Schmidt choked, emitting a fine spray of crumbs. ‘Vicky! Did you do that? How could you?’
John gave me a kindly smile. ‘I don’t hold it against you, darling. You will wait for me, won’t you? Seven to ten years should do it, unless they make the sentences consecutive, in which case you may have to hire a wheelchair when you meet me at the prison gates.’
‘No, I’ll hire Max and Hans to break you out. I’ve always wanted to be a moll.’
‘A what?’ Schmidt demanded.
‘Gun moll,’ I said abstractedly. ‘Like Bonnie and Clyde.’
‘It is not amusing,’ Schmidt grumbled. ‘How can you joke about such a disaster, such a tragedy – ’
‘Shut up, Schmidt. Just let me think. I told . . . That’s right, I told Sweet and Bright. They knew anyway, they’re part of the gang, nobody is going to believe . . . And Larry Blenkiron.’
‘And?’ John had stiffened.
‘That’s all. Oh, damn. The tapes. They’ve got the tapes. But you didn’t say anything – ’
‘They don’t have the tapes. Feisal picked them up and handed them over to Larry. I was there when he destroyed them. You’re sure you didn’t mention me to anyone else?’
‘I didn’t tell Alice. She was the only person who identified herself to me. I don’t know to this day who the other agent on board was, if there was one. Am I a great spy or what?’
‘I can’t believe this,’ John muttered. ‘It’s too easy. There must be something we’ve overlooked.’
‘Very good,’ Schmidt said. He gave me a forgiving smile. ‘I should have known that in the struggle between love and duty your heart would triumph over your – ’
‘Shut up, Schmidt,’ I said.
‘So then, how does it stand?’ Schmidt bit into a pastry and chewed ruminating. ‘I see only one remaining difficulty. Are you prepared, John, to play the grieving husband? For if her part in this comes out it will be the knot that unravels the tangled skein of the truth.’
‘Very literary, Schmidt,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what the hell it means but it sounds good.’
‘It is obvious, what it means,’ Schmidt said indignantly. ‘The forced marriage, his knowledge of the plot, his earlier connection with her brothers – all these things will become known, together with your acquaintance with John, and your reputation, my dear Vicky, will be in ruins.’
‘Do you think I care about my reputation?’
‘I care,’ John said shortly. ‘Honestly, Vicky, I’m beginning to worry about you. Anyhow, Schmidt is right; the whole implausible story hangs on her innocence. Unless . . . How about claiming I was unaware of her criminal connections when I married her? They aren’t exactly public knowledge.’
‘But how could you have remained unaware of them?’ Schmidt didn’t like this version; he saw where it was leading, and he wanted the credit for unearthing the plot.
John grinned at him. ‘That’s the point, isn’t it? I’ll leave the medals to you, Schmidt. I don’t doubt that Max and his employers will appreciate our keeping her name out of it. That’s another consideration. So when I marched in there last night I was hoping to rescue her as well as Vicky?’
‘Yes, yes, that is it,’ Schmidt said eagerly. ‘The villains foully murdered her. Both of you saw it.’
‘No,’ John said. ‘She was dead when I arrived. Vicky saw nothing.’
‘That is easier, yes,’ Schmidt agreed. ‘The less one admits to knowing, the fewer lies there are to remember. Do you find any other holes in the plan?’
‘Not at the moment,’ I said. I couldn’t believe it either.
‘Good. Then we will go shopping.’ Schmidt scraped crumbs off his moustache and bounced up. ‘You cannot come, Vicky, not wrapped in a bedsheet, so I will select for you a suitable wardrobe.’
‘Oh, God. See here, Schmidt – ’
‘I’ll go along,’ John said. ‘And try to control Schmidt. I believe I can claim to have a reasonably good idea of your size.’
He was smiling as if he didn’t have a care in the world. But he hadn’t eaten much and he had never spoken her name.
Chapter Fifteen
I
THE FOLLOWING DAYS are something of a blur. We spent most of the time trying to elude the press and the rest of it talking with various officials. Occasionally I’d catch a glimpse of a mosque or a suq and once I actually saw the gates of the Cairo Museum as the limo passed it.
While John and Schmidt were shopping I called Mother and Dad and told them the reports of my nervous breakdown had been greatly exaggerated, but not as exaggerated as the story of my abduction and the news of my engagement. Despite her all-around relief, Mom was a little disappointed to find out that I wasn’t engaged to marry a millionaire. She was tactful enough not to say so, however. I managed to talk Dad out of flying to Cairo. My call had caught him just as he was about to leave for the airport.
It was a nerve-racking interlude, and not just because I kept wanting to punch out the ghouls who followed us with cameras and microphones shouting questions. The worst were the questions that focued on John’s supposed bereavement. They would have been cruel and contemptible if he had really cared about her. Under the circumstances they verged on emotional assault and battery, and I don’t know how he kept his temper. Mine came close to cracking more than once.
Even more nerve-racking were the interrogation sessions. Everybody from the CIA to Interpol to the SSI to the Salvation Army seemed intent on questioning us. It was tantamount to walking, not a tightrope, but a spiderweb strung over a pond full of piranhas. My head ached trying to keep track of the lies we’d invented.
One encounter stands out in my mind.
Following Schmidt’s advice, I had refused to be questioned except at the Embassy and in his company. John was there that day too. Everyone understood why we stuck together – or at least they thought they understood. Clichés, good old clichés – we had suffered together and survived together, and so on ad nauseam.
I had been expecting this particular meeting and had braced myself for it, so when Burckhardt rose to greet me I didn’t slug him or spit in his face or even throw anything at him.
‘You son of a bitch,’ I said, slapping his outstretched hand aside. ‘How you have the gall to face me after screwing up the way you did – ’
John and Schmidt descended on me murmuring soothing comments, and forced me into a chair. ‘No, I will not be quiet,’ I shouted. ‘I’m just getting started. God damn you, Burckhardt, if that’s your name, which I doubt, you and your security measures and your smug superiority and your total indifference to ordinary human decency almost got me killed. And furthermore . . .’
I hadn’t planned it that way, but my explosion turned out to be the smartest move I could have made. By the time I finished telling him what I thought of him he was too nervous to think straight.
‘We know now,’ he said, when I gave him a chance to talk, ‘that the individual referred to in the message was the man you had encountered in Sweden.’
‘Max,’ I snapped. ‘That was the name I knew him by. And no, I didn’t recognize him. He kept out of my way and he didn’t look at all the way I remembered him. The others – Hans and Rudi – weren’t on the boat.’
Burckhardt fumbled through his notes. ‘Dakin and Gurk – ’
‘Who? Speak up, Burckhardt, I’m bloody sick and tired of stupid questions.’
‘Uh. You knew them as Sweet and Bright.’
‘Oh, right. I’d never seen them before. I thought they were two of your people.’ I added, in case he’d missed the point, ‘You and your goddamm obsession with security! It’s no wonder the poor effed-up world is in the state it’s in, with people like you behind the scenes manipulating policy.’
‘Now, Vicky,’ Schmidt began.
‘Shut up, Schmidt. And you too, Burckhardt. I’ve answered the same questions fifty times and I’m not going to answer any more. And you can tell Karl Feder that when I get my hands on him – ’
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‘Yes, yes,’ Burckhardt said quickly. ‘Would you like – uh – perhaps a glass of water?’
‘I am not hysterical,’ I shouted. ‘I am . . . I am leaving! Yes, leaving! Now.’
‘I think no more questions?’ said Tom the diplomat, trying to sound firm and professional.
I rounded on him. ‘Yes, and what about you? You’re supposed to be looking out for my rights.’
‘I am, I am,’ Tom said quickly. ‘Herr – uh – Burckhardt, I don’t believe it would be a good idea to continue. Not at the present time.’
‘Not at any time!’ I informed him. I was beginning to enjoy myself. ‘I am leaving. But before I do, I want to ask Burckhardt a question for a change. Just out of idle curiosity, who was the incompetent jerk who was supposed to be protecting me?’
‘It was not her fault,’ Burckhardt muttered. ‘She obeyed orders. She was told not to – ’
‘She?’
‘Would you like to speak with her? She asked for a chance to express her congratulations and apologies personally, but I did not think that advisable.’
‘You wouldn’t.’ I wanted to get the hell out of there, but curiosity got the better of me. ‘Where is she?’
In the next room, of course. That’s where these people live, in the next room – peeking through keyholes and eavesdropping on private conversations.
I didn’t recognize her at first. I didn’t recognize her the second time I looked either. Close-cropped sandy hair, a tailored suit . . . Not until she flashed that wide toothy grin did enlightenment dawn.
‘Suzi?’
She didn’t come any closer. ‘I wanted to express my regrets personally, Dr Bliss. I failed you, and I feel very bad about that. None of us had the slightest suspicion of Mr Blenkiron; I assumed that when you were with him you were okay.’
Her voice was quicker and harder than Suzi’s, with a flat Midwestern twang instead of a Southern drawl.
‘Criminy!’ Surprise had numbed my brain. Then I remembered something. ‘You were at the hotel that night – with Perry.’
She nodded, no longer smiling. ‘Trying to find you and Herr Schmidt. Foggington-Smythe knew nothing about my real purpose; I took him along as camouflage. You saw me?’
‘I saw you. Since I didn’t know whose side you were on I ran. All the way down the goddamn Nile!’ Renewed rage choked me. ‘That awful trip – scared out of my mind – worried about – thirst and exhaustion – fever – Feisal lying in that damned hospital with his legs full of bullet holes – get out of my way! I’m going to kill him!’
Burckhardt retreated behind the desk and John caught me by the arm. ‘You’ll excuse us, gentlemen and madam. She’s been through a lot lately.’
He and Schmidt towed me out. Suzi moved quickly to open the door for us. Her back was to Burckhardt and when she caught my eye she rolled hers and made an expressive face.
Then . . . Then her eyes moved, slowly and deliberately, from me to John. He had drawn my arm through his and his hand covered mine. He shouldn’t have done it, I shouldn’t have let him do it, but things like that happened occasionally; it was so hard to be on guard every moment.
Involuntarily I started to pull my hand away. His fingers tightened, holding mine fast, warning me not to react; but she’d observed both movements, and she tilted her head and widened her eyes, and there was Suzi again, and I knew as clearly as if she had spoken aloud that she was remembering a conversation between me and Larry the day at Sakkara. ‘He’s not so young,’ I had said, without thinking, and Larry had asked if I had known him before.
She looked me straight in the eye and smiled ‘Goodbye, Dr Bliss. Goodbye, Mr Tregarth. Good luck – to both of you.’
Funny, how everybody kept wishing me luck.
I began to believe we might get away with it after all. In fact there were rumours about ceremonies of honour and assorted medals. Feisal was going to be the new director of the institute and I didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d be standing on his own two feet when he assumed the position. He was recuperating much faster than the doctors had expected; when I leaned over to kiss him goodbye the last time we visited him, he pulled me down onto the bed and into his arms, and John had to detach me by force.
‘You’ll come back, won’t you?’ Feisal asked. ‘And let me show you Egypt without distractions?’
‘I hope so,’ I said. And to my surprise I found I meant it.
All in all, things were looking up. I wasn’t even dreaming. But John was.
He always quietened as soon as I touched him. But the night before we were to leave I forced myself to wait and watch while he thrashed around and groaned, and finally a few words became audible. He might have said more, but I couldn’t stand it any longer, and when I took hold of him he woke.
He lay quiet in my arms until his breathing was back to normal. Then he said, ‘There is one misapprehension you may harbour that I would like to correct. I am not one of those sensitive overeducated aristocrats who writhe around in a frenzy of guilt because they have been responsible for bringing a sociopath to his or her well-deserved end.’
‘I suspect they occur only in fiction,’ I said, trying to match his precise, detached tone.
‘Oh, quite. There’s no one so bloody-minded and selfish as your overeducated aristocrat. No doubt you’ve noticed that.’
‘John – ’
‘I’m sorry I woke you. It won’t happen again.’
Before long he drifted off to sleep. I didn’t.
We said goodbye at the airport next morning. Schmidt and I were leaving first; John’s plane took off an hour later. He was wearing a sling, for the effect, he claimed; but that unimportant overlooked bullet hole wasn’t healing the way it should and I thought that morning he had a touch of fever. I told myself not to worry. Jen would nag him till he saw a doctor.
The sling matched the black armband on his left sleeve. The suit hung a little loosely, but it was beautifully tailored and he was the picture of an English gent manfully suppressing personal sorrow. For the benefit of the photographers he bowed over my hand and allowed Schmidt to slap him on the back. ‘Three friends, brought together by chance and bonded in tragedy.’ I read some of the newspaper stories later. They were very mushy, especially the tabloid versions.
I had sworn I wouldn’t look back, but of course I did. He raised his hand and smiled, and then turned away.
‘Do not weep, mein Kind,’ Schmidt said. ‘You will see him soon again.’
‘I’m not weeping.’ I wasn’t. Two tears do not constitute weeping. I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t see him again.
II
A couple of weeks later Schmidt and I were walking along the Isar. In the rain. It was Schmidt’s idea. He thinks walking in the rain is romantic. I did not share his opinion, and I remembered those bright hot days in Egypt with a nostalgia I had never expected to feel. The river was grey as steel under a steely sky. Fallen leaves formed soggy masses that squelched under our feet. My hair hung in lank dank locks that dripped onto my nose and down my neck. I had meant to have it cut. Why hadn’t I? I knew why.
‘This was a stupid idea,’ I grumbled. ‘I’m cold and wet and I want to go back to work.’
‘You have not done five minutes’ work in the past week,’ Schmidt said. ‘You sit in your office, all alone in the tower, staring at your papers and accomplishing nothing. You are the stupid one. Why don’t you telephone him? He is in the book.’
‘Schmidt, you devil!’ My foot slipped and I had to grab at Schmidt to keep from falling. He grinned and grabbed back. ‘You didn’t call him, did you?’
‘No, what do you take me for?’
‘An interfering, nosy – ’
‘I called the information in England to get the number,’ Schmidt said calmly. ‘It would be only courteous of you to inquire after his health.’
‘He’s all right.’ I kicked at a wad of sodden leaves. ‘You know that Jen called you too.’
‘Oh, yes, very t
ouching,’ Schmidt said with a sniff. ‘The dear old Mutti thanking us for our kindness to her little boy. Herr Gott, when she began to talk about his tragic loss and the virtues of that terrible young woman I was hard-pressed to hold my tongue.’
It hadn’t been pleasant. Jen hadn’t been awfully pleasant either. She’d said all the right things but I had had a feeling she wasn’t too happy about some of the newspaper stories. None of the reporters had had the bad taste to come right out with their prurient suspicions but there had been references to my youthful blond beauty (every female in stories like those is beautiful) and John’s tender concern.
He had told me once his mother wouldn’t like me.
‘He must be getting very tired of being fussed over,’ said Schmidt.
‘He’ll put up with it only as long as he chooses. Schmidt, can we go back now?’ I sneezed.
‘No. We have not yet said what must be said. But I do not want that you should catch cold. We will go to a café and have coffee. Mit Schlag,’ Schmidt added happily.
He had whipped cream on his coffee and on his double serving of chocolate torte and, by the time he finished, on his moustache. It was a warm, cosy little café with low ceilings and windows covered with steam that blurred the gloomy weather outside. Schmidt wiped his moustache and leaned forward, elbows on the table.
‘Now, Vicky. What is wrong? It is good to talk when one is in distress, and who better to listen than Papa Schmidt, eh?’
He’d missed a speck of whipped cream. It might have been that homely touch or his worried frown, or the comfortable intimate ambience, but all of a sudden I knew I was going to talk till I was hoarse.
‘I love you, Schmidt,’ I said.
‘Well, I have known that for a long time,’ Schmidt said complacently. ‘But it is good to hear you say it. Have you found the courage now to say it to him?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘With more enthusiasm than that, I hope. And he loves you too. So of what are you afraid?’
‘Funny,’ I said hollowly ‘He asked me the same thing.’
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