While Alex Hawke was high on an ice field atop some Alp, breathing all that heroic and rarefied air (and hopefully not getting himself killed), Ambrose and Sigrid found ways to keep themselves from thinking about him. It hadn’t happened by chance. To no one’s surprise, Ambrose had a finger in that pie.
He had arranged a secret supper alone with Blinky. A quiet corner table at Der Kronenhalle on the night before Alex and Luc went up to the base camp. The two conspirators both agreed that Sigrid was slipping into a rather fragile state, consumed with fear and worry for her lover’s safety. Blinky believed that the only solution was to find a way to bring smiles to her face. To not let her find time to worry.
“And how do you propose to do that?” Ambrose asked him over brandy and coffee.
“I don’t, my friend. I propose that you do it. When she fell in love with him, she got you in the bargain. And I must say she was lucky on both counts.”
“She’s very glamourous and gay. You don’t think she’d be frightfully bored hanging around with a stuffy old Scotland Yard man twice her age?”
“I do not.”
“Well, then, I suppose I’ve had far less attractive assignments, haven’t I?”
Zurich’s new odd couple were soon spending their evenings hobnobbing around town. In the evening, they hit the high and low alike, the opera, restaurants, bars, and smoky nightclubs. They danced, drank, and sang karaoke till dawn some nights. And, on the cold, blustery nights, they curled up by a fire with pizza and The Philadelphia Story or Brief Encounter, two of Sigrid’s favorite black-and-white films.
Ambrose had just one rule: he would not leave her apartment until he saw a happy smile on her face and she kissed his cheek good-night.
Mornings were spent working the case. Baron von Stuka had privately told Sigrid that they desperately needed a break; they were fast running out of time as the Sorcerer mounted more virulent attacks. Attacks were up dramatically, so she and the chief inspector redoubled their efforts, running down every possible lead they found.
And then things started breaking in their favor. That afternoon, Sigrid came up with a name. And the next morning, they found themselves on the trail of the killer. They were walking in a section known as the Altstadt, Zurich’s oldest medieval neighborhood. Zurich had its own version of Chinatown, called Suddchina. The pea-soup fog was even thicker in these winding streets, swirling in dense clouds up every street and around every corner. The two trench-coated investigators were trudging slowly up street after street, getting confused by the street names. Finally, they found the winding cobblestone street they’d been looking for, a steep incline that was becoming more and more of a narrow back alley to nowhere.
It was hard work gaining traction, or even staying on one’s feet on the worn, wet stones. Melting, slushy black rainwater from the top of the hill kept pouring down the steep incline, swirling around their ankles. The fact that it was hard to see beyond their noses didn’t help either. Only the pale yellow lights from the up here in Chinatown.
“Now I think we’re really lost,” Sigrid said, smiling. This was her first taste of real detective work and she found it thrilling. “Let’s stop and get our bearings, shall we?”
They paused beneath a dim streetlamp at the mouth of a dark land, partially protected by an awning from the rain. Sigrid shook the moisture out of her frizzy hair. “What’s that address again?” she said. She was digging around in her handbag for the map he’d given her.
“What?” Ambrose said.
He was staring in disbelief at his ruined shoes; they were his favorite, and he’d been squishing dirty water with every step up the cobblestones. “Pity to ruin a pair of good brogues,” he told her sadly.
“Inspector, this is serious business. Pay attention. We’re on a case, remember? Where is that map?”
He reached into the pocket of his coat and said, “Here it is, what’s left of it.”
She studied the torn and soggy hotel map under the dim orange light from the lamppost as they huddled together, trying to make sense of the thing.
They were looking for the shop of some chap Sigrid had tipped Ambrose to in a midnight call last night.
The night before, the telephone in Congreve’s hotel room had rung shortly after midnight. He’d looked at his watch, cursed, and rolled over to answer the damn thing.
“Hello? Whom shall I say is calling?” He always answered the phone like that late at night. A lifelong habit that had stood him in good stead.
“It’s me!”
“I don’t know anyone named ‘me.’ Good-night . . .”
“Wait! I’ve got something!” Sigrid had said as he’d been hanging up. “Just had a call from my friend, Jon Levin, head of the bank’s cryptology section here in Zurich. Jon says they’re cranking it all night up there. You won’t believe what they’ve stumbled upon!”
Ambrose, hearing the breathless excitement in her voice, had held the receiver to his paisley robe and taken three deep breaths. He’d known this could finally be the break they’d all been waiting for.
“All right. Calm down, Sigrid. Speak slowly and tell me what you’ve got,” Ambrose had said with the inflection favored by Job and the Dalai Lama.
“Okay, Chief, here’s what I know so far. One hour ago, diving deep into the deepness, Jon came up with a game changer. He found the e-mail address of a formerly high-level forensic accountant, someone he used to work with in Beijing. The two of them worked together as forensic accountants at Credit Suisse before they both moved to Zurich four years ago. Jon got the top job, and now his former boss was working for him. Apparently, he was not a very good loser. Sounds like a motive, sir.”
“This is good. Have you got a name?”
“Sure do. His name is Ding Wong. He left the bank a year or two later under a dark cloud of suspicion. There were some serious ‘errors’ under his watch. Gold, cash, and securities, all in large amounts, had suddenly gone missing.”
“Was this man ever charged?”
“Negative. A Stadtspolizei investigation of Ding Wong’s online client ledgers revealed suspicious serial hacking from the outside, but nothing the cops could pin on him. Nor could the bank’s own chief of cybersecurity, my friend Jon, nail him for it.”
Sigrid had said she had admitted during the investigation that she had always found Ding to be hypersecretive and thoroughly unpleasant, two traits she’d always associated with a man who had something to hide. She’d told Jon back then that she still thought the guy was guilty. So what? he’d said. And he’d been right; there had been nothing he could do about it. Until now. Now they were in search of an address at No. 11, Vierstrasse.
The two of them kept prowling the streets, up and down the Vierstrasse, looking for a shop named Military Curios. The rain had turned to sleet, and neither of them had eaten breakfast. Ambrose already had his mobile out and was trying to find an Uber car roving somewhere in this unlikeliest of Uber neighborhoods.
“Good luck,” Sigrid told him cheerfully. She kept walking up the hill, peering into one grungy shop after another. The street was chockablock with curio shops, tiny noodle houses, laundries, magic shops, and homeopathic medicine purveyors.
Finally, she got lucky.
“Found it, Chief! Number Eleven Vierstrasse!” she cried out, looking around for Ambrose. He wasn’t there. In a mild panic, she ran back down to the bottom of the street where she’d left him, trying to make his Uber app work.
“Ambrose!” she called out, tripping down the cobblestones in fog mixed with snow, “Ambrose, where are you?”
She saw him.
He was way at the bottom of the hill, about to climb into the rear seat of a shiny black Range Rover with blacked-out windows. She waved, and he saw her. “Hullo!” he cried out. “Stay right there, I’ll come pick you up!”
He climbed inside and shut the door.