Snare of the Hunter (22 page)

“I’ll be all right,” she assured him.

He still hesitated. “Come and stand beside me,” he said. “We’ll make the call together.”

“I’d be less noticed, sitting here.”

“True enough, I’ll keep an eye on you,” he said as he got out. He could do that easily once he’d been given permission to use the telephone: the office window was wide and the car was clearly in sight. She had tied her blue-and-green scarf to hide her hair, and she was keeping her head bent as if she were reading something. No one from any of the passing cars could recognise or remember her. Reassured, he made the call to Geneva.

He really worries about me, Irina had thought as she tied the scarf in place. It was a good feeling. She reached into the back seat, found her automatic pencil jammed down the side of her handbag, left the bag where it lay beside the luggage, and with the pencil to help her, she began studying David’s road map, trying to measure distances and translate kilometres into miles. I’ll have to learn about miles, she told herself. I may as well begin, right now.

By the time he returned, the car, with tank filled and oil checked, was ready to leave. He didn’t look altogether happy. Something was annoying him. Irina slipped the pencil into her pocket, said quickly, “We are now about twelve miles out of Velden, and still sixty to go to Lienz. Then it’s only another twenty to the Italian frontier. Am I right?”

“Close enough,” he said with a grin. She had dropped seven miles somewhere between Velden and Lienz. He noticed the calculations she had lightly jotted down in the map’s margin, and they touched him. It had been quite an effort. “In fact, perfect.”

“How long will it take?”

He measured the traffic ahead of them on the highway, not compressed as yet, and moving at a steady pace. “We’ll make the border easily by ten-thirty. Weather permitting,” he added as he looked at the dark clouds gathering ahead of them, and hoped they were not symbolic.

“Are we going to stop at Lienz?”

“Why should we?”

“Jo may be waiting there for us.”

“Jo isn’t alone. Walter Krieger is with her. He reached Lienz last night.”

“Expecting to find us?” Irina was dismayed.

“Yes. But he’s probably delighted we didn’t turn up. Ludvik was there, expecting us. And so were these two.” David reached into his pocket and found the photographs of Milan and Jan. “Better look at them now. They are the men you passed on the stairway to Alois Pokorny’s flat. Milan is the dark-haired one. The big fellow is Jan. Recognise them?”

“The man with light hair—Jan?—Yes,” she said slowly, “that was the one who passed very close to me. At least I think so. Perhaps if I saw them again together, I could identify them.”

“Just keep their faces in mind from now on.” And I thought I had ditched them neatly in Graz. How did they find out about Lienz?

Irina was troubled too. She handed back the photographs; said nothing.

“The three of them have left Lienz. I don’t know why or how. McCulloch had other things to talk about. Krieger will brief me completely, in Merano.”

“Will Ludvik and his friends be in Merano?” Irina asked, very quietly.

“If they’ve found out about that, too—yes.”

“If? They seem to know everything.”

“Well, let’s hope that they haven’t heard of Tarasp.”

She looked at him, her eyes questioning.

“It’s a village just over the Swiss border. That’s our destination. Krieger will tell us about the exact house where—”

“My father’s house?”

“No. He lives somewhere else in Switzerland. He’s coming to meet you. I wasn’t given the reason—McCulloch says Krieger will explain it all.”

“And when do we reach Tarasp? Tomorrow?” So soon, she thought. And where does David go then?

“Perhaps earlier.”

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed. There was pain in her voice, disbelief on her face. “Tonight? Oh, no—”

“That’s how I felt.”

She said nothing at all.

“Do you go with your father or do you stay with me?”

She shook her head. “I know what I want to do. But—” She didn’t finish.

His lips tightened. If there was a conflict in Irina between “want” and “ought”, he could guess which would win. And I’ll be asked to wait for her, and she will promise to come to me. Will she? What if her father falls ill, needs her—delay after delay?

Irina said, “But it’s too far to drive to Tarasp. You can’t cover that distance in one day.”

She’s postponing her decision, he thought. “Look at the map again, Irina. From the Italian border to Merano is only a hundred miles. We’ll reach there by two o’clock, perhaps sooner.”

“But all these mountains!”

“Our road goes round them, not through them.” And another pleasant plan sent skittering. He had looked forward to taking a more complicated route, between the giant Dolomite peaks—a slower journey, but incredibly beautiful, something for them to remember always.

“And from Merano to Switzerland?” She was still gazing at the map. She folded it back to see the exact section more clearly, and took out the pencil as a pointer. Angrily she said, “I can’t find this Tarasp.”

“It’s there all right. It’s in the Engadine—just west of the Swiss National Park. According to McCulloch, about eighty miles from Merano.”

“So near?” The Engadine... There it was, and the National Park. Her pencil followed the road that circled it.

“Near enough. Your father is reaching Tarasp tonight.”

The pencil stopped abruptly, a sharp jab to match her feelings; its lead broke off. Yes, that was Tarasp. And it was close to the border. No distance at all. She laid the map on the seat beside her, pocketed the pencil, and frowned. “But why all the change in our plans? This isn’t the way it was meant to be. Is it, David?”

“No,” he said, “it isn’t the way I hoped it would be.”

“But why—”

“Darling, I don’t know why. Not until I see Krieger in Merano. We’ll stop there for a couple of hours.”

“I don’t think I like your Mr. Krieger. He has arranged everything, hasn’t he?”

“Possibly. Don’t tell that to Hugh McCulloch, though.” He put on speed. No more sweet delays. He would have rebelled if he didn’t sense that Krieger had some very strong reasons for this urgency. But they had better be good ones, he thought angrily. Then, if only to arouse Irina from her depression, he came out of his black mood and got the conversation back to a more normal level. By the time they passed through Lienz, she was even smiling at the comic anecdotes he was managing to dredge up, about crazy conductors and maddened musicians. One thing about the world of music: it provided plenty of light relief as well as heavenly sound.

The last stretch of road, heading west to the Austro-Italian frontier, was as straight and dull as the single-minded railroad track that ran beside it through a flat broad valley of empty fields, with the mountains now pushed far back to the south and north. The cars ahead were beginning to slacken speed. Irina watched them unbelievingly. “They hardly stop. Are you sure that’s the frontier, David?”

“That’s the border, all right.” And they had made it in good time, in spite of a heavy shower of rain as they had passed through Lienz.

As they came closer to the small scattering of buildings, Irina could see the cars more clearly. “Some have been stopped.” She was nervous. “Why?”

“Their own choice. They probably need gas, or are changing
Schilling
into
Lire
. Not a bad idea, come to think of it.” He put a reassuring hand on her arm. “All you have to do is show your passport and smile and say thank you as you’re waved through. The Italians, further along the road, will probably throw you a salute. Don’t worry, my pet. No barbed wire here.” As he approached the tail end of the small procession of cars, David slowed down. But his attention was caught by the man in the yellow jacket who stood at the edge of the road, with a bag propped beside his feet, watching each car as it passed him. David had seen the blob of yellow—who could have missed it?—two hundred yards away or so, and decided it was some new-style hitch-hiker. As they came closer, David could see the man more clearly: large round eyeglasses, long dark hair ruffled by the breeze through the valley, grey sideburns bulging out from thin cheeks. “Mark Bohn,” David said incredulously. “Damn it all, it
is
Mark Bohn.”

Bohn was now studying the green Mercedes as it neared him: his face was blank, showed no sign of recognition. But then, David reflected, no one knew what kind of car he was driving except Walter Krieger. He sounded the horn lightly, briefly, and put out his arm to give one small wave. “I think,” he said without much enthusiasm, “we are about to be boarded.” This was one journey on which he could do without Bohn and his incessant stream of talk—or anyone else, for that matter. There went another romantic notion: to drive, alone with Irina, through the Dolomites. He passed Bohn, pointing ahead to a place where he could safely draw the car off the road. And what one hell of a spot Bohn had chosen to stop a car—what did he want, a pile-up? Of course he had been noticeable: that was probably all he had thought about.

David pulled up behind a small group of cars parked near a service station, glanced back. “He didn’t get my signal,” David said, and shook his head. Bohn was hesitating, slightly bewildered, and a little pathetic. His bright smile of recognition had died away into a blank stare. Then, as he saw the Mercedes definitely stopped, his smile came back. He picked up the bag at his feet and started towards them.

Irina said, “Is he a friend of yours?”

“Yes. And a friend of yours too. That letter—by the way. I’ve wondered. Why did you send it to Bohn? Why not to London—to your father’s publisher?”

“A year ago I sent a letter to London. Nothing secret in it. Only family news. It was stopped.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Jiri brought it back to me. He said—” She fell silent as Bohn reached them.

Jiri again, thought David: there was always Jiri Hrádek cropping up somewhere. He was sick of that damn name. Jiri, Jiri, the hell with Jiri. He got out of the car, greeted Bohn casually.

Bohn was saying, “I thought you weren’t going to stop.”

“Why not? You looked like a man who needed a lift.”

Bohn smiled broadly. “That’s Dave,” he said, “putting two and two together, scoring a solid four.” The way he said it though, didn’t make it sound much of a compliment. But that was Bohn’s style, David reflected, particularly when his mood was sour.

Bohn reached past David, his hand outstretched for Irina. “So you’re safe and well, and twice as beautiful as when we last met.”

Irina stared at him, politely let her hand be shaken.

“Have I changed so much?” Bohn went on, his mood now bantering. “More hair, of course. And four years of added worry lines. And a tendency to get tired from too much standing.” He sat down on the driver’s seat. “I waited a good half hour for you, maybe more. You had to come this way. A matter of simple deduction that even I—”

“And how did you get here?” David cut in. “On foot?”

“With that damned asthmatic machine.” Bohn gestured to a Citroën drawn well to the side of the service station. “It coughed itself to death just as I reached this point. One of the mechanics said he could give it a thorough overhaul by three o’clock. But now that you’re on the scene. I’ll leave it here for Salzburg to pick up. That’s where I rented it yesterday.”

“And where is Jo?”

“Half-way to Merano with Krieger, I’d imagine. I was delayed in Lienz—had to wait for a ’phone call from Munich—I must be there by tonight if possible. Serious work starts tomorrow. No more gallivanting around scenic countryside.” He looked at Irina, said with obvious enthusiasm, “And how are you? I’m glad it all worked out so well. Really splendid.”

“It isn’t over yet,” David reminded him. “And if you’ll just stop blocking the way. I’ll get this car moved over to a gas pump.”

“What’s the rush? We’ve all day ahead of us.”

“We don’t,” David said shortly. “Irina, have you any Austrian money you need changed?”

“Plenty of time for that in Merano,” Bohn said, but he slid off the front seat.

David got back into the car, edged it into position, talked briefly with the attendant, and set out for the exchange booth. In Merano, there would be little time for anything beyond making contact with Krieger and hearing the details about Tarasp.

“Not wasting one minute, is he?” Bohn remarked as he rejoined Irina. “Perhaps he doesn’t intend to stay in Merano at all.” He laughed outright “Like the way he ditched us all in Lienz. We began to wonder just how reliable old Dave was.” Bohn’s eyes flickered over her dress—green wool, and surely too warm for any southward journey?

“There was no need to be in Lienz,” Irina said. She was embarrassed. Now he will ask where we spent the night.

But there is need to be in Merano, Bohn was thinking. He reached into the car and picked up the map that lay on the seat beside her. He looked at it, shaking his head. “You folded this, I bet. Newspapers and maps—women never get them back into the right creases. Do you want me to straighten it out for you?” His eyes were on the section that faced up. It showed the highway that ran west from Merano and then divided, one route turning north to cross eventually into Switzerland. (The other route travelled south, but it was only partly shown on this section of the map, and therefore less important.) His eyes were now following the Swiss highway that continued from the frontier and curved around the National Park. And what was that—a pencil mark? Yes, a pencil mark, a jagged dot, under the name of a village. “I like that dress you’re wearing,” he said as he shook out the map. He folded it back into its original shape, but not before he had a second glance at the marked village. “Will it be warm enough for the journey?”

“Quite warm enough.”

Certainly not Italy, then, where the August sun turned humid valleys into a hot stew. He ought to have guessed that Krieger would be handing out false leads to everyone. So screw Lake Como, Milan, and Walter Krieger. “You’ll need a coat, too, for Switzerland, won’t you?” He dropped the neatly folded map back beside her. Trasp, Tarasp, something like that. He’d check later, on his own map.