Denied to all but Ghosts Read Online Free PDF Page A

her.
    “Tina, I have to go to England. Come with me,
I don’t want to go alone. I hate the place; it’s a shithole full of
assholes. Please, come with me.”
    “Marchy, I can’t. I’ve lessons to prepare.
Take ...” Her words trailed off before she mentioned his fiancée’s
name and she repressed the compelling compulsion to agree to his
request. “You know I can’t come, Marchel. How are you getting to
England?” asked Tina.
    “By the Adenauer,” he stated
unenthusiastically.
    “Wow, travel in style, don’t we. Tell you
what, why don’t I give you a lift to the airfield?”
     
     
     

CHAPTER 3 . A BLIMP ON THE LANDSCAPE.

    The parish church of Oberammergau had just
finished tolling the fourth hour of the afternoon when Cavendish
returned to his apartment and heaved a huge sigh of relief as he
closed the door behind him.
    He had endured lunch at his mother’s house
with Magda and Tina as stoically as he could. His father had made
his excuses not to be there, no doubt visiting his latest
acquisition, by all accounts a blonde Russian administrator who
worked at the NATO school where he lectured. Magda had remained
with his mother and was not unduly surprised or upset when he
announced his imminent departure for England to procure antiques
and artefacts on behalf of Horst Steinbeck.
    The majority of Untersuchers, the firm’s
colloquial name for investigators, were German and certainly, there
were no British Untersuchers. That came as no surprise, for Great
Britain was believed to be a cultural backwater by the firm.
    It was widely held that most of the treasures
that Britain possessed had been stolen from other countries during
their days of empire and that the majority of their great
ecclesiastical buildings had been destroyed, gutted or plundered
during their heretical periods of the Reformation and the Civil
War. Neither Napoleon nor Hitler had desecrated their countries
like Henry VIII or Cromwell. Like many of his peers, Cavendish was
no anglophile despite his English father and family
connections.
    He was of the misguided opinion that he spoke
English fluently. His vocabulary was better than most of the
indigenous English population, but as he had failed to learn from
his experiences in Bavaria, it is one thing to be acquainted with
the words and another to speak the language. To the casual listener
he was undoubtedly not a native of the British Isles for he had an
odd accent that betrayed his German mother tongue. He would
generally leave the English listener with the impression that he
was not one of them, that he was a foreigner.
    Cavendish brewed a coffee and set his mind to
the task ahead. This was going to be an important case for the
Untersucher medius. Anymore perceived foul ups would end of his
career and he could not contemplate any other way of life. Being an
Untersucher brought him power and prestige. Without the title, his
life was meaningless.
    The plan was to drive to Friedrichshafen in
the late afternoon on Easter Monday and stay in an hotel overnight.
He was delighted to accept Tina’s offer to drive him and he had
subsequently booked her a room. He took little pleasure in driving,
even in Germany, which possessed possibly the finest road system in
the world (in his biased opinion). The thought of driving in
England filled him with dread.
    Cavendish heard Tina open the front door with
his spare key and she skipped into the small kitchen where he
awaited her arrival. He considered she possessed an uncompromising
optimism that he found perplexing and beguiling in equal
measure.
    She wore the same summer dress that she had
sported the previous Friday, which accentuated her narrow boyish
hips, with the addition of a cardigan and a lightweight jacket
carried over her arm in acknowledgement of the cool evening
ahead.
    “Ready for the big adventure, Herr
Untersucher?” she asked brightly with an excitement that he wished
he shared. He made no reply but studied her open generous