The Templar Cross by Paul Christopher Page B

Minnie Mouse ventriloquist’s dummy laid over the leather saddle of a battered and faded carousel horse. Ten of the fifty-kilo fish boxes were piled up in front of the merry-go-round figure. There was no sign of Felix Valador.
    Japrisot was standing in the middle of it all, the big pistol stuffed haphazardly into the sagging pocket of his jacket. He had a handkerchief in one hand and a bemused look on his face.
    “Good grief,” said Rafi, looking around at the array of exotic clutter.
    “Where is he?” Holliday asked, looking at Japrisot’s expression.
    The policeman eased his bulky figure down the central aisle of the little shop and stopped in front of a tall, dark oak armoire with carved bird and floral patterns on the doors. The triple-barrel hinges and the long, turned handles were brass. There was a single sunburst spot of blood on the floor in front of the armoire like a tiny crimson marker. Japrisot used the handkerchief on the door handles and pulled the doors open.
    “Voilà,” said the policeman.
    Valador was crouched inside the armoire, knees drawn up under his chin, head bent forward and twisted to one side, one hand under his buttocks, the other between his upraised knees. One eye was wide open and the other half closed in a grotesque parody of a wink. Bizarrely, an obviously fake ruby the size of a robin’s egg was neatly balanced in the dead man’s earlobe.
    Holliday squatted and took a closer look.
    “I don’t see any wound,” he said.
    “Strangled?” Rafi suggested calmly. As an archaeologist he’d seen hundreds of dead bodies in his time, but generally not so fresh as Valador’s. The eyeballs were only just beginning to glaze and shrink in their sockets. “And what’s with the plastic ruby?”
    “There’s no sign of a struggle,” answered Japrisot. “And there wasn’t time. Strangulation is a very slow way of murdering someone.” The policeman grimaced. “Also, his face would have become purple and his tongue would be sticking out.” The Frenchman shook his head. “It was quick and it was a surprise.”
    The blaring first chords of ABBA’s “Mama Mia!” boomed out. It was the ring tone of Japrisot’s cell phone. He dragged the cell out of his pocket and held it to his ear.
    “Oui?”
    He listened, staring down at Valador’s corpse and plucking a fleck of cigarette tobacco from his fleshy lower lip.
    “D’accord,” he said after a few moments.
    He closed the cell phone and slipped it back into his pocket. He cleared his throat.
    “According to my people the couple in the Audi are Antonin Pesek and his Canadian-born wife, Daniella Kay. They live on Geologika Street in the Barrandov district of Prague. They are contract killers. Assassins. They work regularly all over Europe. The Peseks, en famille , have worked for everyone from the East German Stasi to the Albanian Sigurimi. Monsieur Pesek’s weapon of choice is a short-barreled CZ-75 automatic pistol. His wife prefers ornamental plastic hatpins. They go right past the metal detectors at airports. Apparently she is quite the artist. In her file it uses the phrase ‘surgically precise.’ ”
    Japrisot crouched down on his haunches beside Holliday and, still using the handkerchief, he gripped the ruby in Valador’s ear between his thumb and forefinger. He tugged. The ruby slid out along with six inches or so of clear Lucite plastic. The hatpin made a slight grating sound as it was withdrawn from Valador’s head, like someone chewing on a mouthful of sand. He held it up to the light. It was lightly greased with brain matter. A trickle of pink, watery blood drained out of Valador’s ear.
    “Surgically precise, indeed,” murmured Japrisot, squinting at the needle-like murder weapon. “Into the middle ear and then through the temporal bone to the brain via the internal auditory nerve canal.” The policeman nodded thoughtfully to himself. “It would take a great deal of skill.”
    “You sound as though you know your