Ask No Question
Page 20
There was darkness as the figure bent forward, blotting out the moonlight. Miriam began to mumble in a strange language. The face was very close, she could feel breath on her cheek; very gently, fingers began to ease back the blanket. Miriam’s eyes opened. She looked towards the head of the divan expecting to see the thin, withered arm hanging there. Instead, she saw moonlight glinting on a long, thin knife. She stretched out her hand. The intruder’s head jerked up and she struck between the neck and the line of the shoulder. The knife went in clean and straight. The fingers released their hold on the blanket; the body slid sideways, for a moment it knelt at the side of the divan in a parody of prayer and then it disappeared. Miriam remained hunched forward, holding the sheet of paper. Soon, the fingers which held it began to shake, the shaking spread up her arm, along her shoulders; her thighs began to twitch. She pressed the paper against her breast. The figure on the ground made unpleasant, choking noises which she found very disturbing; she was glad when, after a while, there was silence. She leant across the divan and reached for the telephone; she was shaking so much that she could scarcely hold the receiver.
Chapter Twenty Three
‘He’s dead.’ Mitchell stared down at Burke as though in spite of this he still expected him to speak. ‘What happened? Why did he come here? Did he attack you?’
From the divan Miriam stared up at him. At first he thought that his words had not penetrated; then her jaw thrust upwards moving convulsively as she struggled to speak. She said only one word, ‘He?’ She sounded surprised, and her eyes clouded. The same struggle to speak, and then words that made no sense to him. ‘The woman . . . the woman . . .’ Death itself did not seem to trouble her.
Mitchell came to the divan and touched the fingers that clawed the blanket; in spite of the heat, they were like ice. She let go of the blanket and clutched his hand. She was shaking so much that further speech was impossible, but her eyes implored him not to leave her. He said, ‘It’s all right, it’s over now,’ just as though she was a child wakened from a nightmare. But words were of no help to her and she went on clutching at him desperately; the world was breaking apart and she had no one to hold to but him.
He had no clear idea of what had happened in this room. Perhaps they had struggled, perhaps she had screamed, perhaps someone had already called the police; there was no time to lose. Yet none of this mattered in the face of her terror. Speech had failed, there remained the older, deeper communication. He lay down beside her and took her in his arms; he held her close, pressing his limbs against hers, trying to warm her body against his own. Gradually, her breathing became easier. He had no thought for pleasure, his body was simply an instrument through which pain and terror might drain away. Yet, as he felt the terrible shaking subside as she relaxed and grew heavy against him, he felt that this was the most important thing he had ever done; if the police had come and it had ended here he would not have cared. He talked to her, gently, consolingly. ‘It was my fault. Whatever happened here, it was my fault. He was desperately worried. I should have tried to reassure him. I owed him that much. But I didn’t even bother to make up a convincing story. I drove him to turn on you.’ But she was not listening; her face, almost peaceful now, told him that she was drifting to a level where his voice could not reach her. Just before she crossed the borders of sleep, she whispered, ‘Mikail.’
The word reminded him that there was still a lot to be done. He thought about Burke, calmly and without emotion; it was too late now for the luxury of personal feeling. He put grief aside, knowing it would wait for him. Burke is dead, he thought, and the body must be disposed of within the next hour while there are few people about. Fortunately there was not much blood, although it would be important not to draw the knife. He turned his head to look at the window. The moon was bright. It would be risky to use the window as a means of exit, even if it was practicable. That meant going through the hotel. When he arrived there had been one or two couples still dancing and a few people drinking on the terrace, their presence had helped him to make his entrance unobtrusively. But one could not hope to leave unobtrusively carrying a body. Could it be assumed that the dancers would have gone to bed now? He thought about the geography of the building. There was a service lift nearby which would take him down to the passage to the left of the night porter’s cubicle. To reach the lift he would have to pass the linen cupboard, a lavatory, and one bedroom. The linen cupboard . . . He looked down at Miriam; she was sleeping very deeply, as though in a coma. When he gently eased away from her, she did not stir.
He went into the corridor. At this end it was dark, but there was a light at the far end, near the main staircase. The building seemed quiet now, no music, no murmur of voices or clink of glasses. He tried the linen cupboard door and found, as he had expected, that it was locked. It was not a lock that would have presented Burke with many problems, but it took Mitchell a quarter of an hour to master it. When he had the door open he was sweating and the pounding of his heart told him that it was not the heat that was troubling him. The cupboard contained the usual quantities of bed linen together with three laundry baskets and a trolley. A white overall was hanging on the back of the door; as a disguise, it seemed better than nothing. Mitchell took off his jacket and put on the overall, buttoning it at the back. He put one of the linen baskets on the trolley and wheeled it into the bedroom. It was a big linen basket and Burke was a small man, there was no difficulty there. Mitchell laid his jacket over the body and shut the lid down quickly. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror before he wheeled the trolley out of the room, he looked like a casualty attendant at a hospital.
Almost as soon as he started down the corridor a woman came out of the lavatory. She had no teeth, which seemed to worry her excessively; she scurried past him with averted face and disappeared into a bedroom a little further down the corridor. Mitchell rang for the lift and it came grinding up, making more noise than he would have thought possible. If the porter had been asleep he would surely wake now. The lift made even heavier weather of the journey down and the door opened with an asthmatic wheeze. The porter was peering out of his cubicle, his face puffed with sleep, as Mitchell went by with the trolley. Mitchell bade him a cheerful good night, but this ruse did not work. The man shouted ‘He!’ and Mitchell heard the squeak of a stool on the tiled floor as he got up. There was a lavatory on the right of the corridor. Mitchell pulled the linen basket off the trolley and dragged it into the lavatory, locking the door. Fortunately the lavatory was on an outside wall and there was a good-sized window. Mitchell opened the window. There was another wall ten feet away; at first he thought that he must be looking into a courtyard, then he realized that this was the side of the hotel and below was a dark alley running between this and another hotel. In the corridor there was a crash followed by muffled curses as the porter fell over the trolley.
Mitchell lifted Burke’s body from the basket and heaved it through the window; he took off the overall and put on his own jacket before he followed.
There was no time to be lost. No time for subtlety and certainly no time for sensitivity. He had left the car on the promenade under the shadow of a tree; he could see the tree not far away. He raised Burke’s body, slipped an arm round the narrow waist and forced one of the long, thin arms round his neck where it rested brittle as a twig. He walked between the tall buildings out into the moonlight, casting a monstrous shadow on the silver lawn. He swayed and laughed a little foolishly for the benefit of any unseen watcher. There was no one on the promenade, but he kept up the performance for his own benefit. He opened the door of the car and put the body on the back seat. He got in and drove slowly towards the square off the quayside. There he stopped for a while. He was in no condition to drive on the main road which was fairly busy even at this hour of the night. The breeze had died down. It was stiff as death. He put his head against the driving wheel. ‘We’ll get out of this soon,’ he said, just as though Burke cared. ‘Somewhere cool, higher up.’
The path turned and twisted and soon on either side the mountains thrust against the sky like giants which have broken free of earth’s net. The temperature dropped steadily. He had never before responded to this glacial beauty, but now he longed to reach the snow line; and when he came to it, the landscape seemed to burn with an icy fire that purged away all human anxiety. At the heart of the fire there would be stillness, always. He buried Burke in a drift beneath a climber’s hut and if he felt any emotion at all it was regret that he himself could not rest there.
Chapter Twenty Four
‘Not Berlin,’ Novak said to Mitchell six hours later. ‘There would be too much publicity, Kratz and the child will cross the Jugoslav-Austrian frontier near Jesenice.’
‘When?’
‘As soon as Alperin has crossed the frontier.’
‘Which frontier?’
Novak shrugged his shoulders. ‘Does it matter?’
‘It matters that I should be sure that the arrangements are honoured.’
‘You are afraid that we shall take Alperin and keep Kratz? Well, that’s reasonable enough.’
‘So what guarantee have I that that won’t happen?’
‘You yourself. Kratz is of no value; you may be of considerable value. So we shall keep to our part of the bargain.’
‘And the timing?’
Time was running out, although Novak did not know that.
‘First, the woman leaves for Klagenfurt. She must find a hotel there and wait.’ Mitchell did not know Klagenfurt, he could not visualize Miriam there. He suddenly realized that he would never see her again.
‘But surely she could wait until . . .’
‘No.’ Novak was quite definite. He did not understand Miriam Kratz’s part in this, but instinct told him that it would be wise to get her out of Mitchell’s way. ‘The woman goes now.’
‘And Alperin?’
‘In two days a coach from Spain will stop briefly at Chillon to allow its passengers to stretch their legs and inspect the castle. I shall be there with another man who bears a remarkable resemblance to Alperin. You and Alperin must be in the castle before the coach arrives. I suggest that you wait in the Grand Hall of the Count— there’s quite a lot to look at there—and when our party comes in, join up with it. I will do the rest. Luggage, passports, all that will be taken care of, naturally . . .’
‘But this other man? Surely someone will suspect? People are at close quarters in coaches.’
‘My companion is unobtrusive. He will sleep most of the way from Spain. The heat does not agree with him and his holiday will have done him no good. He will wear dark glasses to protect his eyes from the sun and he will fuss about the blind which he will want drawn down all the time. And, most important of all, he will have a tendency to be sick—that always repels the inquisitive.’
‘Where has this man been for his holiday?’
‘Tarragona. But it will not be necessary for Alperin to talk, by the time we reach Chillon it will not be expected of him.’
‘And when you leave Chillon?’
‘There is only one thing that need concern you. It will be twenty-four hours before the coach is clear of Switzerland. After that, nothing is likely to go wrong. But it is important that Alperin should not be missed during that time.’
‘It sounds simple.’
‘Yes, I don’t think it will be an exciting trip.’ Novak sounded regretful. He looked out of the window at the lake, brilliantly mirroring the mountain. ‘In Spain it will be even hotter. Imagine, three days in a coach!’
Mitchell said, ‘You still enjoy this, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’ Not to enjoy life was as much as he knew or cared of sin.
Mitchell persisted, ‘And when you no longer enjoy it?’
‘I shall stop.’
He would know when to stop, the eyes told Mitchell that. For a moment, there had been some kind of communication between them and those extraordinary eyes had darkened to violet. Now, as though sensing danger, they glazed over and were still. He was curious about Mitchell, he wondered why he had acted in a way that seemed at variance with his character. But he would not try to find the answer. He was not a man to ensnare himself in the trap of pity.
‘You will feel much less melancholy when this woman is out of the way.’
The violent laughter welled up within him and the eyes were a vivid blue, glittering as the sun-bright lake. There was no chink in that armour now. He poured drinks and settled down to give Mitchell the details of the plan.
Mitchell left him half an hour later. Miriam was to leave tonight; he should lose no time in seeing her and making the necessary arrangements. But in spite of this he went first to Alperin.
Alperin, the girl at the reception desk informed him, was unwell and had said that he could not see visitors.
‘He is always unwell,’ Mitchell pointed out. ‘It is a state of mind.’ The girl hesitated and he went on, ‘In fact, it is very bad for him to be alone. If I don’t see him he may do something unpleasant. You wouldn’t want that, would you?’
The girl called the porter. Alperin was becoming a nuisance and the hotel staff no longer paid much attention to his demands.
‘Show Monsieur into room 15,’ she said.
Alperin was in bed, more firmly barricaded in than ever. The windows were closed, the curtains drawn, and the room had a sour smell that indicated that this state of affairs had gone on for some time. There was a tray on the bedside table bearing a large plate of rolls all of which had been broken although very little seemed to have been eaten; the butter was melting and a fly writhed on its back in the jam. Cold tea added to the other unpleasant odours. Mitchell picked up the tray and put it outside the door. Then he opened the window and fastened back the shutters. When he turned round Alperin was watching him with an expression which Mitchell recognized as the dread of the victim for the tormentor. It was not pleasant; but fear has its uses and Mitchell made no attempt to soothe Alperin.
‘You had better get up,’ he said curtly. ‘There is a lot to do.’
Alperin said, ‘I’ve changed my mind.’
Mitchell laughed: laughter has its uses, too. ‘No doubt the groom suffers in the same way on the wedding eve. The thing that carries him through is the thought that it would be even more unpleasant to cancel the arrangements.’
He pulled back the bedclothes and Alperin, who was sleeping in only a pyjama top, gave a little yelp of alarm and grabbed the sheet. When he had recovered his dignity, he said:
‘Nevertheless, I should like to cancel the arrangements.’
‘The films have already been despatched. You realize that?’
‘Already despatched!’ It was obvious that Alperin had not realized it. ‘But of course!’
‘You did . . . did you give them to a woman?’
‘A woman?’ Mitchell was surprised now. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
Alperin’s face crumpled, his forehead and cheeks were scored with tiny lines and his lower lip trembled uncontrollably; he looked old and ill. The truth, Mitchell decided, would be the best weapon now.
‘You can go back if you like,’ he said indifferently. ‘It’s not too late. But it would be advisable if you went to the authorities immediately you arrived and told them the whole story. You might get a more lenient sentence than if you waited for the leak to be discovered.’
Alperin’s eyes met Mitchell’s. There was astonishing power in those weak, imploring eyes.
‘But they won’t suspect me?’
‘Who else? You will be the natural suspect since you have been in contact with scientists who are known to be communists.’
‘But I haven’t spoken to any of them . . .’
‘You had supper with
Dr. Scunner only last night.’
‘Dr. Scunner!’
Alperin flopped back against the pillows. Under the sheet his body was flat as a corpse. Mitchell hated him for being so easily broken.
‘Well, what is it to be?’ he said brutally. ‘You must make your choice and stick to it. I can’t waste any more time and I am beginning to have my doubts about you.’
There was a long silence, then Alperin asked that absurd question again.
‘Will they give me a housekeeper?’
‘I really have no idea, but I’m sure you will be made very comfortable.’
Alperin did not say any more and Mitchell was glad to leave him alone. He went into the bathroom and turned on the taps.
‘You must make an appearance at the conference this afternoon,’ he said when he returned. ‘When are you reading your paper, by the way?’
‘On Friday. I don’t know how I shall manage . . .’
‘Don’t worry about that now. You will feel much better by then.’ On Friday he would be out of the country; but Mitchell did not tell him this. ‘Have a bath and get dressed. We can have lunch together and then I’ll take you to the conference hall. Make some excuse about the heat not agreeing with you if anyone mentions your absence. I’ll come and see you this evening to make sure that everything is all right.’
He left the room and went down to the lounge to wait for Alperin. He rang for the waiter and ordered whisky. When it came he drank it quickly and ordered another. While he was waiting for it, he thought about Alperin. Over the years he had bullied many weak little men; it was one of the things that had sickened him of his trade. Now, when he was dedicated to something altogether more noble, how did he achieve his ends? By bullying another weak little man. It all came down to the same thing in the end. He drank the second whisky quickly and began to feel better. He wondered why he had not tried this particular form of consolation earlier.