'Satisfied?' she demanded in a waspish tone.
'You can't be too careful,' he told her and walked out of the tiny hall into a living-room whose windows overlooked the garden inside Centralhof. His manner was off-hand and he inserted a cigarette and lit it without asking her permission.
'Yes, you may smoke,' she told him.
'Good. It helps my concentration…'
He looked round the room which was filled with heavy leather arm-chairs and sofas and the usual weighty sideboard. The German Swiss went in for solid furniture which was probably a reflection of their sturdy character. He thought he knew what Hofer was thinking. Hell, do I have to work with this bastard?
'I'm just making some coffee,' she said in a more friendly voice.
'That would be nice…'
He went towards the window and changed direction as she vanished through a swing-door into a kitchen. From a quick glimpse it looked expensively equipped. Quietly he turned the handle of a closed door and eased it open, peering inside.
The bedroom. Large double bed. Large dressing-table with a few cosmetic articles neatly arranged. A pair of large double doors which presumably led to a large built-in wardrobe or dressing room. Everything spotless. He left the door half-open.
She had the percolator bubbling away when he walked uninvited into the kitchen. On a wing counter there were plates of half-eaten food, an unwashed glass, unwashed cutlery and a pair of scissors with a piece of sticking-plaster attached to one of the blades. She swung round, her mouth tight.
'Make yourself at home, Martel…'
'I always do…' He smiled briefly, the cigarette-holder still clenched between his teeth. 'Did Warner sleep here often?'
It threw her. She almost caught the percolator with her hand and knocked the whole thing over. He waited, watching her, smoking his cigarette. She unplugged the percolator, which had stopped bubbling, went to a wall- cupboard and opened it.
'Spring-cleaning – that's when I change things around to stop life getting boring…'
She took coffee-cups from another cupboard next to the one she had first opened and Martel was relieved to see they also were large. He drank coffee by the gallon. He said no cream and she poured two cups of black coffee, put them on saucers and looked at him.
'You're in my way…'
'Allow me…'
He picked up both cups and carried them into the living- room where he placed them on mats on a low table. She followed him, talking as she came through the swing-door.
'You're agile – I can't get through that swing-door with two cups. I have to take them one at a…'
He looked up as she stopped in mid-sentence. She was staring through her dark glasses at the half-opened bedroom door. It was impossible to see the expression in her eyes but her mouth compressed into a bleak gash.
'You've been in the bedroom…
'I like to be sure I really am alone with someone…' 'You've got a bloody nerve…'
She started towards the bedroom but he reached forward, caught her arm and sat her down on the sofa beside him. Still gripping her arm with one hand he reached up towards the outsized tinted glasses. She clawed her other hand and struck at his face with talon-like nails. He had to move fast to grab her wrist to protect himself: she had moved like a whip-lash.
'Martel, I've had you in a big way,' she hissed through perfectly formed teeth. 'If we are going to work together we have a few things to get straightened out…'
'You never answered my question about you and Warner…'
He had released her and picked up his cup of coffee, sipping at it while he watched her. She got herself under control very quickly, picking up her own cup before she replied.
'That's one of the things. First, it's none of your damned business. Second, the answer is no – he didn't even make a pass at me in all the time I knew him. It was strictly a business relationshiplike ours is going to be…
'Oh, that you can count on, Claire. When did you last see Warner before he was murdered? And I may call you Claire?'
'I suppose so. I last saw Charlie three days before he went off on a trip to Lindau. He was frustrated – said he felt he wasn't getting anywhere…'
'With Delta?'
She paused. Martel sat thinking and guessed if she could have read his thoughts they would have surprised her. He was recalling Tweed's comment that the dossiers never lied.
'If the facts conflict with your expectations, always believe the facts,' was a maxim Tweed had hammered into Martel. Hofer had worked out her reply.
'You're referring to their neo-Nazi background?'
'I'm referring to Delta's underground organisation he was tracking.'
Martel's attitude now was one of complete relaxation but inside his nerves were tingling as he forced himself to lean back and cross his legs. Hofer drank more coffee and then stood up. When she had followed him in the kitchen she had brought with her a shoulder bag which she left on a chair behind the sofa close to the window. She went round the back of the sofa, talking while she moved.
'He did leave a notebook with me. There's a lot in it but I'd have remembered any reference to Delta…'
Martel was like a coiled spring. There was a faint thumping sound which came from beyond the half-open bedroom door. Hofer continued talking as she undid the clasp of her bag.
'The workmen next door are a nuisance – they're making alterations to the apartment before redecorating. The people cleared out to Tangier until it's all finished…'
Martel had chosen the sofa to sit on because it faced a large mirror over the fireplace. There were vases of flowers on the ledge but between them he could watch Hofer behind him. He had made a bloody awful mistake when he was so careful to check that he was not followed to Centralhof. He had got it the wrong way round. The danger had been in front of him, not behind. The enemy was waiting for his arrival at the apartment…
'I'm sorry if I was uptight when you arrived,' Hofer continued, 'but the news of Charlie's death shook me…'
He heard the click, watched her coming up behind him through a gap in the flowers in front of the mirror. He swung round suddenly, grasped Hofer's right hand by the wrist. The hand held an object like a felt-tip pen.
The click had occurred when she pressed something and a blade shot out from inside the handle, a blade unlike any he had ever seen, a blade like a skewer with a needle-thin tip. She had been pushing the needle-point towards the centre of the back of his neck.
He twisted the wrist brutally and she yelped as she dropped the weapon and he hauled her bodily over the back of the sofa and sprawled her along its length. Her skirt was dragged up to her thighs exposing a superb pair of legs. She arched her supple body in a sexual movement, using her free hand to try and pull him down on top of her.
'Bloody cow…'
He hit her a hard blow on the side of the jaw and she went limp. Standing up, he undid his leather belt and tightened the adjustable fasteners on either hip. When he bent down to turn her over on her face she suddenly came awake and jabbed two stiffened fingers towards his eyes. He became rougher, gave her a tremendous slap.
'Start struggling and I'll break your Goddamn neck
For the first time he saw her mouth go slack with fear and she remained passive as he turned her over, pulled the upper part of her body towards him, then used the belt to strap her ankles to her wrists.
It was the most uncomfortable position anyone can be forced into: if she struggled she would suffer excruciating pain. He tightened the belt to the limit of his strength. Soon the circulation would start to go. He left her on the sofa after using his handkerchief as a gag.
'It's not too clean,' he assured her.
Then he walked into the bedroom where the faint thumping was repeating itself. He opened both doors of the
