The String Diaries

by Stephen Lloyd Jones

  She shook her head. She would not kill him here, not in front of her daughter, not without getting the truth from him.

  Hannah looked out of the window at the gravel track where her father knelt. She grappled with her emotions: love, hate, fear, indecision. Something was wrong here. So many things were wrong. She thought there were likely very few safe paths through this situation. Perhaps none. Even with the barrel of the gun trained on Gabriel – or Jakab, or whatever he was really called – she felt unsafe. He had planned a trap. That’s why he was sitting there so comfortably. She was staring into the face of that trap, but she could not see its trigger. Yet what, she thought, was stopping her from taking him outside, out of Leah’s sight, and putting a round of shot through the back of his head?

  An admission, that’s what. Despite everything, until he looks into my eyes and admits the truth, until I know without doubt that I’m not killing an innocent man, I won’t be able to do it. And somehow, he knows.

  She needed her father. With his help, with his recounting of events, perhaps she would be able to piece this together sufficiently to bring it to an end.

  Keeping the shotgun aimed at Gabriel, she moved around until she stood next to Nate. ‘I’m going out there.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going to get my father.’

  ‘You can’t, Han.’

  ‘I can. I have to. He’s the key to this.’

  ‘I agree. But you’re not going anywhere. It’s too risky.’

  ‘I’m not worried about myself.’

  ‘I know that,’ he said softly, putting a hand on her back. ‘It’s not what I meant. Your role is here. In this room. This entire situation revolves around you. It always has. You need to be here at the heart of it. For Leah, for us. I’ll get Charles.’

  ‘You? Nate, you’re injured. You can barely walk.’

  ‘You need to stay here, Hannah. And I need to do this.’ He locked his eyes on her and she saw that he would not be turned away.

  She felt herself beginning to shake. Felt herself wanting to be sick. Instead she kissed him. Then she walked towards Gabriel. ‘Leah, close your eyes,’ she said. Hannah slammed the butt of the shotgun into the Irishman’s head.

  The blow knocked him off the chair. He crashed into the wall, pitched backwards and sprawled on the floor, eyes rolled back in his head. She turned to her husband. ‘Don’t take any risks. Promise me, Nate. Something’s not right here.’

  He nodded. Opening the door to the dining room, he slipped into the hall. A minute later she heard their Discovery’s engine turn over. A few moments after that, the vehicle passed the front of the farmhouse, heading along the track towards the bridge.

  Overhead, the pink stain behind the clouds had become a crimson blush. A flock of geese flew honking across the sky. Down on the ground her father waited, hands laced behind his head.

  The Discovery kicked up stones and mud as it bounced down the track. She thought of the blood flowing from Nate’s wounds.

  How did you agree to this? You need to get him to a hospital, have his injuries treated.

  As soon as he got back, she would. As soon as they had finished this.

  She felt Sebastien move closer to the window, move closer to her. She glanced at him, at his close-cropped white-haired scalp, his emerald eyes, the fuzz of stubble on his cheeks.

  Nate brought the Discovery to a stop three yards from where her father knelt. He opened the door. Slowly, gingerly, he climbed out. Even from here, she could see the effort it caused him. He had left the engine running. She could see the exhaust pipe shaking, the blue diesel fumes chugging into the air.

  Nate appeared from the far side of the Discovery, and her father stood up. She saw Nate say something. Her father responded. Nate started towards him and then her father pulled a pistol from his pocket and shot him.

  The gun, Charles’s favourite old German Luger, bucked in his hand, and two circles of colour bloomed on the back of Nate’s shirt. The air cracked twice, the sharp retorts echoing across the valley floor. Nate rocked on his feet. He fell backwards to the ground.

  Hannah rubbed her eyes, trying to make sense of what she saw. The air seemed to be ringing, screaming. In the corner of the room, she saw Gabriel begin to stir, and wondered if she should shoot him now before this became any more complicated.

  She looked back out of the window. Her father – not her father, definitely not her father – was gazing towards the farmhouse. He had lowered the gun. He held a telephone to his ear.

  Still the air screamed and rang. The screaming, she realised, was coming from Leah. Sebastien had grabbed the girl, was holding her tight. The ringing was coming from the phone on the table. Hannah lifted it to her ear.

  ‘Before you get angry, you have to admit that he shot me first,’ Jakab said. ‘With this same gun, ironically. I meant everything I said to you earlier, Hannah. But I couldn’t let him get away with that.’

  Hannah dropped the phone, vaguely aware of the shriek that tore out of her, that clove her. She turned around and around. Her mind wouldn’t work. Somehow she was in the hall, scrabbling at the lock on the front door. Then she was sprinting down the track towards her husband, towards the creature wearing her father’s face.

  The moment he saw she was armed, Jakab scrambled back towards the pickup. Hannah stopped, raised the shotgun and fired. An instinctive reaction. Wasteful. She was too far away for an effective shot. She ran on.

  Jakab swung open the truck’s door and climbed into the driver’s seat. Still Hannah ran. Closer now. The vehicle shuddered as the engine coughed, revved. The wheels spun in reverse, bit into gravel. It hurtled backwards over the bridge. She raised the weapon and fired again. This time a plate-sized section of windscreen exploded. Leaning on squealing wheels, the pickup swung around until it pointed up the hill towards the main road. Then it accelerated.

  She heard thunder behind her.

  No. Not thunder. Something else. Hooves, pounding on gravel. Growing louder.

  In a blur of movement, Gabriel charged past, crouched low upon his mount. The horse leaped the hump of the bridge, landing in a shower of stones. It raced after Jakab’s truck, its stride lengthening.

  Within a few seconds, vehicle, horse and rider disappeared over the top of the ridge.

  Silence returned to the valley.

  Hannah dropped the shotgun. She walked over to her husband. Knelt down beside him.

  Nate’s eyes were open. She picked up his hand.

  The first bullet had smashed through his sternum. The second had drilled through the right side of his chest. Beyond the ragged entry points she could see splintered bone, torn flesh. A lake of blood was emerging underneath him. ‘Oh, Nate, my darling, my love. What has he done, what has he done? This can’t be. This can’t be.’

  Nate gripped her hand. He opened his mouth, tried to speak.

  Behind her, she was aware of footsteps, of people drawing close, but that didn’t matter, none of it mattered. Not now.

  She stared into Nate’s eyes and told him that she loved him and held his hand and smoothed his hair away from his face. It took him a further minute to die, and then it was all over.

  CHAPTER 20

  Sopron, Hungary

  1927

  Sitting on the steps of the baroque Trinity Column in Sopron’s main square, Jakab watched the city’s residents hurry past on morning business, swaddled in gloves and hats and overcoats. Breath steamed from their mouths. The previous night had been cloudless and pure, and the heavens had sucked away what warmth remained on the city’s streets. Now the sky was a brittle blue, as if dipped with a ceramic glaze.

  Opening the paper bag on his lap, Jakab tore off another fat strip of strudel and shovelled it into his mouth. The pastry was gloriously warm, the flavours fizzling on his tongue: sugary a
pple, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves. Days earlier he had discovered an Austrian bakery on the Várkerület that made the finest strudels he had ever tasted. This morning, he had purchased three, and not just for the taste alone: his body would require plenty of energy from him today.

  Crumpling the top of the bag closed and dusting flakes of pastry from his clothes, Jakab reached inside his coat and withdrew his watch. He snapped open its gold hunter case and checked the time: quarter to eight. If his luck held, he should spot Albert Bauer crossing the square some time in the next five minutes. The chemist, he had learned, was reassuringly punctual.

  Out of habit, Jakab turned the watch over and slid his thumb across the inscription on the back plate.

  Balázs Lukács

  Végzet 1873

  Fifty-four years after his father had presented it to him in their carriage outside Buda Palace, the watch still faithfully recorded the beats of his life. How many times had he traced with a finger the looping lines of those seventeen letters? Even now, over a half-century later, the engraved words stirred emotions in him he would rather not confront. He recalled his father’s blade at his throat, the line of fire it drew across his flesh. The blood.

  Jakab snapped shut the case and slipped the watch back into his pocket.

  He looked up, searching the cold-flushed faces of the people crossing the square for the one he hunted, and then, with a surge of excitement, he spotted Albert walking towards him from the direction of the Firewatch Tower. Jakab clambered to his feet, shaking the numbness from his legs where they had pressed against the frozen steps.

  Albert, hatless, was wrapped in a heavy woollen overcoat that hung awkwardly on his tall frame. His skull was all sharp angles. Combined with a hook-like nose, it gave him the appearance of a hawk. Jakab had studied those features relentlessly over the last few months. He knew every cleft and dimple, the precise contours of the man’s protruding ears, the line of his thin lips. As usual, Albert had slicked his hair with tonic and parted it to one side. Jakab’s hair matched exactly.

  He waited until the chemist had walked by, and then fell in step behind him. He only intended to follow Albert as far as his workplace; he needed to confirm that the man would follow his usual routine.

  Are you enjoying the crisp winter air, Albert? Are you thinking about your young sweetheart? I wonder if she ever mentioned that she was already betrothed. I wonder if she shared that secret with you. Fear not; I’ll be sharing that knowledge sooner than you’d probably hope.

  In front, Albert peeled off along Kolostor utca. Jakab followed him down two more streets and watched him bound up the steps of a tall cream-coloured building that served as an apothecary and private laboratory.

  Satisfied, Jakab strode back to the main square and to the street where he’d parked his motorcar: a maroon Mercedes-Benz 630K. It was hardly a vehicle suitable for this kind of work, but he had seen it in a showroom in Munich and had been smitten by its muscular lines and chromed brilliance. The super-charged six cylinders could deliver a speed of nearly ninety miles an hour – not that he’d come anything close to that on the streets of Sopron.

  Jakab started the vehicle and followed the road southeast out of the city, towards the mansion where Erna Novák’s granddaughter lived with her parents, Carl and Helene Richter, and her grandfather, Hans.

  The decades following Erna’s death had slid past in a fugue of bitterness and sorrow, fury and grief. Jakab hated the world, raged at the injustice of it. Those were the black years; the lost years. He had allowed himself to become the victim of events, rather than their master.

  He recalled little of his lifestyle during that period, and what he did disgusted him. He had sampled every vice, savoured every depravity. By the time he had emerged, clear-headed and healed, nearly fifty years had passed. He wondered how it was possible for such a huge tranche of time to be eaten away. Still, however long it had taken him, he had emerged, with renewed strength, renewed purpose. He had attained an awareness of the power he possessed to shape his reality, and the possibilities thrilled him.

  It had been clever of Hans to change the family’s name from Fischer to Richter. But with a typical lack of imagination, the woodsman had neglected to change their first names too. Once Jakab decided to find the family again, it took him less than twelve months. And what he discovered startled him.

  Anna Richter.

  The girl was a few years younger than her grandmother during Jakab’s first visit to Lake Balaton. Younger, fresher, yet somehow wiser. Her eyes were the same deep chocolate, shot through with olive and caramel, and her hair was the same glossy brown. Jakab had feared that he would find the beauty and grace Erna gifted to her descendants corrupted, diluted, by Hans’s seed. Those fears were extinguished the first afternoon he caught sight of Anna. Far from corrupting Erna’s legacy, the woodsman’s influence had helped to produce a creature even more exquisite than the woman Jakab had known during his time in Keszthely. He fell in love that same afternoon.

  In Anna, he had been given a second chance of happiness. He would not squander it.

  A mile from the Richter residence, on a forested road that was frozen mud and stones and little else, Jakab slowed the Mercedes and steered it into a depression amongst the trees. He cringed at the sound of brambles and holly snapping against the vehicle’s coachwork.

  Switching off the engine, he lay back in his seat, concentrated on the memory of Albert Bauer’s face and clenched his fists against the familiar flaring of pain as he moulded himself into the young man’s countenance. Tearing open the paper bag, he stuffed the remaining strudels into his mouth, barely chewing the pastry before swallowing. He took a silver compact mirror from the seat beside him, flicked it open and studied his face. Angular cheekbones, thin lips, ears that stood proud of his head.

  The nose wasn’t quite right. He strained, pushed. Checked the mirror again. Better. No, perfect.

  Flexing his shoulders, Jakab climbed out of the car, careful not to snag his trousers on the undergrowth.

  The Richter residence was a wide-fronted mansion in the classical style, with ornate pilasters across the width of its facade and a porch supported by four stone columns. The walls were a lemon yellow. Imitating Albert Bauer’s graceless walk, filling out the mask he had created with mannerisms that were a perfect replica of the German chemist’s, Jakab climbed the steps and pressed the bell. He was expecting a maid to answer, so when the door swung open and revealed Anna, he took a surprised step backwards and nearly tripped.

  Her eyebrows rose when she saw him standing there. ‘Albert? What a surprise! I thought you’d be at the laboratory today.’

  He gazed at her face, chest swelling, thinking about all the ways it reminded him of Erna. And all the ways it didn’t.

  ‘Albert?’

  ‘I . . . yes. I was there. But I thought I’d pay you a visit. Silly, but I wanted to see you again.’

  She pulled a face. ‘Won’t you get into trouble?’

  ‘Not a chance. I’ve been working hard. I deserve a little time of my own.’

  Anna opened the door wider. ‘Well, come in, come in. You must be half frozen. It’s not much warmer inside, to tell you the truth, but there’s a good fire going in the drawing room. I’ll bring us some coffee if you like.’

  ‘Are your parents home?’

  ‘Father’s working in his study. But he won’t mind.’

  ‘And Hans?’

  ‘He went into the city.’

  ‘Right.’ Jakab walked into the hallway. Anna shut the door behind him. She led him into the drawing room.

  This was not the first time he had dared to visit her at home. The first three occasions had been fleeting. He had waited outside the house until he saw Albert Bauer leave and then, on the pretext of forgetting some trinket or other, had rung the bell and had been admitted to hunt for the lost it
em, snatching a few lines of conversation with Anna, flexing his new skin. On his fourth visit, he arrived in the middle of the day, when he knew Albert would be at the laboratory. He discovered her alone in the house, and an hour later discovered himself in bed with her. He had repeated that experience several times since. Although he didn’t feel confident enough yet to supplant Albert completely, he found himself unable to stay away from her. He was, he knew, taking a huge risk.

  While Anna perched on the arm of one of the two sofas beside the log fire, Jakab settled himself into a wingback chair and folded his hands in his lap. He drank her in. Over a grey dress of some diaphanous fabric, she had pulled a man’s woollen cardigan. Unlaced leather work boots adorned her feet. The skin of her calves was creamy and smooth. He tried not to stare.

  Again, Anna smiled brightly at him. ‘Coffee, then.’

  ‘Please.’

  Once she had left, Jakab looked around the room. A rug with a geometric pattern lay on the parquet floor. Marble-topped side tables supported a ceramic bust of a philosopher he didn’t recognise, a glass vase of ostrich feathers, a tortoiseshell cigar box, a Victrola gramophone and stack of 78s. Over the fireplace hung an enormous gilt mirror. In one corner, a lacquered Chinese screen was alive with the twisting bodies of dragons. Her father’s writing desk stood in another.

  Jakab rose to his feet and went to one of the windows. Outside, frost bearded the leaves of rhododendron bushes yet to be touched by sun.

  He moved to the writing desk. A leather-bound diary lay on its surface beside a Waterman fountain pen. On the desk’s single shelf stood a row of older journals. Some of their spines displayed a year etched in gold foil; most of them were blank. Opening the volume before him, Jakab saw a bookplate attached to the inside front cover. Illustrated with twisting vines, wolves and deer, the handwritten message read:

  Diary of Fischer Hans

  1923–

  He flicked through the pages of pale-blue handwriting, seeing the names of Carl, Helene, Anna and Albert. He selected an entry at random, and had just started to read the text when he heard a noise from the hallway outside. Something about the sound had been furtive, not quite right. Quickly, he dropped the book and moved to the door. In the hall, he saw Anna standing beside a walnut occasional table. In one hand she held the shaft of a telephone mouthpiece. To her ear, she held the receiver.