The Furies by Irving McCabe Read Free Book Online Page B

everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
    The entrance to Schiller’s café swung open with a clatter, the entry bell clanging violently as the door slammed against the frame.
    A slim young man in a scruffy dark suit rushed out of the café and ran up to the car.
    The man lifted his hand and pointed a small black pistol at the car’s occupants.
    There was the sharp crack of two shots fired in quick succession.
    A woman on the pavement nearby screamed and several bystanders rushed to overpower the man.
    Potiorek was gesticulating wildly and Colonel Harrach was leaning protectively over the Archduke as the car’s engine howled and the vehicle turned back into the embankment. Then with a screech of rubber it drove towards the Latin Bridge and accelerated south over the Miljacka River, followed a moment later by the second car.
    Gabriel – in shock – turned to look at the chief. ‘My God, do you think he hit anybody?’
    The chief’s eyes were wide, his face pale. ‘I’m not sure…he was only a few feet away from the car.’
    â€˜Where have they gone? That’s the wrong way for the hospital.’
    The chief had already begun to jog towards the Latin Bridge. ‘I think they must have driven to the Konak,’ he shouted as Gabriel ran after him. ‘I can’t think where else they’d take them.’
    â€˜I’ll go ahead,’ Gabriel said, as he sprinted past the chief and onto the Latin bridge. He ran across to the far side, and then another fifty yards along a narrow street, before ducking left into a side alley that he knew led past the Emperor’s Mosque. With the green dome and spire of the mosque behind him now, he ran through a small side street that brought him to a set of open metal entrance gates and the grounds of the Konak.
    Running across the oval lawn in front of the building, Gabriel saw the dark green convertible parked at the bottom of the short flight of steps that led up to the Konak entrance. As he neared the vehicle he could see it was empty, all doors ajar, the engine still running. He stopped for a moment and saw a bullet hole in the rear passenger door, green feathers scattered on the rear leather seat, and bloody footprints on the silver running board outside the car. Someone had definitely been wounded: was it Colonel Harrach, who had been standing on the running board when the shots were fired? Gabriel heard a shout and turned to see the chief jogging across the lawn towards him, the older man puffing heavily as he tried to keep pace.
    â€˜There’s blood in the car,’ Gabriel shouted back before striding up the white marble steps that led to the Konak entrance. And now he saw that there was more blood on the steps; fat clots of it, like some strange species of purple slug, which glistened against the brilliant white of the stone.
    He ran to the heavy oak door, which was ajar, and hurried inside the building. The white tiled surface of the Konak’s lobby was streaked with blood and a single ladies’ dress shoe lay forlornly in the middle of the floor. A staircase at the back of the lobby was also splashed with blood and Gabriel followed the trail, taking the steps three at a time.
    He was breathing hard by now, and on the landing at the top of the steps he took a moment to catch his breath. But then he heard voices coming from an open door nearby, and he hurried through to find himself inside a bedroom. From the oil portrait that hung on the wall Gabriel guessed it was General Potiorek’s bedroom. But it was the bed that grasped his attention; for lying on top of the bedspread, in a heavily blood-stained white silk dress, was the wife of the Archduke.
    Two aides were attending her: the first, an older woman with a tear-streaked face, was leaning on her abdomen, pressing down in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood. The other aide, a younger man, was hunched over the duchess’s face, his ear close