Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 112, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 684 & 685, September/October 1998

The Starkworth Atrocity by Edward D. Hoch

©1998 by Edward D. Hoch

Gypsy Michael Vlado, who first appeared in 1985, is a relatively late creation of Edward D. Hoch’s, and unlike most of the author’s other characters he was not first conceived with EQMM in mind hut for an anthology of “ethnic” detectives. Vlado has turned out to be a valuable figure in the Hoch gallery, for he is at the center of a changing Europe and he allows the author to deal with interesting contemporary issues.

Unlike the traditional image of the Gypsy, Michael Vlado had never been a wanderer. He would have been quite content to live with his wife in the foothills of Romania’s Transylvanian Alps, breeding horses and working with the members of his clan, had not circumstances thrust a different role upon him. He became king of his tribe when just past forty years of age, at a time when European persecution of Gypsies, together with political upheavals in Eastern Europe, were changing his life in unexpected ways. Hardly a year passed now when he was not summoned to a faraway place to plead the cause of Romanies seeking political asylum.

That was how he happened to be traveling by train through the Channel Tunnel on his way to England in late October of 1997. Thousands of Gypsies, facing increased persecution in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, had been encouraged to flee by a television program’s favorable portrayal of Canada as welcoming Romany immigrants. When Canada insisted on stricter entry rules, the focus shifted to Britain. Once there, the rumors said, it was easier to travel the rest of the way to Canada.

Michael had answered a direct appeal from Colonel Jugger, an official of the European Union, to travel with him to Dover and examine the problem in person. Now, passing through the seemingly endless tunnel beneath the English Channel, he listened while the colonel outlined the problem, speaking English with only a slight accent. “It is said that upwards of six thousand Gypsies are on their way to Britain. Most will arrive by the less expensive cross-channel ferries, but however they come, Dover is the most likely port of entry. They have a real problem there, compounded by the recent Dublin Convention on Immigration ruling that asylum-seekers may apply for refuge in the country in which they wish to live. Britain can no longer simply send them back across the channel.”

“The European Union is making many changes to the old rules,” Michael observed.

“Too many, in the British view of things, which is why they’re resisting a full acceptance of the Union. But here we are, at last.” The train burst into the sunlight without warning, and Michael Vlado was on British soil for the first time in his life.

They rolled into the station a bit farther along. Colonel Jugger, a slender man of military bearing who was taller than Michael by a couple of inches, had arranged for a car to meet them. He was a retired officer in the former West German army who’d taken the job with the European Union a couple of years earlier. His specialty was migration between various countries in the Union, which automatically made him an expert on Gypsies. It was men like Jugger who would change the map of Europe in the decades to come, for better or worse. Now, as Michael followed him down the steps to the waiting car with its small EU banners mounted on the front fender, he felt increasingly out of place. He didn’t belong here. He was no sort of politician.

“There’s an unused nursing home at Starkworth, about twenty miles from here,” Jugger was saying. “The government has pressed it into service to help provide emergency accommodations for Gypsies requesting asylum, at least until the courts can rule on their requests.” He gave the driver a route to their destination and the black sedan sprang into motion, traveling swiftly and silently up Marine Parade Road to the A2.

“I’m not too familiar with the Romany population in Britain,” Michael admitted.

“They’re often called Travelers, a term that includes both Gypsies and itinerant speakers of the Shelta language. We estimate that there are about fifty thousand in all, with another twenty thousand in Ireland.”

“Shelta?”

“It’s a private language, based partly on Irish. Apparently it’s spoken only by Travelers in the British Isles. These are hard times for itinerant people hereabouts. In the past, Gypsies camped in the countryside, even in some distant corner of a large estate. They were out of sight and bothered no one, sometimes even proving useful as seasonal farm workers. But as the population grew and empty areas became less common, conflicts emerged. The new suburban communities did not want Gypsies on their doorstep. The Caravan Site Act of nineteen sixty-eight obliged local authorities to provide camping areas for them, but generally these were in the least desirable areas of town. Needless to say, this new wave of Gypsy immigration is not welcome here.”

After a time the car turned off the A2. They headed back toward the coast and through the country town of Starkworth. It was probably like many others, with a clock tower on the town hall and an old stone church dating from at least the last century, but it was the first one Michael had seen in England. Soon they reached their destination, a sprawling white building surrounded by a grove of trees across from a school. Until a year ago it had been the Starkworth Nursing Home, Jugger explained. Unused since then, the county council had agreed to the government suggestion that Gypsy immigrants be housed there until their status was clarified. “How many can they handle here?” Michael wondered.

“About one hundred, more if they installed cots in the recreation room. Right now I believe they’re around half of capacity.”

The car pulled up behind a white MG, the only other vehicle in evidence. “I expect we’ll be about an hour,” Colonel Jugger told the driver.

Jugger was a few steps ahead of Michael going up the walkway to the front door, so he was the first to spot the body sprawled in the doorway, its head and shoulders on the brick entryway. As he hurried to the young man, who was clad in a white jacket and pants, Michael looked beyond him into the front hall of the nursing home. He could see two more figures on the floor. “Something’s happened here!”

Jugger turned the man over. He was alive but gasping for breath. “What is it? What happened to you?”

The man opened his eyes for an instant. “Gas,” he muttered. “They’re all—”

Michael’s hand was on the door, but Jugger shouted a warning. “Don’t go in there! Something bad has happened here. Tell our driver to phone for police and ambulances!”

What was to become known around the world within hours as the Starkworth Atrocity began to unfold with the arrival of the first police car and ambulance. Two officers circled the building, peering in all the ground-floor windows, and came back to report that there were bodies everywhere. After that the local fire brigade was summoned and two men in rubber coats and gas masks entered the nursing home carrying gauges to measure the extent of impurities in the air. They returned almost at once and the firefighters set up a large exhaust fan in the doorway, pointed toward the sky. On the opposite side of the building they smashed windows so that fresh air could enter and help dissipate the fumes.

An hour later, when they reentered the nursing home, they brought back the stark statistics. There were fifty-three bodies of men, women, and children inside, plus two women volunteers who had been tending to the immigrants’ needs. Only the male orderly had survived. In the basement of the building, near the heating ducts, two empty metal canisters had been found. When he learned of that, Colonel Jugger asked to see the canisters.

Only the firefighters and some police officers in protective gear had been allowed into the nursing home thus far, and Michael was still standing outside with Colonel Jugger when one of them came out with the canisters. He thought the blood drained from the colonel’s face at the sight of them. “They’re the sort used at Auschwitz,” Jugger said grimly. “Cyanide pellets are dissolved in acid to produce quick-working hydrogen cyanide gas.”

“I know about Auschwitz,” Michael agreed. “Jews and Gypsies were gassed there routinely. Are you telling me that someone deliberately killed these people in the manner used at Nazi death camps?”

The German hung his head. “I fear that a terrible crime has been committed here.”

Though he’d planned to visit other immigrant sites during his stay, it was clear to Michael that the massacre at Starkworth took precedence over all else. Michael and Jugger made arrangements to spend at least one night at a hotel a few blocks from the nursing home. It was one of a popular chain of lodgings, five stories high, with a dining room and meeting suites on the top floor affording a sweeping view of the sea.

Michael knew that whoever the killer and whatever the motive, the truth had to be uncovered quickly before the media had an opportunity to launch its own conspiracy theories. The rest of the afternoon was a blur of police questioning and phone calls from Jugger back to his superiors in Brussels. It was well after seven before they were able to avoid the press and sneak away for a light meal and ale at a nearby pub. By that time the television networks had interrupted their regular programming for coverage of what was already being called the Starkworth Atrocity.

“Fifty-five men, women, and children are dead,” the newsreader was reporting in an urgent yet somber tone, “and another is hospitalized in fair condition. Although autopsies are not yet complete, police believe they were victims of an attack by hydrogen cyanide gas introduced through the nursing home’s heating ducts. Recent arrivals in Dover of large groups of Gypsies seeking asylum here have strained the area’s resources and increased tensions, though there has been no previous act of violence against the new arrivals. Officials estimate some eight hundred European Gypsies have landed at Dover in recent weeks, and efforts are under way to provide emergency accommodations and education. Fears have been expressed in some quarters that today’s atrocity might be the beginning of a terrorist campaign targeted at Gypsy immigrants.”

“Do you believe that?” Michael asked Colonel Jugger.

“I’m trying not to. Terrible as it is, a single madman would be preferable to a terrorist campaign. That is, it would be preferable once he was captured and behind bars. Do you think you could help us with that?”

Michael held out his palms in a gesture of helplessness. “I know no more than you do, Colonel.”

Jugger lowered his voice just a bit. “The EU office supplied me with your dossier. You have been very helpful in the past, both in local criminal investigations and in events farther afield. They have a commendation from a Captain Segar, formerly of the Romanian government militia.”

“Segar is an old friend.”

“I hope we can be friends too. I need any help you can give me on this, Michael.” It was his first use of Michael’s given name.

“Isn’t it a matter for the local police and Scotland Yard?”

“The European Union has a large stake in the matter too. An unpunished terrorist act against a migrating people could encourage more such acts, against Gypsies, Muslims, Jews, Irish, Africans, Asians, almost anyone! One of the goals of the EU is the free movement of goods and people between the various European states.”

“Where would I begin?” Michael wondered aloud. “Everyone is dead.”

“That orderly survived. He might know something.”

By morning the town of Starkworth was in a frenzy. Television crews from the BBC and the independent networks were crowding the lanes with their trucks, and more American and European correspondents were arriving by the hour. Teams of Scotland Yard investigators were everywhere, and before Colonel Jugger and Michael had even finished their breakfast eggs they were being interviewed by a pair of dour-looking investigators from London. They told their story of finding the bodies, which was really all they knew.

“What about Mr. Isaacson?” one of the Scotland Yard men asked. His name was Inspector Drexell and he carried his excess weight with seeming ease.

“Who?” Michael questioned.

“The sole survivor. The man you found in the doorway. We need to know exactly what he said.”

Jugger thought for a moment and answered, “I think it was, ‘Gas, they’re all dead.’ Isn’t that what he said, Michael?”

“As I remember it.”

“Nothing else?”

They both shook their heads. “His breathing was bad,” Michael said. “How is he today?”

“The doctors say he’s coming along fine,” the inspector said. “He should be released soon.”

“We need to speak with him,” Jugger said. “The European Union will want a full report on this.”

“I’m afraid that will be impossible until after we’ve interviewed him.”

“Have you been able to trace those canisters?” Michael asked.

“I’m not at liberty to talk about that.”

They departed soon afterward and Colonel Jugger spent the rest of breakfast deep in thought. “They may be onto something. That fellow Drexell—”

They were interrupted by the sudden arrival in the hotel dining room of a tall, blond woman. Wearing a short black leather jacket, a tight skirt that ended just above the knees, and a knapsack over her shoulder, she strode purposefully across the room to their table, pale blue eyes taking in the scene. “Which of you is Michael Vlado?” she asked.

“I am,” Michael acknowledged with a smile.

“Katie Blackthorn, Skywatch World Service. I’d like to interview you about the killings.”

Michael must have looked blank, because Jugger had to mutter into his ear, “Television. Go ahead!”

“I only know what’s been on the news,” he said.

“I understand you are a Gypsy king who came here specifically to meet with the victims. That’s what I want to ask you about.”

Michael reluctantly followed her to a secluded corner of the hotel lobby where her cameraman was waiting. “This is Dominick,” she said. “He’s my eyes. Dominick, I’ll need about three minutes with Mr. Vlado here, maybe with that wall as a background.”

“How are you?” Dominick said, shaking hands as he balanced the video camera on his shoulder. He was a husky man with dark hair and a trace of beard, wearing a rock-group T-shirt. Positioning himself a few feet away, he aimed the camera. “Ready when you are, Katie.”

The cameraman shot some footage as she introduced Michael to the viewers, and then she asked Michael a preliminary question about being a king of the Gypsies. “I am only king of my clan,” Michael explained. “Gypsies have many clans and many kings. Because of the recent increase in Gypsy migration to Britain, I was asked by the European Union to meet with these groups and establish their true destination.”

“Some say they’re bound for Canada.”

He nodded. “That’s what I was trying to determine. Tragically, these killings occurred before we could talk.”

“Do you believe it was an attempt to discourage Gypsy immigration?”

“I really don’t know. Right now I’m still trying to get over the terrible shock of this atrocity.”

Katie Blackthorn relaxed and allowed herself to smile. “Thank you, Mr. Vlado,” she said, and then after a pause, “That’s it, Dominick.” Dominick stopped filming and replayed the tape for her. Michael stayed to watch and heard her cell phone beeping. She took it from her duffel bag and answered with a touch of impatience. “Blackthorn here.” Apparently it was no one she knew and she seemed ready to hang up when something the caller said caught her interest. “Cubberth? How did you get my phone number?” Then, “All right. At the pier in an hour.”

She broke the connection and stowed away the phone. “A fan,” she told her cameraman. “The office gave him my number. Shoot some footage of the church and the town hall for atmosphere. I’ll see you back at the hotel around noon.”

Michael returned to the table and finished his breakfast. “That’s probably the first of many interviews you’ll be giving,” Jugger predicted.

“She seems nice enough. I’ll have to look for myself on the evening news.”

“I must report in to the immigration people about this business. Do you want to come along?”

Michael shook his head. “I’d rather look around the town. I came here to speak with Gypsies and I haven’t seen a live one yet.”

Their waitress brought them the check. “They just said on the telly the Prince of Wales is coming this afternoon to see the place where it happened!”

“The media will love that,” Colonel Jugger decided. “I understand they are even worse here than in Germany.”

Michael departed, feeling he’d better get started if he wanted to see anyone before the traffic jams began. The local police were already fighting a losing battle to keep the main streets passable. He intercepted one officer and asked directions to the local caravan site. “Straight down the road to the railroad tracks, then left for about a half-mile,” he said. “But you won’t find any Travelers there, if that’s what you’re looking for. They’ve all left town. Frightened, I suppose.”

Michael glanced at his watch and saw it was only ten-thirty. He set off for the site, following directions. When he reached it nearly twenty minutes later the field was indeed deserted, but he saw an elderly man with a thick cane walking about with a dazed look on his face. As he drew nearer, Michael could make out some intricate carvings on the cane. He had seen such canes before, carried by older Gypsies. “Pardon me,” he said. “Are you a Traveler?”

The man replied in a language Michael had never heard, and he switched to Romany, asking the question again. Still the old man talked on unintelligibly, and Michael remembered Jugger’s mention of a language called Shelta, spoken by some Travelers. “Shelta?” he asked.

The man’s face brightened for the first time, in recognition of the word. Michael tried Romany again, speaking more slowly. If there were Gypsies of many tribes here they must have some way of communicating. “What is your name?” he asked the man.

“Granza,” he said finally. “Where have my people gone?” His knowledge of Romany was faulty but understandable.

“You are Granza?”

A nod. “Granza Djuric. When I left yesterday the caravan was camped here.”

“There has been a terrible tragedy,” Michael tried to explain. “Many Gypsies newly arrived from Europe died here yesterday. Your people have fled.”

Suddenly a lone horseman appeared at the other end of the field, riding toward them. He was young, in his twenties, and wore a colorful shirt that caught the wind as he rode. “Granza!” he shouted as he approached.

“See?” Michael told the old man. “You are not forgotten!”

Granza Djuric smiled. “It is Dane, my grandson.”

As the rider dismounted, Michael greeted him. “Michael Vlado. I am king of a Rom tribe in the foothills of Romania. I have come here because of the immigrants.”

The young man, with curly black hair and a gold tooth that was visible when he smiled, shook hands. “I am Dane Morgan. We left at dawn and I thought my grandfather was in another caravan. We only now realized he was missing and I rode back for him.”

“You left because of the deaths?”

He nodded. “A terrible thing. Some people think we did it. Others believe we could be the next victims. Either way, it was time to move on.”

“It’s important the police find whoever is responsible. Someone may be trying to keep Roms from coming here.”

“We have not heard details, only that many people died.”

“Fifty-five in all,” Michael confirmed, “counting two volunteers who were staying with them. Poison gas was used.”

“My grandfather knows about that. He was at Auschwitz. He almost died there.”

“Have you heard anything at all? Did the residents of Starkworth resent the arrival of more Gypsies?”

“Some might have, but they were only here temporarily.” He thought for a moment. “There was one man...”

“Who?”

“His name was Cubber or Cubberth. He had a laboratory nearby and he manufactured drugs like LSD. Tried to sell us some a few weeks ago, but we sent him on his way.”

Where had he heard that name before? “A laboratory?”

“So he said. To him Travelers are nothing but fortune-tellers, beggars, and gamblers. He wanted money from us. And I heard him complaining about more Gypsies coming from Eastern Europe.”

“Cubberth.” Michael repeated the name. He remembered now. It was the person Katie Blackthorn had agreed to meet in one hour at the pier. Checking his watch again, he saw that it was a few minutes to eleven. If he hurried back he might be in time for that meeting. “Which way is the pier?” he asked Dane Morgan.

“Did you come from town?”

“From the hotel.”

“There’s a shorter way back to the pier.” He gave Michael careful directions and then helped his grandfather up onto the horse. “We’ll be camped tonight further west along the coast, near Whitstable,” he said. Michael waved as they rode away.

The Starkworth pier was about a hundred feet long and seemed to be a town fishing spot. There was a narrow rocky beach on either side, but nothing that would invite swimmers. Michael got there by eleven-fifteen and saw a lone fisherman out near the end, wearing a broad-brimmed hat that shielded his head against the noonday sun. Another man was just stepping onto the pier. He was balding, without a hat, and seemed a bit hesitant in his movements. Finally he headed toward the fisherman at the end of the pier.

For a moment Michael wondered if the fisherman might be Katie Blackthorn, disguising herself to hide from rival press people. But then he saw her come around the corner of a building, walking fast toward the pier, her knapsack over one shoulder. He moved quickly after her, but was too far away to beat her onto the pier. The balding man had reached the end and was seated next to the fisherman, his back against one of the wooden posts.

Michael was still only about halfway to the end of the pier when the television reporter reached the two men. He couldn’t quite see what she did because her body shielded them from Michael’s view. But he saw her jump back as if stung by some unseen hornet. The broad-brimmed hat the fisherman wore had fallen to the dock, and his jacket collapsed beneath it. Katie Blackthorn screamed and Michael broke into a run.

“What is it?” he called out as he reached her.

She turned to him, terrified. “He’s dead!”

“The fisherman?”

“There is no fisherman. I think this is a man named Cubberth.”

The balding man was slumped against the wooden post, his throat torn by a jagged weapon. At his feet lay a bloody fish scaler. Michael looked around. “I saw someone out here fishing.”

“A coat and hat were propped up with this broomstick. That is what you saw.”

“Then who killed him?”

“I have no idea.” She squinted at him in the sunlight. “You’re that Gypsy, Michael Vlado.”

“That’s right.”

She pulled the cell phone from her duffel bag and jabbed the button for the operator. “Police! It’s an emergency! There’s a dead man on the Starkworth pier.” Then, after being connected, she repeated the information, adding, “I’m a television journalist. My name is Katie Blackthorn. Yes, I’ll stay right here till you arrive.” She broke the connection and immediately punched in another number. “Dominick, I’m at the pier. Get down here with your camera right away!”

Within a minute they heard the sound of an approaching siren. “What are you doing here?” she asked Michael.

“I remembered Cubberth’s name from when he phoned you back at the hotel. I was questioning a local Traveler just now and the name came up. I decided to join your meeting with him.”

“How did his name come up?”

“I’d better wait and tell that to Inspector Drexell.”

The stocky Scotland Yard man was one of the first to arrive. “Were you together when you found him?” he asked Michael and the news-woman while his assistants were examining the body.

Michael explained that he arrived at the pier just as the victim was walking out toward the end. “I knew Cubberth had an appointment with Miss Blackthorn and I guessed this might be him. She was just a few seconds behind him.”

The inspector turned toward her. “Miss Blackthorn?”

“Cubberth phoned me at the hotel this morning. The station gave him my number. He claimed to have information about yesterday’s killings. He said he’d meet me here at the pier.”

“And what’s your connection with Cubberth?” he asked Michael.

“One of the Travelers told me he has a laboratory near here. He’s been making LSD and other chemicals. If he had something to tell the press, it might have involved the killings.”

The inspector nodded. Dominick had arrived with the video camera on his shoulder and was panning down the pier. “The body’s at the end,” Katie shouted. “Get down there!”

He hurried past them. “I was filming around the town hall like you said. I’ve got great footage for you.”

“Good! Now get me some blood and guts!”

“Is that what you want, Miss Blackthorn?” the inspector asked with a certain grimness. “Were fifty-five bodies not enough for you?”

“That’s — that’s so terrible my viewers will have trouble grasping it. A single body with his throat cut is more understandable.”

“Do I need to remind you that you seem to have been alone with the victim when he died? Mr. Vlado here saw him walk out on the pier ahead of you.”

“There was a fisherman at the end.” She gestured toward the body and the slouched stick-figure dummy. Dominick had paused in his filming, holding the camera against his striped T-shirt while he changed the video cartridge.

“Where is he now?” Inspector Drexell asked.

They gazed into the water together and Michael could see a flatfish gliding a few feet down near the stony bottom. Katie Blackthorn didn’t answer. Instead she said, “I went to the hospital this morning to see that injured orderly, Isaacson. He wasn’t there. He’d been released.”

Drexell nodded. “They kept him overnight but his lungs seemed all right. Having his head out the door saved his life.”

“I need to interview him.”

“Before either of you leave, I want the name of that Traveler, Mr. Vlado.”

“Dane Morgan. He’s with his grandfather, an old man named Granza Djuric. They may have already left Starkworth.”

“We’ll find him.”

Drexell started to turn away but Katie reminded him, “What about Isaacson? Where is he now?”

“At the command post we’ve set up on the top floor of the hotel. I believe Colonel Jugger is questioning him on behalf of the European Union.”

She shouted out to her cameraman, “Keep filming. I’ll meet you back at the hotel.” An ambulance crew had arrived to remove the body when the police finished. At the shore end of the pier uniformed police were keeping back the crowd.

They reached the hotel a little before noon. Without Drexell along, Michael doubted they’d be allowed to interview the massacre’s sole survivor, but Colonel Jugger arranged that. “He knows nothing, really, but you’re welcome to do an interview if he’s willing.”

Carl Isaacson was seated in a chair in one of the top-floor meeting rooms. His breathing was still a little raspy but he showed a vast improvement over the previous day. “You’re the one who was with Colonel Jugger yesterday,” he said, rising to shake Michael’s hand. “I don’t know how I survived that terrible thing.”

Katie Blackthorn immediately took over the interview. “What was it like in there when the gas started seeping through the ducts? Did you know what was happening?”

“Not at first. I heard some of the Gypsies starting to cough and choke. Then I saw Mrs. Withers, one of the volunteers, collapse on the floor. That’s when I realized something was wrong. I ran to call for help and collapsed in the doorway.”

“Do you have any idea who might have done this?”

“It had to be a terrorist,” Isaacson told them. “Or a madman. It doesn’t make much difference, does it?”

Someone turned on a television set and they saw the turmoil on the road north of town. The motorcade carrying the Prince of Wales was approaching, with television crews jockeying for the best positions. “He’ll come to the nursing home,” Katie decided. “That’s where it happened.” She called Dominick again on her cell phone and told him to get there with his camera. Jugger hurried outside to join the welcoming committee.

When Dominick arrived he handed her the tapes he’d shot in the town square and at the pier, then hurried out to join the others. “Do you have to get these tapes back to London?” Michael asked. The world of television news was a long way from his farm in Romania.

“No, no. We transmit them by satellite from our news van directly to the studio. Whatever we’re shooting now will be on the evening news, and I’ll do a live commentary to accompany it.”

Before he could say anything else, a line of black Rolls Royce limousines came into view. Bodyguards jumped out first, crowding around the central vehicle in the motorcade. Michael caught a glimpse of Colonel Jugger shaking the prince’s hand as the cameras rolled.

“I’d better get out there,” Katie said.

He stayed watching at the hotel window as the official party went down the street to the nursing home and stood before the building for more pictures. The entire visit meant very little from a practical point of view, but Michael was nevertheless grateful that the nation was officially acknowledging the enormity of the crime. Starkworth and what happened here would be remembered.

It was later in the afternoon, when the prince had completed his visit, that Inspector Drexell returned. Michael knew he was back as soon as Dane Morgan entered the hotel, accompanied by his grandfather. “So you found them,” he said to Drexell.

“It wasn’t difficult,” the Scotland Yard man told him. “You get to know the ways of these Travelers after a time.”

“Have you arrested them?”

“Dane Morgan is assisting with our inquiries.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” young Morgan insisted. “And neither has my grandfather. Why would we kill our own people?”

“Because they weren’t your people,” the inspector pointed out. “They were Gypsies from Eastern Europe, coming to take over the land that had always been yours.”

“Not quite. My grandfather came from the same area sixty years ago.”

There was more activity in the command post as several of the inspector’s men returned from another mission. He stepped out briefly to speak with them and then returned with Colonel Jugger trailing behind. “Where is Miss Blackthorn?” he asked, glancing around.

“Out in the news van reviewing the tapes she’s transmitting to London,” Michael told him.

“Good! This isn’t ready for the press yet.” He led Michael and the colonel aside, out of earshot of Dane and his grandfather. “London is demanding fast action and I think we have something. This fellow Cubberth, the one who was killed on the pier this morning — my men searched his house and found a small laboratory, just as Dane Morgan said. There were containers full of cyanide pellets and acid, just like the ones used at the nursing home. Cubberth’s our man. He may have cut his own throat on the pier this morning.”

“Then how would you explain the coat and hat on the stick? And why would he ask Katie to meet him if he was going to kill himself without making some sort of statement first?”

“What do you think happened?” Drexell asked, obviously anxious for some sort of quick resolution to the case. “Do you think she’s involved?”

“I don’t know. I think Cubberth supplied the chemicals to someone and that person used them. Then Cubberth was killed so he wouldn’t talk to the press. Once he saw what had happened with his chemicals, he wanted a way out for himself.”

More news was coming in and Drexell hurried off in answer to a summons. Michael went downstairs in search of Katie’s news van. The street between the hotel and the nursing home seemed to have grown a stand of trees during the day. Five vans were parked in a row. Their transmitting towers had been raised toward the heavens, seeking out satellites that would carry their pictures to London and beyond.

He found Katie Blackthorn’s van and peered inside. “Come in,” she told him. “I’ve had great news. We’re providing the feed for one of the big American networks!”

“Sounds good. What does it mean?”

“I’ll be on the telly in America, on their evening news. Here, look at this tape!” The segment started with a close-up of Katie, setting the scene. Then it cut to the center of town and the bell tower of the town hall. “He has some great footage here. Watch this.” At the stroke of noon, as the bells started ringing, a flock of birds took off from the tower, spiraling skyward. Then the scene shifted back to Katie, standing in front of the old nursing home. “That idyllic scene was shattered yesterday by an event that is already being dubbed the Starkworth Atrocity — the death by poison gas of fifty-three Gypsy immigrants and two volunteer aides.” She went on to run through the day’s events, including the unsolved murder of a local resident on the town’s pier. There was tape of the police at the pier and Cubberth’s body being removed. Then there was the arrival of the Prince of Wales, with footage of his remarks.

“This is the short version for America,” she explained. “It runs fifty seconds, which is all they can use. My London station will use lots more, of course. They’ll pick up a live feed from me in an hour.” The thing had become a media event. It was a matter of airtime rather than the deaths of all those people.

Her cameraman opened the door and called to Katie, “Something’s up! The inspector just came back again with some others. They were moving fast.”

She flipped off the switch on her video monitor. “Let’s go.”

Michael followed along as she broke into a run, followed by Dominick and his camera. There did seem to be some unusual activity at the hotel, and when they reached the elevator a Scotland Yard man with a clipboard blocked their paths. “Sorry, only authorized personnel allowed on the top floor. The dining room is closed this evening.”

“I’m Michael Vlado, with Colonel Jugger.”

“Katie Blackthorn, and this is my cameraman, Dominick Withers. We’re both on your list.”

The man smiled slightly. “Not on this list. No press allowed. You can go up, Mr. Vlado.”

“Michael!” she called after him. “I’ll wait for you in the bar!”

The elevator doors closed on him and he was whisked to the fifth floor. He entered the familiar conference rooms being used by the Scotland Yard investigators. Colonel Jugger and Inspector Drexell were seated across the desk from each other. “Michael, my friend,” Jugger began.

“What’s happened? What’s going on?”

“We have a serious situation here,” Drexell announced. “Some important information has reached us regarding a possible new suspect.”

“Do you mean the Traveler, Dane Morgan?”

“No, I mean Colonel Jugger.”

The shock went through Michael like an electric current. “That’s impossible! We were together every minute of the journey. At the time of the killings we would have been still in France, or just starting through your Chunnel.”

“Please hear me out,” the inspector said. “The facts we have uncovered are quite shocking. Colonel Jugger was born in Germany during the final days of World War Two. After the war his father was tried as a war criminal. The charges against him involved the gassing of hundreds of Gypsies at Auschwitz. He was convicted and given a life sentence, later commuted for health reasons. He was released from prison in nineteen seventy-one and died a year later. Is that correct, Colonel?”

“It is correct,” Jugger answered in a subdued voice. “Are the sins of the fathers to be visited on their sons?”

“After what happened to your father, you may have nursed a growing hatred for Gypsies.”

“On the contrary, I have devoted my life to erasing my father’s terrible crime.”

“But that crime was committed with the same weapon we see here at Starkworth. It seems like more than a coincidence.”

Michael had to interrupt. “How could he have been in two places at once, Inspector? I told you—”

“I think we’re agreed that Cubberth prepared the necessary chemicals at the urging, or in the employ, of someone else. Otherwise there’d be no reason for silencing him. Suppose we take that a step further. Perhaps he was paid to supply the chemicals and use them on the Gypsies at the nursing home. If Colonel Jugger paid him and arrived after the killings, he was truly above suspicion.”

“If, if!” Michael hit the desk with his fist. “You have no proof for any of this!”

“We have the physical evidence from Cubberth’s house. With a bit more searching I think we’ll turn up the name of the person who hired him.”

It was a corner conference room and Michael walked to the wide windows to stare out at the rolling sea, his mind in turmoil. Then, in the other direction, he could see dusk beginning to gather at the center of Starkworth. It was late now, and there were no birds visible on the town-hall bell tower.

Michael turned and walked back to the table. “Get the press up here and I’ll tell you who killed them all — the fifty-five people and Mr. Cubberth. I’ll tell you why too.”

Inspector Drexell resisted at first. It was obvious he was not about to release information to the press until he knew what it was. Finally Michael went off in a corner with him and talked for twenty minutes. Drexell sighed and stood up. “All right,” he agreed. “We’ll try it.”

Within a half-hour the upstairs conference room was crowded with journalists and video cameras. By this time a shroud of darkness was draped over Starkworth and the windows toward the sea showed only the room’s reflected lights.

Drexell stepped to the battery of microphones. “I’m pleased to introduce Mr. Michael Vlado, a representative of the European Union, who was present with Colonel Jugger when the atrocity was discovered yesterday afternoon. Mr. Vlado has been working closely with Scotland Yard on its investigation and has provided a theory involving the person responsible for this terrible crime. I’ll let Mr. Vlado explain it in his own words.”

Michael stepped to the microphones, glancing toward Katie Blackthorn in the first row of journalists. Colonel Jugger had gathered some of the others connected with the case too, and was just ushering Dane Morgan and his grandfather Granza into the room. One of the officers had brought Carl Isaacson, the tragedy’s sole survivor, up to the room too.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the press, you must excuse my English, which is not always perfect,” Michael told them. “I come from a remote farming village in Romania, and I have a deep and abiding interest in truth, justice, and brotherhood. I am myself a Gypsy, the king of my small tribe, but I have worked with the Romanian police and others in solving a number of crimes in the past. When I came here yesterday with Colonel Jugger to examine the problem of Gypsy immigrants, I never imagined I would find the horror that awaited us at the nursing home.”

Katie raised her hand with a question, but Michael said the time for questions would come later. “We all have questions, and perhaps the greatest is how anyone could commit such a terrible crime. It is reminiscent of the worst atrocities of the Second World War, when Jews and Gypsies at Auschwitz were gassed in this manner. That was our first question. Was this the work of a terrorist or a madman?

“A madman needs no rational motive, while for a terrorist the killings could have been a way of discouraging other Gypsy immigrants said to be on their way here.

“From my viewpoint, the first break in this case came earlier today when a local man named Cubberth was murdered on the town pier. I’d learned earlier that Cubberth was making LSD and other chemicals at a laboratory in his home, selling these things to local Travelers and others. Inspector Drexell’s men found evidence at Cubberth’s house that he had put together the chemicals responsible for the deaths of these fifty-five people. The killer had no doubt paid him to do it.”

This time Katie couldn’t be silenced. “How did you know Cubberth wasn’t the killer himself?” she called out.

Michael sighed and answered. “Because he called you to arrange a meeting at the pier this morning. What was he going to tell you? That he’d killed all those people? More likely he was going to supply knowledge of the crime, and the person behind it. This was confirmed to some extent when Cubberth himself was murdered at the end of the pier as you came to meet him.”

“But what happened to the killer?”

“His disappearance was really quite simple. The prop coat and hat shielded him from view. Cubberth walked out there, thinking it might be you seated there. The killer slit his throat and then simply slipped off the end of the pier into the water as you walked toward him. I noticed the water was only a few feet deep, and the killer simply walked back to shore beneath the pier. Your eyes were on Cubberth and that dummy coat and hat, and you never saw him. The same was true of me, as I followed you out there. The killer made his escape, but this murder provided the first clue I needed to his identity.”

“He left no clues,” Katie argued. It had become a dialogue between the two of them, recorded by the world’s press.

“Think back. How did the killer know Cubberth would be at the pier? Cubberth would hardly have told him, and I saw Cubberth myself walking onto the pier. The killer was already in place at the end, so he hadn’t followed his victim there. No, the killer must have known of the proposed meeting in advance. I was present when Cubberth called you after breakfast on your cell phone, just as you finished interviewing me. You didn’t tell me what it was about, but you mentioned Cubberth’s name and the time and place of the meeting. That was all the killer needed to hear.”

“But no one else was there,” she argued. “There were just the two of us!”

Michael shook his head. “There was one other person. Your cameraman, Dominick.”

As Michael uttered the words, Dominick stopped filming and dropped his camera. Every eye in the room was suddenly on him. “This is madness!” he rasped out angrily.

“Is it? The killer would have been soaking wet after wading ashore beneath that pier. You were wearing a rock-group T-shirt at breakfast but when Katie summoned you to the pier later to film the murder scene you’d changed to a striped T-shirt.”

He moistened his lips and moved forward a few steps. Behind him, Katie Blackthorn knelt silently to retrieve his camera. She hoisted it to her shoulder and started filming. “I wasn’t at the pier till after she called,” Dominick said. “I was in the square shooting footage of the town-hall tower. You can look at the tape.”

“I did,” Michael told him. “You shot it exactly at noon, with a flight of birds frightened by the tolling bells. A fine picture, but it proves you were there almost an hour after the murder, not while Cubberth was being killed.”

His face had gone white, and Inspector Drexell started toward him. “Why would I do such an insane thing?” he asked, as if he couldn’t quite understand it himself.

“I can’t explain it exactly,” Michael said. “But it wasn’t the Gypsies, was it? They were only a cover for your true motive, the sort of motive that might make some men blow up an airliner to kill just one person on it. A little while ago, when the officer stopped us at the door, Katie gave your name as Dominick Withers. One of the volunteers killed by the gas was a Mrs. Withers. Who was she? Your wife or ex-wife, perhaps?”

It was one revelation too many for him. Before Drexell or the others could move, he uttered a long scream and launched himself at the window overlooking the sea.

Katie Blackthorn caught it all on videotape, but in the end her station decided it would have been bad taste to show the suicide of a station employee on the evening news. She went back to London the following morning, and Colonel Jugger came to meet Michael for breakfast.

“It was his mother, not his ex-wife,” he told Michael. “I suppose we’ll never know any more than that. He lived in Maidstone, halfway to London, so it was easy for him to drive down here in a half-hour and set off Cubberth’s gas at the nursing home.”

“What now?” Michael asked, thinking about Katie Blackthorn.

“There’s another boatload of Gypsies crossing the channel. They land at Dover in less than an hour.”

Michael finished his coffee. “Let’s go.”