'What year?'
'It was Mother's photograph. 1942. Maybe 1943. Probably not much use now.'
Thomas shrugged noncommittally. He tucked the picture into another envelope.
'So you were a nine-year-old orphan' he said.
'What next?'
'Mother hadn't any relatives. Normally that would have put me in a children's home in Devon. But there was more to this case than that.
Scotland Yard was involved from London the next day. And they must have turned it over to British intelligence immediately.'
'Why do you say that?'
She managed a sardonic smile.
'Because that's what happened' she said with sudden authority.
'I was driven to London by two plainclothes policemen whom I'd never seen before. I was taken to a large Government building which had Union jacks and official portraits of Churchill and the Queen on every wall. I may have been nine years old, Mr. Daniels, but never underestimate a child.
I knew what was happening. I was to be hidden away, shielded from the man who officially was already dead. They didn't even let me attend Mother's funeral ' 'Who's they?' Thomas asked.
'A man named Peter Whiteside was in charge,' she said.
'I liked him, actually. Tall, thin, very handsome. A sensitive, educated man, most unlike the crude working- class men I'd been exposed to all my life.' She paused.
'Peter Whiteside was the only man who understood what it must have been like for me 'This Whiteside ' Thomas began, 'is-?'
'Long since retired from Government service' she said quickly.
Thomas nodded.
'You sound like you were close to him' ' 'For a brief part of my life' she said.
'He was the only man I could trust.' She allowed her eyes to stare into his for a moment, as if trying to read them.
'May I continue?'
'Please.'
'Peter Whiteside said he'd take care of me,' she said.
'Said he'd put me in a new home. A good safe home. He did. He sent me to live in Vevey, Switzerland, with an older British couple, a man and his wife. George McAdam was his name. I adopted the surname immediately, of course' 'Ordinary British subjects?' Thomas asked.
'No one in my life is ever ordinary,' she intoned.
'McAdam had recently been 'retired' from Government service due to a 'caring I always suspected that the truth was being withheld. Ye jury. ars later I put together the correct story. It was 1955. McAdam had been a British operative in the Middle East. Suez. He'd been shot in the lower back by an Arab. He'd never walk properly again. So he'd been 'retired 'And they became your surrogate parents?'
'So to speak. Actually, I was happy there. While it lasted it was the happiest part of my life. I was in a private school which overlooked the Lake of Geneva and the French Alps. I had good clothes, a nice home, and friends. Girl friends and boyfriends. I learned to speak French and German.'
'Sounds idyllic' said Thomas.
'My father found me she said.
'Ten years. But he found me It was 1964, summer. Her school year ended; she had finished gymnase. In July she took a job working in a boat basin in Lutry, on the Swiss side of the Lake. On the job she met a young man named Roberto Gicarelli. He was dark-haired and handsome, and said he was the son of a manufacturer in the Italian Swiss canton of Ticino. He seemed to have money.
She saw him each evening. He was assertive, athletic, older than she, and, after a week, began asking her to sleep with him. At first she declined. Gradually, she changed her mind. Having known him for about a month, she spoke to him one evening when she was leaving work.
'My family is away,' she said.
'The flat is empty.'
They returned to her home and, inevitably, after sipping wine and listening to jazz during the evening, went into her bedroom.
Without speaking they began to undress. She was excited. She liked Roberto-his firm body, the wide muscular shoulders. The anticipation of a strong young man in her own bed aroused her.
She'd never done it there before.
Then they lay back, enjoying each other passionately. He was good to her. Rarely in her life had she enjoyed such unrestrained physical pleasure. When it was over, she nuzzled against him, pressing her breasts to him and relaxing in the warmth of his body.
'You were gorgeous'' she said. Then, looking at him, she asked eagerly,
'Want to do it again?'
'No,' he said.
'I don't think so.'
She frowned, sitting up in bed by leaning on her elbow. The only light was from the window.
'Did I do something wrong?' she asked.
'No,' he said.
'It's me.'
'What are you saying;' 'Look out the window, Leslie.'
Naked, she went to one knee on the bed. Outside there was nothing as she peered out the window. An empty street. Moonlight. A man standing in the shadow of a streetlamp across the cobblestones at a trolley stop.
'You're being silly,' she said.
'I don't see anything.'
She felt his hands on her shoulders.
'Don't you see the man?' he asked.
She looked again. The man below was gazing up at her. She couldn't clearly discern the face. But suddenly, in a hot flash, she knew. Her hand shot to her face while one arm covered her breasts.
Roberto smothered her scream.
'I'm sorry, Leslie,' he said.
'I have my instructions.'
As she turned toward him his hands went tightaround her neck.
The hands, moments ago affectionate, were now murderous. He was shaking her viciously and squeezing her throat at the same time.
Oh, God, she thought. He's done it. He's succeeded! My father's having me killed!
She struggled wildly, but was no match for him. He forced her flat on the bed. She groped for the sewing shears that she'd always kept beneath the mattress.
She was losing consciousness. Her fingertips skimmed the handle of the shears. But Roberto yanked her. Her fingertips slid away.
She groped for them a final time, clenched them in her fist; and the fist was out from under the mattress and slamming into his back.
He bellowed with pain. The twin blades dug deeply below the left shoulderblade. His grip was suddenly gone from around her throat. She coughed painfully. He bent back and tried to get off her. But she stabbed the shears even deeper into his left side.
She had hurt him. Badly. He arched back, straddling her, and looked as if he were trying to reach the open wound in his back. He looked at her with crazed eyes, not comprehending how a naked woman could harm him.
She threw her arm forward a final time. He curled forward on the bed and struggled for life…
It grew quiet in Thomas Daniels's office.
