The Holy Lance - Prologue

Vienna, 2am, December 26 2010

In Elena’s experience, crime and subtlety were rarely bed-fellows. She had never come across a tuxedoed cat burglar, shimmying up a drain pipe to snaffle his hostess’ jewels before returning to the table for cheese and port. Burglars, or at least those who wanted to have a career in the game, obeyed a simple rule. Get in, get the stuff, get out and don’t leave any witnesses.

Tonight’s heist, from the pen of a Hollywood scriptwriter, would have been accomplished by abseiling through the skylight, followed by a number of contortions to avoid the lasers which criss-crossed the room in a pretty geometric pattern. Or maybe the thieves would have smuggled themselves into the museum in a large statue, waiting for nightfall to break out like the ancient Greeks in Troy.

Whatever had happened here tonight, and Elena was not yet entirely sure, had happened in neither of these ways. She would only know when forensics finally turned up, and given the time, that might not be for a while. Those who had drawn the short straw for duty over Christmas would be too sluggish from the gluwein and stollen to be much use anyway.

Some things were obvious, however. At some time before 11pm on Christmas day (when the next shift arrived) , the perpetrators had entered the drab and stuffy security control room of the Kunsthistorisches museum and killed the guards, disabling the video system at the same time. They had then made their way to the second floor, killing another guard who had bumped into them on the way. Once they found room 11b, they had smashed the display cabinets with a hammer (which they had kindly left behind) and stolen the contents, a selection of trinkets from middle and late antiquity. Their escape had been made through the cargo bay in the basement.

“Fucking Turks”. Elena’s thoughts were interrupted by a gutteral drawl and a slight smell of mustard. At this time of night, it could only mean one thing, her deputy, sergeant Horst Braun had finally deigned to show up. With a greying pencil mustache, cold, lifeless eyes and a physique designed to test the lederhosen to, and possibly beyond, destruction, Braun was hardly a pre-posessing physical specimen. At 57, he was aging badly, and, like many Austrians, taking out his frustration on the newest and weakest members of society, egged on by a never-ending succession of neo-right politicians.

With a barely suppressed sigh, and an only slightly better disguised sense of disgust, Elena turned and looked Braun straight in the eye. “Turks? Why Turks?” she asked.

“Who else but a bunch of heathens would do this on Christmas Day?” he snorted, taking a bite of the hot dog he had, completely against protocol, brought into the crime scene. “Haider was right, they’re ruining this country”.

“Haider was an idiot. Who else would drink a bottle of vodka and decide to drive himself home?” She retorted. “You do know your would-have been furher was gay?”

Braun reddened. “ Lies! Lies spread by the corrupt media. I met him once. He was a great man, he was normal! And he was right”.

“Enough sergeant. Enough. We’re not here to discuss politics, we’re here to solve a crime. What have you found out?”

“I’ve just got here. All the fucking cafes were closed. Had to buy this off some Turk”. He waved the rapidly shrinking hotdog in the air.

“Well at least there is some benefit to immigration” Elena snapped and turned her back once more.

A knock on the door. “Inspektor? Inspektor Stahlberg?”, a mousy looking man in a white jumpsuit enquired. From his clothing and the over-sized briefcase he carried, he could only be the pathologist. The poor sap who had drawn the short straw.

“Yes”, Elena replied. “Pathology? Come in. Have a look. I’ll go outside and leave you in peace”

She gathered her coat and headed for the exit. “You stay here” she said to Braun. ”Try to be useful and don’t get in the way”. Before he could let loose his furious reply, she swept out the door and down the cheaply painted green corridor, a marked contrast to the rococco finery above. Slipping on her coat, she turned right and ran up the stairs at the end, through the double doors and out into the courtyard of the museum.

Stomping through the shallow layer of snow, she leant against a wall and fumbled in her coat pocket for a cigarette. As the first hit of nicotine struck, she looked up at the cloudless sky and lost herself in reverie.

35 years old, 5 foot 3 inches tall, with spiky blond hair adding another inch, Elena Stahlberg was far from your average police inspector. Yes, she was a woman, yes, she was young for her rank and yes, she was far prettier than most, with piercing blue eyes which could sparkle with delight or bore through to one’s very soul depending on her mood. But none of these really marked her out. What made her different was her name. Elena was, to give her full name, Inspektor Graeffin Elena zu Stahlberg, only daughter of Graf zu Stahlberg, and heiress to one of Austria’s oldest families.

Brought up by a succession of nannies (her mother having died soon after her birth), before a stint at an English boarding school, Elena might have been expected to marry another noble and pursue a life of balls, shooting parties and the production of an heir. Certainly, there had been no shortage of eligible bachelors eagerly pursuing her lithe frame and substantial fortune.

That she did not follow expectations was due mainly to her father. Brought closer by her mother’s death, he had played both parents to her, never ceasing to encourage her to follow her own path. Always teaching her, he had made her an excellent shot, first-rate fisherman and passable dancer. What he had not made her was compliant.

She could still remember the night she told him of her decision to join the police. At first unbelieving, then angry and finally accepting, Richard zu Stahlberg knew his daughter and knew the futility of arguing with her. His blue eyes twinkling in the restaurant’s candlelight, the Graf had given his blessing and, as was his way, turned to practicalities, offering her one of his apartments in Vienna as her new home.

“Got a light?” Elena’s thoughts were interrupted by the pathologist, holding a cigarette to his mouth. Some policeman she thought, you didn’t even hear him coming. Reaching into her pocket, she handed over the lighter. “What do you think”?

“From the state of the bodies and the very slight smell, although that could be Sergeant Braun’s sausage, I would say death occurred between 9 and 10 o’clock last night” he said.

“Both guards were shot twice in the head, as the was other guard upstairs. From the wounds, I’d say they were shot first from the doorway and then again, from closer by. The angles on the shots are different, and there’s no powder burn on one wound on each of them. Bit unusual.”

“Unusual, why?” she asked, dragging on the cigarette, eyes fixed on the moonless sky, mind beginning to whir.

“Well, if you shoot someone in the head, they usually die. Shooting them twice takes more time and makes more noise. Particularly in a small room like that, the echo would have been awful. Most criminals would just have been happy to shoot them once, particularly through the head like that.”

“What?”

“Way I see it”, he paused, inhaling deeply.

“Go on.” she said.

“Whoever did this, he was good. I mean really good. He shot two people straight through the forehead, and these people were moving at the time, I’m pretty sure they got up when the door opened. And he shot them dead centre. I mean exactly in the middle of the forehead. That takes training. And not the kind you get boar hunting in Prussia, graefin.”

Ignoring the cheap jibe, Elena had to agree. She was a good shot herself, better with a shotgun, it must be said, but even she would struggle to achieve that sort of accuracy. “So why shoot them twice?” she asked.

“Good question. Either the shooter isn’t that good and couldn’t quite believe his luck. Or...”

“Or?”

“Or he’s a trained assassin. I remember reading that the KGB and CIA always taught their killers to shoot their targets twice. That way, there can be no doubt. But that is your department. Now, Inspektor, if you don’t mind I would like to move the bodies to the morgue and return home. I have two little ones and the day started very early as you can imagine..”

Nodding, Elena dismissed him. Obviously he’d been reading too many spy novels, why would trained assassins target Vienna’s most prestigious museum and only steal some worthless Roman trinkets? There were plenty of objects of real value in the collection, paintings by Vermeer and Breugel, to say nothing of the Habsburg Crown Jewels, why not go for them?

He was right about one thing though, it was late. Turning on her heel, she headed back inside the museum, planning to find Braun and give him the good news that she was returning home and he could supervise the remainder of the police operation. No matter how long that took. Served him right for his stupid far-right nonsense.

Turning into the corridor, she saw a small elderly man, nattily turned out in a three piece suit with a green bow tie and matching pocket square. Smiling to herself, she remembered one of her father’s objections to her joining the police force.

“But you’ll have to wear a uniform darling. You know I hate uniforms. I saw what they did to this country.”

“But papi, everyone wears a uniform, bankers wear suits, doctors wear white coats, advertisers wear collarless shirts, everyone wears a uniform” And art curators wear bow ties, she might have added. Well ,someone had to.

“Inspektor Stahlberg? Doktor Fleicher, curator of antiquities.” The small art expert made his way over to her.

“Herr Doktor, nice to meet you, although I am sorry about the circumstances. We’ll do our best to get this sorted out as quickly as possible. I presume you’re closed for the holidays. It would make our investigation easier if we could have undisturbed access to the rooms for a few days.”

“Of course, of course, Inspektor. We are closed for another three days.” Fleicher seemed nervous, moving from foot to foot like Alice’s rabbit. But he was the one who would have to explain this to his superiors. The word curator comes from the Latin curo meaning to look after, take care of. Given that a number of the articles he was responsible for had disappeared, it was a fair bet that Fleicher’s superiors would take the view that he had failed in his job.

“Well that gives us some time. Thank you. Perhaps we could meet tomorrow and go through what’s missing. Maybe you can give an initial list to my sergeant?” The night was just getting longer and longer for Braun. He’d need another sausage soon.

“Actually, I’d rather talk to you now, if I may, Inspektor. It won’t take long”, he took her elbow and began to steer her away from the guards’ room. Elena’s instinctive reaction would be to snatch her arm away and mutter something about sexual equality, but despite herself, there was something about the curator’ anxiety which overcame her resistance and made her curious.

Finding a slight bend in the corridor, just out of sight of the comings and goings of the police, crime scene investigators and morgue technicians, Fleicher stopped, halting Elena at the same time.

“What is it Doktor Fleicher? Why the secrecy?” Elena was tired, and, despite her curiosity, wanted to go home.

“It is the robbery Inspektor, it is what they stole. This is most concerning” Fleicher was urgent now, insistent. And he was scared, that much was obvious.

Ignoring the fact that he displayed no compassion for the slain guards, Elena snapped back.” But it’s just some ancient stuff, pots and the like isn’t it? They didn’t take anything really valuable.”

“They took the spear, the spear!” Fleicher seemed to be getting more agitated now, his voice almost a whisper.

Elena had had enough. “What spear? And so what, a spear can’t do much harm”

“Oh dear, Inspektor, I thought your father would have taught you better. The Habsburg Lance has been taken! The Spear of Longinus has gone!” Agitated, Fleicher started hopping from foot to foot again. Elena half expected him to produce a pocket watch and whine about being late.

“The spear of who?” Elena was rapidly losing patience, mention of her father moving her closer the edge. “I really don’t have much time for this, Herr Doktor.”

Sucking in his breath, and drawing himself to his full, if unimpressive, height, the curator fixed Elena with a surprisingly strong stare.

“The spear of Longinus, also known as the Spear of Destiny and the Habsburg Lance is the greatest treasure in this museum. It is the greatest treasure in the whole world. It connects mankind to god and brings unimaginable power. The spear of Longinus is the spear which pierced the side of Christ on the cross.”