Prelude to Terror

by Helen Macinnes

  * * *

  Grant watched Renwick’s car until the heavy foliage blotted it out of sight. For a long minute he listened to its steady hum drawing further and further away until all sound ceased. The silence around him stirred memories. This was where he had stood, watching Avril run down that path between the trees towards the farm. She had been laughing at something he had said as she hurried to catch up with the Lackner girls, swinging the makeshift overnight bag as if she hadn’t a care in this world. He could see her now, the smooth dark hair gleaming in a stray beam of sunlight, her head turned for a last smile. That was how he would remember her. The good memories were for keeping.

  He began walking, found himself on the terrace. He sat there for almost an hour, watching the play of light and shadow over the stretches of crags and forests. This morning, mists had blotted out all shapes and colours; the mountains had vanished, didn’t exist. Now, in sunlight, their peaks were clear and bold against the sky. Another world, it seemed. Yet the same. Enduring.

  He rose and went indoors to pack. Tomorrow was an early start. And just keep going, he told himself. That’s all you can do. That’s all any of us can do.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Helen MacInnes, whom the Sunday Express called ‘the Queen of spy writers’, was the author of many distinguished suspense novels.

  Born in Scotland, she studied at the University of Glasgow and University College, London, then went to Oxford after her marriage to Gilbert Highet, the eminent critic and educator. In 1937 the Highets went to New York, and except during her husband’s war service, Helen MacInnes lived there ever since.

  Since her first novel Above Suspicion was published in 1941 to immediate success, all her novels have been bestsellers; The Salzburg Connection was also a major film.

  Helen MacInnes died in September 1985.