‘No.’
Sarah’s sharp cry made him look back just as two running figures reached the bank behind them. The first of the two men knelt and using a two-handed grip aimed a big automatic pistol towards them. He was so close Jamie could make out the little dark eye of the muzzle. So close that the man couldn’t miss. More bluff. But if that was the case why hadn’t he ordered them to turn back? As the seconds lengthened Jamie realized he’d miscalculated. He saw the gun steady. Imagined the finger tightening in the trigger.
‘When he shoots me, let go and dive until you’re out of range.’
He felt her arms tighten.
From his vantage point high above, Gustav had cursed as he saw Saintclair and the woman enter the river. He’d tried to force them to turn back, but when they had continued to walk into his fire he knew he’d run out of options. He was still watching when his two men burst from the upstream brush and Jurgen knelt and aimed towards the two helpless figures. Without thought, Gustav raised the MP5 to his shoulder, aimed and fired in one movement.
Jamie knew he’d feel the strike of the bullet before he heard the bark of the gun. Instead, there was a repeat of the curious woodpecker sound they’d heard earlier and the man who had been about to shoot him rose and spun before plunging face first into the river. His companion gaped and ran back into the brush.
Jamie turned and forced his way towards the far bank.
‘What happened back there?’ Sarah’s voice shook, but it wasn’t clear whether the reaction was caused by fear or the bone-numbing cold as they lay in their soaked clothing among the undergrowth on the western side of the river. Safe, for the moment.
Jamie had been pondering the same question. ‘They want the journal. Whoever was on the cliff could have killed us at any time since they tracked us down. For some reason the man with the pistol didn’t get the message. Maybe you nicked him or hit one of his friends with those shots you fired. If he’d taken us out in the middle of the river the journal would have been lost. The man on the cliff couldn’t let that happen.’
‘He must be a cold-blooded bastard, to shoot one of his own like that?’
‘Yes, he is, and now he’ll be coming for us. They’ll put people across the river, maybe even bring in more men. Our only chance is to find a way out of the valley and back to Braunlage. We need to go up.’
They searched the sheer valley walls for a hundred yards above and below their crossing point, but the only place that showed any promise was a narrow gully that cut into the cliff and carried a gushing tributary stream to join the main river.
Sarah wasn’t convinced. She stared into the shadowy interior. ‘If we go in there and it doesn’t lead anywhere we’ll be trapped.’
Jamie shrugged. ‘Would we be any worse off than we are now?’
‘I still don’t like it.’
‘Look, we don’t have time to argue. I’ll go in for a recce, you stay here. I won’t be any more than ten minutes.’
It took her about two seconds to figure out the implications of his suggestion. ‘No way are you gonna leave me behind, Jamie Saintclair.’ She hoisted her rucksack and led the way inside.
As they picked their way over the boulder-strewn gully bottom the sides rose sheer and inaccessible alongside them. Here the direct light of the sun seldom penetrated and the deeper they went the more dank, dark and forbidding it became. They’d gone a hundred yards when they were alerted by a sound like muted thunder. Minutes later they found themselves staring at a waterfall that plunged in a dirty white torrent from the lip of the cliff two hundred feet above to form a rocky, foam-flecked pool among the rocks.
Sarah’s shoulders sagged in defeat. ‘That’s it then,’ she shouted above the roar of falling water. She turned to go back, but Jamie grabbed her shoulder.
‘Wait.’ His throat was so dry with excitement that the word crackled. He stared at the cascade for a full minute before clambering over moss-slick boulders to the shallow pool where the fall landed like an emptying bottle of stout.
‘Remember that strange phrase Walter Brohm used when he was talking to my grandfather about the painting? He said: You must look behind the veil. But what the hell did he mean? A woman’s face is hidden behind a veil, but we can’t be talking about a scrap of cloth. We’ve seen moss hanging on the cliff walls, maybe that would count, but it can hardly have been here sixty-odd years ago. So he was talking about something permanent. Something natural. Some kind of curtain. Look behind the veil.’
She stared at him. ‘There is only one constant in this landscape.’