Cloak of Darkness (27 page)

“The FBI spotted him. Lost him. In Georgetown—near O’Connell’s house.”

“Nina’s father isn’t there, is he?”

“No. In Maryland. Grable probably tried that, too.”

“When was he seen in Georgetown?”

“This morning.” Then Renwick roused himself. “I’ll have that tub. Won’t take long.”

So the search for Nina was on. Claudel swore softly as he opened the parcels and began examining the clothes for tonight’s job of work.

At half-past eight they were ready to leave. They made a rear exit through the inn’s vegetable garden to reach the car park. It was deep in shadow. The buses had left, but over at the tables there were still a few determined romantics, local people with the sense to be well bundled up against the night air, drinking red wine by the light of coloured bulbs, listening to a selection from Gounod. Overhead, the crescent moon was swimming through a sea of white clouds. Lucky for us, thought Renwick as he took the driver’s seat: five days later and we’d have run into a full moon.

He eased the Audi into the road, took the direct route to town. Beside him, Claudel was in high spirits, sling abandoned, his left arm free and less noticeable. Like old times, he was thinking, the two of us setting out, not knowing what we’ll meet. Initial plans had been discussed, of course over dinner in a dark and empty dining-room with one small lamp to let them see what they were eating. As Renwick had said, “All we can do is to plan our first moves, but once we’re up at the chalet, we’ll play it by ear. There’s always something you don’t expect.” The Audi would be left at the foot of Ruskin’s road—what else did you call it when it wasn’t even named on the town map that Claudel had picked up at the concierge’s desk? From there they would use the road itself—probably unlighted—and be ready to drive for rough ground if they heard any car approaching. The silence of the hills would give them ample warning.

“Almost there,” said Renwick as they came through the town, two figures in dark clothes that weren’t noticeable. (On foot, Renwick had said, they’d make a weird sight: two joggers in the main street at this hour? Pockets filled with equipment, too?) A left turn and they were into the small parking space at the foot of the road. “What the hell’s going on?” He had expected to find a couple of cars at this time in the evening. There were seven, and three of them almost blocked the Audi’s way. Renwick edged through them, stopped just ahead of the leading car in the group. It was, of course, a small white Renault. He turned off the lights, switched off the engine. Marchand hadn’t come out of his car to greet them, hadn’t even looked at them as they had passed.

“Cool,” said Renwick. “We’ll play it cool, too.” Without one backward glance, they started uphill past the row of houses with faint lights and sounds of television coming from their windows.

“Did you notice the two men standing at the car behind Marchand?” Claudel asked. “And the two inside the car behind them? No uniforms.” The men, who had let themselves be clearly seen, had worn checked shirts, sweaters, britches, heavy stockings, and boots.

“One of them sold us our tennis shoes today. Marchand has drafted his cousins. “ And he is hedging his bets: tonight may not be police business, but in case of action—then Marchand will be there. “They look as if they know their way around a rough hillside.”

“He didn’t give a damn if we noticed him or his troops.”

“I like his style. He’s reminding us to remember.”

“But will you?”

“I’ll try hard.”

***

By the time they cut away from the road and travelled over a field of grass, small boulders, and bushes to reach the blacked-out chalet, their eyes were accustomed to the broken darkness. The moon in its first quarter was muted by passing clouds: now and again, a bright beam; then, just as suddenly, deep shadow. They moved carefully, taking cover behind a bush or beside a boulder whenever the half-moon’s spotlight was turned on.

The structure of the chalet was simple. The first floor was raised slightly above ground level by squat supports; therefore, no cellar. No terrace; no garden, either. Just a pair of windows on either side of a front door reached by three steps. On the upper floor there was a balcony with three long windows under the overhanging roof. Two chimneys, but not even a trickle of smoke. The house was exactly as they had seen it that afternoon: shuttered tight. A desolate place.

They separated. Remembering the lie of the land, they would circle around the chalet and meet at the first line of trees some fifty feet on the slope behind it. Sparse trees, thin and small, but with enough cover to let them study the back of the house. Claudel, a few minutes late in reaching Renwick, was much entertained by something.

“Side windows?” Renwick asked softly.

“Two above, two below; all boarded up. No balcony.”

“Same as my side.” Nothing original about this place. Its rear view had three windows above, two below with a narrow door between them.

“Just over there”—Claudel repressed a laugh, pointed back to a group of bushes—“I nearly stumbled into their garbage dump.”

Of course, thought Renwick, the people in the chalet might do without heat even on a cool night, but they needed food, and food meant garbage. “Small or large?”

“Only three bags, all neatly tied. They’ll dig it in when they’re good and ready. Not tonight, I hope.”

Perhaps when the next delivery of food arrived—a nighttime job, obviously. “I hope not,” Renwick agreed fervently, his eyes studying the house once more. No balcony here, either, where it could have been useful, for this side of the chalet was in deep shade. “They must be suffocating in there,” he added as he scanned the five shuttered windows, heavy black rectangles set into dimly white stucco walls. Then, “These bottom windows—something different...” And he unzipped a pocket to pull out his mini-telescope, and pressed its infrared release button. Claudel drew out his small binoculars and got them functioning for night work.

The two windows changed from dense black to the colour of bleached blood. Every line on the board shutters was shown as a dark seam. And at the centre there was a very broad seam—an opening, a definite opening. But it revealed nothing beyond, only a blank smooth surface, the same ghastly colour in infrared as the shutters themselves.

Renwick and Claudel exchanged a glance, pocketed their pint-sized instruments. Quickly, they crossed over the rough ground—grass with some outcrops of rock—and reached the dark shadows of the chalet. Claudel took one window, Renwick the other.

And there his question about ventilation was answered. A black blind, opaque, covered the glass panes, but from the outside. Concealed behind it, the window could be opened wide. As it was now. There were voices.

He signalled to Claudel, who came hurrying to join him. Renwick held up two fingers, raised an eyebrow. Claudel nodded: two people were talking, a man and a woman. Not clearly heard, only an occasional word recognisable, as if the speakers were at the far side of the room. Renwick and Claudel drew out their heavily rimmed glasses, put them on, pressing the frames close above their ears. The words became as clear as if the man and woman had been standing beside them.

Words spoken in some small argument, complaining, bickering, using German—probably as a common language: the woman’s accent showed traces of French, the man’s was heavily Slavonic. She was saying, “Stop searching! And sit down. There’s no more beer. You’ve drunk it all.”

“What there was of it.” Footsteps wandered over a wooden floor. “They send you plenty of food and nothing to drink.”

“Nothing? You drank six—”

“Six bottles of nothing. Where d’you keep the cigarettes? They sent cigarettes, didn’t they?”

“No. You had two packs.”

“They’re finished. Empty.”

“Oh, sit down!”

“Can’t even phone.” The footsteps stopped. “Why shouldn’t I try to—”

The woman’s voice rose. “No phoning! Orders.”

“Stupid orders.”

“You’re stupid. The calls go through the town exchange. Do you want someone down there asking who is up here?”

“The two-way radio doesn’t go through the exchange. I’ll call, tell them we need some real booze and cigarettes—it’s a long night ahead.”

“No! Only to be used in an emergency. Only then!”

A chair scraped on the floor. “Think I’ll have a breath of fresh air.”

“The car could arrive—”

“He won’t arrive until midnight. Or later. It’s a long haul.”

“What about her? Don’t leave me—”

“She’ll give you no trouble. She’s out cold.”

“Do we keep her quiet until he leaves tomorrow?”

“He’s in the big room; she’s upstairs. And gagged. Who’s to hear her? No one did today. If you ask me—it’s a damn stupid mistake having them in this house at the same time.”

“I’m not asking you. And it isn’t a mistake. It wasn’t planned. It just happened. She is—”

“She’s a damned nuisance.”

“An important nuisance. Remember that! Where are you going, Stefan?”

“Out.” Heavy footsteps were crossing the room.

“Where?” she insisted.

“Up to the big house—get cigarettes and something to drink, find out what’s new. You clean up here, have the place looking good for our visitor. Who is he? Did they say?”

“No. And tell them she isn’t talking, won’t speak. Yes, better tell them that.”

“I’ll tell them it would be easy to make her talk if they didn’t want her kept alive. And how long will that be, anyway?” There was a grunt, short and contemptuous. “Switch off the light. Can’t open the door until you’ve got that light turned off. Move it!”

Renwick and Claudel didn’t wait for the light to go out. They raced to the nearest tree, glasses safely in their pockets, their rubber-soled shoes both sure and soundless on the grass, and slid behind its shelter. Propped on their elbows, they watched that back door. They were aware when it opened—in the stillness of the night, the turn of a heavy lock was audible. But it was only when Stefan stepped out from the house’s shadow that they realised the door was closed. Not locked again, thought Renwick. Why?

They watched the tall, heavy figure in its dark clothes plodding slowly toward the road. Stefan stopped twice, looked around. Perhaps he really was enjoying the air. Perhaps he was checking to make sure everything was as peaceful as it should be.

And in the house he had left? The woman busy tidying the kitchen; someone in a room overhead, gagged and unconscious—a bad combination, thought Renwick. She could be smothered to death—orders or no orders from Klaus Sudak.

Stefan had reached the road, was lost from view as he turned to follow it uphill. “How much time?” Claudel asked. “Ten minutes to the big chalet. Fifteen minutes for supplies and some talk—and ten minutes back here. Give him half an hour?”

Renwick nodded. “The door wasn’t locked. An invitation to enter, I’d say. Let’s accept it.”

“Marchand?”

“We’ll scout around first. Time enough to call when—” Renwick, about to rise, broke off both words and movement. The door must have opened. The woman came out of the shadows, almost invisible in the dark cloak she had thrown around her. A shoulder tilted as she walked toward them. Carrying something? A large black plastic bag that glistened in a ray of moonlight as it bulged out from under her cape. They let her pass, scarcely fifteen feet away from where they lay under the tree. She veered to her left, up toward the bushes that disguised the garbage dump.

Renwick rose, gestured to Claudel, and they followed. She was out of sight behind the screen of bushes. “Deal with her now?” Claudel whispered and stood to the side of the path the woman had taken through the shrubbery. Renwick faced it. She came out, saw him, stopped. Her mouth opened, but she didn’t cry out. Claudel’s karate chop caught the back of her neck. She pitched forward, lay still.

“Sorry about that,” Claudel told her, “but how else do we keep you quiet for the next half hour? Come on, Bob. Lend a hand. She’s the weight of two men.”

Together they pulled her heavy bulk near some stones, dropped her head beside the largest of them. If any of her friends came prowling around, they might think it was a fall in the dark and a case of concussion. “All right, all right,” Renwick said. “Let’s go!”

They raced down the slope, stepped into a darkened kitchen with its door ajar. Renwick closed it, used his pen flashlight to find the switch and turn on a ceiling lamp. On the far wall was a narrow door. Quickly, they moved to open it: the woman’s room—underclothes on a chair and a dress, smeared with blood, hooked onto a wall.

Back into the kitchen, out into the hall. A small place, stretching from back to front of the house, lit by a table lamp near the main entrance. Opposite them, a narrow staircase leading up the wall, beginning almost at the doorway to a back room. Stefan’s room: city clothes dropped on the bed, a soiled towel on the floor near a washstand and a basin of red-tinged water. There was a front room, too, its door under the top rise of the stairs.

“Well,” said Renwick as they entered it and switched on the lights, “all the comforts of home.” It was larger, better furnished than the others, with even an adjoining bathroom. The wardrobe held a man’s suit and overcoat—new, apparently unworn. New shirt, new underclothes, new shoes. A complete and natty outfit even to the dark-red tie. On the bureau, there was an innocent display of lace mat, brushes, and comb. Inside a drawer, at its back, lay a wallet packed with French francs and German marks. “Okay,” said Renwick as he replaced it exactly and switched off the light.

They climbed the steep flight of wooden steps and reached the upper hall, lit by a lamp on a rickety table that stood almost at the head of the stairs. Hall? More like a corridor stretching the breadth of the house with a window at either end. Four doors here; and three of them half open, leading into unused rooms. The fourth was locked. With the key in place, Renwick saw in astonishment. But then, they hadn’t expected any intruders and by habit had locked the door from the outside. Not that they had anything to fear from the inside: their prisoner couldn’t have made even the feeblest attempt to escape. Renwick and Claudel paused at the threshold to the brightly lit room, stared at her in horror.