The Templar Prophecy (21 page)

FORTY-NINE

Until now, Udo Zirkeler had only gone through the holy ritual of being inhabited by his grandfather's SS uniform on foreign soil. In Guatemala, to kill the three. Once in the outskirts of Izmir, Turkey, to put pressure on the wife and children of a gang leader. A single time in Paris, which he would rather forget.

On that occasion he had been intending to kill a Jewish columnist who had held the Brotherhood of the Lance up to ridicule in a leftist newspaper. Instead, he had come perilously close to walking into a Mossad trap. It had only been the necessity of hiding in a corridor alcove to change into his uniform that had enabled him to overhear the squeal from an agent's malfunctioning headset and save himself. Since then the uniform had become a talisman. A totem. Udo's lucky charm.

He had never risked wearing the uniform in mainland Germany. He had tried it on, many times. In front of mirrors.
Or modelling it to please his mother. But he had never used it completely. To its full extent, so to speak.

Udo's paternal grandfather – the original wearer of the uniform prior to his suicide on the final day of the war – had, in his grandson's view, been an unsung national hero. His father had often told Udo the story of how Hanke Zirkeler had saved Léon Degrelle's life near Cherkassy in 1944. At that time, Degrelle had been a lowly SS-
Hauptsturmführer
– the SS equivalent of a captain in the Wehrmacht – and Udo's grandfather an even lowlier sergeant. As a direct result of Hanke Zirkeler's intervention, however, Degrelle had gone on to command the 28th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Wallonian, win the Knight's Cross, and become a propaganda hero, helping to recruit tens of thousands of foreign nationals into the SS when the Reich was most in need of them. Adolf Hitler had personally told Degrelle: ‘If I had a son, I wish he'd resemble you.' The thought that such a man as Degrelle had been allowed to live and fulfil his destiny solely because of his grandfather's actions made Udo very proud. And it further reinforced his view, passed down to him via his father, that actions beget other actions. That fate was not a matter of happenstance, but a question of will.

Udo smoothed away the creases in his grandfather's uniform. He tugged the tunic down so that it fitted him snugly around the waist, adjusted his pistol belt, and made sure the SS dagger was tightly in place. He intended to look his best for his invisible audience. For tonight's campaign was to be a crucial test of his initiative.

Udo's father had taught him far more than mere family history. Jürgen Zirkeler had drummed into his son that, next to obeying orders, the capacity to show initiative was the true test of any soldier's merit. Udo smiled into the hand mirror he carried in the top pocket of his tunic. How his secret sharers would relish what he was about to do. And how delighted they would be with his spirit of enterprise. Udo was as convinced of this fact as he was of his own name. His excitement, and the usual gut-churning anticipation of action, began to mount. This was what Udo lived for. This was his Monte Cassino.

Udo chose to enter the Alpenruh via the beer-cellar door. As far as he knew, the place had not served keg beer to its customers for decades, but its cellar doors were still grandiosely in place, situated conveniently close to the road so that the beer-truck driver would have no difficulty de-crating.

Udo picked the simple padlock with a tortion wrench and a feeler pick. He inserted the wrench, put pressure on it, and then twisted the pick round. The click made by the deadbolt as it snapped open filled him with intense satisfaction. It was a big padlock, and pathetically easy to crack. Udo cast a look back over his shoulder. His watchers were still there. He would simply reverse the procedure on the way out, he informed them silently, and no one would be any the wiser. Grinning, he beckoned the watchers to follow him in.

Once inside the cellar, Udo made his way past crates of empty Coca Cola and apple juice bottles, fastidiously avoiding
contact with any dust-ridden surface. He wished to look his best in this, his first uniformed foray on German soil. He did not wish to resemble a street cleaner.

He padded up the stairs to the ground floor on his felt-soled boots. He could smell the scent of the house now. It was a German smell, of sausage and spices and coffee. It was the smell of his mother's house.

He stopped by the concierge's desk and checked for keys. Yes. Just as he thought. Only one key out. The room next to the one the fake English baron had used. Udo snooped around in case a master key was hanging anywhere beneath the opened roll-top. No such luck. It would not be a problem. He had an alternative plan.

He eased his way up the main staircase, placing his feet on the outside of the stairs where they were flush to the walls. This was an old house. Some of the stairs were bound to creak if he wasn't careful. And Udo was no lightweight.

He made it to the first floor unannounced. The night-lights were on, throwing a strange blue tinge across the red carpets.

Udo crept to the door of the occupied room. He was briefly tempted to laugh, a sudden stuttering of breath inside his lungs that surprised him. He clapped his hand to his face. How absurd all this creeping around was. There was only a single guest here. And the old lady was probably deaf as well as blind. Udo knew that she lived in a separate apartment on the ground floor. There was no real danger of her overhearing anything. But still. It behove him to be silent. There would come a time when he and his people could come out into the
open and display themselves. But not yet. Definitely not yet.

Udo tried the door. It opened beneath his hand. Now he would not have to imitate a cat. In his experience people were drawn to tiny noises. He had intended to scratch at the base of the door with a pen if it had been locked. Just a light scratching. With numerous hesitations. It would have worked. One hundred per cent. But now there was no need.

Udo stepped inside the room and closed the door gently behind him. No one in the bed. But the windows to the balcony were open, and the curtains pulled across. The inhabitant of the room was out there, in the darkness, watching Effi's house. This was the man who had seen him. This was the man who had warned the Englishman.

Udo tiptoed across the room until he was flush with the curtains. He breathed the night air deep into his lungs. He could hear rustlings on the other side of the curtain. The clink of a bottle. He would wait until the man had finished his drink. It was only courtesy. The whole thing would play better into his hands like this.

Udo heard the bottle being replaced on the floor. Now was the moment. He threw aside the curtains and stood, in the full glory of his transmutation, his arms outstretched.

Wesker turned. When he saw Udo, he ducked his head, open-mouthed, and made as if he would run away. But there was nowhere for him to run on the tiny balcony.

Udo took two steps forward and sank to his knees. He was used to moving quickly. He had trained himself for this.

The man in front of him was clumsy and overweight. He
was a heavy drinker, too, given the number of empty beer bottles littering the balcony area.

Udo grasped the man by his ankles and tipped him backwards.

Wesker had time enough for a single inhalation of breath before he toppled. He had no time to turn the breath into a scream. His body flipped once, in graceful slow motion, and then it hit the concrete paving of the terrace below with the thud a fertilizer sack makes when it is tossed from a barn loft.

Udo peered over the balcony. The man had fallen on his head and neck. Astonishingly, given the man's shape, these were probably the heaviest parts of his body. The single turn had done it.
Kraaak!

Udo reached down and picked up the image intensifier the man had been using. A Swarovski NC2 with a camera adapter. Far too good to leave behind. Worth at least five thousand euros new; maybe four fifths of that in the open market. He took Wesker's phone too. Might prove interesting.

He checked the balcony area around him. Perfect. At least fifteen empty beer bottles lay scattered about. The police would assume the man had been drunk. He'd stumbled and toppled over the railings, which were low and wooden, and probably nowhere near to conforming with European health-and-safety regulations. With luck, the old cow who ran the place would be closed down and ruined. A double success, then. Maybe Effi could buy the Alpenruh at the distress sale and turn it into a barracks for his ‘apostles'? Udo decided he would enjoy living in a house of murder.

He turned to his secret sharers and raised his hands into the air. Then he made a sweeping bow of prostration.

Now things were beginning. Now the future was under way.

Udo scrubbed the outside door handle of prints and hurried down the stairs towards the cellar. He would have loved to kill again – the old lady this time – but he knew that such a thing made no sense. Better to let sleeping bitches lie.

He let himself out of the beer-cellar door and relocked it. He checked his watch. Two in the morning. He was tempted to hurry down and check out what was happening at Haus Walküre. But the thought of Effi lying in the Englishman's arms made him want to puke.

He would take off his uniform and go to the Cosy Home Club instead. One of the girls there generally agreed to some spirited games if Udo paid her enough. And she looked sufficiently like Effi so that he could allow his fantasies free rein. And tonight, Udo sensed, he would surpass himself.

FIFTY

Hart learnt of Wesker's death from Amira over the phone, at around ten the next morning.

Amira had checked in with Wesker at eight, as previously arranged, to receive a progress report. She had been sent straight through to Wesker's voicemail. She had hesitated for a moment, nonplussed, and then some instinct had cut in and caused her not to leave a message. To her certain knowledge, she told Hart, Wesker never knowingly switched off his phone. Even if he visited the theatre, or a cinema, or the toilet, or, God forbid, a church, Wesker would still set the phone to vibrate just in case someone, somewhere, might be calling him with a news tip. Wesker and his phone were inseparable, to the extent that if the drink didn't scramble his brains, the phone signal would.

Now, face to face with Hart after their initial call, Amira wore a curiously blank expression on her face, like a woman still in shock in the direct aftermath of a bomb attack. Hart
had suggested they meet at the Rottach Egern ferry terminal. They had taken a
rundfahrt
, which gave them the right to circumnavigate the entire lake by ferry without disembarking. Hart had been unable, off the cuff, to think of any better place for a rendezvous. But the lake air didn't seem to be doing either of them any good.

‘Three minutes after I put away my phone I was in a taxi heading from our safe house to the Alpenruh. I thought Wesker might have overdone it with the booze and not been able to get out of bed. Don't shake your head. It's been known to happen. He's a drunk, not an alcoholic.' Amira lit a cigarette with nervous, staccato movements. She watched as the smoke was snapped away by the wind. ‘He's been staking out Haus Walküre pretty much round the clock, whilst I've been off following other leads. He's not so good on his feet any more, so I thought a static job would suit him. But, being Wesker, he refuses point blank to live like a sensible human being whilst he's doing it.' Amira's voice faltered. ‘I suppose I should use the past tense now. I'm talking like he's still alive. Like he'll stumble towards us at any moment with three bottles of beer in one hand and an unfiltered Gitanes Brunes in the other, grinning like a possum.' The frozen carapace Amira had been wearing for Hart's benefit was crumbling fast. ‘Wesker lived every bloody moment as if it was his last. At least he had that. At least he got that bit right.' She put her face in her hands.

Hart didn't know what to say. He supposed he should comfort Amira, but the action somehow seemed inappropriate. The
truth was that the news about Wesker had blindsided him, just as it had blindsided her. ‘And? What then?'

Amira looked up. ‘And there were police everywhere. What do you think? A man had just died, John.'

‘You didn't make yourself known to them, did you?'

‘Of course not. I spoke to one of the neighbours instead. They told me a drunk man had fallen off a balcony. They were surprised there were any guests at all at Frau Erlichmann's hotel. And certainly guests like that.'

‘I'll phone Frau Erlichmann now.'

‘Yes. You do that.' Amira turned away from Hart and stared at the onion dome of a church far across the lake. ‘He was my mentor, John. My bloody mentor. He was renowned for not liking anybody. But for some reason he suffered me. Befriended me, even. He took me under his wing when I arrived at the newspaper and taught me all the wrinkles. Warned me who to avoid. Prevented me from stamping on too many toes.'

Hart glanced up in surprise. Generally speaking, Amira didn't do gratitude.

Amira threw her dead cigarette into the lake. She shot a glance at Hart over her shoulder. ‘I still don't know why the bastard took pity on me. A cynical old hack like him; it defies belief.' Amira scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand.

Hart dialled Frau Erlichmann's number to give himself something to do. Amira's words had resonated with him – more than he cared to admit. They reminded him of who and what he had been. And what he was in the process of becoming.

‘Maybe he recognized a kindred spirit, Amira? Someone who put journalism first?' Unlike me, he thought to himself. I put lust first, don't I? Lust and expedience. And to hell with the truth.

Hart let the phone ring for five minutes before hanging up. He was almost grateful that Frau Erlichmann didn't answer. It gave him an excuse for action.

‘Nobody home?'

‘Apparently not. So we need to go there. Now.'

‘No, John. Not we. You. You must go alone. We can't afford to be seen together. It's far too dangerous.'

Hart straightened up from his slouch. ‘I'm assuming, from that, that you don't think Wesker toppled off his balcony whilst blind drunk?'

‘Wesker was never blind drunk in his life. He was simply a little bit tanked all the time. It was a way of life with him. He was old-school Fleet Street and proud of it. Canary Wharf, and all that it represented, disgusted him. There was no way that a man like that would topple backwards off a bloody balcony. He'd have gone out like his chum George Best. Or done an Ollie Reed and ruptured his aorta arm-wrestling with a bunch of sailors.' Amira turned away.

Hart stared over her shoulder across the lake. ‘I think I killed him.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘I told Effi that I'd seen that thug Zirkeler hanging around outside the house at night, spying on us.'

‘How does that make you responsible for Wesker's death?'

Hart shrugged. ‘I don't know. But I have a suspicion it does. What if Effi confronted Zirkeler about it? She seemed pretty upset when I told her, and tried to pretend he was a security guard or something. But it had clearly shocked her. I think Zirkeler has a thing about her, and Effi knows it. We already know that Zirkeler, or one of his cronies, checked out my room when I first arrived. Maybe when Effi confronted Zirkeler, he decided I was lying, and took matters into his own hands?'

‘Do you mean you are finally coming to terms with the fact that Effi Rache may not be the shining little angel you take her to be? That she may be a rattler with wings?'

‘No. I'm sure she had nothing to do with this, Amira. Positive of it, in fact. She just isn't like that. I'm more and more convinced that Zirkeler is acting on his own accord. The man is an animal. If you want to know who is leading the gang of thugs terrorizing half of southern Bavaria, I suggest you look no further. There is no way on earth that Zirkeler was guarding Effi's house in the middle of the night. He was spying on us. And I foolishly gave away that someone was spying on him. It wasn't Effi's work. She was just washing her own linen. Wesker's death is on me.'