The Black Sun (17 page)

“Did he ever travel abroad?”

“He renewed his passport three years ago. Went to Geneva, according to his daughter’s statement, to attend some bird-watching conference. Apart from that, he stayed put.”

“Clearly he had, or knew, something. Something Renwick and your Kristall Blade people

wanted

enough

to

kill

him

for.”

144 james twining

“Seems that way.” A pause. Then, “Did Connolly find anything in Austria?”

Tom drained his coffee. “I’ll tell you in a couple of hours. I’m meeting him for dinner as

soon

as

he

gets

in.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

RESTAURANT ZUNFTHAUS ZUR ZIMMERLEUTEN,

NIEDERDORF, ZURICH

January 7—9:02 p.m.

Tom had arranged to meet Archie in a restaurant a short walk from the station in the old town. The building, originally a carpenters’ guildhall, dated back to 1336. From the outside it resembled a small castle perched on the banks of the river, complete with turret and flagpole.

Inside, a baroque staircase led up to a baronial dining room, oak paneling covered the walls, thick stone mullions separated stained-glass windows emblazoned with various coats of arms. It was a favorite with local banking grandees and tourists alike, but at this hour it was relatively quiet.

“Whiskey,” Archie called out as he approached the table where Tom sat waiting for him. “No ice.”

The waiter looked to Tom in confusion.

“
Ein Whiskey
,” Tom confirmed. “
Ohne Eis. Danke
.” Archie dropped his bag to the floor and sat down with a sigh as the waiter disappeared. “Good trip?” “Delayed, and the stewardess had a mustache. Apart from that, perfect.” Tom laughed. “And what did Lammers have to say?”

146 james twining

“Not much. I think the six feet of earth and the gravestone may have been muffling the sound of his voice.”

“He’s dead?” Tom exclaimed.

“Three years ago. House fire.”

“Shit!” Tom shook his head ruefully. “So we’re right back where we started.”

“Not quite.” Archie smiled. “It turns out that his niece now lives in his old house. I showed her the photos of the paintings and she took me to see this . . .” He took Tom’s digital camera from his pocket and handed it over.

“It’s the same castle as in the painting,” said Tom, scrolling through the images.

“You mean it’s an exact bloody copy. Lammers donated the window in the fifties after his wife died of cancer.”

“Meaning that he must have had access to the original.”

“Exactly. Question is, where is it now? Assuming it survived the fire, of course.”

Archie sniffed. “Do you mind?” He held out a box of Marlboro Reds questioningly. Tom shook his head. He lit up.

“What I’d like to know is what was so important about the painting that he had the window made in the first place?”

“Presuming that it wasn’t just because he liked it,” said Archie, wrinkling his nose to suggest how unlikely he thought that was.

“What about the niece? Did she know anything?”

“This was all news to her. You should have seen her face when I showed her the photo of Weissman and the two other men in uniform. Guess who she recognized?”

“Uncle Manfred?”

Archie nodded. “She didn’t take it very well. But she did give me this.” He reached into his bag and pulled out the walnut veneer box. “Said she didn’t want it in the house anymore. Open it.” Tom turned the small key in the lock and eased back the lid. “It’s an Iron Cross,” said Archie, drawing heavily on his cigarette.

“Not quite . . .” Tom had taken the medal out of the box and was studying it intently. In his palm, the forbidding black shape pulsed malevolently under the candle’s bluish the black sun 147

glow. He rubbed his thumb across it, feeling the raised swastika and the date, 1939, beneath it.

“It’s a Knight’s Cross,” he said. “I’ve come across them before. Looks the same, but there’s a different finish. The ribbon clasp is much more ornate, the edge is ribbed rather than smooth, and the frame is made from silver rather than just lacquered to look like silver.”

“So it’s a higher award?”

“It’s one of the highest the Third Reich could give. I think only about seven thousand were ever awarded, compared to millions of Iron Crosses. They’re very rare.”

“Meaning that either Lammers was a collector, or . . .”

“Or it was his and he’d done something that merited special recognition.” Tom turned it over and then looked up with a frown. “That’s weird.”

“What?”

“These normally had an embossed date on the back—1813, from when they were first issued in the Napoleonic wars.”

“What’s that one got? I didn’t really look.”

“You tell me.” Tom held it out, reverse side up. It was engraved with a series of seemingly random lines and curves and circles that looked for all the world like the mindless doodling of a young child.

“You know, there was a medal like this round the neck of that mannequin at Weissman’s house. I had to unclip it before I could get the jacket off.”

“Worth checking out,” Tom said. “Anything else in here?” He picked up the box and shook it.

“I don’t think so,” Archie said with a half smile. “Take a look for yourself.”

Tom opened the box again, carefully studying its interior. Finding nothing, he put his index finger into the main compartment to measure its depth. It came up only to his second knuckle.

“That’s strange,” he muttered, frowning.

He pressed his finger against the side of the box. This time, it came right up to his knuckle. The inside was an inch shallower than it should have been. 148 james twining

“There’s a false bottom,” Tom exclaimed.

“I think so,” said Archie. “Christ knows how to open it, though. I thought you might have seen something like it before, so I didn’t muck about too much. Didn’t want to break it.”

“It’s like one of those Russian trick boxes. Normally you have to slide one of the pieces of wood to get inside.”

Given the lack of dents or telltale ridges in the box’s glossy, unbroken veneer, it was not immediately apparent which section might move. So Tom tried each side in turn, pressing his thumb against the wood, just above the bottom edge, and pushing it away from him.

Nothing.

He repeated the exercise in reverse, tugging each side toward him. Again nothing moved initially, but his persistence was finally rewarded by the bottom section of the right side moving maybe a quarter of an inch to reveal a tiny hairline crack. But there his progress stalled, for no matter how hard he pulled the lip of wood that sat raised above the front of the box, nothing would come free.

“Try the opposite side,” Archie suggested. “Maybe there’s some sort of locking mechanism. It might have released a panel on the other side.”

Tom tried to slide the opposite panel sideways, then down, then up. On his last attempt it moved easily, rising about two inches and exposing a small drawer with an ivory handle. His eyes wide with anticipation, Tom slid the drawer out.

“What is it?” Archie asked, straining to see.

Tom looked up, his eyes shining. “A key, I think.”

The drawer, like the main compartment, was lined in red velvet. Under the restaurant’s dimmed lighting the object it contained glinted like tarnished silver. Archie reached in and grasped it, the metal fat and solid in his square fingers.

“Funny sort of key.”

About two inches long, the key was square rather than flat, and it had no teeth. Instead, each of its gleaming surfaces was engraved with a series of small hexagonal marks.

“I think it’s for a digital lock. You know, like the one in that private bank in Monte Carlo.”

the black sun 149

“And what do you make of this . . . ?”

The key’s sleek steel shaft was housed in an ugly triangular handle made of molded rubber. On one side of the handle was a small button, but nothing happened when Archie pressed it. The other side had been stamped with a series of interlocking calligraphic letters. Tom thought he could make out a
V
and a
C
, but it was hard to tell. “Owner’s initials? Maker’s logo? Could be anything.”

“How are we going to find out?” Archie asked, returning the key to the secret drawer and shutting it again.

“We’re in Zurich—how do you think I’m going to find out?” Tom asked with a smile.

“You’re not serious.”

“Why not?”

“Raj?” Archie sounded deeply suspicious.

“Who else?”

“Can we trust him?”

“I guess there’s only one way to find out,” Tom said with a shrug.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

WIPKINGEN, ZURICH

January 7—10:40 p.m.

Away from the town center, the river Limmat flexes its way northwest into Zurich’s industrial zone, an uninspiring agglomeration of low-level warehouses and soaring concrete factories, black slate tiles slung over oppressive cinder grey walls, chimneys and heating vents coughing smoke.

Tom and Archie made their way across the Wipkingen bridge, along Breitensteinstrasse and finally left down Amperestrasse, then negotiated the steep steps leading down to a poorly lit path that ran parallel to the river.

“Are you sure it’s down here?” Archie asked, his tone suggesting that he found it highly unlikely. An embankment loomed nearly thirty feet above their heads, its brickwork obscured at ground level by decades of graffiti and flyer posting. On the opposite bank a few dull and greasy windows punctuated the blank gaze of a factory’s rear elevation like embrasures in a castle wall.

“It was, last time I came,” Tom answered.

“You’ve been here before? When?”

“Three, four years ago. When we did that job in Venice, remember?”

the black sun 151

“Oh yeah.” Archie chuckled. “If only they were all like that.”

“If it hadn’t been for Raj, I’d have had to drill my way into that safe.”

“All right, all right,” Archie conceded. “So he’s a good locksmith.”

“He’s the best in the business and you know it.”

“Mmm . . .” Archie shrugged noncommittally.

Tom sighed. Six months out of the game had done little to dull Archie’s natural wariness toward almost every other living being he came across—especially when money was involved. Dhutta still owed them a couple thousand bucks for some information they had supplied him a few years before, and he had proven remarkably elusive ever since, hence Archie’s misgivings. To Archie, debtors—especially anyone in debt to him—were to be treated with the utmost caution.

Tom stopped beside a steel door set into the embankment, its original black paint barely visible under a thick collage of posters advertising raves, DJ nights, and various other local events. Above the door was a bright yellow sign showing a lightning bolt within a black triangle.

“You must be joking!” Archie gave an impatient laugh. “Here?”

“You know what he’s like about personal security. This helps keep most people at a safe distance.”

Tom ran his hand over the brickwork to the right of the door at about waist height. Eventually he found what he was looking for, a single brick that protruded a little beyond those around it. It sank slightly under his touch, then sprang back to its original position. From somewhere deep within the embankment, they heard a bell ring.

“I want you on your best behavior, Archie. Don’t get started. Raj is jumpy enough without you stirring things up.”

Archie growled a response that was interrupted by the hum of an invisible intercom.

“Yes, hello?” A high-pitched, almost feminine voice.

“Raj? It’s Tom Kirk and Archie Connolly.”

There was a long silence, then: “What do you want?”

“To

talk.”

152 james twining

“Look, I haven’t got the money, if that’s what this is about. I can get it. Tomorrow. I can get it tomorrow. Today’s no good. I’m busy. I’ve been very, very busy. Tomorrow, okay?” Dhutta spoke quickly with a strong Indian accent, barely pausing between sentences.

“Forget the money, Raj,” Tom said, earning himself an angry look from Archie. “We need your help. Let’s just call it quits on what you owe us.”

There was another, even longer pause, then the door buzzed open.

“Half that money’s mine, don’t forget,” Archie reminded Tom as they stepped inside.

“Next time, you might want to ask me before just giving it away.”

“You drop more than that every time you pick up a hand of cards,” Tom said quietly. “I don’t think you’ll miss it.”

They found themselves in a steel cage, half blinded by the powerful lights trained on them from the far side of the room. Several dark shapes loomed on either side of them, none of them moving, while the smell of decay rose from the damp concrete floor.

“Raj?” Tom called, holding his hand up to his face and peering through his fingers in an attempt to see beyond the glare. A silhouette appeared in front of the lights.

“Quits?” came the voice again.

“That’s right,” said Tom. “We’re not here to make any trouble, Raj. Just to get some advice.”

The lights snapped off and Tom made out a slight figure approaching the cage, fumbling with a huge bunch of keys. Raj Dhutta was a willowy five foot four, with slender arms and skinny wrists. He had wavy black hair with a knife-edge part on the left-hand side, and a narrow, feline face, his eyes furtively skipping between them, his black mustache quivering nervously.

He selected a key and inserted it into a lock. Then he repeated the action with a second and then a third lock, pausing before the final turn of the key.