‘Kriminaloberkommissar?’
Ethan nodded, hoping that was right.
‘Can you tell me, Herr… Kriminaloberkommissar Ushingwood…’
‘Usherwood.’
‘Yes, so sorry. Why do you want to find this man?’
‘That’s restricted information. But it is urgent.’ Ethan prayed the man would not contact the local bobbies.
‘Very well. I understand.’
It was then Ethan realised the man would not call the police. He would be hoping no local law enforcement officials would be called to his airport.
The representative, Herr Veit Schiegl, nodded sagely.
‘You have not mentioned this to our local polizei, to the kriminalpolizei?’
‘They’ve been informed, naturally, but they don’t want to be involved. It’s a purely British matter. And I would prefer not to cause any fuss here. Especially not for you or the airport.’
Herr Schiegl nodded again.
‘The woman was bandaged,’ he said. ‘They were taking her to Romania, to a spa. She has a skin condition.’
‘Romania? Where?’
‘Herr Aehrenthal refuelled, then made arrangements with air traffic control to fly on to Oradea. He did not give the name of the spa. They have many spas in Transylvania. My wife wants to go to one. She is always pestering me, she says she wants to visit Dracula’s castle and stay in a spa. Rheumatism. It is a big problem for her.’
Ethan arranged a private flight with one of the companies operating out of Bad Vöslau. It took half an hour to arrange things. The plane was a Cessna 208 Caravan. It would fly the nearly 600 miles to Oradea in well under two hours. What would happen after that, Ethan had no idea.
13
Transylvania
They flew across the great Hungarian plain, and all the way there was little cloud. But as they came near to Romania the weather darkened and winds buffeted the little plane. As they dropped from the clouds, Ethan, who was flying up front in the co-pilot’s seat, saw mountains rise up ahead. The Carpathians formed a circle of sullen snow-enchanted peaks, carpeted with trees. The pilot turned and grinned.
‘Transylvania,’ he said, baring his teeth to make a vampire smile. He turned back and started the descent into Oradea.
Ethan was waved through customs, his pistol tucked deep inside his overnight bag, a tourist come at the wrong time of year, without skis or a snowboard. He found a taxi and told the driver to take him to a good hotel. With luck, he wouldn’t have to stay for long; but for now he needed a base to work from.
The driver, whose English was far from good, deposited him at the Hotel Vulturul Negru. The name, to Ethan’s surprise, meant The Black Eagle. It formed an art nouveau building, refurbished and restyled for the upmarket tourism its owners hoped to draw to what was still Europe’s poorest country. The receptionist was goggle-eyed at the sight of Ethan’s Centurion card; the influx had clearly begun. Ethan realised he could have asked for women, drugs, caviar flown direct from the Caspian, and they would have been sent up to him without a murmur or a raised eyebrow.
His room was smart if eccentric, with a tall four-poster bed. He’d have slept in the bath so long as there was somewhere to plug in his laptop and get Internet access. The boy who showed him to the room did it all for him. Ethan handed him fifty new lei, about ten pounds, and told him he didn’t want to be disturbed.
He was still tired after his ordeal and the journey that had followed. By now, the police in Gloucester would be looking for him. Lindita had created an untraceable email address for him, and so far only she knew it existed. She’d promised to let him know as soon as his escape appeared in the papers or on the radio and telly.
He was at a loss. All he had to go on was that Aehrenthal had chosen to fly Sarah all the way from Oxford to this place. Not to Bucharest, not to Bernstein, not to Budapest or anywhere else along the way. What was so important about Transylvania or, for that matter, this particular neck of the woods? Was there a connection with the relics, with scholarship on Libya or the early Church? Was there a collector living out there, Ethan wondered, someone from whom Egon Aehrenthal could expect a large sum of money just on Sarah’s say-so? Or another expert, a scholar who could be relied on to echo Sarah’s conclusions. It would have to be someone willing to overlook any signs of physical or mental abuse, to ignore anything she might say about her kidnap.
He started hunting. Piecing together a rough and ready knowledge of Romania and Transylvania, he read the country’s history, from Vlad the Impaler, the original for Dracula, to Queen Marie, a granddaughter of Victoria given to grand gestures and displays of patriotism matched only by her assiduous promotion of her own image. He discovered spa towns everywhere: Baile Felix, Baile Herculana, Covasna, Sovata — enough mineral water to cure the ailments of the continent. There were Saxon fortified churches to visit, a bison reserve in Hateg, castles everywhere. If he travelled further afield, near Bramov, he could have visited Bran Castle, once owned by Queen Marie and more famous as the model for Dracula’s castle in Bram Stoker’s novel.
He googled for antique dealers, for societies of archaeologists and biblical scholars, using an online dictionary, but turned up only Romanian websites he could not translate. He discovered that Transylvania had once been part of the Kingdom of Hungary, then Austro-Hungary, and that there was still a sizeable Hungarian population there.
He decided that it was time to fetch an interpreter who might help him, someone who might even know the answers to some of his questions. He went to a general tourist website to see if he could find someone, and as he did so noticed something out of the corner of his eye.
It was a thumbnail of a castle, a dark-looking place surrounded by forest. The caption read Castel Almásy. That was all. Ethan might easily have missed it or ignored it. But he remembered Burg Bernstein, another Almásy castle, and one closely linked to the man he was hunting.
Feeling a knot tighten in his stomach, he clicked on the thumbnail picture. It opened to reveal a web page about the castle, with a larger version of the thumbnail photograph. He noticed a little Union Jack at the top of the page, and when he clicked on it the text turned to English. Not very good English, but enough to guide him through the basic facts.
Almásy Castle had been built between 1270 and 1275 by Zoltán Erdoelue, the first voivod of Transylvania, and had remained in the hands of the Erdoelue family until the country became part of the Hungarian Kingdom, when it fell into the hands of a branch of the Báthorys, princes of Transylvania for many generations. In the nineteenth century, it became the property of the Almásys. The short article did not make clear who the present owners might be. But it did go to some trouble to say that it was closed to the public at all times of the year. It had an evil reputation, the writer said, though that had nothing to do with vampires or any other superstition. It was more to do with the politics of the castle’s owners in the 1930s and 40s, though this was not explained in any detail.
Several phone calls and a rented car later, he was on his way. The little Dacia 10 hardtop was a four-by-four, though Ethan found it hard to believe it would have the strength to tackle any seriously rough country.
The castle was located in the Vladeasa Mountains, east of Oradea. At the hotel, they’d warned him that the castle could be cut off. It was midwinter, they said, and the place was remote enough in summer. A guide at the local tourist bureau said he might not be able to do the entire journey in the Dacia.
‘Is no good roads in this area,’ the interpreter told him.