AURELIA (Roma Nova Book 4)

by Alison Morton

  I gulped.

  ‘Go.’ He turned away and walked back to his makeshift house. He stopped halfway, hesitated, then braced his shoulders and carried on. I watched until he’d closed the door. How I made it back to Berlin, I didn’t know. A grey lump of misery grew inside me. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. I was beyond tears.

  *

  ‘Where in Hades have you been?’ Plico shouted at me over the videolink. ‘Do you have any idea how much budget I’ve spent getting them to try and find you? You’re a vital witness in the case against a criminal trying to sabotage the economy of your country, let alone attempting to murder you, and you swan off on a jolly.’

  He ranted on and on. I hit the mute button, until he held up a note in uneven capital letters, ‘TURN THE BLOODY MUTE OFF’.

  I poked the button on the console and sat back.

  ‘What were you doing anyway?’

  I shrugged but said nothing. He was irrelevant, an angry hornet trapped inside the video tube that couldn’t get free or sting anybody.

  ‘The imperial purse won’t fund tourist trips, you know.’

  ‘I’ll pay it back at the hire car rate,’ I said, in order to shut him up.

  He flicked his hand impatiently. ‘That’s not the point.’ He paused and frowned at me. ‘Are you all right? You look a bit peaky.’

  I nodded, wriggled in my chair and sat up in an effort to look attentive.

  ‘Nothing I can’t handle. I wanted a break,’ I said. Broken was the ideal word for my heart at the moment; the rest of me was merely numb.

  ‘Well, no more cowboy trips. You stay put in the legation until Caius Tellus’s trial is over and he’s behind bars. If you have an overwhelming desire for fresh air, stay within the city limits and take a Praetorian with you. I’ve advised the military commander.’

  *

  In contrast to the high drama before it, Caius’s trial for smuggling was procedural, and over in a week; he was jailed for six years. Plico snorted when we spoke on the vidphone.

  ‘Bastard will get out in four. Then we’ll have to deal with him all over again. Shame he hasn’t done something worse where they could nail him up forever.’

  Most of the legation staff took little notice of me after that. I was a transient, now without authority, influence or purpose. They were courteous of my rank but the military gave me brief nods, the civilians hurried by, intent on their files and tasks. That was perfect; I was delighted to be miserable by myself.

  I was packing to catch the morning flight home, thank the gods. I’d finished with Berlin. Marina was waiting for me at home. But the passion had gone out of my life. I would never know that intensity of feeling ever again that I’d experienced in those hours with Miklós. I would need to gather every bit of willpower into my core to carry on in a rational way.

  Fabia stuck her head around the corner of the little office I’d used.

  ‘The car’s ready for you, Major.’

  I smiled. Whatever I said, I couldn’t get her to stop calling me that. After all, that’s how I still thought of myself.

  I hesitated by the legation car. Although I was sheltered under the portico, it didn’t protect me entirely from the rain blown in by a brisk wind. I shivered. I looked at the hands on my watch. We had plenty of time before the flight.

  ‘Drive east out of the city on the Frankfurter Chaussee.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Do as I say.’

  *

  We crawled through the eastern suburbs; the main dual carriageway was clogged up at this time in the morning, vehicles moving in short spurts of speed between traffic lights. Greasy spray from the vehicles in front and to the side washed over the windscreen. I glanced again at my watch. We were on the wrong side of the city from the airport and my plane was due to take off in ninety minutes. I covered my mouth with my hand. Gods. But I couldn’t leave without seeing and touching the doorway where we had kissed, the bed where we had lain together. After another five minutes, before the turning on to the Landstraße leading to the woods sheltering Miklós’s barn, Fabia twisted her head round.

  ‘We must turn back now.’

  ‘No,’ my voice cracked.

  ‘I’m sorry, Major, but I must respectfully refuse. You’ll miss your flight and I’ll be on a disciplinary.’

  Three kilometres away.

  Hades.

  Fabia turned round in her front seat next to the driver with a puzzled expression on her face, but I was too proud to let her see me cry.

  XIV

  We swung through the entrance to Tempelhof. Fabia had come with me into the terminal building and waited as I queued to check in. Perhaps she was being friendly, or perhaps she had orders to make sure I got on the plane. I handed my passport and ticket booklet over to the check-in agent. He flipped through the carbon copies of the vouchers, frowned at my diplomatic passport and consulted a clipboard he pulled out from below the counter. He lifted a telephone handset, gave his name and the words, ‘Sie ist angekommen.’ I glanced at Fabia. They were expecting me. Why? I had elected to go through general passenger processing and not stand out in the VIP route. All I wanted to do was go home, without any fuss. The agent picked up my passport and ticket, clicked his service light off and beckoned an armed border policeman forward.

  ‘If you please, follow me.’

  ‘Why, what is it?’ I asked.

  Fabia stepped forward. ‘The countess is an accredited diplomat. You may not detain her.’

  ‘I don’t know who you are, young woman, but please stand out of our way.’ He didn’t quite sneer at her.

  ‘No, I will not. I am Optio Fabia, part of the Roma Nova diplomatic protection detail. Please state your reason for detaining Countess Mitela.’

  ‘The head of airport security has asked me to bring her to him. If you obstruct us, I will have you arrested.’

  ‘That would be an unwise decision,’ Fabia stepped forward and stared at him with half-closed but fully menacing eyes. Her body leant into his so she was barely a centimetre away from him. He swallowed and stumbled back. Even the policeman didn’t move, but glanced around as if looking for help.

  I cleared my throat. ‘This official thinks we have sufficient time, Fabia. No doubt he’ll hold the plane for us.’

  ‘Very well, domina,’ she said, still staring into the agent’s eyes, but shifting her weight back, releasing him from the threatening closeness.

  I followed him across to the other side of the booking hall, Fabia marching barely a step behind me. The agent knocked at a door with no nameplate, but a camera above it, and on hearing the buzz of a door release, ushered us in. He gave a furtive glance at Fabia and left.

  A man sitting behind a desk was jabbing a sheet of paper on a clipboard that a uniformed border policeman was holding out to him. Both looked up as we entered.

  ‘Yes?’

  I signalled Fabia back. She was in too bad a mood.

  ‘You have asked to see me? I’m Aurelia Mitela.’

  ‘This was delivered for you by the police with instructions to prevent you boarding the plane, if necessary.’

  It was a plain buff envelope with ‘Landeskriminalamt Berlin’ at the top left and marked ‘Urgent. Highly confidential for Aurelia Countess Mitela’ written in ink in the middle.

  ‘A car is waiting outside to take you back to the city.’

  Pluto himself wasn’t going to drag me back there, let alone the local police. I was going home. ‘No, I’m on my way back to Roma Nova. My mission is finished.’

  ‘Please,’ he said.

  I glared at him but I tore open the envelope. Inside was another from the legation with the ‘Eyes Only’ marking. GROSSCHENK FOUND. RETURN STAT LEGATION. LIAISE SCHOLZ GDKA/OK. T. PLICO

  *

  I was so furious I was calm. Perhaps it was the training, or my Germanic blood. I was saving my anger for Grosschenk. I didn’t bother with the legation; we went straight to the police station.

  ‘So where is he?’ I
shot at Scholz.

  He stared at me.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Haven’t they told you?’

  ‘Stop play-acting, Scholz. Just take me to him.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he said to his desk. He looked up at me. ‘He’s dead.’

  Scholz poured me a cup of strong coffee before he settled in the chair behind what had been Joachim’s desk. His stubble hair was even shorter, if that was possible, and his shoulders were curled forward, making him into a ball of tension.

  ‘We were taking Grosschenk’s house apart. There’s some nice stuff in there so we had to wait for those snotty bastards from the arts and antiques recovery service with their nice little cotton gloves and tight smiles.’

  ‘Well, if they find a gold and sapphire earring, it’s mine,’ I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. I knew Scholz didn’t like me – I didn’t think he approved of women in management positions – but he was professional enough.

  ‘In the meantime, we’ve been clearing the staff area and outbuildings,’ he continued. ‘Nothing. But Hahn’s been running a background check on Grosschenk’s assets just to make sure we haven’t missed anything. We already knew about the house in the Helvetian Confederation. Grosschenk turns out to have had apartments in London and in Hamburg as well.’

  ‘Quite the property tycoon,’ I said. ‘So, any good?’

  ‘Not a thing. The police in London and Zurich were quick off the mark, but those bastards in the Hanseatic Police up north took their time.’ He glanced away, then looked at me. ‘But that’s irrelevant now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I wriggled in my seat. I didn’t know whether Scholz was being cagey or just plain awkward.

  ‘Hahn discovered the woodland at the back of Grosschenk’s house belonged to the property. We’d assumed it was part of public land because it was the other side of the garden wall. Anyway, Hahn told them to let the dogs run through just as a precaution.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘One of the dog handlers thought his animal was acting a bit strange, but he smelled something funny himself and called Hahn over.’ He pushed half a dozen black and white photographs across the desk.

  I’d seen gunshot and knife wounds and tended a few, but this made me want to retch. I swallowed hard and fought to control my stomach muscles as they spasmed. Grosschenk had been decapitated and his remaining body partially burnt.

  ‘The post-mortem’s scheduled for later today, but we’ve confirmed the ID from the tattoo inside his elbow. It’s a large version of the ones his lot have.’ He snorted. ‘Little man trying to look big.’

  ‘That little man nearly killed me.’

  *

  Scholz drove me out to Grosschenk’s house. I shivered as we went through the gates and wriggled my toes in a ghost of memory of that horrendous night. Although I had full use back, my foot sometimes stiffened from cramp. This damp day was one of those.

  In the courtyard, two green police cars were parked by the north wing, near the tower where Grosschenk had tried to kill me. Scholz told me to wait in his car and crossed over to the nearest one. He bent over and talked to the uniformed Schupo inside, then both of them looked over at me and stopped speaking. What was going on?

  Scholz said nothing as he drove us back out of the main gates. About fifty metres further along, we turned left on to an unmade road, with recent wheel marks pressed into the cinder surface – a goods vehicle or wide trailer. At the end, three figures in yellow oilskins and wellingtons huddled round the open rear door of a van marked ‘FORENSIK’. One turned towards us as Scholz parked in perfect parallel; it was Hahn. He waddled over with a yellow jacket and a pair of boots. His face had lost its cheery schoolboy look.

  ‘Here,’ he virtually thrust the boots at me, ‘or you’ll ruin your fancy shoes.’

  Scholz and Hahn led me in silence down a track between tall conifers. Perhaps it was the dark green shutting out the sunlight and the still forest absorbing even the sound of our feet on the needle-strewn path, but I shivered. I was dressed in a light cotton coat for travelling, not for hiking through damp, cold woodland. Now and again, luggage tags tied to branches flapped as we passed. I couldn’t read the numbers and black writing on them as Hahn marched on and Scholz was almost treading on my heels.

  About three hundred, perhaps three hundred and fifty, metres up the path, it crossed with another. Set back a few metres stood a stone-built shingle-roofed hut with a brick chimney at the far end and a shuttered window facing us. Patches of milky green lichen patterned the stone, and moss grew all over the roof, vibrant green except in a circle around the chimney area where it had turned dark brown.

  A uniformed policeman stood guard outside the open door. Scholz nodded to him and we entered the hut. Inside, it was freezing cold. Two yellow-clad figures with ‘FORENSIK’ on the back of their jackets crouched down, their work lit by a portable floodlight. At their sides were toolboxes with instruments, plastic bottles, bags and envelopes. One of them was scraping an area of the floor near the chimney with a tiny trowel. His short, precise movements stopped and he tipped black flakes into a plastic bag and sealed it.

  ‘Human tissue,’ he said without turning to look at us, ‘burnt to a nice crisp.’ His breath plumed in the cold.

  I staggered outside. Gods. Grosschenk was a murderous little shit, but this? In my mind, there was only one person who could be responsible.

  A uniformed Schupo approached and held out a radio set to Scholz. He listened, nodding twice, glanced at me and said, ‘Ja, sofort.’ He handed the set back to the policeman and took my arm. ‘The medical examiner wants to talk to you. So does the boss.’

  *

  ‘So you see, Frau Gräfin Mitela, we are at a loss as to why this body’s head was cut off and the meaning of this note we found in its mouth.’ We stood in the chill mortuary room, the doctor standing back as if not wishing to be involved. Under an intense overhead light, the corpse on the steel examining table was thankfully covered up, apart from its separated head. An acrid sickly smell hung in the air. The police director reached across and handed me a piece of paper, crinkled but intact. He looked over his gold wire-frame spectacles, first at me, then at Scholz with what was supposed to be an intimidating frown; Scholz said nothing.

  I stared at the lined paper. It was a small sheet, about ten by fifteen centimetres and torn at the short edge as if from a spiral notebook. I rubbed the note between my thumb and forefinger.

  ‘It’s all-weather paper, resistant to body fluids,’ I said. Then I read the words.

  MIT FECIT

  Merda.

  ‘Would you care to translate it for us?’

  I swallowed and tried to keep my voice neutral. ‘Well, it’s Latin. “FECIT” means “made” or “did” with an implied “it”, and “MIT”… MIT doesn’t mean anything in particular.’ I waved my hand as if in embarrassment. ‘I sometimes use it as a short form of my name.’ I was being less than completely truthful. I used it all the time on documents under my signature – it was the Roma Novan custom – but I didn’t like the way this conversation was developing. Not one tiny bit.

  ‘I see,’ the police director said. ‘I think we should continue in one of our interview rooms upstairs.’

  *

  Scholz sat straight in his chair on the other side of the table from me, his arms crossed. Hahn fidgeted by his side. A green-uniformed woman Schupo stood by the door. Hahn had switched the tape recorder off when it became obvious I wasn’t going to say a word until the legation lawyer arrived. Hahn had the grace to look embarrassed now that he had to view me as a suspect instead of a colleague. Tough. I couldn’t believe they’d jumped to the conclusion they obviously had on the strength of one piece of paper. And no doubt written by that bastard Caius. After half an hour trying, they left me alone in the room.

  An hour and twenty-seven minutes after my phone call to the legation consultor’s department, Sharp Nose strode in followed by Scholz and Hahn. About bloody time.
Where in Hades had she been? She nodded to me. Hahn gave her a nervous smile and indicated she should take the empty chair beside me. She gave him such a hard look he retreated.

  ‘First of all,’ she said, ‘you have no right to detain an accredited diplomat to the Royal Prussian Court. Secondly, if she graciously decides to help you with your investigation you are not entitled to make a recording as her testimony is given on an informal basis.’

  ‘You have that incorrect, Frau Rechtsanwältin,’ drawled Scholz, waving a sheet of paper at her. ‘That used to be the case, but the diplomatic agreement between our two countries changed a year ago, following an incident on the Roma Novan border.’ He looked straight at me and didn’t quite smirk. ‘I believe it was called the Mitela Variation.’

  Gods, the irony of it all. I’d fought all the way to abolish the automatic right of protection for so-called diplomats to be brought into law. Now I was trapped by my own persistence.

  ‘That covers espionage, Detective,’ Sharp Nose shot back, ‘“foreigners caught in undiplomatic activity”, I believe, is the exact wording. There is no case of that here.’

  ‘Murder is fairly undiplomatic.’

  ‘Oh, has my client been arrested for murder?’ She asked with a faux-friendly smile. ‘What is the name of the appointed investigating prosecutor?’ she cooed.

  ‘No, she hasn’t been arrested,’ he said, and threw his sheet of paper on the table, ‘but we are pursuing a murder enquiry and she is a person of interest.’

  ‘Of course, we’re perfectly happy to cooperate to the maximum, but there is no question of any interview proceeding at present. If you have “cause of higher level suspicion”, tell me now.’

  Scholz rubbed his finger on the table in little circles. Hahn cast a worried look at his colleague.

  ‘I thought not.’ Sharp Nose was almost smug. ‘To cover all eventualities, I have a release order signed by the district judge’s office in exercise of the Paris International Diplomatic Protocols.’

  Scholz snatched the folded sheet she had thrust at him and scanned it.