supply is cut off the alarm should still work. It’s got an anti-tamper switch. If you remove the front cover the alarm sounds.’
‘Except we’ve got the cover off and it’s quiet.’
‘So I see.’
‘It’s quiet because someone sliced through the front of the box with a fine blade – an angle grinder, my techie friend here thinks. The blade went through the case and severed the leads to the horn and the battery. It’s a slick bit of work by someone who knew what they were doing. The only indication they’d done it is a narrow slit in the cover. One of our constables noticed it.’
‘Observant of him.’
‘Her, not him. Thing is, angle grinders make noise. We’ve spoken to your neighbours. Mr Cutler across the road remembers seeing a van here and a ladder against the wall. He can’t remember when it was.’
‘He didn’t think to report it?’
‘He thought the man looked official. Thought he was maintaining it for you.’
Chesterton again, Spargo thought. Do a thing blatantly enough, carry the tools of the trade, wear the right kit…
‘Do you think it has anything to do with Letchie’s body?’
‘That was my first thought. But your basement isn’t on the alarm system, so why bother to disable it?’
‘Who’s to say they knew that?’
Quinn gave slow nods. ‘What I don’t understand is why they disabled it so long ago. I find it hard to believe it was done as part of a plan to murder Letchie. What if you’d had it fixed?’
Spargo shrugged. ‘So I was right, somebody did break into my house. They did it while I was in Spain, they disabled the alarm and got in with a house key. I kept one in the basement.’
‘I know. We found it taped under the sink. Who else knew about it?’
‘Only my daughter. Though she’s had her own key for years. She’s probably forgotten it is there.’
‘What about your ex-wife?’
‘Theresa. She lives in Brussels.’
‘Was she aware you kept a key in the basement?’
‘No, definitely not. You can’t possibly suspect her of anything.’
‘Would there be any reason for her to return to the house without you knowing?’
‘What, park a van outside and go up a ladder dressed in overalls? Cut through the alarm with an angle grinder? She is a very resourceful woman so I suppose anything’s possible.’
Quinn didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. The withering look he gave Spargo said it all.
‘I’m sorry,’ Spargo said. ‘My wife would have no reason to return here, covertly or otherwise. Our split was painful but reasonably amicable. And she doesn’t go round murdering journalists.’
Quinn didn’t stay. When he and his colleague drove away Spargo checked all the rooms. That the police had searched everywhere was clear. An attempt had been made to replace the contents of cupboards and drawers neatly. To Spargo it looked as if his house had been tidied by an enthusiastic four-year-old.
The garden was the same, no stone unturned. Things he hadn’t bothered with for years – a pile of concrete blocks, a water butt and the remains of a compost heap had been, respectively, moved, drained, and dug over.
The man in overalls had replaced the alarm box cover and had returned the ladder to the basement, leaving the door unlocked. Spargo stood there for a while, holding the edge of the door, before stepping inside and flicking the switch.
The files that were spewed across the floor had been gathered up and packed into boxes. An attempt had been made to stack them but it had been done so badly they were already collapsing under their own weight.
He was there to lay ghosts. To simply pretend it hadn’t happened wouldn’t work for him, he had tried that so many times. Whatever the truth of the old miners’ tales this was real, Letchie’s death wasn’t fiction, Spargo had seen the body. Now, standing near the doorway, his mind saw more, saw the killer standing behind Letchie with the wire in his hands. Saw him looping it over his victim’s head and tugging it tight.
And naked? It made sense to strip the victim and destroy his clothes. That made it worse. Had Letchie been stripped before the deed or after? Spargo shivered at the thought of Letchie being forced to undress, knowing what was to be his fate. Whatever Letchie had done, he didn’t deserve that.
Spargo would change the place around, he decided, he would paint the walls yellow, install brighter lights and put the switch on the correct side of the door. Locking the door behind him he went back to the house. Without Quinn around the place felt normal – cosy even – and he was thankful for that, relieved the murder hadn’t taken place in the house itself. He liked the place. Didn’t want to sell it. Didn’t want to think about how difficult that would be after what had happened.
He was behind with his work. Upstairs in his office he tried to settle, opening a report he’d been working on, managing to get to the bottom of the page before realising he hadn’t absorbed a single word he’d read. Finally he gave up and went downstairs.
The bus Spargo caught took him close to Valvona and Crolla’s in Elm Row. He crossed Leith Walk and entered the delicatessen through its tiny shop front. Beyond the chill cabinets the place opened up like Dr Who’s Tardis. A few steps led up from the wine racks to a cook-shop and café.
When Jez was young, long before he and Theresa split up and on the rare occasions he was home, he shopped here for special ingredients, conjuring up exotic dishes that took half a day to prepare and cook. Evidence of his efforts still remained in his kitchen, the gourmet cook books and stainless steel implements, hidden away in drawers and cupboards like his herbs and spices, all well past their use-by dates. Perhaps one day he would cook like that again.
V&C did great bacon rolls; when the one he ordered arrived at his table he took his time eating it, sitting back and observing other diners. Not wanting to pay by credit card he went through his pockets for cash, searching through a hamster’s nest of receipts, old tickets and wrappers. He found, in with the coins and crumpled banknotes, something that should not have been there.
Before he’d left Kalman he had been offered the tankard.
‘A gift,’ Kalman said. ‘Take the trouble to look at this place in Leith for me and it’s yours.’ Spargo refused it, saying he couldn’t look at the place because the police were interested in him for matters he couldn’t reveal – and dabbling in suspect pewter might not be the best thing for him to be doing right now.
‘I know you’ll do what you can, Spargo,’ Kalman said. ‘You look like a guy I can trust. You got one of my cards?
Out of politeness Spargo had taken the business card Kalman proffered. As they stood up to leave Kalman had taken Spargo’s jacket off the back of his chair and held it out for him. Clearly, he had slipped the shell of the lighter into his jacket pocket – the lighter Spargo now clasped in his hand.
Bacon roll half eaten he sneaked a glance at the lighter. The gold eagle motif was no longer set in a black shell. The coins in his pocket had jostled against it, polishing the lighter case to reveal mottled, pitted silver.
If the lighter was a bribe he would have none of it, he would dump it in a bin. Out in the street again he had second thoughts. He couldn’t just throw the thing away, not something made from silver and gold. Give it back to Kalman? He could do that, he supposed. He could post it. He had the man’s details.
From Elm Row he took back streets to Easter Road. He had Kalman’s paper and he took it out and looked for numbers on doors. Sure the place he sought would be an antique shop he stood on a corner and took it all in, the dry cleaners, the newsagents and charity shops. Nowhere sold antiques. Seeing nothing he wanted, he set off down the road.
The address he sought was not a shop but a faded, red painted door between a jewellers and a chemist. He looked up at the building. Saw three floors of flats. The name on his paper was Montgomery but there was no such name on the doorbells. On impulse he pressed one and heard it ring deep inside. When nobody came he felt relief. He hadn’t intended to do this, he had come out of curiosity. But if he was ever unfortunate enough to bump into Kalman again he could say with all honesty he had visited the address without success.
Then he heard footsteps, slow and plodding. Someone old who found walking difficult.
The door was opened by a woman who gave an accusative, confrontational glare. Not old, but in her thirties and carrying a small child. She stood holding the edge of the door as if ready to close it fast – a clear message that her struggle to the door had better be worth the effort. Spargo hesitated before speaking.
‘I’m looking for someone called Montgomery.’
‘Then you’ve come to the wrong place.’
‘But he lives here? Normally?’
‘No thing as normal with the big shite. Been gone a year. What’s he done? You police?’
‘I’m not police. I was told I would find him here.’
‘You a friend?’
‘I’ve never met him.’
‘You’re lucky. If you see him you have my permission to give him a good kicking. He owes you money?’
‘No.’
‘He owes me money. Owes me twenty pound.’
Spargo bit his lip. Paying her something would at least ease his conscience. He pulled out a tenn
er and handed it over.
‘Monty has a wee shop.’
She kept her hand out so he added another and wondered how long this could go on. He tried to interpret the look she gave him. Decided he would rather not know.
‘Shop is called Pixie. Halfway up Cockburn Street.’
That was enough. He knew the street; its bottom end joined Waverley Bridge near Waverley station. Its shiny stone setts snake steeply up to High Street, part of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, with shops geared to tourists: gift shops and bars, and occult shops whose windows display polished pebbles, crystals, necklaces and brass Buddhas.
It took Spargo twenty minutes to walk there from Easter Road. He set off upwards, scanning the shop names for Pixie. It was halfway up, the woman had said. Though she hadn’t said which side and he hadn’t thought to ask.
At the top end of the street he crossed to the other side and worked his way down, imagining, like he’d done in Easter Road, a shop window with brass table lamps and coal scuttles, carriage lamps and picture frames. Maybe a flat iron or two and a few cracked vases. And pewter plates of course, propped up against the wall at the side of the display.
Halfway down the hill he gave up looking. He entered a dress shop and asked about Pixie. The young assistant led him back to the door and pointed across the street.
‘Pixie,’ she said. ‘The yellow one. They changed its name last year.’
‘Do you know the owner?’
She shook her head. ‘Big man in his thirties. There’s a few of them around here like him. Shaved heads. Leather waistcoats. Tattoos and stuff.’
The yellow shop was shoe-horned between its neighbours. Its door, off to one side, was set back behind a high step. Spargo crossed the road and stood looking into its window at a display resembling a brica-brac stall at a market. Mythical creatures were arranged on one side – fairies of various sizes and shapes arranged behind a handwritten piece of card folded tent-like that proclaimed them faeries. As if the alternative spelling validated it all.
Spargo stepped up and pushed the door. An old-style brass bell jangled on a coiled spring and he found himself swatting in-your-face creatures hanging from the ceiling on long strings and springs. Another jangle as the door closed. More little people were stacked up beside him and fearing they would topple if he brushed against them, he stepped back. Set more suspended things swinging.
The Man Who Played Trains: The gripping new thriller from the author of Playpits Park Page 25
