John Brady - Poachers Road

Felix nodded. Speckbauer widened his eyes. Then he shook his head, as though to clear it of nonsense.

“Too much coffee,” he said. “And this beautiful corner of Austria has had an effect on me. No doubt that’s obvious enough.”

“Sometimes.”

“Okay,” said Speckbauer. “I hear you. You want some time to yourself this day.”

Felix started up the Polo. He waited for Speckbauer to wrestle his way into the seat belt. While he waited, he imagined that at this same time Sepp Gebhart, a puzzled but protective Gebhart, would be halfway along the road to St. Kristoff to see what the hell his colleague Kimmel’s strange request in that phone call really meant.

It was a tough act back at his grandparents’ house. Felix heard an irony in everything Speckbauer said now. Even Franzi’s tinted glasses now seemed to mask more accusing, or more suspicious eyes.

Felix’s grandmother was soon over her disappointment that Felix and his fine colleagues were not able to delay for a lunch a proper farmer’s meal. Speckbauer was at his most expansive, and his face held an expression of gentle regret and solicitude.

“Another time you must, then,” Oma Nagl rallied.

As Felix expected, she had a master back-up plan. He was not surprised to see the tart appearing, and then being displayed before being covered in foil and placed in a plastic bag. The sausage was almost too much for master actor Speckbauer. There was some winking and a guffaw exchanged between Speckbauer and Opa Nagl when Felix’s grandfather mentioned something about a secret ingredient in this home-made sausage that one of his neighbours made every year.

Ritual protestations followed about paying a proper price for something that in the city would be a great and treasured delicacy.

Refusals were loud and firm. Speckbauer was ready with keen protests, even slipping in the accented expressions that Felix had thought were only for Styrians up here in the hills. ‘The baker must at least have his flour!’ ‘How can there be a beautiful house without paying for good timber?!’ All pertained to Speckbauer needing to know both his grandparents’ favourite tipples.

It was left to Felix to intervene. He mentioned a brandy, and waited out his grandfather’s protests. And then, finally, the two policemen were sitting in the Passat. With his grandparents waving and even calling out, they drove off, but not before Speckbauer mimicked a phone to his ear while nodding at Felix.

“Such an interesting fellow,” said Oma Nagl. “What he knows about plants and crops, and farming. For a policeman, too.”

Felix watched the Passat coast over the small rise before it gained the road proper.

“And he learned it all late enough,” she said and made a final wave.

“After his injury.”

“Did he tell you about it?”

“My God,” said his oma and put her knuckles to her breast as though in prayer.

“That husband I have. He blunders into everything, like a child. He has no shame. ‘What happened to you?’ he says, right out of the blue. Franzi had been telling us about wrens, can you imagine?”

“It was obvious,” his grandfather interrupted. “People are silly.

Naturally I was curious. Wouldn’t anyone be? So I asked.”

“You should have said nothing.”

“Why? People must talk. It is healthy.”

Felix’s grandmother leaned to one side.

“There they go, anyway.”

“I will be back,” said Felix.

“My God but you have a crazy life, kid. Running about…!”

“I will phone you.”

“No need. We’re not going anywhere.”

“Just in case.”

His grandfather made a face at him.

“But if anyone is looking for me, tell them I have gone. It doesn’t matter who, even if they say they’re friends.”

His grandfather made a shushing sound. Then he scratched his head and said something about ‘the world.’”

His grandmother held him at arm’s-length. She fixed him with a keen stare.

“Are you in trouble?”

“No, Oma.”

“Really?”

“Truly. I’m just tired. Really tired.”

“You would tell me, eh? Your mother is faraway, so you come to me, right?”

“Of course.”

“She’s with that plank Edelbacher,” his grandfather muttered.

“Well let’s hope that ‘plank’ doesn’t have as many knots in it as my ‘plank’!”

Felix heard his grandfather tut-tut in that clicking, humorous way that had been the hallmark of this couple since he could remember. He thought again about asking his grandfather to get the hunting rifle out. He’d tell him he wanted to go after rabbits or something. But it’d never work. His opa would know something wasn’t right.

He searched the fields and hedges as he made his way to his car. He opened the bonnet to check for oil, and to make sure the stupid fan belt wasn’t about to shred like it had in Graz traffic last October. He scanned the bushes and the shadows where the forests began. Somehow they looked even darker now with the full sun closing on its height. Everything looked near, as though it had moved in toward the farm while no one was looking. A trick of light, or shadow, he had to decide, probably his own half-addled brain most of all.

He checked his phone for battery. He’d meet Gebhart by the church. Felix had been wondering again if he should check on Fuch’s place, even a drive-by, on his way to his grandfather’s. No, he decided: just go straight to the old man. After all, that was why he had gotten Gebhart into this now.

He stopped when he had reached the road and looked for any sign of the Passat. He half expected to see Franzi, gnome-like, sitting on the bank watching him from behind the two dark insect-eye lenses that protected his eyes from the light of day.

He turned off the engine for 10 seconds, and listened, but heard only the birds, and his own heart beating faster now.

Gebhart said nothing, but merely waited for Felix to finish. He wore that look of vague interest that Felix had learned was a screen for something else.

“So there,” he said to Gebhart when he had finished. “That’s about the only way I can describe it.”

Gebhart nodded his head slowly, as though something had happened as he had predicted, or didn’t understand and didn’t want to try. He looked out through the gap in the trees over the forestry road into where they had driven after leaving from the village. Felix had backed the Polo in at speed. It sank to the rims almost immediately. Gebhart, standing by his own car, made no comment.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” said Felix.

“I don’t. Just some days. And today is such a day.”

Felix looked down at the tracks his shoes had made in the carpet of brown pine needles.

“Well I think you’re stuck,” said Gebhart.

“That’s why I phoned you. I swear to God I’m not making this up.”

Gebhart drew on the cigarette and grimaced before exhaling.

He nodded toward the Polo.

“The car, I was referring to,” he said. He held out his cigarette and looked at it as though it had appeared from nowhere, and he frowned. Then he stubbed it out on the edge of his heel, before grinding it into the mushy ground underfoot.

“But it’s your own doing,” he said. “You look like you want to dump the car.”

“I’m a bit whacked. I wasn’t paying attention.”

Neither man spoke for several moments. The smoke from Gebhart’s cigarette was whipped away immediately by soft gusts of wind. The breeze was inconstant here amongst the trees, but it still had the trunks groaning faintly behind the louder hush of the conifers’ branches high up.

“As odd a request as I’ve ever had,” Gebhart said then. “Tell me again you’re not on drugs. Or going nuts?”