The Tightrope Men
The Tightrope Men
Desmond Bagley
Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in Norway and Finland.When Giles Denison of Hampstead wakes up in an Oslo hotel room and finds the face looking back at him in the mirror is not his own, things could surely get no more bizarre. But it is only the beginning of a hair-raising adventure in which Denison finds himself trapped with no way to escape. One false move and the whole delicately balanced power structure between East and West will come toppling down…
DESMOND BAGLEY
The Tightrope Men
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_70679e4b-1050-5783-abdf-20e1dcd948fb)
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by Collins 1973
Copyright © Brockhurst Publications 1973
Cover layout design Richard Augustus © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Desmond Bagley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
Source ISBN: 9780008211257
Ebook Edition © JULY 2017 ISBN: 9780008211264
Version: 2017-06-19
CONTENTS
Cover (#u056550e9-4079-561e-9acf-62f1470844f7)
Title Page (#uc911f531-ed88-5af2-8342-02a39dc751b6)
Copyright (#uedc41c18-ce55-5b54-a9ea-f2d8f2557aad)
The Tightrope Men (#u3973ba56-87db-501e-84e6-c12ba938d775)
Dedication (#ue3e4aaae-f2e8-53d4-ae1d-60be98f6bd57)
Epigraph (#u12f603ab-0eef-59e0-81fe-f6123702b2d7)
One (#ufa33e025-68e5-56dc-9887-e9059ca97b8b)
Two (#u635f224d-afbd-50ec-bd3c-d8ed32331ae1)
Three (#u642b605e-706c-5e56-9a99-3dd06f630b58)
Four (#u14e84a3e-d64d-58d4-9754-0351ebf94d9e)
Five (#udce4d7e8-5bba-57a0-9468-014e870af12b)
Six (#uf420f2b1-6075-5ae2-b660-90186c84f17f)
Seven (#u6e21b866-28d2-50b7-a081-b01116f24617)
Eight (#uf3b8a742-23de-5221-bc10-c82f5405233a)
Nine (#u28cfbd27-8262-508d-b38a-d344d3abe3dc)
Ten (#u8bd8a4da-c20c-5484-83cd-5da051f1b640)
Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Forty (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
THE TIGHTROPE MEN (#ulink_56c960ba-dc10-5a7c-a493-83eef4393c75)
DEDICATION (#ulink_ff029c9b-dadc-5ba4-a9d8-a176c328d1a6)
To Ray Poynton and all his team.
Fons et Origo,
He the one and I the other.
EPIGRAPH (#ulink_c44aa348-83ee-50e5-a5a0-51b17695291e)
You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years.
Bertrand Russell
ONE (#ulink_a0a490e3-aa50-58e5-8904-6fda6816cfde)
Giles Denison lay asleep. He lay on his back with his right arm held crooked across his forehead with the hand lightly clenched into a fist, giving him a curiously defensive appearance as of one who wards off a blow. His breathing was even and shallow but it deepened a little as he came into consciousness in that everyday miracle of the reintegration of the psyche after the little death of sleep.
There was a movement of eyes behind closed lids and he sighed, bringing his arm down and turning over on to his side to snuggle deeper into the bedclothes. After a few moments the eyelids flickered and drew back and he stared uncomprehendingly at the blank wall next to the bed. He sighed again, filling his lungs with air, and then leisurely drew forth his arm and looked at his wristwatch.
It was exactly twelve o’clock.
He frowned and shook the watch, then held it to his ear. A steady tick told him it was working and another glance at the dial showed the sweep second hand jerking smoothly on its circular course.
Suddenly – convulsively – he sat up in bed and stared at the watch. It was not the time – midday or midnight – that now perturbed him, but the realization that this was not his watch. He normally wore a fifteen-year-old Omega, a present from his father on his twenty-first birthday, but this was a sleek Patek Philippe, gleaming gold, with a plain leather strap instead of the flexible metal band he was accustomed to.
A furrow creased his forehead as he stroked the dial of the watch with his forefinger and then, as he raised his eyes to look about the room, he received another shock. He had never been in the room before.
He became aware that his heart thumped in his chest and he raised his hand to feel the coolness of silk against his fingers. He looked down and saw the pyjamas. Habitually he slept peeled to the skin; pyjamas constricted him and he had once said that he never saw the sense in getting dressed to go to bed.
Denison was still half asleep and his first impulse was to he down and wait for the dream to be over so that he could wake up again in his own bed, but a pressing necessity of nature was suddenly upon him and he had to go to the bathroom. He shook his head irritably and threw aside the bedclothes – not the sheets and blankets to which he was accustomed but one of those new-fangled quilt objects which fashion had recently imported from the Continent.
He swung his legs out of the bed and sat up, looking down at the pyjamas again. I’m in hospital, he thought suddenly; I must have had an accident. Recollection told him otherwise. He had gone to bed in his own flat in Hampstead in the normal way, after perhaps a couple of drinks too many the previous evening. Those extra couple of drinks had become a habit after Beth died.
His fingers caressed the softness of the silk. Not a hospital, he decided; these were not National Health issue – not with an embroidered monogram on the pocket. He twisted his head to see the letters but the embroidery was complex and the monogram upside down and he could not make it out.
He stood up and looked about the room and knew immediately he was in a hotel. There were expensive-looking suitcases and in no other place but a hotel room could you find special racks on which to put them. He walked three paces and stroked the fine-grained leather which had hardly a scuff mark. The initials on the side of the suitcase were plain and unmonogrammed – H.F.M.
His head throbbed with the beginning of a headache – the legacy of those extra couple of drinks – and his mouth was parched. He glanced around the room and noted the unrumpled companion bed, the jacket hanging tidily on the back of a chair and the scatter of personal possessions on the dressing-table. He was about to cross to the dressing-table when the pressure in his bladder became intolerable and he knew he had to find a bathroom.
He turned and stumbled into the small hall off the bedroom. One side was panelled in wood and he swung a door open to find a wardrobe full of hung clothes. He turned again and found a door on the other side which opened into darkness. He fumbled for a switch, found it, and light sprang up in a white-tiled bathroom.
While he was relieving himself his mind worried about the electric switch, wondering what was strange about it, and then he realized that it was reversed – an upward movement to turn on the light instead of the more normal down pressure.
He flushed the toilet and turned to the hand basin seeking water. Two glasses stood on a shelf, wrapped in translucent paper. He took one down, ripped off the paper and, filling it with water from the green-topped tap, he drank thirstily. Up to this moment he had been awake for, perhaps, three minutes.
He put down the glass and rubbed his left eye which was sore. Then he looked into the mirror above the basin and, for the first time in his life, experienced sheer terror.
TWO (#ulink_88ad4b43-5310-5cda-9d11-35e13efa0fdb)
When Alice went through the Looking Glass the flowers talked to her and she evinced nothing but a mild surprise; but a psychologist once observed, ‘If a flower spoke to a man, that man would know terror.’
So it was with Giles Denison. After seeing the impossible in the bathroom mirror he turned and vomited into the toilet bowl, but his laboured retchings brought up nothing but a thin mucus. Panting with his efforts, he looked into the mirror again – and reason left him.
When he became self-aware he found himself prone on the bed, his hands shaped into claws which dug into the pillow. A single sentence was drumming through his mind with mechanical persistence. ‘I am Giles Denison! I am Giles Denison! I AM Giles Denison! I am GILES DENISON!’
Presently his heavy breathing quieted and he was able to think beyond that reiterated statement of identity. With his head sideways on the pillow he spoke aloud, gathering reassurance from the familiar sound of his own voice. In a slurred tone which gradually became firmer he said, ‘I am Giles Denison. I am thirty-six years old. I went to bed last night in my own home. I was a bit cut, that’s true, but not so drunk as to be incapable. I remember going to bed – it was just after midnight.’
He frowned, then said, ‘I’ve been hammering the bottle a bit lately, but I’m not an alcoholic – so this isn’t the DTs. Then what is it?’ His left hand moved up to stroke his cheek. ‘What the hell is this?’
He arose slowly and sat on the edge of the bed, screwing up his nerve to go back into the bathroom as he knew he must. When he stood up he found his whole body trembling and he waited a while until the fit had passed. Then he walked with slow paces into the bathroom to face again the stranger in the mirror.
The face that looked back at him was older – he judged the man to be in his mid-forties. Giles Denison had worn a moustache and a neatly clipped beard – the stranger was clean shaven. Giles Denison had a full head of hair – the stranger’s hair receded at the temples. Denison had no distinguishing marks as called for in passport descriptions – the stranger had an old scar on the left side of his face which passed from the temple across the cheekbone to the corner of the mouth; the left eyelid drooped, whether as a result of the scar or not it was impossible to say. There was also a small portwine birthmark on the angle of the right jaw.
If that had been all perhaps Denison would not have been so frightened, but the fact was that the face was different. Denison had been proud in a non-committal way of his aquiline good looks. Aquiline was the last word to describe the face of the stranger. The face was pudgy, the nose a round, featureless blob, and there was an incipient but perceptible double chin.
Denison opened his mouth to look at the stranger’s teeth and caught the flash of a gold capping on a back molar. He closed both his mouth and his eyes and stood there for a while because the trembling had begun again. When he opened his eyes he kept them averted from the mirror and looked down at his hands which were gripping the edge of the basin. They were different, too; the skin looked older and the nails were shortened to the quick as though the stranger bit them. There was another old cicatrice on the back of the right thumb, and the backs of the forefinger and middle finger were stained with nicotine.
Denison did not smoke.
He turned blindly from the mirror and went back into the bedroom where he sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the blank wall. His mind threatened to retreat to the mere insistence of identity and yammered at him, ‘I AM GILES DENISON!’ and the trembling began again, but with an effort of will he dragged himself back from the edge of that mental precipice and forced himself to think as coherently as he could.
Presently he stood up and went to the window because the street noises forced themselves on his attention in an odd way. He heard an impossible sound, a sound that brought back memories of his childhood. He drew back the curtain and looked into the street to find its origin.
The tramcar was passing just below with the accompanying clangour of a past era of transport. Beyond it, in a dazzle of bright sunshine, were gardens and a bandstand and an array of bright umbrellas over tables where people sat eating and drinking. Beyond the gardens was another street filled with moving traffic.
Another tramcar passed and Denison caught a glimpse of the destination board. It made no sense to him because it seemed to be in a foreign language. There was something else odd about the tramcar and his eyes narrowed as he saw there were two single-deck coaches coupled together. He looked across the street at the fascia boards of the shops and found the words totally meaningless.
His head was aching worse than ever so he dropped the curtain to avoid the bright wash of sunlight and turned into the dimness of the room. He crossed to the dressing-table and looked down at the scatter of objects – a cigarette case, apparently of gold, a smoothly modelled cigarette lighter, a wallet and a note-case, and a handful of loose change.
Denison sat down, switched on the table lamp, and picked up one of the silver coins. The head depicted in profile was that of a fleshy man with a prow of a nose; there was something of the air of a Roman emperor about him. The wording was simple: OLAV.V.R. Denison turned the coin over to find a prancing horse and the inscription: I KRONE. NORGE.
Norway!
Denison began to feel his mind spin again and he bent forward as a sudden stomach cramp hit him. He laid down the coin and held his head in his hands until he felt better. Not a lot better, but marginally so.
When he had recovered enough he took the wallet and went through the pockets quickly, tossing the contents into a heap on the table top. The wallet emptied, he put it aside after noting its fine quality and began to examine the papers. There was an English driving licence in the name of Harold Feltham Meyrick of Lippscott House, near Brackley, Buckinghamshire. Hair prickled at the nape of Denison’s neck as he looked at the signature. It was in his own handwriting. It was not his name but it was his penmanship – of that he was certain.
He stretched out his hand and took a pen, one of a matched set of fountain pen and ballpoint. He looked around for something on which to write, saw nothing, and opened the drawer in front of him where he found a folder containing writing paper and envelopes. He paused for a moment when he saw the letter heading – HOTEL CONTINENTAL, STORTINGS GATA, OSLO.
His hand trembled as the pen approached the paper but he scribbled his signature firmly enough – Giles Denison. He looked at the familiar loops and curlicues and felt immeasurably better, then he wrote another signature – H. F. Meyrick. He took the driving licence and compared it with what he had just written. It confirmed what he already knew; the signature in the driving licence was in his own handwriting.
So were the signatures in a fat book of Cook’s traveller’s cheques. He counted the cheques – nineteen of them at £50 each – £950 in all. If he was indeed Meyrick he was pretty well breeched. His headache grew worse.
There were a dozen engraved visiting cards with Meyrick’s name and address and a fat sheaf of Norwegian currency in the note-case which he did not bother to count. He dropped it on to the desk and held his throbbing head in his hands. In spite of the fact that he had just woken up he felt tired and light-headed. He knew he was in danger of going into psychological retreat again; it would be so easy to curl up on the bed and reject this crazy, impossible thing that had happened to him, taking refuge in sleep with the hope that it would prove to be a dream and that when he woke he would be back in bed in his own flat in Hampstead, a thousand miles away.
He opened the drawer a fraction, put his fingers inside, and then smashed the drawer closed with the heel of his other hand. He gasped with the pain and when he drew his hand from the drawer there were flaring red marks on the backs of his fingers. The pain caused tears to come to his eyes and, as he nursed his hand, he knew this was too real to be a dream.
So if it was not a dream, what was it? He had gone to bed as one person and woken up, in another country, as another. But wait! That was not quite accurate. He had woken up knowing he was Giles Denison – the persona of – Harold Feltham Meyrick was all on the exterior – inside he was still Giles Denison.
He was about to pursue this line of thought when he had another spasm of stomach cramp and suddenly he realized why he felt so weak and tired. He was ravenously hungry. Painfully he stood up and went in to the bathroom where he stared down into the toilet bowl. He had been violently sick but his stomach had been so empty that there was hardly anything to be brought up but a thin, acid digestive juice. And yet the previous evening he had had a full meal. Surely there was something wrong there.
He went back into the bedroom and paused irresolutely by the telephone and then, with a sudden access of determination, picked it up. ‘Give me room service,’ he said. His voice was hoarse and strange in his own ears.
The telephone crackled. ‘Room service,’ it said in accented English.
‘I’d like something to eat,’ said Denison. He glanced at his watch – it was nearly two o’clock. ‘A light lunch.’
‘Open sandwiches?’ suggested the telephone.
‘Something like that,’ said Denison. ‘And a pot of coffee.’
‘Yes, sir. The room number is …?’
Denison did not know. He looked around hastily and saw what must be the room key on a low coffee-table by the window. It was attached to about five pounds of brass on which a number was stamped. ‘Three-sixty,’ he said.
‘Very good, sir.’
Denison was inspired. ‘Can you send up a newspaper?’
‘English or Norwegian, sir?’
‘One of each.’
‘The Times?’
‘That and an equivalent local paper. And I may be in the bathroom when you come up – just leave everything on the table.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Denison put down the telephone with a feeling of relief. He would have to face people some time but he did not feel eager to do so immediately. Certainly he would have to ask a lot of questions, but he wanted time to compose himself. He could not help feeling there would be a lot of trip wires to avoid in the taking over of another personality.
He took the silk Paisley dressing-gown which he found draped over a chair and went into the bathroom, where he was coward enough to hang a towel over the mirror. After fumbling for a moment with unfamiliar plumbing, he drew a bath of hot water, then stripped off the pyjamas. He became aware of the sticking-plaster on his left arm and was about to take it off but he thought better of it, wondering if he really wanted to know what was underneath.
He got into the bath and soaked in the hot water, feeling the heat ease his suddenly aching limbs, and again, he drowsily wondered why he felt so tired after being up only two hours. Presently he heard the door of the suite open and there was a clatter of crockery. The door banged closed and everything was quiet again so he got out of the bath and began to rub himself down.
While sitting on the cork-topped stool he suddenly bent forward and examined his left shin. There was a blue-white scar there, about the size and shape of an orange pip. He remembered when that had happened; it was when he was eight years old and had fallen off his first bicycle.
He raised his head and laughed aloud, feeling much better. He had remembered that as Giles Denison and that little scar was a part of his body that did not belong to Mr Harold Blasted Feltham Bloody Meyrick.
THREE (#ulink_7f6ff59d-5504-5b13-99be-e1fd019b12f3)
The Norwegian idea of a light lunch was an enormous tray filled with a variety of edible goodies which Denison surveyed with satisfaction before plunging in. The discovery of the scar had cheered him immensely and had even emboldened him to shave Meyrick’s face. Meyrick was old-fashioned enough to use a safety-razor and a silver-mounted badger-hair brush instead of an electric shaver and Denison had had some difficulty in guiding the blade over unfamiliar contours and had cut himself – or Meyrick – twice. And so, when he picked up the newspapers, his face was adorned with two bloody patches of toilet paper.
The London Times and the Norwegian Aftenposten both had the same date – July 9 – and Denison went very still, a piece of herring on rye bread poised in mid-air. His last memory as Giles Denison had been going to bed just after midnight on July 1 – no, it would be July 2 if it was after midnight.
Somewhere he had lost a week.
He put his hand to his arm and felt the sticking-plaster. Someone had been doing things to him. He did not know who and he did not know why but, by God, he was going to find out and someone was going to pay dearly. While shaving he had examined his face closely. The scar on his left cheek was there all right, the remnant of an old wound, but it did not feel like a scar when he touched it. Still, no matter how hard he rubbed it would not come off, so it was not merely an example of clever theatrical make-up. The same applied to the birthmark on the right jaw.
There was something else odd about his nose and his cheeks and that double chin. They had a rubbery feel about them. Not ever having had any excess fat on his body he did not know whether this was normal or not. And, again, Meyrick’s face had grown a little stubble of hair which he had shaved off, but the bald temples were smooth which meant that whoever had lifted his hairline had not done it by shaving.
The only part of his face Denison recognized were his eyes – those had not changed; they were still the same grey-green eyes he had seen every morning in the mirror. But the expression was different because of the droop of the left eyelid. There was a slight soreness in the outer corner of that eye which aroused his suspicions but he could see nothing but a tiny inflamed spot which could have been natural.
As he ate voraciously he glanced through The Times. The world still seemed to be wobbling on its political axis as unsteadily as ever and nothing had changed, so he tossed the newspaper aside and gave himself up to thought over a steaming cup of black coffee. What could be the motive for spiriting a man from his own bed, transforming him bodily, giving him a new personality and dumping him in a luxury hotel in the capital of Norway?
No answer.
The meal had invigorated him and he felt like moving and not sitting. He did not yet feel up to encountering people so he compromised by going through Meyrick’s possessions. He opened the wardrobe and in one of the drawers, underneath a pile of underwear, he found a large travelling wallet. Taking it to the dressing-table he unzipped it and went through the contents.
The first thing to catch his eyes was a British passport. He opened it to find the description of the holder was filled out in his own handwriting as was Meyrick’s signature underneath. The face that looked out of the photograph on the opposite page was that of Meyrick, who was described as a civil servant. Whoever had thought up this lark had been thorough about it.
He flipped through the pages and found only one stamped entry and his brow wrinkled as he studied it. Sverige? Would that be Sweden? If so he had arrived at a place called Arlanda in Sweden on a date he could not tell because the stamping was blurred. Turning to the back of the passport he found that the sum of £1,500 had been issued a month earlier. Since the maximum travel allowance for a tourist was £300 it would seem that H. F. Meyrick was operating on a businessman’s allowance.
At the bottom of a pocket in the wallet he found an American Express credit card, complete with the ubiquitous fake signature. He looked at it pensively, flicking it with his fingernail. With this he could draw money or traveller’s cheques anywhere; he could use it to buy an airline ticket to Australia if he felt the urge to emigrate suddenly. It represented complete and unlicensed freedom unless and until someone put a stopper on it at head office.
He transferred it to the small personal wallet along with the driving licence. It would be better to keep that little bit of plastic available in case of need.
Meyrick had an extensive wardrobe; casual clothing, lounge suits and even a dinner-jacket with accessories. Denison investigated a small box and found it contained personal jewellery – studs, tiepins and a couple of rings – and he realized he probably held a thousand pounds’ worth of gold in his hand. The Patek Philippe watch on his wrist would cost £500 if it cost a penny. H. F. Meyrick was a wealthy man, so what kind of a civil servant did that make him?
Denison decided to get dressed. It was a sunny day so he chose casual trousers and a sports coat. The clothing fitted him as though made to measure. He looked at himself in the full-length mirror built into the wardrobe door, studiously ignoring the face on top of the body, and thought crazily that it, too, had probably been made to measure. The world began to spin again, but he remembered the small scar on his shin that belonged to Denison and that helped him to recover.
He put his personal possessions into his pockets and headed for the door, key in hand. As the door swung open a card which had been hung on the outer handle fell to the floor. He picked it up and read: VENNLIGST IKKE FORSTYRR – PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB. He was thoughtful as he hung it on the hook inside the door before locking the room; he would give a lot to know who had hung out that sign.
He went down in the lift with a couple of American blue-rinsed matrons who chattered to each other in a mid-West twang. ‘Say, have you been out to Vigeland Park? All those statues – I didn’t know where to look.’ The lift stopped and the doors slid open with a soft hiss, and the American ladies bustled out intent on sightseeing.
Denison followed them diffidently into the hotel lobby and stood by the lifts for a while, trying to get his bearings, doing his best to appear nonchalantly casual while he took in the scene.
‘Mr Meyrick … Mr Meyrick, sir!’
He turned his head and saw the porter at the desk smiling at him. Licking lips that had suddenly gone dry he walked over. ‘Yes?’
‘Would you mind signing this, sir? The check for the meal in your room. Just a formality.’
Denison looked at the proffered pen and laid down the room key. He took the pen and scribbled firmly ‘H. F. Meyrick’ and pushed the slip across the counter. The porter was hanging the key on the rack but he turned and spoke to Denison before he could slip away. ‘The night porter put your car away, sir. Here is the key.’
He held out a key with a tag on it and Denison extended his hand to take it. He glanced at the tag and saw the name, Hertz, and a car number. He cleared his throat. ‘Thank you.’
‘You sound as though you have a cold coming on,’ said the porter.
Denison took a chance. ‘Why do you think that?’
‘Your voice sounds different.’
‘Yes, I do feel a bit chesty,’ said Denison.
The porter smiled. ‘Too much night air, perhaps.’
Denison took another chance. ‘What time did I get in last night?’
‘This morning, sir. The night porter said it was about three o’clock.’ The porter offered Denison a man-of-the-world smile. ‘I wasn’t surprised when you slept in this morning.’
No, thought Denison; but I was! He was growing bolder as he gained confidence. ‘Can you tell me something? I was having a discussion with a friend about how long I’ve been here in Oslo and, for the life of me, I can’t remember the exact day I booked in here. Could you check it for me?’
‘Certainly, sir.’ The porter moved away and began to run through cards in a file. Denison looked at the car key. It was thoughtful of Hertz to put the car number on the tag; he might even be able to recognize it when he saw it. It was also thoughtful of the night porter to put the car away – but where the hell had he put it?
The porter returned. ‘You checked in on the eighteenth of June, sir. Exactly three weeks ago.’
The butterflies in Denison’s stomach collided. ‘Thank you,’ he said mechanically, and moved away from the desk and across the lobby. An arrow pointed the direction to the bar and he glanced sideways and saw a dark, cool cavern with a few drinkers, solitary or in couples. It looked quiet and he desperately wanted to think, so he went in.
When the barman came up, he said, ‘A beer, please.’
‘Export, sir?’
Denison nodded absently. June 18. He had reckoned he had lost a week so how the devil could he have booked into the Hotel Continental in Oslo three weeks earlier? How the hell could he have been in two places at the same time?
The barman returned, poured the beer into a glass, and went away. Denison tried to figure where he had been on June 18 and found it difficult. Three weeks was a long time. Where were you at 6.17 on the evening of June 18? No wonder people found it difficult to establish alibis. He found it extraordinarily difficult to focus his thoughts; they flicked about, skittering here and there wildly out of control. When did you last see your father? Nuts!
A vagrant thought popped to the surface of his consciousness. Edinburgh! He had been to Edinburgh On the 17th and the 18th he had taken off as a reward for hard work. There had been a leisurely morning and he had played golf in the afternoon; he had gone to the cinema in the evening and had dined late in Soho, getting back to Hampstead fairly late.
He – as Giles Denison – had dined in Soho at about the same time as he – as Harold Feltham Meyrick – had dined in Oslo. Where was the sense of that?
He was aware that he was looking at bubbles rising in amber liquid and that he had not touched his beer. He lifted the glass and drank; it was cold and refreshing.
He had two things going for him – two things that kept him sane. One – Giles Denison’s scar on H. F. Meyrick’s shin – and two – the change in the timbre of Meyrick’s voice as recognized by the hotel porter. And what did that imply? Obviously that there were two Meyricks; one who had booked in on June 18, and another – himself – who had just been planted. Never mind why and never mind how. Just accept the fact that it was done.
He drank some more beer and rested his chin in his hand, feeling the unaccustomed flab of his jowl. He had lost a week of his life. Could so much plastic surgery be done in a week? He added that to the list of things to be checked on.
And what to do? He could go to the British Embassy and tell his story. Mentally he ran through the scenario.
‘What can we do for you, Mr Meyrick?’
‘Well the fact is I’m not Meyrick – whoever he is. My name is Giles Denison and I’ve been kidnapped from London, my face changed, and dumped into an Oslo hotel with a hell of a lot of money and an unlimited credit account. Can you help me?’
‘Certainly, Mr Meyrick. Miss Smith, will you ring for a doctor?’
‘My God!’ said Denison aloud. ‘I’d end up in the loony-bin.’
The barman cocked his head and came over. ‘You wish something, sir?’
‘Just to pay,’ said Denison, finishing his beer.
He paid from the loose change in his pocket and left the bar. In the lobby he spotted a sign saying GARAGE, so he went through a door and down a flight of stairs to emerge into a basement car park. He checked the number on the Hertz key and walked along the first row of cars. It was right at the end – a big black Mercedes. He unlocked the door.
The first thing he saw was the doll on the driver’s seat, a most curious object made of crudely carved wood and rope. The body was formed of rope twisted into a spiral and coming out in the form of a tail. His feet were but roughly indicated and the head was a round knob with a peg nose. The eyes and a mouth twisted to one side had been inked on to the wood, and the hair was of rope teased out into separate strands. It was a strange and somehow repulsive little figure.
He picked it up and discovered a piece of paper underneath it. He unfolded the deckle-edged note-paper and read the scrawled handwriting: Your Drammen Dolly awaits you at Spiraltoppen. Early morning, July 10.
He frowned. July 10 was next day, but where was Spiraltoppen and who – or what – was a Drammen Dolly? He looked at the ugly little doll. It had been lying on the driver’s seat as though it had been deliberately left for him to find. He tossed it in his hand a couple of times and then thrust it into his pocket. It made an unsightly bulge, but what did he care? It was not his jacket. The note he put into his wallet.
The car was almost new, with just over 500 kilometres on the clock. He found a sheaf of papers relating to the car hire; it had been rented five days earlier, a fact which was singularly devoid of informative content. There was nothing else to be found.
He got out of the car, locked it, and left the garage by the car entrance, emerging on to a street behind the hotel. It was a little bewildering for him; the traffic drove on the wrong side of the road, the street and shop signs were indecipherable and his command of Norwegian was minimal, being restricted to one word – skal – which, while being useful in a cheery sort of way, was not going to be of much use for the more practical things of life.
What he needed was information and he found it on the corner of the street in the form of a bookshop. He went inside and found an array of maps from which he selected a map of central Oslo, one of Greater Oslo, and a motoring map of Southern Norway. To these he added a guide to the city and paid out of the slab of Norwegian currency in Meyrick’s wallet. He made a mental note to count that money as soon as he had privacy.
He left the shop intending to go back to the hotel where he could study the maps and orient himself. He paused on the pavement and rubbernecked at the corner of a building where one would normally expect to find a street name – and there it was – Roald Amundsens Gata.
‘Harry!’
He turned to go in the direction of the hotel but paused as he felt a hand on his arm. ‘Harry Meyrick!’ There was a note of anger in the voice. She was a green-eyed redhead of about thirty and she was flying alarm flags – her lips were compressed and pink spots glowed in her cheeks. ‘I’m not used to being stood up,’ she said. ‘Where were you this morning?’
Momentarily he was nonplussed but remembered in time what the hotel porter had thought about his voice. ‘I wasn’t feeling well,’ he managed to get out. ‘I was in bed.’
‘There’s a thing called a telephone,’ she said angrily. ‘Alexander Graham Bell invented it – remember?’
‘I was knocked out by sleeping pills,’ he protested. With a small portion of his mind he noted that this was probably a true statement. ‘Perhaps I overdid it.’
Her expression changed. ‘You do sound a bit glued-up,’ she admitted. ‘Maybe I’ll forgive you.’ There was a faint American undertone to her English. ‘It will cost you a drink, darling.’
‘In the hotel?’ he suggested.
‘It’s too nice a day to be inside. We’ll go into the Studenterlunden.’ She waved her arm past a passing articulated tramcar towards the gay umbrellas in the gardens on the other side of the street.
Denison felt trapped as he escorted her across the street, but he also realized that if he was to learn anything about Meyrick then this was too good a chance to pass up. He had once been accosted in the street by a woman who obviously knew him but he did not have the faintest idea of who she was. There is a point of no return in that type of conversation after which one cannot, in decency, admit ignorance. On that occasion Denison had fumbled it, had suffered half an hour of devious conversation, and they had parted amicably without him finding out who she was. He still did not know. Grimly he thought that it was good practice for today’s exercise.
As they crossed the street she said, ‘I saw Jack Kidder this morning. He was asking about you.’
‘How is he?’
She laughed. ‘Fine, as always. You know Jack.’
‘Of course,’ said Denison deadpan. ‘Good old Jack.’
They went into the outdoor café and found an empty table with difficulty. Under other circumstances Denison would have found it pleasant to have a drink with a pretty woman in surroundings like this, but his mind was beleaguered by his present problems. They sat down and he put his parcel of maps on the table.
One of them slipped out of the packet and his main problem prodded at it with a well-manicured forefinger. ‘What are these?’
‘Maps,’ said Denison succinctly.
‘Maps of where?’
‘Of the city.’
‘Oslo!’ She seemed amused. ‘Why do you want maps of Oslo? Isn’t it your boast that you know Oslo better than London?’
‘They’re for a friend.’
Denison chalked up a mental note. Meyrick knows Oslo well; probably a frequent visitor. Steer clear of local conditions or gossip. Might run into more problems like this.
‘Oh!’ She appeared to lose interest.
Denison realized he was faced with a peculiar difficulty. He did not know this woman’s name and, as people do not commonly refer to themselves by name in conversation, he did not see how he was going to get it, short of somehow prying into her handbag and looking for identification.
‘Give me a cigarette, darling,’ she said.
He patted his pockets and found he had left the cigarette case and lighter in the room. Not being a smoker it had not occurred to him to put them in his pocket along with the rest of Meyrick’s personal gear. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t have any with me.’
‘My!’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me the great Professor Meyrick has stopped smoking. Now I will believe in cancer.’
Professor!
He used the pretext of illness again. ‘The one I tried this morning tasted like straw. Maybe I will stop smoking.’ He held his hand over the table. ‘Look at those nicotine stains. Imagine what my lungs must be like.’
She shook her head in mock sorrow. ‘It’s like pulling down a national monument. To imagine Harry Meyrick without a cigarette is like trying to imagine Paris without the Eiffel Tower.’
A Nordic waitress came to the table; she looked rather like Jeanette MacDonald dressed for an appearance in White Horse Inn. Denison raised his eyebrows at his companion. ‘What will you have?’
‘The usual,’ she said indifferently, delving into her handbag.
He took refuge in a paroxysm of coughing pulling out his handkerchief and only emerging when he heard her giving the order. He waited until the waitress left before putting away the handkerchief. The woman opposite him said, ‘Harry, that’s a really bad cough. I’m not surprised you’re thinking of giving up the cancer sticks. Are you feeling all right, darling? Maybe you’d be better off in bed, after all.’
‘I’m all right,’ he said.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked solicitously.
‘Perfectly sure.’
‘Spoken like the old Professor Meyrick,’ she said mockingly. ‘Always sure of everything.’
‘Don’t call me Professor,’ he said testily. It was a safe enough thing to say regardless of whether Meyrick was really a professor or whether she was pulling his leg in a heavy-handed manner. The British have never been keen on the over-use of professional titles. And it might provoke her into dropping useful information.
All he got was a light and inconsequential, ‘When on the Continent do as the Continentals do.’
He went on the attack. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘You’re so British, Harry.’ He thought he detected a cutting edge to her voice. ‘But then, of course, you would be.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Oh, come off it. There’s nobody more British than an outsider who has bored his way in. Where were you born, Harry? Somewhere in Mittel Europa?’ She suddenly looked a little ashamed. ‘I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have said that. I’m being bitchy, but you’re behaving a bit oddly, too.’
‘The effect of the pills. Barbiturates have never agreed with me. I have a headache.’
She opened her handbag. ‘I have aspirin.’
The waitress, Valkyrie-like, bore down on them. Denison looked at the bottles on the tray, and said, ‘I doubt if aspirin goes with beer.’ That was the last thing he would have thought of as ‘the usual’; she did not look the beery type.
She shrugged and closed the bag with a click. ‘Please yourself.’
The waitress put down two glasses, two bottles of beer and a packet of cigarettes, said something rapid and incomprehensible, and waited expectantly. Denison took out his wallet and selected a 100-kroner note. Surely two beers and a packet of cigarettes could not cost more than a hundred kroner. My God, he did not even know the value of the currency! This was like walking through a minefield blindfolded.
He was relieved when the waitress made no comment but made change from a leather bag concealed under her apron. He laid the money on the table intending to check it surreptitiously. The redhead said, ‘You’ve no need to buy my cigarettes, Harry.’
He smiled at her. ‘Be my guest,’ he said, and stretched out his hand to pour her beer.
‘You’ve given it up yourself but you’re quite prepared to pay for other people’s poison.’ She laughed. ‘Not a very moral attitude.’
‘I’m not a moral philosopher,’ he said, hoping it was true.
‘No, you’re not,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve always wondered where you stood in that general direction. What would you call yourself, Harry? Atheist? Agnostic? Humanist?’
At last he was getting something of the quality of Meyrick. Those were questions but they were leading questions, and he was quite prepared to discuss philosophy with her – a nice safe subject. ‘Not an atheist,’ he said. ‘It’s always seemed to me that to believe in the non-existence of something is somewhat harder than to believe in its existence. I’d put myself down as an agnostic – one of the “don’t know” majority. And that doesn’t conflict with humanism.’
He fingered the notes and coins on the table, counted them mentally, subtracted the price of two beers based on what he had paid for a beer in the hotel, and arrived at the price of a packet of cigarettes. Roughly, that is. He had an idea that the price of a beer in a luxury hotel would be far higher than in an open-air café.
‘I went to church last Sunday,’ she said pensively. ‘To the English church – you know – the one on Møllergata.’ He nodded as though he did know. ‘I didn’t get much out of it. I think next time I’ll try the American church.’ She frowned. ‘Where is the American church, Harry?’
He had to say something, so he took a chance. ‘Isn’t it near the Embassy?’
Her brow cleared. ‘Of course. Between Bygdøy Alle and Drammens Veien. It’s funny, isn’t it? The American church being practically next door to the British Embassy. You’d expect it to be near the American Embassy.’
He gulped. ‘Yes, you would,’ he said, and forbore to mention that that was what he had meant. Even a quasi-theological conversation was strewn with pitfalls. He had to get out of this before he really dropped a clanger.
And an alarming suspicion had just sprung to mind, fully armed and spiky. Whoever had planted him in that hotel room and provided him with money and the means to provide all the necessities of life – and a lot of the luxuries, too – was unlikely to leave him unobserved. Someone would be keeping tabs on him, otherwise the whole operation was a nonsense. Could it be this redhead who apparently had qualms about her immortal soul? What could be better than to plant someone right next to him for closer observation?
She opened the packet of cigarettes and offered him one. ‘You’re sure you won’t?’
He shook his head. ‘Quite sure.’
‘It must be marvellous to have will power.’
He wanted peace and not this continuous exploration of a maze where every corner turned could be more dangerous than the last. He started to cough again, and dragged his handkerchief from his pocket. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a muffled voice. ‘I think you’re right; I’d be better off in bed. Do you mind if I leave you?’
‘Of course not.’ Her voice was filled with concern. ‘Do you want a doctor?’
‘That’s not necessary,’ he said. ‘I’ll be all right tomorrow – I know how these turns take me.’ He stood up and she also rose. ‘Don’t bother to come with me. The hotel is only across the road.’
He picked up the packet and thrust the maps back into it, and put the handkerchief into his pocket. She looked down at his feet. ‘You’ve dropped something,’ she said, and stooped to pick it up. ‘Why, it’s a Spiralen Doll.’
‘A what?’ he asked incautiously. It must have been pulled from his pocket when he took out the handkerchief.
She regarded him oddly. ‘You pointed these out at the Spiralen when we were there last week. You laughed at them and called them tourist junk. Don’t you remember?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It’s just this damned headache.’
She laughed. ‘I didn’t expect to see you carrying one. You didn’t buy this when we were there – where did you get it?’
He told the truth. ‘I found it in the car I hired.’
‘You can’t trust anyone to do a good job these days,’ she said, smiling. ‘Those cars are supposed to be cleaned and checked.’ She held it out. ‘Do you want it?’
‘I may be a bit light-headed,’ he said, ‘but I think I do.’ He took it from her. ‘I’ll be going now.’
‘Have a hot toddy and a good night’s sleep,’ she advised. ‘And ring me as soon as you’re better.’
That would be difficult, to say the least, with neither telephone number nor name. ‘Why don’t you give me a ring tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll be well enough to have dinner. I promise not to stand you up again.’
‘I’ll ring you tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Promise,’ he insisted, not wanting to lose her.
‘Promise.’
He put the rope doll into his pocket and left her with a wave, and went out of the garden, across the road and into the hotel, feeling relieved that he was well out of a difficult situation. Information, he thought, as he walked across the hotel lobby; that’s what I need – I’m hamstrung without it.
He paused at the porter’s desk and the porter looked up with a quick smile. ‘Your key, sir?’ He swung around and unhooked it.
On impulse Denison held out the doll. ‘What’s that?’
The porter’s smile broadened. ‘That’s a Spiralen Doll, sir.’
‘Where does it come from?’
‘From the Spiralen, sir – in Drammen. If you’re interested, I have a pamphlet.’
‘I’m very much interested,’ said Denison.
The porter looked through papers on a shelf and came up with a leaflet printed in blue ink. ‘You must be an engineer, sir.’
Denison did not know what the hell Meyrick was. ‘It’s in my general field of interest,’ he said guardedly, took the key and the leaflet, and walked towards the lifts. He did not notice the man who had been hovering behind him and who regarded him speculatively until the lift door closed.
Once in his room Denison tossed the maps and the leaflet on to the dressing-table and picked up the telephone. ‘I’d like to make a long distance call, please – to England.’ He took out his wallet.
‘What is the number, sir?’
‘There’s a little difficulty about that. I don’t have a number – only an address.’ He opened the wallet with one hand and extracted one of Meyrick’s cards.
The telephonist was dubious. ‘That may take some time, sir.’
‘It doesn’t matter – I’ll be in my room for the rest of the day.’
‘What is the address sir?’
Denison said clearly, ‘Lippscott House, near Brackley, Buckinghamshire, England.’ He repeated it three times to make sure it had got across.
‘And the name?’
Denison opened his mouth and then closed it, having suddenly acquired a dazed look. He would appear to be a damned fool if he gave the name of Meyrick – no one in his right mind rings up himself, especially after having admitted he did not know his own telephone number. He swallowed, and said shortly, ‘The name is not known.’
The telephone sighed in his ear. ‘I’ll do my best, sir.’
Denison put down the telephone and settled in a chair to find out about the Spiralen. The front of the leaflet was headed: DRAMMEN. There was an illustration of a Spiralen Doll which did not look any better for being printed in blue. The leaflet was in four languages.
The Spiralen was described as being ‘a truly unique attraction, as well as a superb piece of engineering.’ Apparently there had been a quarry at the foot of Bragernesasen, a hill near Drammen, which had become an eyesore until the City Fathers decided to do something about it. Instead of quarrying the face of the hill the operation had been extended into the interior.
A tunnel had been driven into the hill, thirty feet wide, fifteen feet high and a mile long. But not in a straight line. It turned back on itself six complete times in a spiral drilled into the mountain, climbing five hundred feet until it came out on top of Bragernesasen where the Spiraltoppen Restaurant was open all the year round. The views were said to be excellent.
Denison picked up the doll; its body was formed of six complete turns of rope. He grinned weakly.
Consultation of the maps revealed that Drammen was a small town forty kilometres west of Oslo. That would be a nice morning drive, and he could get back in the afternoon well in time for any call from the redhead. It was not much to go on, but it was all he had.
He spent the rest of the afternoon searching through Meyrick’s possessions but found nothing that could be said to be a clue. He ordered dinner to be sent to his room because he suspected that the hotel restaurant might be full of unexploded human mines like the redhead he had met, and there was a limit to what he could get away with.
The telephone call came when he was half-way through dinner. There were clicks and crackles and a distant voice said, ‘Dr Meyrick’s residence.’
Doctor!
‘I’d like to speak to Dr Meyrick.’
‘I’m sorry, sir; but Dr Meyrick is not at home.’
‘Have you any idea where I can find him?’
‘He is out of the country at the moment, sir.’
‘Oh! Have you any idea where?’
There was a pause. ‘I believe he is travelling in Scandinavia, sir.’
This was not getting anywhere at all. ‘Who am I speaking to?’
‘This is Andrews – Dr Meyrick’s personal servant. Would you like to leave a message, sir?’
‘Do you recognize my voice, Andrews?’ asked Denison.
A pause. ‘It’s a bad line.’ Another pause. ‘I don’t believe in guessing games on the telephone, sir.’
‘All right,’ said Denison. ‘When you see Dr Meyrick will you tell him that Giles Denison called, and I’ll be getting in touch with him as soon as possible. Got that?’
‘Giles Denison. Yes, Mr Denison.’
‘When is Dr Meyrick expected home?’
‘I really couldn’t say, Mr Denison.’
‘Thank you, Mr Andrews.’
Denison put down the telephone. He felt depressed.
FOUR (#ulink_2a00e4a0-e66f-5905-a14f-8806c1dd1796)
He slept poorly that night. His sleep was plagued with dreams which he did not remember clearly during the few times he was jerked into wakefulness but which he knew were full of monstrous and fearful figures which threatened him. In the early hours of the morning he fell into a heavy sleep which deadened senses and when he woke he felt heavy and listless.
He got up tiredly and twitched aside the window curtain to find that the weather had changed; the sky was a dull grey and the pavements were wet and a fine drizzle filled the air. The outdoor café in the gardens opposite would not be doing much business that day.
He rang down for breakfast and then had a shower, finishing with needle jets of cold water in an attempt to whip some enthusiasm into his suddenly heavy body and, to a degree, he succeeded. When the floor waitress came in with his breakfast he had dressed in trousers and white polo-necked sweater and was combing his hair before the bathroom mirror. Incredibly enough, he was whistling in spite of having Meyrick’s face before him.
The food helped, too, although it was unfamiliar and a long way from an English breakfast. He rejected the raw, marinated herring and settled for a boiled egg, bread and marmalade and coffee. After breakfast he checked the weather again and then selected a jacket and a short topcoat from the wardrobe. He also found a thin, zippered leather satchel into which he put the maps and the Spiralen leaflet which had a street plan of Drammen on the back. Then he went down to the car. It was exactly nine o’clock.
It was not easy getting out of town. The car was bigger and more powerful than those he had been accustomed to driving and he had to keep to what was to him the wrong side of the road in a strange city in early rush-hour traffic. Three times he missed signs and took wrong turnings. The first time he did this he cruised on and got hopelessly lost and had to retrace his path laboriously. Thereafter when he missed a turn he reversed immediately so as not to lose his way again.
He was quite unaware of the man following him in the Swedish Volvo. Denison’s erratic course across the city of Oslo was causing him a lot of trouble, especially when Denison did his quick and unexpected reversals. The man, whose name was Armstrong, swore freely and frequently, and his language became indescribable when the drizzle intensified into a downpour of heavy driving rain.
Denison eventually got out of the centre of the city and on to a six-lane highway, three lanes each way. The windscreen wipers had to work hard to cope with the rain, but it was better when he fiddled with a switch and discovered they had two speeds. Resolutely he stuck to the centre lane, reassured from time to time by the name DRAMMEN which appeared on overhead gantries.
To his left was the sea, the deeply penetrating arm of Oslofjord, but then the road veered away and headed inland. Presently the rain stopped, although no sun appeared, and he even began to enjoy himself, having got command of the unfamiliar car. And suddenly he was in Drammen, where he parked and studied the plan on the back of the leaflet.
In spite of the plan he missed the narrow turning to the right and had to carry on for some way before he found an opportunity to reverse the car, but eventually he drove up to the entrance of the tunnel where he stopped to pay the two-kroner charge.
He put the car into gear and moved forward slowly. At first the tunnel was straight, and then it began to climb, turning to the left. There was dim illumination but he switched on his headlights in the dipped position and saw the reflection from the wetness of the rough stone wall. The gradient was regular, as was the radius of the spiral, and by the time he came to a board marked 1 he had got the hang of it. All he had to do was to keep the wheel at a fixed lock to correspond with the radius of the spiral and grind upwards in low gear.
All the same, it was quite an experience – driving upwards through the middle of a mountain. Just after he passed level 3 a car passed him going downwards and momentarily blinded him, but that was all the trouble he had. He took the precaution of steering nearer to the outer curve and closer to the wall.
Soon after passing level 6 he came out of the tunnel into a dazzle of light and on to level ground. To his left there was a large car park, empty of cars, and beyond it was the roof of a large wooden building constructed in chalet style. He parked as close to the building as he could, and got out of the car and locked it.
The chalet was obviously the Spiraltoppen Restaurant, but it was barely in business. He looked through a glass door and saw two women mopping the floor. It was still very early in the morning. He retreated a few steps and saw a giant Spiralen Doll outside the entrance, a leering figure nearly as big as a man.
He looked about him and saw steps leading down towards the edge of a cliff where there was a low stone wall and a coin-in-the-slot telescope. He walked down the path to where he could get a view of the Drammen Valley. The clouds were lifting and the sun broke through and illuminated the river so far below. The air was crystal clear.
Very pretty, he thought sourly; but what the hell am I doing here? What do I expect to find? Drammen Dolly, where are you?
Perhaps the answer lay in the restaurant. He looked at the view for a long time, made nothing of it from his personal point of view, and then returned to the restaurant where the floor-mopping operation had been completed.
He went inside and sat down, looking around hopefully. It was a curiously ad hoc building, all odd angles and discrepancies as though the architect – if there had been an architect – had radically changed his mind during construction. Presently a waitress came and took his order without displaying much interest in him, and later returned with his coffee. She went away without giving him the secret password, so he sat and sipped the coffee gloomily.
After a while he pulled out the leaflet and studied it. He was on the top of Bragernesasen which was ‘the threshold of the unspoilt country of Drammensmarka, an eldorado for hikers in summer, and skiers in winter, who have the benefit of floodlit trails.’ There might be something there, he thought; so he paid for his coffee and left.
Another car had arrived and stood on the other side of the car park. A man sat behind the wheel reading a newspaper. He glanced across incuriously as the restaurant door slammed behind Denison and then returned to his reading. Denison pulled the topcoat closer about him against the suddenly cold wind and walked away from the cliff towards the unspoilt country of Drammensmarka.
It was a wooded area with tall conifers and equally tall deciduous trees with whitish trunks which he assumed to be birches, although he could have been wrong, botany not being his subject. There was a trail leading away from the car park which appeared to be well trodden. Soon the trees closed around him and, on looking back, the restaurant was out of sight.
The trail forked and, tossing a mental coin, he took the route to the right. After walking for a further ten minutes he stopped and again wondered what the hell he was doing. Just because he had found a crude doll in a car he was walking through a forest on a mountain in Norway. It was bloody ridiculous.
It had been the redhead’s casual theory that the doll had been left in the car by a previous hirer. But what previous hirer? The car was obviously new. The doll had been left in a prominent position and there was the note to go with it with the significant reference to the ‘Drammen Dolly’.
Early morning – that’s what the note had said. But how early was early? Come out, come out, wherever you are, my little Drammen Dolly. Wave your magic wand and take me back to Hampstead.
He turned around and trudged back to the fork in the path and this time took the route to the left. The air was fresh and clean after the rain. Drops of water sparkled prismatically on the leaves as the sun struck them and occasionally, as he passed under a tree, a miniature shower would sprinkle him.
And he saw nothing but trees.
He came to another fork in the trail and stopped, wondering what to do. There was a sound behind him as of a twig breaking and he swung around and stared back along the trail but saw nothing as he peered into the dappled forest, shading his eyes from the sun. He turned away but heard another sound to his right and out of the corner of his eye saw something dark moving very fast among the trees.
Behind him he heard footsteps and whirled around to find himself under savage attack. Almost upon him was a big man, a six-footer with broad shoulders, his right hand uplifted and holding what appeared to be a short club.
Denison was thirty-six, which is no age to indulge in serious fisticuffs. He also led a sedentary life which meant that his wind was not good, although it was better than it might have been because he did not smoke. Yet his reflexes were fast enough. What really saved him, though, was that in his time he had been a middling-good middleweight boxer who had won most of his amateur fights by sheer driving aggression.
The last two days had been frustrating for a man of his aggressive tendencies. He had been in a mist with nothing visible to fight and this had gnawed at him. Now that he had something to fight – someone to fight – his instincts took over.
Which is why, instead of jumping back under the attack, unexpectedly he went in low, blocked the descending arm with his own left arm and sank his right fist into his attacker’s belly just below the sternum. The man’s breath came out of him with a gasp and he doubled up on the ground wheezing and making retching noises.
Denison wasted no time, but ran for it back to the car park, aware that his were not the only feet that made those thudding noises on the trail. He did not waste time by looking back but just put his head down and ran. To his left he was aware of a man bounding down the hill dodging trees and doing his best to cut him off – what was worse, he seemed to be succeeding.
Denison put on an extra burst of speed but it was no use – the man leaped on to the trail about fifteen yards ahead. Denison heard his pursuer pounding behind and knew that if he stopped he would be trapped, so he bored on up the trail without slackening pace.
When the man ahead realized that Denison did not intend to stop a look of surprise came over his face and his hand plucked at his waist and he dropped into a crouch. Sun gleamed off the blade of the knife he held in his right hand. Denison ran full tilt at him and made as to break to the man’s left – the safe side – but at the last minute he sold him the dummy and broke away on the knife side.
He nearly got through unscathed because the man bought it. But at the last moment he lashed out with the knife and Denison felt a hot pain across his flank. Yet he had got past and plunged along the trail with undiminished speed, hoping to God he would not trip over an exposed tree root. There is nothing like being chased by a man with a knife to put wings on the feet.
There were three of them. The big man he had laid out with a blow to the solar plexus would not be good for anything for at least two minutes and probably longer. That left the knifer and the other man who had chased him. Behind he heard cries but ahead he saw the roof of the restaurant just coming in sight over the rise.
His wind was going fast and he knew he could not keep up this sprint for long. He burst out into the car park and headed for his car, thankful there was now firm footing. A car door slammed and he risked a glance to the left and saw the man who had been reading the newspaper in the parked car beginning to run towards him.
He fumbled hastily for his car key and thanked God when it slipped smoothly into the lock. He dived behind the wheel and slammed the door with one hand while stabbing the key at the ignition lock with the other – this time he missed and had to fumble again. The man outside hammered on the window and then tugged at the door handle. Denison held the door closed with straining muscles and brought over his other hand quickly to snap down the door catch.
He had dropped the car key on the floor and groped for it. His lungs were hurting and he gasped for breath, and the pain in his side suddenly sharpened, but somewhere at the back of his mind cool logic told him that he was reasonably safe, that no one could get into a locked car before he took off – always provided he could find that damned key.
His fingers brushed against it and he grabbed it, brought it up, and rammed it into the ignition lock. Cool logic evaporated fast when he saw the man stand back and produce an automatic pistol. Denison frantically pumped his foot on the clutch, slammed into first gear, and took off in a tyre-burning squeal even before he had a finger on the wheel. The car weaved drunkenly across the car park then straightened out and dived into the Spiralen tunnel like a rabbit down a hole.
Denison’s last glimpse of daylight in the rear-view mirror showed him the other car beginning to move with two doors open and his pursuers piling in. That would be the ferret after the rabbit.
It took him about ten seconds, after he hit the curve, to know he was going too fast. The gradient was one in ten and the curve radius only a hundred and fifteen feet, turning away to the right so that he was on the inside. His speed was such that centrifugal force tended to throw the car sideways over the centre line, and if anything was coming up he would surely hit it.
He could be compared to a man on a bobsled going down the Cresta Run – with some important differences. The Cresta Run is designed so that the walls can be climbed; here the walls were of jagged, untrimmed rock and one touch at speed would surely wreck the car. The Cresta Run does not have two-way traffic with a continuous blind corner a mile long, and the competitors are not pursued by men with guns – if they were, more records might be broken.
So Denison reluctantly eased his foot on the accelerator and risked a glance in his mirror. The driver of the car behind was more foolhardy than he and was not worrying about up-traffic. He was barrelling down the centre line and catching up fast. Denison fed more fuel to the engine, twisted the wheel and wondered if he could sustain a sideways drift a mile long.
The walls of the tunnel were a blur and the lights flicked by and he caught sight of an illuminated number 5. Four more circuits to go before the bottom. The car jolted and pitched suddenly and he fought the wheel which had taken on a life of its own. It did it again and he heard a nasty sound from the rear. He was being rammed. There was another sound as sheet metal ripped and the car slewed across the whole width of the tunnel.
He heard – and felt – the crunch as the rear off-side of the car slammed into the opposite wall, but Denison was not particularly worried about the property of the Hertz Company at that moment because he saw the dipped headlights of a vehicle coming up the Spiralen towards him. He juggled madly with wheel, clutch and accelerator and shot off to the other side of the tunnel again, scraping across the front of the tour bus that was coming up. There was a brief vignette of the driver of the bus, his mouth open and his eyes staring, and then he was gone.
The front fender scraped along the nearside tunnel wall in a shower of sparks and Denison wrenched the wheel over and nearly clipped the rear of the bus as it went by. He wobbled crazily from side to side of the tunnel for about a hundred and fifty yards before he had proper control, and it was only by the grace of God that the bus had not been the first in a procession of vehicles.
Level 2 passed in a flash and a flicker of light in Denison’s eyes, reflected from the rear-view mirror, told him that the car behind had also avoided the bus and was catching up again. He increased speed again and the tyres protested noisily with a rending squeal; the whole of the Spiralen would be filled with the stench of burning rubber.
Level 1. A brightness ahead warned of the approach of another vehicle and Denison tensed his muscles, but the tunnel straightened and he saw it was the daylight of the exit. He rammed down his foot and the car surged forward and came out of the tunnel like a shell from a gun. The fee-collector threw up his arms and jumped aside as the car shot past him. Denison screwed up his eyes against the sudden bright glare of sunlight and hurtled down the hill towards the main street of Drammen at top speed.
At the bottom of the hill he jammed on his brakes and wrenched the wheel sideways. The car heeled violently as it turned the corner and the tyres screamed again, leaving black rubber on the road. Then he literally stood on the brake pedal, rising in his seat, to avoid ploughing into a file of the good people of Drammen crossing the street at a traffic light. The car’s nose sank and the rear came up as it juddered to a halt, just grazing the thigh of a policeman who stood in the middle of the road with his back to Denison.
The policeman turned, his face expressionless. Denison sagged back into his seat and twisted his head to look back along the road. He saw the pursuing car break the other way and head down the road at high speed out of Drammen.
The policeman knocked on the car window and Denison wound it down to be met by a blast of hot Norwegian. He shook his head, and said loudly, ‘I have no Norwegian. Do you speak English?’
The policeman halted in mid-spate with his mouth open. He shut it firmly, took a deep breath, and said, ‘What you think you do?’
Denison pointed back. ‘It was those damn fools. I might have been killed.’
The policeman stood back and did a slow circumnavigation of the car, inspecting it carefully. Then he tapped on the window of the passenger side and Denison opened the door. The policeman got in. ‘Drive!’ he said.
When Denison pulled up outside the building marked POLISI and switched off the engine the policeman firmly took the car key from him and waved towards the door of the building. ‘Inside!’
It was a long wait for Denison. He sat in a bare room under the cool eye of a Norwegian policeman, junior grade, and meditated on his story. If he told the truth then the question would arise: Who would want to attack an Englishman called thing Meyrick? That would naturally lead to: Who is this Meyrick? Denison did not think he could survive long under questions like that. It would all come out and the consensus of opinion would be that they had a right nut-case on their hands, and probably homicidal at that. They would have to be told someother than the strict truth.
He waited an hour and then the telephone rang. The young policeman answered briefly, put down the telephone, and said to Denison, ‘Come!’
He was taken to an office where a senior policeman sat behind a desk. He picked up a pen and levelled it at a chair. ‘Sit!’
Denison sat, wondering if the English conversation of the Norwegian police was limited to one word at a time. The officer poised his pen above a printed form. ‘Name?’
‘Meyrick,’ said Denison. ‘Harold Feltham Meyrick.’
‘Nationality?’
‘British.’
The officer extended his hand, palm upwards. ‘Passport.’ It was not a question.
Denison took out his passport and put it on the outstretched palm. The officer flicked through the pages, then put it down and stared at Denison with eyes like chips of granite. ‘You drove through the streets of Drammen at an estimated speed of 140 kilometres an hour. I don’t have to tell you that is in excess of the speed limit. You drove through the Spiralen at an unknown speed – certainly less than 140 kilometres otherwise we would have the distasteful task of scraping you off the walls. What is your explanation?’
Denison now knew what a Norwegian policeman sounded like in an extended speech in the English language, and he did not particularly relish it. The man’s tone was scathing. He said, ‘There was a car behind me. The driver was playing silly buggers.’ The officer raised his eyebrows, and Denison said, ‘I think they were teenage hooligans out to throw a scare into someone – you know how they are. They succeeded with me. They rammed me a couple of times and I had to go faster. It all led on from that.’
He stopped and the officer stared at him with hard, grey eyes but said nothing. Denison let the silence lengthen, then said slowly and clearly, ‘I would like to get in touch with the British Embassy immediately.’
The officer lowered his eyes and consulted a typewritten form. ‘The condition of the rear of your car is consistent with your story. There was another car. It has been found abandoned. The condition of the front of that car is also consistent with your story. The car we found had been stolen last night in Oslo.’ He looked up. ‘Do you want to make any changes in your statement?’
‘No,’ said Denison.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
The officer stood up, the passport in his hand. ‘Wait here.’ He walked out.
Denison waited another hour before the officer came back. He said, ‘An official from your Embassy is coming to be present while you prepare your written statement.’
‘I see,’ said Denison. ‘What about my passport?’
‘That will be handed to the Embassy official. Your car we will keep here for spectrographic tests of the paintwork. If there has been transfer of paint from one car to another it will tend to support your statement. In any event, the car cannot be driven in its present condition; both indicator lights are smashed – you would be breaking the law.’
Denison nodded. ‘How long before the Embassy man gets here?’
‘I cannot say. You may wait here.’ The officer went away.
Denison waited for two hours. On complaining of hunger, food and coffee were brought to him on a tray. Otherwise he was left alone except for the doctor who came in to dress an abrasion on the left side of his forehead. He dimly remembered being struck by a tree branch on the chase along the trail, but did not correct the doctor who assumed it had occurred in the Spiralen. What with one thing and another, the left side of Meyrick’s face was taking quite a beating; any photographs had better be of the right profile.
He said nothing about the wound in his side. While alone in the office he had checked it quickly. That knife must have been razor sharp; it had sliced through his topcoat, his jacket, the sweater and into his side, fortunately not deeply. The white sweater was red with blood but the wound, which appeared clean, had stopped bleeding although it hurt if he moved suddenly. He left it alone.
At last someone came – a dapper young man with a fresh face who advanced on Denison with an outstretched hand. ‘Dr Meyrick – I’m George McCready, I’ve come to help you get out of this spot of trouble.’
Behind McCready came the police officer, who drew up another chair and they got down to the business of the written statement. The officer wanted it amplified much more than in Denison’s bald, verbal statement so he obligingly told all that had happened from the moment he had entered the Spiralen tunnel on top of Bragernesasen. He had no need to lie about anything. His written statement was taken away and typed up in quadruplicate and he signed all four copies, McCready countersigning as witness.
McCready cocked his eye at the officer. ‘I think that’s all.’
The officer nodded. ‘That’s all – for the moment. Dr Meyrick may be required at another time. I trust he will be available.’
‘Of course,’ said McCready easily. He turned to Denison. ‘Let’s get you back to the hotel. You must be tired.’
They went out to McCready’s car. As McCready drove out of Drammen Denison was preoccupied with a problem. How did McCready know to address him as ‘Doctor’? The designation on his passport was just plain ‘Mister’. He stirred and said, ‘If we’re going to the hotel I’d like to have my passport. I don’t like to be separated from it.’
‘You’re not going to the hotel,’ said McCready. ‘That was for the benefit of the copper. I’m taking you to the Embassy. Carey flew in from London this morning and he wants to see you.’ He laughed shortly. ‘How he wants to see you.’
Denison felt the water deepening. ‘Carey,’ he said in a neutral tone, hoping to stimulate conversation along those lines. McCready had dropped Carey’s name casually as though Meyrick was supposed to know him. Who the devil was Carey?
McCready did not bite. ‘That explanation of yours wasn’t quite candid, was it?’ He waited for a reaction but Denison kept his mouth shut. ‘There’s a witness – a waitress from the Spiraltoppen – who said something about a fight up there. It seems there was a man with a gun. The police are properly suspicious.’
When Denison would not be drawn McCready glanced sideways at him, and laughed. ‘Never mind, you did the right thing under the circumstances. Never talk about guns to a copper – it makes them nervous. Mind you, the circumstances should never have arisen. Carey’s bloody wild about that.’ He sighed. ‘I can’t say that I blame him.’
It was gibberish to Denison and he judged that the less he said the better. He leaned back, favouring his injured side, and said, ‘I’m tired.’
‘Yes,’ said McCready. ‘I suppose you must be.’
FIVE (#ulink_c3a1285c-3dae-53bd-9bb7-5cd15875a57d)
Denison was kept kicking his heels in an ante-room in the Embassy while McCready went off, presumably to report. After fifteen minutes he came back. ‘This way, Dr Meyrick.’
Denison followed him along a corridor until McCready stopped and politely held open a door for him. ‘You’ve already met Mr Carey, of course.’
The man sitting behind the desk could only be described as square. He was a big, chunky man with a square, head topped with close-cut grizzled grey hair. He was broad-chested and squared off at the shoulders, and his hands were big with blunt fingers. ‘Come in, Dr Meyrick.’ He nodded at McCready. ‘All right, George; be about your business.’
McCready closed the door. ‘Sit down, Doctor,’ said Carey. It was an invitation, not a command. Denison sat in the chair on the other side of the desk and waited for a long time while Carey inspected him with an inscrutable face.
After a long time Carey sighed. ‘Dr Meyrick, you were asked not to stray too far from your hotel and to keep strictly to central Oslo. If you wanted to go farther afield you were asked to let us know so that we could make the necessary arrangements. You see, our manpower isn’t infinite.’
His voice rose. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have been asked; maybe you should have been told.’ He seemed to hold himself in with an effort, and lowered his voice again. ‘So I fly in this morning to hear that you’re missing, and then I’m told that you isolated yourself on a mountain top – for what reason only you know.’
He raised his hand to intercept interruption. Denison did not mind; he was not going to say anything, anyway.
‘All right,’ said Carey. ‘I know the story you told the local coppers. It was a good improvisation and maybe they’ll buy it and maybe they won’t.’ He put his hands flat on the desk. ‘Now what really happened?’
‘I was up there walking through the woods,’ said Denison, ‘when suddenly a man attacked me.’
‘Description?’
‘Tall. Broad. Not unlike you in build, but younger. He had black hair. His nose was broken. He had something in his hand – he was going to hit me with it. Some sort of cosh, I suppose.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I laid him out,’ said Denison.
‘You laid him out,’ said Carey in a flat voice. There was disbelief in his eye.
‘I laid him out,’ said Denison evenly. He paused. ‘I was a useful boxer at one time.’
Carey frowned and drummed his fingers. ‘Then what happened?’
‘Another man was coming at me from behind, so I ran for it.’
‘Wise man – some of the time, anyway. And…?’
‘Another man intercepted me from the front.’
‘Describe him.’
‘Shortish – about five foot seven – with a rat-face and a long nose. Dressed in jeans and a blue jersey. He had a knife.’
‘He had a knife, did he?’ said Carey. ‘So what did you do about that?’
‘Well, the other chap was coming up behind fast – I didn’t have much time to think – so I charged the joker with the knife and sold him the dummy at the last moment’
‘You what?’
‘I sold him the dummy. It’s a rugby expression meaning …’
‘I know what it means,’ snapped Carey. ‘I suppose you were a useful rugby player at one time, too.’
‘That’s right,’ said Denison.
Carey bent his head and put his hand to his brow so that his face was hidden. He seemed to be suppressing some strong emotion. ‘What happened next?’ he asked in a muffled voice.
‘By that time I’d got back to the car park – and there was another man.’
‘Another man,’ said Carey tiredly. ‘Description.’
‘Not much. I think he wore a grey suit He had a gun.’
‘Escalating on you, weren’t they?’ said Carey. His voice was savage. ‘So what did you do then?’
‘I was in the car by the time I saw the gun and I got out of there fast and …’
‘And did a Steve McQueen through the Spiralen, roared through Drammen like an express train and butted a copper in the arse.’
‘Yes,’ said Denison simply. ‘That about wraps it up.’
‘I should think it does,’ said Carey. He was silent for a while, then he said, ‘Regardless of the improbability of all this, I’d still like to know why you went to Drammen in the first place, and why you took the trouble to shake off any followers before leaving Oslo.’
‘Shake off followers,’ said Denison blankly. ‘I didn’t know I was being followed.’
‘You know now. It was for your own protection. But my man says he’s never seen such an expert job of shaking a tail in his life. You were up to all the tricks. You nearly succeeded twice, and you did succeed the third time.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Denison. ‘I lost my way a couple of times, that’s all.’
Carey took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. ‘You lost your way,’ he breathed. His voice became deep and solemn. ‘Dr Meyrick: can you tell me why you lost your way when you know this area better than your own county of Buckinghamshire? You showed no signs of losing your way when you went to Drammen last week.’
Denison took the plunge. ‘Perhaps it’s because I’m not Dr Meyrick.’
Carey whispered, ‘What did you say?’
SIX (#ulink_63470a4a-2e7e-57bf-9362-08b5f9672dc4)
Denison told all of it.
When he had finished Carey’s expression was a mixture of perturbation and harassment. He heard everything Denison had to say but made no comment; instead, he lifted the telephone, dialled a number, and said, ‘George? Ask Ian to come in here for a minute.’
He came from behind the desk and patted Denison on the shoulder. ‘I hope you don’t mind waiting for a few minutes.’ He strode away to intercept the man who had just come in and they held a whispered colloquy before Carey left the room.
He closed the door on the other side and stood for a moment in thought, then he shook his head irritably and went into McCready’s office. McCready looked up, saw Carey’s expression, and said, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Our boy has rolled clean off his tiny little rocker,’ snapped Carey. ‘That’s what’s the matter. He started off by telling cock-and-bull stories, but then it got worse – much worse.’
‘What did he say?’
Carey told him – in gruesome detail.
Ten minutes later he said, ‘Discounting a lot of balls about mysterious attackers, something happened up there on top of the Spiralen which knocked Meyrick off his perch.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘When they wish these eggheads on us you’d think they’d test them for mental stability. What we need now is an alienist.’
McCready suppressed a smile. ‘Isn’t that rather an old-fashioned term?’
Carey glared at him. ‘Old-fashioned and accurate.’ He stabbed his finger at the office wall. ‘That … that thing in there isn’t human any more. I tell you, my flesh crawled when I heard what he was saying.’
‘There isn’t a chance that he’s right, is there?’ asked McCready diffidently.
‘No chance at all. I was facing Meyrick at the original briefing in London for two bloody days until I got to hate the sight of his fat face. It’s Meyrick, all right.’
‘There is one point that puzzles me,’ said McCready. ‘When I was with him at the police station in Drammen he didn’t speak a word of Norwegian, and yet I understand he knows the language.’
‘He speaks it fluently,’ said Carey.
‘And yet I’m told that his first words were to the effect that he spoke no Norwegian.’
‘For God’s sake!’ said Carey. ‘You know the man’s history. He was born in Finland and lived there until he was seventeen, when he came to live here in Oslo. When he was twenty-four he moved to England where he’s been ever since. That’s twenty-two years. He didn’t see a rugby ball until he arrived in England, and I’ve studied his dossier and know for a fact that he never boxed in his life.’
‘Then it all fits in with his story that he’s not Meyrick.’ McCready paused for thought. ‘There was a witness at Spiraltoppen who said she saw a gun.’
‘A hysterical waitress,’ sneered Carey. ‘Wait a minute – did you tell Meyrick about that?’
‘I did mention it.’
‘It fits,’ said Carey. ‘You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if the story Meyrick gave to the police wasn’t the absolute truth. He was razzled by a few kids out for a joyride in a stolen car and the experience knocked him off his spindle.’
‘And the gun?’
‘You told him about the gun. He seized that and wove it into his fairy tale, and added a few other trimmings such as the knife and the cosh. I think that in the Spiralen he felt so bloody helpless that he’s invented this story to retain what he thinks is his superiority. At the briefing I assessed him as an arrogant bastard, utterly convinced of his superiority to us lesser mortals. But he wasn’t very superior in the Spiralen, was he?’
‘Interesting theory,’ said McCready. ‘You’d make a good alienist – except for one thing. You lack empathy.’
‘I can’t stand the man,’ said Carey bluntly. ‘He’s an overweening, overbearing, supercilious son-of-a-bitch who thinks the sun shines out of his arse. Mr Know-it-all in person and too bloody toplofty by half.’ He shrugged. ‘But I can’t pick and choose the people I work with. It’s not in my contract.’
‘What did you say he called himself?’
‘Giles Denison from Hampstead. Hampstead, for Christ’s sake!’
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ said McCready. He left the room.
Carey loosened his tie with a jerk and sat biting his thumbnail. He looked up as McCready came back holding a book. ‘What have you got there?’
‘London telephone directory.’
‘Give me that,’ said Carey, and grabbed it. ‘Let’s see – Dennis, Dennis, Dennis … Dennison. There’s a George and two plain Gs – neither in Hampstead.’ He sat back, looking pleased.
McCready took the book and flipped the pages. After a minute he said, ‘Denison, Giles … Hampstead. He spells it with one “n”.’
‘Oh, Christ!’ said Carey, looking stricken. He recovered. ‘Doesn’t mean a thing. He picked the name of someone he knows. His daughter’s boy-friend, perhaps.’
‘Perhaps,’ said McCready non-committally.
Carey drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘I’ll stake my life that this is Meyrick; anything else would be too ridiculous.’ His fingers were suddenly stilled. ‘Mrs Hansen,’ he said. ‘She’s been closer to him than anybody. Did she have anything to say?’
‘She reported last night that she’d met him. He’d broken a date with her in the morning and excused it by pleading illness. Said he’d been in bed all morning.’
‘Had he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she notice anything about him – anything odd or unusual?’
‘Only that he had a cold and that he’d stopped smoking. He said cigarettes tasted like straw.’
Carey, a pipe-smoker, grunted. ‘They taste like straw to me without a cold. But he recognised her.’
‘They had a drink and a conversation – about morals and religion, she said.’
‘That does it,’ said Carey. ‘Meyrick is ready to pontificate about anything at the drop of a hat, whether he knows anything about it or not.’ He rubbed his chin and said grudgingly, ‘Trouble is, he usually talks sense – he has a good brain. No, this is Meyrick, and Meyrick is as flabby as a bladder of lard – that’s why we have to coddle him on this operation. Do you really think that Meyrick could stand up against four men with guns and knives and coshes? The man could hardly break the skin on the top of a custard. He’s gone out of his tiny, scientific mind and his tale of improbable violence is just to save his precious superiority, as I said before.’
‘And what about the operation?’
‘As far as Meyrick is concerned the operation is definitely off,’ said Carey decisively. ‘And, right now, I don’t see how it can be done without him. I’ll cable London to that effect as soon as I’ve had another talk with him.’ He paused. ‘You’d better come along, George. I’m going to need a witness on this one or else London will have me certified.’
They left the office and walked along the corridor. Outside the room where Meyrick was held Carey put his hand on McCready’s arm. ‘Hold yourself in, George. This might be rough.’
They found Meyrick still sitting at the desk in brooding silence, ignoring the man he knew only as Ian who sat opposite. Ian looked up at Carey and shrugged eloquently.
Carey stepped forward. ‘Dr Meyrick, I’m sorry to …’
‘My name is Denison. I told you that.’ His voice was cold.
Carey softened his tone. ‘All right, Mr Denison; if you prefer it that way. I really think you ought to see a doctor. I’m arranging for it.’
‘And about time,’ said Denison. ‘This is hurting like hell.’
‘What is?’
Denison was pulling his sweater from his trousers. ‘This bloody knife wound. Look at it.’
Carey and McCready bent to look at the quarter-inch deep slash along Denison’s side. It would, Carey estimated, take sixteen stitches to sew it up.
Their heads came up together and they looked at each other with a wild surmise.
SEVEN (#ulink_9875c4ec-a99f-53be-b527-690b8485007a)
Carey paced restlessly up and down McCready’s office. His tie was awry and his hair would have been tousled had it not been so close-cropped because he kept running his hand through it. ‘I still don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘It’s too bloody incredible.’
He swung on McCready. ‘George, supposing you went to bed tonight, here in Oslo, and woke up tomorrow, say, in a New York hotel, wearing someone else’s face. What would be your reaction?’
‘I think I’d go crazy,’ said McCready soberly. He smiled slightly. ‘If I woke up with your face I would go crazy.’
Carey ignored the wisecrack. ‘But Denison didn’t go crazy,’ he said meditatively. ‘All things considered, he kept his cool remarkably well.’
‘If he is Denison,’ remarked McCready. ‘He could be Meyrick and quite insane.’
Carey exploded into a rage. ‘For God’s sake! All along you’ve been arguing that he’s Denison; now you turn around and say he could be Meyrick.’
McCready eyed him coolly. ‘The role of devil’s advocate suits me, don’t you think?’ He tapped the desk. ‘Either way, the operation is shot to hell.’
Carey sat down heavily. ‘You’re right, of course. But if this is a man called Denison then there are a lot of questions to be answered. But first, what the devil do we do with him?’
‘We can’t keep him here,’ said McCready. ‘For the same reason we didn’t keep Meyrick here. The Embassy is like a fishbowl.’
Carey cocked his head. ‘He’s been here for over two hours. That’s about normal for a citizen being hauled over the coals for a serious driving offence. You suggest we send him back to the hotel?’
‘Under surveillance.’ McCready smiled. ‘He says he has a date with a redhead for dinner.’
‘Mrs Hansen,’ said Carey. ‘Does he know about her?’
‘No.’
‘Keep it that way. She’s to stick close to him. Give her a briefing and ask her to guard him from interference. He could run into some odd situations. And talk to him like a Dutch uncle. Put the fear of God into him so that he stays in the hotel. I don’t want him wandering around loose.’
Carey drew a sheet of paper towards him and scribbled on it. ‘The next thing we want are doctors – tame ones who will ask the questions we want asked and no others. A plastic surgeon and –’ he smiled at McCready bleakly – ‘and an alienist. The problem must be decided one way or the other.’
‘We can’t wait until they arrive,’ said McCready.
‘Agreed,’ said Carey. ‘We’ll work on the assumption that a substitution has been made – that this man is Denison. We know when the substitution was made – in the early hours of yesterday morning. Denison was brought in – how?’
‘On a stretcher – he must have been unconscious.’
‘Right!’ said Carey. ‘A hospital patient in transit under the supervision of a trained nurse and probably a doctor. And they’d have taken a room on the same floor as Meyrick. The switch was made and Meyrick taken out yesterday morning – probably in an ambulance at the back entrance of the hotel by arrangement with the management. Hotels don’t like stretchers being paraded through the front lobby.’
‘I’ll get on to it,’ said McCready. ‘It might be an idea to check on all the people who booked in on the previous day, regardless of the floor they stayed on. I don’t think this was a two man job.’
‘I don’t, either. And you check the comings and goings for the past week – somebody must have been watching Meyrick for a long time.’
‘That’s a hell of a big job,’ objected McCready. ‘Do we get the co-operation of the Norwegians?’
Carey pondered. ‘At this time – no. We keep it under wraps.’
McCready’s face took on a sad look at the thought of all the legwork he was going to have to do. Carey tilted his chair back. ‘And then there’s the other end to be checked – the London end. Why Giles Denison of Hampstead?’ His chair came down with a thump. ‘Hasn’t it struck you that Denison has been very unforthcoming?’
McCready shrugged. ‘I haven’t talked to him all that much.’
‘Well, look,’ said Carey. ‘Here we have this man in this bloody odd situation in which he finds himself. After recovering from the first shock, he not only manages to deceive Mrs Hansen as to his real identity but he has the wit to ring up Meyrick’s home. But why only Meyrick? Why didn’t he check back on himself?’
‘How do you mean?’
Carey sighed. ‘There’s a man called Giles Denison missing from Hampstead. Surely he’d be missed by someone? Even if Denison is an unmarried orphan he must have friends – a job. Why didn’t he ring back to reassure people that he was all right and still alive and now living it up in Oslo?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ admitted McCready. ‘That’s a pointer to his being Meyrick, after all. Suffering from delusions but unable to flesh them out properly.’
Carey gave a depressed nod. ‘All I’ve had from him is that he’s Giles Denison from Hampstead – nothing more.’
‘Why not put it to him now?’ suggested McCready.
Carey thought about it and shook his head. ‘No, I’ll leave that to the psychiatrist. If this is really Meyrick, the wrong sort of questions could push him over the edge entirely.’ He pulled the note pad towards him again. ‘We’ll have someone check on Denison in Hampstead and find out the score.’ He ripped off the sheet. ‘Let’s get cracking. I want those cables sent to London immediately – top priority and coded. I want those quacks here as fast as possible.’
EIGHT (#ulink_086a5961-49c9-582a-b2f7-4ebe76a672cb)
Giles Denison stirred his coffee and smiled across the table at Diana Hansen. His smile was steady, which was remarkable because a thought had suddenly struck him like a bolt of lightning and left him with a churning stomach. Was the delectable Diana Hansen who faced him Meyrick’s mistress?
The very thought put him into a dilemma. Should he make a pass or not? Whatever he did – or did not – do, he had a fifty per cent chance of being wrong. The uncertainty of it spoiled his evening which had so far been relaxing and pleasant.
He had been driven back to the hotel in an Embassy car after dire warnings from George McCready of what would happen to him if he did not obey instructions. ‘You’ll have realized by now that you’ve dropped right into the middle of something awkward,’ said McCready. ‘We’re doing our best to sort it out but, for the next couple of days, you’d do well to stay in the hotel.’ He drove it home by asking pointedly, ‘How’s your side feeling now?’
‘Better,’ said Denison. ‘But I could have done with a doctor.’ He had been strapped up by McCready, who had produced a first-aid box and displayed a competence which suggested he was no stranger to knife wounds.
‘You’ll get a doctor,’ assured McCready. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘I have a dinner date,’ said Denison. ‘With that redhead I told you about. What should I do about that? If she goes on like she did yesterday I’m sure to put my foot in it.’
‘I don’t see why you should,’ said McCready judiciously.
‘For God’s sake! I don’t even know her name.’
McCready patted him on the shoulder, and said soothingly, ‘You’ll be all right.’
Denison was plaintive. ‘It’s all very well you wanting me to go on being Meyrick but surely you can tell me something. Who is Meyrick, for instance?’
‘It will all be explained tomorrow,’ said McCready, hoping that he was right. ‘In the meantime, go back to the hotel like a good chap, and don’t leave it until I call for you. Just have a quiet dinner with … with your redhead and then go to bed.’
Denison had a last try. ‘Are you in Intelligence or something? A spy?’
But to that McCready made no answer.
So Denison was delivered to the hotel and he had not been in the room more than ten minutes when the telephone rang. He regarded it warily and let it ring several times before he put out his hand as though about to pick up a snake. ‘Yes?’ he said uncommunicatively.
‘Diana here.’
‘Who?’ he asked cautiously.
‘Diana Hansen, who else? We have a dinner date, remember? How are you?’
Again he caught the faint hint of America behind the English voice. ‘Better,’ he said, thinking it was convenient of her to announce her name.
‘That’s good,’ she said warmly. ‘Are you fit enough for dinner?’
‘I think so.’
‘Mmm,’ she murmured doubtfully. ‘But I still don’t think you should go out; there’s quite a cold wind. What about dinner in the hotel restaurant?’
Even more convenient; he had just been about to suggest that himself. In a more confident voice he said, ‘That’ll be fine.’
‘Meet you in the bar at half past seven,’ she said.
‘All right.’
She rang off and he put down the telephone slowly. He hoped that McCready was right; that he could manage a sustained conversation with this woman in the guise of Meyrick. He sat in the armchair and winced as pain stabbed in his side. He held his breath until the pain eased and then relaxed and looked at his watch. Half past five. He had two hours before meeting the Hansen woman.
What a mess! What a stinking mess! Lost behind another man’s face, he had apparently dropped into the middle of an intrigue which involved the British government. That man, Carey, had been damned patronizing about what had happened on top of the Spiralen and had not bothered to hide his disbelief. It had been that, more than anything else, that had driven Denison into disclosing who he was. It had certainly taken the smile off Carey’s face.
But who was Carey? To begin with, he was obviously McCready’s boss – but that did not get him very far because who was McCready? A tight little group in the British Embassy in Oslo dedicated to what? Trade relations? That did not sound likely.
Carey had made it clear that he had warned Meyrick not to move far from the hotel. Judging by what had happened on the Spiralen the warning was justified. But who the hell was Meyrick that he was so important? The man with the title of Doctor or perhaps Professor, and who was described on his passport as a civil servant.
Denison’s head began to ache again. Christ! he thought; I’ll be bloody glad to get back to Hampstead, back to my job and the people I …
The thought tailed off to a deadly emptiness and he felt his stomach lurch. A despairing wail rose in his mind – God help me! he cried silently as he realized his mind was a blank, that he did not know what his job was, that he could not put a name to a single friend or acquaintance, and that all he knew of himself was that he was Giles Denison and that he came from Hampstead.
Bile rose in his throat. He struggled to his feet and staggered to the bathroom where he was violently sick. Again there was that insistent beat in his mind: I AM GILES DENISON. But there was nothing more – no link with a past life.
He left the bathroom and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. You must remember! he commanded himself. You must! But there was nothing – just Giles Denison of Hampstead and a vague mind picture of a house in a half-forgotten memory.
Think!
The scar on his shin – he remembered that. He saw himself on the small child-size bicycle going down a hill too fast, and the inevitable tumble at the bottom – then the quick tears and the comfort of his mother. I remember that, he told himself in triumph.
What else? Beth – he remembered Beth who had been his wife, but she had died. How many years ago was it? Three years. And then there was the whisky, too much whisky. He remembered the whisky.
Denison lay on the bed and fought to extract memories from a suddenly recalcitrant mind. There was a slick sheen of sweat on his brow and his fists were clenched, the nails digging into his palms.
Something else he had remembered before. He had come back from Edinburgh on June 17, but what had he been doing there? Working, of course, but what was his work? Try as he might he could not penetrate the blank haze which cloaked his mind.
On June 18 he had played golf in the afternoon. With whom? Of course it was possible for a man to play a round of golf alone, and also to go to the cinema alone and to dine in Soho alone, but it was hardly likely that he would forget everything else. Where had he played golf? Which cinema did he go to? Which restaurant in Soho?
A blazing thought struck him, an illumination of the mind so clear that he knew certainly it was the truth. He cried aloud, ‘But I’ve never played golf in my life!’
There was a whirling spiral of darkness in his mind and, mercifully, he slept.
NINE (#ulink_6efbaf0f-4a5b-51f3-90ce-fc2f3e467119)
Denison walked into the bar at a quarter to eight and saw the woman who called herself Diana Hansen sitting at a table. He walked over and said, ‘Sorry I’m late.’
She smiled and said lightly, ‘I was beginning to think I was being stood up again.’
He sat down. ‘I fell asleep.’
‘You look pale. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’ There was a vague memory at the back of his mind which disturbed him; something had happened just before he had fallen asleep. He was reluctant to probe into it because he caught a hint of terror and madness which frightened him. He shivered.
‘Cold?’ Her voice was sympathetic.
‘Nothing that a stiff drink won’t cure.’ He beckoned to a passing waiter, and raised his eyebrows at her.
‘A dry Martini, please.’
He turned to the hovering waiter. ‘A dry martini and … do you have a scotch malt?’ Normally he bought the cheapest blend he could buy in the cut-price supermarkets but with Meyrick’s finances behind him he could afford the best.
‘Yes, sir. Glenfiddich?’
‘That will do fine. Thank you.’
Diana Hansen said, ‘Food may be better than drink. Have you eaten today?’
‘Not much.’ Just the meal in the police station at Drammen, taken for fuel rather than pleasure.
‘You men!’ she said with scorn. ‘No better than children when left on your own. You’ll feel better after dinner.’
He leaned back in his chair. ‘Let’s see – how long have we known each other, Diana?’
She smiled. ‘Counting the days, Harry? Nearly three weeks.’
So he had met her in Oslo – or, rather, Meyrick had. ‘I was just trying to find out how long it takes a woman to become maternal. Less than three weeks, I see.’
‘Is that the scientific mind at work?’
‘One aspect of it.’ Could that mean anything? Was Dr Meyrick a scientist – a government boffin?
She looked across the room and a shadow seemed to darken her face momentarily. ‘There’s Jack Kidder and his wife.’
Denison paused before he turned round. ‘Oh! Where?’
‘Just coming in.’ She put out her hand and covered his. ‘Do you want to be bothered by them, darling? He’s a bit of a bore, really.’
Denison looked at the tall, fleshy man who was escorting a petite woman. Jack Kidder was the name Diana Hansen had mentioned when he had bumped into her outside the bookshop. If she did not want to mix with the Kidders it was all right with him; he had enough to cope with already. He said, ‘You’re right. I don’t think I could cope with a bore tonight.’
She laughed. ‘Thanks for the compliment – hidden though it was. I’ll put him off tactfully if he comes across.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘But if he says that damned slogan of his again I’ll scream.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You must have heard it. It’s when he pulls off one of his dreadful jokes.’ She burlesqued an American accent. ‘“You know me – Kidder by name and kidder by nature.”’
‘Jack was always the life and soul of the party,’ said Denison drily.
‘I don’t know how Lucy puts up with him,’ said Diana. ‘If you can talk about a hen-pecked husband, can you refer to a cock-pecked wife?’
Denison grinned. ‘It sounds rude.’ Diana Hansen was making things easy for him. She had just given him a thumbnail sketch of the Kidders, including names and temperaments. It could not have been done better if done deliberately.
The waiter put the drinks on the table and Denison found he had a scotch on the rocks, a desecration of good malt. He did not feel like making a fuss about it so he raised his glass. ‘Skal!’ He sipped the whisky and reflected that this was the first real drink he had had since his transformation into Meyrick.
The familiar taste bit at his tongue and somehow released a wave of memories which washed through him tumultuously, tantalizingly close to the surface of his mind. And with the memories, unrealized though they were, came the fear and the terror which set his heart thumping in his chest. Hastily he set down the glass, knowing he was close to panic.
Diana Hansen looked at his shaking fingers. ‘What’s the matter, Harry?’
Denison covered up. ‘I don’t think a drink is a good idea, after all. I’ve just remembered I’m stuffed full of pills.’ He managed a smile. ‘If you shook me I’d rattle. I don’t think they’d mix with alcohol.’
She put down her glass. Then let’s have dinner before the Kidders catch up with us.’ She stood up and took her handbag from the table. Denison arose and they moved towards the entrance, but then she turned her head and murmured, Too late, I’m afraid.’
Kidder was also standing up, his big body blocking the way. ‘Hey, Lucy, look who’s here. It’s Diana and Harry.’
‘Hallo, Jack,’ said Denison. ‘Had a good day?’
‘We’ve been up to Holmenkollen; you know – the big ski-jump you can see from all over the city. It’s quite a thing when you get up to it close. Can you imagine, it’s only used once a year?’
‘I can’t imagine,’ said Denison blandly.
Lucy Kidder said, ‘And we went to the Henie-Onstad Art Centre, too.’
‘Yeah, modern art,’ said Kidder disparagingly. ‘Harry, can you make any sense out of Jackson Pollock?’
‘Not much,’ said Denison.
Kidder turned on his wife. ‘Anyway, why the hell do we have to come to Norway to see an American artist?’
‘But he’s internationally famous, Jack. Aren’t you proud of that?’
‘I guess so,’ he said gloomily. ‘But the locals aren’t much better. Take the guy with the name like a breakfast food.’ Everyone looked at Kidder with blank faces and he snapped his fingers impatiently. ‘You know who I mean – the local Scowegian we saw yesterday.’
Lucy Kidder sighed. ‘Edvard Munch,’ she said resignedly.
‘That’s the guy. Too gloomy for me even if you can see the people in his pictures,’ said Kidder.
Diana cut in quickly. ‘Harry’s not been feeling too well lately. I’m taking him in to an early dinner and sending him right to bed.’
‘Gee, I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Kidder. He sounded sincere.
‘There’s a lot of this two-day flu about,’ said his wife. ‘And it can be nasty while it lasts. You look after yourself – hear?’
‘I don’t think it’s too serious,’ said Denison.
‘But we’d better go in to dinner,’ said Diana. ‘Harry hasn’t eaten a thing all day.’
‘Sure,’ said Kidder, standing aside. ‘I hope you feel better real soon. You look after him, Diana.’
Over dinner they talked in generalities, much to Denison’s relief, and he was able to hold his own without much effort. There was not a single thing to trouble him until the coffee was served and that startling thought about the possible relationship between Diana and Meyrick came into his head. He looked at her speculatively and wondered what to do. For all he knew, Meyrick was an old ram.
He held the smile on his face and stirred his coffee mechanically. A waiter came to the table. ‘Mrs Hansen?’
Diana looked up. ‘Yes.’
‘A telephone call.’
‘Thank you.’ She looked at Denison apologetically. ‘I told someone I’d be here. Do you mind?’
‘Not at all.’ She stood up and left the restaurant, going into the lobby. He watched her until she was out of sight and then stopped stirring his coffee and put the spoon in the saucer with a clink. Thoughtfully he looked at the handbag on the other side of the table.
Mrs Hansen! He could bear to know more about that. He stretched out his hand slowly and picked up the handbag, which was curiously heavy. Holding it on his lap, below the level of the table, he snapped open the catch and bent his head to look inside.
When Diana came back the bag was back in its place. She sat down, picked it up, and took out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Still not smoking, Harry?’
He shook his head. ‘They still taste foul.’
Soon thereafter he signed the bill and they left, parting in the lobby, he to go to bed and she to go to wherever she lived. He had decided against making a pass at Mrs Diana Hansen because it was most unlikely that Dr Harold Feltham Meyrick would be having an affaire with a woman who carried a gun – even if it was only a small gun.
TEN (#ulink_3d587bf2-83eb-59d4-9d8e-09b7ce282598)
The next day was boring. He obeyed instructions and stayed in the hotel waiting to hear from McCready. He breakfasted in his room and ordered English newspapers. Nothing had changed – the news was as bad as ever.
At mid-morning he left the room to allow the maid to clean up, and went down to the lobby where he saw the Kidders at the porter’s desk. He hung back, taking an inordinate interest in a showcase full of Norwegian silver, while Kidder discussed in a loud voice the possibilities of different bus tours. Finally they left the hotel and he came out of cover.
He discovered that the bookshop on the corner of the street had a convenient entrance inside the hotel, so he bought a stack of English paperbacks and took them to his room. He read for the rest of the day, gutting the books, his mind in low gear. He had a curious reluctance to think about his present predicament and, once, when he put a book aside and tried to think coherently, his mind skittered about and he felt the unreasoning panic come over him. When he picked up the book again his head was aching.
At ten that night no contact had been made and he thought of ringing the Embassy and asking for McCready but the strange disinclination to thought had spread to action and he was irresolute. He looked at the telephone for a while, and then slowly undressed and went to bed.
He was almost asleep when there was a tap at his door. He sat up and listened and it came again, a discreet double knock. He switched on the light and put on Meyrick’s bathrobe, then went to the door. It was McCready, who came in quickly and closed the door behind him. ‘Ready for the doctor?’ he asked.
Denison frowned. ‘At this time of night?’
‘Why not?’ asked McCready lightly.
Denison sighed. It was just one more mystery to add to the others. He reached for his underwear and took off the bathrobe. McCready picked up the pyjamas which were lying neatly folded on top of the suitcase. ‘You don’t wear these?’
‘Meyrick did.’ Denison sat on the edge of the bed to put on his socks. ‘I don’t.’
‘Oh!’ McCready thoughtfully tugged at his ear.
When Denison picked up his jacket he turned to McCready. ‘There’s something you ought to know, I suppose. Diana Hansen carries …’
‘Who?’ asked McCready.
‘The redhead I took to dinner – her name is Diana Hansen. She carries a gun.’
McCready went still. ‘She does? How do you know?’
‘I looked in her handbag.’
‘Enterprising of you. I’ll tell Carey – he’ll be interested.’ McCready took Denison by the arm. ‘Let’s go.’
McCready’s car was in the garage and when he drove out into the street he turned left which Denison knew was away from the Embassy. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Not far,’ said McCready. ‘Five minutes. Possess your soul in patience.’
Within two minutes Denison was lost. The car twisted and turned in the strange streets until his sense of direction deserted him. Whether McCready was deliberately confusing him he did not know, but he thought it likely. Another possibility was that McCready was intent on shaking off any possible followers.
After a few minutes the car pulled up outside a large building which could have been a block of flats. They went inside and into a lift which took them to the fifth floor. McCready unlocked a door and motioned Denison inside. He found himself in a hall with doors on each side. McCready opened one of them, and said, ‘This is Mr Iredale. He’ll fix up your side for you.’
Iredale was a sallow, middle-aged man, balding and with deep grooves cut from the base of his nose to the corners of his mouth. He said pleasantly, ‘Come in, Mr Denison; let me have a look at you.’
Denison heard the door close behind him and turned to find that McCready had already gone. He whirled around to confront Iredale. ‘I thought I was being taken to a doctor.’
‘I am a doctor,’ said Iredale. ‘I’m also a surgeon. We surgeons have a strange inverted snobbery – we’re called “mister” and not “doctor”. I’ve never known why. Take off your coat, Mr Denison, and let me see the damage.’
Denison hesitated and slowly took off his jacket and then his shirt. ‘If you’ll lie on the couch?’ suggested Iredale, and opened a black bag which could only have been the property of a doctor. Somewhat reassured, Denison lay down.
Iredale snipped away the bandages with a small pair of scissors and examined the slash. ‘Nasty,’ he said. ‘But clean. It will need a local anaesthetic. Are you allergic to anaesthetic, Mr Denison?’
‘I don’t know – I don’t think so.’
‘You’ll just feel three small pricks – no more.’ Iredale took out a hypodermic syringe and filled it from a small phial. ‘Lie still.’
Denison felt the pricks, and Iredale said, ‘While we’re waiting for that to take effect you can sit up.’ He took an ophthalmoscope from his bag. ‘I’d just like to look at your eyes.’ He flashed a light into Denison’s right eye. ‘Had any alcohol lately?’
‘No.’
Iredale switched to the left eye upon which he spent more time. ‘That seems to be all right,’ he said.
‘I was stabbed in the side, not hit on the head,’ said Denison. ‘I don’t have concussion.’
Iredale put away the ophthalmoscope. ‘So you have a little medical knowledge.’ He put his hands to Denison’s face and palpated the flesh under the chin. ‘You know what they say about a little knowledge.’ He stood up and looked down at the top of Denison’s head, and then his fingers explored the hairline. ‘Don’t knock the experts, Mr Denison – they know what they’re doing.’
‘What sort of a doctor are you?’ asked Denison suspiciously.
Iredale ignored that. ‘Ever had scalp trouble? Dandruff, for instance?’
‘No.’
‘I see. Right.’ He touched Denison’s side. ‘Feel anything?’
‘It’s numb but I can feel pressure.’
‘Good,’ said Iredale. ‘I’m going to stitch the wound closed. You won’t feel anything – but if you do then shout like hell.’ He put on rubber gloves which he took out of a sealed plastic bag and then took some fine thread out of another small packet. ‘I’d turn your head away,’ he advised. ‘Lie down.’
He worked on Denison’s side for about fifteen minutes and Denison felt nothing but the pressure of his fingers. At last he said, ‘All right, Mr Denison; I’ve finished.’
Denison sat up and looked at his side. The wound was neatly closed and held by a row of minute stitches. ‘I’ve always been good at needlework,’ said Iredale conversationally. ‘When the stitches are out there’ll be but a hairline. In a year you won’t be able to see it.’
Denison said, ‘This isn’t a doctor’s surgery. Who are you?’
Iredale packed his bag rapidly and stood up. ‘There’ll be another doctor to see you in a moment.’ He walked to the door and closed it behind him.
There was something about the way the door closed that vaguely alarmed Denison. He stood up and walked to the door and found it locked. Frowning, he turned away and looked about the room. There was the settee on which he had been lying, a table, two armchairs and a bookcase against the wall. He went over to the bookcase to inspect it and tripped over a wire which threatened to topple a telephone from a small table. He rescued the telephone and then stood looking down at it.
Iredale walked along the corridor and into a room at the end. Carey glanced up at him expectantly, breaking off his conversation with McCready. Harding, the psychiatrist, sat in an armchair, his long legs outstretched and his fingertips pressed together. There was also another man whom Iredale did not know. Carey saw Iredale looking at him, and said, ‘Ian Armstrong of my staff. Well?’ He could not suppress his eagerness.
Iredale put down his case. ‘He’s not Meyrick.’ He paused. ‘Not unless Meyrick has had plastic surgery recently.’
Carey blew out his breath in a long gasp. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Iredale, a little testily.
‘That’s it, then.’ Carey looked across at Harding. ‘It’s your turn, Dr Harding. Try to get out of him as much as you can.’
Harding nodded and uncoiled himself from the chair. He walked out of the room without speaking. As the door closed Carey said, ‘You understand that, to the best of our knowledge, this alteration was made in the space of a week – not more.’ He took a thin, cardboard file from the table. ‘We’ve just received a lengthy cable from London about Denison – and a photo came over the wire.’ He took the photograph and handed it to Iredale. ‘That’s Denison as he was quite recently. It hardly seems possible.’
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Desmond Bagley
Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in Norway and Finland.When Giles Denison of Hampstead wakes up in an Oslo hotel room and finds the face looking back at him in the mirror is not his own, things could surely get no more bizarre. But it is only the beginning of a hair-raising adventure in which Denison finds himself trapped with no way to escape. One false move and the whole delicately balanced power structure between East and West will come toppling down…
DESMOND BAGLEY
The Tightrope Men
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_70679e4b-1050-5783-abdf-20e1dcd948fb)
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by Collins 1973
Copyright © Brockhurst Publications 1973
Cover layout design Richard Augustus © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Desmond Bagley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
Source ISBN: 9780008211257
Ebook Edition © JULY 2017 ISBN: 9780008211264
Version: 2017-06-19
CONTENTS
Cover (#u056550e9-4079-561e-9acf-62f1470844f7)
Title Page (#uc911f531-ed88-5af2-8342-02a39dc751b6)
Copyright (#uedc41c18-ce55-5b54-a9ea-f2d8f2557aad)
The Tightrope Men (#u3973ba56-87db-501e-84e6-c12ba938d775)
Dedication (#ue3e4aaae-f2e8-53d4-ae1d-60be98f6bd57)
Epigraph (#u12f603ab-0eef-59e0-81fe-f6123702b2d7)
One (#ufa33e025-68e5-56dc-9887-e9059ca97b8b)
Two (#u635f224d-afbd-50ec-bd3c-d8ed32331ae1)
Three (#u642b605e-706c-5e56-9a99-3dd06f630b58)
Four (#u14e84a3e-d64d-58d4-9754-0351ebf94d9e)
Five (#udce4d7e8-5bba-57a0-9468-014e870af12b)
Six (#uf420f2b1-6075-5ae2-b660-90186c84f17f)
Seven (#u6e21b866-28d2-50b7-a081-b01116f24617)
Eight (#uf3b8a742-23de-5221-bc10-c82f5405233a)
Nine (#u28cfbd27-8262-508d-b38a-d344d3abe3dc)
Ten (#u8bd8a4da-c20c-5484-83cd-5da051f1b640)
Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Forty (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
THE TIGHTROPE MEN (#ulink_56c960ba-dc10-5a7c-a493-83eef4393c75)
DEDICATION (#ulink_ff029c9b-dadc-5ba4-a9d8-a176c328d1a6)
To Ray Poynton and all his team.
Fons et Origo,
He the one and I the other.
EPIGRAPH (#ulink_c44aa348-83ee-50e5-a5a0-51b17695291e)
You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years.
Bertrand Russell
ONE (#ulink_a0a490e3-aa50-58e5-8904-6fda6816cfde)
Giles Denison lay asleep. He lay on his back with his right arm held crooked across his forehead with the hand lightly clenched into a fist, giving him a curiously defensive appearance as of one who wards off a blow. His breathing was even and shallow but it deepened a little as he came into consciousness in that everyday miracle of the reintegration of the psyche after the little death of sleep.
There was a movement of eyes behind closed lids and he sighed, bringing his arm down and turning over on to his side to snuggle deeper into the bedclothes. After a few moments the eyelids flickered and drew back and he stared uncomprehendingly at the blank wall next to the bed. He sighed again, filling his lungs with air, and then leisurely drew forth his arm and looked at his wristwatch.
It was exactly twelve o’clock.
He frowned and shook the watch, then held it to his ear. A steady tick told him it was working and another glance at the dial showed the sweep second hand jerking smoothly on its circular course.
Suddenly – convulsively – he sat up in bed and stared at the watch. It was not the time – midday or midnight – that now perturbed him, but the realization that this was not his watch. He normally wore a fifteen-year-old Omega, a present from his father on his twenty-first birthday, but this was a sleek Patek Philippe, gleaming gold, with a plain leather strap instead of the flexible metal band he was accustomed to.
A furrow creased his forehead as he stroked the dial of the watch with his forefinger and then, as he raised his eyes to look about the room, he received another shock. He had never been in the room before.
He became aware that his heart thumped in his chest and he raised his hand to feel the coolness of silk against his fingers. He looked down and saw the pyjamas. Habitually he slept peeled to the skin; pyjamas constricted him and he had once said that he never saw the sense in getting dressed to go to bed.
Denison was still half asleep and his first impulse was to he down and wait for the dream to be over so that he could wake up again in his own bed, but a pressing necessity of nature was suddenly upon him and he had to go to the bathroom. He shook his head irritably and threw aside the bedclothes – not the sheets and blankets to which he was accustomed but one of those new-fangled quilt objects which fashion had recently imported from the Continent.
He swung his legs out of the bed and sat up, looking down at the pyjamas again. I’m in hospital, he thought suddenly; I must have had an accident. Recollection told him otherwise. He had gone to bed in his own flat in Hampstead in the normal way, after perhaps a couple of drinks too many the previous evening. Those extra couple of drinks had become a habit after Beth died.
His fingers caressed the softness of the silk. Not a hospital, he decided; these were not National Health issue – not with an embroidered monogram on the pocket. He twisted his head to see the letters but the embroidery was complex and the monogram upside down and he could not make it out.
He stood up and looked about the room and knew immediately he was in a hotel. There were expensive-looking suitcases and in no other place but a hotel room could you find special racks on which to put them. He walked three paces and stroked the fine-grained leather which had hardly a scuff mark. The initials on the side of the suitcase were plain and unmonogrammed – H.F.M.
His head throbbed with the beginning of a headache – the legacy of those extra couple of drinks – and his mouth was parched. He glanced around the room and noted the unrumpled companion bed, the jacket hanging tidily on the back of a chair and the scatter of personal possessions on the dressing-table. He was about to cross to the dressing-table when the pressure in his bladder became intolerable and he knew he had to find a bathroom.
He turned and stumbled into the small hall off the bedroom. One side was panelled in wood and he swung a door open to find a wardrobe full of hung clothes. He turned again and found a door on the other side which opened into darkness. He fumbled for a switch, found it, and light sprang up in a white-tiled bathroom.
While he was relieving himself his mind worried about the electric switch, wondering what was strange about it, and then he realized that it was reversed – an upward movement to turn on the light instead of the more normal down pressure.
He flushed the toilet and turned to the hand basin seeking water. Two glasses stood on a shelf, wrapped in translucent paper. He took one down, ripped off the paper and, filling it with water from the green-topped tap, he drank thirstily. Up to this moment he had been awake for, perhaps, three minutes.
He put down the glass and rubbed his left eye which was sore. Then he looked into the mirror above the basin and, for the first time in his life, experienced sheer terror.
TWO (#ulink_88ad4b43-5310-5cda-9d11-35e13efa0fdb)
When Alice went through the Looking Glass the flowers talked to her and she evinced nothing but a mild surprise; but a psychologist once observed, ‘If a flower spoke to a man, that man would know terror.’
So it was with Giles Denison. After seeing the impossible in the bathroom mirror he turned and vomited into the toilet bowl, but his laboured retchings brought up nothing but a thin mucus. Panting with his efforts, he looked into the mirror again – and reason left him.
When he became self-aware he found himself prone on the bed, his hands shaped into claws which dug into the pillow. A single sentence was drumming through his mind with mechanical persistence. ‘I am Giles Denison! I am Giles Denison! I AM Giles Denison! I am GILES DENISON!’
Presently his heavy breathing quieted and he was able to think beyond that reiterated statement of identity. With his head sideways on the pillow he spoke aloud, gathering reassurance from the familiar sound of his own voice. In a slurred tone which gradually became firmer he said, ‘I am Giles Denison. I am thirty-six years old. I went to bed last night in my own home. I was a bit cut, that’s true, but not so drunk as to be incapable. I remember going to bed – it was just after midnight.’
He frowned, then said, ‘I’ve been hammering the bottle a bit lately, but I’m not an alcoholic – so this isn’t the DTs. Then what is it?’ His left hand moved up to stroke his cheek. ‘What the hell is this?’
He arose slowly and sat on the edge of the bed, screwing up his nerve to go back into the bathroom as he knew he must. When he stood up he found his whole body trembling and he waited a while until the fit had passed. Then he walked with slow paces into the bathroom to face again the stranger in the mirror.
The face that looked back at him was older – he judged the man to be in his mid-forties. Giles Denison had worn a moustache and a neatly clipped beard – the stranger was clean shaven. Giles Denison had a full head of hair – the stranger’s hair receded at the temples. Denison had no distinguishing marks as called for in passport descriptions – the stranger had an old scar on the left side of his face which passed from the temple across the cheekbone to the corner of the mouth; the left eyelid drooped, whether as a result of the scar or not it was impossible to say. There was also a small portwine birthmark on the angle of the right jaw.
If that had been all perhaps Denison would not have been so frightened, but the fact was that the face was different. Denison had been proud in a non-committal way of his aquiline good looks. Aquiline was the last word to describe the face of the stranger. The face was pudgy, the nose a round, featureless blob, and there was an incipient but perceptible double chin.
Denison opened his mouth to look at the stranger’s teeth and caught the flash of a gold capping on a back molar. He closed both his mouth and his eyes and stood there for a while because the trembling had begun again. When he opened his eyes he kept them averted from the mirror and looked down at his hands which were gripping the edge of the basin. They were different, too; the skin looked older and the nails were shortened to the quick as though the stranger bit them. There was another old cicatrice on the back of the right thumb, and the backs of the forefinger and middle finger were stained with nicotine.
Denison did not smoke.
He turned blindly from the mirror and went back into the bedroom where he sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the blank wall. His mind threatened to retreat to the mere insistence of identity and yammered at him, ‘I AM GILES DENISON!’ and the trembling began again, but with an effort of will he dragged himself back from the edge of that mental precipice and forced himself to think as coherently as he could.
Presently he stood up and went to the window because the street noises forced themselves on his attention in an odd way. He heard an impossible sound, a sound that brought back memories of his childhood. He drew back the curtain and looked into the street to find its origin.
The tramcar was passing just below with the accompanying clangour of a past era of transport. Beyond it, in a dazzle of bright sunshine, were gardens and a bandstand and an array of bright umbrellas over tables where people sat eating and drinking. Beyond the gardens was another street filled with moving traffic.
Another tramcar passed and Denison caught a glimpse of the destination board. It made no sense to him because it seemed to be in a foreign language. There was something else odd about the tramcar and his eyes narrowed as he saw there were two single-deck coaches coupled together. He looked across the street at the fascia boards of the shops and found the words totally meaningless.
His head was aching worse than ever so he dropped the curtain to avoid the bright wash of sunlight and turned into the dimness of the room. He crossed to the dressing-table and looked down at the scatter of objects – a cigarette case, apparently of gold, a smoothly modelled cigarette lighter, a wallet and a note-case, and a handful of loose change.
Denison sat down, switched on the table lamp, and picked up one of the silver coins. The head depicted in profile was that of a fleshy man with a prow of a nose; there was something of the air of a Roman emperor about him. The wording was simple: OLAV.V.R. Denison turned the coin over to find a prancing horse and the inscription: I KRONE. NORGE.
Norway!
Denison began to feel his mind spin again and he bent forward as a sudden stomach cramp hit him. He laid down the coin and held his head in his hands until he felt better. Not a lot better, but marginally so.
When he had recovered enough he took the wallet and went through the pockets quickly, tossing the contents into a heap on the table top. The wallet emptied, he put it aside after noting its fine quality and began to examine the papers. There was an English driving licence in the name of Harold Feltham Meyrick of Lippscott House, near Brackley, Buckinghamshire. Hair prickled at the nape of Denison’s neck as he looked at the signature. It was in his own handwriting. It was not his name but it was his penmanship – of that he was certain.
He stretched out his hand and took a pen, one of a matched set of fountain pen and ballpoint. He looked around for something on which to write, saw nothing, and opened the drawer in front of him where he found a folder containing writing paper and envelopes. He paused for a moment when he saw the letter heading – HOTEL CONTINENTAL, STORTINGS GATA, OSLO.
His hand trembled as the pen approached the paper but he scribbled his signature firmly enough – Giles Denison. He looked at the familiar loops and curlicues and felt immeasurably better, then he wrote another signature – H. F. Meyrick. He took the driving licence and compared it with what he had just written. It confirmed what he already knew; the signature in the driving licence was in his own handwriting.
So were the signatures in a fat book of Cook’s traveller’s cheques. He counted the cheques – nineteen of them at £50 each – £950 in all. If he was indeed Meyrick he was pretty well breeched. His headache grew worse.
There were a dozen engraved visiting cards with Meyrick’s name and address and a fat sheaf of Norwegian currency in the note-case which he did not bother to count. He dropped it on to the desk and held his throbbing head in his hands. In spite of the fact that he had just woken up he felt tired and light-headed. He knew he was in danger of going into psychological retreat again; it would be so easy to curl up on the bed and reject this crazy, impossible thing that had happened to him, taking refuge in sleep with the hope that it would prove to be a dream and that when he woke he would be back in bed in his own flat in Hampstead, a thousand miles away.
He opened the drawer a fraction, put his fingers inside, and then smashed the drawer closed with the heel of his other hand. He gasped with the pain and when he drew his hand from the drawer there were flaring red marks on the backs of his fingers. The pain caused tears to come to his eyes and, as he nursed his hand, he knew this was too real to be a dream.
So if it was not a dream, what was it? He had gone to bed as one person and woken up, in another country, as another. But wait! That was not quite accurate. He had woken up knowing he was Giles Denison – the persona of – Harold Feltham Meyrick was all on the exterior – inside he was still Giles Denison.
He was about to pursue this line of thought when he had another spasm of stomach cramp and suddenly he realized why he felt so weak and tired. He was ravenously hungry. Painfully he stood up and went in to the bathroom where he stared down into the toilet bowl. He had been violently sick but his stomach had been so empty that there was hardly anything to be brought up but a thin, acid digestive juice. And yet the previous evening he had had a full meal. Surely there was something wrong there.
He went back into the bedroom and paused irresolutely by the telephone and then, with a sudden access of determination, picked it up. ‘Give me room service,’ he said. His voice was hoarse and strange in his own ears.
The telephone crackled. ‘Room service,’ it said in accented English.
‘I’d like something to eat,’ said Denison. He glanced at his watch – it was nearly two o’clock. ‘A light lunch.’
‘Open sandwiches?’ suggested the telephone.
‘Something like that,’ said Denison. ‘And a pot of coffee.’
‘Yes, sir. The room number is …?’
Denison did not know. He looked around hastily and saw what must be the room key on a low coffee-table by the window. It was attached to about five pounds of brass on which a number was stamped. ‘Three-sixty,’ he said.
‘Very good, sir.’
Denison was inspired. ‘Can you send up a newspaper?’
‘English or Norwegian, sir?’
‘One of each.’
‘The Times?’
‘That and an equivalent local paper. And I may be in the bathroom when you come up – just leave everything on the table.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Denison put down the telephone with a feeling of relief. He would have to face people some time but he did not feel eager to do so immediately. Certainly he would have to ask a lot of questions, but he wanted time to compose himself. He could not help feeling there would be a lot of trip wires to avoid in the taking over of another personality.
He took the silk Paisley dressing-gown which he found draped over a chair and went into the bathroom, where he was coward enough to hang a towel over the mirror. After fumbling for a moment with unfamiliar plumbing, he drew a bath of hot water, then stripped off the pyjamas. He became aware of the sticking-plaster on his left arm and was about to take it off but he thought better of it, wondering if he really wanted to know what was underneath.
He got into the bath and soaked in the hot water, feeling the heat ease his suddenly aching limbs, and again, he drowsily wondered why he felt so tired after being up only two hours. Presently he heard the door of the suite open and there was a clatter of crockery. The door banged closed and everything was quiet again so he got out of the bath and began to rub himself down.
While sitting on the cork-topped stool he suddenly bent forward and examined his left shin. There was a blue-white scar there, about the size and shape of an orange pip. He remembered when that had happened; it was when he was eight years old and had fallen off his first bicycle.
He raised his head and laughed aloud, feeling much better. He had remembered that as Giles Denison and that little scar was a part of his body that did not belong to Mr Harold Blasted Feltham Bloody Meyrick.
THREE (#ulink_7f6ff59d-5504-5b13-99be-e1fd019b12f3)
The Norwegian idea of a light lunch was an enormous tray filled with a variety of edible goodies which Denison surveyed with satisfaction before plunging in. The discovery of the scar had cheered him immensely and had even emboldened him to shave Meyrick’s face. Meyrick was old-fashioned enough to use a safety-razor and a silver-mounted badger-hair brush instead of an electric shaver and Denison had had some difficulty in guiding the blade over unfamiliar contours and had cut himself – or Meyrick – twice. And so, when he picked up the newspapers, his face was adorned with two bloody patches of toilet paper.
The London Times and the Norwegian Aftenposten both had the same date – July 9 – and Denison went very still, a piece of herring on rye bread poised in mid-air. His last memory as Giles Denison had been going to bed just after midnight on July 1 – no, it would be July 2 if it was after midnight.
Somewhere he had lost a week.
He put his hand to his arm and felt the sticking-plaster. Someone had been doing things to him. He did not know who and he did not know why but, by God, he was going to find out and someone was going to pay dearly. While shaving he had examined his face closely. The scar on his left cheek was there all right, the remnant of an old wound, but it did not feel like a scar when he touched it. Still, no matter how hard he rubbed it would not come off, so it was not merely an example of clever theatrical make-up. The same applied to the birthmark on the right jaw.
There was something else odd about his nose and his cheeks and that double chin. They had a rubbery feel about them. Not ever having had any excess fat on his body he did not know whether this was normal or not. And, again, Meyrick’s face had grown a little stubble of hair which he had shaved off, but the bald temples were smooth which meant that whoever had lifted his hairline had not done it by shaving.
The only part of his face Denison recognized were his eyes – those had not changed; they were still the same grey-green eyes he had seen every morning in the mirror. But the expression was different because of the droop of the left eyelid. There was a slight soreness in the outer corner of that eye which aroused his suspicions but he could see nothing but a tiny inflamed spot which could have been natural.
As he ate voraciously he glanced through The Times. The world still seemed to be wobbling on its political axis as unsteadily as ever and nothing had changed, so he tossed the newspaper aside and gave himself up to thought over a steaming cup of black coffee. What could be the motive for spiriting a man from his own bed, transforming him bodily, giving him a new personality and dumping him in a luxury hotel in the capital of Norway?
No answer.
The meal had invigorated him and he felt like moving and not sitting. He did not yet feel up to encountering people so he compromised by going through Meyrick’s possessions. He opened the wardrobe and in one of the drawers, underneath a pile of underwear, he found a large travelling wallet. Taking it to the dressing-table he unzipped it and went through the contents.
The first thing to catch his eyes was a British passport. He opened it to find the description of the holder was filled out in his own handwriting as was Meyrick’s signature underneath. The face that looked out of the photograph on the opposite page was that of Meyrick, who was described as a civil servant. Whoever had thought up this lark had been thorough about it.
He flipped through the pages and found only one stamped entry and his brow wrinkled as he studied it. Sverige? Would that be Sweden? If so he had arrived at a place called Arlanda in Sweden on a date he could not tell because the stamping was blurred. Turning to the back of the passport he found that the sum of £1,500 had been issued a month earlier. Since the maximum travel allowance for a tourist was £300 it would seem that H. F. Meyrick was operating on a businessman’s allowance.
At the bottom of a pocket in the wallet he found an American Express credit card, complete with the ubiquitous fake signature. He looked at it pensively, flicking it with his fingernail. With this he could draw money or traveller’s cheques anywhere; he could use it to buy an airline ticket to Australia if he felt the urge to emigrate suddenly. It represented complete and unlicensed freedom unless and until someone put a stopper on it at head office.
He transferred it to the small personal wallet along with the driving licence. It would be better to keep that little bit of plastic available in case of need.
Meyrick had an extensive wardrobe; casual clothing, lounge suits and even a dinner-jacket with accessories. Denison investigated a small box and found it contained personal jewellery – studs, tiepins and a couple of rings – and he realized he probably held a thousand pounds’ worth of gold in his hand. The Patek Philippe watch on his wrist would cost £500 if it cost a penny. H. F. Meyrick was a wealthy man, so what kind of a civil servant did that make him?
Denison decided to get dressed. It was a sunny day so he chose casual trousers and a sports coat. The clothing fitted him as though made to measure. He looked at himself in the full-length mirror built into the wardrobe door, studiously ignoring the face on top of the body, and thought crazily that it, too, had probably been made to measure. The world began to spin again, but he remembered the small scar on his shin that belonged to Denison and that helped him to recover.
He put his personal possessions into his pockets and headed for the door, key in hand. As the door swung open a card which had been hung on the outer handle fell to the floor. He picked it up and read: VENNLIGST IKKE FORSTYRR – PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB. He was thoughtful as he hung it on the hook inside the door before locking the room; he would give a lot to know who had hung out that sign.
He went down in the lift with a couple of American blue-rinsed matrons who chattered to each other in a mid-West twang. ‘Say, have you been out to Vigeland Park? All those statues – I didn’t know where to look.’ The lift stopped and the doors slid open with a soft hiss, and the American ladies bustled out intent on sightseeing.
Denison followed them diffidently into the hotel lobby and stood by the lifts for a while, trying to get his bearings, doing his best to appear nonchalantly casual while he took in the scene.
‘Mr Meyrick … Mr Meyrick, sir!’
He turned his head and saw the porter at the desk smiling at him. Licking lips that had suddenly gone dry he walked over. ‘Yes?’
‘Would you mind signing this, sir? The check for the meal in your room. Just a formality.’
Denison looked at the proffered pen and laid down the room key. He took the pen and scribbled firmly ‘H. F. Meyrick’ and pushed the slip across the counter. The porter was hanging the key on the rack but he turned and spoke to Denison before he could slip away. ‘The night porter put your car away, sir. Here is the key.’
He held out a key with a tag on it and Denison extended his hand to take it. He glanced at the tag and saw the name, Hertz, and a car number. He cleared his throat. ‘Thank you.’
‘You sound as though you have a cold coming on,’ said the porter.
Denison took a chance. ‘Why do you think that?’
‘Your voice sounds different.’
‘Yes, I do feel a bit chesty,’ said Denison.
The porter smiled. ‘Too much night air, perhaps.’
Denison took another chance. ‘What time did I get in last night?’
‘This morning, sir. The night porter said it was about three o’clock.’ The porter offered Denison a man-of-the-world smile. ‘I wasn’t surprised when you slept in this morning.’
No, thought Denison; but I was! He was growing bolder as he gained confidence. ‘Can you tell me something? I was having a discussion with a friend about how long I’ve been here in Oslo and, for the life of me, I can’t remember the exact day I booked in here. Could you check it for me?’
‘Certainly, sir.’ The porter moved away and began to run through cards in a file. Denison looked at the car key. It was thoughtful of Hertz to put the car number on the tag; he might even be able to recognize it when he saw it. It was also thoughtful of the night porter to put the car away – but where the hell had he put it?
The porter returned. ‘You checked in on the eighteenth of June, sir. Exactly three weeks ago.’
The butterflies in Denison’s stomach collided. ‘Thank you,’ he said mechanically, and moved away from the desk and across the lobby. An arrow pointed the direction to the bar and he glanced sideways and saw a dark, cool cavern with a few drinkers, solitary or in couples. It looked quiet and he desperately wanted to think, so he went in.
When the barman came up, he said, ‘A beer, please.’
‘Export, sir?’
Denison nodded absently. June 18. He had reckoned he had lost a week so how the devil could he have booked into the Hotel Continental in Oslo three weeks earlier? How the hell could he have been in two places at the same time?
The barman returned, poured the beer into a glass, and went away. Denison tried to figure where he had been on June 18 and found it difficult. Three weeks was a long time. Where were you at 6.17 on the evening of June 18? No wonder people found it difficult to establish alibis. He found it extraordinarily difficult to focus his thoughts; they flicked about, skittering here and there wildly out of control. When did you last see your father? Nuts!
A vagrant thought popped to the surface of his consciousness. Edinburgh! He had been to Edinburgh On the 17th and the 18th he had taken off as a reward for hard work. There had been a leisurely morning and he had played golf in the afternoon; he had gone to the cinema in the evening and had dined late in Soho, getting back to Hampstead fairly late.
He – as Giles Denison – had dined in Soho at about the same time as he – as Harold Feltham Meyrick – had dined in Oslo. Where was the sense of that?
He was aware that he was looking at bubbles rising in amber liquid and that he had not touched his beer. He lifted the glass and drank; it was cold and refreshing.
He had two things going for him – two things that kept him sane. One – Giles Denison’s scar on H. F. Meyrick’s shin – and two – the change in the timbre of Meyrick’s voice as recognized by the hotel porter. And what did that imply? Obviously that there were two Meyricks; one who had booked in on June 18, and another – himself – who had just been planted. Never mind why and never mind how. Just accept the fact that it was done.
He drank some more beer and rested his chin in his hand, feeling the unaccustomed flab of his jowl. He had lost a week of his life. Could so much plastic surgery be done in a week? He added that to the list of things to be checked on.
And what to do? He could go to the British Embassy and tell his story. Mentally he ran through the scenario.
‘What can we do for you, Mr Meyrick?’
‘Well the fact is I’m not Meyrick – whoever he is. My name is Giles Denison and I’ve been kidnapped from London, my face changed, and dumped into an Oslo hotel with a hell of a lot of money and an unlimited credit account. Can you help me?’
‘Certainly, Mr Meyrick. Miss Smith, will you ring for a doctor?’
‘My God!’ said Denison aloud. ‘I’d end up in the loony-bin.’
The barman cocked his head and came over. ‘You wish something, sir?’
‘Just to pay,’ said Denison, finishing his beer.
He paid from the loose change in his pocket and left the bar. In the lobby he spotted a sign saying GARAGE, so he went through a door and down a flight of stairs to emerge into a basement car park. He checked the number on the Hertz key and walked along the first row of cars. It was right at the end – a big black Mercedes. He unlocked the door.
The first thing he saw was the doll on the driver’s seat, a most curious object made of crudely carved wood and rope. The body was formed of rope twisted into a spiral and coming out in the form of a tail. His feet were but roughly indicated and the head was a round knob with a peg nose. The eyes and a mouth twisted to one side had been inked on to the wood, and the hair was of rope teased out into separate strands. It was a strange and somehow repulsive little figure.
He picked it up and discovered a piece of paper underneath it. He unfolded the deckle-edged note-paper and read the scrawled handwriting: Your Drammen Dolly awaits you at Spiraltoppen. Early morning, July 10.
He frowned. July 10 was next day, but where was Spiraltoppen and who – or what – was a Drammen Dolly? He looked at the ugly little doll. It had been lying on the driver’s seat as though it had been deliberately left for him to find. He tossed it in his hand a couple of times and then thrust it into his pocket. It made an unsightly bulge, but what did he care? It was not his jacket. The note he put into his wallet.
The car was almost new, with just over 500 kilometres on the clock. He found a sheaf of papers relating to the car hire; it had been rented five days earlier, a fact which was singularly devoid of informative content. There was nothing else to be found.
He got out of the car, locked it, and left the garage by the car entrance, emerging on to a street behind the hotel. It was a little bewildering for him; the traffic drove on the wrong side of the road, the street and shop signs were indecipherable and his command of Norwegian was minimal, being restricted to one word – skal – which, while being useful in a cheery sort of way, was not going to be of much use for the more practical things of life.
What he needed was information and he found it on the corner of the street in the form of a bookshop. He went inside and found an array of maps from which he selected a map of central Oslo, one of Greater Oslo, and a motoring map of Southern Norway. To these he added a guide to the city and paid out of the slab of Norwegian currency in Meyrick’s wallet. He made a mental note to count that money as soon as he had privacy.
He left the shop intending to go back to the hotel where he could study the maps and orient himself. He paused on the pavement and rubbernecked at the corner of a building where one would normally expect to find a street name – and there it was – Roald Amundsens Gata.
‘Harry!’
He turned to go in the direction of the hotel but paused as he felt a hand on his arm. ‘Harry Meyrick!’ There was a note of anger in the voice. She was a green-eyed redhead of about thirty and she was flying alarm flags – her lips were compressed and pink spots glowed in her cheeks. ‘I’m not used to being stood up,’ she said. ‘Where were you this morning?’
Momentarily he was nonplussed but remembered in time what the hotel porter had thought about his voice. ‘I wasn’t feeling well,’ he managed to get out. ‘I was in bed.’
‘There’s a thing called a telephone,’ she said angrily. ‘Alexander Graham Bell invented it – remember?’
‘I was knocked out by sleeping pills,’ he protested. With a small portion of his mind he noted that this was probably a true statement. ‘Perhaps I overdid it.’
Her expression changed. ‘You do sound a bit glued-up,’ she admitted. ‘Maybe I’ll forgive you.’ There was a faint American undertone to her English. ‘It will cost you a drink, darling.’
‘In the hotel?’ he suggested.
‘It’s too nice a day to be inside. We’ll go into the Studenterlunden.’ She waved her arm past a passing articulated tramcar towards the gay umbrellas in the gardens on the other side of the street.
Denison felt trapped as he escorted her across the street, but he also realized that if he was to learn anything about Meyrick then this was too good a chance to pass up. He had once been accosted in the street by a woman who obviously knew him but he did not have the faintest idea of who she was. There is a point of no return in that type of conversation after which one cannot, in decency, admit ignorance. On that occasion Denison had fumbled it, had suffered half an hour of devious conversation, and they had parted amicably without him finding out who she was. He still did not know. Grimly he thought that it was good practice for today’s exercise.
As they crossed the street she said, ‘I saw Jack Kidder this morning. He was asking about you.’
‘How is he?’
She laughed. ‘Fine, as always. You know Jack.’
‘Of course,’ said Denison deadpan. ‘Good old Jack.’
They went into the outdoor café and found an empty table with difficulty. Under other circumstances Denison would have found it pleasant to have a drink with a pretty woman in surroundings like this, but his mind was beleaguered by his present problems. They sat down and he put his parcel of maps on the table.
One of them slipped out of the packet and his main problem prodded at it with a well-manicured forefinger. ‘What are these?’
‘Maps,’ said Denison succinctly.
‘Maps of where?’
‘Of the city.’
‘Oslo!’ She seemed amused. ‘Why do you want maps of Oslo? Isn’t it your boast that you know Oslo better than London?’
‘They’re for a friend.’
Denison chalked up a mental note. Meyrick knows Oslo well; probably a frequent visitor. Steer clear of local conditions or gossip. Might run into more problems like this.
‘Oh!’ She appeared to lose interest.
Denison realized he was faced with a peculiar difficulty. He did not know this woman’s name and, as people do not commonly refer to themselves by name in conversation, he did not see how he was going to get it, short of somehow prying into her handbag and looking for identification.
‘Give me a cigarette, darling,’ she said.
He patted his pockets and found he had left the cigarette case and lighter in the room. Not being a smoker it had not occurred to him to put them in his pocket along with the rest of Meyrick’s personal gear. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t have any with me.’
‘My!’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me the great Professor Meyrick has stopped smoking. Now I will believe in cancer.’
Professor!
He used the pretext of illness again. ‘The one I tried this morning tasted like straw. Maybe I will stop smoking.’ He held his hand over the table. ‘Look at those nicotine stains. Imagine what my lungs must be like.’
She shook her head in mock sorrow. ‘It’s like pulling down a national monument. To imagine Harry Meyrick without a cigarette is like trying to imagine Paris without the Eiffel Tower.’
A Nordic waitress came to the table; she looked rather like Jeanette MacDonald dressed for an appearance in White Horse Inn. Denison raised his eyebrows at his companion. ‘What will you have?’
‘The usual,’ she said indifferently, delving into her handbag.
He took refuge in a paroxysm of coughing pulling out his handkerchief and only emerging when he heard her giving the order. He waited until the waitress left before putting away the handkerchief. The woman opposite him said, ‘Harry, that’s a really bad cough. I’m not surprised you’re thinking of giving up the cancer sticks. Are you feeling all right, darling? Maybe you’d be better off in bed, after all.’
‘I’m all right,’ he said.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked solicitously.
‘Perfectly sure.’
‘Spoken like the old Professor Meyrick,’ she said mockingly. ‘Always sure of everything.’
‘Don’t call me Professor,’ he said testily. It was a safe enough thing to say regardless of whether Meyrick was really a professor or whether she was pulling his leg in a heavy-handed manner. The British have never been keen on the over-use of professional titles. And it might provoke her into dropping useful information.
All he got was a light and inconsequential, ‘When on the Continent do as the Continentals do.’
He went on the attack. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘You’re so British, Harry.’ He thought he detected a cutting edge to her voice. ‘But then, of course, you would be.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Oh, come off it. There’s nobody more British than an outsider who has bored his way in. Where were you born, Harry? Somewhere in Mittel Europa?’ She suddenly looked a little ashamed. ‘I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have said that. I’m being bitchy, but you’re behaving a bit oddly, too.’
‘The effect of the pills. Barbiturates have never agreed with me. I have a headache.’
She opened her handbag. ‘I have aspirin.’
The waitress, Valkyrie-like, bore down on them. Denison looked at the bottles on the tray, and said, ‘I doubt if aspirin goes with beer.’ That was the last thing he would have thought of as ‘the usual’; she did not look the beery type.
She shrugged and closed the bag with a click. ‘Please yourself.’
The waitress put down two glasses, two bottles of beer and a packet of cigarettes, said something rapid and incomprehensible, and waited expectantly. Denison took out his wallet and selected a 100-kroner note. Surely two beers and a packet of cigarettes could not cost more than a hundred kroner. My God, he did not even know the value of the currency! This was like walking through a minefield blindfolded.
He was relieved when the waitress made no comment but made change from a leather bag concealed under her apron. He laid the money on the table intending to check it surreptitiously. The redhead said, ‘You’ve no need to buy my cigarettes, Harry.’
He smiled at her. ‘Be my guest,’ he said, and stretched out his hand to pour her beer.
‘You’ve given it up yourself but you’re quite prepared to pay for other people’s poison.’ She laughed. ‘Not a very moral attitude.’
‘I’m not a moral philosopher,’ he said, hoping it was true.
‘No, you’re not,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve always wondered where you stood in that general direction. What would you call yourself, Harry? Atheist? Agnostic? Humanist?’
At last he was getting something of the quality of Meyrick. Those were questions but they were leading questions, and he was quite prepared to discuss philosophy with her – a nice safe subject. ‘Not an atheist,’ he said. ‘It’s always seemed to me that to believe in the non-existence of something is somewhat harder than to believe in its existence. I’d put myself down as an agnostic – one of the “don’t know” majority. And that doesn’t conflict with humanism.’
He fingered the notes and coins on the table, counted them mentally, subtracted the price of two beers based on what he had paid for a beer in the hotel, and arrived at the price of a packet of cigarettes. Roughly, that is. He had an idea that the price of a beer in a luxury hotel would be far higher than in an open-air café.
‘I went to church last Sunday,’ she said pensively. ‘To the English church – you know – the one on Møllergata.’ He nodded as though he did know. ‘I didn’t get much out of it. I think next time I’ll try the American church.’ She frowned. ‘Where is the American church, Harry?’
He had to say something, so he took a chance. ‘Isn’t it near the Embassy?’
Her brow cleared. ‘Of course. Between Bygdøy Alle and Drammens Veien. It’s funny, isn’t it? The American church being practically next door to the British Embassy. You’d expect it to be near the American Embassy.’
He gulped. ‘Yes, you would,’ he said, and forbore to mention that that was what he had meant. Even a quasi-theological conversation was strewn with pitfalls. He had to get out of this before he really dropped a clanger.
And an alarming suspicion had just sprung to mind, fully armed and spiky. Whoever had planted him in that hotel room and provided him with money and the means to provide all the necessities of life – and a lot of the luxuries, too – was unlikely to leave him unobserved. Someone would be keeping tabs on him, otherwise the whole operation was a nonsense. Could it be this redhead who apparently had qualms about her immortal soul? What could be better than to plant someone right next to him for closer observation?
She opened the packet of cigarettes and offered him one. ‘You’re sure you won’t?’
He shook his head. ‘Quite sure.’
‘It must be marvellous to have will power.’
He wanted peace and not this continuous exploration of a maze where every corner turned could be more dangerous than the last. He started to cough again, and dragged his handkerchief from his pocket. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a muffled voice. ‘I think you’re right; I’d be better off in bed. Do you mind if I leave you?’
‘Of course not.’ Her voice was filled with concern. ‘Do you want a doctor?’
‘That’s not necessary,’ he said. ‘I’ll be all right tomorrow – I know how these turns take me.’ He stood up and she also rose. ‘Don’t bother to come with me. The hotel is only across the road.’
He picked up the packet and thrust the maps back into it, and put the handkerchief into his pocket. She looked down at his feet. ‘You’ve dropped something,’ she said, and stooped to pick it up. ‘Why, it’s a Spiralen Doll.’
‘A what?’ he asked incautiously. It must have been pulled from his pocket when he took out the handkerchief.
She regarded him oddly. ‘You pointed these out at the Spiralen when we were there last week. You laughed at them and called them tourist junk. Don’t you remember?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It’s just this damned headache.’
She laughed. ‘I didn’t expect to see you carrying one. You didn’t buy this when we were there – where did you get it?’
He told the truth. ‘I found it in the car I hired.’
‘You can’t trust anyone to do a good job these days,’ she said, smiling. ‘Those cars are supposed to be cleaned and checked.’ She held it out. ‘Do you want it?’
‘I may be a bit light-headed,’ he said, ‘but I think I do.’ He took it from her. ‘I’ll be going now.’
‘Have a hot toddy and a good night’s sleep,’ she advised. ‘And ring me as soon as you’re better.’
That would be difficult, to say the least, with neither telephone number nor name. ‘Why don’t you give me a ring tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll be well enough to have dinner. I promise not to stand you up again.’
‘I’ll ring you tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Promise,’ he insisted, not wanting to lose her.
‘Promise.’
He put the rope doll into his pocket and left her with a wave, and went out of the garden, across the road and into the hotel, feeling relieved that he was well out of a difficult situation. Information, he thought, as he walked across the hotel lobby; that’s what I need – I’m hamstrung without it.
He paused at the porter’s desk and the porter looked up with a quick smile. ‘Your key, sir?’ He swung around and unhooked it.
On impulse Denison held out the doll. ‘What’s that?’
The porter’s smile broadened. ‘That’s a Spiralen Doll, sir.’
‘Where does it come from?’
‘From the Spiralen, sir – in Drammen. If you’re interested, I have a pamphlet.’
‘I’m very much interested,’ said Denison.
The porter looked through papers on a shelf and came up with a leaflet printed in blue ink. ‘You must be an engineer, sir.’
Denison did not know what the hell Meyrick was. ‘It’s in my general field of interest,’ he said guardedly, took the key and the leaflet, and walked towards the lifts. He did not notice the man who had been hovering behind him and who regarded him speculatively until the lift door closed.
Once in his room Denison tossed the maps and the leaflet on to the dressing-table and picked up the telephone. ‘I’d like to make a long distance call, please – to England.’ He took out his wallet.
‘What is the number, sir?’
‘There’s a little difficulty about that. I don’t have a number – only an address.’ He opened the wallet with one hand and extracted one of Meyrick’s cards.
The telephonist was dubious. ‘That may take some time, sir.’
‘It doesn’t matter – I’ll be in my room for the rest of the day.’
‘What is the address sir?’
Denison said clearly, ‘Lippscott House, near Brackley, Buckinghamshire, England.’ He repeated it three times to make sure it had got across.
‘And the name?’
Denison opened his mouth and then closed it, having suddenly acquired a dazed look. He would appear to be a damned fool if he gave the name of Meyrick – no one in his right mind rings up himself, especially after having admitted he did not know his own telephone number. He swallowed, and said shortly, ‘The name is not known.’
The telephone sighed in his ear. ‘I’ll do my best, sir.’
Denison put down the telephone and settled in a chair to find out about the Spiralen. The front of the leaflet was headed: DRAMMEN. There was an illustration of a Spiralen Doll which did not look any better for being printed in blue. The leaflet was in four languages.
The Spiralen was described as being ‘a truly unique attraction, as well as a superb piece of engineering.’ Apparently there had been a quarry at the foot of Bragernesasen, a hill near Drammen, which had become an eyesore until the City Fathers decided to do something about it. Instead of quarrying the face of the hill the operation had been extended into the interior.
A tunnel had been driven into the hill, thirty feet wide, fifteen feet high and a mile long. But not in a straight line. It turned back on itself six complete times in a spiral drilled into the mountain, climbing five hundred feet until it came out on top of Bragernesasen where the Spiraltoppen Restaurant was open all the year round. The views were said to be excellent.
Denison picked up the doll; its body was formed of six complete turns of rope. He grinned weakly.
Consultation of the maps revealed that Drammen was a small town forty kilometres west of Oslo. That would be a nice morning drive, and he could get back in the afternoon well in time for any call from the redhead. It was not much to go on, but it was all he had.
He spent the rest of the afternoon searching through Meyrick’s possessions but found nothing that could be said to be a clue. He ordered dinner to be sent to his room because he suspected that the hotel restaurant might be full of unexploded human mines like the redhead he had met, and there was a limit to what he could get away with.
The telephone call came when he was half-way through dinner. There were clicks and crackles and a distant voice said, ‘Dr Meyrick’s residence.’
Doctor!
‘I’d like to speak to Dr Meyrick.’
‘I’m sorry, sir; but Dr Meyrick is not at home.’
‘Have you any idea where I can find him?’
‘He is out of the country at the moment, sir.’
‘Oh! Have you any idea where?’
There was a pause. ‘I believe he is travelling in Scandinavia, sir.’
This was not getting anywhere at all. ‘Who am I speaking to?’
‘This is Andrews – Dr Meyrick’s personal servant. Would you like to leave a message, sir?’
‘Do you recognize my voice, Andrews?’ asked Denison.
A pause. ‘It’s a bad line.’ Another pause. ‘I don’t believe in guessing games on the telephone, sir.’
‘All right,’ said Denison. ‘When you see Dr Meyrick will you tell him that Giles Denison called, and I’ll be getting in touch with him as soon as possible. Got that?’
‘Giles Denison. Yes, Mr Denison.’
‘When is Dr Meyrick expected home?’
‘I really couldn’t say, Mr Denison.’
‘Thank you, Mr Andrews.’
Denison put down the telephone. He felt depressed.
FOUR (#ulink_2a00e4a0-e66f-5905-a14f-8806c1dd1796)
He slept poorly that night. His sleep was plagued with dreams which he did not remember clearly during the few times he was jerked into wakefulness but which he knew were full of monstrous and fearful figures which threatened him. In the early hours of the morning he fell into a heavy sleep which deadened senses and when he woke he felt heavy and listless.
He got up tiredly and twitched aside the window curtain to find that the weather had changed; the sky was a dull grey and the pavements were wet and a fine drizzle filled the air. The outdoor café in the gardens opposite would not be doing much business that day.
He rang down for breakfast and then had a shower, finishing with needle jets of cold water in an attempt to whip some enthusiasm into his suddenly heavy body and, to a degree, he succeeded. When the floor waitress came in with his breakfast he had dressed in trousers and white polo-necked sweater and was combing his hair before the bathroom mirror. Incredibly enough, he was whistling in spite of having Meyrick’s face before him.
The food helped, too, although it was unfamiliar and a long way from an English breakfast. He rejected the raw, marinated herring and settled for a boiled egg, bread and marmalade and coffee. After breakfast he checked the weather again and then selected a jacket and a short topcoat from the wardrobe. He also found a thin, zippered leather satchel into which he put the maps and the Spiralen leaflet which had a street plan of Drammen on the back. Then he went down to the car. It was exactly nine o’clock.
It was not easy getting out of town. The car was bigger and more powerful than those he had been accustomed to driving and he had to keep to what was to him the wrong side of the road in a strange city in early rush-hour traffic. Three times he missed signs and took wrong turnings. The first time he did this he cruised on and got hopelessly lost and had to retrace his path laboriously. Thereafter when he missed a turn he reversed immediately so as not to lose his way again.
He was quite unaware of the man following him in the Swedish Volvo. Denison’s erratic course across the city of Oslo was causing him a lot of trouble, especially when Denison did his quick and unexpected reversals. The man, whose name was Armstrong, swore freely and frequently, and his language became indescribable when the drizzle intensified into a downpour of heavy driving rain.
Denison eventually got out of the centre of the city and on to a six-lane highway, three lanes each way. The windscreen wipers had to work hard to cope with the rain, but it was better when he fiddled with a switch and discovered they had two speeds. Resolutely he stuck to the centre lane, reassured from time to time by the name DRAMMEN which appeared on overhead gantries.
To his left was the sea, the deeply penetrating arm of Oslofjord, but then the road veered away and headed inland. Presently the rain stopped, although no sun appeared, and he even began to enjoy himself, having got command of the unfamiliar car. And suddenly he was in Drammen, where he parked and studied the plan on the back of the leaflet.
In spite of the plan he missed the narrow turning to the right and had to carry on for some way before he found an opportunity to reverse the car, but eventually he drove up to the entrance of the tunnel where he stopped to pay the two-kroner charge.
He put the car into gear and moved forward slowly. At first the tunnel was straight, and then it began to climb, turning to the left. There was dim illumination but he switched on his headlights in the dipped position and saw the reflection from the wetness of the rough stone wall. The gradient was regular, as was the radius of the spiral, and by the time he came to a board marked 1 he had got the hang of it. All he had to do was to keep the wheel at a fixed lock to correspond with the radius of the spiral and grind upwards in low gear.
All the same, it was quite an experience – driving upwards through the middle of a mountain. Just after he passed level 3 a car passed him going downwards and momentarily blinded him, but that was all the trouble he had. He took the precaution of steering nearer to the outer curve and closer to the wall.
Soon after passing level 6 he came out of the tunnel into a dazzle of light and on to level ground. To his left there was a large car park, empty of cars, and beyond it was the roof of a large wooden building constructed in chalet style. He parked as close to the building as he could, and got out of the car and locked it.
The chalet was obviously the Spiraltoppen Restaurant, but it was barely in business. He looked through a glass door and saw two women mopping the floor. It was still very early in the morning. He retreated a few steps and saw a giant Spiralen Doll outside the entrance, a leering figure nearly as big as a man.
He looked about him and saw steps leading down towards the edge of a cliff where there was a low stone wall and a coin-in-the-slot telescope. He walked down the path to where he could get a view of the Drammen Valley. The clouds were lifting and the sun broke through and illuminated the river so far below. The air was crystal clear.
Very pretty, he thought sourly; but what the hell am I doing here? What do I expect to find? Drammen Dolly, where are you?
Perhaps the answer lay in the restaurant. He looked at the view for a long time, made nothing of it from his personal point of view, and then returned to the restaurant where the floor-mopping operation had been completed.
He went inside and sat down, looking around hopefully. It was a curiously ad hoc building, all odd angles and discrepancies as though the architect – if there had been an architect – had radically changed his mind during construction. Presently a waitress came and took his order without displaying much interest in him, and later returned with his coffee. She went away without giving him the secret password, so he sat and sipped the coffee gloomily.
After a while he pulled out the leaflet and studied it. He was on the top of Bragernesasen which was ‘the threshold of the unspoilt country of Drammensmarka, an eldorado for hikers in summer, and skiers in winter, who have the benefit of floodlit trails.’ There might be something there, he thought; so he paid for his coffee and left.
Another car had arrived and stood on the other side of the car park. A man sat behind the wheel reading a newspaper. He glanced across incuriously as the restaurant door slammed behind Denison and then returned to his reading. Denison pulled the topcoat closer about him against the suddenly cold wind and walked away from the cliff towards the unspoilt country of Drammensmarka.
It was a wooded area with tall conifers and equally tall deciduous trees with whitish trunks which he assumed to be birches, although he could have been wrong, botany not being his subject. There was a trail leading away from the car park which appeared to be well trodden. Soon the trees closed around him and, on looking back, the restaurant was out of sight.
The trail forked and, tossing a mental coin, he took the route to the right. After walking for a further ten minutes he stopped and again wondered what the hell he was doing. Just because he had found a crude doll in a car he was walking through a forest on a mountain in Norway. It was bloody ridiculous.
It had been the redhead’s casual theory that the doll had been left in the car by a previous hirer. But what previous hirer? The car was obviously new. The doll had been left in a prominent position and there was the note to go with it with the significant reference to the ‘Drammen Dolly’.
Early morning – that’s what the note had said. But how early was early? Come out, come out, wherever you are, my little Drammen Dolly. Wave your magic wand and take me back to Hampstead.
He turned around and trudged back to the fork in the path and this time took the route to the left. The air was fresh and clean after the rain. Drops of water sparkled prismatically on the leaves as the sun struck them and occasionally, as he passed under a tree, a miniature shower would sprinkle him.
And he saw nothing but trees.
He came to another fork in the trail and stopped, wondering what to do. There was a sound behind him as of a twig breaking and he swung around and stared back along the trail but saw nothing as he peered into the dappled forest, shading his eyes from the sun. He turned away but heard another sound to his right and out of the corner of his eye saw something dark moving very fast among the trees.
Behind him he heard footsteps and whirled around to find himself under savage attack. Almost upon him was a big man, a six-footer with broad shoulders, his right hand uplifted and holding what appeared to be a short club.
Denison was thirty-six, which is no age to indulge in serious fisticuffs. He also led a sedentary life which meant that his wind was not good, although it was better than it might have been because he did not smoke. Yet his reflexes were fast enough. What really saved him, though, was that in his time he had been a middling-good middleweight boxer who had won most of his amateur fights by sheer driving aggression.
The last two days had been frustrating for a man of his aggressive tendencies. He had been in a mist with nothing visible to fight and this had gnawed at him. Now that he had something to fight – someone to fight – his instincts took over.
Which is why, instead of jumping back under the attack, unexpectedly he went in low, blocked the descending arm with his own left arm and sank his right fist into his attacker’s belly just below the sternum. The man’s breath came out of him with a gasp and he doubled up on the ground wheezing and making retching noises.
Denison wasted no time, but ran for it back to the car park, aware that his were not the only feet that made those thudding noises on the trail. He did not waste time by looking back but just put his head down and ran. To his left he was aware of a man bounding down the hill dodging trees and doing his best to cut him off – what was worse, he seemed to be succeeding.
Denison put on an extra burst of speed but it was no use – the man leaped on to the trail about fifteen yards ahead. Denison heard his pursuer pounding behind and knew that if he stopped he would be trapped, so he bored on up the trail without slackening pace.
When the man ahead realized that Denison did not intend to stop a look of surprise came over his face and his hand plucked at his waist and he dropped into a crouch. Sun gleamed off the blade of the knife he held in his right hand. Denison ran full tilt at him and made as to break to the man’s left – the safe side – but at the last minute he sold him the dummy and broke away on the knife side.
He nearly got through unscathed because the man bought it. But at the last moment he lashed out with the knife and Denison felt a hot pain across his flank. Yet he had got past and plunged along the trail with undiminished speed, hoping to God he would not trip over an exposed tree root. There is nothing like being chased by a man with a knife to put wings on the feet.
There were three of them. The big man he had laid out with a blow to the solar plexus would not be good for anything for at least two minutes and probably longer. That left the knifer and the other man who had chased him. Behind he heard cries but ahead he saw the roof of the restaurant just coming in sight over the rise.
His wind was going fast and he knew he could not keep up this sprint for long. He burst out into the car park and headed for his car, thankful there was now firm footing. A car door slammed and he risked a glance to the left and saw the man who had been reading the newspaper in the parked car beginning to run towards him.
He fumbled hastily for his car key and thanked God when it slipped smoothly into the lock. He dived behind the wheel and slammed the door with one hand while stabbing the key at the ignition lock with the other – this time he missed and had to fumble again. The man outside hammered on the window and then tugged at the door handle. Denison held the door closed with straining muscles and brought over his other hand quickly to snap down the door catch.
He had dropped the car key on the floor and groped for it. His lungs were hurting and he gasped for breath, and the pain in his side suddenly sharpened, but somewhere at the back of his mind cool logic told him that he was reasonably safe, that no one could get into a locked car before he took off – always provided he could find that damned key.
His fingers brushed against it and he grabbed it, brought it up, and rammed it into the ignition lock. Cool logic evaporated fast when he saw the man stand back and produce an automatic pistol. Denison frantically pumped his foot on the clutch, slammed into first gear, and took off in a tyre-burning squeal even before he had a finger on the wheel. The car weaved drunkenly across the car park then straightened out and dived into the Spiralen tunnel like a rabbit down a hole.
Denison’s last glimpse of daylight in the rear-view mirror showed him the other car beginning to move with two doors open and his pursuers piling in. That would be the ferret after the rabbit.
It took him about ten seconds, after he hit the curve, to know he was going too fast. The gradient was one in ten and the curve radius only a hundred and fifteen feet, turning away to the right so that he was on the inside. His speed was such that centrifugal force tended to throw the car sideways over the centre line, and if anything was coming up he would surely hit it.
He could be compared to a man on a bobsled going down the Cresta Run – with some important differences. The Cresta Run is designed so that the walls can be climbed; here the walls were of jagged, untrimmed rock and one touch at speed would surely wreck the car. The Cresta Run does not have two-way traffic with a continuous blind corner a mile long, and the competitors are not pursued by men with guns – if they were, more records might be broken.
So Denison reluctantly eased his foot on the accelerator and risked a glance in his mirror. The driver of the car behind was more foolhardy than he and was not worrying about up-traffic. He was barrelling down the centre line and catching up fast. Denison fed more fuel to the engine, twisted the wheel and wondered if he could sustain a sideways drift a mile long.
The walls of the tunnel were a blur and the lights flicked by and he caught sight of an illuminated number 5. Four more circuits to go before the bottom. The car jolted and pitched suddenly and he fought the wheel which had taken on a life of its own. It did it again and he heard a nasty sound from the rear. He was being rammed. There was another sound as sheet metal ripped and the car slewed across the whole width of the tunnel.
He heard – and felt – the crunch as the rear off-side of the car slammed into the opposite wall, but Denison was not particularly worried about the property of the Hertz Company at that moment because he saw the dipped headlights of a vehicle coming up the Spiralen towards him. He juggled madly with wheel, clutch and accelerator and shot off to the other side of the tunnel again, scraping across the front of the tour bus that was coming up. There was a brief vignette of the driver of the bus, his mouth open and his eyes staring, and then he was gone.
The front fender scraped along the nearside tunnel wall in a shower of sparks and Denison wrenched the wheel over and nearly clipped the rear of the bus as it went by. He wobbled crazily from side to side of the tunnel for about a hundred and fifty yards before he had proper control, and it was only by the grace of God that the bus had not been the first in a procession of vehicles.
Level 2 passed in a flash and a flicker of light in Denison’s eyes, reflected from the rear-view mirror, told him that the car behind had also avoided the bus and was catching up again. He increased speed again and the tyres protested noisily with a rending squeal; the whole of the Spiralen would be filled with the stench of burning rubber.
Level 1. A brightness ahead warned of the approach of another vehicle and Denison tensed his muscles, but the tunnel straightened and he saw it was the daylight of the exit. He rammed down his foot and the car surged forward and came out of the tunnel like a shell from a gun. The fee-collector threw up his arms and jumped aside as the car shot past him. Denison screwed up his eyes against the sudden bright glare of sunlight and hurtled down the hill towards the main street of Drammen at top speed.
At the bottom of the hill he jammed on his brakes and wrenched the wheel sideways. The car heeled violently as it turned the corner and the tyres screamed again, leaving black rubber on the road. Then he literally stood on the brake pedal, rising in his seat, to avoid ploughing into a file of the good people of Drammen crossing the street at a traffic light. The car’s nose sank and the rear came up as it juddered to a halt, just grazing the thigh of a policeman who stood in the middle of the road with his back to Denison.
The policeman turned, his face expressionless. Denison sagged back into his seat and twisted his head to look back along the road. He saw the pursuing car break the other way and head down the road at high speed out of Drammen.
The policeman knocked on the car window and Denison wound it down to be met by a blast of hot Norwegian. He shook his head, and said loudly, ‘I have no Norwegian. Do you speak English?’
The policeman halted in mid-spate with his mouth open. He shut it firmly, took a deep breath, and said, ‘What you think you do?’
Denison pointed back. ‘It was those damn fools. I might have been killed.’
The policeman stood back and did a slow circumnavigation of the car, inspecting it carefully. Then he tapped on the window of the passenger side and Denison opened the door. The policeman got in. ‘Drive!’ he said.
When Denison pulled up outside the building marked POLISI and switched off the engine the policeman firmly took the car key from him and waved towards the door of the building. ‘Inside!’
It was a long wait for Denison. He sat in a bare room under the cool eye of a Norwegian policeman, junior grade, and meditated on his story. If he told the truth then the question would arise: Who would want to attack an Englishman called thing Meyrick? That would naturally lead to: Who is this Meyrick? Denison did not think he could survive long under questions like that. It would all come out and the consensus of opinion would be that they had a right nut-case on their hands, and probably homicidal at that. They would have to be told someother than the strict truth.
He waited an hour and then the telephone rang. The young policeman answered briefly, put down the telephone, and said to Denison, ‘Come!’
He was taken to an office where a senior policeman sat behind a desk. He picked up a pen and levelled it at a chair. ‘Sit!’
Denison sat, wondering if the English conversation of the Norwegian police was limited to one word at a time. The officer poised his pen above a printed form. ‘Name?’
‘Meyrick,’ said Denison. ‘Harold Feltham Meyrick.’
‘Nationality?’
‘British.’
The officer extended his hand, palm upwards. ‘Passport.’ It was not a question.
Denison took out his passport and put it on the outstretched palm. The officer flicked through the pages, then put it down and stared at Denison with eyes like chips of granite. ‘You drove through the streets of Drammen at an estimated speed of 140 kilometres an hour. I don’t have to tell you that is in excess of the speed limit. You drove through the Spiralen at an unknown speed – certainly less than 140 kilometres otherwise we would have the distasteful task of scraping you off the walls. What is your explanation?’
Denison now knew what a Norwegian policeman sounded like in an extended speech in the English language, and he did not particularly relish it. The man’s tone was scathing. He said, ‘There was a car behind me. The driver was playing silly buggers.’ The officer raised his eyebrows, and Denison said, ‘I think they were teenage hooligans out to throw a scare into someone – you know how they are. They succeeded with me. They rammed me a couple of times and I had to go faster. It all led on from that.’
He stopped and the officer stared at him with hard, grey eyes but said nothing. Denison let the silence lengthen, then said slowly and clearly, ‘I would like to get in touch with the British Embassy immediately.’
The officer lowered his eyes and consulted a typewritten form. ‘The condition of the rear of your car is consistent with your story. There was another car. It has been found abandoned. The condition of the front of that car is also consistent with your story. The car we found had been stolen last night in Oslo.’ He looked up. ‘Do you want to make any changes in your statement?’
‘No,’ said Denison.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
The officer stood up, the passport in his hand. ‘Wait here.’ He walked out.
Denison waited another hour before the officer came back. He said, ‘An official from your Embassy is coming to be present while you prepare your written statement.’
‘I see,’ said Denison. ‘What about my passport?’
‘That will be handed to the Embassy official. Your car we will keep here for spectrographic tests of the paintwork. If there has been transfer of paint from one car to another it will tend to support your statement. In any event, the car cannot be driven in its present condition; both indicator lights are smashed – you would be breaking the law.’
Denison nodded. ‘How long before the Embassy man gets here?’
‘I cannot say. You may wait here.’ The officer went away.
Denison waited for two hours. On complaining of hunger, food and coffee were brought to him on a tray. Otherwise he was left alone except for the doctor who came in to dress an abrasion on the left side of his forehead. He dimly remembered being struck by a tree branch on the chase along the trail, but did not correct the doctor who assumed it had occurred in the Spiralen. What with one thing and another, the left side of Meyrick’s face was taking quite a beating; any photographs had better be of the right profile.
He said nothing about the wound in his side. While alone in the office he had checked it quickly. That knife must have been razor sharp; it had sliced through his topcoat, his jacket, the sweater and into his side, fortunately not deeply. The white sweater was red with blood but the wound, which appeared clean, had stopped bleeding although it hurt if he moved suddenly. He left it alone.
At last someone came – a dapper young man with a fresh face who advanced on Denison with an outstretched hand. ‘Dr Meyrick – I’m George McCready, I’ve come to help you get out of this spot of trouble.’
Behind McCready came the police officer, who drew up another chair and they got down to the business of the written statement. The officer wanted it amplified much more than in Denison’s bald, verbal statement so he obligingly told all that had happened from the moment he had entered the Spiralen tunnel on top of Bragernesasen. He had no need to lie about anything. His written statement was taken away and typed up in quadruplicate and he signed all four copies, McCready countersigning as witness.
McCready cocked his eye at the officer. ‘I think that’s all.’
The officer nodded. ‘That’s all – for the moment. Dr Meyrick may be required at another time. I trust he will be available.’
‘Of course,’ said McCready easily. He turned to Denison. ‘Let’s get you back to the hotel. You must be tired.’
They went out to McCready’s car. As McCready drove out of Drammen Denison was preoccupied with a problem. How did McCready know to address him as ‘Doctor’? The designation on his passport was just plain ‘Mister’. He stirred and said, ‘If we’re going to the hotel I’d like to have my passport. I don’t like to be separated from it.’
‘You’re not going to the hotel,’ said McCready. ‘That was for the benefit of the copper. I’m taking you to the Embassy. Carey flew in from London this morning and he wants to see you.’ He laughed shortly. ‘How he wants to see you.’
Denison felt the water deepening. ‘Carey,’ he said in a neutral tone, hoping to stimulate conversation along those lines. McCready had dropped Carey’s name casually as though Meyrick was supposed to know him. Who the devil was Carey?
McCready did not bite. ‘That explanation of yours wasn’t quite candid, was it?’ He waited for a reaction but Denison kept his mouth shut. ‘There’s a witness – a waitress from the Spiraltoppen – who said something about a fight up there. It seems there was a man with a gun. The police are properly suspicious.’
When Denison would not be drawn McCready glanced sideways at him, and laughed. ‘Never mind, you did the right thing under the circumstances. Never talk about guns to a copper – it makes them nervous. Mind you, the circumstances should never have arisen. Carey’s bloody wild about that.’ He sighed. ‘I can’t say that I blame him.’
It was gibberish to Denison and he judged that the less he said the better. He leaned back, favouring his injured side, and said, ‘I’m tired.’
‘Yes,’ said McCready. ‘I suppose you must be.’
FIVE (#ulink_c3a1285c-3dae-53bd-9bb7-5cd15875a57d)
Denison was kept kicking his heels in an ante-room in the Embassy while McCready went off, presumably to report. After fifteen minutes he came back. ‘This way, Dr Meyrick.’
Denison followed him along a corridor until McCready stopped and politely held open a door for him. ‘You’ve already met Mr Carey, of course.’
The man sitting behind the desk could only be described as square. He was a big, chunky man with a square, head topped with close-cut grizzled grey hair. He was broad-chested and squared off at the shoulders, and his hands were big with blunt fingers. ‘Come in, Dr Meyrick.’ He nodded at McCready. ‘All right, George; be about your business.’
McCready closed the door. ‘Sit down, Doctor,’ said Carey. It was an invitation, not a command. Denison sat in the chair on the other side of the desk and waited for a long time while Carey inspected him with an inscrutable face.
After a long time Carey sighed. ‘Dr Meyrick, you were asked not to stray too far from your hotel and to keep strictly to central Oslo. If you wanted to go farther afield you were asked to let us know so that we could make the necessary arrangements. You see, our manpower isn’t infinite.’
His voice rose. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have been asked; maybe you should have been told.’ He seemed to hold himself in with an effort, and lowered his voice again. ‘So I fly in this morning to hear that you’re missing, and then I’m told that you isolated yourself on a mountain top – for what reason only you know.’
He raised his hand to intercept interruption. Denison did not mind; he was not going to say anything, anyway.
‘All right,’ said Carey. ‘I know the story you told the local coppers. It was a good improvisation and maybe they’ll buy it and maybe they won’t.’ He put his hands flat on the desk. ‘Now what really happened?’
‘I was up there walking through the woods,’ said Denison, ‘when suddenly a man attacked me.’
‘Description?’
‘Tall. Broad. Not unlike you in build, but younger. He had black hair. His nose was broken. He had something in his hand – he was going to hit me with it. Some sort of cosh, I suppose.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I laid him out,’ said Denison.
‘You laid him out,’ said Carey in a flat voice. There was disbelief in his eye.
‘I laid him out,’ said Denison evenly. He paused. ‘I was a useful boxer at one time.’
Carey frowned and drummed his fingers. ‘Then what happened?’
‘Another man was coming at me from behind, so I ran for it.’
‘Wise man – some of the time, anyway. And…?’
‘Another man intercepted me from the front.’
‘Describe him.’
‘Shortish – about five foot seven – with a rat-face and a long nose. Dressed in jeans and a blue jersey. He had a knife.’
‘He had a knife, did he?’ said Carey. ‘So what did you do about that?’
‘Well, the other chap was coming up behind fast – I didn’t have much time to think – so I charged the joker with the knife and sold him the dummy at the last moment’
‘You what?’
‘I sold him the dummy. It’s a rugby expression meaning …’
‘I know what it means,’ snapped Carey. ‘I suppose you were a useful rugby player at one time, too.’
‘That’s right,’ said Denison.
Carey bent his head and put his hand to his brow so that his face was hidden. He seemed to be suppressing some strong emotion. ‘What happened next?’ he asked in a muffled voice.
‘By that time I’d got back to the car park – and there was another man.’
‘Another man,’ said Carey tiredly. ‘Description.’
‘Not much. I think he wore a grey suit He had a gun.’
‘Escalating on you, weren’t they?’ said Carey. His voice was savage. ‘So what did you do then?’
‘I was in the car by the time I saw the gun and I got out of there fast and …’
‘And did a Steve McQueen through the Spiralen, roared through Drammen like an express train and butted a copper in the arse.’
‘Yes,’ said Denison simply. ‘That about wraps it up.’
‘I should think it does,’ said Carey. He was silent for a while, then he said, ‘Regardless of the improbability of all this, I’d still like to know why you went to Drammen in the first place, and why you took the trouble to shake off any followers before leaving Oslo.’
‘Shake off followers,’ said Denison blankly. ‘I didn’t know I was being followed.’
‘You know now. It was for your own protection. But my man says he’s never seen such an expert job of shaking a tail in his life. You were up to all the tricks. You nearly succeeded twice, and you did succeed the third time.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Denison. ‘I lost my way a couple of times, that’s all.’
Carey took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. ‘You lost your way,’ he breathed. His voice became deep and solemn. ‘Dr Meyrick: can you tell me why you lost your way when you know this area better than your own county of Buckinghamshire? You showed no signs of losing your way when you went to Drammen last week.’
Denison took the plunge. ‘Perhaps it’s because I’m not Dr Meyrick.’
Carey whispered, ‘What did you say?’
SIX (#ulink_63470a4a-2e7e-57bf-9362-08b5f9672dc4)
Denison told all of it.
When he had finished Carey’s expression was a mixture of perturbation and harassment. He heard everything Denison had to say but made no comment; instead, he lifted the telephone, dialled a number, and said, ‘George? Ask Ian to come in here for a minute.’
He came from behind the desk and patted Denison on the shoulder. ‘I hope you don’t mind waiting for a few minutes.’ He strode away to intercept the man who had just come in and they held a whispered colloquy before Carey left the room.
He closed the door on the other side and stood for a moment in thought, then he shook his head irritably and went into McCready’s office. McCready looked up, saw Carey’s expression, and said, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Our boy has rolled clean off his tiny little rocker,’ snapped Carey. ‘That’s what’s the matter. He started off by telling cock-and-bull stories, but then it got worse – much worse.’
‘What did he say?’
Carey told him – in gruesome detail.
Ten minutes later he said, ‘Discounting a lot of balls about mysterious attackers, something happened up there on top of the Spiralen which knocked Meyrick off his perch.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘When they wish these eggheads on us you’d think they’d test them for mental stability. What we need now is an alienist.’
McCready suppressed a smile. ‘Isn’t that rather an old-fashioned term?’
Carey glared at him. ‘Old-fashioned and accurate.’ He stabbed his finger at the office wall. ‘That … that thing in there isn’t human any more. I tell you, my flesh crawled when I heard what he was saying.’
‘There isn’t a chance that he’s right, is there?’ asked McCready diffidently.
‘No chance at all. I was facing Meyrick at the original briefing in London for two bloody days until I got to hate the sight of his fat face. It’s Meyrick, all right.’
‘There is one point that puzzles me,’ said McCready. ‘When I was with him at the police station in Drammen he didn’t speak a word of Norwegian, and yet I understand he knows the language.’
‘He speaks it fluently,’ said Carey.
‘And yet I’m told that his first words were to the effect that he spoke no Norwegian.’
‘For God’s sake!’ said Carey. ‘You know the man’s history. He was born in Finland and lived there until he was seventeen, when he came to live here in Oslo. When he was twenty-four he moved to England where he’s been ever since. That’s twenty-two years. He didn’t see a rugby ball until he arrived in England, and I’ve studied his dossier and know for a fact that he never boxed in his life.’
‘Then it all fits in with his story that he’s not Meyrick.’ McCready paused for thought. ‘There was a witness at Spiraltoppen who said she saw a gun.’
‘A hysterical waitress,’ sneered Carey. ‘Wait a minute – did you tell Meyrick about that?’
‘I did mention it.’
‘It fits,’ said Carey. ‘You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if the story Meyrick gave to the police wasn’t the absolute truth. He was razzled by a few kids out for a joyride in a stolen car and the experience knocked him off his spindle.’
‘And the gun?’
‘You told him about the gun. He seized that and wove it into his fairy tale, and added a few other trimmings such as the knife and the cosh. I think that in the Spiralen he felt so bloody helpless that he’s invented this story to retain what he thinks is his superiority. At the briefing I assessed him as an arrogant bastard, utterly convinced of his superiority to us lesser mortals. But he wasn’t very superior in the Spiralen, was he?’
‘Interesting theory,’ said McCready. ‘You’d make a good alienist – except for one thing. You lack empathy.’
‘I can’t stand the man,’ said Carey bluntly. ‘He’s an overweening, overbearing, supercilious son-of-a-bitch who thinks the sun shines out of his arse. Mr Know-it-all in person and too bloody toplofty by half.’ He shrugged. ‘But I can’t pick and choose the people I work with. It’s not in my contract.’
‘What did you say he called himself?’
‘Giles Denison from Hampstead. Hampstead, for Christ’s sake!’
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ said McCready. He left the room.
Carey loosened his tie with a jerk and sat biting his thumbnail. He looked up as McCready came back holding a book. ‘What have you got there?’
‘London telephone directory.’
‘Give me that,’ said Carey, and grabbed it. ‘Let’s see – Dennis, Dennis, Dennis … Dennison. There’s a George and two plain Gs – neither in Hampstead.’ He sat back, looking pleased.
McCready took the book and flipped the pages. After a minute he said, ‘Denison, Giles … Hampstead. He spells it with one “n”.’
‘Oh, Christ!’ said Carey, looking stricken. He recovered. ‘Doesn’t mean a thing. He picked the name of someone he knows. His daughter’s boy-friend, perhaps.’
‘Perhaps,’ said McCready non-committally.
Carey drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘I’ll stake my life that this is Meyrick; anything else would be too ridiculous.’ His fingers were suddenly stilled. ‘Mrs Hansen,’ he said. ‘She’s been closer to him than anybody. Did she have anything to say?’
‘She reported last night that she’d met him. He’d broken a date with her in the morning and excused it by pleading illness. Said he’d been in bed all morning.’
‘Had he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she notice anything about him – anything odd or unusual?’
‘Only that he had a cold and that he’d stopped smoking. He said cigarettes tasted like straw.’
Carey, a pipe-smoker, grunted. ‘They taste like straw to me without a cold. But he recognised her.’
‘They had a drink and a conversation – about morals and religion, she said.’
‘That does it,’ said Carey. ‘Meyrick is ready to pontificate about anything at the drop of a hat, whether he knows anything about it or not.’ He rubbed his chin and said grudgingly, ‘Trouble is, he usually talks sense – he has a good brain. No, this is Meyrick, and Meyrick is as flabby as a bladder of lard – that’s why we have to coddle him on this operation. Do you really think that Meyrick could stand up against four men with guns and knives and coshes? The man could hardly break the skin on the top of a custard. He’s gone out of his tiny, scientific mind and his tale of improbable violence is just to save his precious superiority, as I said before.’
‘And what about the operation?’
‘As far as Meyrick is concerned the operation is definitely off,’ said Carey decisively. ‘And, right now, I don’t see how it can be done without him. I’ll cable London to that effect as soon as I’ve had another talk with him.’ He paused. ‘You’d better come along, George. I’m going to need a witness on this one or else London will have me certified.’
They left the office and walked along the corridor. Outside the room where Meyrick was held Carey put his hand on McCready’s arm. ‘Hold yourself in, George. This might be rough.’
They found Meyrick still sitting at the desk in brooding silence, ignoring the man he knew only as Ian who sat opposite. Ian looked up at Carey and shrugged eloquently.
Carey stepped forward. ‘Dr Meyrick, I’m sorry to …’
‘My name is Denison. I told you that.’ His voice was cold.
Carey softened his tone. ‘All right, Mr Denison; if you prefer it that way. I really think you ought to see a doctor. I’m arranging for it.’
‘And about time,’ said Denison. ‘This is hurting like hell.’
‘What is?’
Denison was pulling his sweater from his trousers. ‘This bloody knife wound. Look at it.’
Carey and McCready bent to look at the quarter-inch deep slash along Denison’s side. It would, Carey estimated, take sixteen stitches to sew it up.
Their heads came up together and they looked at each other with a wild surmise.
SEVEN (#ulink_9875c4ec-a99f-53be-b527-690b8485007a)
Carey paced restlessly up and down McCready’s office. His tie was awry and his hair would have been tousled had it not been so close-cropped because he kept running his hand through it. ‘I still don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘It’s too bloody incredible.’
He swung on McCready. ‘George, supposing you went to bed tonight, here in Oslo, and woke up tomorrow, say, in a New York hotel, wearing someone else’s face. What would be your reaction?’
‘I think I’d go crazy,’ said McCready soberly. He smiled slightly. ‘If I woke up with your face I would go crazy.’
Carey ignored the wisecrack. ‘But Denison didn’t go crazy,’ he said meditatively. ‘All things considered, he kept his cool remarkably well.’
‘If he is Denison,’ remarked McCready. ‘He could be Meyrick and quite insane.’
Carey exploded into a rage. ‘For God’s sake! All along you’ve been arguing that he’s Denison; now you turn around and say he could be Meyrick.’
McCready eyed him coolly. ‘The role of devil’s advocate suits me, don’t you think?’ He tapped the desk. ‘Either way, the operation is shot to hell.’
Carey sat down heavily. ‘You’re right, of course. But if this is a man called Denison then there are a lot of questions to be answered. But first, what the devil do we do with him?’
‘We can’t keep him here,’ said McCready. ‘For the same reason we didn’t keep Meyrick here. The Embassy is like a fishbowl.’
Carey cocked his head. ‘He’s been here for over two hours. That’s about normal for a citizen being hauled over the coals for a serious driving offence. You suggest we send him back to the hotel?’
‘Under surveillance.’ McCready smiled. ‘He says he has a date with a redhead for dinner.’
‘Mrs Hansen,’ said Carey. ‘Does he know about her?’
‘No.’
‘Keep it that way. She’s to stick close to him. Give her a briefing and ask her to guard him from interference. He could run into some odd situations. And talk to him like a Dutch uncle. Put the fear of God into him so that he stays in the hotel. I don’t want him wandering around loose.’
Carey drew a sheet of paper towards him and scribbled on it. ‘The next thing we want are doctors – tame ones who will ask the questions we want asked and no others. A plastic surgeon and –’ he smiled at McCready bleakly – ‘and an alienist. The problem must be decided one way or the other.’
‘We can’t wait until they arrive,’ said McCready.
‘Agreed,’ said Carey. ‘We’ll work on the assumption that a substitution has been made – that this man is Denison. We know when the substitution was made – in the early hours of yesterday morning. Denison was brought in – how?’
‘On a stretcher – he must have been unconscious.’
‘Right!’ said Carey. ‘A hospital patient in transit under the supervision of a trained nurse and probably a doctor. And they’d have taken a room on the same floor as Meyrick. The switch was made and Meyrick taken out yesterday morning – probably in an ambulance at the back entrance of the hotel by arrangement with the management. Hotels don’t like stretchers being paraded through the front lobby.’
‘I’ll get on to it,’ said McCready. ‘It might be an idea to check on all the people who booked in on the previous day, regardless of the floor they stayed on. I don’t think this was a two man job.’
‘I don’t, either. And you check the comings and goings for the past week – somebody must have been watching Meyrick for a long time.’
‘That’s a hell of a big job,’ objected McCready. ‘Do we get the co-operation of the Norwegians?’
Carey pondered. ‘At this time – no. We keep it under wraps.’
McCready’s face took on a sad look at the thought of all the legwork he was going to have to do. Carey tilted his chair back. ‘And then there’s the other end to be checked – the London end. Why Giles Denison of Hampstead?’ His chair came down with a thump. ‘Hasn’t it struck you that Denison has been very unforthcoming?’
McCready shrugged. ‘I haven’t talked to him all that much.’
‘Well, look,’ said Carey. ‘Here we have this man in this bloody odd situation in which he finds himself. After recovering from the first shock, he not only manages to deceive Mrs Hansen as to his real identity but he has the wit to ring up Meyrick’s home. But why only Meyrick? Why didn’t he check back on himself?’
‘How do you mean?’
Carey sighed. ‘There’s a man called Giles Denison missing from Hampstead. Surely he’d be missed by someone? Even if Denison is an unmarried orphan he must have friends – a job. Why didn’t he ring back to reassure people that he was all right and still alive and now living it up in Oslo?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ admitted McCready. ‘That’s a pointer to his being Meyrick, after all. Suffering from delusions but unable to flesh them out properly.’
Carey gave a depressed nod. ‘All I’ve had from him is that he’s Giles Denison from Hampstead – nothing more.’
‘Why not put it to him now?’ suggested McCready.
Carey thought about it and shook his head. ‘No, I’ll leave that to the psychiatrist. If this is really Meyrick, the wrong sort of questions could push him over the edge entirely.’ He pulled the note pad towards him again. ‘We’ll have someone check on Denison in Hampstead and find out the score.’ He ripped off the sheet. ‘Let’s get cracking. I want those cables sent to London immediately – top priority and coded. I want those quacks here as fast as possible.’
EIGHT (#ulink_086a5961-49c9-582a-b2f7-4ebe76a672cb)
Giles Denison stirred his coffee and smiled across the table at Diana Hansen. His smile was steady, which was remarkable because a thought had suddenly struck him like a bolt of lightning and left him with a churning stomach. Was the delectable Diana Hansen who faced him Meyrick’s mistress?
The very thought put him into a dilemma. Should he make a pass or not? Whatever he did – or did not – do, he had a fifty per cent chance of being wrong. The uncertainty of it spoiled his evening which had so far been relaxing and pleasant.
He had been driven back to the hotel in an Embassy car after dire warnings from George McCready of what would happen to him if he did not obey instructions. ‘You’ll have realized by now that you’ve dropped right into the middle of something awkward,’ said McCready. ‘We’re doing our best to sort it out but, for the next couple of days, you’d do well to stay in the hotel.’ He drove it home by asking pointedly, ‘How’s your side feeling now?’
‘Better,’ said Denison. ‘But I could have done with a doctor.’ He had been strapped up by McCready, who had produced a first-aid box and displayed a competence which suggested he was no stranger to knife wounds.
‘You’ll get a doctor,’ assured McCready. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘I have a dinner date,’ said Denison. ‘With that redhead I told you about. What should I do about that? If she goes on like she did yesterday I’m sure to put my foot in it.’
‘I don’t see why you should,’ said McCready judiciously.
‘For God’s sake! I don’t even know her name.’
McCready patted him on the shoulder, and said soothingly, ‘You’ll be all right.’
Denison was plaintive. ‘It’s all very well you wanting me to go on being Meyrick but surely you can tell me something. Who is Meyrick, for instance?’
‘It will all be explained tomorrow,’ said McCready, hoping that he was right. ‘In the meantime, go back to the hotel like a good chap, and don’t leave it until I call for you. Just have a quiet dinner with … with your redhead and then go to bed.’
Denison had a last try. ‘Are you in Intelligence or something? A spy?’
But to that McCready made no answer.
So Denison was delivered to the hotel and he had not been in the room more than ten minutes when the telephone rang. He regarded it warily and let it ring several times before he put out his hand as though about to pick up a snake. ‘Yes?’ he said uncommunicatively.
‘Diana here.’
‘Who?’ he asked cautiously.
‘Diana Hansen, who else? We have a dinner date, remember? How are you?’
Again he caught the faint hint of America behind the English voice. ‘Better,’ he said, thinking it was convenient of her to announce her name.
‘That’s good,’ she said warmly. ‘Are you fit enough for dinner?’
‘I think so.’
‘Mmm,’ she murmured doubtfully. ‘But I still don’t think you should go out; there’s quite a cold wind. What about dinner in the hotel restaurant?’
Even more convenient; he had just been about to suggest that himself. In a more confident voice he said, ‘That’ll be fine.’
‘Meet you in the bar at half past seven,’ she said.
‘All right.’
She rang off and he put down the telephone slowly. He hoped that McCready was right; that he could manage a sustained conversation with this woman in the guise of Meyrick. He sat in the armchair and winced as pain stabbed in his side. He held his breath until the pain eased and then relaxed and looked at his watch. Half past five. He had two hours before meeting the Hansen woman.
What a mess! What a stinking mess! Lost behind another man’s face, he had apparently dropped into the middle of an intrigue which involved the British government. That man, Carey, had been damned patronizing about what had happened on top of the Spiralen and had not bothered to hide his disbelief. It had been that, more than anything else, that had driven Denison into disclosing who he was. It had certainly taken the smile off Carey’s face.
But who was Carey? To begin with, he was obviously McCready’s boss – but that did not get him very far because who was McCready? A tight little group in the British Embassy in Oslo dedicated to what? Trade relations? That did not sound likely.
Carey had made it clear that he had warned Meyrick not to move far from the hotel. Judging by what had happened on the Spiralen the warning was justified. But who the hell was Meyrick that he was so important? The man with the title of Doctor or perhaps Professor, and who was described on his passport as a civil servant.
Denison’s head began to ache again. Christ! he thought; I’ll be bloody glad to get back to Hampstead, back to my job and the people I …
The thought tailed off to a deadly emptiness and he felt his stomach lurch. A despairing wail rose in his mind – God help me! he cried silently as he realized his mind was a blank, that he did not know what his job was, that he could not put a name to a single friend or acquaintance, and that all he knew of himself was that he was Giles Denison and that he came from Hampstead.
Bile rose in his throat. He struggled to his feet and staggered to the bathroom where he was violently sick. Again there was that insistent beat in his mind: I AM GILES DENISON. But there was nothing more – no link with a past life.
He left the bathroom and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. You must remember! he commanded himself. You must! But there was nothing – just Giles Denison of Hampstead and a vague mind picture of a house in a half-forgotten memory.
Think!
The scar on his shin – he remembered that. He saw himself on the small child-size bicycle going down a hill too fast, and the inevitable tumble at the bottom – then the quick tears and the comfort of his mother. I remember that, he told himself in triumph.
What else? Beth – he remembered Beth who had been his wife, but she had died. How many years ago was it? Three years. And then there was the whisky, too much whisky. He remembered the whisky.
Denison lay on the bed and fought to extract memories from a suddenly recalcitrant mind. There was a slick sheen of sweat on his brow and his fists were clenched, the nails digging into his palms.
Something else he had remembered before. He had come back from Edinburgh on June 17, but what had he been doing there? Working, of course, but what was his work? Try as he might he could not penetrate the blank haze which cloaked his mind.
On June 18 he had played golf in the afternoon. With whom? Of course it was possible for a man to play a round of golf alone, and also to go to the cinema alone and to dine in Soho alone, but it was hardly likely that he would forget everything else. Where had he played golf? Which cinema did he go to? Which restaurant in Soho?
A blazing thought struck him, an illumination of the mind so clear that he knew certainly it was the truth. He cried aloud, ‘But I’ve never played golf in my life!’
There was a whirling spiral of darkness in his mind and, mercifully, he slept.
NINE (#ulink_6efbaf0f-4a5b-51f3-90ce-fc2f3e467119)
Denison walked into the bar at a quarter to eight and saw the woman who called herself Diana Hansen sitting at a table. He walked over and said, ‘Sorry I’m late.’
She smiled and said lightly, ‘I was beginning to think I was being stood up again.’
He sat down. ‘I fell asleep.’
‘You look pale. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’ There was a vague memory at the back of his mind which disturbed him; something had happened just before he had fallen asleep. He was reluctant to probe into it because he caught a hint of terror and madness which frightened him. He shivered.
‘Cold?’ Her voice was sympathetic.
‘Nothing that a stiff drink won’t cure.’ He beckoned to a passing waiter, and raised his eyebrows at her.
‘A dry Martini, please.’
He turned to the hovering waiter. ‘A dry martini and … do you have a scotch malt?’ Normally he bought the cheapest blend he could buy in the cut-price supermarkets but with Meyrick’s finances behind him he could afford the best.
‘Yes, sir. Glenfiddich?’
‘That will do fine. Thank you.’
Diana Hansen said, ‘Food may be better than drink. Have you eaten today?’
‘Not much.’ Just the meal in the police station at Drammen, taken for fuel rather than pleasure.
‘You men!’ she said with scorn. ‘No better than children when left on your own. You’ll feel better after dinner.’
He leaned back in his chair. ‘Let’s see – how long have we known each other, Diana?’
She smiled. ‘Counting the days, Harry? Nearly three weeks.’
So he had met her in Oslo – or, rather, Meyrick had. ‘I was just trying to find out how long it takes a woman to become maternal. Less than three weeks, I see.’
‘Is that the scientific mind at work?’
‘One aspect of it.’ Could that mean anything? Was Dr Meyrick a scientist – a government boffin?
She looked across the room and a shadow seemed to darken her face momentarily. ‘There’s Jack Kidder and his wife.’
Denison paused before he turned round. ‘Oh! Where?’
‘Just coming in.’ She put out her hand and covered his. ‘Do you want to be bothered by them, darling? He’s a bit of a bore, really.’
Denison looked at the tall, fleshy man who was escorting a petite woman. Jack Kidder was the name Diana Hansen had mentioned when he had bumped into her outside the bookshop. If she did not want to mix with the Kidders it was all right with him; he had enough to cope with already. He said, ‘You’re right. I don’t think I could cope with a bore tonight.’
She laughed. ‘Thanks for the compliment – hidden though it was. I’ll put him off tactfully if he comes across.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘But if he says that damned slogan of his again I’ll scream.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You must have heard it. It’s when he pulls off one of his dreadful jokes.’ She burlesqued an American accent. ‘“You know me – Kidder by name and kidder by nature.”’
‘Jack was always the life and soul of the party,’ said Denison drily.
‘I don’t know how Lucy puts up with him,’ said Diana. ‘If you can talk about a hen-pecked husband, can you refer to a cock-pecked wife?’
Denison grinned. ‘It sounds rude.’ Diana Hansen was making things easy for him. She had just given him a thumbnail sketch of the Kidders, including names and temperaments. It could not have been done better if done deliberately.
The waiter put the drinks on the table and Denison found he had a scotch on the rocks, a desecration of good malt. He did not feel like making a fuss about it so he raised his glass. ‘Skal!’ He sipped the whisky and reflected that this was the first real drink he had had since his transformation into Meyrick.
The familiar taste bit at his tongue and somehow released a wave of memories which washed through him tumultuously, tantalizingly close to the surface of his mind. And with the memories, unrealized though they were, came the fear and the terror which set his heart thumping in his chest. Hastily he set down the glass, knowing he was close to panic.
Diana Hansen looked at his shaking fingers. ‘What’s the matter, Harry?’
Denison covered up. ‘I don’t think a drink is a good idea, after all. I’ve just remembered I’m stuffed full of pills.’ He managed a smile. ‘If you shook me I’d rattle. I don’t think they’d mix with alcohol.’
She put down her glass. Then let’s have dinner before the Kidders catch up with us.’ She stood up and took her handbag from the table. Denison arose and they moved towards the entrance, but then she turned her head and murmured, Too late, I’m afraid.’
Kidder was also standing up, his big body blocking the way. ‘Hey, Lucy, look who’s here. It’s Diana and Harry.’
‘Hallo, Jack,’ said Denison. ‘Had a good day?’
‘We’ve been up to Holmenkollen; you know – the big ski-jump you can see from all over the city. It’s quite a thing when you get up to it close. Can you imagine, it’s only used once a year?’
‘I can’t imagine,’ said Denison blandly.
Lucy Kidder said, ‘And we went to the Henie-Onstad Art Centre, too.’
‘Yeah, modern art,’ said Kidder disparagingly. ‘Harry, can you make any sense out of Jackson Pollock?’
‘Not much,’ said Denison.
Kidder turned on his wife. ‘Anyway, why the hell do we have to come to Norway to see an American artist?’
‘But he’s internationally famous, Jack. Aren’t you proud of that?’
‘I guess so,’ he said gloomily. ‘But the locals aren’t much better. Take the guy with the name like a breakfast food.’ Everyone looked at Kidder with blank faces and he snapped his fingers impatiently. ‘You know who I mean – the local Scowegian we saw yesterday.’
Lucy Kidder sighed. ‘Edvard Munch,’ she said resignedly.
‘That’s the guy. Too gloomy for me even if you can see the people in his pictures,’ said Kidder.
Diana cut in quickly. ‘Harry’s not been feeling too well lately. I’m taking him in to an early dinner and sending him right to bed.’
‘Gee, I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Kidder. He sounded sincere.
‘There’s a lot of this two-day flu about,’ said his wife. ‘And it can be nasty while it lasts. You look after yourself – hear?’
‘I don’t think it’s too serious,’ said Denison.
‘But we’d better go in to dinner,’ said Diana. ‘Harry hasn’t eaten a thing all day.’
‘Sure,’ said Kidder, standing aside. ‘I hope you feel better real soon. You look after him, Diana.’
Over dinner they talked in generalities, much to Denison’s relief, and he was able to hold his own without much effort. There was not a single thing to trouble him until the coffee was served and that startling thought about the possible relationship between Diana and Meyrick came into his head. He looked at her speculatively and wondered what to do. For all he knew, Meyrick was an old ram.
He held the smile on his face and stirred his coffee mechanically. A waiter came to the table. ‘Mrs Hansen?’
Diana looked up. ‘Yes.’
‘A telephone call.’
‘Thank you.’ She looked at Denison apologetically. ‘I told someone I’d be here. Do you mind?’
‘Not at all.’ She stood up and left the restaurant, going into the lobby. He watched her until she was out of sight and then stopped stirring his coffee and put the spoon in the saucer with a clink. Thoughtfully he looked at the handbag on the other side of the table.
Mrs Hansen! He could bear to know more about that. He stretched out his hand slowly and picked up the handbag, which was curiously heavy. Holding it on his lap, below the level of the table, he snapped open the catch and bent his head to look inside.
When Diana came back the bag was back in its place. She sat down, picked it up, and took out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Still not smoking, Harry?’
He shook his head. ‘They still taste foul.’
Soon thereafter he signed the bill and they left, parting in the lobby, he to go to bed and she to go to wherever she lived. He had decided against making a pass at Mrs Diana Hansen because it was most unlikely that Dr Harold Feltham Meyrick would be having an affaire with a woman who carried a gun – even if it was only a small gun.
TEN (#ulink_3d587bf2-83eb-59d4-9d8e-09b7ce282598)
The next day was boring. He obeyed instructions and stayed in the hotel waiting to hear from McCready. He breakfasted in his room and ordered English newspapers. Nothing had changed – the news was as bad as ever.
At mid-morning he left the room to allow the maid to clean up, and went down to the lobby where he saw the Kidders at the porter’s desk. He hung back, taking an inordinate interest in a showcase full of Norwegian silver, while Kidder discussed in a loud voice the possibilities of different bus tours. Finally they left the hotel and he came out of cover.
He discovered that the bookshop on the corner of the street had a convenient entrance inside the hotel, so he bought a stack of English paperbacks and took them to his room. He read for the rest of the day, gutting the books, his mind in low gear. He had a curious reluctance to think about his present predicament and, once, when he put a book aside and tried to think coherently, his mind skittered about and he felt the unreasoning panic come over him. When he picked up the book again his head was aching.
At ten that night no contact had been made and he thought of ringing the Embassy and asking for McCready but the strange disinclination to thought had spread to action and he was irresolute. He looked at the telephone for a while, and then slowly undressed and went to bed.
He was almost asleep when there was a tap at his door. He sat up and listened and it came again, a discreet double knock. He switched on the light and put on Meyrick’s bathrobe, then went to the door. It was McCready, who came in quickly and closed the door behind him. ‘Ready for the doctor?’ he asked.
Denison frowned. ‘At this time of night?’
‘Why not?’ asked McCready lightly.
Denison sighed. It was just one more mystery to add to the others. He reached for his underwear and took off the bathrobe. McCready picked up the pyjamas which were lying neatly folded on top of the suitcase. ‘You don’t wear these?’
‘Meyrick did.’ Denison sat on the edge of the bed to put on his socks. ‘I don’t.’
‘Oh!’ McCready thoughtfully tugged at his ear.
When Denison picked up his jacket he turned to McCready. ‘There’s something you ought to know, I suppose. Diana Hansen carries …’
‘Who?’ asked McCready.
‘The redhead I took to dinner – her name is Diana Hansen. She carries a gun.’
McCready went still. ‘She does? How do you know?’
‘I looked in her handbag.’
‘Enterprising of you. I’ll tell Carey – he’ll be interested.’ McCready took Denison by the arm. ‘Let’s go.’
McCready’s car was in the garage and when he drove out into the street he turned left which Denison knew was away from the Embassy. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Not far,’ said McCready. ‘Five minutes. Possess your soul in patience.’
Within two minutes Denison was lost. The car twisted and turned in the strange streets until his sense of direction deserted him. Whether McCready was deliberately confusing him he did not know, but he thought it likely. Another possibility was that McCready was intent on shaking off any possible followers.
After a few minutes the car pulled up outside a large building which could have been a block of flats. They went inside and into a lift which took them to the fifth floor. McCready unlocked a door and motioned Denison inside. He found himself in a hall with doors on each side. McCready opened one of them, and said, ‘This is Mr Iredale. He’ll fix up your side for you.’
Iredale was a sallow, middle-aged man, balding and with deep grooves cut from the base of his nose to the corners of his mouth. He said pleasantly, ‘Come in, Mr Denison; let me have a look at you.’
Denison heard the door close behind him and turned to find that McCready had already gone. He whirled around to confront Iredale. ‘I thought I was being taken to a doctor.’
‘I am a doctor,’ said Iredale. ‘I’m also a surgeon. We surgeons have a strange inverted snobbery – we’re called “mister” and not “doctor”. I’ve never known why. Take off your coat, Mr Denison, and let me see the damage.’
Denison hesitated and slowly took off his jacket and then his shirt. ‘If you’ll lie on the couch?’ suggested Iredale, and opened a black bag which could only have been the property of a doctor. Somewhat reassured, Denison lay down.
Iredale snipped away the bandages with a small pair of scissors and examined the slash. ‘Nasty,’ he said. ‘But clean. It will need a local anaesthetic. Are you allergic to anaesthetic, Mr Denison?’
‘I don’t know – I don’t think so.’
‘You’ll just feel three small pricks – no more.’ Iredale took out a hypodermic syringe and filled it from a small phial. ‘Lie still.’
Denison felt the pricks, and Iredale said, ‘While we’re waiting for that to take effect you can sit up.’ He took an ophthalmoscope from his bag. ‘I’d just like to look at your eyes.’ He flashed a light into Denison’s right eye. ‘Had any alcohol lately?’
‘No.’
Iredale switched to the left eye upon which he spent more time. ‘That seems to be all right,’ he said.
‘I was stabbed in the side, not hit on the head,’ said Denison. ‘I don’t have concussion.’
Iredale put away the ophthalmoscope. ‘So you have a little medical knowledge.’ He put his hands to Denison’s face and palpated the flesh under the chin. ‘You know what they say about a little knowledge.’ He stood up and looked down at the top of Denison’s head, and then his fingers explored the hairline. ‘Don’t knock the experts, Mr Denison – they know what they’re doing.’
‘What sort of a doctor are you?’ asked Denison suspiciously.
Iredale ignored that. ‘Ever had scalp trouble? Dandruff, for instance?’
‘No.’
‘I see. Right.’ He touched Denison’s side. ‘Feel anything?’
‘It’s numb but I can feel pressure.’
‘Good,’ said Iredale. ‘I’m going to stitch the wound closed. You won’t feel anything – but if you do then shout like hell.’ He put on rubber gloves which he took out of a sealed plastic bag and then took some fine thread out of another small packet. ‘I’d turn your head away,’ he advised. ‘Lie down.’
He worked on Denison’s side for about fifteen minutes and Denison felt nothing but the pressure of his fingers. At last he said, ‘All right, Mr Denison; I’ve finished.’
Denison sat up and looked at his side. The wound was neatly closed and held by a row of minute stitches. ‘I’ve always been good at needlework,’ said Iredale conversationally. ‘When the stitches are out there’ll be but a hairline. In a year you won’t be able to see it.’
Denison said, ‘This isn’t a doctor’s surgery. Who are you?’
Iredale packed his bag rapidly and stood up. ‘There’ll be another doctor to see you in a moment.’ He walked to the door and closed it behind him.
There was something about the way the door closed that vaguely alarmed Denison. He stood up and walked to the door and found it locked. Frowning, he turned away and looked about the room. There was the settee on which he had been lying, a table, two armchairs and a bookcase against the wall. He went over to the bookcase to inspect it and tripped over a wire which threatened to topple a telephone from a small table. He rescued the telephone and then stood looking down at it.
Iredale walked along the corridor and into a room at the end. Carey glanced up at him expectantly, breaking off his conversation with McCready. Harding, the psychiatrist, sat in an armchair, his long legs outstretched and his fingertips pressed together. There was also another man whom Iredale did not know. Carey saw Iredale looking at him, and said, ‘Ian Armstrong of my staff. Well?’ He could not suppress his eagerness.
Iredale put down his case. ‘He’s not Meyrick.’ He paused. ‘Not unless Meyrick has had plastic surgery recently.’
Carey blew out his breath in a long gasp. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Iredale, a little testily.
‘That’s it, then.’ Carey looked across at Harding. ‘It’s your turn, Dr Harding. Try to get out of him as much as you can.’
Harding nodded and uncoiled himself from the chair. He walked out of the room without speaking. As the door closed Carey said, ‘You understand that, to the best of our knowledge, this alteration was made in the space of a week – not more.’ He took a thin, cardboard file from the table. ‘We’ve just received a lengthy cable from London about Denison – and a photo came over the wire.’ He took the photograph and handed it to Iredale. ‘That’s Denison as he was quite recently. It hardly seems possible.’
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Desmond Bagley
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 17.04.2024
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О книге: Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in Norway and Finland.When Giles Denison of Hampstead wakes up in an Oslo hotel room and finds the face looking back at him in the mirror is not his own, things could surely get no more bizarre. But it is only the beginning of a hair-raising adventure in which Denison finds himself trapped with no way to escape. One false move and the whole delicately balanced power structure between East and West will come toppling down…