Czech Mate (9 page)

It seemed the chummy approach would not work, then Kevin muttered, ‘I did it to show what I thought of his pathetic rules. And I deserved a reward for having to look after
them
.'

‘Them?'

‘The brats.'

Possibly an apt description of Shona and Julie, thought Max recalling Tom's report on the family set-up. ‘I don't have young sisters, but I'm sure I'd resent having to go to their party instead of the one my mates were attending. Did they give you grief over it?'

He shook his head. ‘They know what it's like for me.'

‘So you maybe arranged to meet them for a smoke and a yarn to offset the chore of babysitting.'

‘Couldn't, could I? Didn't know if I'd be able to sneak away. Anyway, they had other things on. Saturday night!
Course
, they had.'

Max shifted on the hard chair. ‘Saturday night is when your parents play badminton, and the girls go to watch. You get the evening to yourself every week. What do you do?'

‘Rehearse, watch pop videos to get the movements, like, grab a pizza and make plans.'

‘For Swinga Kat?'

‘Yeah, what else?'

Now they were discussing his great passion, Kevin had dropped his guard. Max advanced further. ‘Have you ever tried places in town where they might give you an audition?'

Some of the light in his large eyes died. ‘Waste of time, wasn't it. We even gave them a video. Had it filmed in a proper studio, nothing amateur. Didn't take it out of the box, did they.'

‘The story of every budding performer's life,' Max said with sympathy. ‘It takes years or an enormous stroke of luck to make it in any of the arts. The studio that filmed your video,' he continued casually, ‘concentrate on musicians, do they?'

‘It was just a small place. Couldn't afford a top recording studio. They make all kinds of audition tapes. They've got all the gear. Background scenes, costumes, furniture, stuff like that. Comes out on the video like you're in Vegas, or LA. Or anywhere in the world. We chose New York. Looked like we were really there. It was great!'

Max had a good idea of the kind of videos mostly made in such a studio, and pursued that line. ‘Didn't they give you any tips on who you could approach?'

‘They were really impressed by our performance, especially my versatility on guitar,' he explained with the guilelessness of youth. ‘Gunther, the owner of the studio, offered to introduce me to a guy he knows who's interested in talented young musicians. Lives in a big house near the border that has an acoustically balanced studio with amplifiers and strobe lighting.' Kevin frowned. ‘I've been trying to suss out how to work it. Gunther's willing to drive me out there, but I'd have to pretend I was overnighting with someone
they
couldn't check with.'

Something to persuade Klaus Krenkel to follow up, Max decided, but not a likely lead to the assault on Saturday night. Time to get back to that now he had the boy's cooperation.

‘Kevin, what happened while you were having your defiant smoke in the gents?'

Vitality drained from the young face. ‘I was looking out at the snow falling. Then I woke up here. I don't understand what's going on.'

‘Someone hit you hard enough to knock you out. Surely that's been explained to you.'

He broke eye contact. ‘I thought they were making it up.'

‘Why?'

‘Because . . . who'd do that?'

‘That's what I'm determined to find out. Has anyone been bullying or threatening you? Or can you think why someone you know, even someone you like, might decide to hurt you to make a point? Whoever attacked you committed a serious offence. My job is to ensure they are punished accordingly.'

No response.

‘I know it's difficult to speak about personal things, to talk about private concerns you're uncomfortable with, but I always found it easier to unburden myself to a stranger than to parents and family when I was your age. Mums and dads make such a song and dance over everything, don't they? You and I can speak man to man here without anyone overhearing.' He waited, then asked gently, ‘How about it?'

The large eyes swivelled to a point over Max's shoulder, and they darkened with feeling. ‘I'm tired. I want to sleep now.'

Mavis McRitchie appeared beside Max, saying urgently, ‘Don't go to sleep, Kev. Mummy's back. She has things to tell you.' Bending over the bed she seized his hand and shook it. ‘Kev, don't tease! I know you're not asleep, darling.'

Max could not have been there for all the notice she took of him, and the determined hand agitating brought results. Kevin's eyes opened, but Max knew the moment of trust had been lost and, for now, would not be recaptured. After a conventional word with the woman he had breakfasted with yesterday, he took his leave. During the difficult drive back to base, he took advantage of one of the lengthy delays to call up Tom.

‘We haven't had a breakthrough yet, sir. Plenty of input, but none of it adds up without a known motive. Any luck with the boy?'

‘It was hard going, but I learned two things. He hasn't a clue why he was attacked, or who might want to hurt him. And he heartily dislikes his mother. I feel sorry for the lad. He's despised by his father, ousted by his sisters, and babied by her. You're concerned about McRitchie's fondness for the girls, I'm suspicious about his wife's smother love for her pubescent son. If that boy had been drugged, shot or cut with a knife I'd wonder if it was self-inflicted. As it is, he couldn't have knocked himself out that way, and it strikes me we should find witnesses to Mavis McRitchie's unbroken presence at the Badminton Club on Saturday. She told me she occasionally makes up a set with “three other duffers” so she wouldn't have been on court continuously.'

‘Mmm, Nora said we should look carefully at the women in this case, who might have been repulsed in their desire to initiate a cock virgin.'

Max smiled. ‘Your wife should join our team. I've told you that before. I'm likely to take some time getting back. The traffic's snarled up all the way, and there's black ice forming. I'll see you in the morning for a briefing. Maybe we'll all have a fresh view of it after an early night.'

‘Righto, sir. Oh, Treeves is being brought in. Should arrive around midnight. What d'you want done with him?'

The cars ahead began moving slowly, so Max put his in gear and followed. ‘Tell them to take him direct to the Medical Centre, ostensibly for observation following an assault. None of us is going to sit up half the night waiting to interview him. We'll do that in the morning.'

Tom welcomed the new short drive home. Road conditions were worsening as night fell. He called up the Redcaps bringing Treeves in and passed on Max's directive, but they had doubts about completing their journey by midnight. Tom privately sympathized. It was an unenviable duty.

Garaging his car, he walked to the front door aware of the slippery crust on the snow. Was this the prelude to a Siberian-style winter, he wondered moodily. It would make investigations doubly difficult. Their area of duty covered a second base now twice as distant.

His mood lightened on entering the hall and smelling lamb hotpot. His nose was familiar with all Nora's recipes and this was one of his favourites. He counted himself lucky she was not a woman who loved to spend hours and large sums on ‘creating' dishes that looked on the plate more like a piece of abstract art than a meal. He liked the things his mother used to make and still did. What she called good, plain, healthy food. Nora now cooked it for him.

In the sitting-room were his wife, three daughters and a blond youth of around fifteen, all engaged around the coffee-table in unwrapping Christmas tree baubles. The boy got to his feet swiftly and stood almost to attention, gazing at Tom with a hint of uncertainty in his blue eyes.

‘Hi, Dad. Hi, Dad. Hi, Dad,' came the usual triple greeting, but Maggie was on her feet to gently push the boy forward. ‘This is Hans Graumann. He lives across the road.'

‘Good ee-ven-ing, sir,' said the boy thickly, still at attention.

Tom glanced quickly at Nora, who smiled an urgent message. ‘Maggie slipped on the ice on her way from the school bus. Hans helped her up and brought her to the door. We invited him in for tea and cake.'

Silence.

‘Hans's father is the manager of an insurance company,' Maggie said, giving the boy a glance rife with something Tom read clearly. ‘He's learning English, so I said I'd help him with that if he'll help me with German.' When Tom still said nothing, she gave a nervous giggle. ‘Hans, not his father.'

Nora came from the table, saying, ‘I'll leave you all to finish that. Take care. Some of those baubles are so ancient they'll fall apart with rough handling.' She smiled at the boy. ‘Thank you for your help, Hans.'

Tom followed her from the room to a kitchen redolent with the aroma of lamb hotpot. There she rounded on him. ‘The cat's got your tongue, has it?'

‘Now hold on a minute. I've just got home after a hard day.'

Her eyes flashed. ‘Don't give me that corny old line, Tom.'

He took a deep breath. ‘I usually give you a kiss . . . and get one in return. What happened to that?'

‘I'm waiting to hear.'

‘I'm waiting to hear why that boy's in there with Maggie. She's only twelve, for God's sake!'

‘She'll be a teenager next month. “That boy” helped her up when she fell, and escorted her home. How many his age would do that? We've taught our children good manners, so she naturally asked him in to meet me. His mother works, so we gave him tea and cake rather than let him go home to an empty house.'

‘He'll be used to that.'

‘No doubt, but today he had a pleasant reward for a good deed.' She fixed him with a gleaming eye. ‘Tom, they mix with boys every day. At school, at the Youth Club, on outings, at parties. They have lives outside those brief times you manage to join us, you know.'

‘Don't start sniping,' he retorted. ‘I saw the way she looked at him, even if you didn't.'

‘I saw. She's never encountered male gallantry, so let her revel in it for a while. She's unlikely to experience it all that often in today's world.'

His curious sense of anger intensified. ‘She's a
child
, Nora.'

‘But a biological woman from several months ago, and starting to experience emotions that are difficult to understand and deal with. Good God, you heard her raving about Helmut Weber, and you've seen the posters on her bedroom wall of heart-throbs in revealing togas or brief loincloths.'

‘That's different, they're fantasy men.'

‘Fantasy is no longer enough for her, Tom.' Leaning against the worktop, she folded her arms and smiled. ‘They're only unwrapping baubles in that room. I don't think they're having sex.'

Her ridicule fanned his anger. ‘He's German!'

‘And we're living in his country.'

‘That blond hair, blue eyes, the metaphorical clicking of heels. The pure Aryan!'

‘Whose father is in insurance and his mother serves in the local babywear shop! Hans Graumann isn't reviving Hitler Youth, but you know who is. You've come across them in town often enough, picking fights with our squaddies. Shaven heads, earrings, tattoos, spiked boots and flick knives.'

‘All the more reason why we should protect our girls from nationalism in any form.'

‘I do. You are forced to trust me on that as with every other aspect of rearing them largely single-handed.'

This reminder of the demands of his job that took so much of his time irked him further, but her next comment blew his fuse.

‘Face it, love, you're suffering from paternal jealousy.'

It cut into him like a knife. He could not believe she had said it. ‘That's . . . that's
unforgiveable
!'

On the brink of a rare first-class row, Nora hastened to defuse the atmosphere by crossing to take his hands in an urgent clasp.

‘Calm down! I didn't mean what you think. You're so hot on child abuse you misinterpreted my words.' Her eyes appealed for his understanding. ‘Every natural father has the undeniable instinct to protect and defend his daughters.' She produced a faint smile. ‘It's a man thing, love. For the first years of their lives
he's
their hero. Suddenly, other males start to attract and almost imperceptibly coax them away. That natural protective instinct sees these males as contenders unworthy of the role they're trying to usurp. Paternal jealousy is universally common. It's a fact of life and has nothing to do with perversion, you goof! Better get used to it. We've two more growing up fast.' She kissed him, smiling into his eyes. ‘The plus side is that dads come into their own again when granddaughters appear, and daughters never entirely lose that belief in them as someone special.'

The anger began to drain from him. He stroked her hand. ‘Sorry, love. Shouldn't have taken it out on you. I've had a gutful of parents and their kids over the last few days. McRitchie has an
un
natural instinct concerning his girls, believe me. Now Max has indicated the wife shows excessive fondness towards young Kevin, which echoed your comment about frustrated women yearning to initiate cock virgins. Perversion was heavily on my mind, I'm afraid.'

Nora kissed him again, more lingeringly. ‘I prefer it straight, just the way you do it.'

The inevitable multiple accident delayed Max by more than an hour, so dinner was about to be served when he reached his room. He was ready for a meal and showered swiftly before searching for a clean shirt in baggage he had not yet unpacked. Perhaps it was because it would suggest he was going to stay put, when he fully intended to find more amenable quarters.

Having time for that would be difficult. The McRitchie case was tricky, and there was Treeves to deal with. Max now had little doubt the man was involved in the theft; proving it would be difficult. All too often SIB knew who was guilty but could not produce strong enough evidence to mount a case. When they could, the decision to prosecute lay with the offender's commanding officer. Military Police personnel knew all too well how loath these men were to make things official in the courts, preferring, whenever possible, to deal with it less publicly and so protect the reputation of the regiment.