Giuliana was trying hard to sound like she wasn’t freaking.
“I can’t tell you any more at the moment,” Felix said, gently.
“It’s to do with that family, those two men they found?”
“It’s a precaution,” he said. “There’s probably nothing to it. I have to be careful.”
He told her he’d be on the platform waiting. That seemed to awaken something in her. He heard her breathing in short gasps then.
“What am I going to do, to take, though,” she said. “God, I can’t think. Where am I going to start? Jesus!”
“We’ll go to the apartment right away,” he said. “There’ll be somebody with us. We get your stuff and we go to your mom’s.”
“She’ll freak if she knows.”
“Well, don’t tell her, okay?”
“Where will you go? Your mom’s?”
“No. I’ll tell you later.”
The detective who had come up with Speckbauer was hanging around by the door, drinking one of Giuliana’s fruit drinks.
“Nice,” he said to Felix. “Nice place. Very artistic. You?”
“No.”
Felix went to the living room. Speckbauer was eyeing the goings on in the small sliver of Kurosistrassse that could be glimpsed between the poplars in front of the apartment block.
“Well,” he said. “How’d it go?”
“You can imagine.”
Felix looked around the living room. The laptop, he’d take for sure, right now. Giuliana could figure out what she’d want when she made it in this evening.
“Is Gebi getting the same attention?”
“No. Why, should he?”
“Well, he was at the farm too.”
Speckbauer seemed to ponder this information. From the kitchen, Felix heard the soft sigh of the fridge door opening.
“You want a Gosser, take one,” he called out.
“Good,” said Speckbauer. “If you’re not being sarcastic, that is.
Surveillance is no picnic. Christ, but you can get hemorrhoids like nobody’s business.”
Felix headed for the bedroom to pack some things.
“What did you discuss with Gebhart anyway?”
“When?”
“Last night. At his place.”
“Ask him, I should think.”
“I did.”
Felix stopped in the doorway and turned. Speckbauer turned away.
“Get some stuff,” he called out. “You’ve got five or six hours to kill before your girl shows up. After that, you and me are going spatzieren yes, taking to the hills.”
True to his word, Speckbauer got into a police Passat and took out two maps from a folder under the seat. There was a stale smell of peppermints in the car, but Felix had spotted the top of a small magenbitter bottle in the trunk as Speckbauer had cleaned space there for his bag. The hint of gastric trouble for Speckbauer pleased Felix a little.
“Am I at work now?”
“Work? Do you see a desk here?”
“Well, I think I should know the conditions here.”
“Okay. Yes you are on the job ‘ancillary officer.’”
“You guarantee I get back here, to the bahnhof, I mean, by seven?”
“I guarantee that. And you will guarantee that you will show me the ins and outs of the high country.”
“The maps?”
“But I want to follow your way too,” said Speckbauer. He tapped a forefinger on his forehead several times. “What way would a guy like yourself go, one who knows a bit about the area?”
“Take the Lendkai down and come back over the Schonaugurtel,” said Felix. “It’s not bad. Then there’s the A2. Get off at Gleisdorf. We’ll go by Weiz, and then up.”
Speckbauer nodded at the mass of the Schlossberg between the buildings.
“Is going that way worth it?”
“It looks long,” Felix replied. “But it’s quicker.”
Speckbauer nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “A good start. See, I knew you had it in you.”
When Felix finished his phone call, Speckbauer was already passing the station at Munzgrabenstrasse and accelerating down the link to the Graz Ost ramp onto the A2.
“That’s a little awkward,” said Speckbauer, himself thumbing his Handi.