Jamie fought the urge to take Mr Lim by the throat and shake the smile off his face. ‘Is that a threat?’
‘You misunderstand me, Mr Saintclair.’ Lim shook his head sadly at the wickedness of the world. ‘You must be aware by now that we are not the only party with an interest in the Sun Stone. Others may be less inclined to negotiate. If there is a threat, it is from those who do not have the same concern for your welfare as my humble self.’
He rose from the table. ‘When your companion returns, perhaps it would be wiser not to mention our conversation. She appears to have a great deal on her mind already.’ Jamie stared at the large envelope the Chinese had left on the table. ‘Call that a down payment. Please, open it.’
Jamie peeled back the flap. The envelope contained two 8x10 black-and-white photographs.
‘I could have had them done in colour, but I felt monochrome suited our particular situation so much better,’ Lim explained cheerfully. ‘I’m sure Mr Le Carré would be impressed.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Jamie stared at the top picture. It showed three men talking on a country path. One of them was a slight figure in an overcoat that was too large for him.
‘Oh, I think you understand most clearly, Mr Saintclair. You will note the dates.’ Lim lifted the photograph, so Jamie could see the second picture. A shot of the same two men sitting in a car outside a house that was instantly familiar. Jamie’s heart lurched as he recognized the closer of the two as the man he’d found in his grandfather’s lounge.
‘As I say, a down payment. To receive the second instalment all you have to do is call the number I have given you at the appropriate time.’
Sarah reappeared a few moments after the Chinese had left. ‘You look thoughtful?’
He tried a smile that didn’t quite make it. ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind.’
Their route took them from the airport past the north of the city. Jamie tried to keep his mind on the road, but as he drove it was difficult to keep Mr Lim’s reasonable voice out of his head. The claim that there was no threat was less significant than Lim’s presence, which, of course, was a threat in itself. It struck him that it might have been the Chinese, rather than Frederick and the Vril Society, who had been responsible for Simon’s murder, but he immediately dismissed the thought. He suspected that while Mr Lim was perfectly capable of the killing, he would have been much more subtle in its execution. What mattered was that every word the man spoke had been like a gentle touch on the rudder to steer him in a certain direction. He had felt like a horse on a light rein just waiting for the sting of the whip. And then it came, in the form of the photographs. The photographs that appeared to show old Stan with the men who had almost certainly murdered him and the same two men outside the house where his grandfather had died. The implications of that turned his vision red and his hands tightened on the wheel. He willed himself to stay calm. Hadn’t he always suspected? His grandfather’s missing walking stick. Two deaths linked by the past in such quick succession? An unfamiliar gloom settled over him. He could take the pictures to the police in Britain, but on their own they proved nothing. They were circumstantial evidence at best. He opened his mouth intending to tell Sarah what had happened, but something stopped him. She has a lot on her mind. Like everything else that had been said, the cryptic sentence held a warning and a message. He just hadn’t yet worked out its significance.
Sarah must have caught his mood, because she was uncharacteristically silent. The sun broke through the clouds and they had a view across the city to the mountains beyond. Neither of them mentioned the signpost they passed for the little town of Dachau. It seemed nowhere in Germany was free from the shadow of the war. Sarah kept her eyes on the stunning panorama to the south. ‘Nice place. But it gives me the creeps.’
He drove on until he came to the outer ring road and after a few miles he picked up the exit for Augsburg and turned north-west.
‘I still don’t understand why we aren’t heading directly for the Swiss border,’ Sarah said. ‘You know more or less where they crossed? It would save time.’
‘Because I want to see this unfold through Matthew’s eyes,’ he insisted. ‘Or as much as it’s possible after sixty years. Maybe these final pages of the journal hold the key to the Sun Stone and maybe they don’t, but the best way to understand them is to take the journey with my grandfather and Brohm. I want to get as close to him as I can.’
They by-passed Augsburg and the multi-laned highway carried them swiftly through a thickly wooded area that the map told them was the local nature reserve. ‘Hey, we just crossed the Danube,’ Sarah announced. ‘I thought the Danube was in Hungary or Romania?’