Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
The Bear
cheered up.
"Why don't we eat on
the way?
Then we'll be fortified for
some serious questioning."
"We'll
talk about it," said Fitzduane.
He
was suddenly anxious to be on his way.
"Come on, let's move."
"I'll
check out a weapon for you."
"There
isn't time for that," said Fitzduane.
"You're armed, and that'll have to do."
His voice was sharp with anxiety.
The bear
looked up at the heavens, shook his head, and followed Fitzduane out the door.
*
*
*
*
*
Vreni summoned
every last ounce of resolve.
She fetched a
duvet and cocooned it around her body as if it were a tepee.
She was sitting cross-legged, and the phone
was in front of her.
Inside her tepee of
warmth she felt more secure.
She waited
for the warmth to build up, and as she did, she imagined that she was safe,
that the Irishman had come to rescue her, and that she was far away from
anything He could do.
He didn't exist
anymore.
Like a bad dream, His image
faded, leaving an uncomfortable feeling but no more actual fear.
She left her
hand on the gray plastic of the phone until the handle was warm in her
grasp.
She imagined Fitzduane at the
other end, waiting to respond, to take her to a place of safety.
She lifted up the receiver and began to
dial.
She stopped halfway through the
first digit and pressed the disconnect button furiously.
It made no difference.
The phone was quite dead.
Her heart
pounding, she flung open the door and ran to the back of the house, to where
some of the animals were housed.
She
seized her pet lamb, warm and groggy with sleep, and with him clutched in her
arms ran back into the house and locked and bolted the door.
She crawled back under the duvet with her
lamb and closed her eyes.
*
*
*
*
*
Sylvie flung
open the door on the driver's side.
Eyes
open, face distorted, Sangster slid toward her, his face covered in
secretions.
Sylvie stepped back and let
the head and torso fall into the snow.
Sangster's feet remained tangled in the pedals.
"Leave
the door open," said Santine.
He
dragged
body out of the passenger seat and around to the rear of the car, then opened
the trunk.
"Well,
fuck me," he said.
"The
bastard's still alive."
He removed a
sharpened ice pick from his belt and plunged it deep into
The body arched and was still.
Santine levered it into the trunk.
He closed and locked the lid
He looked at Sylvie.
"Obviously a
nonsmoker."
*
*
*
*
*
They were
using Fitzduane's car, but the Bear was driving.
They turned off the highway to
toward Heiligenschwendi.
The road was
black under the glare of the headlights but piles of snow and ice still
lingered by the roadside.
As they
climbed higher, the reflections of white became more frequent.
They hadn't talked much since leaving Project
K, though the Bear had had a brief conversation with police headquarters.
"The
Chief isn't too happy that we took off without saying goodbye," he had
said when he finished.
Fitzduane had
just grunted.
Only when they drove into
the village did Fitzduane break the silence.
"Who is running the security on Vreni?"
"Beat von
Graffenlaub arranged it," said the Bear.
"It's not Vaybon Security, as you might expect, but a very
exclusive personal protection service based on
They employ ex-military personnel by and
large — ex-SAS, Foreign Legion, and so on."
"ME
Services," said Fitzduane.
"I
know them.
ME
stands for ‘Mallet 'Em’ — the founder wasn't renowned for a sophisticated sense
of humor, but they’ve got a good reputation in their field.
Who's in charge of Vreni's detail?"
"Fellow
by the name of Sangster," said the Bear.
"Our people say he's sound, but he's fed up because he has to do
this thing from outside the house.
Vreni
won't allow them within one hundred meters of the place."
"Consorting
with the enemy," said Fitzduane under his breath.
"Poor frightened little sod."
He pointed at a phone booth.
"Stop here a sec.
I'm going to ring ahead so she doesn't have a
heart attack."
Fitzduane was
in the phone booth five minutes.
He
emerged and beckoned the Bear over.
"Her phone's dead," he said.
"I've checked with the operator, and there is no reported fault on
the line."
They looked at
each other.
"I have a number for ME
control," the Bear said.
"The
security detail checks in regularly, and there are spot checks as well.
They should know if everything is okay."
"Be
quick," said Fitzduane.
He paced up
and down in the freezing air while the Bear made the call.
The detective looked happier when he had
finished.
"Sangster
reported in on schedule about fifteen minutes ago, and there was a spot check
less than ten minutes ago.
All is in
order."
Fitzduane
didn't look convinced.
"Do you have
a backup weapon for me?"
"Sure."
The Bear opened the trunk and handed
Fitzduane a tire iron.
"Why do I
suddenly feel so much safer?" said Fitzduane.
*
*
*
*
*
The room was
in almost total darkness, the light from the dim streetlamps of Junkerngasse
excluded by thick purple hangings.
Beat
von Graffenlaub could hear nothing.
The
security windows and door combined with the thick walls to produce a
soundproofed otherworld.
He felt disoriented.
He knew he should switch on the lights and
try to get a grip on himself, but then he would have to look at the photographs
again and face the sickness and the perversion and the graphic images of death.
He tired to
imagine the mentality of someone who would torture and kill for what appeared
to be not other reason than sexual gratification.
It was incomprehensible.
It was evil of a kind beyond his ability to
grasp, let alone understand.
Erika — his beautiful, sultry, sensuous Erika — a perverted, sick,
sadistic killer.
He retched, and
his mouth filled with an unpleasant taste.
He wiped his lips and clammy face with a handkerchief.
A well-shaded
light clicked on, apparently activated from the outside.
The steel door opened.
Von Graffenlaub sat in the darkness of his
corner of the room and silently watched Erika enter.
She removed
her evening coat of dark green silk and tossed it over a chair.
Its lining was a vivid scarlet red that
reminded von Graffenlaub sickeningly of the blood of her victims.
Her shoulders were bare, and her skin was
golden.
She looked at herself in the
full-length mirror strategically positioned at the entrance to the living room
and with a practiced movement slipped out of her dress and threw it after the
coat.
She stared at the image of her
body and caressed her breasts, bringing her fingers down slowly over her rib
cage and taut stomach to the black bikini panties that were the only clothing
she still wore.
Von
Graffenlaub tried to speak.
His throat
was dry.
Only a strangled sound emerged.
Erika tossed
her head in acknowledgment but didn't turn.
She continued to examine her reflection.
"Whitney," she said.
"Darling, dangerous, delicious Whitney.
I hoped you wouldn't be late."
She eased her panties down her thighs.
Her fingers worked between her legs.
"Why?"
repeated von Graffenlaub
hoarsely.
This time the word came out.
She started violently at the sound of his
voice but didn't turn for perhaps half a minute.
Then, with a quick, animal gesture, she
slipped her panties off her thighs and kicked them into a corner.
"And who
is this Whitney?" said von Graffenlaub, gesturing at the pile of
photographs beside him.
"Who is
this partner in murder?"
Erika faced
him naked.
She had regained some of her
composure, but her face was strained under the tan.
She laughed harshly before she spoke.
"Whitney likes games, my darling
hypocrite," she said.
"And not
all the players are volunteers.
Look
very closely at those photos.
Don't you
recognize the pristine body?
Aren't
those long, elegant fingers familiar?
Beat, my darling, aren't Vaybon drugs wonderful?
My companion in murder — well, in some of the
photographs anyway — was you, my sweet.
You must admit that does somewhat limit your options."
A dreadful cry
came from von Graffenlaub.
He brought
the Walther up in a gesture of ultimate denial and fired until the magazine was
empty.
The gun dropped to the
carpet.
Erika lay where she had been
flung, looking not unlike the blood-spattered images I her photographs.
*
*
*
*
*
They left the
car in the village and walked along the track toward Vreni's farmhouse.
The Bear carried a flashlight.
When he was about thirty meters away from the
Mercedes, he focused it on the windows and flashed it half a dozen times.
The front door opened on the passenger side,
and a figure got out.
He was carrying
some kind of automatic weapon.
The flashed
the light again.
"I don't want to
scare them to death," he said in a low voice to Fitzduane.
He stopped and shouted to the figure by the
Mercedes.
"Police," he
said.
"Routine
check.
Mind if I approach?"
"You're
welcome," said the figure by the Mercedes.
"Dig your ID out and come forward with your hands in the air."
"Understood,"
said the Bear.
He moved ahead, hands in
the air, the flashlight in one of them.
Fitzduane walked beside him about ten meters to the right.
His hands were extended also.
When they were close, the Bear spoke again.
"Here's my ID," he said, shining
his light on it and handing it to the bodyguard.
Fitzduane moved forward a shade after the
detective offered him his ID as well.
The bodyguard looked briefly at the Bear's papers and then pitched into
the snow as Fitzduane smashed the tire iron against his head.
"No
countersign, no partner backing him up from a safe fire position, and a
Skorpion as a personal weapon," said the Bear.
"Good reasons to take him out, but I
hope we're not dealing with an absentminded security man."
"So do
I
," said Fitzduane.
He felt the fallen man's body.
"Because he's dead."
"Jesus!"
exclaimed the Bear.
"I thought I
was keeping you out of trouble by not giving you a firearm."
Fitzduane
grunted.
Keeping the flashlight well
shaded and with the automatically activated interior light switched off, he
examined the person who was apparently asleep in the passenger seat.
Almost immediately it was clear that the
sleep was permanent.
He went through the
pockets of the corpse and compared the ID he found there with the bloated face.