The Templar Prophecy

by Mario Reading

  Effi’s perfume floated up to him in waves. Hart suspected that she had taken the time to freshen up whilst she was out in the kitchen getting his drink. The position she was now taking, crouched beneath him and hunched a little forward, was inflammatory in the extreme, and plainly done with intent. It meant that Effi’s jeans were stretched tightly across the rounded swell of her buttocks so that Hart could just make out the braided top of her red silk underwear poking over the hem. He moved a little closer.

  ‘Here it is. I knew I would find it.’ Effi stood up.

  Hart had virtually boxed her into the shrine by this time.

  When Effi realized how close Hart was standing to her she gave a triumphant little smile. ‘It was on the very bottom row. Just where a child would be able to see it.’ She swivelled the photograph round and held it to her chest like a school prize.

  It was a wider-angled copy of the same photograph Hart had found beneath his father’s desk in Antigua. This was the uncropped version, however, with four figures on it instead of two. An out-of-uniform Heinrich Rache was standing off to one side with a grotesquely fat, exotically uniformed Hermann Goering. Both men were beaming possessively at the two beautiful people standing by the aeroplane.

  Effi touched the photograph with her fingernail, carefully picking out Johannes von Hartelius’s head. ‘Your grandfather.’ She placed the same finger on the bridge of Hart’s nose. ‘You. No difference. Two peas in a pod. What do you say to that, Baron?’

  Hart caught Effi’s finger in his hand and bit down on it, as a cat will bite down on its owner’s hand when it wishes to play. Effi pretended to snatch it away, but Hart held onto it, making a tunnel of his own hand. The symbolism was explicit and unmistakeable. Hart held Effi’s gaze with his own in order to drive the message even further home. ‘You have me bang to rights. Did you like this photograph when you were a child?’

  Effi backed a little tighter against the wall. She canted her hips marginally forward so that she wouldn’t disturb the photographs behind her. Just far enough, in fact, to confirm that Hart was genuinely excited by her closeness to him. When she was satisfied that she had his complete attention, she said, ‘I thought it was the most romantic thing I had ever seen. I wanted to be your grandmother. In that exact same flying suit she is wearing. With all the fur around the collar. But naked underneath. And I wanted to have a man like your grandfather loving me.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like a little girl talking.’

  ‘I matured early.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Do you like what you see, Baron?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I must see more of it before I decide.’

  ‘How are we going to arrange that?’

  ‘I can think of one approach that might work.’ Hart leant forward. He cradled Effi’s head in his hand and ran the fingers of his other hand through her hair, smoothing it away from her forehead. Then he guided her gently towards him.

  Effi let him take the lead. Dominant in her public life, she enjoyed feeling dominated in private. Men who were afraid of asserting their masculinity disgusted her. She allowed Hart to kiss her. Then, after only a moment’s expedient submission, she kissed him passionately back.

  He responded instantly, crushing her against the wall, not caring if her grandfather’s photo collection fell off in a heap or was smashed to smithereens.

  Effi writhed beneath him, her hands entwined in his hair.

  Hart ground his hips into hers, the full length of his body measured against hers as if she was already on the floor, and he on top of her.

  Outside the house, Udo Zirkeler circled like an angry lion. As the minutes and then the hours ticked by, he became more and more incensed. When the lights went on in the upstairs bedroom, he kicked out at the nearest thing he could find, which happened to be a birdhouse. The birdhouse snapped in two. Udo stamped on it, then heeled what remained of the birdhouse into the ground.

  There was little chance of anyone hearing. Haus Walküre, like all well-made Bavarian homes, had double-paned windows against the long winters. And Effi’s windows were firmly sealed against Udo. Just like her heart.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  ‘You’re fucking that fake English baron.’ Udo could control neither the sneer in his voice nor the contortions on his face. The anger he felt went deeper than he would ever have believed possible. He felt betrayed. Used and betrayed.

  ‘It’s no business of yours who I fuck, Udo. And he’s not a fake. I have a photograph of his grandfather and he is the image of him. Not just near, but dead on. You can’t fake that. Not even with the best plastic surgery in the world. It’s all about bone structure and hairline. The width of the eyes and the shape of the nose. Things you wouldn’t understand. And why should he be trying to fake anything? He’s over here for a very good reason: to get his family’s castle back. He met me by accident.’

  ‘I don’t think it was an accident. I think it was a set-up. To get to you.’

  ‘I want him to get to me. So it was a lucky set-up, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You’re besotted. You’re not thinking straight. He’s fucked you witless.’

  ‘Don’t you speak to me like that. You’ve got no right. Remember who I am? I’m your employer, Udo. And your superior. You take my orders. For which you are paid vey well. That can all change with a click of my fingers. Then you’ll be all alone out there in a ghetto of your own choosing. How long do you think you will last before they reel you in? One month? Two?’

  ‘Pah. You’re throwing all we are working for away. What do you think the English baron will do if he finds out what you’re really up to?’

  ‘He won’t find out. I’m perfectly capable of keeping my private life separate from my public persona. And my public persona separate from our hidden agenda, should it come to that.’

  ‘You would be the first person in the history of the world who could pull that one off.’

  ‘Nonsense. We Raches have done it for years.’

  ‘Your father and grandfather were men. You are a woman. Women are made differently.’

  ‘You really think so?’

  Effi’s ironical tone was lost on Udo. ‘I know so.’

  ‘You really are a sexist pig, Udo. An unregenerate.’

  ‘That’s why you find it convenient to use me. You should use me more.’

  ‘I should be with you, you mean? Not him? Keep it all in-house? Protect the fort?’

  ‘Yes. You should be with me. I know all your secrets. I do anything I’m asked. Even down to killing for you.’

  ‘That’s just it, Udo. You do anything you’re asked. I want a man who doesn’t ask. Who just takes. When I decide to give it, of course.’

  ‘And the English baron is such a man?’

  ‘Stop calling him the English baron. He’s German. His family have been here for more than a thousand years. He’s an Aryan through and through. He has more true German nobility in his little finger than you have in your whole body.’

  ‘Then why does he have an English passport?’

  Effi whirled round. ‘What are you talking about? How do you know that?’

  ‘Because whilst you were busy fucking him last night I visited his room at the Alpenruh. The old biddy is deaf as a post. And the place is empty. They are shutting down for good at the end of the season. I could have camped out in the Speisezimmer and no one would have noticed.’

  ‘Are you crazy? What if he had caught you?’

  ‘I’d have killed him. I still might. I’d bear that in mind when next you see him.’

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  ‘You never answered my question about why you speak English and not German?’

  Effi was lying across Hart’s stomach. She knew he liked to look at her bottom, so she was exhibiting it freely for him. She loved the look of herself, and she loved even more being looked at by a man. When the man who was doing the looking was as virile as her English baron was, it was doubly satisfying. She’d never known
a man who could hold out for as long as he could without coming. Nor one whose penis was so thick that it made her gasp whenever he entered her. She meant to hold on to him, whatever that degenerate Udo said. Effi enjoyed living dangerously.

  Hart was better prepared for her question this time around. ‘You know my father was made an orphan in 1945? In a plane crash?’

  ‘Whilst your grandparents were bringing a suitcase out of Berlin to give to my grandfather. Yes.’

  Hart sat up in the bed, causing Effi to tumble ingloriously over onto her back.

  ‘To your grandfather?’

  Effi sat up too. If she was put out by Hart’s unexpected reaction to her revelation she didn’t show it.

  ‘Yes. Didn’t you know? Your grandfather and grandmother were ordered out of Berlin by the Führer the night before he committed suicide. They were to bring a suitcase containing the Holy Lance to my grandfather in Gmund. Only their plane was shot down by the Americans before they could get here. The Lance was found by a GI. He and his family kept it for –’ Effi counted on her fingers like a child – ‘sixty-seven years. Then their ancestor contacted us and gave it back because he felt guilty keeping it. It was addressed to my grandfather at this house, you see.’

  Hart was having a hard time disguising his shock. He hoped that Effi would assume that it was shock at her first bombshell announcement, and nothing more than that. He needed to gather himself together again. Fast.

  ‘But I thought someone dug up the Lance on your land? Quite recently? Given my family’s long connection with the Lance, this was a matter of some interest to me. I’ve been following it online and in the newspapers. I did think it extraordinary at the time that the Lance had simply been buried here.’

  Effi slithered up the bed and snuggled herself into the crook made by Hart’s legs. This time she made sure he got a good long look at her breasts and her depilated mound. ‘It wasn’t. That was all a lie to allow my political party, the LB, to keep hold of the Lance whilst investigations took place. And these investigations will take years. You can count on it. If we had simply admitted the Lance had been given back to us by a well-wisher, the state would have confiscated it and interviewed the man about the Lance’s acquisition. As it is, what we have is treasure trove. And there are rules about such things. Nobody can take it away from us unless it can be proved that the Lance in the Vienna Schatzkammer is a fake, and that ours is therefore the original. And that will be hard, as Uncle Adolf got his best technicians to counterfeit it, using the original as a template. He used two thousand-year-old wood from a Roman shipwreck. An ancient nail from the same source. Wire from a Vandal sword hilt. Tenth-century silver and fourteenth-century gold. The two lances are as similar as you and your grandfather. But theirs is fake and ours is real. Our people know that, and they are passing the knowledge around that we are the ones who have been chosen to hold the Lance, and not those Viennese strudels at the Imperial Palace.’

  Uncle Adolf? Hart decided to assume, for the time being at least, that Effi meant the title ironically, given that she must have been born at least thirty-five years after Hitler’s death. ‘Where is this man? The one who found it?’

  ‘He didn’t find it. He inherited it. He’s in Portland somewhere. Or so I believe. Portland, Oregon.’

  Hart watched Effi’s face as she told the lie. Nothing showed. No emotion. No fluttering of the eyelids. No facial tics. She was either telling the truth as she knew it, or she was the most consummate liar he had ever encountered.

  ‘Did he send it to you?’

  ‘Yes. Extraordinary, isn’t it? That there are such honourable people left in this world. When you think that a thing as valuable as this can languish in someone’s attic for nearly seventy years, and then come straight back to the place it was originally intended for. It’s like a miracle.’

  ‘It’s really valuable?’

  ‘In money terms? No. It would be unsellable. A court order would be slapped onto it straight away. But in political terms? It’s worth more than diamonds to us. You know about my party, don’t you?’

  ‘A little. It’s like the Front National in France, isn’t it?’

  ‘And how do you feel about that?’

  ‘Neither one way nor the other. I’m fundamentally non-political. I believe in people, not political parties.’ The lie was almost truthful, so Hart could say it without flinching. ‘Anyway, I’m making love to you, not your politics.’

  ‘And you’re happy to leave it at that?’

  ‘Perfectly happy. As long as I don’t have to make love to you in front of a roaring crowd.’

  ‘You’d find that off-putting?’

  ‘Somewhat, yes. But I’d probably forget all about the crowd once I got into it.’

  ‘Probably?’

  ‘Definitely.’ Hart rolled Effi over onto her stomach. ‘You’ve been exhibiting yourself to me for the past twenty minutes, Fräulein Rache. Now you’re going to have to pay the piper.’

  ‘How, Baron? With what?’

  ‘Just you wait and see.’

  THIRTY-NINE

  Hart watched Frau Erlichmann from across the esszimmer table. They had agreed to meet for coffee every afternoon at three, but Hart had missed their first two appointments because he had been in bed with Effi. This third appointment, he suspected, might prove a little awkward.

  Frau Erlichmann enjoyed making a ritual of her ‘coffee time’. First she got Hart to grind the coffee beans by hand, because that was the only way they stayed fresh. Then she boiled a pot of water and placed the white porcelain coffee jug in it to heat. Next she placed a porcelain filter and an unbleached filter paper over the pot. When the water from the kettle was going marginally off the boil, she wet the grounds, and then continued pouring.

  ‘This way the coffee is kept hot, but the grounds aren’t poached.’

  Then the coffee pot was placed onto a tea light to maintain the heat. Milk wasn’t used to dilute the coffee, as that might curdle and spoil the brew, but instead Frau Erlichmann used what she called ‘coffee cream’ – a secret mixture of her own making. To accompany his coffee Frau Erlichmann offered Hart a choice of homemade nusskuchen (nut cake), zwetschgenkuchen (plum cake), or sauerkirschkuchen (sour cherry cake).

  ‘I shall put on weight.’

  ‘You are underweight as it is. You must be over-extending yourself. I noticed you did not come back to your room last night, nor the night before, as your bed did not need to be made up. I assume you were with the Rache girl both nights? And perhaps yesterday afternoon as well?’

  Hart made a face. Damage limitation was needed. ‘I’m sorry I missed our coffee times. I really am. I wanted to tell you that the boys did a splendid job. I hope I didn’t hurt your grandson when I grabbed him like that in the restaurant? He had me convinced, I can tell you. He had Effi and her girlfriends convinced too.’

  ‘His politics are his own. He knows where he comes from. I was only afraid he might overdo it in the heat of the moment. He is still young.’

  ‘No. He acted his part perfectly. As did the other two. But are you sure Effi will never have seen them? Nor that brute she keeps as her unofficial bodyguard? Will he know them?’

  ‘The Raches of the world are not interested in the likes of us. My son and his family live on Lake Würm – what they now call the Starnberger See. I visit them there. They do not come here. Too many bad memories.’ Frau Erlichmann gave Hart an old-fashioned look. ‘Talking of the Raches, it is difficult to separate physical attraction from emotion. Even for a man. Are you sure you can keep the two apart?’

  ‘Answer a question with a question, eh?’ Hart looked a little sick. ‘I know you don’t like Effi Rache. And you have every reason not to. But it wasn’t she who denounced your parents. It was her grandfather. Her politics might stink, but I don’t think she had anything to do with killing my father, Santiago and Colel Cimi either. I’ve had lots of time to watch her…’

  ‘I’m sure you have.’

  Hart d
idn’t rise to the bait, but it was hard. ‘I’m convinced others are using her.’

  ‘The brute she keeps as an unofficial bodyguard – Udo Zirkeler, you mean?’

  ‘Well, yes. Probably.’

  ‘I’m sure you are right.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Yes. About Zirkeler. Someone broke into your room the first night you were away.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I have lived in this house, apart from the three years during the war that I told you about, for nearly ninety years. I know every nook and cranny. Every scratch on every lock. I also know my maid doesn’t leave wood chippings on the floor of the hall and in the bedrooms after she has vacuumed. Did you carry wood chippings into the room on your boots when you weren’t there?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then Zirkeler searched your room. Do you have anything in there that could be construed as suspicious?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. What could there be? I don’t have a phone. I don’t have a computer. I’ve got no family pictures with me.’ Hart slapped his top pocket to make sure the photograph of his sister Carmen was still safely in place. He tried to conjure up a clear picture of his room and his belongings in his head, but he had spent so little time there that it was difficult. ‘Ah. I know what they might have found. My fake passport. In a drawer in my dresser.’

  ‘Is it obviously fake?’

  ‘No. It’s pretty good, actually. Enough to survive a visual check. The only snag is that it’s British, not German. We had to get it in a hurry. We didn’t have time for frills like that.’ Hart rolled his eyes. ‘So that’s why Effi kept harping on about why I can’t speak German.’

  ‘Did you have a suitable explanation ready for her?’

  ‘Yes. I did. But we never quite got round to the punch line.’ Hart managed a sheepish smile. He couldn’t pull the wool over Frau Erlichmann’s eyes, however myopic or misted by cataracts they might be. ‘Each time she asked me we got sidetracked.’

  ‘Fräulein Rache is a desirable woman. Her beauty is perhaps a little shallow, if you want my honest opinion, but I know well enough after all these years what men are satisfied with.’