by MARY HOCKING
‘But as you yourself have said, your people are excessively sensitive just now; they chaperon the most unattractive creatures.’
‘I’ve no doubt that some evidence of his usefulness could be provided. Perhaps at the same time as you give me the proof I need.’
‘Proof?’
‘I want to know that the doctor is alive, remember?’
‘I’m not at all sure how that could be arranged—other than your taking my word for it, of course.’
‘I think we can do better than that.’
Mitchell felt in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper. He handed it to Novak with an air of assurance that he was far from feeling. Whatever Novak thought of the list, his expression gave nothing away, he merely said:
‘It would be helpful to have the man’s name.’
‘Dr. Mikail Kratz.’
‘And he was arrested, when?’
‘In July, 1962 at his clinic—the particulars are given on the paper attached to the list. For a time he was at the Nieman prison, but he has been moved from there.’
The Pernod was having its effect now. Mitchell felt he could not go on much longer. Novak was sitting quietly, looking at the notes Mitchell had given him; Mitchell had the impression that he, too, would be glad when the interview was over. He finished his drink and got up.
‘I shan’t do anything until I hear from you.’
Novak did not get up immediately. He was still looking down at the notes in his hand; he said quite casually:
‘And in return for this doctor you are offering Alperin . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that all?’
Mitchell stared at him, too tired by now to think. Novak looked up.
‘You must have thought about your future, surely? I suppose I can say that other transactions will follow?’ As Mitchell did not answer, he said impatiently, ‘You’re not an amateur, after all. You know that once you start on this kind of thing there is no turning back.’
‘Tell them there will be other transactions.’
Mitchell closed the door and went out of the hotel quickly. It was a bright, warm night and there were a lot of people walking along the promenade, laughing and talking or staring aimlessly across the lake. Mitchell sat on a seat. There did not seem to be anywhere to go now.
Chapter Nineteen
Until this moment, Burke had been very sure where he was going and why. An hour ago nothing had seemed more important than this venture; but something had gone wrong with the timing and the effects of the pill he had taken were beginning to wear off at the moment when he needed to feel supremely confident. He looked out of the lavatory window. The ledge was there all right, at least eight inches wide. It should be quite easy for anyone as small and agile as he was to climb out of the window and lower himself on to the ledge; then all he had to do was to walk along the ledge to the corner of the building, turn the corner and walk a few yards along the front of the hotel to that convenient drainpipe. It was the corner that worried him, corners were never easy to negotiate. He could see the cars flashing along the main road; the main road was as well-lit as most of the roads in this blastedly efficient country. There was a chance that he would be seen, but fortunately the hotel stood well back with a disordered garden in front of it. Burke wished that the shrubbery extended right up to the hotel, but in fact there was an uncompromising concrete drive some thirty feet below him. A pity he hadn’t Mitchell’s head for heights. But he was agile as a monkey, surefooted as a cat, and far from finished at forty. Yes, please God, far from finished at forty . . . He lowered himself out of the window, gained a footing on the ledge and made his way to the corner of the building without difficulty. When he stopped, the pounding of his heart was louder than the throb of traffic in the road, but that was only to be expected when one was a little out of training. He put one arm round to the front of the building and ran it up and down the wall, the wall was damnably smooth. He edged one foot round at right angles, swivelled the other so that the direction of his body had changed and turned the treacherous corner easily enough. He was congratulating himself on his judgment, audacity and balance, when a car came up the drive; for a second he saw the headlamps and then he realized that he was looking down, his heart missed a beat and his foot missed the ledge. He landed on the balcony next to Alperin’s with rather more noise than he had intended. He lay on his back, the breath knocked out of him, staring upwards. There were a great many stars in the sky, more than he had ever seen before, and they seemed to be flashing Morse signals to one another. He closed his eyes. It is always the clown that takes the fall, he thought bitterly. Someone was fumbling with the shutters of the window; he did not really mind being found, provided they got him to hospital quickly. A man’s voice called out crossly:
‘Whatever is it?’
‘That bloody deck chair has fallen over again.’
A woman’s bare feet went past Burke’s nose, there was the sound of a deck chair being folded; the bare feet came towards him again and the deck chair was flung down hard on top of him. The shutters slammed to. Burke pushed the deck chair aside; the bar had hit him in the face, his right eye was watering and his nose was bleeding. He sat up and fumbled for a handkerchief. He noticed that the shutters outside Alperin’s window were open; to his surprise he managed to drag himself across to the railing separating the two balconies and haul himself over it. His nose was still bleeding and he did not care about anything but finding a wash basin; having miraculously escaped from his fall he was damned if he was going to die of loss of blood! He parted the curtains and stepped quietly into Alperin’s room. There was a door immediately to the right, half open, and he could see the gleam of taps. He went into the bathroom without bothering to look at the bed.
It took a long time to stop the bleeding. He wondered what Alperin would make of the condition of his towel in the morning. This thought brought his mind sharply back to the purpose of his visit. He sat on the bath stool, listening. There was someone in the other room, he could hear little snuffling sounds and the occasional creak of bedsprings. He wondered what he would do if he found another man lying there while Alperin travelled East in safety. Earlier in the day the sudden realization that this, rather than illness, might be the explanation of Alperin’s refusal to leave his room had brought Burke out in a cold sweat; but now he could not understand why he had been so certain that Alperin had gone. Perhaps it was the guilty knowledge that he and Mitchell had played about on this assignment that had made him so sure that it would end in disaster. One did not play about twice with Eliot. He got up, telling himself that the odds were twenty to one that no dramatic exchange had been effected.
He went into the room and felt something close to affection when he saw the thin, ineffectual face creased by the crumpled bedclothes. Burke stood over Alperin, trying to adapt his own breathing to Alperin’s rhythm. This was not easy because Alperin was so restless; the thin fingers plucked at the sheet, the neat little head rolled from side to side, and the breathing was quite appallingly erratic. Burke straightened the sheet in the hope that this might calm him. Alperin said, ‘Dorothy.’ Dorothy, Burke remembered, was Alperin’s sister. Alperin’s fingers tugged at the sheet and twisted it again. He said, ‘Let go! You must let go, Dorothy!’ Burke wondered whether Alperin was in love with his sister; the majority of people, in Burke’s opinion, were queer one way or another. There was a bundle of papers on the bedside table. Letters from Dorothy? Burke picked up the papers and went to the far corner of the room before shining his torch on them. Lecture notes. So Alperin was still planning to put in an appearance at the conference.
Burke put the notes back on the bedside table. Now that he was here he might as well search the room. He had a talent for burglary; nature had given him an extra sense denied to most people, instinctively he would avoid the loose board, the creaking stair, wardrobe doors that had jammed for years would give quietly at his touch and ill-fitting drawers slide smoothly in and out. While h
e searched, Alperin writhed and twisted and made little moaning noises; he did not say anything comprehensible, but the general tone was one of protest, the whimpering, half-hearted protest of a man who expects, and perhaps hopes, to be overruled. Burke went through the wardrobe, the dressing table, and the desk without finding anything of interest. After that he sat down for a rest; his body ached abominably, his nose throbbed and one eye seemed to be gradually closing. Where? he said to himself. From the bed, Alperin said, ‘No, no, no, no . . .’ The whole episode was rapidly degenerating into farce. Where? Burke repeated savagely, where would a man like Alperin hide anything of value? A man like Alperin . . . A man with no experience of the game, a weak man, an insignificant man, a frightened man who allowed himself to be dominated by his sister . . . He would not be original. He would copy something he had seen on television or read in a book. Burke got up and went back to the bathroom. He took out the long, sharp knife he always carried on these ventures and cut the soap in half, sliced through the shaving stick; then he examined the razor and unscrewed the top of a jar of talcum powder. He was rather surprised that Alperin used talcum powder, but a careful probe with the handle of a toothbrush revealed nothing of interest. He went back to the bedroom. Perhaps Alperin, childlike, took his treasures to bed with him? If you really knew your stuff, Burke had once said, you could strip a bed with a man in it and not wake him. It was not easy to do that when the man was gripping the sheets with all his strength, but Burke managed to raise each pillow. He found three paper handkerchiefs and a packet of Anadin tablets. He went away from the bed and shone the torch slowly round the room. An umbrella and a camera were hanging on the hook at the back of the door. The umbrella had a long, curved handle which might conceivably unscrew. As he walked towards it, it occurred to him that he had never seen Alperin take a snap although the camera was always with him.
The camera was a Zeiss, a slim, neat little job, no complications; a glance at the opening at the back seemed to indicate that there was no film inside. Nevertheless, Burke touched the spring at the side and opened the camera. There were, in fact, two films inside, both apparently used. He took one out, it was neatly sealed and the sealing label proclaimed that it was a Kodacolor film. The other was the same. An unorthodox method of carrying used films. Burke pocketed both films and hung the camera on the back of the door. Alperin was more resourceful than he had imagined—or perhaps it was simply that he himself was less alert than he had been. A further search of the room was indicated.
It was while he was going through Alperin’s clothes that he became conscious that his left hand was stinging abominably. He shone the torch on it and found that the glove was torn across the knuckles; he examined it more carefully and saw that it was not torn, but burnt. Suddenly he snatched it off; he might have been peeling off his own skin. Maddened by pain, he rushed into the bathroom and held his hand under the cold tap; the water was like liquid fire. He reeled against the wall and his shoulder caught the ledge over the wash basin, several of the bottles went over and the talcum powder jar rocked from side to side but did not fall. He stared at the jar. He remembered that after he had stirred the contents with the toothbrush, he had wiped the handle across the back of his glove. He picked up the brush; the handle was twisted as though it had been held in a fire. Burke sat on the edge of the bath, more breathless than he had been after his fall; he gripped the sides of the bath, fighting back a panic-stricken impulse to rush out of the room shouting for help. The pain was terrible, as though hot and cold needles were being jabbed simultaneously into already raw flesh. In the other room, Alperin moaned and snuffled like a sickly baby. Burke put his uninjured hand out and found Alperin’s flannel, he folded it carefully round the talcum powder jar and went into the bedroom. He stood beside Alperin’s bed. The world, he decided, would be a better place without Alperin; he put his hand on the stopper but the pain was so intense that he could not control his fingers. He turned away and went out of the room. The corridor was empty; he took the lift down to the ground floor and went out of the front door without encountering anyone. If he had committed murder there would have been no witness to his presence in the hotel. Later, walking in the cool night air, he was quite convinced that he would have killed Alperin if only he had been able to get the stopper out of the bottle. It would have been a gesture worth making.
He found the car, deposited his finds carefully in the glove compartment and locked it; then he drove in search of a doctor. He told the doctor that he had upset acid on his hand. It was two o’clock when Burke got back to the hotel. He went to his room and lay down. His hand hurt intolerably; after a time the pain travelled up his arm and attacked his collar bone and shoulder blades, soon his whole body seemed to be on fire. He was quite certain that germs of extreme virulence had been introduced into his bloodstream. He crawled out of bed and drank glass after glass of water. It was only at five o’clock, when fear and pain had exhausted him, that he fell asleep.
When he woke, the pain in his hand was not so bad and although his body was very stiff, he was not feverish. He ordered breakfast in his room; he also sent a message to Mitchell via the chambermaid. When Mitchell came in, Burke handed him the films. Mitchell took them without examining them; he stood by the side of the bed, his hands clenched round the films, his usually expressive eyes blank as he looked down at Burke. Burke felt his heart beginning to pound.
‘What have you been up to?’
The tone was not accusing, but it was not solicitous, either. Burke told him what he had done. When he came to the fall from the ledge, Mitchell said:
‘You couldn’t have done something simple, like picking the lock on the bedroom door?’
‘There were people about. Someone was having a party.’
‘What about the porter’s master key?’
‘I would have got that, given time. But I didn’t have time.’
‘So there was no alternative to that ledge? A bit melodramatic, surely?’
‘You sound like a civil servant!’ Burke sneered, his thin face flushing at the hint of ridicule.
‘But what was the purpose of this climbing expedition?’
Usually Mitchell was quick to note when Burke was nettled, but now, either he did not notice or he no longer cared. His tone was anything but conciliatory.
‘I wanted to see if Alperin was there.’
Burke had been so sure something was wrong; but now, in the face of Mitchell’s bland incredulity, the explanation seemed very lame.
‘I should have thought there were other ways of finding out . . .’
‘Would you? Then why haven’t you discovered one? We’ve enquired daily at the hotel, but the answer has always been that he was too ill to leave his room or to see anyone. Didn’t it ever occur to you that he wasn’t there?’
‘No, it didn’t. He is just the kind to run away and lock himself up when things get beyond him. As long as he stayed there, undisturbed, all was well. If we couldn’t get at him, no one else could either.’
He made it sound very convincing. Burke said sullenly:
‘Something was achieved, anyway.’
For the first time, Mitchell looked down at the films.
‘Are you sure?’
‘You don’t imagine he usually carries exposed films in his camera?’
‘He might do.’
‘Have you ever seen him taking a snap?’
‘Oh, I’m not arguing.’ Mitchell put the films in his pocket. ‘We’ll get the results soon enough, anyway. In the meantime, we’re faced with a different situation now, aren’t we?’
Burke, his attention reluctantly diverted from the films, said:
‘In what way?’
‘Alperin has been locked away, struggling with his conscience, completely introverted. Now, you’ve blown him out of his refuge. He’ll know that he is suspected. There won’t be many ways open to him.’
‘We were sent here to watch him,’ Burke pointed out defensively.
‘We
were sent here to stop him going East, not to precipitate his journey.’
Burke lay back against the pillows. He was in the right and Mitchell was wrong; yet Mitchell was forcing his will on him, his mind seemed to work so quickly and he spoke with such assurance that Burke felt himself driven into a corner. He had not believed that Mitchell could be so aggressive. He was tired and a little frightened. He said weakly:
‘What do you suggest?’
Mitchell paused, but not long enough for Burke to summon his reserves.
‘Now that this has happened, he may be glad to see someone he knows. He’ll want a way out, perhaps he’ll be desperate enough to accept any explanation that’s offered him. I’ll see him and tell him that there were several burglaries at the hotel last night . . .’
Burke hardly listened. When Mitchell had finished, he said dully:
‘Yes. You do that.’ He heaved himself up on the pillows. ‘But while you’re dealing with the films, there’s something you might like to get analyzed.’ He opened the cabinet beneath the bedside table and took out the talcum powder jar. He had wrapped it up carefully in polythene and covered it with brown paper. Mitchell watched Burke put the jar on the table, he made no comment, just waited; there was no spontaneity about Mitchell now. Instead of unwrapping the brown paper, Burke unwound the bandage on his hand. The flesh had burnt away across the knuckles and the bones showed. This, at least, had an impact on Mitchell. Colour drained from his face, leaving the summer’s tan yellow and sickly without the substance of blood.
‘Dan!’ Mitchell sat on the bed. His manner had changed suddenly; it was too conciliatory now. ‘God knows what this could mean! Why don’t you get away, right out of this place? Go back to Berlin and get Arnold at the American hospital to have a look at that hand. Leave everything here to me.’
‘And what will you do?’
For a minute their eyes met with an understanding too acute to be borne. Both men looked away. Burke said:
