John Brady - Poachers Road

He turned when he heard Speckbauer’s words trail off.

Speckbauer was squinting at the screen. He tilted it against the morning sun that was still slicing the valleys into shadow and glare.

“Excuse me, a text.”

Felix watched him thumb through the message again. For a moment then Speckbauer’s eyes rested on the stones that had been embedded into the side of the cut.

“Well,” he said. “Now that focuses the mind. Yes. Now I am awake.”

“What? Is it about the situation here?”

“Perhaps. It’s a message about something in the first pathology notes. They’re being transcribed, but someone there was smart enough to fire an email to our office.”

“Identities?”

Speckbauer shook his head, and tapped his phone gently in a slow rhythm on his chin. He was soon lost in thought and turned to rubbing his phone over the bristles.

“You know something about the two?”

Speckbauer blinked as though rudely awoken.

“No. Yes. A horseman.”

He looked at the phone again.

“There is a mark,” he said. “No, what am I saying? A tattoo on one. In an armpit more or less. It’s sort of half ragged there, but it’s something.”

Felix shielded his eyes from the sun. His eyes were beginning to burn now from the flood of light and sleeplessness.

“VK,” said Speckbauer. “They’re out of Croatia. Well the one with the mark is. It’s actually a spur, this mark. ‘Vatreni Konji.’ Call them Crazy Horses. It’s got something to do with hunters’ horses, I don’t know exactly. But the exact translation doesn’t work for me.

‘Spirited Horses?’ No: crazy is proper. You won’t understand.”

“Give me the short version.”

“The ‘runner’ the one with the four bullet holes was midthirties. He had a tattoo. That puts him as a member, or a hangeron of some degree, of a bunch of ex-soldiers, bandits, and the like.

He would be no stranger to crime, I say. We have a chance of putting a name on him, with army records in Croatia. It’ll take time.”

Speckbauer pursed his lips and then blew them loose.

“I put in a call to The Hague, to see if there’s a file on him.”

“The Hague? A war criminal?”

“It’s possible. There were guys like that, one picked up in Vienna two years ago. Then, some arrest, or bodies, in Germany.

But one of them up here? It changes things.”

Speckbauer turned on his heels and concentrated on a sharp block of light thrown up by the sun on the wall of the house.

“So,” he said, and nodded at Felix’s mobile. “You still want to phone Gebhart, and get him to sort all this out?”

Felix shrugged.

“I’ll tell you,” said Speckbauer then. “These horsemen guys are big on revenge, and grudges. They make it their business to set an example. And they don’t accept business losses. So, if our guy in the woods was carrying something of value, they are the type to want to get it back. And put away whoever interfered in their operation.”

Felix’s mind lurched, and a cold feeling descended on him again.

“The other guy has a diamond in his guts,” Speckbauer murmured. “And a hole in the back of his head. A clean shot, a surprise.

But Mr. Horseman guy had a chance to run or jump or try something. There’s no lab test telling me he fired a gun. Say Mr.

Horseman has been accompanying Mr. Diamond, but that he is no friend to him. And say he has a deal with a third party arranged for Mr. Diamond to get taken care of…?”

“A third party who knew his way around the area.”

“A person who had his own scheme,” said Speckbauer, nodding. He seemed to be mesmerized by the stripes of hard light across the yard now. Then he wrinkled his nose and his brows lifted. He pointed his index finger to his ear, and made a popping sound.

“‘Kill the two foreigners,’ let’s call the plan,” he said. “Yes.”

“He doesn’t take the diamond out of the first guy’s guts, though.”

“Ah, Gendarme Kimmel. He doesn’t know about diamonds in the guy’s guts. And I think he is quite content with what he did get.”

“Other diamonds,” said Felix. “Cash maybe.”

“I agree. And all that was supposed to be on its way to…?”

Felix hesitated. Then he nodded towards the hills to the north.

“Wrong direction, I say.”

“I give up then. Christ, I’m a Gendarme in Stefansdorf. What do I know?”

“Traffic goes two ways. One way goes drugs, counterfeit.

Human beings. Weapons. Lousy, old-fashioned, lucrative cigarettes.

Other way goes payment.”

“But why are they up here? Nothing goes on up here.”

“It’s not coincidence. There’s some connection. That’s all I’m guessing.”

Speckbauer’s eyes took on an intensity, but the sun’s glare made his face sickly.

“I see three, maybe four, guys involved,” he said. “The two in the woods, one a fool and the other a lesser fool. The lesser fool thought he had an arrangement. The arrangement was with a local guy, or a pair of locals. Any more than that would have made our Horseman fellow suspicious. He wouldn’t have come up here.”

Speckbauer seemed to have used up all his words. He stared at a distant hillside, as though the patches of light and shade there held patterns he intended to read. Behind him, in the shed, Felix heard pigs snuffling and half-heartedly kicking against something.

“Last night’s visitor,” Felix started to say.

“You mean ‘the snooper’?” Speckbauer said without turning.

“That was someone from here. Some local. Someone wants to see if Gendarme Kimmel keeps his work papers in his car. They want to know what that boy told you, the Himmelfarb kid.”

Felix looked up at the window of the bedroom where he had spent the night. He imagined himself skipping upstairs to take the maps down to show Speckbauer, just to see the expression on his face. But no: this was something he had to do himself first after he confided in Gebhart. Gebi had been around; he had the lowdown on Speckbauer and Franzi, the fly-in cops with so much baggage. Gebi would understand.

“Maybe someone thinks,” Speckbauer went on, pausing at each word. “That the Himmelfarb boy wandered the forests at night.

Maybe he even saw the work done on the two. Who knows. But if it was someone who knows about the two dead guys, or the Himmelfarbs, there other things that are heavy on their minds, you can be sure.”

When Felix didn’t say anything, Speckbauer looked over at him.

“This is why I say ‘local,’” said Speckbauer. “For one thing, they are concerned that Mr. Horseman’s friends will be paying a call. Do they know who they’re dealing with, whoever did this?

They know enough, I think. Diamonds are an easy way to take payment. The other thing… well another time, perhaps, after we leave this lovely place.”

“What other thing?”

“Well it concerns you, Gendarme. Remember we talked about coincidences? Joked a little too? Is it coincidence that you, a son of Felix Kimmel, is involved here?”

Felix returned Speckbauer’s steady gaze.

“People want to believe the best of others, I find. Colleagues, friends. Family.” “Everyone except a certain type of detective.”

Speckbauer shrugged.

“And someone might wonder, well, why you joined the Gendarmerie. I mean, we have guys who didn’t finish high school.

When we’re one big happy family, the Polizei and us, you’ll be a cop in that new organization. A pretty far-sighted career plan, no?”

Felix bit back an answer.

“Your father, also a Gendarme, with a spotless record. Super guy. But the last few months before his accident, he’s wandering all over the place. He’s out of his area, on the road a lot. He’s having a beer here, a coffee there well, he’s everywhere. And why? Nobody knows. Was he looking for something, someplace? An investigation?