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“UM, YOU KNOW I’M STILL here, right?”
I turned around to look at Bree sitting cross-legged on the back seat. “Of course we know you’re still here.” Where else would she be?
We’d left Karel Maslák’s house and had been driving towards Kutná Hora for the last seventeen minutes. We’d just left the outskirts of Prague and were travelling east on a highway. This seemed to be mostly flat farmland interrupted by small villages.
Colin was following Ivan’s SUV, driving at a speed that was at the limit of my comfort zone. The few vehicles that were travelling in the same direction as us quickly made way when they noticed the flashing police light on the roof of Ivan’s SUV. Vinnie and Manny were behind us in the silver rental sedan.
“I think it might’ve slipped Millard’s mind.” Colin’s smile deepened when he glanced at Bree in the rear-view mirror. “He’s going to be pissed.”
“He really is a huggable, sweet porcupine, isn’t he?” Bree’s expression held the same glee as Colin’s. I didn’t understand.
“That’s Millard in a nutshell for you.” He glanced again in the rear-view mirror. “Why did you choose Düsseldorf?”
“Honest answer? My brother hates Düsseldorf.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” I thought about this. “Unless you have a bad relationship with your brother and don’t want him to visit you.”
“Nah.” She lifted her braid and twirled it around her finger in what seemed a habit. Her posture and this unconscious action while she thought were interesting indicators of a feeling of safety and comfort. “I get on very well with my brother. Even though he is a huge pain in my butt.”
“Why’s that?” Colin asked.
“The little shit is five years younger than me. Gareth is Tom’s son, so that makes him my half-brother. My much younger brother. When he turned thirteen, he was taller than me. Not that it’s very hard to be taller than me. When he turned fifteen, he started treating me like his baby sister. Being all protective and uggha-uggha.”
“What’s uggha-uggha?” I was not familiar with this vocabulary.
Bree laughed. “Like he’s the big man protecting me, the little girl.”
“Were you already living as a female?” I asked.
Her eyes stretched wide, then narrowed until she studied me through slits. “When I did my research on Phillip and I learned about you, I had to read up on autism. You’re very frank, right?”
I nodded.
“And there’s no malice,” Colin said. “Genevieve’s questions and comments are without judgement.”
“Why would I judge?” I didn’t understand why Colin thought this important to point out. Yet the relief on Bree’s face showed it had been her concern. I turned even more in my seat to fully observe her. “Being transgender is only judged by people who don’t understand, appreciate and fully embrace the complexity and difference within the human species.”
She stared at me, eyes wide. “Wow. That’s... I think I love you.”
I jerked back, then relaxed when I registered her expression. “You’re jesting.”
“Only a little. There are very few people with such an open mind.” She glanced at Colin. “My brother has an open mind, but he tells me that his job in Scotland Yard has shown him how horrid people can be.”
“And that’s why he’s taken on the role of your protector.”
“Much to my dismay.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m a big girl and can take care of myself.” She snorted. “Okay, maybe not physically big. But I can look after myself.”
I thought of the people who had become my family. “It’s important in a relationship to trust other parties to look out for you.”
She was quiet for a minute. “Is it easy for you?”
“No.” Not even after six and half years with them. “But I’m determined to learn.”
“Gareth is a little bit right about people being awful to me. He saw how I was treated in school while I was finding myself.” She sighed. “It was difficult for him as well. We moved a lot and in every new school, he was the freak’s little brother.”
There was so much I needed to say that I didn’t know where to begin. “There is no such thing as a little bit right. It’s either right or wrong.”
“That’s what you’re going with?” She laughed. “Not telling me I’m not a freak?”
“You’re not and you know you’re not.”
She slapped both hands on her thighs. “That’s it. I love you. Completely. Fully.”
Colin smiled. “How long have you been in Düsseldorf?”
The levity in her expression disappeared. “I moved there after the article was written about my gender. The trolling became intolerable and Gareth became overbearing. He was in my flat every day, insisting that I move in with him, his wife and three children. God help me. I mean, I love the brats, but no. Just no.”
I turned back to face the front, lowered the visor and tilted it to be able to see Bree’s face. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Colin glanced again in the rear-view mirror. “Do you still publish under the name you used before?”
“Most definitely, yes. Those bastards might’ve dented me a bit, but I’m not going to give up my name or the pride I take in the quality of my work.”
Colin and Bree talked about the articles she’d written and her investigative processes. It was fascinating. She was fascinating. I listened quietly while looking at the tilled fields flanking the highway, small villages as far as the eye could see. We approached a forested area and I felt my muscles relax. Driving through such greenery was good for my mind.
The road curved to the left and a small village lay ahead of us.
“Ooh, that’s fairy-tale pretty.” Bree leaned forward until she was between the two front seats. I pushed myself against the passenger door and looked at the awe on her face. “Man, I so have to come back here to write something about this little place. I wonder what the history is.”
“It’s called the city of silver,” Colin said. “It was established in the twelfth century with the settlement of the Sedlec Abbey. In the thirteenth century Germans started mining the area for silver. It is believed that this wealth helped the Czech Kingdom boom.”
“Why does the Sedlec Abbey sound familiar?” Bree tapped her index finger on her lips. “Hmm.”
“Think harder.” Colin waited, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth. He enjoyed Bree’s company.
“Blimey! It’s the skeleton skull place.”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly phrase it like that.” His smile widened. “The small Roman Catholic chapel has incredible artistic as well as historic value. It’s the art that first drew me here. Underneath the chapel is the Ossuary, which they estimate contains the skeletons of between forty and seventy thousand people. The bones of these people have been used artistically to decorate and furnish the chapel. The enormous chandelier of bones alone is worth seeing. This chandelier has at least one of all two hundred and six bones in the human body. Then there are the garlands of skulls draping the vault. No, really. It’s an amazing place to visit.”
“Have you been there?” Bree asked me.
“No.” But after Colin’s enthusiastic description I might consider visiting something that was now thought to be morbid, but had once been considered artistic and beautiful. Karel Maslák’s cryptic descriptions now made sense. I wondered though why he hadn’t just given us the village’s name. It seemed he was a man who greatly enjoyed playing games.
We entered the village and Colin slowed down to follow Ivan’s SUV, turning right into a narrow street. The little I had seen so far of Kutná Hora reminded me of our visit to the historic artists’ village of Szentendre in Hungary. Our holiday there had been interrupted by a case that had been both interesting and horrifying.
Colin’s phone rang and he pressed the answer button on the steering wheel. “You’re on speaker, Millard.”
“Can that bloody paparazzo be trusted?”
Bree burst out laughing. “Huggable porcupine.”
“Doctor Face-reader?” His demand boomed through the interior.
“Paparazzo is male. Bree would be a paparazza, but she isn’t. She’s an investigative journalist.” I sighed when Bree snickered and Manny swore. “She has proven herself to be trustworthy, but within limits. I don’t know to what kind of trust you are referring.”
“Details of this case, missy.” It sounded like he was clenching his teeth.
I looked at Bree in the visor’s mirror. She stared back at me, her expression open to read, her smile genuine. “We can trust her.”
“Are you listening, Ms Reuben?”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
“Oh, hell. Another comedian.” Manny swore again. “Well, let me tell you this. If you even think about interfering in our investigation, doing or saying anything stupid, I’ll throw your arse in jail faster than you can say ‘porcupine’.”
Bree’s smile brightened for a second, then her expression sobered. She leaned forward to speak closer to the car’s mic. “I value the trust anyone puts in me. Whether it is my brother to babysit his children or a whistle-blower hoping I will keep his name out of my article so he can stay safe—hell, so he can stay alive—I will honour that trust. And something tells me that this case you guys are busy with might be up there with the most sensitive information I’ve ever worked with.” She paused. “I won’t betray your trust in me.”
“Hmm.” Manny cleared his throat. “Well, then. You stay put with Frey and Doc. Ivan, Daniel, myself and the big guy are going to the address we have for Hana Zonová. We’ll let you know as soon as we’ve cleared the property.”
“And hopefully have Ant squashed under our boots.” Vinnie’s chuckle came over the speakers. “See what I did there?”
“Put a sock in it and drive.” Manny said something else, but it was too muffled to hear. “Frey, find a place here to park and wait for my call.”
“Done.” Colin slowed down even more and parked in front of a sadly neglected building. Large chunks of plaster had fallen off its façade, revealing the raw brick underneath. On the top right corner of a building, a groove had been cut into the wall to accommodate a nest of cables running to the roof. I doubted this building had seen any maintenance in the last five decades.
“You guys seem really close.” Bree looked at my reflection in the visor mirror. “Closer than other teams I’ve seen.”
“We’re family,” Colin said. “Not the blood-related kind.”
“Yeah, I understand that kind of family. I’m lucky that I’m close to my mom, Tom and my brother. When that story broke, their support carried me through.” She smiled. “That and hugs from my brother’s three monsters.”
“Monsters?” I asked.
“Kids.” She frowned. “You take everything literally, don’t you?”
“Words have meaning. I interpret that meaning.” Trying to comprehend the legion of nuances possible in one sentence was exhausting and I’d been wrong on too many occasions.
“Do you feel different to normal people?”
“‘Normal’ is a word too broad and generally subjective to use. If I understand your question correctly, I don’t feel different than neurotypical people. I am different. This is my normal.”
“Yeah, I understand about having one’s own normal. My normal has not been easy to explain to people.”
“Why do you need to explain it?”
“Why indeed.” She paused when Colin’s phone rang.
He pressed the answer button. “On speaker, Vin.”
“It’s clear, dude. The old man wants you guys here in a jiffy.” He laughed when Manny said something in the background. “That overdose really gave him a hangover from hell. I didn’t think it was possible for him to be grumpier than he usually is. But... here we are.”
Colin started the SUV engine. Fifteen metres ahead of us was a park. We turned right into a narrow, cobblestone street. On our left, the park was green and appeared minimally maintained. It was nothing like the manicured parks close to our flat in Strasbourg. On our right were two-story houses, some as dilapidated as the one where we’d parked earlier.
A few houses were beautifully restored, cream- and peach-coloured paints making them look new. One house had flowerboxes in the windows—a bit early in the season, but I imagined it looked charming in summer with flowers flowing down to the pavement.
Colin drove towards the peach-coloured house at the end of the street. He tilted his head up to speak towards the SUV’s mic. “I see your car, Vin. Tell Millard we’ll be there in a minute.”
Ivan’s SUV and the rental car Vinnie and Manny used were in front of the park, three parking spaces next to them still open. Colin stopped next to the silver rental car.
“As much as I would love to go in with you, I will stay here.” Bree crossed her legs, settling deeper into the back seat. She looked at Colin. “But I really want to know all the details.”
“As much as we can tell you, as soon as we can.”
“Thanks.” She sighed heavily, her shoulders dropping. “Man, I’m starving. I should’ve brought that box of cupcakes. Hey, do you think they sell cupcakes here?”
Colin laughed as he shook his head and opened his door. We got out and joined Vinnie by the wooden front door. This was the only house on the street with wooden window frames. The ground-floor windows had burglar-proofing—something I had not noticed in the other houses.
Vinnie was leaning against the doorframe and lifted his chin towards Colin’s SUV. “She’s staying put?”
“Yeah.” Colin glanced at the vehicle. “I think she’s hoping to build more trust, to prove to us that we can allow her into this case.”
“Not going to bloody happen.” Manny stood in the hallway and waved us in. “We can worry about sharing information with a journalist later. Right now I need you, Doc.”
I nodded and walked with everyone to the back of the house. Even though the outside façade and wooden door and window frames blended well with the historical ambience of the village, the inside of this house could be any modern home in any city.
Rugs with abstract patterns were scattered on white glossy tiled floors. Recessed lighting, mirrors and modern art were well matched to the battleship-gray walls. We passed a room that had a large flat screen television against a wall. The room at the end of the hallway was the kitchen. The black and white floor tiles were matt, but the modern white kitchen units were as glossy as the tiles in the other rooms. All the appliances were top of the range.
A small round table stood in the centre of the room. Only when I saw a man sitting at the table did I realise that I had not yet seen a photo of Antonin Korn. He was shorter than average with a petite build. Francine would insist on describing his features as ‘not an oil painting’. His eyes were close-set, his nose wide and his cheeks ruddy. But his short, styled hair and designer clothes made him appear like a wealthy, well-groomed man.
The kitchen was crowded and I walked to stand next to the back door. An overfull travel bag rested on three large suitcases by the door. I leaned back against the kitchen counter and further studied the man who had a reputation of great self-confidence. There was no evidence of that right now. Only fear. Immense fear.
He clenched his trembling hands into fists, his breathing was shallow and I could see his racing pulse beating in his neck. He was pushing himself against the back of the chair and it appeared like he was trying to make himself look smaller by hunching over.
Manny sat down at the table with Antonin and Ivan joined Vinnie in the hallway, leaning against the opposite wall and looking into the kitchen.
“Is Hana okay? What did you do with her?” Antonin’s English was without accent, his voice high from stress. “I want to speak to her.”
“Hana is in her bedroom.” Manny slumped in the chair. “Why do you want to speak to her?”
“I want to make sure she understands how serious this is. She needs to go somewhere safe.” He glanced at the suitcases and his expression turned pleading. “You have to keep her safe. Her and my wife and children. I was going to take them away, but you can keep them safer. You have to.”
“That’s a lot to demand when you’re a criminal.”
“I’m not a criminal.” His slammed his fist on the table.
“No? Then explain why you have a business relationship with Vittorio Sordi, Mirek Havel and Jeroen Verhoeven.”
Antonin crossed his arms. “You’ve been in my office, my records.”
“Yes.” Manny didn’t say anything else. He waited quietly, one eyebrow raised.
It was easy to see Antonin adding the information to form a conclusion. A conclusion that caused him a series of emotions—fear, hope, relief, anger, regret. He swallowed, his shoulders sagging. “Shahab Hatami.”
“Yes?”
“That’s why you’re here.” The fear on his face intensified. “You know what he’s done, don’t you? You’re here to stop him. Please tell me you’re here to stop him spreading the poison. He’s got everything ready, you know. The way he was talking, this is going to be worse than Moscow. I tried to convince him not to kill innocent people. He completely lost it. He told me that he would do whatever he wanted and if I wanted to stay alive, I should stay out of his way. But I had a feeling he was going to come back for me. The moment I heard that Doctor Novotný had been found dead, I knew I was next. Shahab has never been one to leave loose ends lying around. No, sir.”
His eyes grew wide, his gaze frantic. “If you found me, that means that he will find me too. Oh, God. You have to keep me safe. Me and my family. And Hana. He’s going to kill us. He’s a psychopath. A madman. First he’s going to kill me, then he’s going to do whatever it is he’s planning with all the stuff he created. Oh, man. We’re all going to die.”
I was the only one who didn’t outwardly react to his rambling. Manny swore, Vinnie and Colin gasped and Ivan ran outside, his phone in his hand.
Manny turned to me. He inhaled, then frowned and looked at Ivan, who rushed back in. His eyes were stretched wide, his eyebrows high on his forehead, his jaw slack. Shock. I took a step back. Away from Ivan and whatever bad news he had.
“We have a problem.” Ivan glanced at Antonin. “Three hours ago, a man died in one of the five-star hotels on the riverbank. Preliminary tests are coming back as an opioid overdose, but the ME is worried. There’s something about this opioid.”
“It’s started. It’s Shahab’s poison. Oh, God. You have to keep me safe.” Antonin got up. “Hana! Oh, God, Shahab is going to kill us.”
