Cloak of Darkness (17 page)

“In a highly respectable building in the smart business centre of Manhattan. One hour ago.”

Neill recovered. “You should stay in London. You always find trouble when you come over here. I’ve never known whether you go looking for it or whether it meets you.”

“A little of both, perhaps.”

“How bad is it this time?”

“Bad enough, and getting worse.”

“Need some help?” Neill frowned, wondering how much involvement was necessary. He liked Renwick personally, admired him professionally, but there were limits to what could be done. Rules and regulations were rules and regulations.

“I think,” said Renwick almost inaudibly, “that we both need each other’s help. If you could prevent three Americans from being assassinated and—”

“What?”

“No exaggeration. Actually, there’s a fourth on that death list—me, to be exact. But if you help me reach the other three, I’d be grateful.”

“My God,” said Neill. A forkful of ham and cheese was poised in midair. “Do they live here?”

Renwick almost smiled. Regulations, regulations... “Houston, Palo Alto, Washington.”

Neill nodded, went on eating. After a few minutes he said, “There was an ‘if’ in your last sentence. If we can help you, then what?”

“I can help you. About another matter. Highly sensitive. But immediate.” For the last half hour Renwick had been trying to decide how much he could tell Neill—he couldn’t hand over Brimmer’s illegal accounts until he had made copies of them for Interintell’s files in London. Tell Neill about them today, promise them for tomorrow? Not altogether satisfactory: evidence was best handed over with the facts. Yet, it was a pretty fair deal. He—and Claudel in Djibouti—had done all the groundwork on Exports Consolidated. “It would give you a head start on the others who’ll be crowding into this case. A scoop, Joe, as our newspaper friends say.” He pushed aside his half-eaten salad, looked around for the waiter. “The cheque is mine. Let’s get the hell out. Some place where we can talk.”

“My office?” Neill asked tentatively and wondered if Renwick would accept.

But Renwick did. “Not every day I get an escort from the Bureau,” he said as they came out into the blinding light of the street and signalled for a cab.

He was back to his old form, thought Neill: finding a small joke in everything. In the Drake Room he had been as serious and intent as Neill had ever seen him. The information that Renwick could give must be a blockbuster. Neill’s interest doubled. He noticed Renwick’s glance at his watch as a taxi drew up. “We haven’t far to go.”

“Good.” It had been a quick lunch. Now, it was only five past one. Renwick could catch Gilmore in London at the end of his working day, alert him to expect a full report coming later tonight. “I have one phone call to make. I’ll keep it brief,” he said as they got into the cab.

A tactful hint. Neill grinned. “You can do that from my office. I won’t listen. And I wouldn’t understand a word of it anyway.”

“I hope not.” Renwick gave an answering smile. It broadened as another idea struck him. “By the way, how’s your copying machine working?”

“It was fine this morning.” Neill’s amusement grew. Taking over my office?”

“Just want to leave you with three interesting pages. Saves time—yours and mine.”

As urgent as that? Neill settled back with his own thoughts.

Renwick fell silent, too, calculating the tight schedule ahead. His visit to Joe Neill’s office wouldn’t take long. The bare facts about Brimmer, complete with hard evidence, were ready to hand over. Also a full description of the supply-room clerk at Exports Consolidated and of his two accomplices. Also a mention of Klingfeld & Sons, whose agents they were. That was definitely FBI business. But details of Klingfeld and Klaus were unnecessary: they were based in Europe. That was Interintell’s affair. So was Lorna Upwood’s possession of Brimmer’s Plus List, now in a safe-deposit box somewhere in Switzerland. And after his discussion with Neill about the best approach to the other three American names on that death list—what then? Some concentrated work on his report for London, every scrap of today’s information made crisp and clear and then encoded for transmission this evening. He would send it out by six o’clock, six thirty at latest.

And after that? Nina... Her safety, now with Klingfeld’s agents in New York, was the biggest problem of all. If they couldn’t get him, they would make a try to kidnap Nina; a hostage to hold and use as blackmail, force him to— He cut off those thoughts. Keep her safe, he told himself, keep her safe.

***

“Let’s skip that movie tonight,” Renwick said as they ended dinner at the little Italian restaurant not far from the house on Sixty-first Street. “Do you mind, Nina? I’m not much in a mood for it.”

“I didn’t think you’d be.” She looked at him worriedly. He had been working in the top-floor study when she came back from shopping this afternoon, stayed there until after seven o’clock, and since then she had been making most of the conversation. He had listened, yes. Even joked with her over her first day’s adventures in New York. But he had brought some problem to dinner with him—unusual. And instead of lessening, it had increased. Something I’ve done? she wondered, and her own anxiety grew.

Suddenly, watching her, he seemed to make up his mind. “Back to the house, darling. We’ll put our feet up and talk. And tomorrow we pack.”

That really startled her. She said nothing, only nodded. But, she thought in dismay, I was just beginning to settle down in New York. There’s so much to see, and I’ll never see it now. And as they left the restaurant, she glanced around the busy avenue—noisy, bustling, filled with a mixture of faces and clothes, everyone out for another evening of fun and pleasure— and repressed a sigh.

***

On the hall table there was a note, written in a large scrawl, waiting for Renwick. “Chet Danford,” he told Nina, who was already half-way up the staircase on her way to the living-room. “He phoned us at eight fifteen. Will call back later.” Renwick frowned, wondering. At eight fifteen, Danford must be phoning from somewhere outside his office. Then Renwick told himself, you’re too much on edge: yesterday you wouldn’t have sensed anything wrong about the placing of that call, felt any emergency. There probably wasn’t.

Nina had noticed his frown, his slow step as he mounted the stairs. She glanced over the white banister at the kitchen door, which was ajar. “These shoes are a hideous mistake. They’re far too narrow.” She slid her feet out from them. “Now
that
feels good. This carpet is divine.” Have I given a good excuse for our early return? It sounds vapid enough: the kind of remark Mrs. Whosis on the ground floor would expect from me. Why is it that strangers believe, if you’re blond and twenty-three and wear a black chiffon nightgown, that you are a nitwit? “Do you think we should get a red carpet like this one? I rather like it. Of course, we’d then have to have a white staircase, too.”

Renwick, having followed her glance, made no comment as he climbed after his barefoot wife. In the living-room—two rooms, actually, knocked into one giant—Nina had chosen a central couch. He closed the door, said, “Has she been inquisitive?”

“No. Just a little critical—a slight sniff when she came to collect the breakfast tray and found I was still in bed. But I suppose she must wonder who we are and where we come from. Only natural, isn’t it?”

Yes, it was only natural. He came over to sit beside her, slipped his arm around her, then disengaged it. “Can’t think straight,” he told her as he kissed her and rose. He pulled forward a small chair, faced her. “Hard to know where to begin. Look, honey— tomorrow morning, early, we’ll leave for Washington. No, I don’t know how long we’ll be there. But my business in New York is finished. And there could be trouble if we stay.”

She was about to speak. He leaned forward, kissed her lips lightly. “Hear me out, darling. Yes, I could be in some danger— and there was an attempt to waylay me today. No, no, nothing much. Just a warning—which I’m taking seriously. Because if I’m threatened at all, then the danger could spread to you. An unpleasant type, I’m up against. He has a long reach. Tried to have Claudel killed in Djibouti.”

“Pierre?” She was aghast. “Was he hurt?”

“Not badly. A knife wound.”

Nina drew a deep breath. “Will you be safe in Washington?”

The question was, would she be safe? “We’ll have no contact with anyone linked to the O’Connell name, no one linked to the Renwick name, either. We’ll call ourselves something original— like Smith.”

“Where will we stay—in another friend’s house? Or a hotel?”

“A motel to start with. Some place anonymous, where you won’t run into any of your father’s friends.”

She said slowly, “Would it be better for you if I just cleared out? Went back to London?”

“No. Not that!” He quietened his voice. “The unpleasant type I mentioned—well, he knows about Interintell. You see, there’s an informer connected with our outfit—no, honey, not in the London office, somewhere else. Don’t worry, we’ll find him.” He took her hands in his. “Don’t worry,” he repeated, “or else I’ll regret telling you all this.”

“Don’t, please don’t. I wanted to be told—yesterday I pestered you with questions until you shut me up completely.”

“I what?” He tried to laugh. “I must be worse than I thought.”

“No, no. It wasn’t you; it was what you said. About Austria four years ago, about the...” Her voice trailed off. About the girl who was killed there. And Bob, she saw, knew perfectly well what she had almost said aloud. She gathered her wits. “Well—if I can’t go back to London, what about Connecticut? Aunt Eunice is there—Mother’s sister—so there’s no O’Connell in her name. Besides, she’s Mrs. Williams now.”

“And there are three sons and a host of friends. How are you going to keep Renwick unmentioned? They’ll never introduce you around as Mrs. John Smith, will they?”

She remembered her cousins. “Not without a wink or a nudge or a mysterious look,” she admitted. “I’d be lucky if they didn’t go off into a fit of wild jokes. The trouble is—they’ve never had to face anything like the dangers you face. Or Pierre. Or Ron Gilman. They just can’t imagine—”

“Got it! I know someone who’d help us in Washington,” he said, and then added more slowly, “if he’s there at this time of year. He goes off to Europe in summer, looking at paintings— possible acquisitions. He’s a museum director.”

Yes, Colin Grant had known threats and hidden danger and the grief they could bring.

“Museum?” That caught Nina’s interest.

“Quite near Washington. Look, darling, let me telephone him—find out if he’s around.” Renwick had risen, was halfway to the door, “I’ll use an outside line.”

Nina made no comment about that. “Perhaps he won’t want us.”

“If he’s there, he will.” Renwick hesitated, then decided. “He was in Vienna four years ago—buying a painting. He wasn’t Intelligence. Purely amateur standing. But with his help, we uncovered a secret funding for terrorists. He met the girl who was working on that case with me. They fell in love, were going to be married. She was killed.”

The girl Bob had recruited... “So he won’t joke when we use the name Smith,” Nina said softly.

Renwick shook his head. “He will keep you safe,” he said, and left.

Nina rose, walked around the room, and tried to divert her mind from Bob’s last words. She concentrated on the outside call. Why use a public telephone near the corner of the avenue? There was nothing doubtful about Mrs. Whosis downstairs, except her natural curiosity. Or did Bob think the house phones could be tapped? Wanted his request for Washington Directory to be unheard by anyone? And a call to Washington tonight, followed by a hurried departure tomorrow, might—just might—give away their destination. Was that Bob’s reason? Nina wondered. And with that, his last sentence came sliding back into her mind.
He will keep you safe.

That could mean only one thing. Bob must be faced with the possibility of leaving her with someone he trusted while he travelled. A job that had to be done, and too dangerous for her to share. Or was she—as Gemma Gilman would say in her precise English voice—just a bloody nuisance?

Yes, Nina decided, I could be just that. There are times when I’m a total handicap. And having reduced herself to tears, she went upstairs to begin packing.

Half an hour later, Renwick returned. “I had to find enough change, first,” he told Nina. He was relaxed and natural once more. “So I went back to that Italian restaurant and got it.” “And your museum friend was at home. Not travelling?” Nina seemed equally relaxed. She snapped the locks on her suitcase. All ready to go, she thought, but where?

“Not until August.”

“And he had no objections to having a lone female landed on him for three weeks?”

“Darling...” Renwick drew her away from the suitcase and with his arm around her waist led her to the chaise longue. “There, Madame Récamier,” he said and settled her comfortably. He sat down facing her, his hands on her knees. “He had no objections at all. In fact, when I told him we were coming to Washington, he insisted we should stay with him. Plenty of room, he said. So we’ll have lunch with him tomorrow, and I’ll look the place over.”

“Married?”

“No. He’s alone except for a housekeeper.”

“How old is he?”

“About a couple years older than I am—forty-three, I’d guess.” Renwick smiled. “Better looking, too. He’s quite a guy. I’ll tell you more about him on our way to the Basset Hill Museum. It stands in acres of gardens just outside Washington. And”—this pleased him—“it is well guarded. Valuable collection of paintings: seventeenth century, with French Impressionists in a new gallery he opened. You’ll have plenty of beauty around you—inside the museum, outside in the woodlands. And—” he paused to emphasise his next words—“I shan’t be away for three weeks, Nina. Three days perhaps, or ten at the outside. I may not have to leave you at all, and I won’t unless—well, let’s see how everything breaks. I’ll be with you for the first day, at least. Some meetings in Washington.”

She tried to keep her voice light. “How many problems left, darling? Only that man? The unpleasant type, you called him.”