Denied to all but Ghosts Read Free

fabric over her broad hips. Cavendish frowned as
he gazed with unintentional veneration upon the vulnerable woman
before him.
    “Dagmar, please stop!” he demanded. She
looked up at him, confusion evident in her expression as the tears
edged slowly down her cheeks.
    “Please, I’m sorry if I have misled you,
there is no need for this,” said Cavendish softly but
unequivocally. For the first time she detected a suppleness and air
of compassion in his voice.
    “I don’t know what my colleague expected of
you, but I make no such demands. Please...” Cavendish did not avert
his eyes as he watched Dagmar turn away from him and clumsily
rearrange her dress.
    “Christ, what have they done to you...” he
muttered to himself. He felt consumed with anger, a rage against
the obscenities of his gender yet equally, with a selfish
prejudice, at his lack of briefing or insight relating to the
history of the assignment. He also felt highly aroused but banished
the sentiment as ill timed.
    “What’s going on, Dagmar,” he asked quietly
as he walked across the room and placed his long fingers lightly on
her shoulder, “why have you not returned the items as
instructed?”
    Dagmar chewed her lower lip and stared hard
up at Cavendish, evaluating whether he was a man to be trusted. The
scarred face gave him a superficially intimidating appearance,
which she realised he used to good effect, yet now she noted his
pale blue eyes conveying an empathetic warmth and curiosity that
had earlier been lacking. She spoke quickly, her words running into
a remorseless torrent, accented with relief at being able at last
to confide in someone.
    “I don’t have them. Herr Klauss and Kurt
Meyer took them. Herr Klauss explained he would sort things out...”
She looked down at the floor in shame as she recalled the price
expected for his help.
    “And he obviously exacted his payment?”
enquired Cavendish gently, the answer already blatantly apparent.
Dagmar gazed absently at the window but remained ominously
silent.
    Cavendish knew that it was acute appendicitis
that had prevented his colleague, Dieter Klauss, from completing
this assignment. Cavendish and Ehlers were simply stand-ins.
    “I think I get the picture,” said Cavendish
sensitively whilst tracing the line of his scar with his left index
finger.
    “Don’t worry, despite what you may have been
told, this is very easy to resolve, you have my word that this is
about to end.” He smiled at her and despite his baleful appearance;
she warmed to his gesture and returned his smile.
    She felt the burden, shame and humiliation of
the past weeks easing with the knowledge that this man was on her
side. They left the bedroom to rejoin the others in the study where
Death waited with indifference.
     
     
     

CHAPTER 1 . A LABER OF LOVE.

    The Laber mountain summit station rapidly
approached and the cable car gondola slowed at the end of its
ascent. An apathetic attendant opened the door and Cavendish strode
apprehensively into the white walled lobby.
    Ignoring the cafeteria to his left, he made
for the familiar exit doors to access the outdoor viewing area. A
stunning vista of pine covered slopes opened up before him, framed
by the distant snow-capped peaks of the Alps. From the west, a
cooling breeze, absent in the village below, gave purpose to his
steps as he zipped up his old brown leather jacket and adjusted his
thick-rimmed sunglasses before heading towards the elderly man
already sitting at a patio table.
    The man, in his early sixties, fixed his gaze
on the distant Alpine range above Garmisch. The snow still lingered
in the month of April on the Hausberg of Oberammergau, which lay in
the green valley far below them. The mountaintop appeared to
inhabit a different season from the village where spring was
clearly on its way. It felt akin to travelling back several months
in time.
    “Grüß Gott, Marchel, good to see you,” said
the deep toned Bavarian accent of Horst Steinbeck.
    “You