Airs Above the Ground (15 page)

‘
Entendu
. Have you also got a visa?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then . . . No, I’m not laughing you off; I told you I want your help, and I do want you to do just what you’ve said – stick with the circus till it leaves. Listen to me. I’ve got to go back to Vienna in the morning, and in any case my reasons for sticking around the circus are wearing a bit thin, and will hardly survive the pull-down, let alone the move across the border. But by the sheerest luck you’re here, and you’ve got this cast-iron – and totally innocent – connection with them. They’ve got two more nights in this country, at Hohenwald, then Zechstein, then the border. Now, if you and Timothy should just happen to be travelling much the same route as that . . . and if you happened to take such a keen professional interest in your old piebald
patient that you felt you must look in on them again . . . That’s all, don’t ask any specific questions, just look and listen. Get in back stage, talk to people, move around and keep your eyes open. I told you I don’t ride hunches, but I can feel it in my bones, there’s something up . . . The point is that whatever’s wrong, whoever’s wrong, they’ll relax once they’re rid of Denver’s friend and colleague – me. And if they do relax, you may see or hear something.’

‘And if we do?’

‘Do nothing. Understand?
Do nothing
. Wait for me.’

‘You’ll come back soon?’

‘Yes. Possibly tonight. Certainly by Tuesday night.’

‘What sort of thing, Lewis?’

‘God knows, I don’t. Anything that’s out of pattern. There may be nothing; but Denver asked for me, and Denver was heading for the border, and Denver died . . . You’ve got it clear? I don’t want you to do anything, and certainly to take no risks at all. All you have to do is forget I was here, forget this conversation, and stay with the circus until I get in touch with you again. All right?’

‘All right. And you needn’t keep reassuring me, I’m not a bit nervous, just happy.’ I moved my cheek against the sweater. ‘You did say “by the sheerest luck”, didn’t you?’

‘That you were here? I did.’

‘Hush a minute, I think I heard Tim move.’ From next door came the heavy creak of the bed, as Timothy presumably roused and turned over. We lay still, clasped closely. After a while there was silence again.

He said very softly: ‘I ought to go. Damn!’

‘What about Timothy?’

‘Leave it for the moment. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. The trouble is this bloody alias . . . If you know his people, he’ll find out who I am in any case, sooner or later, so we’ll have to tell him. We can cook up some story for him – a special investigation for PEC involving an insurance claim; something like that. I’ll have to think. He may even decide for himself that I’ve some connection with the police, and that won’t matter; it’ll help to keep his mouth shut. He’s all right, isn’t he?’

‘I’d trust him further than I can see.’

‘Fair enough, as long as we don’t trust him with anything we haven’t a right to. When I get back I’ll talk to him. I’ll really have to go.’ He sat up. ‘Now, final arrangements. Tomorrow, or rather today, you’ll be at Hohenwald. You’d better keep in touch. Try to ring some time during the evening. The number’s Vienna 32 14 60. I won’t write it down, I want you to remember it. Got it?’

‘I think so. Vienna 32 14 60. And do I ask for Mr Elliott?’

‘Yes, please. If I’m not there someone else will answer. I’ll tell them to expect your call. The next night you’ll be at Zechstein, that’s the take-off point for the border. I’ll join you there. There’s a hotel a couple of miles north of the village, a new one; it’s the old castle, and they’ve converted it, and I believe it’s rather a fascinating place. Try and get rooms there, anyway. It’s a fair distance out of the village, so that if I do come
and join you there, I won’t be seen and identified by half the parish . . . Have you enough money?’

‘For the time being, anyway. Will this castle place be very expensive?’

‘Probably. Never mind, I’ll see if I can get you on the strength! Book double, will you, in case I can join you as Mr March. Now I really must go.’

‘I suppose you must. Oh, Lewis, it’s beastly cold without you.’

‘Is it, sweetie? Tuck that thing round you tighter, then, and go to sleep.’

‘I never felt less like sleep. I’ll see you out.’

I swung my feet out of bed, reached for my dressing-gown, and folded it round me. He had shrugged himself into his jacket, and was sitting down pulling on his shoes. They were, I noticed, rubber-soled plimsolls.

I dropped a kiss lightly on his hair. ‘You’re too darned good at this, Casanova. Do you suppose you can get back into your own place without being seen and heard?’

‘I’ll try. In any case Frau Schindler will only think I’ve been helping the circus pull-down.’

I unlatched the windows, and pushed them very quietly open. The cold scents of the dawn came in, as the starlight shivered and slackened towards morning. The breeze was rustling the grasses.

Lewis went past me like a shadow, and paused at the veranda rail. When he turned back, I went out.

He said softly: ‘The breeze’ll help. Nobody’ll hear me go.’ He kissed me. ‘Your reputation’s safe a little longer, Mrs Prim.’

I took him by the lapels of his jacket, and held on to them rather tightly. ‘Take care of yourself. Please take care of yourself.’

‘Why, what’s this?’

‘I don’t know. Just a feeling. Take care.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll do that. Now get yourself to bed, and go to sleep.’

And suddenly, I was alone. I thought I heard, over the rustling of the grass, a deeper rustling, and then it was gone.

I turned back from the veranda rail, to see Timothy, in his pyjamas, standing at the open window of his room, staring at me.

For a moment, everything stopped; the breeze, the sounds of the night, the blood and breath in my body: for one long pulse of silence I could neither speak nor move.

He made no movement either, but, though I knew that Lewis had made no sound, I knew also that Timothy had seen him.

I suppose we stared at one another for a full half minute. It seemed like a year. He had not to be told yet; I had had my instructions; and at the unthinking level of fear which had prompted my last exchange with Lewis, I knew that they might matter. There was only one thing to do; assume that Timothy had seen nothing, and hope that he wouldn’t dare broach the subject without my giving him a lead.

I said: ‘Hullo, couldn’t you sleep?’

He came slowly out through the long windows until
he was only a couple of feet away. In the growing light I could see him clearly. There was nothing in his face that one could put a name to, no curiosity, or embarrassment, or even surprise. His features had been schooled to a most complete indifference. He was going to play it exactly as I could have wished.

I think it was his very lack of expression that decided me. Boys of seventeen ought not to be able to look like that. Whatever Carmel and Graham Lacy had done between them to Timothy, I wasn’t going to be responsible for adding another layer to that forcible sophistication.

And nothing would serve but the truth. It was emphatically not the time to ask, with exasperated affectation, what he thought I could possibly have been getting up to with Lee Elliott after half an hour’s acquaintance. He had seen the kiss, after all. Besides, as soon as the first impact had worn off, he would certainly put two and two together, and arrive at the truth. He might as well have it now, and from me. Lewis would have to forgive me; but if Timothy could be trusted later, he could be trusted now.

I took in my breath and leaned back against the rail.

‘Well, it’s a fair cop,’ I said, lightly. ‘Now I suppose I’ll have to confess I lied to you about our Mr Elliott.’

‘Lied to me?’

‘Afraid so. You remember I told you he was my husband’s double?’

‘Yes, of course.’ His face had changed, emerging somehow from that pre-selected expression of indifference. I suppose his lightning conclusion was the
obvious one, but somehow the relief and pleasure on his face made it a compliment. ‘You mean it
was
your husband, himself? You mean that chap Elliott – your husband
was
actually here all the time? The newsreel was right?’

‘Just that. As soon as I saw him I realised he didn’t want to be made known – and then Annalisa said, “This is Lee Elliott”, so I just shut up and said nothing.’

‘In disguise? Really? Gosh!’ The old familiar Timothy was back; even in the cool half light I could see the sparkle of excitement. ‘I said he was mysterious, didn’t I? No wonder you were punch-drunk tonight and wouldn’t make plans about cables to Stockholm!’ He took a breath. ‘But why? Was there something wrong about the fire, then, after all?’

‘Don’t ask me why, he didn’t explain, only that there’s something involved that his firm doesn’t want to be made public, so for the moment we’ll have to keep his secret.’ I gave a little laugh. ‘This’ll be a great blow to his pride; he was so sure nobody’d heard him.’

‘As a matter of fact I didn’t hear him. I’d woken up, and couldn’t go to sleep again straight away, and I felt a bit hot under that eiderdown affair, so I just came over to open the window wider.’ He added, naïvely: ‘As a matter of fact I got a bit of a fright. I wondered what in the world he was doing snooping around here. I was just going to tackle him, and see if you were all right, when you came out of the window.’

‘And you realised it had been a reasonably friendly visit.’ I laughed. ‘Well, thanks for looking after me. Now you know all, as they say . . . At any rate you
know as much as I do, but keep it dark, there’s a dear. I’m not supposed to have told you who he was.’

‘OK. Good night.’

‘Good night.’

And I went back to my cold bed.

Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps

With gentle majesty and modest pride:

Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps
,

As who should say ‘Lo, thus my strength is tried.’

Shakespeare:
Venus and Adonis

Next morning it was with a sense almost of shock that, as the car approached the other end of the village, I saw in place of the bustle and the big top of the circus, merely an empty field. There was the trampled circle, with the remains of sawdust and tanbark strewn where the ring had stood. Wisps of blowing straw were all that were left of the warm stable where the horses had slept, and where I had operated last night.

Tim stopped the car at the gate of the field.

‘It’s funny, isn’t it? Like a field full of ghosts.’

‘I was just thinking that. It looks quite incredibly deserted, as if Aladdin or someone had rubbed a lamp, and the whole thing had been spirited away . . . Like the end of a story.’ I looked towards the corner of the field, where the blackened grass and a few charred sticks indicated the scene of the tragedy. ‘And a sad
story, too. I wonder if they were glad to get away? What did you stop for?’ For he was getting out of the car.

‘I thought I’d get something to eat on the way. I won’t be long – that is, unless you’d like to come back with me, and maybe have a cup of coffee at the
Konditorei
?’

‘I’ll come.’

The smell of fresh baking from the little bakery-cum-café was enough to snare anybody, and it would have been too much to expect Tim to pass it without a visit. The little window on the shady side of the morning square was filled with fragrant stacks of breads and excitingly foreign confections. Timothy gave them his earnest consideration, while I waited, trying not to look as if all my attention was fixed on the side door, where a notice saying
Zimmer frei
might indicate that the vistor had already left.

‘Vanessa, do look at the names of these things! Aren’t they marvellous?
Sandgugelhupf
. . . isn’t that smashing? How about a nice
Sandgugelhupf
each? Or a
Polsterzipf
? Oh, look, it can’t really be called a
Spitzbub
, can it?’

‘I don’t see why not, anything seems possible in this language. What about
Schokoladegugelhupf
– and I do rather care for the
Schnittbrot
.’

‘I think that only means sliced bread,’ said Timothy. ‘It is a marvellous language, isn’t it?’

‘I’m going to start learning it, as from today,’ I said. ‘I wish there was a shop where I could get a book, but there won’t be one here, and we’re not going through Bruck, either, today. Have you got one?’

‘Only a phrase book, but you can borrow it if you like. It’s quite a good one, as they go . . . Don’t you just adore phrase books? The things they imagine one might want to say . . . they’re almost as good as one’s Greek grammar at school. I remember one of the first sentences I had to put into Greek was, “She carried the bones in the basket.” I’m still wondering whose bones, and why.’

‘Well, there you are, it’s stuck in your memory all this time, which is what I suppose school books are meant to do. I’ll bet you remember that bit of Greek better than any other you did.’

‘As a matter of fact it’s about the only bit I do remember, and just think how useful. The best thing I’ve come across so far in my German phrase book is in the section for “Air Travel”. “Will you please open the windows” seems to me a funny thing to say to anyone on a plane, somehow.’

‘Not seriously? You must be kidding. Is it really in the book?’

‘Yes, honestly.’

‘Well, if all the phrases are as useful as that—’

‘Good morning,’ said Lewis, just behind us.

He wasn’t wearing the plimsolls this morning, but he had still moved very quietly. If it was getting to be a habit, I thought, it was a habit he could just get out of again. I didn’t want to die of heart failure.

I said, ‘Good morning,’ a little breathlessly, wondering as I spoke if I should tell him straight away that Timothy knew, but Timothy was already greeting him
with aplomb almost as professional as his own, and then it was somehow too late.

Timothy said: ‘Oh, hullo, Mr Elliott, good morning. You haven’t gone yet? I wondered if you’d have left when the circus did.’