Academy of the Dead

by Christopher Wright

  His headlights picked out the outline of the old farmhouse about a quarter of a mile away. The track did a couple of loops on its way up the hill, but the Mini had no trouble keeping going. He came to halt in front of the building, grabbed the lantern from the boot, and switched it on. As he shone it over the building something looked wrong. Then he realized. The chimney had gone. The roof, which had always drooped in the middle, had collapsed with it. He stepped through the front door and found his way ahead blocked by pieces of smashed joists and floorboards, blocks of stone, and a pile of roof tiles.

  He'd seen bodies before, when he worked for the police, but he still jumped. He'd recognize the shiny black trousers and bright green shirt anywhere. Martin Smith lay face down, with the remains of the large chimney pot crushing his skull. At least it wasn't Zoé under there. Afraid that more timber was falling he ran back into the night air. But as he ran he heard a woman's voice calling out.

  He waited outside the door of the old farmhouse where he felt safer. "Who's there?" he called loudly.

  The wind picked up for a moment, making it impossible to hear if anyone answered. With his hands covering his head in case anything fell from above, he returned to the passageway where Martin Smith's body lay, and repeated his question.

  This time he definitely heard a voice, and the sound of hammering from under the timber.

  "We're trapped down here," the voice called.

  Matt shone the lantern along the length of the passageway. The words "down here" seemed to imply there was another room below. "Who are you?"

  "Is that Matt Rider?"

  He recognized the voice. Shelley Carpenter. "Yes, I'm Matt. Is Zoé with you?"

  "There's a hatchway in the floor up there. You've got to get us out quick. Zoé's hurt real bad."

  He returned quickly to the door and listened. He couldn't hear anyone coming, neither the emergency services nor Ken. Where the hell were they? "Can you hold on? The floor's covered in rubble."

  He went to the door and listed again. All he could hear was the wind blowing across the open rooftop.

  A different voice shouted now. It sounded like Olga. "Be quick. Zoé is dying."

  He could imagine Shelley giving the kiss of life to Zoé, leaving Olga to do the shouting. He balanced the lantern on the timber and angled the beam down to where he judged the voices to be coming from.

  He had to move Martin Smith's blood-soaked body out of the way, but first he needed to lift the remains of the massive chimney pot off the man's head. The police might not be impressed with his actions, tampering with evidence. But it was their fault, they should have been here by now. He moved the heavy pot and dragged the body by the feet into the open air. Blood and brains from Martin Smith's head had soaked into much of the rubble, making it messy to move. Not that he cared. He kept up a running conversation with the two women below, assuring them that he would be through to the hatch at any moment. But some of the wood was jammed across the passageway. Using one piece as a lever he worked his way down until he could see a brass ring under the grit and dust.

  It took an age to clear the four sides of the hatch. He fetched his lantern and pulled the ring. As the hatch came up on its hinges Olga emerged, dusty and white faced. "Zoé may be dead," she said.

  He turned and looked back at the doorway to the farmhouse. Headlights flashed across the walls of the passageway. "It's the police. Get out there and show them the way in," he told Olga. "I'm going down to see Zoé."

  He put his feet on the wooden steps and clambered down, shining the lantern around the cellar. Zoé had a wooden beam across her stomach. Shelley shook her head.

  "If she dead?" he asked slowly, getting down on his knees to cradle Zoé's head.

  "I am not dead," Zoé said slowly. "You must get this wood off me. It is hurting my stomach badly."

  "I've been praying for you," he whispered as he tried to lift one end of the timber. Then he heard voices from above and a powerful light shone down through the open hatch. Within a minute a police officer and two ambulance workers were lifting the beam clear of Zoé. The ambulance crew, a man and a woman, put an oxygen mask over Zoé's face and carefully loosened her clothing.

  Zoé seemed surprisingly active. She tried to sit up, but the woman ambulance worker held her down gently. "Lie still, love."

  But Zoé had no intention of lying still. She put her hands between her legs and pulled them back quickly with blood on her fingers. She held them in front of her face in stunned silence. Then her mouth opened wide.

  "I am losing the baby!" she screamed.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Eight weeks later

  "I'M OFF THE hook with the Czech police." Matt came into the office, moved the papers Ken had spread across the desk, and sat on the corner.

  "I've been wondering how you got on over at Trinity Green last night." Ken looked at his watch. "I thought perhaps they were keeping you in, seeing how you were late this morning."

  Matt shuffled further onto the desk to be more comfortable. He was only ten minutes late, which wasn't bad. Zoé was back at work now, but on a late shift, so he tended to sleep in. "It seems the Duseks aren't going to press charges. They were just glad to get their old Skoda back. But they're not too thrilled about getting a thirty percent share of nothing, because nothing is what the manuscripts are worth."

  "Nothing at all?"

  "Maybe they have a bit of curiosity value. Anyway, Zoé's relieved I haven't got to go back to the Czech Republic to face charges."

  "You can thank James Freelander for fixing that one up. He's a good lawyer." Ken looked agitated. "I may be slow, but I'm confused about what was forged."

  "So when do I get my new car?"

  "New? It was only going to be an old one. Leave it with me a few more weeks. You have to be patient about these things. At the moment I'm much more interested in what the police had to say to you last night." Ken sighed. "Sit in a chair, kiddo. You're scratching my desk with your old jeans."

  Matt stayed where he was. "Blake's made a full statement -- at last. He and Martin Smith forged the music manuscripts to make money. To be more accurate, Blake was in it for the money. He admits he organized the scam. Martin Smith just wanted to be famous, so he wrote the music."

  "Famous? I thought he put some Czech composer's name on it, not his own."

  "Of course he did, or the deception wouldn't have worked. To use Zoé's words, Martin Smith was obsessed with Bohemian music. Ever since he was small he wanted to find Vasek Tesar's compositions and travel the world playing them. He wanted to be known as the Tesar expert."

  "Would people have gone to hear him?"

  "That's why he wanted the old violin so badly, to make the whole experience plausible. He raided Shelley Carpenter's hotel room and stole it."

  "And when Miss Carpenter got back she guessed what had happened, and went straight round to Zoé for help?"

  "And left the so-called suicide note," Matt added with a laugh. He loved getting a dig in at his boss.

  Ken opened a folder and studied the contents to hide his embarrassment. "Don't blame me for that one. The police thought it was a suicide note, not me. Anyway, it looked like one. It said she'd had enough and no one would see her again. She wanted someone to look after her dog."

  "Ken, Shelley was feeling ashamed of herself. So she was planning to fly back to America the next day and leave the dog in her room. She wasn't thinking straight. As far as she could see it was her only option. She started writing the note in the night. Then she went to bed and forgot about it. If she'd had a chance to finish it, the wording would have made more sense." He paused to check that Ken was paying attention.

  "Carry on." Ken closed the folder.

  "When Shelley came back from the Academy, and found her hotel room had been broken into, all she could think of was her violin. Martin Smith had put it in the cellar in the old farmhouse, and covered the hatch with pieces of timber. But when he came out he saw little Olga hiding in the bus
hes. He didn't know she was bird watching -- he thought she was snooping on him, so he kept watch from inside the Academy grounds. He saw Zoé and Shelley going in with Olga -- and tried to trap them in the cellar."

  "To kill them?"

  "I imagine so, but Smith's skull got smashed so we'll never know for sure. He probably planned to collect the violin a couple of weeks later, when they were all dead. But he must have dislodged a supporting timber and brought the whole place down. The violin was destroyed at the same time."

  "So what's Miss Carpenter doing with the bits of wood and catgut?"

  "The remains of her violin? She's taken it back to LA to get it restored. She says it's going into a museum there, but I can't see it being played again."

  "So how did Blake get involved?" Ken seemed to have given up on reclaiming the top of his desk, and the folder stayed shut.

  "Blake was also into nineteenth century Czech music, and he and Smith often discussed its influence on later composers like Shostakovich. Blake made regular business trips between the English Helios Academy and the one in Prague. He knew that Hana Eisler was a descendent of Vasek Tesar, so he told Smith he'd search in the Prague Academy library to see what Hana's records said. They were fuller than he expected, so he borrowed the microfiche, and Smith got the whole lot translated. That's when Blake read the girl's letter saying that Hana Eisler had died in Terezín. And he believed it. He didn't know another girl had taken Hana's music case and been confused with Hana. As far as he could see it was the end of the trail."

  "Only it wasn't. How about getting us some coffee?"

  "You're right, it wasn't. And no, I'm not getting coffee. It's much too early. Martin Smith made a joke to Blake about forging some of Tesar's music, and Blake thought it was the best idea he'd ever heard. Don't forget Smith had studied Bohemian music for years. If the experts believed it was by Vasek Tesar they'd have praised it, and Martin Smith would have been able to bask in the glory. Anonymously of course. Zoé's been telling me that Fritz Kreisler did a similar trick back in the early nineteen hundreds. The critics said his compositions were only average, so he put on concerts pretending he was playing some new discoveries of music by Vivaldi and other early composers, as well as playing his own work. The critics went overboard with their praise of what they thought were the Vivaldi pieces, but criticized Kreisler for playing his own rubbish at the same time. It went on for years -- until in 1935 Kreisler admitted he'd written the lot. And then the snobby critics turned against him."

  "So Martin Smith would have pretended he was playing someone else's work?"

  "Brilliant." Matt leaned over and clapped Ken hard on the back. His boss had got it at last. "Martin Smith was an accomplished composer, and all he and Blake needed was some old music manuscript paper to come up with a convincing hoax."

  "Czechoslovakian paper?" Ken coughed, recovering from the unexpected congratulations. "They must have known the manuscripts would get an extensive forensic examination. Remember the Hitler diaries in the 1970s?"

  Matt nodded. "A bit before my time, but I know they were written in old notebooks of the right period, which is why some people were so easily fooled."

  Ken nodded. "But every notebook was a cheap one, which should have been a giveaway. The head of a country doesn't write a diary over several years using cheap notebooks."

  Matt laughed. "Blake got lucky. While rummaging around in the Prague Academy library he finds a box of blank manuscripts paper, all dating from the early part of the nineteenth century, in all sorts of designs and sizes. He brings the paper back from Prague and leaves Martin Smith to get on with writing some Bohemian masterpieces and putting Tesar's name at the top."

  "How did he know how to forge Tesar's work?"

  "He didn't need to. No one has seen Tesar's writing, so no one could check up. Brilliant. All they needed to do was hide it somewhere convincing and get someone they could trust to discover it. Blake looks in Hana's records again, and finds the name of a farm where she stayed with an aunt and uncle in the war. Smith takes the music there and hides it in the barn. And that's when they needed me."

  Ken stood up. "I could definitely do with a coffee. I'll make it. Just this once. You said Blake and Smith needed us."

  "They needed me. Blake paid me a compliment when he asked me to take on the job. I reckon I deserve a pay rise."

  "How come?"

  Matt could see that Ken was never going to master the percolator. His boss was just about to open the jar of instant coffee, but he took it from him and replaced it firmly in the cupboard. "They were going to handle the discovery themselves, but it all went wrong when Smith went to Ústí."

  "He killed the farm worker?"

  "That's what the police think. The man had been hit over the head with a spade, and Martin Smith's fingerprints were on the handle. Maybe he'd seen Smith hiding the envelope in the barn. Blake claims he knows nothing about anyone being killed. He probably doesn't. Smith comes back from the Czech Republic and tells Blake they have to move fast. So they start looking for someone who is bright enough to crack the clues, but dim enough to think he's done it all by himself."

  "Who?"

  "Me. Zoé had already told Smith I'm a PI, so he and Blake decide to put me to the test with the surveillance job at the swimming pool. Blake was impressed by the way I handled the work, so he agrees I'm clever enough to find manuscripts."

  "You? Clever?"

  "A bit too clever. I immediately discover that Shelley Carpenter and Martin Smith aren't really lovers. Blake and Smith cooked that one up to get Shelley Carpenter out of the way. Blake didn't even bother to get the film processed. They knew Shelley would return to the States in shame when she knew she'd been caught. As dean, Blake could easily have got Smith reinstated later. But they hadn't reckoned on that feisty woman storming round here to see us. Blake wanted people to think he and Smith were enemies, so there'd be no suspicion of collusion in the discovery. They even staged a show in the library to make me think they couldn't stand each other."

  "So how did Smith manage to be at the swimming pool with Miss Carpenter?"

  "That was easy. Smith chatted Shelley Carpenter up. She says she was flattered to get so much attention from a younger man. On the day of the trip to London, Smith persuades her to undress by the pool. I come in on cue, take the photos, pass the test, and the trip to Prague is on."

  "They really thought you'd find the right farm?" Ken stood with his hands in his pockets. "I wouldn't risk it."

  "The pair dangled enough carrots to get me started. They even reckoned I was bright enough to work out there were two places called Ústí." He wasn't going to admit how Stanislav laughed at him for getting the wrong one. "In other words, they relied on my skills as a private detective."

  "What skills are those?"

  Matt scooped out the ground coffee. "Considerable ones. For instance, Blake claimed he didn't know how to do a web search, but he'd already done one and knew exactly what I'd be finding. But he hadn't reckoned on me pinching his microfiche and getting Olga to translate it. He thought one of the students had put it back in a wrong drawer in the Academy library. Blake was going to reveal the Academy records later, to confirm my discoveries. Like I said, I was too clever."

  Ken brought the kettle to the boil successfully. The man wasn't totally lacking in skills. "Too clever for your own boots," he muttered.

  Matt ignored the jibe. "I didn't twig at the time, but it was Blake who first suggested a séance, and then he got Martin Smith to call at the office and just happen to mention that his mother was a medium. Martin Smith's mother had already translated the pages on Blake's microfiche, but when he told her to pretend to contact Hana, she refused to go through with it, so he had to use a friend from the Czech group he hung around with."

  "The medium was Smith's friend?"

  "Which is why she had to come to my house to make the arrangements. Smith took his mother out for a drive on the evening of the séance, and his friend dressed up. She
was nervous and she made a fatal mistake. Martin Smith told her to make it clear that Hana died in Terezín, but he didn't brief her properly. She said Hana died in the gas chambers. But there weren't any gas chambers."

  "So why did you rush off to Prague?"

  "Because the séance seemed scarily genuine. I was so keen to help Blake that I overlooked the obvious. Anyway, I didn't know about the gas chambers until I met Stanislav over there; and then I found the envelope, so it didn't seem to matter. There was even a genuine page of Hana's homework with the music. Blake found it with Hana's records in Prague. It was all so plausible. But something made me suspicious, so I checked everything with your ultraviolet lamp before coming home. When Blake phoned me, I told him there could be a problem with the envelope. And he panicked."

  "I thought the paper was some old stuff they'd found in Prague."

  "The paper was genuine, and so was the ink, but the brown envelope was one Blake had picked up in the Prague library. It looked old, but he hadn't thought about it having to pass any sort of test. If I'd rushed home, Blake would have taken the manuscripts from me and destroyed the envelope. He was confident that everything else would come through with flying colors. I'm not sure that it would. I've been reading up on forensic science. Even if you use old paper and ink, it doesn't look exactly like an old document. Something to do with how far the ink sinks in, and how much the edges of the ink feather over time."

  "Anyway," Ken conceded, "you did well. But somebody called Hana Eisler died at Terezín. Were there two Hana Eislers?"

  "A girl called Emilie wrote a letter from the camp to her parents. Not everyone in Terezín was a prisoner. Whole families chose to go there for their own protection -- or what they thought was protection. The parents must have passed the letter on to the Academy where it was put with Hana's records. Read the letter again and you'll see that Emilie, the writer, only assumed the girl's name was Hana, because that's what the guards said. But the girl was too traumatized to speak."

  "Why would the guards get the name wrong?"

  "That's what I intend to find out."

  Ken groaned. "I hope you're not rushing off to Prague again. You've just told me the manuscripts are fakes. The Czech police don't want to see you. It's over. Done with. You're never going to find those old tunes."