SILENT (a psychological thriller, combining mystery, crime and suspense)

by D. M. Mitchell

  ‘He never once liked the cold,’ she said absently.

  ‘He is a quiet man,’ Horvat noticed. ‘We have scarce exchanged but a handful of words the entire time. Perhaps he is afraid to talk.’

  ‘Afraid?’

  ‘Lest he says something he should not. Is that the case, Miss Bellamy?’

  ‘You’re not so talkative yourself,’ she countered. ‘What are you afraid of talking about?’

  He smiled. ‘I have nothing to hide.’

  ‘I used to know this guy, played poker professionally. He told me there are all sorts of ways you can read a man, when they’re bluffing, when their eyes lie. He’d have taken one look at you and said you were bluffing, Mr Horvat.’

  ‘I don’t know about such things. I am not a gambling man,’ he said, tipping his hat and walking over to the coach. He paused, held the door open for her.

  Rick Mason stood and looked up at Castle Dragutin one last time. Part of him was also glad to be making tracks home. Yet something else clutched at his emotions, as if he were being drawn back against his will towards the crumbling old building. He tore himself away, shaking his head at the thought, knocked snow from his boots and stepped aboard the coach.

  They drove back the way they had come, through dense, claustrophobic forests and mountain passes to the village of Krndija, which didn’t seem to take half as long as the outward journey. A trick of the mind, Mason thought. Betsy was quiet the entire way, though he tried to engage her in idle conversation. At Krndija they struggled to find anyone who would help carry the extra trunk all the way to where the car would be waiting for them. In the end, Mason had to pay well over the odds for two young men from the village to carry the thing, but he said such a price was meaningless to a millionaire.

  ‘I’m surprised you managed to engage anyone, even at that price, Mr Mason,’ said Horvat. ‘The feeling is such that I half-expected us to have to leave it behind. Had you not covered over the Dragutin crest with a pasted label, as I suggested, you might have found it thrown over the nearest precipice.’

  They were taken by car to the city of Slavonska Pozega, where Horvat said he must part company with them.

  ‘It will take a little while to sort out the final details, the transfer of funds from the bank here to one in California, but once that is done I expect my work with you to be finished,’ he told Mason.

  It sounded like a firm but unnecessary reminder, thought Mason, just in case he had other ideas. Mason thanked the old man, shook his hand, but Horvat seemed on edge, reluctant to let go of Mason’s hand.

  Mason said, ‘Is everything OK, Mr Horvat? You look pale.’

  The small city was busy, mainly horse-drawn vehicles crowding the cobbled roads, interspersed with the odd-motor car. They were standing outside the hotel in which Mason, Betsy and Davey would spend the night before setting off on their long train journey across Europe. The cases and Dragutin’s trunk were being piled from the car onto the sidewalk where a hotel porter was bending to help carry them inside.

  ‘Please, will you walk with me a while?’ said Horvat. ‘Just a little way.’ His expression was grim.

  ‘Are you going to tell me I’m not really a millionaire?’ Mason joked.

  Horvat took Mason by the arm and led him away from the hotel, down the street, across the road and towards a tiny park studded with bare trees. He bade Mason sit beside him on a bench.

  ‘I have not been entirely honest with you, Mr Mason,’ he began. Then he smiled nervously. ‘Not to worry, you are still a millionaire. My people in the office down the way are working on your inheritance as we speak. No, it is not that which troubles me. It is about your father…’ He stopped talking as if an icy-cold wind had taken the breath from him.

  ‘What about him?’

  Horvat’s breathing seemed unduly laboured, as if the very air had grown desperately thin. ‘I attempted to gloss over what your father was really like. I have tried to be a professional man, leave all my feelings at home, that kind of thing. But it is never that simple, is it? Yes, you were right; I admit I was – I am – afraid of your father, for I know what kind of man he was. The things he had been capable of…’

  Mason tried to laugh, to make light of things, but he saw how serious the old man was and thought better of such a tactic. ‘I’m all ears. More about Satan, is it?’

  ‘Don’t mock these things, Mr Mason,’ he said suddenly, his eyes wide and fierce. ‘Do not mock what you do not understand.’ He shuffled uneasily in his seat. His hand was trembling. ‘I have not told you the entire truth about your mother’s murder, or your disappearance.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I am more than certain the entire story about kidnappers was a fabrication to hide the true events of that tragic night.’

  ‘Fabricated by whom? My father?’

  He nodded. ‘Margit’s son Imre developed a soft spot for Dorottya. Perhaps he even loved her, in the way young people launch themselves headlong into love. She was a beautiful woman, Mr Mason, and I expect turned many heads in her time. And young heads turn far more easily. With hindsight, perhaps Dorottya even loved Imre in return. Or she may have been using him, who knows at this distance? It was obvious they had been in close contact, because Imre came to me secretly telling me that Dorottya was asking me for my help. But I refused…’ Horvat lifted his chin so that he looked to the sky beyond the old city buildings; it was cold, white and unblemished. He turned to Mason. ‘She and Imre had made plans for them all to be taken to a place of safety. To escape Castle Dragutin. Her garbled message was that she wanted to escape Satan and his curse and she depended upon me to help. I was the only person the Baron had ever allowed into his locked private chambers. That’s where he kept the keys they desperately needed…’

  ‘The keys to what, Mr Horvat?’

  At this point he had to look away. ‘The key to her shackles, Mr Mason. She was chained by the ankle, you see, to keep her in her room. A good length so that she might have the freedom of her rooms but little else. It was very brave of Imre to allow Dorottya to involve me, for if the Baron ever found out about their plans then the consequences would have been dire for them.’

  ‘A chain? You’re telling me my mother had been kept in chains?’ Mason said. He thought about it. ‘The ring in the bedroom, by the bed…’

  ‘I assume the chain was fastened to that,’ he said, ‘for I never once saw evidence for myself of this chain.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?’

  ‘I admit I was ashamed to do so. I admit I first heard rumours of this chain from Imre some time before the murders. Not believing him, I went to his mother. Margit avoided telling me one way or the other, which piqued my unease. So I plucked up the courage to ask the Baron whether this story had any basis in truth, as I had not seen Dorottya in a long time. He denied such a thing, and being very annoyed he sent upstairs for Dorottya to prove it.

  ‘She eventually came down, but her quiet demeanour, the way she avoided eye contact with myself or the Baron, caused me some concern. There was fear in her face, Mr Mason. Like a child afraid of a spider crawling over the carpet towards it. She stayed long enough to elicit but a few words that she was in good health and spirits and then was escorted back to her room. But before she left she turned quickly towards me and I caught such a pitiable look of despair that it tugged at my heart.

  ‘But I behaved as a coward. I told myself it was none of my business. I convinced myself she was a little highly strung and that Imre’s story was just that, the imaginings of youth and yet another example of how stories about the Baron’s inhumanity were even now being fabricated. I chastised him for it and told him quite severely that if he ever uttered such foolishness again I would inform Baron Dragutin at once. I thought this had put a lid the affair, but when he came to me with details of their plan to steal Dorottya and her baby out of the castle I told Imre that I would have nothing to do with such an absurd plot. In the first instance, I told him, I did not
believe in the existence of the chain, or that she was being kept prisoner but that she was obviously desperately ill to be talking thus and confined to her rooms because of this and nothing more. However, I told him I would not reveal the details of our discussion to the Baron if he agreed to abandon such ridiculous ideas and refrain from seeing Dorottya. I also told him that I felt he could no longer expect to stay employed at the castle and I would suggest to the Baron that he be removed. His presence was only aggravating a sensitive situation.

  ‘But in the end it made no difference. You disappeared, Dorottya and Imre were murdered. And I stood by and let it happen. I could have saved her if I hadn’t been so afraid. My crime of denial was as great as any crime the Baron committed. Dorottya’s jewellery boxes were found open and empty, stolen by the bandits they said. But there were no bandits; Dorottya had cleared out her jewellery in order to finance looking after her child. To pay someone to take care of you, Mr Mason. It appears they had made secret plans for you to be taken from the castle and placed in safe hands, perhaps in the hope that eventually Dorottya would join you when she could find her own means of escape. At least that’s what she must have told Imre. In his naïve way he might have believed they would make a new life together free from Baron Dragutin. But I fear she knew in her heart she would never leave the castle alive. She sacrificed herself for your sake.’

  ‘So if there were no bandits, who killed Dorottya and Imre?’

  ‘The answer lies in the chain that bound her. Following Imre’s funeral, I pressed Margit for the truth about the chain, and she collapsed in tears telling me she had been afraid to confirm its existence to me when I first pressed her. It was true, Dorottya had indeed been chained, and she also told me the chain was never unfastened from her leg. Even through childbirth, and afterwards when she was briefly allowed to nurse the baby, the chain remained in place. Which means Dorottya could not have been thrown out of the window to the rocks below, not unless the chain was unfastened by Baron Dragutin’s own keys.’

  ‘You’re saying he murdered my mother? He was an old man!’ Mason protested.

  ‘A man possessed of a terrible rage and with the strength of the devil!’ Horvat retorted. ‘Remember, she was weak. She maintained he kept her drugged. I now see that to be true.’

  ‘And Imre – what happened to him? If the kidnapping was a lie, then that means… Are you saying Imre was murdered by my father, too?’

  ‘Yes. There can be no other explanation. It was obvious someone inside the castle had been working with Dorottya to get the baby out, and it was relatively easy for the Baron to find out who had access to her rooms. It is my belief the Baron had Imre taken, tortured to find out where you had been taken, and when he refused to speak, he had him killed. The boy’s death helped assuage his fury, no doubt. And he was the only other witness to the true events of that night. The Baron could not let him live.

  ‘Poor Margit and Zsigmund. They suspected, of course. But they had no choice but to keep quiet and go along with the story of the bandits. They even confessed to seeing a glimpse of them, confirming the Baron’s version of events. But they were frightened, Mr Mason. You see, the Baron insisted Imre’s body stay at the castle as punishment for what their son did. He told them that as long as Imre’s body lay within the walls of the castle, his soul was earthbound, and at any moment, should he command it, the devil would come and take their son’s soul for his own and carry it to hell and damnation. He taunted and terrified them with this, Mr Mason, for they have strong religious beliefs. And so they are scared of you because you are his son and strongly believe you are cursed and share his association with Satan.’

  ‘That explains why they looked damned afraid of me all the time. But Imre wasn’t the only person who knew about the murders, was he? Someone else had knowledge. You knew, Mr Horvat. So why did you keep quiet?’

  Horvat paused while someone walked by. He watched them out of the corner of his eye. ‘There was no clear proof that bandits hadn’t entered the castle, Mr Mason. I never once saw a chain. All I had were my suspicions. It might have been coincidence that Imre’s and Dorottya’s plans coincided with a kidnap attempt. There had been past attempts on the Baron’s life.’

  Mason sneered. ‘Coincidence, my ass! You had more than enough information to go to the authorities.’

  ‘You must understand, Mr Mason, your father was the authorities.’ He lowered his head. ‘He would have brought all his influence to bear down on me. And what was I but a Slavonian nobody? Up against the full weight of Hungarian autocracy I would have been discredited, ruined, driven from my home. I had worked so hard to build up my career. I was born of a poor, starving family, Mr Mason. I would not give it all up so easily. And Margit and Zsigmund would not have stood up against the Baron to give evidence in a court of law.

  ‘However, I suspect the Baron knew about Imre coming to me with a request to help Dorottya and her child. After all, I confronted him with knowledge about Dorottya’s shackles. And he was aware Dorottya had tried to speak to me privately about her situation at the castle. He could not prove it, of course, but he alluded to certain things that made me realise my own life might be in danger, too, and the lives of my wife and children. Looking back, perhaps it is easy to say I should have confessed all at the time, faced the consequences, but to put my own family at risk because of it? I could not do that. And you must understand this; he had a curious hold over people, and not just because of his political cronies in the authorities. We were all afraid of him. I confess I was afraid of his dark powers…’

  ‘He had no dark powers! He was a murdering bastard! You should have said something, anything, not kept quiet about it.’

  ‘It is easy for you to preach, Mr Mason, and it is a sermon I am more than familiar with, as I have been preaching it to myself for over twenty-five years. But I cannot undo what is done. In the end, I took some solace in the fact you were free of Baron Dragutin. But he never once rested in his efforts to locate you. He used everything in his power to find you, detectives, researchers…’

  ‘Maybe I could forgive you failing to come clean about your suspicions about my father’s part in Dorottya’s and Imre’s murders, but you still carried out his bidding, right to the very end; once they located me you came to bring me here to the castle even after the man was dead. You needn’t have done that.’ There was a sharp splinter of resentment in his voice. ‘You could have told them to find someone else to do the work.’

  ‘Fear, Mr Mason. You have yet to feel real fear and know what it can do to a man. He had the devil on his side. My soul was in peril. As it is now, sitting here telling you all this.’

  ‘He’s dead, Horvat. He can’t hurt you now. Your pathetic cowardly soul is safe,’ he added scathingly.

  ‘I cannot make good anything I failed to do, but I can at least help prevent Baron Dragutin’s evil influence claiming more lives in the future. I have seen you with Miss Bellamy. You have something special together. Forget about this film you are planning. Destroy all that you have in your father’s trunk. Leave him in the past. Let him keep his sordid millions. Do not let any part of him touch and poison your life. Do all that I say and I feel you will be safe, though I cannot promise anything. Break the curse, Mr Mason. Here and now, otherwise your father will creep into your heart and blacken it.’

  Rick Mason rose quickly from the seat. ‘I can’t do that, Mr Horvat. I don’t believe in curses. I’m not going to abandon this story, my movie, or pass up my rightful millions to help make you feel better about something you should have done twenty-five years ago. And you know what, having that money will help compensate me for all the crap I’ve had to endure over the years. Thanks but no thanks, Mr Horvat. You’ve done your job again. Stick to it; it’s what you do best. I’m not going to give up a future because you feel bad about the past. And don’t fret – Baron Dragutin isn’t going to punish you for what you’ve told me today, because, buddy, I’ve got good news for you; the old fucker is dead and
once you’re dead there isn’t much you can do about it. All done with, finished, end of story. The best you can do is get a life and leave me to get on with mine.’

  Horvat got to his feet, sighed heavily. ‘Then we must part company,’ he said, his old self taking over again. The timid, frightened old man had disappeared. ‘Forgive my ramblings. Perhaps I am overly tired.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Goodbye and good luck with your future, Mr Mason.’

  They shook hands, the contact brief, and Mason left Horvat in the park, walking towards the hotel across the road. He was deep in thought, and had almost reached the hotel doors when he heard a commotion behind him. A small crowd of people had gathered in the middle of the road, someone trying to steady a black horse that was neighing loudly and jerking the coal cart to which it was attached. Mason had a strange feeling come over him and went over to the crowd. He eased his way through.

  Lying on the floor, blood foaming at his lips, was Franz Horvat, stone dead, his chest crushed flat.

  ‘I don’t know what happened,’ said the coal cart’s distraught driver in Hungarian. ‘The horse went crazy, just took it into its head to bolt for no reason. This man went under the horse’s hooves as he was crossing the road; the wheel, I felt it go over his chest.’ He shook his head, dazed. ‘It was almost as if the horse went for him,’ he said.

  Mason looked up at the wide, wild eyes of the huge black horse. It appeared to stare right into him. Its yellowed teeth, locked around the bit, took on a slobbering, malevolent grin.

  * * * *

  20

  Our Davey

  He saw the two guys hanging about the yard through his office window. He swung his feet off the desk, leant forward to sneak a better look, crushing his cigarette out into a metal ashtray. Frank Macey had seen such guys before. They were either cops or hoods working for some big shot somewhere looking to muscle-in on someone else’s territory. He thought he’d seen the back of protection rackets but these guys looked similar to those who’d been running them back in Illinois.