by Joseph Hone
‘Perhaps the Radjas were just thinking of a holiday up there.’
‘Yes,’ Stolacka agreed. ‘Except that they have already gone on holiday. The caretaker told me. They have a dacha, you know – a place in the woods, north of here, near the Slovenian border. The Castle of Trakošćan. It’s a museum now. But there are some small houses in the forest. The Radjas have one. They are there now.’
‘Let me go there first, will you,’ I said at once. ‘If we are right Could we see them first?’
‘Why not? They are not guilty of anything – yet. But we will be behind you. In case.’
We left the fabulous apartment then. A music box, the BBC lunchtime news, a guide to Scotland: it wasn’t conclusive evidence. But it was just enough, I felt, to tip the balance.
Back at the hotel I went through the same routine with Madeleine and Rachel, taking the role of Devil’s advocate once more. Though now I was less insistent. I put it on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. ‘I’ll go up there in any case,’ I said, after I’d explained all the day’s events to them.
‘It’s not a lot of proof,’ Madeleine said.
‘It’s enough – to take a look. And Lindsay may well be with them, hiding out there for some reason.’
Madeleine’s face twitched in pain for an instant. ‘Look,’ I said gently. ‘You have to face it. If you don’t, what will you think for the rest of your life? It’ll haunt you.’
She didn’t reply. Rachel had said hardly anything all along. She was calm – a steely calm like that of a gambler waiting over a roulette wheel. Now she shook her head in disbelief.
‘It’s all so unlikely, isn’t it?’ she asked me, smiling, looking at me in a friendly way for the first time in days. ‘It’s just a story. It can’t be true.’ And I saw then, in the depths of her face, way behind the solid calm, that she feared it all was true, because it was so unlikely. She had that confident look, with a great crack of unease running through it – like that of a faithful spouse, the last to realise her partner’s infidelity.
She laughed, still shaking her head. ‘I’ll go. Why not?’ she said. ‘I’ll do this one more thing before I leave – just to show how wrong you are.’
‘Fine. And you?’ I turned to Madeleine.
‘How can I refuse?’ she replied. But she didn’t smile.
Stolačka arranged rooms for us in the local tourist lodge at Trakoščan and a car for me to drive up there. It was several hours north-east of Zagreb, on the main road to Maribor, up in the hills. He showed me the route on a map back at the police station.
‘Through Krapina,’ he said. ‘Then here at Donji Macelj, you turn right. It’s a small road – not more than a forest track, I think, along the river valley here for about fifteen kilometres. At the end there is the hotel, the castle – and the woods. You can’t go any further.’
‘And their house?’ I asked.
‘It is in the forest.’ He showed me another large-scale map of the Trakošćan area – which included, at the centre, a rough triangle about 20 kilometres long, an outline of the old castle estates, an area coloured almost entirely in green, with a few small lakes, the rest of it wooded and with what appeared to be a large marsh some distance beyond the castle.
‘Is all forest now,’ Stolačka said. ‘Apart from this limestone quarry.’ He pointed to what I’d thought was a marsh. ‘Here – from this hill behind the castle, down to the river.’
‘Fine. But if it’s all forest – how do I find their house?’
‘Is not a house. A wooden dacha, an old hunting lodge, converted. From what I learn from our forestry department there are three or four such places in the estate. Summer rest houses – they belong to the artists’ unions, the writers and so on. Are rented out – and are not on this map. But the Radjas’ place is here, we think.’
He pointed to a spot near a lake, several miles beyond the castle. ‘There are tracks,’ Stolačka went on, ‘with notices – all through the woods. And they will have a more detailed map at the hotel to help you. You will find them easily enough.’
‘And you?’
‘We have already made arrangements. Happily this terrain around Trakošćan is one where our military reservists take training every year. The local people are well accustomed to seeing soldiers in the forest all through summer. So we have just added to these reserve men – a group of our own, in uniform of course. They will never be far away from the dacha. They will have it in vision, in fact – camping nearby. Here, I will give you this whistle. Blow hard if there is emergency. And this, too.’ He handed me back Lindsay’s little revolver. ‘Perhaps you will feel better with it. There are field glasses in the car you will have.’
‘How many are at the lodge?’
‘The caretaker said the whole family: that would mean five adults and the two grandchildren – the son, Stepan, is married.’
‘Quite a crowd,’ I said doubtfully. ‘I wonder if it’s really possible, if we’re right at all …’
‘That is for you to find out. Remember, you asked to see them first. And I agreed – because of course you have a better chance than us to find the truth. With us they can easily lie, after all. But with you and Mrs Phillips – you who know their history – perhaps they cannot so easily lie.’
Stolacka nodded sagely. And I felt like a cheap police informer again, as I had with Basil Fielding when he’d first made his offers a month before. I thought of throwing the whole thing in there and then. But, as usual, it was just a little too late.
*
We drove out of Zagreb first thing next morning in a small Fiat – along a good main road for an hour or so, sloping gently up through broad valleys of vine and sweet corn, then rising higher through passes and over torrents of water, towards the hills, the last remnants of the Alps, near the Slovenian border.
After we turned right beyond Krapina – off the main road and along a narrow, twisting strip of tarmac – the landscape changed at once. The open rolling valleys disappeared as we ran along the bottom of a long, heavily wooded defile in the land – beside a flashing stream which snaked down from the steep wooded crags and hills ahead of us. We were already in some lost country now, absolutely without habitation, a vast forestry reserve with no evidence of man but the road and a few loggers’ tracks and firebreaks, gashed through the pine forest now and then, with the small river wandering about on the other side of us, curving through swamps at times – great fields of tall grass, taller bullrushes and storms of blue and yellow wild flowers.
The women said little. The sun was fearsome again under the tin roof. But with all the windows open I could smell the watery marsh airs, touched with pine. And I looked forward suddenly to the future. What did it matter, I felt once more, what ugly deceits had transpired years before – in this fabulous green world of trees and strange flowers and rushing water under the pure white light?
‘Cheer up,’ I said gently, to neither of the women in particular.
‘Yes,’ Madeleine said, sitting beside me, sunglasses covering her eyes. But she said no more.
After twenty minutes the narrow pass opened out into a small valley, like a neat green saucer hidden between white crags and pine-crested hills crowding in all round. On one side, high up, dominating the whole valley, was the castle – a great fortified medieval keep in white stone circled with four wedding-cake turrets and a tall square tower rising up in the middle. On the other side, across the saucer of open meadow where they were scything hay, was the tourist lodge, a low flat building, a large terrace in front, with tables and sunshades and a few people in wicker chairs over coffees and beers looking over the miniature valley. And when we got out of the car it was like some childhood summer long before – a reek of freshly cut hay in the air and the remembered promise, in those better times, of some great summer adventure.
There was at least an hour to go before lunch, so I said, after we’d checked in and met again in the lobby, ‘We might as well go on now.’ I’d got the binoculars and a more det
ailed map of the estate from the receptionist.
‘There,’ I said, ‘that must be the Radjas’ lodge – up here beyond this lake.’
‘What do we do? Just walk in on them?’ Rachel asked. ‘Saying “You’re Eleanor Phillips and Zlatko Rabernak, and I claim my five pounds”? – or “Hello, Daddy, where have you been all this time”?’
‘What else?’ I said.
‘And if he’s not there, and they’ve nothing to do with Eleanor or Lindsay?’
‘We’ll soon know.’
‘How will we soon know? They can lie to us as well as anyone. We don’t even know what they look like now,’ Rachel added aggressively.
‘I’ve a fair idea, from those old photographs. Besides, Eleanor must look a bit like Aunt Susan.’
We were on the terrace, looking out over the valley, the sun burning us, directly overhead. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s not hang around here anyway. It’ll be cooler in the woods.’ I looked at the two women. They were more shaken than I was. But then, of course, it was their family, in a way, who they might possibly be going to meet for the first time in their lives, in half an hour.
We crossed the meadows through the haystacks and climbed some sharp steps, zig-zagging through rhododendrons, up to the castle, where a few American tourists marvelled at a portcullis. On the other side of the great squat building the land fell steeply away again, in a series of stone terraces and formal grassy slopes, towards a lake filled with weed and lily pads. We took a flower-bordered path along the edge here and soon the rather severe aspect of these water-gardens gave way to a whole countryside of informal little lakes and twisting waterside paths which snaked beneath great stands of copper beech casting dark shadows far out over the water.
Further on the lakes narrowed and stopped, and the land opened out into great stretches of virgin meadow – tall grass dancing with insects and butterflies, awash with daisies and blue cornflowers, uncut for years – set round with huge haphazard clumps of oak and chestnut, a ruined English parkland here, like some primeval forest now, the trees gone way past full maturity, some rotten at the top, a world forgotten, long since gone to seed.
A track led across this parkland to a much thicker ring of trees on the far side – and pushing through these we were soon by another lake again, a darker lake with deep, leaf-filled inlets and a little pagoda-roofed boathouse halfway along with a pier jutting out over the still water. Standing on this, just above a rubber dinghy, I could see faint damp footmarks and a towel left behind and bicycle tracks on the hot wood. And then, a few yards out in the bronze-coloured water two great fish swam into view – long and dark – moving slowly in line ahead just beneath the surface. We’d come into a place preserved, where there was no fear, it seemed, a world before the fall.
We’d been walking for more than half an hour, twisting ever deeper into the forests, and now I got the map out. ‘This lodge, at least, is just off here – at the end of the lake: we turn right.’
The two women were sitting by the boathouse, resting in the shade. Madeleine was tired. ‘Do you want to stay here while I go and take a look?’
‘No. We’ll come too,’ she said at once. Before I had always gone on my own towards Lindsay. But now they were to be there as well – in at the kill, or as witnesses to my folly.
Two boys on small chopper bikes suddenly came along the waterside path – riding fast, chattering, dark-haired. They barely noticed us. We followed them down the path, further into the woods, a minute afterwards. I wondered where Stolačka’s task force were hiding themselves, looking into the silent canopy of beech and evergreens all round.
Further along, a grassy track led away from the lake at right-angles, through a long archway of trees, towards another open meadow in the distance. And here, stopping just before the end of the wood, we looked out across the wide field and saw a wooden lodge nestling in a clearing of trees on the far side, less than half a mile away. The two boys were riding across the middle of this meadow now, their heads bobbing up and down in the grass – a space impossible to cross without being seen.
I took the binoculars out and focused them, the heat shimmering frantically above the land, magnified into translucent water spouts by the glass. The mop-headed boys came into vision and then, raising the glasses a bit, the lodge itself.
The first thing I saw was a big table on the covered terrace being prepared for lunch by two young women, one in a bikini, laying plates and cutlery, with what looked like a muslin-covered Moses basket to one side. I handed the glasses to Madeleine.
‘I can’t see,’ she said. ‘Just grass.’
‘Up a bit.’
‘Yes. There – there’s someone in the background now.’ She handed me the glasses. ‘There – in the shadow of the doorway, a figure.’
I looked again. It was a woman, middle-aged, her back half-turned towards us. Then she came out into a better light and I could see she was carrying a big platter, a large ham it seemed. And I could see her face then – a broad face with a peasant kerchief triangled over it – and a broad woman, too, in a dark smock dress. A nanny, perhaps, or a servant? A man followed her out – youngish, in bathing trunks, carrying a collection of bottles between the fingers of each hand, holding them like ninepins by their necks – mineral water and wine.
The boys had arrived at the lodge by now and, throwing their bikes down, they started to mob the man – their father I assumed, running round him in circles, the three of them doing a little dance before the man managed to get all the bottles down on the table safely and cuffed them away. We could just hear the laughter then, drifting across the heat haze.
We stood there, in the cover of the trees, watching for a few minutes in silence. Then Rachel took the glasses.
‘Well, there’s no sign of Lindsay,’ she said with relief. ‘You must be out of your mind,’ she went on, gazing intently. ‘That fat old woman is nothing like Susan.’
‘No,’ I had to agree. ‘Perhaps she’s just the babushka. Or a wet-nurse. You see the Moses basket?’
‘This isn’t feudal Russia. She’s the Mamma. And she isn’t like Aunt Susan.’ She handed the glasses back.
A much older man came out onto the terrace just then and seemed to confirm Rachel’s point about the big woman, for he put his arm about her and squeezed her in a familiar way. I had a close look at him: it must have been Dr Radja – small, sixtyish, some thin grey hair, well preserved in a pair of old shorts and a string shirt. Was his hair parted in the middle – as Zlatko’s had been? I looked carefully; it wasn’t – but simply because he had so little hair. It could have been, years before. And the face? Was it impish? Yes, that was more possible, I thought. His eyes were close together, at least.
‘Come on, let’s go back,’ Rachel said. ‘Lindsay’s not there. And it’s not Eleanor. Or Zlatko. And we can’t just push in on them in the middle of their lunch. It’s rude. Come on – let’s leave them in peace.’
‘Wait,’ I said. The older man had picked up a jar from the table, while the younger one started to carve the ham – a yellow jar; a jar of Colman’s English mustard I saw quite clearly when I focused carefully on the bright yellow label.
‘Rubbish!’ Rachel said. ‘They sell that all over the world now.’ But already I was out from the cover of the trees and into the light, starting to walk across the meadow. I’d had enough prevarications, a month of violent mystery and indecision. It was now or never.
They must have seen us as we walked across the open field. But they showed no sign of it until we were almost upon them, moving up a path into the centre of the little clearing in the trees. They were all seated round a long table, heavily laden with inviting salads and cold meats – and I saw now that there was a barbecue going to one side of the wooden terrace for a later course, with steaks on it. The table was littered with bottles: wine and Coke and mineral water. It was quite a feast – a family gathering of great intimacy and happiness.
I suddenly felt horrified at my interruptio
n – a lout broaching this familial ease, a harbinger of pain. But I was in the lead. It was my show after all. I felt like an actor then, sagging at the knees with nerves, at the moment of curtain-up, about to embark on a part probably far too big for him.
‘Excuse me,’ I said weakly. They stopped eating – just a blur of faces on the shaded terrace, gazing at me like an expectant audience. ‘Yes, I’m sorry …’ I went on. Then I dried.
‘Are you – lost your way?’ the older white-haired man enquired politely in good, slightly accented English, a glass of deep purple wine in his hand.
‘Dr Radja?’
‘Yes. Can I help?’ Rachel and Madeleine were standing behind me and I couldn’t see them. But I could see the large woman clearly now sitting at the end of the table, presiding over the spread like an Earth Mother. She was looking intently over my shoulder: at Madeleine, I thought.
‘Can we help? Are you lost?’ the old man spoke again.
A waft of blue smoke from the charcoal grill drifted over the table, a fine smell of singed garlic burning with the meat. The two pretty younger women tended to the boys’ lunch in hushed voices – a fair-haired woman in a print blouse, her hair up in a bun; and a much darker one with a thin, incisive intelligent face in the bikini. The baby in the Moses basket was still asleep. I turned to Rachel and Madeleine.
‘This is Madeleine and Rachel Phillips,’ I said in clear tones, like a toast master. ‘From Glenalyth, in Scotland.’ I looked carefully at the big woman as I spoke. And I was almost certain I’d hit home then, for the lady shuddered a fraction – just for an instant, involuntarily, as if caught in a cold draught.
‘Yes?’ the old man asked. ‘So what should we …? I don’t understand.’ But I think he did understand. For he’d suddenly stood up – and he was leaning across the table towards us now, tense, annoyed. He spoke in Serbo-Croat to the old lady.
‘Eleanor? Zlatko?’ I asked before they’d finished talking together. But they heard me well enough. And there was silence then. Absolute silence. Only the meat crackled and spat in the background. The two boys looked round at everyone enquiringly and the younger man in bathing trunks sat quite still, his hands laid out in front like an animal about to spring.