“That’s OK,” said Tozer, with a hint of sarcasm. “I’m used to it.”
“When you parted,” Harding resumed, “did she give you any idea… what she meant to do next?”
“No.”
“Or where she meant to go?”
“No.”
There was something in Gary’s tone-in his manner and his posture-that made Harding doubt this neatly wrapped version of their encounter. He sensed there had been more to it, more said, more imparted, more declared. “Surely she-”
Harding was cut off by the bleeping of Tozer’s mobile. He pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. “It’s Carol. I’d better take it. Sorry.” He stood up and pointed enquiringly towards the patio doors.
“Go ahead,” said Lawton. “They’re open.”
“Won’t be long,” said Tozer, clapping the phone to his ear as he strode past Lawton to the doors and slid them apart. “Hello, princess. Everything OK?”
Tozer was still absorbing the answer to this question as he slid the doors shut behind him. Harding looked steadily across at Lawton. “It must have been a shock, learning Kerry had a twin. Then meeting her. Almost like what you said: Kerry waking up one day and speaking to you.”
“Almost.” Lawton dwelt on the thought for a moment, then went on. “She was wearing a brooch that had belonged to Kerry. One of the things her parents had brought over from England. Hanckel gave it to her, apparently.”
“So Ulbricht said.”
“Yeah. It’s a fox cub. Chosen as a gift because of their surname. Nice little thing. Jet and mother-of-pearl, I remember Mrs. Foxton saying. I’d seen it dozens of times, lying with the other things where she used to arrange them beside the bed. But never worn. I’d never seen it worn before. That was… weird.”
“Did Hayley mention me?”
“No. Unless…”
“What?”
“I asked her… y’know, if there was anyone… in her life.”
“What did she say?”
“‘Not sure.’ I mean, that’s what she said. ‘I’m not sure.’ Is it you she’s not sure about?”
“Could be.”
“Yeah. And you tagging along with Barney Tozer could be the reason.”
“That’s not-”
One of the patio doors jerked open. Tozer stared in at Harding, still clutching the phone in his hand, several inches away from his ear, as if the call had not yet ended.
“What is it, Barney?”
“Hayley She’s been in touch. She wants to meet us. You and me. Here in Munich. Tomorrow.”
THIRTY
Where’s Nymphenburg?” Tozer demanded of Lawton the instant he ended his conversation with Carol. Harding was still waiting for some clarification of Hayley’s message, including why it had come via Carol. And it seemed for the moment that he would have to go on waiting.
“It’s the suburban palace of the old Bavarian royal family” Lawton replied. “Out to the west.”
“Ever been there?”
“Once or twice.”
“Is there a park behind the palace?”
“Yeah. Acres of it.”
“And a canal?”
“Er, yeah. I think so. An ornamental affair. Beyond the garden.”
“So, her directions made sense.”
“How about letting me in on them?” asked Harding.
“I’ll fill you in on our way back into town, Tim. No sense keeping our taxi waiting any longer, is there? And we’re done here, aren’t we?” Tozer looked at Lawton with an expression that suggested their host had suddenly become irrelevant-and that this was a welcome development.
“Hold on,” said Lawton, evidently no less confused than Harding. “That wasn’t Hayley on the phone.”
“No. But she’s left a message for me. We’ll meet tomorrow. And sort all this out. No need for you to worry about it anymore, squire.”
“Are you sure about this? She’s going to meet you at Nymphenburg tomorrow?”
“I’m sure. And like I said: you can leave it to us.”
“Was needling Lawton such a good idea, Barney?” Harding asked as their taxi pulled away from the house.
“Tit for tat. He’ll get over it.”
“And what did you mean about the message from Hayley? Did she phone Carol?”
“No. Nathan Gashry phoned Carol.”
“Nathan?”
“Hayley didn’t want to speak to any of us direct, apparently. Not over the phone, anyway. It has to be face to face. She got Nathan to pass the message on. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning, at Nymphenburg. We’re to take the path through the park along the north side of the canal. She’ll be waiting.”
“How did she know we were in Munich?”
“Maybe Ann Gashry told her. You didn’t leave her in any doubt you meant to follow Hayley here, did you?”
“No. But I never said you’d be coming with me. At the time, I didn’t know you would be.”
“Guesswork, then. Or a tip-off from someone at the clinic.”
“Something like that, I suppose. Or else…”
“What?”
“I don’t know.” That was not quite true. The other possibility, in its way the most worrying, was that Hayley knew they were together because she had already seen them together. Which put her very much one step ahead. And meant she was likely to view Harding as Tozer’s friend, not hers. He had not abandoned her. But he was going to have his work cut out convincing her of that. “I just don’t know.”
***
Tozer did not share Harding’s disquiet-nor indeed the reasons for it. Over dinner and several drinks in the bar opposite the hotel afterwards he struck a confident note, apparently convinced that Hayley’s desire to meet them signalled a willingness on her part to admit she needed professional help in coping with the demons the past had left her with.
“I’m not a monster. Or a murderer. I think she’s coming round to understanding that. And she must realize the only reason we haven’t shopped her to the police is that we want to do our best for her-and draw a line under this whole bloody episode.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am. According to Nathan she sounded humble, almost apologetic. She wants to put it all behind her, Tim. We just have to make it possible. And we will. Tomorrow.”
It was not yet eleven o’clock when Harding returned to his room. Tozer had called an early halt to their drinking session to ensure they both had a clear head in the morning. Harding felt far from sleepy, however. And he needed, for his own sake, to check Barney’s optimistic assessment of their situation with Carol. Her number was busy the first time he tried it. And the second. But not the third.
“Nice of you to call” was her barbed greeting.
“Have you just been talking to Barney?” he asked, ignoring the rebuke.
“Yeah. We’ve been saying goodnight, like the happily married couple we are.”
“How did he seem?”
“Fine. The way he tells, it, tomorrow gets the job done.”
“What about Nathan Gashry? How did he seem?”
“Grouchy and grudging. As you’d expect. He didn’t enjoy having to call me.”
“Why do you think Hayley went through him?”
“You tell me. You know her better than I do.”
“I have this feeling she may be more interested in confrontation than conciliation.”
“I’m sure you can handle that.”
“I’m doing my best on your behalf as well as my own, Carol. Remember that.”
“I’m trying to.”
“How did Hayley know Barney and I were both here? That’s what worries me.”
“Barney thinks she may have a mole at the clinic.”
“I doubt it.”
“What’s your theory then?”
“I don’t know. But…”
“Got an itchy feeling between the shoulder blades?”
“Sorry?”
“They tell me it’s a sign yo
u’re being watched.”
Harding sighed. “Thanks for the advice.”
“Listen, Tim.” She sounded suddenly more serious. “Maybe Barney’s right. Maybe Hayley’s willing to come quietly. That’d be fine as far as it goes. But it doesn’t get us off the hook with Tony Whybrow, does it? What are we going to do about him?”
“I don’t know.”
“No. And neither do I. That’s what should be worrying you.”
Harding felt, if anything, less drowsy after his conversation with Carol than before. He resorted to Euromush television in the hope it might knock him out. But long before the rules of an Italian game show had become clear to him, his phone rang, only for the caller to cancel the moment he answered. The number had been withheld, which was suspicious in itself. A repeat performance a minute or so later convinced him someone was trying to tell him something.
It was the recollection of Carol’s crack about an itchy feeling between the shoulder blades that prompted him to go to the window and check the street outside. He had closed the shutter earlier. A surreptitious peek was hardly possible. There was nothing for it but to open the window and then the shutter to see if there really was anyone keeping watch on his room.
The figure on the opposite pavement was walking away. But Harding’s instinctive impression was that she had been stationary until the instant he opened the shutter. Her face was obscured by the brim of a hat. But he recognized the short, belted mac. She was Hayley’s height and build. In that moment, there was no doubt in his mind. It was her.
He only realized it was raining heavily when he burst out of the hotel. There were several groups of people making their way along the street, clutching umbrellas, and a couple of taxis dropping off passengers. His glimpse of Hayley in the distance, rounding a corner, was scarcely more than a guess. But he raced in pursuit.
There she was again, surely, rounding the next corner into the main shopping street. He was running headlong now, oblivious to the rain and the traffic and the passers-by. But she was running too, a twitch of shadow implying a backward glance. And the lights of Marienplatz U-Bahn station gleamed ahead. Suddenly, she vanished from sight.
Harding’s plunge down the steps to the station was slowed by a collision with a couple coming up. The male half fired some insults after him as he reached the concourse. He did not look back. His eyes scanned the escalators leading down to the platforms. There was no sign of Hayley. She could have taken any one of them. He could hear trains pulling in and out even as he stood there, hesitating. Every line on the system went through Marienplatz, to judge by the number of destinations on offer. He had no idea where Hayley was going. If evading him was her priority, she could have chosen the first train to anywhere, or even exited the station at the other end of the concourse.
He checked all the platforms in the end, futile though he knew the effort would be. The clocks of the city churches were striking midnight as he made his way back to the hotel. It had stopped raining and was growing rapidly colder. He was shivering, though whether the drenching he had received was the cause he could not have said.
THIRTY-ONE
By morning Harding had convinced himself he might have been mistaken. Maybe the woman he had seen was not Hayley after all, but someone who merely happened to look like her, someone hurrying through the rain to catch a late train home. Why should she be watching him when they were due to meet soon anyway? And why should she run from him? It made no sense. But what about the phone calls? Who had made them? Who-and why?
He said nothing to Tozer about what had happened. His doubts and suspicions were too vague to put into words and nothing seemed likely to dent the other man’s confidence that their rendezvous with Hayley would bring a resolution of their problems. Harding had more problems than Tozer knew about, of course. A resolution of them all was way out of reach. But Hayley had said she wanted to meet them. And he badly wanted to see her again-to talk to her, to make her understand. The circumstances would not be ideal. They would be about as far as possible from ideal. But they were the only ones on offer.
Nymphenburg. The baroque, white-faced palace flung back the clear winter light at them as they walked towards it. A tunnel led beneath the central block to a formal garden, beyond which the park, patched with old snow and fresh frost, stretched its wooded acres into the distance. The sky was cloudless, every shadow sharply etched.
Halfway along the path leading through the garden to the canal basin, Tozer checked his watch and announced they were early for their appointment with Hayley They diverted to the nearest bench and sat down. Tozer lit a cigarette and gazed back at the palace.
“Know anything about the Bavarian royal family, Tim?” he asked, to Harding’s surprise.
“As much as you, I expect.”
Tozer chuckled. “You underestimate me. Carol and I toured the castles down near the Austrian border the year after we were married. Y’know: the fairytale ones built by Mad King Ludwig. Neuschwanstein and the rest. As King of Bavaria, Ludwig must have whiled away quite a lot of his time here in his day, mustn’t he?”
“So?”
“So, we remember him as mad. Which is how a lot of people remember Hayley. I wondered… if she chose to meet us here… to make some kind of point about that.”
“Are you serious?”
“Not sure. But I’m definitely serious about making this meeting work. For all of us. I’m going to follow Lawton’s lead. Tell Hayley about her sister. What happened to her the day she died. I mean when she really died, not when Hanckel pulled the plug on her four years later. Hayley’s never heard my account of the accident, has she? It’s time she did.”
“Neither have I, come to that.”
“It really was an accident, Tim. You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve thought about it a lot these past few days. I mean, could Kerry’s gear have been sabotaged? Not by me, obviously. I know I didn’t do it. But by someone else?”
“Well? Could it?”
“Only if you’re willing to rope in some pretty unlikely suspects. I took all our gear over on the helicopter the day before the dive. Kerry was staying with Carol in Hugh Town. Ray Trathen travelled with me. I sent him off to a b. and b. and stayed overnight with the Metherells. We loaded the gear into John’s car and left it there till morning. Then we drove down to the quay first thing and put it aboard the Jonquil. The Martyns were waiting for us. I left John with them and went to fetch the girls. We bumped into Ray Trathen on the way back to the quay Then we set off. It was a perfect morning. Not a cloud in the sky. Not a breath of wind. Like today. Only about twenty degrees warmer.”
“The unlikely suspects, then, are Metherell and the Martyns.”
“John could have crept out to his car during the night and tampered with one of the hoses. But he’d have had no way of knowing which of them Kerry would end up using. Unless I was the target, of course. Or unless he didn’t care which of us he was endangering. It’s a crazy idea anyway. He set the trip up as a favour to me, but he was keen to go out to the site of the wreck because of his book about the Association. He had no reason to want either of us dead. And if he’s innocent, so are the Martyns. They couldn’t have done anything without him noticing. Besides, they’re just Scillonian boatmen who ply for hire. The last thing they’d have wanted was a fatality during a dive from their boat.”
“Alf Martyn said penetrating the wreck on single air supply was foolhardy.”
“He’s right. But maybe Kerry didn’t realize just how foolhardy. Maybe I didn’t ram the message home to her.”
“It might help if you told Hayley how much you regret that.”
“I plan to, Tim, believe me.” Tozer dropped his cigarette butt onto the ground and crushed it with his boot, then glanced at his watch. “It’s nearly ten. Let’s go.”
***
They left the garden and headed out slowly along the path beside the ornamental canal, bare-limbed trees to their right
, turbid, half-frozen water to their left. The palace had only just opened to visitors and few had made it as far as the park. A woman with a yapping dog was walking along the path on the opposite bank of the canal. But on their side there was no sign of anyone.
“She is going to turn up, isn’t she, Tim?” Tozer asked anxiously.
“She told us to be here, Barney. And here we are.”
“But where’s she?”
“Give her-” He broke off. His phone was ringing.
As Harding came to a halt, Tozer went on for a few paces, then turned to look at him. “Expecting a call?” He arched his eyebrows meaningfully.
“It can’t be Hayley”
“Can’t it?”
Harding grabbed the phone from his pocket and answered. “Hello?”
“Darren here, Mr. H. Calling back as promised.”
Harding swore under his breath. He had completely forgotten Spargo’s squalid little money-making manoeuvre. He had not so much as mentioned it to Barney. “I can’t talk now,” he said quietly.
“Why not? You’ve had a couple of days to sort things out with Megabucks.”
“I’ll phone you back later.”
“Oh no. I’m not being strung along like that.”
Tozer spread his hands enquiringly. Harding gave him a stalling wave and turned away to avoid his gaze while he dealt with Spargo. “This isn’t a good time. I-”
There was a loud crack, like ice fracturing under pressure, but so close to Harding’s ear that he ducked down defensively. “Caught you at the shooting range, have I?” he heard Spargo ask. Then he looked back at Tozer. And the phone slipped from his fingers.
Tozer was on his knees, clutching at his throat, his eyes wide, staring helplessly at Harding. He tried to speak, but no words came from his mouth, only a trickle of blood. Then there was another loud crack. Tozer’s head jerked forward. Bloody fragments of brain and bone burst from the back of his skull. He toppled over, hitting the ground like a falling sack, his last breath forced from him in a dying grunt.
For a second, Harding did not react. Then there was a third crack. He dodged instinctively and saw something that had to be a bullet ping off a pebble a foot or so in front of him. There was nowhere to run to or hide. The only shelter was in the trees, where the shots were coming from. The thought formed in his mind, clear and hard and brittle as an icicle, that he was about to die. A fourth crack snapped the thought clean off. He flung himself to the ground, twisting his head and squinting despairingly towards the trees. Hayley could not be doing this. It was not possible. She had not been able to go through with killing Carol. Surely she-
Name To a Face Page 18
