Denied to all but Ghosts

by Pete Heathmoor

  “What happened?”

  “Well, you may be surprised to learn that my style can be rather confrontational at times.”

  “I would never have guessed that, Marchel,” said Beckett slyly.

  “And so people do tend to get a little hot under the shirt.”

  “Collar, I think you’ll find, Marsh.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Carry on, Herr Cavendish.”

  “Several people died in Prague.”

  “Died! I thought you investigated missing dogs and ‘compromised auctions’. What is there for people to die about?”

  “You forget we are talking large amounts of money within the organisation, millions of Euros. There is much greed and corruption and it attracts a lot of the wrong sort, people interested in making money out of the firm, abusing their power and position. The firm is the home of the very wealthy. However, one does not become wealthy by joining the firm. The wealth comes first. There were some very nasty individuals in Prague.”

  “So who is Hugo Victor?”

  “Victor was on the committee in Vienna who reviewed my case concerning Prague. I guess he was there to keep an eye on me, I am on probation following the hearing.”

  “What actually happened in Prague?” asked Beckett, not for a moment expecting a reply from the reticent German. His suspicion was confirmed by Cavendish’s serene gaze. Yet Cavendish was reliving his experiences in Prague on a bleak winter’s day.

  Even before he opened the door, Cavendish knew something was wrong. The sight of Holger Ehlers’ terrified face and damp crotch confirmed his fears as the young man seemed to stare right through him at something horrific in the corner of the room. The air of foreboding was palpable as he thrust Dagmar Klum towards the couch where her bemused son had remained. Cavendish twisted at the waist to discover the source of the room’s affliction.

  “Hello, Marchel, don’t you know it is the height of bad manners to interfere in a fellow Untersucher’s case? Perhaps you don’t, you mongrels have no class.” Dieter Klauss sat in the corner of the room on a wooden chair. He was leaning forward and wafting his exotic 1912 Mauser pistol vaguely in the direction of Cavendish.

  In his early fifties, Klauss had aged well like one of the fine wines from his extensive cellars in Saxony. He was a tall man with the dark distinctive looks that he had inherited from his father. He was every inch the proud Prussian Junker and thought little of the likes of Cavendish, who was no true German. He would take pleasure in killing the reckless foreigner.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be ill in bed with appendicitis, Dieter,” asked Cavendish calmly.

  “You are a gullible young pup, always were. You’re playing with the big boys now. You really shouldn’t be so keen to get involved with things you know nothing about.” Klauss spoke quickly, barely able to contain his rage at being exposed for what he was.

  “What have you been up to, Dieter?” solicited Cavendish, fighting to control the effects of the adrenalin unleashed by Klauss’ taunts.

  “Doing my job,” snarled the older man.

  “Since when did stealing from the firm and committing rape constitute our job?”

  “Watch your mouth, boy! I’d hate for you to wet yourself like your gofer.”

  “Why the antique gun, Dieter?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re not carrying your cowboy gun, Marchel.”

  “Actually Dieter, it’s a 1955 model, a bit late for cowboys.”

  “So how do we settle this, Marchel? I can’t have you going back and spoiling things for me, not when this place has so much to offer.” He smiled sweetly at Dagmar.

  “I’m afraid I have to stop you. It’s my duty.” Cavendish knew the likelihood of now stopping Klauss was nil yet his calmness so close to death came as no surprise.

  “Duty! What the hell do you know about duty! You have never served anyone except yourself! I’ve done more for the firm than you ever will, so don’t you dare judge me, boy!”

  The occupants of the room became aware of a scratching sound emanating from the far side of the door in the corner of the room. The door suddenly burst open and a large handsome black and tan German shepherd bounded purposefully into the room, heading for the rug where Cavendish had earlier been standing.

  The dog looked suspiciously around the room as she appraised the strangers responsible for her eviction from her favourite room. Cavendish and Ehlers were quickly assessed as being of no threat but that was not the case when Klauss become the subject of her intelligent eyes. She crouched and began to bark threateningly at the senior Untersucher.

  Kurt Meyer sensed trouble and stood up from the couch where he had been sitting beside his wife and hastened towards his irate hound. “Blondie, no!” he ordered. However, the dog’s threatening bark had now matured into a menacing growl.

  “Blondie, no!” repeated Meyer as he reached for her collar. Before he could restrain her, Blondie leapt up and hurled herself at the menacing presence of Dieter Klauss.

  “Blondie...” Meyer said no more as the authoritative crack of Klauss’ weapon punctured the room. The gun fired three times, hitting the brave dog twice and Kurt Meyer once.

  Cavendish had not been idle. As soon as the valiant Blondie had charged Klauss, he was delving desperately inside his coat to extract his Python from its holster. Even as he was grasping the handle of the revolver, he knew he was going to be too late, for already Klauss had fired his first shot.

  As he brought the revolver clear of his coat, the second round had been discharged and as he was trying to bring his weapon to bear the third shot was already becoming part of legend. Klauss’ weapon was now pointing at him and he gave up trying to align his revolver as he awaited the fourth discharge and certain oblivion.

  Yet the round was never delivered. Klauss’ weapon had jammed. A look of horror transfixed the Junker’s face as Cavendish took careful aim at his chest and fired once.

  “So you killed this Klauss chap?” asked Beckett softly. He was shocked, not at what Cavendish had just told him, but at his own dispassionate reaction to the narrative. He honestly didn’t know what he felt; there was an illusory quality to Cavendish’s story that mitigated reason. He simply had an image of Cavendish playing the lead character in his favourite Western movie, ‘Shane’.

  “Yes,” replied Cavendish distantly, as if he was still in the room in Prague.

  “Shit, Marchel, but it was self defence,” offered Beckett.

  “His gun had jammed, he was defenceless,” Cavendish’s voice was almost inaudible above the sound of the engine.

  “So why did you shoot him?” asked Beckett. Cavendish thought his answer through carefully.

  “I was angry. He had shamed Holger. He had repeatedly raped a vulnerable woman and he killed a dog. I like dogs. Oh, and he killed Kurt Meyer. It was him or me, an easy choice really.”

  “Jesus, Marchel. What happened to Holger?”

  “He’s undergoing therapy and psychological evaluation. He’s currently persona non grata.”

  “Why because he wet himself?”

  “Perhaps. He could not handle Klauss’ corruption; he thought all Untersuchers were noble good guys.”

  Beckett paused before asking his next question. “Are you corrupt, Marchel?”

  “Everyone becomes corrupt in time, Thomas, yes I am corrupt but not in the way you imagine. Do you trust me, Thomas?”

  “Hell no, Herr Cavendish,” Beckett smiled at his passenger before continuing, “God knows why, but there is something about you that is, well, fascinating and I’m victim to a fatalistic, masochistic, nihilistic predisposition, which I think I see a little of in you, but perhaps coming from opposite view points. I do talk bollocks most of the time, by the way.”

  Cavendish was taken aback by Beckett’s succinct monologue. He knew Beckett was self-deprecating but even so, his statement was insightful as it was unexpected. Cavendish suddenly experienced a shudder of fear and self-doubt. He had a morbid dread of friends
hip, a concept that conveyed weakness, commitment and the potential of exposure to pain. He wondered if his enforced layoff had somehow resulted in psychological emasculation.

  CHAPTER 12. THE LURE OF ACADEMIA AND THE FAMILY.

  It had been arranged to meet on Wednesday morning outside Cafe Snazerreir on the harbour side in Bristol, weather permitting. It permitted in as much that it was a fine dry day but a northeasterly wind kept the temperature firmly in single figures even at eleven o’clock.

  Cavendish sat at an outside chrome-plated table wearing his ubiquitous long coat and heavy-framed sunglasses. His scar seemed to grow from beneath the lens of his shades and his blonde hair was swept back over his forehead.

  Beckett was late. He strolled without enthusiasm from the underground car park in Millennium Square and passed the neo-classical Lloyds’ building before arriving at the circular cafe adjacent to the harbour side. Cavendish was not difficult to spot as he was sitting alone at one of the outdoor tables.

  “Good morning, Thomas, a decent spot as Bristol goes, don’t you think?”

  “Bristol is a beautiful city, you should visit some of the dumps I’ve had to work in,” said Beckett crankily. He actually did like the area but his mood following the previous evening did not lend itself to defending the reputation of his home city.

  “You sound rather down, Thomas,” observed Cavendish, as if implying such a disposition was highly commendable.

  “You’re not the one who had to sleep on the sofa. We attended a parents’ evening last night. Apparently, it’s my fault that the boy is lagging behind in his work. Am I a bad parent, Marchel?” Cavendish handed Beckett a cardboard coffee cup with the obligatory plastic lid.

  “Drink this, Thomas, before it becomes cold.” Beckett accepted the cup, held it in both hands, and adjusted his body in the chair to put his back to the chill wind.

  “How do I know if you are a bad parent? But yes, you probably do lack something in the parenting department,” offered Cavendish. “You probably try to compensate for your wife’s aggressive manner. However, I would rather have you as a father than the one I have.”

  “What’s he like?” asked Beckett, keen to hear about someone else who might share a similar situation, someone else who was constantly in the doghouse.

  “My Father is a serving officer in the British Army, he has been in Military Intelligence for as long as I can remember and he thinks he’s a bloody jet setting spy.”

  “Why, because he travels the world, drives fast cars and shoots people?”

  “No, because he will fuck any woman that moves.” A double whammy from the Cavendish arsenal of expletives was Beckett’s pleasurable realisation that they must really be treading on sensitive ground. Beckett took solace in Cavendish’s angst.

  “Don’t you get on with your father?” asked Beckett.

  “We get on very well, when I see him. Everyone likes my father; he is the life and soul of any occasion. You’d like him well enough. But he’s a bastard to my mother and for that I admire him yet find him contemptible.”

  “So Simeon Goldstein was not far off the mark when he had a go at your father?”

  “Thomas, Simeon knows of my father, and yes there are several offspring that he has sired.”

  “You mean you do have brothers, and or sisters?”

  “No, I have a half sister that I know of, but I do not have a brother or sister,” said Cavendish reflectively.

  The pause that followed mirrored Beckett’s uncertainly in pursuing the path they were currently following. He had perhaps derived as much pleasure and reassurance from Cavendish’s domestic situation as he was going to get. He had to admit that he felt a lot better for having heard Cavendish’s confessional.

  “Sue has always been the one who has taken care of the kids, the first two have turned out fine, that is Sarah, she’ll be sixteen soon,” Beckett smiled lovingly at the mention of his only daughter, “and Robert, who is at uni. It just the last two boys who have caused problems.”

  “Why is there such an age range between the two groups of children?” asked Cavendish with genuine interest.

  “Sue decided to stop taking the pill having reached a certain age which coincided with her re-found religious fervour. The result was Daniel, the consequence of too much cider and a night of passion down in Somerset. Good job we didn’t follow the fashion of naming him after the town he was conceived in, or else he’d be called Weston Zoyland Beckett. Has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?”

  “Indeed it does, Thomas, indeed it does,” smiled Cavendish, “and the other child?”

  “Oh, Antony was just a mistake.”

  “Are you not religious?” probed the Catholic Cavendish.

  “Hell no, opium for the masses. I’ve no problem with other people being religious. All I know is that religion bollocksed up my marriage.” Cavendish smiled sympathetically at Beckett’s affirmation.

  “Thomas, we must plan how we approach the meeting with Dr Spelman tonight.” The change of subject was abrupt, a facet of Cavendish that Beckett was slowly getting use to.

  “And what precisely is my input. Do I hold her whilst you beat her up with a stick of celery to obtain a confession?” asked Beckett.

  “Very droll, Thomas. I think you should follow my lead.”

  “Gosh Marsh, I would never have thought of that, and there was me thinking I was going to do all the talking whilst you sat there looking inscrutable. After all, look at my startling success with the Montgomery kids.”

  “Tonight, Thomas, we celebrate with a meal. The wine will flow, tongues will be let off the leash and we will play the perfect hosts. We want her relaxed and off her guard, if possible. She may not directly reveal how she came to know of the item she is so keen to obtain, yet she may give some intimation, intentionally or not. I have learnt as much about the Doctor as I possibly can at such short notice but I have to say it’s not a great deal. You should, however, enjoy looking at her.”

  “Don’t come that one again. I told you I don’t undress women with my eyes, or whatever it was you said. And how exactly do you know what she looks like?” Cavendish grinned mischievously as he extracted a picture from the inside breast pocket of his coat. He handed it over lazily to Beckett.

  The portrait, according to Beckett's professional opinion, was a copy of a studio shot, the likeness that accompanied the publication of a book and could well be found on the fly cover of a hardback copy. It showed the half-profile of woman in her late twenties or early thirties. The picture portrayed a face with pleasant symmetry, high cheekbones, professional make up and smartly groomed long straight dark hair. Although perhaps air brushed, the photo flaunted a beautiful woman. Beckett studied the picture for some while and he considered that the evening might not be a complete waste of time after all.

  “I expect the picture is heavily touched up,” Beckett announced, “it’ll be interesting to see what she looks like in the flesh.” Beckett quickly corrected himself, “... in real life.”

  Cavendish expounded the academic’s CV. “Dr Emily Sophie Spelman. Thirty-three years old. She’s an Oxford academic who researches into the Anglo Saxon period. She’s had one book published and various papers but has yet to achieve any particular acclaim for her work. I have found it hard to gain any significant data regarding her personality. I read such adjectives as ‘ambitious’ and ‘hardworking’ yet in themselves such terms mean very little, it could be applied to the majority of the population, even you.”

  “Thank you very much,” beamed Beckett.

  “The question is ambition to achieve what? It is the key to understanding her rationale. If I had to guess I would say that she has reached a point in her career where she requires a fillip.”

  “Phillip who?”

  “No, fillip what does, not a Philip who does. I see no man in her life, thus academia still seems to be her world. The discovery of a rare and or valuable Saxon object would be a definite coup. Now if I wanted to shake up t
he world of the firm I would use someone who fits Dr Spelman’s tenacious background. The question is does she really know what the object is, of how much has she been made aware? I have seen the auction catalogue and the only item that she could possibly be referring to is something that in the eyes of a layman would appear absolutely worthless.”

  “So what is it?” asked Beckett, now genuinely intrigued after Cavendish had broadcast his theories.

  “It is a piece of wood,” said Cavendish dryly. Beckett’s frown was enough to encourage Cavendish to continue. “The shaft of wood has a metal end attached. If I said the metal end was an arrow head then you would get the picture.”

  “An arrow?”

  “Bravo, Thomas, not just any arrow though, it is the arrow that struck King Harold in the eye at the Battle of Hastings.”

  “No way!” exclaimed Beckett. Cavendish offered no further explanation. “What are the chances of having the arrow that poked his eye out?” asked an amazed Beckett.

  “Every chance if someone decided to keep it after the battle.”

  “Come on Marchel, it could be any old stick for all anyone knows.”

  “Oh, you really are a doubting Thomas, aren’t you? Do you really want to see the holes in my hands?”

  “You know what I mean, Marsh.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean. Do I have to run over the whole provenance thing again?”

  “It certainly sounds like it.”

  Cavendish gave a theatrical sigh before explaining. “All catalogue items in an auction will have been validated by the Library, the arrow obviously is backed up by provenance,” said Cavendish.

  “Hearsay,” argued Beckett.

  “It’s a good job you’re not at the auction; you would just laugh your way through it.”

  “Surely not every item?” asserted Beckett. Cavendish cast Beckett his despairing, parental look.

  “Are all the items really that crazy?” Beckett paused before continuing. “Is there nothing intrinsically valuable?”