The Holy Lance Chapter 3 Cont.

Elena thought back to their previous conversation, the unmistakable hand of guilt settling lightly on her shoulder. After the good doctor’s outburst concerning the spear, Elena had found one of the uniformed constables and had her take him home. Over loud protestations, the threat of arrest had eventually worked and the mundane business of police-work had taken over.

The curator had phoned in the next day, announcing that he needed to rest and would take the next two weeks off. His assistant, Dr Gruber, would supervise the operations at the gallery. With a great deal of discretion, a skill Austria excelled at, given its history, the ransacked room had been closed for “redecoration”, the emptied cabinets restocked with similar trinkets from the museum’s extensive collection of spares housed beneath the ground.

The spear was altogether more difficult to replace, being a unique piece, and the focus of some historical controversy, so, with the the knack for diplomacy produced by 60 years of political neutrality, it was decided that the lance had been removed for cleaning. In the meantime, as a sop to the horde of internet nutcases with nothing better to do than concoct fantasies, a replacement was being assembled quietly by the museum’s craftsmen.

The pathologist she recognised from Boxing Day approached. “Same shooter” he said blankly.

Elena was impressed by his command of American police slang, less impressed by his certainty. “How can you tell?”

“The wounds are exactly the same, one shot dead centre of the forehead, another to the side. Either there are two crack shots in Vienna targeting museum employees, or it’s the same guy. Didn’t Holmes always favor the simplest explanation?”

Elena didn’t give a shit what Holmes favored, he was made up, invented by a man who believed in fairies. She did see the logic in his argument though. The shots at the museum had been great, a product of incredible accuracy. It was unlikely that they could have been replicated by another, particularly given the relatively small population of the city.

“When?” she asked, distaste obvious in her tone. There was something about this man she didn’t like. The slang and literary references spoke too much of a man trying too hard to impress, a characteristic she loathed. One more reason for her continuing singleness.

“A while ago. Rigor has fully set in. I need to get him back to the lab, run some tests, but I’d say at least a week, maybe more.” There was a pallor about the face, except of course for the ruby hole at its apex, a waxiness, that spoke of the effects of decomposition. And yet, no smell. The bacteria which prey on corpses go to work instantly, releasing noxious gases as their excretion, one reason why countries in hot climates favor quick burials.

“He was clever, our man. The window was left open.” Elena glanced over, and sure enough, there was a healthy gap. “Given the weather we’ve had, it was freezing in here. It was almost as if the good doktor was in the fridge since it happened.”

Elena knew that bacteria were highly temperature-sensitive, cool them low enough and they would hibernate, effectively shutting down all systems until the environment improved. It would not stop decomposition taking place slowly, but it was enough to delay it substantially. It had snowed everyday since the break-in, so she could understand why he looked so relatively good for one in his condition.

“Anything else?”

“No. It’s pretty open and shut really. If I find anything else, I’ll call you, otherwise it will be in the report. Cause of death: gunshot wound to the head. Can I take him?”

“I’ll want the effects sent to the police lab. After they’ve got that, you can take the body.” Having eavesdropped discretely, two constables began to undress the corpse, their gloved hands slipping everything into airtight plastic bags. Elena herself pulled on a pair of gloves and began to look around the apartment.

The bookshelf told of a man who was obsessed with art. All the volumes were about some sort of creative endeavour, from Roman mosaics, to Old Masters, to the art of turn-of the-century Vienna. All of which was interesting, if not particularly helpful for her present purposes.

The desk was spotless. Dr Fleicher was obviously not the sort who believed in (dis)organised chaos. The pens were perfectly perpendicular to the edge, paper, embossed with his name and address sat in the centre of the antique blotting pad. A couple of sepia photos of a stolid Viennese couple sat in Art Deco silver frames at the top right corner. Fleicher’s parents?

Elena stood back and thought. That the doktor was neat was obvious from their meeting. Even in the middle of the night, he looked like he had taken extreme care with his appearance. Most in his position would have shown signs of rushing, hair askew, tie unknotted, but not the doktor. He had looked as if he had just arrived for a day in the office. It was thus no surprise that the apartment was neat.

What was a surprise though, was that the assailant had obviously been equally neat. In Elena’s experience, after a murder, the surrounding premises were usually ransacked, books pulled off shelves, drawers yanked out of desks, papers strewn on the floor. If someone was looking for something, or even just wanted the police to think they were looking for something, that was what they did.

But that was not what Elena saw here. The apartment was untouched. She would have to wait for confirmation from the lab, but she was pretty sure that they would find nothing. So what did that mean? It meant that the murderer was only interested in murder. Following the law of parsimony, he had gone there to kill the doktor, had killed him and presumably left. Nothing more. No effort even to pretend otherwise.

That led Elena to two unsettling conclusions. First, someone had really wanted the good doktor dead. Sure, they would look into his background, try to find some sort of motive, but she was doubtful they would find anything. Spurned lovers could rarely afford to hire someone so obviously professional. This man had powerful (and rich) enemies, and that was concerning.

Second, and if anything more worrying, the assassin was obviously good. And confident. So confident that he had not even bothered to try to distract them, misdirecting the investigation by feigning a break-in. He had done his job and left, not worried about any comebacks. This was a man who did not think he would get caught. Over-confidence was always dangerous, but after the museum, Elena doubted that they would find any evidence. Putting herself in the assassin’s head, Elena saw another reason. The assassin had not bothered to distract the police because he knew they would never get him. A killer this skilled, would always be aware of the chance of a random slip-up. Yet his actions showed a belief in his own invulnerability. This man knew that he could not (or would not be allowed to) be caught.