hunting me.
In silence I waited, snowed on, quiet, still. The sounds of vehicles died. No lights as yet. Why not? Too far from the fire station? No police stations, this far from anywhere? Watchers don’t get medals. They get life. Like all cowards. Like me.
A crunch from below sounded. I swear I felt a waft of heat on my face. Something more had exploded near some bend downhill.
My face was unbelievably cold, partly because it was wet. The snowflakes, I suppose, melting on me. You can’t keep them off your eyes. Why not, if you can keep rain away? I found my—Guy’s—motor untouched, no footmarks round it. They’d see mine when they came, unless the snow got on with it and obscured everything. Except people who carry out a reconnaissance like Marimee’d done, and who could obliterate a mansion as swiftly as I’d just seen, don’t tend to leave loose ends. Marc the henchman hadn’t. Police would surely have minions combing the hillside for traces of visitors. Snow may be good at footprints, but it’s not so good at tartan blankets hanging from a branch. I didn’t go back for it.
No lighter of heart, but with a vestige of something growing in me, I drove away from their direction, so avoiding passing the slope where a motor burned, in great haste.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
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The snow was tumbling like surpliced leaves, white and deadening, when I made the hotel. You couldn’t see my window from the road, just a sort of lounge with curtains parted above the main doorway. I drove past slowly to check, then got scared. I didn’t want Marimee’s men, especially Marc, catching me in Guy’s car and putting two and two together. I wanted them to continue acting by instinct, now that they’d, well, done their worst.
Making sure the street was clear, I raced up, slammed the brakes on, screeched to a stop a hundred yards short of the hotel entrance, and emerged from the motor whooping and screeching. I left the engine running, and slipped in silence down the alley a few paces off. Then I ran like a loon, coming up winded and sweating cobs, shaking like an aspen. Not as far away as I’d like, but the best I could manage. In my state I darestn’t risk a cafe just yet, certainly not this close.
The streets were clear of pedestrians, more or less. Traffic had dwindled to almost nothing. I leant against the wall to wheeze some breath back, imagining how the sleepy bad-tempered desk clerk would emerge on hearing the racket, see the motor, and go indoors to complain—or not?
It was a good hour of walking before I returned to the area. I actually took a taxi, flagging one down with a tired boredom and telling him the end of the street, paying him off with much interrogation about what notes were which. We had a good laugh before he drove away. By then, of course, I’d told him my name, tried to translate it for him into German—he did an instant and better job, another laugh. And I’d asked him if he’d any antiques because I was an antique dealer. He entered into the spirit of things, saying no, only his cab. I laughed back, saying I’d been lucky in love tonight, tipped him hellishly, complained about his dry old Zurich snow. We parted blood brothers. He’d remember me if no one else.
Nothing. The street was almost deserted. I stood waiting, uneasy. A car passed the other end, its wheels mutedly crunching snow. Three inches, maybe more. The place was not white, not like our East Anglian snow. Something made it curiously slatey-grey. Was it the buildings, something in the air? Or did you need a mountain for contrast?
Waiting’s no good. I walked slowly down the pavement to the hotel. Door closed against the chill wind. Swirls had left small piles by the steps. Guy’s motor car was gone. Either Guy and Veronique had recovered from their oblivion and hurried to Needle Park for a shot of Yuletide bliss. Or something else had happened.
Nobody at the desk. That spoiled things, made my return less noticeable than it ought to be. I dinged the bell.
“Hello!” I called, smiles in my voice thrilling all available listeners. A difficult act, trying to look post-coital after what I’d seen. As difficult, indeed, as trying to pretend that one hasn’t made love the night before when coming down to breakfast. Blokes manage it, leaving slight doubt in cruel observers’ minds. But women can’t. They look loved-in. Or not, as the case may be. Where was I? Pretending. “Anyone there?”
“Please, Monsieur!” somebody called from upstairs.
“Oh, sorry, sorry!” I stepped across to peer up the stairwell at an annoyed bloke with a moustache and specs. “My apologies, Monsieur. Shhhh!” Finger to my lips, I turned to see a thin angry desk man.
He remonstrated with me. He complained that this night was more trouble than any in all his experience. I wanted to know what was wrong, but stayed jauntily unsympathetic.
“Any messages for me?” I asked. On being given a surly no, I was astonished and not a little narked. “But surely, Monsieur Solon my friend left the money that arrived for me? He promised to do so. Could you please check?”
He did. No gelt. I resumed. “But Miss Veronique, my friend’s sister. Surely she left my money? It is very important, for tomorrow I must buy a present for my friend back home…”
All in all it was pretty good. His lip curled at the mention of my companions. To my relief he told me they’d returned over an hour ago, leaving their car running outside. Accidents are caused by such irresponsibility. No, they had not deposited their keys. No, no messages. No, no envelope for me. No, he had not seen them. I got my room key.
The stairs creaked, telling the world Lovejoy was in action. For once I was legit. I grumbled loudly, authentically everywhere for when the police would come calling if I’d guessed right. I went into my room. My heart was banging. Have you ever had it thumping so you simply can’t understand how other people can avoid being deafened by it? Like that. I was shaking. I looked at myself in the mirror, washed my face, went to the loo, tidied myself up. I was worn out. Had my heart pounded this way, my hands shaken this badly, when Marc the killer had used the butt of his rifle on that snowy road?
Half an hour, I moved. Not like lightning, but trembling. I went out, closing but not locking my door—wasn’t I simply visiting my friends in the next room? I knocked. No response. I knocked a second time. Nobody. I knocked
