Academy of the Dead

by Christopher Wright

  Matt decided to dive straight in. "Ask Hana what she did with the music manuscripts that belonged to Vasek Tesar."

  Again Mrs. Smith spoke, but this time the high-pitched reply sounded distinctly agitated. Matt could see that the medium was definitely the one doing the speaking, but the girl's voice sounded unreal. It was more like a Punch and Judy voice, and it didn't even seem to be coming from the woman's vocal cords.

  Mrs. Smith appeared to be in great distress as she began to writhe around, still maintaining finger contact. "Hana says she is not ready to talk about the music," she cried out. The medium could almost be experiencing someone else's pain.

  Zoé had been keeping quiet until now. "Please ask again about the music. It is important."

  Mrs. Smith's own voice sounded distant. "Hana had such horrible experiences before she died, even from those she trusted. She says she wants to be sure that you are her friends. You must ask her some other questions first."

  Matt was about to ask if Hana was definitely dead, but if this was her voice the question was unnecessary. "Ask her where she left her brooch before she died." Mrs. Smith might be able to guess some things, but she wouldn't know the answer to this question.

  Mrs. Smith asked, and the high-pitched girl's voice replied. Mrs. Smith spoke again. "Hana says she left it in her locker at school, before she was caught by the Germans."

  "Where did the Germans take her?" asked Matt. He waited for the translation.

  "She was taken to a concentration camp close to Prague. It is a name like ... Terezín"

  The two voices now spoke rapidly in turn, getting more and more agitated. And all the time Mrs. Smith moved her head as though in pain. "Hana wants to go back," she said. "She is reliving a terrible time in the gas chamber at Terezín. She thought she was being taken for a shower. People all around her are screaming. She is choking to death. She is dying."

  Matt felt panic running through his body. "Ask her what she did with the manuscripts."

  Mrs. Smith said something, and this time the reply from Hana was long. Suddenly it ended with a long penetrating scream that made Matt shiver. Goodness knows what Zoé was feeling.

  "Hana says you must find her Uncle Libek Sykora and Aunty Vetka. They have a farm in a place called ... " The medium caught her breath and out came the shrill voice. Matt waited for the translation.

  When the room went silent Mrs. Smith spoke again in English. "Hana says the place is called Ústí, and the farm is known as Krkavčí farma. There are loose bricks in the far wall inside the barn. That is where she hid her precious things. If you want them you must go there and find them. You are never to contact her again. You have made her remember how the Germans caught her and took her to Terezín. After the gas chamber they burned her body in the furnace and ... "

  "Please stop it." Zoé jumped to her feet, breaking the circle. Mrs. Smith toppled face-down onto the table making sobbing noises. Matt was more worried for Zoé than he was for the medium.

  "Are you all right?" he asked Zoé.

  "I would like a drink of water," Zoé said faintly. "Please."

  Mrs. Smith made a quick recovery. She sat bolt upright, opened her eyes, and looked around, blinking. It was as though she'd been woken suddenly in the early hours of the morning. "Is it over?" she asked.

  "We heard all we needed to," Matt said. "Zoé needs a glass of water."

  "I feel so tired," Mrs. Smith said. "The kitchen is across the way. Can you get it for her?"

  Zoé held onto Matt tightly. "Do not leave me."

  Mrs. Smith got reluctantly to her feet. "You must both stay here."

  Matt moved his chair closer to Zoé and put his arm round her shoulder. "Was it the séance?"

  "It was a terrible time. Terrible for Hana Eisler. I think the scream we heard was the one she made when she was dying in the gas chamber."

  "What on earth is that woman up to?" From the kitchen he could hear the sound of cupboard doors opening and banging shut, and the rattle of crockery.

  Mrs. Smith appeared eventually, holding a large mug of blue and white striped china. "This will have to do," she said breathlessly. "Are you all right?"

  Zoé sipped the water. "Yes, I am feeling better now. Matt, you must take me straight home."

  He went to the sideboard and retrieved his phone and recorder. "Mrs. Smith, do the names Libek Sykora and Vetka mean anything to you?"

  "They are Czech names," Mrs. Smith said, frowning. "Libek is a man and Vetka is a woman. Where did you hear them?"

  "You see," Zoé told Matt, "Monsieur Smith was right. The medium does not remember what happens in the séance."

  "Did the girl give you those names?" Mrs. Smith asked in surprise.

  Matt wasn't going to admit anything. "Do you know a place with a name that sounds like Oostee? It's probably in the Czech Republic."

  "That will be Ústí," Mrs. Smith said. "U-S-T-I. I'm not sure where it is. You'll need a map."

  "I'll get one. I'm taking Zoé home now. Please don't mention anything about this séance to your son."

  "Of course I won't," the medium said in a motherly voice. "All my meetings are confidential. I would quickly lose my clients if I breathed a word of what goes on in this room. And as your wife has so aptly said, I do not remember conversations I have with those who have passed over."

  "Thanks," Matt said. "And thank you for your time. It's been invaluable."

  Mrs. Smith sighed deeply. "I feel drained, but the spirits will bear me up and renew my energy when you have gone. I feel that a terrible tragedy has been relived here this evening."

  As they walked back to the car, Matt stopped and took the small recorder from his pocket. He pressed play and the medium spoke, this time from the small speaker, telling them that the spirits might not come if the recorder was too close. He skipped forward a few minutes. This time Hana's high-pitched voice came out, speaking a foreign language.

  Zoé put her hands to her ears. "Stop it, Matt, you make me frightened. How can you stand it?"

  He switched the recorder off and helped Zoé into the car. "This could be vital evidence of what the voice was saying."

  Zoé clipped her seatbelt in place. "Do you not believe that Mrs. Smith was giving us a good translation?"

  Matt turned the key and the engine started after the third attempt. "Mrs. Smith wasn't translating anything."

  "But we heard her!"

  "No we didn't. Mrs. Smith was not Mrs. Smith."

  Zoé tutted. "Always you are suspicious."

  "If a visitor asks you for a drink of water at home, would you know where to find the drinking glasses?"

  "Of course."

  "That woman didn't. It's like being on holiday in a rented cottage. You keep opening the wrong kitchen drawers and cupboards for days."

  "You are right," Zoé agreed. "She was taking much too long. So maybe it was not Hana talking?"

  "Whatever it was, it spooked me. I can still hear that weird high-pitched noise coming from the woman's throat."

  "Matt, I am worried now. What are we going to do?"

  He slowed the Mini, ready to turn in the road. Yes, it was obvious. "We'll take the recording to Olga. I bet Mrs Smith didn't bank on us doing that. We'll soon know if she was speaking in the Czech language, or speaking nonsense and pretending to translate it into English."

  *

  AS MATT feared, the young Slovakian was out on one of her late-night walks on the Mount. He wondered whether to leave the recorder with Father Alban to give to Olga when she got back, but decided against it. The young priest had definitely been anti the idea of a séance, and might do something drastic such as erasing the evidence. He told Father Alban he'd call back tomorrow lunchtime. Zoé stayed in the Mini, deciding not to risk a confrontation with any of the so-called crew.

  "We'll have to be patient," Matt said when he returned to the car. "Tomorrow we'll know what was really being said at the séance."

  Chapter Nineteen

  1942

 
; Masaryk Railway Station

  Prague

  Czechoslovakia

  THE MAN who was dragged from the train is taken to the truck. The German soldier watching Hana speaks to the captain who immediately points at her.

  "What is in that case?" the captain shouts.

  Hana feels a desperate need to go to the toalety before she wets herself. Surely the soldiers wouldn't follow her into the Dámy.

  The cubicle smells disgusting. A girl is already in there, wearing a blue coat like Hana's. Hana recognizes her immediately. It is Katerina from the Music Academy. The other girls call her Kitty, but they are afraid to be friends with her because Kitty's father is an enemy of the Nazis. He is believed to have published posters denouncing the occupation. Kitty is two years older than Hana, but not much taller. She is crying, but when she sees Hana she points to the brown leather music case. She begs Hana to give it to her.

  Chapter Twenty

  KEN SEEMED surprisingly enthusiastic at work the next morning, talking excitedly about what he called the Prague treasure hunt. He flicked through the prospectus for the English Academy that Matt had brought back, and told Matt to take an extended lunch break to buy a guidebook of the Czech Republic.

  "And if you do go to Prague, take the small ultraviolet lamp. If you find anything you can check to see if the paper is genuine."

  "How do I do that?"

  "It's common knowledge. Any paper made before the 1950s will stay dark."

  "If there's anything at this Krkavčí farma place, it's bound to be old. What's the point in checking it?"

  "Remember the PI code, kiddo: be prepared."

  "I thought that was the Scouts."

  "Whatever, it's good advice. You ought to keep it in mind. You jump before you think, that's your trouble."

  "You're probably right."

  "Of course I'm right. I'm always right."

  Matt remembered Ken coming back with the light a few months ago. He'd bought it in an electronics shop in town, but had never used it. The lamp looked like a small flashlight with a short fluorescent tube along one side.

  "I'll look it out for you while you're shopping." Ken handed the prospectus back. "And make sure you take this to Prague while you're at it. You never know, you might need to convince someone you're connected with the college."

  "Maybe I should get a letter of recommendation from the dean, and let everyone know what I'm doing." Matt started down the steep stairs. But even so, he might as well pack the prospectus. It had some useful phone numbers in there -- if he got into serious trouble in Prague.

  The best place to find a guidebook was the bookshop where he'd first met Zoé. His luck was turning at last. Not only did the shop have a selection of guides to the Czech Republic, it also had a decent map of the Czech and Slovak Republics. He looked in the index of the guidebook and found Ústí. It was spelled exactly as Mrs. Smith had said, although it had a couple of accents on the letters. He bought the book and the map, and returned to his Mini.

  The guidebook said that Ústí was an industrial town, on the river north of Prague by the German border. The book also advised against visiting the place except by necessity.

  He unfolded the map and found Prague, which was called by its Czech spelling of Praha. It wasn't too easy handling the map in the Mini but at least he wasn't attracting the attention he would have got in the bookshop.

  The River Vltava, aka the Moldau, ran through the center of Prague and wound its way north -- the river that featured in one of Smetana's most famous compositions. He traced its course with a finger and quickly came to Ústí, slightly nearer to Dresden in Germany than it was to Prague.

  Matt traced the Vltava back towards Prague and there he saw it, the name Terezín. How Hana had got from Ústí to the concentration camp in Terezín he had no idea, but everything seemed to be fitting into place nicely. Ústí, mentioned in the séance, and Terezín, found on the Internet and on Blake's microfiche. He had three independent sources saying that Hana had died in Terezín. Everyone knew that Jews were gassed in what they thought were going to be showers. That way it was easier to get them inside.

  Never mind if the medium wasn't really Mrs. Smith. As long as Olga said that the words and translations on the recording from the séance matched, the job was definitely on.

  He drove to the Homeless Anchor Trust and parked just down the road. His orange Mini might be an object of derision to his neighbors, but Father Alban had warned that the people here could see it is a status symbol and be resentful.

  Olga was back from her walk and came out in great excitement when Father Alban told her she had a visitor. From the look on her face she was expecting to be shown more than a small digital recorder. Matt remembered how he'd promised to get Olga a pair of sneakers and a book on birds, and felt bad. He certainly intended to do it, but other things had seemed more pressing. He now realized he'd let the young woman down badly.

  "I'll bring your sneakers and a book on birds this evening. That's a promise." Somehow he had to make sure he remembered to do it. "Size three isn't it?"

  Olga nodded, a slight sign of hope coming back to her face. "I have not looked at the pages you gave Father Alban," she said apologetically. "I will do it this afternoon."

  Matt flicked on the recorder and the sound of the medium's voice came out, speaking Czech. "Can you understand it?"

  Olga moved closer and asked him to play it again.

  He decided to take her down the street. He didn't want Father Alban coming out to see what was happening. He put the recorder close to Olga's ear.

  She listened for a moment and nodded. "The woman is asking if there is a girl from Prague in the room." She gazed up at Matt with eager eyes. "Is that right?"

  He shrugged. "I don't speak a word of Czech. It is Czech isn't it?" After all, if Mrs. Smith wasn't Mrs. Smith and a stand-in had conducted the séance, she might have been speaking any language.

  "It is good Czech," Olga said.

  Within thirty minutes Matt had discovered that the questions in Czech were the ones he'd told Mrs. Smith to ask, and the answers were exactly as the medium had translated them during the séance. Zoé always said he was unnecessarily suspicious, but it was his job to be suspicious. He'd make some sort of apology to Zoé when he got home this evening.

  "Olga," he said, "you've been such a help."

  But Olga looked decidedly shaken. "What are these voices? They are frightening me."

  Matt decided that a little dishonesty was justified, especially if it saved Olga from having nightmares. "It's part of a play."

  "In the Czech language?"

  He thought quickly. "Most of the play's in English. It's for the Helios Music Academy, where the staff speak Czech. They'll know what the play is about when they see it."

  Olga nodded and smiled. "I have seen the Helios Music Academy. Often Salman and I go walking on the big hill at night. We see all sorts of wild animals, like badgers and foxes. I do not like the city. Back home in Slovakia my parents worked in the country."

  "So why did you come to England?" From what he'd seen in the guidebook the Czech Republic and Slovakia looked to be amazing countries.

  "I came five years ago for a better life," Olga said simply. "Many bad things happened to me in Slovakia."

  "And this is a better life?" Matt pointed to the HAT building.

  Olga shook her head. "Maybe I will go back. I have no friends here except Salman."

  He decided he'd got into deep enough water. He wasn't even sure he was saying the right things. "I'll bring you your sneakers and the book after work. And I really need you to take a look at those pages for me."

  *

  MATT PHONED the Helios Music Academy when he got back to the office, and asked to be put through to the dean. As soon as he said he was willing to go to Prague, Blake sounded relieved, almost excited.

  "You'd better tell me what sort of breakthrough you've made," he said.

  Matt realized he needed to get to the far
m as quickly as possible. Martin Smith's mother, or whoever was doing the séance, might have taken in much more than she claimed, and Martin Smith could be packing his bags to get to Ústí right now.

  "A branch of Hana's family lived on a farm, about forty miles north of Prague."

  "You've found out all that from the Internet?" Blake sounded dubious. "You must make sure you've got the right place."

  Matt wasn't going to say he got the information from a séance, nor would he mention the loose bricks in the barn. He left Blake's question unanswered. "Hana went to the farm in 1942. If the family is still farming, they could easily have a box of Hana's things in the loft. Farmers never seem to get rid of anything."

  "It's a bit of slim clue." Blake didn't seem exactly thrilled. "I was hoping you'd come up with a better lead than that. Make sure you get the name of the place right. I can't afford too many mistakes."

  "Trust me," Matt told him, trying to make light of things. "I'm a PI."

  "Is there something you're not telling me?" Blake sounded more intrigued than annoyed.

  "Nineteen-forty-two was a long time ago. The trail's been cold for years. My information may turn out to be zip, but I have to start somewhere."

  "You don't sound very sure, Mr. Rider."

  "It's a good lead, but I can't take it any further until I've been to Prague."

  Blake laughed. "I think you're not telling me everything you've found out."

  Matt said nothing.

  Blake seemed to catch on. "That's good enough for me, Mr. Rider. I'll organize tickets now, for you and your pretty wife."

  "I'd rather you left it until I've had a chance to talk to Zoé. You know she's pregnant. She might prefer to stay back. I only need to be in the Czech Republic for a couple of days."

  "So short?"

  "It's Thursday today," Matt said. "If I arrive in Prague tomorrow morning, I can sort out some transport and get to the farm in Ústí on Saturday. I may need to stay there overnight, so look up the flights and see if there's anything useful that will get me home Monday." He could have added, with the manuscripts, but he wasn't going to let his enthusiasm run away. He'd probably be lucky to find the right farm, let alone a barn with a hiding place in the back wall.

  "By the way," Blake said, "I don't suppose you know what happened to my microfiche?"

  Matt felt his blood run cold. "The one with Hana's records?" He wanted to sound as innocent as possible. "I saw you take it out of the microfiche reader."