The Memorist

Chapter 58

Tuesday, April 29^th-7:50 p.m.

During the question-and-answer session with the soft-spoken inspector at the police station in town, neither Meer nor Sebastian said anything about the parchment she’d discovered. Sebastian improvised that they’d been in the woods on a Beethoven pilgrimage when they’d been mugged. When the time came, he looked through his wallet and told the policeman the thief had taken over a hundred and fifty euros and a gold signet ring off his right hand.

After an hour the inspector apologized profusely for what had befallen them in his town and said they were free to go. He told them he would be in touch if they found any of the stolen items.

Inside the car, Sebastian locked the doors and sat for a moment as if trying to gather the strength to turn on the ignition. Not until he’d driven out of town did he speak and then it was in a low voice filled with remorse. “I feel responsible for what happened tonight and don’t know what to say other than I am so very sorry. With everything that has already happened, how could I have been so cavalier? You are in terrible danger, Meer. You have to be careful. We have to be careful.”

“I didn’t take it seriously enough but when we were in town before we walked into the woods, I sensed if someone was watching us.”

“They must have followed us here from Vienna.” He rubbed his temple.

“Are you all right?”

“I suppose I hit my head when I fell.” He waved it off. “What matters is that Beethoven hid the music and you found it. Not by chance or by accident, you knew exactly where it was. You probably know where the flute is too.”

Meer shook her head. “I don’t.”

“Not consciously, but you must.”

She didn’t want that to be true; it was hard to accept that she was unable to remember what she couldn’t forget. The damned conundrum that had shaped her life. “Come on, the flute could be anywhere.”

“Not really. There was a clue to where the music was in the letter, now that we can look back. ‘I have given it to our lord and savior. The same who sanctified and blessed our love.’ It’s clear now. The little chapel in the woods must have been one of Beethoven’s trysting places with Antonie. Beethoven hid the key in the Heart Crypt and left a clue to that in the letter. So it follows that there’s a clue to where the flute is.”

His cell phone rang. Meer couldn’t understand the ensuing conversation but she had no trouble recognizing the anxious tone his voice took on.

“My son isn’t well,” he told her after he hung up. His hands clenched the wheel and the intensity drained the blood from his knuckles. “It’s pneumonia, which can be dangerous for anyone, but even more so for him because he’s so unresponsive. Let me drop you off and then-”

“Isn’t the hospital on the way back into town? I’ll go with you and get a taxi from there.”

They were traveling over a hundred miles an hour and Meer reminded herself that it was all right to go that fast-until the rain started up again. First it was just a few droplets splashing on the windshield that the wipers took care of, but then the shower intensified. So for a few seconds the road was clear, then it blurred again. Swish. Clear. Blur. Swish. Clear. Blur.

There weren’t any other cars on the road and without ambient lights, Sebastian’s headlights only offered visibility a few yards ahead. He took one sharp turn. The next was more harrowing. It wouldn’t make any difference if she asked him to slow down; he had to get to his child.