A Study in Gold

by Annie Dalton

‘Alice didn’t go into details, but I gather it was something to do with my father, my biological father in Innsbruck?’

  ‘Yes, when I came, I was hoping to talk to you. I’d been to see David Fischer.’

  She heard him sigh. ‘I wondered if you would do something like that.’

  ‘Yes, I know, you see, what it’s like to be labelled as the – the crazy person. I needed to hear his side of the story.’

  ‘And what did you find out?’ Herr Kirchmann sounded almost resigned.

  ‘I think you probably know what he had to say about your father.’

  ‘Ja, ja,’ he said wearily. ‘I think I have a very good idea but, Anna, my dear, nobody’s history is ever as black and white as we would like it to be.’

  ‘So, it’s true!’ Anna felt anger blaze up.

  ‘No. It is not, but if you had the choice of saving fifty percent of something or losing absolutely everything, wouldn’t you choose to save the fifty percent? Sometimes in this imperfect world, to save a little, you must sacrifice the rest.’

  It was dawning on Anna that she had the most appalling, left-sided headache; the shock of seeing Dominic, the hornets’ nest of memories he’d let loose and now Thomas Kirchmann was talking in riddles.

  ‘Why won’t anyone ever give me a straight answer?’ She pressed the heel of her hand hard against her forehead, praying that she still had a couple of paracetamol in her bag.

  ‘My dear, I know you don’t think so, but you are still very young,’ Herr Kirchmann said in a sorrowful voice. ‘One day you will learn that sometimes there are no straight answers.’ Anna heard him murmur something in German to someone before he said, ‘I’ll be in London again next week. Come and see me and we can talk properly then. Alice will email you some dates.’

  Closing her eyes against the pain, Anna said, ‘Could you answer me just one thing? Do you happen to know the Scott-Nevilles? Because I bumped into Dominic Scott-Neville earlier today and your name came up and he said his family does a lot of business with Hempels.’ The lie just jumped out, she couldn’t have explained even to herself why she did it.

  There was a silence so total that Thomas Kirchmann didn’t seem to be breathing. When he finally replied, his voice was tight.

  ‘No, Anna. Ralph Scott-Neville is dead, therefore we no longer do business with those people. I have to go now. Gute Nacht.’

  And he’d gone.

  Anna stared blankly at her phone, but she was seeing the coolly speculative expression in Dominic’s eyes, as he looked her over like a foal he was considering buying. She saw David Fischer earnestly describing his father’s long search for the missing Vermeer as his pale knobbly hands stroked and soothed his cat.

  Then she saw the scene she’d only heard described, Julian arriving at Chris Freemantle’s door straight from that hideous dinner at the Scott-Nevilles, not sure if he had the strength to go on living. Last of all, she saw her grandfather’s face, the way he’d looked that evening when he lied; frightened and old, silently begging her to leave it alone.

  ‘Dammit!’ she said aloud. ‘Dammit, dammit, dammit!’

  First, she had to fix this headache. She went to hunt for some paracetamol found some in a drawer and swallowed two tablets with a gulp of water. Well, Jake McCaffrey, if the obstacle is the path, I must be bang on target, she thought. My path consists of nothing but bloody obstacles.

  She picked up her phone and called up a number on speed dial.

  ‘My introvert’s “maybe” just became a “yes”,’ she said grimly. ‘I’m in. Book our flights for Thursday morning.’ And was deafened by Tansy’s screams.

  ELEVEN

  Anna and Tansy boarded the early-morning flight for Munich under lowering, bruise-coloured clouds. By the time they’d taken their seats, rain was hammering on the windows. Later arrivals were hastily wiping their glasses or brushing off raindrops as they made their way up the aisles, contributing a damp fug to the air-conditioned atmosphere of the plane.

  There had been a time, before she came back to Oxford, when Anna had been a regular, not to say compulsive flier. Now she couldn’t remember when she’d last jumped on a plane, but everything seemed exactly how she remembered. Travellers ranging from fraught to blasé as they peered at seat numbers. An overweight businessman unapologetically trapped a woman in her seat, while he attempted to stuff his belongings into the already full overhead locker. A beautifully dressed young woman carried a see-through, plastic bag containing enough cosmetics to last Anna for several lifetimes.

  Light-headed from lack of sleep, she still couldn’t believe they were really here, that they were really doing this. She’d dropped Bonnie off at Isadora’s the night before and when she’d admitted that Geraldine, Isadora’s ditzy art historian friend, still hadn’t been in touch, Isadora had immediately called her up despite the lateness of the hour. In a tone that curdled Anna’s blood, so who knew what effect it had on the hapless Geraldine, Isadora had scathingly swept her apologies aside.

  ‘Of course your life is hectic, darling! Pre-schoolers live hectic lives these days. But my friend is leaving for Innsbruck at first light and it’s a matter of life and death!’ Ending the call, she’d said darkly, ‘That should do the trick!’

  It did. Anna had come home to find that Geraldine had emailed her the details of an Innsbruck lawyer, who was an expert in art restitution. Anna had sent him a late-night email apologising for the short notice and asking if they could meet. After that she’d stayed up late, looking at the lawyer’s website on his restitution work, then made the mistake of looking at a sidebar showing images of wartime Innsbruck.

  What are we doing? She thought suddenly, just setting off into the blue like schoolgirls in a 1950s adventure story. What were she and Tansy even expecting to find? A helpful clue left on a hotel pillow? A trail of pebbles leading to the evildoer’s house?

  She felt Tansy touch her arm. Apparently untroubled by dark thoughts, she was bubbling over with excitement.

  ‘I don’t mind now that we’ve got that hour’s stopover in Munich, because, you know, two countries in one day! This is the start of the new me – Tansy Lavelle, international traveller!’

  Anna couldn’t help smiling. ‘Oh-oh,’ she teased, ‘there’ll be no stopping you now!’

  Her phone gave a peremptory ping. Maybe Geraldine’s lawyer friend had replied to her email? Maybe he’d tell them something that might point them in the right direction; Anna needed something, anything, which would make this trip less pathetically random. But the message was from Herr Kirchmann letting her know that he was in London next week and would be free on Wednesday afternoon, if she’d like to come in and talk.

  ‘I apologise for the abrupt end to our call. I didn’t mean to make light of your very real concerns. When it comes to such serious matters, I think it is better to talk face-to-face when there is less likelihood of misunderstanding.’

  Anna could see the cabin crew working their way up the aisle securing lockers, checking seatbelts and table-trays. Since she still harboured a secret dread that her mobile would be the one rogue electronic device, which would fatally disrupt the plane’s guidance system, she composed a very hasty reply.

  ‘Thank you for holding out the olive branch. I’m actually on my way to Innsbruck to check out David Fischer’s claim about my dad.’

  She hoped Thomas Kirchmann wouldn’t see her decision to go to Innsbruck as an insult to the memory of the father he seemed to regard almost as a holy martyr. With half an eye on an approaching air steward, she signed off, ‘I’d be happy to meet you on Wednesday. Let me know what time suits you.’ Anna switched off her phone.

  Announcements came over the intercom, first in German then English; the doors were closed and the plane began to taxi slowly towards the runway.

  Most of the passengers had gratefully settled down in their seats to catch up on their sleep. Others (morning people, damn them,) chatted to their companions. Tansy leaned in to Anna, looking distinctly freaked.

>   ‘Almost everyone’s talking German,’ she hissed.

  Anna just nodded, unsure what the problem was.

  ‘I’ve started teaching myself German online, but I only know sorry, thank you and where is the post office? I can’t say anything useful.’

  ‘Everybody in Innsbruck will speak English,’ Anna reassured her. ‘Pretty much anywhere you go nowadays there’ll be someone who understands English. Even in China and Cambodia, people were desperate to try out their language skills on me.’

  ‘That’s so humbling,’ Tansy said, ashamed.

  ‘I did have one quite major misunderstanding in China,’ Anna said, ‘when I ended up eating the extremely private parts of a donkey.’

  Tansy gave a little shriek. ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘No, I did! Once it arrived there was no going back! It would have caused the worst kind of offence.’

  Tansy looked at Anna with new respect.

  ‘You went to China and Cambodia all by yourself, weren’t you scared?’

  ‘Not until that moment, no!’ It was hard to explain to someone as sociable as Tansy that for half her lifetime, Anna had found a safety in solitude that she never experienced with her fellow humans. In the not-too-distant past, she’d have sawed off her own arm rather than share a hotel room, as she and Tansy were doing on this trip to save money.

  The plane was picking up speed. The heavy rain was a steel-grey curtain making it impossible to see out. The plane began its final thundering approach down the runway, before launching them impossibly into the air. At this moment of no-return, Anna felt a rush of euphoria. She had surrendered herself to those fickle gods she didn’t believe in, trusting they’d deliver her and Tansy safely to their destination.

  She turned to smile at Tansy and saw that her friend’s skin, normally a delicate amber-gold, was suddenly ashen.

  ‘You know how I said I wanted adventures?’ she said in a small voice. ‘I’ve just remembered that I’m a tiny bit scared of flying!’

  Anna gave her hand a squeeze. ‘Don’t be scared. Look, now we’re up above the clouds. It’s magic! And when we come down again, there’ll be cake!’

  It was early afternoon when they eventually touched down in Innsbruck. A twenty-minute taxi ride took them to the Altstadt, the Old Town, where they were staying.

  ‘Let’s dump our stuff and go straight out to lunch,’ Tansy said as they pulled up outside their hotel. ‘I’ve already seen about a dozen gorgeous, little cafés!’

  Their small, family-run hotel was on a narrow street of mostly medieval buildings, but looked to have been built around three hundred years later.

  The brisk, grey-haired lady on the desk wore a black dress with a white, hand-crocheted collar, giving her a look of a grandmother in an old Austrian portrait. She spoke fluent English just as Anna had promised. An expressionless teenage boy took them up in the lift – the old-fashioned kind in a brass cage – and he unlocked the door of a spacious twin-bedded room, then vanished without a word, before they could decide if they should tip him for his trouble.

  Tansy admired their snow-white bed linen and exclaimed over the strangely shaped German pillows and quilts. Then she flung open the shutters and gave a shriek of delight at the panoramic view of mountains rising up above the higgledy-piggledy medieval skyline of the old town.

  ‘Did we die on that plane?’ she demanded. ‘Because this is like my idea of heaven. I don’t think I have ever – ever – breathed air this pure!’

  ‘Not in Oxford, that’s for sure!’ said Anna.

  Tansy stretched out her arms and went twirling around their room.

  ‘I totally understand, now, why Maria thought the hills were alive with the sound of music!’

  They washed and tidied themselves then went down to reception. When they stepped out of the lift they saw the teenage boy waiting glumly beside a pile of baggage, ready to show three new guests up to their rooms.

  ‘That boy does not love his work,’ Tansy whispered into Anna’s ear. At the reception desk, the lady with the crocheted collar had been replaced by a friendly, ruddy-faced man in a striped waistcoat.

  ‘Someone left a message for you.’ He consulted a notepad. ‘Herr Muller regrets that he is out of town, but his colleague Frau Brunner will meet with you instead.’ He smiled as he added ‘He says she will wait for you at 6.45, at the beer garden at Schwartzes Roessl – that is “the Black Horse” in English,’ he explained.

  Anna thanked him. ‘We’re just going to find somewhere to have lunch. Is there anywhere you’d recommend?’

  He laughed. ‘Oh, there are so many superb cafes in walking distance, but do you like sachertorte?’

  ‘Yes!’ Anna and Tansy said simultaneously.

  ‘Then you should try Café Leopold. It is close to the Golden Roof, a very famous Innsbruck landmark.’

  ‘You see,’ Tansy said gleefully as they left the hotel. ‘Now we’re here everything’s working out!’

  Half an hour later, they were seated at one of Café Leopold’s outdoor tables, eating something called Tiroler Bauerngroestl, in which tiny fried potatoes mingled with savoury cubes of pork and onion and everything was topped off with a fried egg. According to Tansy’s guidebook, this hearty dish was especially beloved of Tyrolean mountaineers. For a while, they ate in companionable silence.

  It was warm and sunny. Music floated from a nearby church. Early music was played on medieval instruments; a crystalline melody that perfectly suited the peaceful medieval square. Her eyes kept being drawn to the mountains that encircled the city like a snow-rimmed bowl. Like the air, the Alpine light had a purity you could almost touch or taste. Just at that moment, Oxford and England seemed very far away.

  ‘Would it be really immature,’ Tansy asked wistfully, when their sachertorte arrived, ‘if I had cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner until we leave? I mean, this is like, once in a lifetime.’

  ‘Hey, what goes on in Innsbruck, stays in Innsbruck!’ Anna told her.

  Tourists were shopping for souvenirs at a nearby stall selling cuckoo clocks and teddy bears in alpine climbing gear. Anna saw Tansy casting glances towards another group of obvious tourists forming around a short fair-haired man in medieval costume. Holding an ornate staff, he had an actor’s presence, which his lack of inches did nothing to diminish.

  ‘Shall we check out some of the must-sees in your guide-book?’ Anna suggested. ‘Later we can try out a different café, with different cake!’

  Tansy watched as another two tourists joined the little group.

  ‘Guided tours probably aren’t your thing, are they?’ She sounded wistful. ‘It’s just that Liam says, you should never pass up a chance to gather useful intel.’ It was the first time that Liam’s name had been mentioned since they’d left Oxford and Anna suspected it had only escaped now under extreme pressure.

  No, tours weren’t Anna’s thing. Like sharing a room, it was something she didn’t do. Until now, apparently. She signalled to the waiter for their bill.

  ‘I agree with Liam,’ she told her friend. ‘Let’s do it.’

  ‘Seriously!’ Tansy’s face lit up. ‘It’s just, you know, since we’re here …’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Anna said putting all possible conviction into her voice.

  They tagged on to the tour, as the guide began to explain that the Golden Roof was, disappointingly, not made of solid gold, but from 2,738 gold-plated, copper tiles. The roof had been designed to shelter a kind of royal box, to afford the Hapsburg Emperor Maximilian a birds-eye view of the tournaments in the square below.

  Anna admired the Golden Eagle hotel, where Napoleon had once stayed and some other hotel where the poet Goethe had holed up on his way to Italy. She followed the others down a medieval arcade, past leaded windows filled with dark, rich, glazed breads, smoked meats, sausage and exquisite patisserie. They wandered around the Court Church and dutifully inspected Maximilian’s tomb, then Anna caught a glimpse of a smiling, old man, who was with another tour group
and was guiltily reminded of the rift with her grandfather.

  As they continued along Marie Theresien Strasse, Anna was still thinking about her grandfather. She’d told him that she and Tansy were going away for a city break, not mentioning which city. She disliked herself for keeping this information from him and didn’t fully understand why she had.

  ‘And this is Saint Anna’s column,’ the guide said. Surprised to hear her own name Anna was jolted back to the present. She looked up to see a landmark that seemed oddly familiar.

  ‘In fact, the statue on top is of St Mary,’ the guide explained, ‘but it was dedicated on St Anne’s day and so we call it Saint Anna’s column.’

  Anna felt a thrill of recognition. This is where they stood. This was where her parents had posed for an unknown photographer on their long-delayed honeymoon. In real life, the column, an unremarkable brown in the photograph, was made of a similar polished red marble to Maximilian’s tomb.

  She suddenly knew why they’d wanted the photo. They had stood on this exact spot and thought: we must take a picture to show Anna that there’s an Austrian landmark which shares her name. Here in this city they had thought of her. She felt ridiculously moved.

  They retraced their steps back along Marie Theresien Strasse into another shadowy medieval arcade. Anna breathed in the distilled fragrances of ground coffee and caramelised sugar, as their guide delivered his spiel on fourteenth-century signage, before leading them out into a hushed little cul-de-sac. The narrow houses painted in pale primrose, dull rose and pistachio, seemed taller in such a confined space. A ring-tailed dove walked about on the sun-warmed cobbles, untroubled by their presence. The only sound was the splashing of a fountain. They had halted outside what Anna took to be an exclusive jewellery shop.

  Wondering why they were here, she glanced around for a street sign and felt her heart miss a beat. Kerzenstaendergasse. Candlestick Lane. She remembered Herr Kirchmann’s words: ‘My father had a gallery in Kerzenstaendergasse.’

  She tried to catch Tansy’s eye but her friend’s attention was focussed on the guide as he said soberly, ‘I have brought you to a place that you will rarely see mentioned in guide-books. In the nineteen-thirties and forties, this building was an art gallery belonging to a very brave man. His name was Michael Kirchmann.’