Snare of the Hunter (17 page)

“No,” he said quietly. “Don’t ever let yourself think that, Irina.”

“Oh, David—” She ran to him, caught his hands, looked at him despairingly. “There is only one thing for me to do. I’ll go back. I’ll leave—”

“You’ll leave with me. And soon.” He put his arms around her. She was trembling. He held her tightly. “There now, there,” he said as though he were speaking to a lost child. Gradually the trembling stopped. “What do you think, Irina? Should we leave tonight?”

“Yes,” she said, her face almost smothered against him. “Yes! Let us leave. Now!”

“Now? What about putting some clothes on first?” He heard the beginning of a small laugh. “That’s my girl,” he said. I’ll order some food—we need that too, you know—and get things squared away. You pack, and be ready.”

She nodded.

“I’ll only be gone ten minutes, perhaps less. You won’t start being scared again? Promise me.”

Once more she nodded, her head still lowered.

He lifted her chin with one finger. “Keep that well up, will you? And lock the door.”

“Yes. But—”

He gave her an embrace that squeezed the breath out of her body and silenced her completely. “Lock this door!” he warned, and was gone: Again he used the staircase, his mind racing as fast as his feet. He glanced into the sombre dining-room, with an elderly waiter moving slowly around, and abandoned all hope. He tried the café across the lobby. Here, there were two waitresses dressed in black sateen, plump middle-aged women, waiting with crisp white aprons for after-dinner customers. He picked the one with a bright eye and a quick step. For a brief minute, she listened to him. “If you just bring a tray for two—goulash is fine—anything that’s ready in the kitchen,” he said.

“Well,” she began, her round face perplexed. “I don’t know. The dining-room is busy, there is no room service now. Later—”

“I can take the tray upstairs. Just get the food on it. Please.”

That horrified her. “I’ll bring it,” she told him. “If I can get away.” She glanced at the other waitress.

“I know you’ll manage it. Room 204. As quickly as possible. My sister isn’t well, she hasn’t eaten all day.” He gave her a warm smile and slipped her a hundred
Schilling
. “I’ll pay now and save some bookkeeping.”

“That’s too much! Seventy
Schilling
would be—”

“Keep the rest for your trouble. And thank you.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said to his retreating back. He gave a wave of his hand as he hurried out.

“Poor man, his sister’s ill,” she told the other waitress, and bustled into the kitchen. “Keep an eye on my tables, will you? I’ll share the tip.” There was no argument about that.

David stopped once more at the desk in the lobby. There wasn’t a public telephone in sight, but with some care his call to McCulloch would be harmless. The clerk was still fretting about having disturbed the lady. Possibly that made him excessively obliging. Certainly he could reach Geneva in a few minutes. “Just get the main exchange,” David told him. “I’ve left the Geneva number in my room, so I’ll handle the call from there.” And before the clerk had reached the switchboard, David was on his way upstairs.

He braced himself to face Irina. She would tell him about that ’phone call, he was still persuading himself; she would tell him of her own free will. Whatever the message was, it had terrified her. Never had he held anyone in his arms and felt their fear pressed against him like that. That was a moment he would like to forget. At her door, he paused. Then he took a deep breath and knocked.

Irina had changed her dress for the green one. She was a brunette again, pulling the stray curls into place with light fingers. “I’ll soon be packed,” she told him as she turned towards the suitcase.

“Good,” he said a little too hastily. No mention of that ’phone call; and there never would be, he realised. She was asking now where they were going, how long would it take, wouldn’t he mind driving for another three or four hours? He answered easily, keeping his voice unworried, even conjuring up a small joke or two. But she wasn’t the Irina he had once known. He resented the idea even as he forced himself to accept it; and doubt kept rising.

It was with relief that he heard the telephone ring next door. “It’s all right,” he told her as he made for his own room. “I’ve been expecting this call.” The irony of the phrase struck him as he left her, standing very still, her eyes inquiring. And he realised, as he picked up the receiver, that he hadn’t even mentioned Hugh McCulloch’s name or Geneva. God, he thought, this isn’t the way I hoped it would be.

It was only a matter of seconds, once he had given the Geneva number to the Swiss operator, before a woman’s voice answered with “Holz, McCulloch and Winterhouse.” Conscious of the open switchboard down in the lobby, David said, “Mennery here. I’m calling from Austria. I’d like to speak with a member of the firm, or leave a message if no one is available.”

“Ah, Mr. Mennery? I think one of the partners is still here. A moment, please.”

David’s confidence began to reassert itself. The woman had played along with his little subterfuge so neatly that his despondency lifted. And when McCulloch’s voice came on the line, with no identifying name attached, David’s attack of pessimism was over. Here were people who knew what they were doing.

“Mr. Mennery? So you are in Austria.”

“In Graz, at the moment.”

“Your business arrangements are going well?”

“Partly. The export problem is causing a few unexpected headaches, but I think I’ll have them cured before delivery date.”

“Have you discussed them with your business partner?”

“Most of them, I saw him this evening. He will probably be calling you tonight, and give you a progress report: By the way, when you speak with him, tell him I’m speeding up the transit of that shipment. I’m advancing it by one day.”

“One day ahead of schedule?” McCulloch sounded puzzled.

“It’s advisable. Be sure to tell him, won’t you?”

“I will. And I’ll have the full agreement drawn up at the end, ready for final signature.”

“The quicker the better.”

“Right away,” McCulloch said, and ended the call.

Well, thought David, I got that signal through all right: Saturday, not Sunday, in Merano. He picked up his raincoat and took out the map. He’d study the next stretch of road while he was having supper with Irina: a good excuse to keep from forcing conversation.
A few unexpected headaches
. And then some, he added bitterly. He drew out the small automatic. It was a .22-calibre Beretta, and about as useful as a peashooter beyond close range. It was loaded. He checked its safety catch again before slipping it into the depth of his raincoat pocket. There he found the red tie. He thrust it under a sweater in his bag—he ought to have remembered to ditch it when he had dropped the bundle of Irina’s old clothes in a thicket on that deserted stretch of road. Or perhaps he’d wear it someday—if he got through this journey with memories less bitter than his feelings were now. If he got through this journey: period. He chose a plain dark tie, inconspicuous and safe, and slipped it under his collar. Now the desk clerk would approve of him—he had glanced severely at David’s open-necked shirt—and their abrupt exit would be more acceptable. What excuse for that? David prepared one as he knotted the tie; but only for use if absolutely necessary. Explanations too often sounded like evasions; and sometimes they were.

There was a discreet knock at his door. It was the waitress, with a tray piled like a pyramid. “That’s fine,” he told her, and helped her bring the heavy load down from her shoulder. “Just splendid. Wonderful. We’ll fix the table. You’re in a hurry, I know. Please, no. We won’t detain you any longer.
Vielen Dank
.” She left, still breathing heavily, but with a broad smile (relief combined with a sense of achievement?) and a stream of good wishes floating back along the corridor.

“Irina,” he said, knocking at her door. “Food’s here. Come and get it. It’s picnic style, do you mind?”

Irina was dressed, ready to leave. She was calm, her face carefully made up and all signs of tears banished. She followed him to his room, helped him place the covered dishes on every available bit of free space. “I like picnics. Do you remember, David, the day we went to visit the Moldau?”

“I remember,” he said. And there we go, right back to the far-off past, avoiding the present, escaping the future. “We took almost as much food as this with us. Where do we start? Soup? And I think we should leave the talking to later. Let’s concentrate on getting some nourishment into you.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “These dumplings look good. One or two, David?” She delved into the tureen.

He shook his head, amazed at her recovery. Or was it all part of the act? He almost destroyed his own appetite with that question. “We’ll have to eat in record time. Like one of my friends in Vermont. A farmer. Eighty-two years old. He says, ‘I can eat a square meal in ten minutes.’ And just listen to me, David thought: how’s that for the carefree companion?

“A square meal?”

“Direct quotation.” David translated it for her. She was smiling, asking him now about Vermont. Wasn’t that where his grandfather had lived? She remembered him telling her about the maple trees and sugaring off. She had never forgotten that phrase.

Sugaring off... That’s what we are doing now, he thought. There wasn’t one hint in those beautiful blue eyes that only half an hour ago they had been filled with terror. Whoever telephoned had traced her to Graz: still more worrying to David, she had been traced to this hotel. And only he had known its name, only he and Jo Corelli had known it in advance. Krieger had been told, up on the castle hill. Time enough to— No, David decided angrily. You’re playing right into Jiri Hrádek’s hands. If we start distrusting one another, seeing some betrayal behind every unanswerable question, we’ll split wide open. That was one way to take care of any opposition. Hrádek must know that dodge well. How else had he clawed his way up, in a tight power structure? And yet, and yet—who the hell knew about this hotel?

“What’s wrong, David?” Irina asked suddenly. “You’re so silent.” She watched him nervously.

“Just trying to plan our route. I’d better have a look at the map.” He spread it out on the bed, took his plate over to the night table. “Finish your goulash,” he told her. “And then pour me some coffee. No strudel: it will put me to sleep.”

“How long exactly will you have to drive?”

“That’s what I’m figuring out.”

She fell silent, and let him study the map.

* * *

By half-past seven, and waning light, they were ready to leave. There was a new desk clerk on duty, one who had his own private problems. The exit was simple, after all. The Geneva call was added to the bill, and passports returned. Irina had been given her instructions. She went ahead of David, the elderly bellboy insisting on carrying her small luggage (did he ever go off duty? too old for union rules?), and unlocked the Mercedes. (Ten yards from the door—less than ten metres, David told her.) She was waiting, all set, by the time he came out into the street. It was totally empty at this hour. Not a pedestrian in sight, no car moving out to follow them.

The route to Lienz—about one hundred and eighty-five miles, he had calculated—would be easy and direct, longer but simpler than his afternoon journey. Yet, even at the cost of an extra ten minutes, he made a small detour, watching the road behind him, driving south as though he were heading for Yugoslavia. Then, satisfied, he turned west and picked up speed.

“Is everything all right?” Irina asked.

“I was just checking. No one has followed us out of Graz.”

“They may not need to follow.”

“What makes you think that?” It was a good lead-in for her. Now she could bring up the telephone call quite naturally. But she didn’t. She said nothing more.

David concentrated on the road and let her be the first to break the silence. It lasted almost sixty miles, practically a third of the journey. Her eyes were closed as if she had fallen asleep.

At last she stirred, stretched her cramped legs, eased her shoulders. “How much longer?”

“Two hours or more.”

“It’s so far away?”

“As far as we can get tonight. Safely.”

“And are we safe?”

“At this moment, yes. But you’ll be in serious danger, and your father too—once you lead them to him.”

“Once I lead them—?” Irina was aroused. “My father won’t be in danger from them. They’ve never touched him. There would be bad publicity—an international scandal. He has too many friends in other countries.”

“Is that why he has hidden himself away for these last years? You’d better ask Jo about your father. She met him in London when he was still moving around openly. What changed his life-style, d’you think?”

“But—” she began, and stopped. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I haven’t heard from him in all that time.” Then she added, “Nothing will happen to him. They’d never risk that. It would be bad propaganda.”

“What about a simple little accident?” David persisted. “Would that arouse public opinion? Something like a fire in his house, and both of you trapped in it.” Now I am being brutal, he told himself, but he kept on. “And the completed manuscript for his new book destroyed. People would be shocked, regretful. They’d hold sad memorial services. But aroused and angry? Public protests? Denunciations? How could that happen with an ordinary everyday tragedy such as a fire?”

Slowly she said, as though she were still persuading herself, “Jiri would never—”

“Wouldn’t he?”

Again she fell silent. At last she asked, “Alois—what happened to Alois?”

“It isn’t a pretty story.”

“Tell me.”

And so he gave her Krieger’s account.

“And those two men I saw on the staircase?”

“Acting under Ludvik’s orders.”

“Ludvik?”

“And now,” said David, “let me tell you what Krieger found out about Josef’s death.” He gave her full details, sparing nothing.

“Ludvik.” This time she believed it.

Hurriedly he added, “There is also some pleasant news. About your father. He’s at work. There’s a new novel—a big one—almost finished. It will be published next year.”