Bloodline (26 page)

The white light flashed, signaling a call on Rhys’s private line. Fewer than half a dozen people had the number. He picked up the telephone. “Hello.”

“Good morning, darling.” There was no mistaking the husky, distinctive voice.

“You shouldn’t be calling me.”

She laughed. “You never used to worry about things like that. Don’t tell me that Elizabeth has tamed you already.”

“What do you want?” Rhys asked.

“I want to see you this afternoon.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Don’t make me cross, Rhys. Shall I come to Zurich or—?”

“No. I can’t see you here.” He hesitated. I’ll come there.”

“That’s better. Our usual place,
chéri.”

And Hélène Roffe-Martel hung up.

Rhys replaced the receiver slowly and sat thinking. As far as he was concerned, he had had a brief physical affair with an exciting woman, and it had been finished for some time. But Hélène was not a woman who let go easily. She was bored with Charles, and she wanted Rhys. “You and I would make a perfeet
team,” she had said, and Hélène Roffe-Martel could be very determined. And very dangerous. Rhys decided the trip to Paris was necessary. He had to make her understand once and for all that there could be nothing further between them.

A few moments later he walked into Elizabeth’s office, and her eyes brightened. She put her arms around him and whispered, “I’ve been thinking about you. Let’s go home and play hooky this afternoon.”

He grinned. “You’re becoming a sex maniac.”

She held him closer. “I know. Isn’t it lovely?”

“I’m afraid I have to fly to Paris this afternoon, Liz.”

She tried to conceal her disappointment. “Shall I come with you?”

“No point. It’s just a minor business problem. I’ll be back tonight. We’ll have a late supper.”

When Rhys walked into the familiar small hotel on the Left Bank, Hélène was already there, seated in the dining room, waiting for him. Rhys had never known her to be late. She was organized and efficient, extraordinarily beautiful, intelligent, a wonderful lover; and yet something was missing. Hélène was a woman without compassion. There was a ruthlessness about her, a killer’s instinct. Rhys had seen others hurt by it. He had no intention of becoming one of her victims. He sat down at the table.

She said, “You’re looking well, darling. Marriage agrees with you. Is Elizabeth taking good care of you in bed?”

He smiled to take the sting out of his words. “That’s none of your business.”

Hélène leaned forward and took one of his hands, “Ah, but it is,
chert.
It is
our
business.”

She began stroking his hand, and he thought of her in bed. A tiger, wild, skilled and insatiable. He withdrew his hand.

Hélène’s eyes chilled. She said, “Tell me, Rhys. How does it feel to be president of Roffe and Sons?”

He had almost forgotten how ambitious she was, how greedy. He remembered the long conversations they had once had. She was obsessed by the idea of taking control of the company.
You and I, Rhys. If Sam were out of the way, we could run it.

Even in the midst of their lovemaking:
It’s my company, darling. Samuel Roffe’s blood is in me. It’s mine. I want it. Fuck me, Rhys.

Power was Hélène’s aphrodisiac. And danger. “What did you want to see me about?” Rhys asked.

“I think it’s time you and I made some plans.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”

She said maliciously, “I know you too well, darling. You’re as ambitious as I am. Why did you serve as Sam’s shadow all those years when you had dozens of offers to run other companies? Because you knew that one day you would be running Roffe and Sons.”

“I stayed because I liked Sam.”

She grinned. “Of course,
chéri.
And now you’ve married his charming little daughter.” She took a thin black cigar from her purse and lit it with a platinum lighter. “Charles tells me that Elizabeth has arranged to keep control of the stock and that she refuses to sell.”

“That’s right, Hélène.”

“It’s occurred to you, of course, that if she had an accident, you would inherit her estate.”

Rhys stared at her for a long time.

In his home in Olgiata, Ivo Palazzi was casually looking out the window of his living room when he saw a terrifying sight. Coming up the driveway were Donatella and their three sons. Simonetta was upstairs, taking a nap. Ivo hurried out the front door and went to meet his second family. He was filled with such rage that he could have killed. He had been so wonderful to this woman, so kind, so loving, and now she was deliberately trying to destroy his career, his marriage, his life. He watched Donatella get out of the Lancia Flavia he had so generously given her. Ivo thought she had never looked more beautiful. The boys climbed out of the car, and were hugging and kissing him. Oh, how Ivo loved them. Oh, how he hoped that Simonetta would not wake up from her nap!

“I come to see your wife,” Donatella said stiffly. She turned to the boys. “Come on, boys.”

“No!” Ivo commanded.

“How are you going to stop me? If I don’t see her today, I’ll see her tomorrow.”

Ivo was cornered. There was no way out. Yet he knew that he could not let her or anyone else ruin everything he had worked so hard for. Ivo thought
of himself as a decent man, and he hated what he must do. Not just for himself, but for Simonetta and Donatella and all his children.

“You will have your money,” Ivo promised. “Give me five days.”

Donatella looked into his eyes. “Five days,” she said.

In London, Sir Alec Nichols was taking part in a floor debate in the House of Commons. He had been chosen to make a major policy speech dealing with the crucial subject of the labor strikes that were crippling the British economy. But it was difficult for him to concentrate. He was thinking about the series of telephone calls he had received over the past few weeks. They had managed to find him wherever he was, at his club, at his barber, restaurants, business meetings. And each time Alec had hung up on them. He knew that what they were asking was only the beginning. Once they controlled him, they would find a way to take over his stock, they would own a piece of a gigantic pharmaceutical company that manufactured drugs of every description. He could not let that happen. They had begun telephoning him four and five times a day until his nerves were stretched to the breaking point What worried Alec now was that on this day he had
not
heard from them. He had expected a call at breakfast, and then again when he had lunched at White’s. But there were no calls and somehow he could not shake off the feeling that the silence was more ominous than the threats. He tried to push these thoughts away now as he addressed the House.

“No man has been a stauncher friend of labor than I. Our labor force is what makes our country
great. Workers feed our mills, turn the wheels in our factories. They are the true elite of this country, the backbone that makes England stand tall and strong among nations.” He paused. “However, there comes a time in the fortunes of every nation when certain sacrifices must be made…”

He spoke by rote. He was wondering whether he had frightened them off by calling their bluff. After all, they were just small-time hoodlums. He was Sir Alec Nichols, Baronet, M.P. What could they do to him? In all probability he would not hear from them again. From now on they would leave him in peace. Sir Alec finished his speech amid vociferous applause from the back benches.

He was on his way out when an attendant came up to him and said, “I have a message for you, Sir Alec.”

Alec turned. “Yes?”

“You’re to go home as quickly as possible. There has been an accident.”

They were carrying Vivian into the ambulance when Alec arrived at the house. The doctor was at her side. Alec slammed the car against the curb and was out running before it had stopped. He took one look at Vivian’s white unconscious face and turned to the doctor. “What happened?”

The doctor said helplessly, “I don’t know, Sir Alec. I received an anonymous call that there had been an accident. When I got here, I found Lady Nichols on the floor of her bedroom. Her—her kneecaps had been hammered to the floor with spikes.”

Alec closed his eyes, fighting off the spasm of nausea that gripped him. He could feel the bile rising in his throat.

“We’ll do everything we can, of course, but I think you had better be prepared. It’s unlikely that she’ll ever walk again.”

Alec felt as though he could not breathe. He started toward the ambulance.

“She’s under heavy sedation,” the doctor said. “I don’t think she’ll recognize you.”

Alec did not even hear him. He climbed into the ambulance and sat in a jump seat, staring down at his wife, oblivious to the back doors being closed, the sound of the siren, and the ambulance beginning to move. He took Vivian’s cold hands in his. Her eyes opened. “Alec.” Her voice was a slurred whisper.

Alec’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, my darling, my darling…”

“Two men…wore masks…they held me down…broke my legs…I’ll never be able to dance again…I’m going to be a cripple, Alec…Will you still want me?”

He buried his head in her shoulder and wept. They were tears of despair and agony, and yet there was something else, something he hardly dared admit to himself. He felt a sense of relief. If Vivian were crippled, he would be able to take care of her, she could never leave him for anyone else.

But Alec knew that this was not over. They were not finished with him. This was only their warning. The only way he would ever get rid of them was to give them what they wanted.

Quickly.

Zurich.

Thursday, December 4.

It was exactly noon when the call came through the switchboard at the Kriminal Polizei headquarters in Zurich. It was routed through to Chief Inspector Schmied’s office, and when the chief inspector had finished talking, he went to find Detective Max Hornung.

“It’s all over,” he told Max. “The Roffe case has been solved. They’ve found the killer. Get out to the airport. You’ve just got time to catch your plane.”

Max blinked at him. “Where am I going?”

“To Berlin.”

Chief Inspector Schmied telephoned Elizabeth Williams. “I am calling to bring you some good news,” he said. “You will no longer need a bodyguard. The murderer has been caught.”

Elizabeth found herself gripping the telephone. At long last she was going to learn the name of her
faceless enemy. “Who is it?” she asked.

“Walther Gassner.”

They were speeding along the autobahn, heading for Wannsee. Max was in the back seat, next to Major Wageman, and two detectives sat in front. They had met Max at Tempelhof Airport, and Major Wageman had briefed Max on the situation as they drove. “The house is surrounded, but we have to be careful how we move in. He’s holding his wife hostage.”

Max asked, “How did you get on to Walther Gassner?”

“Through you. That’s why I thought you would like to be here.”

Max was puzzled. “Through me?”

“You told me about the psychiatrist he visited. On a hunch, I sent out Gassner’s description to other psychiatrists and found out that he had gone to half a dozen of them, looking for help. Each time he used a different name, then ran away. He knew how ill he was. His wife had phoned us for help a couple of months ago, but when one of our men went out to investigate, she sent him away.” They were turning off the autobahn now, only a few minutes from the house. “This morning we received a call from a cleaning woman, a Frau Mendler. She told us she was working at the Gassner house on Monday and that she talked to Mrs. Gassner through the locked door of her bedroom. Mrs. Gassner told her that her husband had killed their two children and was going to kill her.”

Max blinked. “This happened on
Monday?
And the woman didn’t call you until this morning?”

“Frau Mendler has a long police record. She was
afraid to come to us. Last night she told her boyfriend what had happened, and this morning they decided to call us.”

They had reached the Wannsee. The car pulled up a block away from the entrance to the Gassner estate, behind an unmarked sedan. A man got out of the sedan and hurried toward Major Wageman and Max. “He’s still inside the house, Major. I have men all around the grounds.”

“Do you know if the woman is still alive?”

The man hesitated. “No, sir. All the blinds are drawn.”

“All right. Let’s make it fast and quiet. Get everyone in place. Five minutes.”

The man hurried off. Major Wageman reached into the car and pulled out a small walkie-talkie. He began rapidly to issue orders. Max was not listening. He was thinking of something that Major Wageman had said to him a few minutes ago. Something that made no sense. But there was no time to ask him about it now. Men were starting to move toward the house, using trees and shrubs as cover. Major Wage-man turned to Max. “Coming, Hornung?”

It seemed to Max that there was an army of men infiltrating the garden. Some of them were supplied with telescopic rifles and armored vests; others carried snubnosed tear gas rifles. The operation was carried out with mathematical precision. At a signal from Captain Wageman, tear gas grenades were simultaneously hurled through the downstairs and upstairs windows of the house and at the same instant the front and rear doors were smashed in by men wearing gas masks. Behind them came more detectives with drawn guns.

When Max and Major Wageman ran through the
open front door, the hallway was filled with acrid smoke, but it was rapidly being dispersed by the open windows and doors. Two detectives were bringing Walther Gassner into the hallway in handcuffs. He was wearing a robe and pajamas and he was unshaven and his face looked gaunt and his eyes swollen.

Max stared at him, seeing him for the first time in person. Somehow he seemed unreal to Max. It was the
other
Walther Gassner who was real, the man in the computer, whose life had been spelled out in digits. Which was the shadow and which was the substance?

Major Wageman said, “You’re under arrest, Herr Gassner. Where is your wife?”

Walther Gassner said hoarsely, “She’s not here. She’s gone! I—”

Upstairs there was the sound of a door being forced open, and a moment later a detective called down, “I’ve found her. She was locked in her room.”

The detective appeared on the staircase, supporting a trembling Anna Gassner. Her hair was stringy and her face was streaked and blotchy, and she was sobbing.

“Oh, thank God,” she said. “Thank God you’ve come!”

Gently the detective led her downstairs toward the group standing in the enormous reception hall. When Anna Gassner looked up and saw her husband, she began to scream.

“It’s all right, Frau Gassner,” Major Wageman said soothingly. “He can’t harm you anymore.”

“My children,” she cried. “He killed my children!”

Max was watching Walther Gassner’s face. He was
staring at his wife with an expression of utter hopelessness. He looked broken and lifeless.

“Anna,” he whispered. “Oh, Anna.”

Major Wageman said, “You have the right to remain silent or to ask for a lawyer. For your own sake I hope you will cooperate with us.”

Walther was not listening. “Why did you have to call them, Anna?” he pleaded. “Why? Weren’t we happy together.”

“The children are dead,” Anna Gassner shrieked. “They’re dead.”

Major Wageman looked at Walther Gassner and asked, “Is that true?”

Walther nodded, and his eyes looked old and defeated. “Yes…They’re dead.”

“Murderer! Murderer!” his wife was shrieking.

Major Wageman said, “We would like you to show us the bodies. Will you do that?”

Walther Gassner was crying now, the tears rolling down his cheeks. He could not speak.

Major Wageman said, “Where are they?”

It was Max who answered. “The children are buried in Saint Paul’s graveyard.”

Everyone in the room turned to stare at him. “They died at birth five years ago,” Max explained.

“Murderer!” Anna Gassner screamed at her husband.

And they turned and saw the madness blazing out of her eyes.