For the double Jacks who showed
what being young at heart is all about
And to my fellow Danube cyclists: Bill, Brian, Carol, Carolyn, Declan, Derek, Don, Em, George, Heather, Jacqueline, Jim, Logan, Lynda, Marian, Mark, Marlys, Michelle, Rob, Roberta, Sandie, Shirley, Wayne.
Copyright © D’Arcy Kavanagh
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the author, or in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency is an infringement of the copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, events and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 9781483578873
Published by BookBaby
Cover photo by D’Arcy Kavanagh
www.wowtours.com
Previous Paul Burke mysteries by D’Arcy Kavanagh:
The Bastard is Dead
A Vintage End
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Dedication
Copyright
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Epilogue
Postscript
New Paul Burke Mystery
About the author
Foreword
The Danube is Europe’s second longest river after the Volga, extending 2,860 kilometres and passing through Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and the Ukraine. For millennia, people have lived by the river, using it for a variety of purposes. These days, it’s a busy waterway for trade and tourism.
Cycling along the Danube has become popular since the 1990s with a trail system extending in one form or another along much of its route. The best part is arguably the stretch between Passau in southeastern Germany and Vienna in eastern Austria. The distance is often covered along paved, dedicated bike paths. It goes through dozens of small, beautiful communities, each of which has its own unique story. It’s a wonderful journey, one of the best on the continent.
But when murder occurs, all the good times are forgotten.
As Paul Burke discovers.
Chapter 1
It was the fifth morning of the 10-day, team-building exercise and the group of participants, their aides, their families and tour staff continued the routine that had been established at the outset.
After a buffet breakfast on their Danube cruise ship named the Sunna after a Germanic goddess, the 15 participants collected their high-end rental bicycles and gathered by the river’s edge for their day’s instructions. Their supporters came, too.
They were in the picturesque village of Dürnstein, one of the most famous in Austria thanks to the castle ruins that towered above the tiny riverside community and where Richard the Lionheart had been held captive nine centuries earlier. In any photographic representation of the Austrian Danube, Dürnstein was sure to be included.
Ex-pro cyclist Paul Burke stood near the participants. He had earned a gig as a tour guide partly due to his cycling blogs and columns for a group of French Riviera newspapers, and partly due to his notoriety in helping solve some recent murders in southern France. It also helped that the CEO for Worldwide Events Consulting Inc., which was sponsoring the trip, was a cycling fan who knew Burke’s name.
As Burke waited for the start of the day’s activities, he studied the people around him, trying to ensure he remembered everyone’s name. Every day, he went through the roster of participants, trying to embed into his brain not just their identities but their basic work backgrounds. These were high-powered people used to being acknowledged and his job required him to give them plenty of attention. It wasn’t easy, though. He had never been good with names and there were a lot of people in the group if you counted family and aides.
But he was getting better. He silently ticked off the individuals: David Fraser the quiet Englishman, Eric Chapman the affable Canadian, Roger Langford the outgoing Aussie, Ingrid Froon the businesslike Dutchwoman, Niklaus Gast the aristocratic Swiss, Hoshiko Kimura the intense Japanese and so on.
They were all executives with Worldwide Events Consulting which was based out of Switzerland and which helped organize all types of events around the world. They came from nine nations ̶ England, France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States ̶ and were between 35 and 60. Most spoke at least three languages fluently.
When he had satisfied himself that he had everyone right, he started putting names to the families and aides, a much tougher task and one he doubted he’d master before the end of the tour in Vienna in a few days.
Renata Hable, the group’s facilitator, broke into his mental work by announcing it was time to begin.
“We’ve covered how to pace ourselves and how to work more efficiently for better results,” said Hable, a tall, blonde Dutchwoman in her early 40s who also led the group on its daily rides. “Today’s goal is to work on sacrificing ourselves for the team.”
She was speaking English since all the participants had at least a decent grasp of the language.
Then she discussed how cycling’s “domestiques” or workers often had to forgo their own ambitions for those of the team and, more specifically, for the team leader. That meant protecting the leader against the wind, and collecting water bottles and food gels from the team car and then delivering them to the stars of the team.
“If those domestiques don’t contribute, the leader doesn’t win,” Ha
ble said. “It’s hard, thankless work, but it’s necessary.”
As she continued her presentation about the day’s activities which involved everyone taking turns delivering water bottles to team members, Burke glanced at the participants near him. So far, they had followed Hable’s directions each day without protest although they had done so without much enthusiasm. They seemed equally involved this morning.
But team players? Not a chance, Burke thought.
However, it didn’t really matter to him. His job was simple: Bring up the rear, ensure everyone rode safely, provide direction when necessary, repair any basic mechanical issues and, at the end of the day’s ride, critique how the group had done following Hable’s directions. Since he rode behind everyone, he had the best view of how they performed.
Each day, they had listened to Burke, but he knew most of them had likely been thinking about other matters as he had spoken; several times, he had caught a participant glancing down at a cellphone while he talked.
The only time any of the group members had shown a modicum of interest in him was when the Frenchman recalled Burke’s involvement in helping solve two murders associated with the Tour de France and then two deaths connected to a series of vintage bicycle races several months later. The Frenchman, the German and the Canadian had asked a few questions about the cases. Unwilling to relive those events in detail, Burke had supplied short, simple responses which had quickly ended the discussion.
The others hadn’t cared. He was just the hired help, the guy who rode in the back and contributed few insights.
Burke felt someone come up beside him.
It was his friend Claude Brière, still dressed in his navy-blue chef’s jacket which made him look like some kind of 18th century soldier.
Burke had lobbied successfully to have Claude added to the tour staff as a chef. His friend was a culinary talent of the first order, but he had already contributed in more ways than by simply preparing meals. When he wasn’t working in the ship’s kitchen with another chef, a quiet Austrian named Reinhard, and their staff of 10, Claude had gone out of his way to engage with the riders, their staff and families. And his efforts had been successful because they had been charmed by his outgoing personality and his keen interest in their pursuits. Burke hadn’t been surprised. Claude loved the company of people and the art of good conversation.
He was also an ex-convict who had done time for recommending violent action against a development company. However, the tour’s organizers had still hired him, thanks to Burke’s recommendations and to Claude’s exemplary post-prison behaviour. Not surprisingly, neither the organizers nor Claude advertised his criminal past.
“They look truly interested today,” Claude whispered to Burke in French.
From the grin on Claude’s face, Burke knew he was being sarcastic.
The group swelled with more family members showing up. There were now about 90 people listening to Hable’s final words.
Then from high above the village came a voice.
“Did anyone hear what was being yelled?” asked the American.
“No.”
“Too far away.”
“It wasn’t clear enough to understand.”
The voice sounded again.
This time it was louder.
“Help!”
Everyone understood this time.
Chapter 2
The two police officers assigned to accompany the group on motorcycles exchanged a couple of words and then one dashed off, obviously to check on what was happening high above Dürnstein.
Burke watched as Thierry Delisle, the tour manager, came over and took Renata Hable to one side. Along with Burke, they worked for FWC Specialty Tours which had been contracted by Worldwide Events Consulting to organize and supervise the trip. Obviously, Delisle had concerns he didn’t want to share with anyone but Hable.
“Now what?” Claude asked Burke.
“Good question,” Burke replied.
After a few seconds, Delisle left Hable and went to the remaining police officer, a husky man in his late 30s. They walked a few paces farther away from the main group.
Burke could hear some of the participants discussing what would happen next. A couple of them sounded like they wouldn’t mind if the day’s ride was cancelled. The notion of ferrying water bottles to other cyclists seemed to hold little appeal to them.
A minute later, the police officer, with Delisle at his side, walked into the middle of the group. “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” the flic said in a booming voice. “Before we start today’s ride, we need to wait a few minutes to learn what has happened above us. It’s just a precautionary measure.”
Burke could hear some grumbling from nearby participants and their aides.
Delisle waved a hand to get everyone’s attention. “We don’t expect the delay will be more than a half hour. Once we get clearance, we’ll proceed with today’s plans.” He suggested participants could relax or return to the cruise ship if they wanted. “But please be here in a half hour so we can announce what will be happening.”
More grumbling followed.
Burke thought the alpha dogs were unhappy about not being in control.
Then the group slowly started to split apart with a dozen or so people returning to the ship, a few strolling toward the village and the majority just milling about.
Renata Hable came over to Burke and Claude. “I’m going to walk around and visit with our clients and their families. You know, keep them happy. If you could both do the same, it might help to keep emotions under control.”
Burke smiled at that one.
“We all know how demanding some of these people can be,” Hable added. “Just do the best you can.” Putting on a smile, she left to chat up the nearest clients.
Burke liked her. She was intelligent and intuitive; she could read a group like she could a road map. She also excelled at making people relax when the time came to take the throttle off the day’s activities. As for her cycling capability, Burke was impressed by her strength, stamina and bike-handling. Being Dutch, she had grown up on a bike. More than that, though, she had competed in national races as a young woman. Burke thought she rode superbly at the front of the group.
Hable was also attractive with a lean, lanky build and a face that featured light-blue eyes and sharp cheekbones.
Burke had caught Claude admiring her several times.
To Burke’s knowledge, she didn’t have a partner or spouse but he could be wrong. She was all business, even with the witticisms.
Burke looked at Claude.
His friend was studying Hable as she chatted with several participants and their families. “Our Renata is a woman of elegance, Paul,” Claude said in a low voice. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was French, from the south.”
They split up and went to talk with some participants and their families. Burke wasn’t comfortable doing it, but he managed to put people at ease by putting the focus on them; it seemed most in the group were happy to discuss themselves.
While he was talking with the Aussie participant Roger Langford, a burly, red-haired individual who looked like he belonged in a rugby scrum instead of a boardroom, Burke spotted the nearby policeman talking on the phone and frowning as he did so. Then he nodded a couple of times and ended the call. He didn’t look pleased.
In another few minutes, everyone was back to learn what would happen the rest of the day. After scanning all the faces, the officer asked once more for the group’s attention. “The reason for the noise we heard a few minutes ago is that a tourist has discovered a body by the castle above us. Unfortunately, it is someone known to some of you ̶ Wilson Talbot.”
“Oh, no,” gasped a woman behind Burke.
“Are you sure?” asked David Fraser, one of the two English participants.
“Yes,” the police officer replied. “There’s no doubt.”
“What happened?”
Fraser said.
“There’ll be an investigation to determine the details. We have consulted with our superiors and it’ll be necessary for everyone to remain in Dürnstein for at least another day and maybe even two days. We’ll be interviewing a number of you as part of our investigation. It’s a matter of procedure.”
“Are you saying he was killed?” Fraser said.
“At this time, we can’t say anything about the cause of Herr Talbot’s death.”
There was a pause and Thierry Delisle took control. “If you’re worrying about the cruise ship, it will remain here with us. You’ll have no issue with coming and going. We’ll also follow our normal schedule for meals.”
“So, we’re not riding to our next destination today?” asked the American, Kendall Young.
“No, it won’t be possible,” the police officer said. “We have a couple of officers coming in from Krems to help with interviews and we’ll require all of you to be available starting this afternoon.”
“That works for me,” Young said.
Burke saw Young smile slightly, an expression which didn’t go unnoticed by most of the other participants, their families and aides.
It was one more mark against Young who had made himself disliked from the first day when he had complained that his cabin aboard the cruise ship wasn’t large enough, and then had criticized other riders for their lack of fitness and targeted Renata Hable for fuzzy explanations about the group’s goals. Burke thought all of Young’s remarks had been misplaced; the cabins were spacious and even luxurious, the participants had reasonable fitness which they had demonstrated from the outset, and Hable’s directions and explanations had been precise and clear.
Burke thought Young liked to create trouble.
Chapter 3
The police officer and Thierry Delisle finished their comments, but no one left. They just stood there, exchanging stunned looks and obviously wondering what to do next.
“You can go,” the flic said. “We’re done here.”
That triggered a mass exodus with nearly everyone heading toward the Sunna. As they jostled to get aboard the gangplank, Burke thought that the ship probably felt like a refuge from the dangers of the outside world.