Denied to all but Ghosts (5 page)

“Well, I’ve to meet Simeon Goldstein and his
brother Miles; they are old family friends on my mother’s
side.”

“Well there you go, who else?”

“There’s Josh Houghton, he’s a police officer
and official liaison between the firm and the authorities in the
UK. I’ve met him many times at various conferences. Trouble is,
after the last case we worked together, he was suspended. He was
reinstated eventually. There was also a photographer guy, Thomas
Beckett. Trouble is, he ended up in hospital at the end of the
case.”

“Jeez, Marchel, do all your cases end up with
suspensions and hospitalisation?” asked Tina with alarm.

“Of course not!” replied Cavendish a little
too loudly, “well some of them, admittedly. But it’s never my
fault,” he added unconvincingly.

“Well, ‘mister’ Cavendish, I suggest you
contact this Houghton bloke and Beckett. I’m sure they will be
pleased to see you.” Cavendish gave Tina a hard, quizzical stare.
“Come on Marchel, it’s a good job I know you. Anybody would think
you were an ogre, one thing I do know about you is that you like
putting yourself down. God knows why with a scar like that but
women like you well enough,” she grabbed his hand and held it
tightly before continuing.

“Only joking, bruv. I also don’t know why you
think men dislike you so much.” Cavendish could offer no sagacious
reply and so ordered another bottle of wine before disappearing to
the toilet.

Inconsequential small talk accompanied their
meal before they retired to the lakeside terrace to smoke.
Cavendish swooned as his inebriated legs failed to coordinate with
his dysfunctional mind. Tina stood beside him with her cardigan
around her shoulders and trembled with the chill of the
evening.

Alert to her shivering, he removed his blue
jacket and wrapped it tenderly around her shoulders. Placing his
left arm around her, he drew her in against his body as they
watched the moored boats on the lake sway in the gentle evening
breeze.

“Thank you, Tina,” he said quietly, slurring
his words.

“For what?” she asked, stirring from her
private musings.

“For this, you didn’t have to come.”

“And leave my big brother all alone on his
last night?”

Cavendish unhurriedly turned to face her,
tilted her head with his right hand, and looked down at her dimly
lit features as he leant forward. Tina anticipated his intention
but remained motionless as he gently kissed her for a few
exquisite, tantalising seconds before she pulled herself away.

His palpable passion disturbed her yet was
undeniably exciting. Somehow, she skilfully concealed her
astonishment from Cavendish’s imploring eyes. She rationalised that
he had been drinking for the first time in many months and that
explained his inappropriate ardour.

“I think I’ll turn in, Marchel,” she said as
impassively as her inflamed emotions would allow, her mind a
whirlwind of confusion and guilt.

Cavendish continued to gaze at Tina with
unblinking eyes and whispered tenderly.

“I’ll be gone before you get up in the
morning; I’d just like to say...”

She raised her finger and pressed it gently
to his lips to stifle any further utterance. She lovingly traced
the line of the ragged scar on his cheek before becoming aware of
the intimacy of her gesture. Blushing, she clumsily handed him back
his jacket and dashed quickly back into the hotel.

* * *

Cavendish checked out of the hotel just
before six o’clock the following morning. He forwent breakfast, he
had no appetite and his head ached from the effects of the
alcohol.

A taxi collected him, headed out of
Friedrichshafen, and drove for a few kilometres before turning left
towards the village of Oberdorf. As the car passed through the
steep-roofed houses, a cluster of buildings appeared before him,
dominated by the structure that he took to be the airship hanger.
He was surprised by the perfunctory appearance of the facilities on
offer at the airfield. Cavendish guessed that when a half scale
replica of the famous LZ-129 Hindenburg floated in the imposing
hanger one did not have to try too hard to make an impression.

The driver dropped him off on a grassy strip
next to a dozen or so other cars; Cavendish clenched his holdall
tightly and walked purposefully towards the hanger. It was only
from the proximity of fifty or so metres that he could appreciate
the full magnitude of the structure. His approach to the hanger was
evidently observed for a figure emerged from the entrance to his
right and walked briskly towards him.

He instantly recognised the erect figure of
Matthias Graf von Manstein, an old friend and his sponsor when he
joined the firm. Von Manstein was now in his sixties, his grey hair
backcombed above his suntanned chiselled features. If anyone had
cared to study the two men then the shared feature of facial
scarring would have immediately struck them, von Manstein’s however
was far less intrusive than Cavendish’s duelling wound.

“Welcome, Marchel. Welcome to the home of the
Luftschiff Adenauer!” Cavendish felt genuinely thrilled at
Manstein’s generous greeting for it was a rare occurrence. He
grinned broadly as he shook hands with von Manstein, his hangover
temporally forgotten.

“Come on, take a look,” enthused von
Manstein, taking Cavendish by the arm and hurrying him along to the
hanger doors. He adored this moment; he loved to watch the reaction
of visitors when they first set eyes upon his creation in her
protective cocoon.

The airship was over one hundred and twenty
metres long, half the length of the ill-fated Hindenburg. She was
impressive in her own right when floating several hundred metres in
the sky, yet somehow the hanger had the effect of framing the ship,
making her appear even larger and more imperious. Cavendish did not
disappoint, he stood wide mouthed, bowled over by the intimidating
dimensions of the mighty grey airship tethered before him like a
captive whale.

Today’s voyage would be the first shakedown
flight of the season and it was to entail a tour of the major
cities of the UK. By six thirty, the mighty ship was out of the
hanger and awaiting the two non-crewmembers, Cavendish and von
Manstein. Gone were the days when the ship had to be held down by
scores of ground crew. In their second year of operation, the crew
had faith in the computerised mechanical ground control system that
held the great ship stable at its mooring.

A small flight of steps accessed the vast
belly of the leviathan. Cavendish nervously climbed the steps
expecting to be overwhelmed by vast air bags and polycarbonate
girders that comprised the internal form of the ship; instead, he
was greeted by the disappointment a sterile white-walled corridor
leading to the internal staircase that ran up to the passenger
accommodation.

The Adenauer was an airborne ocean liner and,
as a steward escorted Cavendish to the promenade deck, the ship
silently slipped her moorings. He experienced no sensation of
movement as the ship made its graceful ascent and he gazed out in
wonder through the long viewing windows as the ground fell
unhurriedly away.

Typically, Cavendish soon bored of the
tedious flight and after eight uneventful hours, the Adenauer
glided over the white cliffs of the Kent coastline. He peered
curiously at the country about which he knew so little, save for
the few holidays as a child and his previous assignment. The
airship drew the attention of people on the ground, from an
altitude of two hundred metres, it was easy to see them pointing
skyward as they cruised majestically overhead.

Two further wearisome hours elapsed before it
was time for Cavendish’s dramatic departure and he apprehensively
made his way to the hanger deck. Here was housed a small
single-seat silver-skinned biplane, which possessed a small
windowless compartment behind the pilot’s seat for cargo or, as in
this instance, a passenger.

The investigator was gratefully oblivious to
the preparations that went on around him as he squeezed into the
tiny compartment. It was perhaps just as well that the cosseted
investigator was unaware of the hanger floor beneath the plane
sliding open. The aircraft swung erratically, suspended only by a
clamp on its upper fuselage to the tenuous arm of a crane.

The biplane was carefully lowered out through
the Adenauer's hull into the cloudy English sky. Cavendish sat in
wide-eyed terror despite his visual deprivation as the plane
shimmied disconcertingly in the airflow of the airship. He flinched
as the plane’s engine coughed into life and revved with deafening
surety until the anonymous pilot was satisfied with its
performance.

Upon receiving the expected tap on his left
knee, Cavendish silently counted down from five as briefed. At
zero, he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as the plane
plummeted away from its supporting gantry. One of the crew had
suggested that the experience would be like riding a rollercoaster.
The jocular analogy was wasted on Cavendish for he had never ridden
a roller coaster and if this gut wrenching experience was anything
to go by he was never likely to.

As flights went, Cavendish considered the
forty minutes or more endured in the cramped and noisy confines of
the biplane the worst he had ever experienced. He knew roughly how
long it would take to reach his Derbyshire destination but had not
been prepared for the aggressive manoeuvring expertly executed by
the pilot in his attempts to land at Flash Seminary.

He swore volubly as the plane bounced heavily
along the spongy lawn of the private estate and swallowed hard to
suppress his paltry lunch’s attempt to leave his stomach. He
embraced the motionless bliss whilst waiting for the small door to
his left opened and gratefully accepted the pilot’s helping hand as
he gingerly climbed out of the biplane and placed an appreciative
foot upon terra firma. The young pilot took out Cavendish’s holdall
before securing the aircraft door.

“Good luck, Herr Untersucher!” shouted the
pilot above the spluttering staccato beat of the engine as he
saluted before re-boarding his plane. He grinned and gestured to
Cavendish to step away. Cavendish ducked as the sound from the
engine swelled and the plane taxied in preparation for its return
trip to the Adenauer.

The Untersucher squatted alone on the broad
expanse of mossy grass and absently watched the biplane take to the
air. It circled the house once, dipped its wings as a final gesture
of farewell and departed for its rendezvous. Only the ringing
tinnitus in his ears banished the crushing silence that fell upon
him as the plane vanished beyond the tree line into the
increasingly overcast grey sky.

A raucous crow circled above his head,
mocking his arrival. Taking a calming breath, he followed the
flight of the carrion and for the first time gazed upon the
splendour that was Flash Seminary, the former home of Sir Peregrine
Gray and his family.

The house, built in the Gothic Revival style
in the nineteenth century, sat well in the high hills of Derbyshire
between Matlock and Chesterfield on the edge of the dramatic Peak
District National Park. Cavendish detected no sign of life and
walked disconsolately, bag in hand, towards the great house,
wondering what he was doing in such a God forsaken place.

He lit a cigarette in the hope of quelling
his rebellious stomach as he stood before the south side of the
house. Terraced walls of weathered limestone defined the bare
borders, still waiting for the summer planting scheme. He guessed
the house entrance would be on the east side and cut diagonally
across the lawn to his right. The yielding lawn petered out as a
large gravel area formed the forecourt of the mansion.

He strode past a large section of building
with a separate apex roof and a large stone gothic-arched window,
this he later discovered was the library. Immediately abutting the
library hung an engraved stone entrance porch over a sturdy
weathered wooden door. The entire house was asymmetrical in design
and built predominantly of yellow sandstone, or more precisely, the
local millstone grit, with facings of what had once been white
limestone that had now dulled with age and exposure. The house
epitomised his opinion of careworn England.

Still no one came to greet him. He hovered
impatiently beneath the entrance porch and carefully placed his
holdall on the weathered flag stone floor before pushing the old
door chime button, which he gloomily speculated was probably
defunct.

Turning his back on the oak door, he peered
eastwards down the long gravel drive and saw the small stooped
figure of an old woman walking with the aid of a stick. She
appeared to be heading towards the house and Cavendish was
considering the idea of confronting the old woman when he heard the
oak door behind him grind slowly open.

Cavendish was greeted by a man who stood some
six inches shorter than himself; he was stockily built and wore a
thick dark beard, which together with his grey eyes, gave him a
monotone washed-out appearance.

“Good evening, my name is Cavendish. I hope
you are expecting me.” The bearded man accepted Cavendish's
proffered hand and gave two vigorous shakes.

“Welcome to Flash, Herr Cavendish. I’d leave
Lady Gray alone if I were you, you’ll only go upsetting her if she
finds out you’re German. This used to be a prisoner of war camp
during the last war; she was very fond of her German lads. She’s a
bit gaga now,” The bearded man made a circular motion with a finger
pointed towards his temple.

“I’m English, not German,” said Cavendish
brusquely. He articulated his words slowly and precisely as he
spoke in English for the first time in almost twelve months. The
bearded man gaped at Cavendish and smiled as he shook his head
disbelievingly.