‘They look kinda pretty,’ Sarah said, when they were about twenty miles from their destination, the spa town of Braunlage. Jamie saw she was right, from a distance and in the golden light of the afternoon sun, the mountains appeared benign and unthreatening, their sharp edges dulled by the spruce, oak and beech that cloaked their flanks. But by now he knew differently.
‘If you imagine a sliding scale of mountain ranges and the Himalayas is ten, then the Harz is probably less than one. The Brocken is the highest peak, but it’s only eleven hundred metres, and the land mass is about equivalent to England’s Lake District. But what these hills lack in scale, they more than make up for in atmosphere. Goethe didn’t set Faust here by accident. This is a land of forest and bog, witches and devils, mist and mystery; a place where anything can happen. Heinrich Heine described the mountains as “so Germanically stoical, so understanding, so tolerant”, but it’s doubtful whether the concentration camp prisoners who were held there until nineteen forty-five or the East Germans who were shot attempting to cross the Iron Curtain death zone that cut through those hills would have agreed.’
‘My, we are poetic today.’ She said it with a smile. ‘Any particular reason for that?’
He grinned at her. Last night, they had proved to their mutual satisfaction that the previous afternoon had been no fluke. He looked back with a mixture of weary delight and awed wonder at what they had created. A coupling of the soul as well as the body, a ferocious contest of will as they attempted to outdo each other in imagination and intensity . . . He forced himself to concentrate on the road.
‘All I was saying was that they may look pretty, but they are actually pretty bloody dangerous. The terrain is what you might call fractured. Craggy gorges and deep, steep-sided lakes. The place is honey-combed with caves and pits. It’s also probably the wettest place in Germany.’
‘You make it sound so welcoming.’
He didn’t reply. After the encounter with Frederick and his fascist friends in Wewelsburg the best he could hope for was no welcome at all. They covered the last twenty miles on winding, narrow roads through a tree-blanketed wilderness. If Walter Brohm had wanted to hide something, then this was the perfect place. Jamie had chosen Braunlage because it was the closest town to the mountain, but he had no idea what would greet them there.
‘It looks like an Alpine ski resort, only without the Alps. I kinda like it. Reminds me of Colorado in the summer.’ Sarah studied her surroundings as they entered the town, a sprawling community that flowed like a red-roofed glacier down the valley. It had a manufactured tourist prettiness that Jamie guessed would be more inviting in the winter. The websites said it was predominantly a ski resort, but also a popular summer destination for hikers.
He spotted a shop where they could purchase walking gear. An ominous mass of dark cloud piling up on the eastern horizon meant two good quality anoraks and decent hiking boots were going to be essential. They’d also be able to buy a large-scale map of the area that he’d compare with the silk drawing. Still, he had a feeling tomorrow was going to be a long, tough day. The only consolation was that he couldn’t spend it in better company.
They booked into a gabled hotel on the main square and kitted themselves out from the outdoors shop at an eye-watering price which reminded Jamie just how badly the pound was doing against the euro. Europe, and Germany in particular, seemed to have weathered the banking crisis much better than Britain. The thought prompted an image of his dwindling bank balance and he reminded himself to check for progress in the sale of his grandfather’s house. Braunlage seemed benign and unthreatening and it would be easy to forget Frederick and his sinister friends had ever existed. But as he sat at a restaurant overlooking the artificial lake in the town centre, Jamie’s eyes never stopped searching for potential threats among the multi-coloured weatherproof jackets.
It wasn’t easy. A tall man on the far side of the square seemed to be staring at them until his face lit up and he walked forward to meet a woman with two young children. Did the danger come from the four hikers who walked with the straight backs and measured stride of the military? Or was it more likely to be from the couple at the next table who seemed to take a little too much interest in what Sarah was ordering? Eventually, he forced himself to relax and concentrated on his food.
When they’d finished their meal they spread the walking map out on the table. Jamie pointed to the approximate centre. ‘Here’s the Brocken. Remind me what the journal said.’
‘Where Goethe met his demon, avoid the witches’ trail, below the water you will find it, but you must look beyond the veil.’ As Sarah recited Walter Brohm’s riddle her finger traced a red line that meandered horizontally across the map with the Brocken at its centre. ‘I thought finding the Witches’ Trail would be the most difficult part, but it’s the biggest thing on this map. A whole network of hiking trails through the Harz. Look, there must be sixty miles of it. That’s a lot of ground to cover. Too much.’