The driver let me out some distance from the house. After I had paid him I was broke again; I suspected he had overcharged me, but I didn’t feel like arguing with him. The river glittered in the sunlight and the sky was a pale clear blue. I walked slowly, trying to figure out my next move.
Had they carried or enticed Schmidt off to a ‘safe place’ too? If he wasn’t at the house I had no idea where to start looking for him, but there was reason to hope they would consider him harmless and not bother to imprison him. No doubt they had concocted a convincing explanation for my failure to return the night before. My escape had changed the picture, though. Feisal had had plenty of time to report it, and they would certainly expect me to turn up. John knew I wouldn’t leave Schmidt in the lurch.
It all made sense to me at the time. So, I wasn’t thinking too clearly. I was tired and hungry and thirsty and worried sick about Schmidt. And even if I had known what I was soon to discover, I don’t know what I could have done about it. Getting Schmidt out would still have been my first priority.
I had considered somewhat vaguely the minor problem of how I was going to get past the gate or over the wall. It would have to be the gate – I hadn’t the time or the equipment for climbing a wall topped with broken glass and barbed wire – and I didn’t suppose for a moment that I could enter without identifying myself. My plan, if it could be called that, was simple: get inside. After that . . . I had not the slightest idea what I was going to do after that. Oh, well, I thought. Fortune favours the brave and the meek shall inherit the earth, and, more to the point, there was a nice little gun in my bag. I might even have to use the damned thing – if it was still in the wardrobe where I had left it, and if I could get to it before I was caught.
When I reached the entrance I had my first piece of luck – and high time, too. Two large vans and a pickup truck were waiting outside the gate. The vans were closed, but the back of the pickup was open. It was also full – of men, locals by their clothing. Some were sitting down, others leaned against the sides of the truck.
They were delighted to see me and not inclined to ask unimportant questions. Or maybe they did ask questions. They certainly didn’t get any answers. I grinned ingratiatingly and held up my hands. A dozen brawny brown arms assisted me over the tailgate and a couple of the lads obligingly made room for me when I indicated my intention of sitting down. How true it is that language is no barrier to friendship! By the time the truck reached the house we were close buddies. Very close. I had to detach quite a few friendly arms before I could get out, but they accepted my departure with grins and shrugs and affectionate farewells.
With what I hoped was an insouciant smile, I strolled past the packers and entered the house. Once inside, I stopped being insouciant and ran along the corridor and up the first flight of stairs. My only hope, if there was hope, lay in speed. The servants probably weren’t in on the deal, but if one of the others caught sight of me I was dead meat.
I reached Schmidt’s door unobserved – I hoped – and turned the knob. The door wouldn’t open. My brain wasn’t working at top efficiency. All I could think was that they’d locked him in, that he was a prisoner. It took several important seconds for me to notice that the key was in the lock, and several equally vital seconds for my sweating fingers to turn it.
The room was empty. Not only was Schmidt not there, his clothes and luggage were gone too. I checked the wardrobe to be sure, but one glance had been enough; Schmidt can’t occupy a room for five minutes without littering every surface with his possessions.
The hinges of the door had been well oiled. If I hadn’t been looking in that direction I wouldn’t have known it was opening again. I made a wild grab for the nearest hard object – a brass vase, intricately worked in enamel and silver.
John slid through the narrow opening and eased the door shut. He wasn’t as neat as usual; his shirt was dusty and there was a cobweb in his hair. ‘Put that down,’ he said softly.
I brandished the vase. ‘What have you done with Schmidt? If you’ve hurt him – ’
‘He’s left.’ John kept a wary eye on my impromptu weapon. ‘Of his own free will and under his own steam.’
‘I’ve figured it out,’ I said.
‘Have you indeed?’
‘Yes. How you ever expected to get away with a stunt like this . . .’
He was trying, with great difficulty, to control his temper I knew the signs – the flexed hands, the taut muscles of the jaw. When he spoke his voice shook with fury but it was the same almost inaudible murmur. ‘For Christ’s sake, Vicky, won’t you ever learn? I don’t know how you got in here – ’
‘Don’t you? You were waiting for me.’
‘In that closet across the hall, to be precise. I was informed you’d got away, and although I hoped I was wrong for once, I had a strange foreboding you’d do something like this. Now get the hell out of here. If you can.’
I gave him back stare for stare. My teeth were clenched so hard my jaws hurt. I had no intention of going out of that door with John standing by, or of turning my back on him for so much as a split second. After a moment his hands relaxed and he lifted his shoulders in a shrug. ‘If that’s how you want it,’ he said, and turned his back.
He couldn’t have heard me; I was wearing sneakers and the rug was thick. He couldn’t have seen me; there was no surface to reflect my movement. He just knew. His lifted arm struck mine with a jarring force that made me lose my grip on the vase. It clattered to the floor and I stumbled back, trying to elude those agile, reaching hands. I knew it was wasted effort but I went on squirming and struggling, even after he had pinioned my arms and clapped a hard hand over my mouth. He had lost the remains of his temper, his face was flushed, and he was hurting me. His nails dug into my cheek. I felt tears of pain and fury welling up in my eyes.
He took his hand from my mouth and relaxed his grip a little, but not enough to enable me to free myself. ‘You dim-witted twit, I’m trying to get you out of this. If you yell I’ll squeeze your silly neck.’
Since his fingers were now wrapped around my throat I didn’t doubt he could – or would – carry out the threat. I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax, leaning against him. The angry colour faded from his face and the corners of his mouth turned up.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ he murmured.
I wasn’t thinking at all. His hand had moved from my throat to my cheek, long fingers twisting through my hair, tilting my head back.
I hate to think how I must have looked – lips parted, eyes half-closed . . . They weren’t quite closed, though, and I was facing the door. The sudden alteration of my expression, from vacant acquiescence to shamed horror, was sufficient warning. He let me go and spun around.
She was wearing dark pants and a loose linen jacket that made her look like a little girl dressed in her big brother’s clothes. Her hair was tied back with an amber-gold scarf. It matched the colour of her wide, unblinking eyes.
‘Why, it’s you, Vicky,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come back.’
‘If I had ever seen murder in a man’s eyes . . .’ I had read that trite phrase Lord knows how many times in Lord knows how many thrillers, and taken it for a figure of speech. It wasn’t a figure of speech. I saw it now.
He moved so quickly I barely reacted in time, catching his upraised arm with both hands. ‘For God’s sake, John!’
He threw me off with a single snap of flexed muscles, like a man dislodging a snake or venomous insect. I staggered back, slipped, and sat down with a thud. I didn’t hear the shot but I heard him scream and saw him fall, his body curling into a hard knot of pain.
So that was what a silencer looked like, I thought, staring at the gun in Mary’s dainty hand. For some reason I’d expected it would be bigger.
Her lips parted, and out came a string of obscenities that shocked me almost as much as what she’d just done. It was like hearing Dorothy cursing Uncle Henry and Auntie Em. Her pink mouth wasn�
��t pretty now, it had the grotesque shape of a Greek Fury’s, and her eyes were as opaque as coffee caramels.
‘Damn him! Why’d he have to get in the way?’ She turned those yellow-brown eyes towards me and the look in them made me shrink back. That pleased her. ‘Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. He won’t be going anywhere for a while, and you wouldn’t leave him, would you? See what you can do for him. I’d hate to have him die. I have plans for you, Vicky dear, and it won’t be nearly so much fun if John isn’t there to watch.’
The door closed. The key turned in the lock.
John sat up. ‘Missed,’ he said with satisfaction.
I stared at the spreading stain on his sleeve. ‘Missed?’ I croaked.
‘She meant to do a bit more damage than this.’
He didn’t have to elaborate. She must have known the only way she could stop him was to put a bullet in one or the other of us, and she probably didn’t care which. If he hadn’t pushed me away . . .
And if I hadn’t interfered he could have stopped her, before she aimed and fired.
Out of all the questions boiling in my overheated brain I fished the least important. ‘Is she pregnant?’
‘Not by me, at any rate.’ John didn’t look up. He was concentrating on rolling up his sleeve, and not doing a very good job of it.
‘Are you trying to tell me you didn’t . . . You never . . .’
‘As you have had occasion to observe, my principles are somewhat elastic, but there are some things at which even I draw the line. All other considerations aside . . .’ He glanced at me from under his lashes. ‘All other considerations aside, I’d as soon bed a black widow spider. If you don’t believe me, and you probably don’t, I can produce witnesses. Max and Whitbread took turns spending the night with us. Cosy little arrangement . . . Would you mind helping me with this? She’ll be back before long, and it would not be a good idea for either of us to be here when that event occurs.’
He had a point. I hoisted myself up and went to investigate the medicine cabinet. It was well equipped. You’d have thought they were expecting a small war.
I slapped some gauze and tape over the bloody furrow the bullet had left. ‘How are you planning to get out of this room?’ I asked. ‘The door’s locked.’
‘With these handy little devices you were clever enough to bring along.’ John plucked one of the pins out of my hair.
‘Was that why you . . . Ow! That’s the one with the hook on the end, it’s caught – ’
‘One of the reasons.’ His fingers brushed my cheek in a caress so fleeting I might have imagined it. ‘You do it, then. I haven’t had much practice at this, since I usually keep my lock picks elsewhere. Thank you.’
He knelt by the door and started poking at the lock. ‘Maybe we should start thinking about where we’re going after we get out,’ I said uneasily.
‘The operative word, my love, is “out.”’ He seemed to be having some trouble, possibly because he was perspiring heavily, despite the comfortably cool temperature of the room. ‘Mary won’t be pleased when she finds us gone.’
‘Is she in love with you?’
The pick slipped and rattled onto the floor. ‘Bloody hell,’ said John between his teeth. ‘Keep your grisly suggestions to yourself, will you? If I believed that were the case I’d cut my throat and be done with it. No . . .’ Something clicked, and his fingers tightened. ‘Her motive is much simpler. She blames me – correctly, I must admit – for her brothers’ death.’
‘Her brother . . .’
‘Brothers. Two of them.’ After a brief pause he said resignedly, ‘The fat’s deep in the fire now, so I may as well abandon reticence. Or have you enough clues to reason it out for yourself? Two brothers, a strong streak of homicidal mania, and those bright, empty brown eyes . . .’
It was true; I’d only known one other person with eyes of that unusual golden brown. When I first met him, in Stockholm, I had thought him a gorgeous specimen of Nordic manhood, built like a Viking, and tall – really tall. It’s hard to find men who are six inches taller than I am. I had been prepared to overlook the fact that Leif’s sense of humour was practically nonexistent, but when I found out he was Max’s boss and one of the gang, I sort of lost my girlish enthusiasm.
John had been responsible for Leif’s death. In this case my objection to murder had been overcome by the fact that Leif had been trying to kill me, and would undoubtedly have succeeded if John hadn’t intervened.
‘You didn’t kill Georg,’ I said, watching his hands twist and press. ‘Or did you?’
‘No. His cellmate did him in, rather messily, last year. However, since I was partially responsible for sending him away she has some justice on her . . . Ah. There we are.’
He handed me the pins.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked: ‘I know – out. How?’
‘Any ideas?’ John peered cautiously through the slit in the opening door.
‘My room. I want to get my purse.’
‘You won’t need a purse if we don’t make it out of here,’ was the depressing response.
‘My room has a balcony. Someone is sure to spot us if we go through the house.’
‘Point taken. Come on, then.’
My door was locked too. John left the key in place after he had turned it.
I offered him the lock picks. ‘If they find the door is still locked, they may not look in here.’
‘Once they discover we’ve gone they’ll look everywhere.’ He headed for the balcony. ‘You might have mentioned it’s a thirty-foot drop,’ he said, returning.
‘I assumed you knew.’ We were both whispering. Footsteps had passed my door without stopping, but I had a feeling they’d soon be back. ‘Knot some sheets together.’
‘Trite, but worth a try. Now what the hell are you doing?’
‘Looking for my bag. Maybe I put it in the wardrobe.’
I’d been expecting it, but I started convulsively when it came – a wordless, genderless shout of rage, hardly muted by the heavy door. The response was just as audible. ‘You two cover the doors. They may not have left the house.’
I recognized that voice, though it had been several years since I’d heard it. I froze, my fingers clutching the strap of my bag. John grabbed me around the waist, trying, as I thought, to pull me towards the balcony. Instead he lifted me, shot me into the wardrobe, and closed the door.
And locked it. I couldn’t imagine how, I hadn’t seen a key or a keyhole, but when I shoved at the damned thing it didn’t budge. Then I stopped shoving. I also stopped breathing. The door of the room had burst open.
Maybe they’d look under the bed first. The wardrobe would certainly be next, there was no place else to hide, and they were obviously thorough, well-organized chaps. And while they searched for me – and found me – John would have time . . .
He had time. He was as agile as a cat; he could have dropped from the balcony and taken his chances on breaking a rib or two. I would have risked it, given the alternative. He didn’t. I stood there in the dark, wincing and biting my knuckles and calling myself names as I listened to what was happening. It didn’t last long. They were three to one.
And one of them was Hans, Max’s large, slow-witted associate. I discovered this after I had realized the interior of the wardrobe wasn’t completely dark. The pierced openings in the grillwork admitted light. A couple of them were big enough to give me a clear view.
Fortunately I was too short of breath to cry out, or I might have done so when I spotted Max, less than two feet away from my wide blue eye. His bald head shone as if it had been polished. The heavy horn-rimmed glasses provided an additional distraction – he must have worn contact lenses before – but if I had ever gotten a long, close look at him I would have known him. ‘Mr Schroeder,’ Larry’s secretary, had found reasonable excuses for keeping out of my way.
One of Hans’s ham-sized-fists was wrapped around John’s left arm. The guy who held his other arm was familiar too. R
udi always looked as if he wanted to murder somebody, and his expression hadn’t changed. This time I deduced he wanted to murder John. Rudi had one hand pressed against his stomach and he was whooping for breath, but the gallant lad mustered enough strength to give John’s arm a sharp upward and backward twist. John yelled, of course. Stoicism was not a quality he chose to cultivate.
‘Gently,’ Max said gently. ‘That is his right arm, Rudi. He must be able to use it.’
There was blood on his chin. (I couldn’t help noticing that Hans was unbruised and unbloodied. John tried to pick on people who were smaller than he was.) Max took out a handkerchief, wiped his mouth, studied the resultant smear of blood with fastidious distaste, and threw the handkerchief on the floor.
‘Where is she?’ he asked.
John opened his eyes as wide as they would go. ‘Who?’
Rudi had got his breath back. His shoulder shifted and John let out a pained yelp.
‘Stop it,’ Max said. He didn’t sound as if he meant it, though.
‘The balcony, I suppose,’ Max went on. ‘While you put up a gallant battle to prevent pursuit. Or was that the reason? I find it hard to believe that you would risk yourself even for her.’
‘I was dumbfounded myself,’ John admitted. ‘No doubt I did have another motive. I wonder what it could have been? You’re such a profound student of human nature, Maxie, perhaps you can suggest – ’
‘Get him out of here,’ Max said shortly.
‘What about the woman?’ Rudi demanded. His eyes moved, scanning the room.
‘The only woman in the house is my child bride,’ said John smoothly. ‘I wouldn’t interrupt her if I were you, Rudi, old chap, she’s probably sharpening her knives or dismembering a baby or – ’
I knew Max would crack if he kept it up long enough. John must have known too. Max’s backhand swing was – understandably – aimed at his mouth. It was hard enough to snap his head back and leave him hanging limp between the men who held him.
‘Tie him up,’ Max said.
‘But, Herr Max,’ Rudi began.
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