Newman and Nancy apologetically.
`Every institution has one of them. The faithful servant who is tolerated because she has been on the staff since the dinosaurs.'
`She's a bit of an old dinosaur herself,' Nancy commented.
She had her handbag open and was using a handkerchief to dab at her eyes. Newman noticed that Jesse's gnarled hand was now lying outside the sheet. When they had entered it had been underneath. His eyes were still closed. Nancy pulled up a chair close to the bed, sat down and took his hand in hers.
`He doesn't know you're here,' Novak told her.
`What sedative are you using, Dr Novak?' she asked.
He hesitated. 'It's not normal to discuss treatment.. he began and then stopped speaking. Newman noticed he had glanced towards a porthole-shaped mirror let into the side wall. Above it was a coat-hook. Of course! The window in the door was of frosted glass. Every hospital or clinic had some technique for observing seriously ill patients.
I bet that next room is empty, he said to himself. And I bet that corpulent old pig is standing on the other side of that fake mirror. That is what is worrying Novak. He took off his jacket, walked over to the mirror and hung the jacket over it.
`Dr Novak..!' Nancy's tone was sharp-edged.
`Keep your voice down, Nancy,' Newman whispered. 'All the time.'
He looked round the room carefully, searching for a hidden microphone. Then he took a chair and placed it alongside Nancy's and gestured to Novak to sit down. The American sank into the chair and stared at Nancy who started speaking again, this time very quietly.
`I'm a doctor. I'm entitled to know the treatment… `Sodium Amytal,' Novak said promptly. 'He's a very vigorous man and must be kept in bed.'
He looked up over his shoulder at Newman who had rested a hand on the shoulder. Jesse's eyes flickered open, stared straight at Newman and frowned, his head jerked in a brief gesture. Get Novak away from me and Nancy.
`Novak,' said Newman, 'let's leave her with him. He is her grandfather. Come over with me by the window…' He waited until Novak joined him. The window, which presumably looked on the outside world from the daylight showing through, was also frosted. Which was another peculiarity of the Clinic.
What is it?' Novak enquired, his back to the bed.
`You and I have to meet outside. Very fast. You live on the premises?'
`Yes, I do. Why?'
`I guessed as much. This place smells of a closed community – a community locked away from the normal world. I suppose they do let you out,' he continued with a trace of sarcasm.
`During my off-duty hours I do what I like…'
`Don't sound indignant. But so far we haven't exactly felt welcome inside this place. I repeat. I insist on meeting you – so suggest somewhere. Thun would be closest?'
`I suppose it would be.' Novak sounded dubious. `I don't see why I have to meet you anywhere..
`Don't you?' Newman, observing what was happening behind Novak's back, kept talking fast. `You're not compelled to, I agree. But then I could start writing articles about this place – naming you as my informant…'
`For Christ's sake, no…'
`No smart lawyer will get me for libel. I'm an expert at hinting at things and I know just how far I can go. Be honest with yourself, Novak – you're desperate to talk to someone. I sensed it within minutes of meeting you…'
The Hotel Freienhof…' The words tumbled out. `… in Thun on the Freienhofgasse… it overlooks the Inner Aare… a stretch of the river flowing in from the lake… the cheaper restaurant… do you know the place?'
`I'll find it. Tomorrow suit you?'
`Day after tomorrow. Thursday. Seven in the evening. It will be dark then…'
While Newman distracted Novak's attention Nancy had been talking to her grandfather, who suddenly woke up, his eyes fierce and alert. She leaned close to him so they could whisper and he spoke without any trace of being drugged.
`What are they doing to you here, Jesse?'
`It's what they're doing to the others. I never wanted to come to this place. That bastard Dr Chase shot me full of some drug in Tucson after I fell off the horse. I was hustled aboard a Lear jet and flown here.
`What do you mean – what they're doing to the others?'
`The patients. It's got to be stopped. They're carrying out some kind of experiments. I keep my ears open and they talk when they think I'm doped out of my mind. The patients don't survive the experiments. A lot of them are dying anyway – but that's no reason for murdering them…'
`Are you sure, Jesse? How are you feeling?'
`I'm OK. As long as I'm inside here you've got a pipeline into this place. Don't worry about me…'
`I do,' she whispered.
`Nancy.' Newman had left the window and was walking round the bed. 'Maybe it would be better if we came back another day when your grandfather isn't sedated…'
She looked up at him and saw him stop suddenly. Her expression was a mixture of pathos, anxiety and puzzlement. Newman put a finger to his lips to hush both Novak and Nancy. Jesse lay inert in the bed, his eyes closed. Newman bent down close to the head of the bed and listened. No, he had not been mistaken. He had caught the sound of a whirring noise, of machinery working.
Lee Foley had followed Newman at a discreet distance until he rounded a bend on the snowbound hillside in time to see Newman turn off along the narrow road leading to the Berne Clinic. He drove the Porsche straight past the turn-off and continued up the slope towards the fir forest.
As he ascended higher and higher he looked down on the buildings of the Clinic. He continued climbing until he reached the forest where he swung off the road, wheels skidding dangerously, heading for a narrow opening between the towering black firs. Always take the high ground.
Turning the Porsche through a hundred and eighty degrees – ready for a quick departure – he switched off the engine. On the floor of the empty seat behind him lay a pair of powerful binoculars in a leather case. He extracted them from the case, climbed out of the car and stood half-behind the erect trunk of an immensely tall tree.
Lifting the binoculars he adjusted the focus and slowly swept the lenses across the view far below. Within half an hour he had memorized the entire layout of the Clinic, the weird covered tunnel connecting it to the laboratory complex, and the laboratory itself. Then, ignoring the bitter east wind which scoured his craggy face, he settled down to wait, taking a nip of whisky from his hip flask.
Lee Foley was not the only watcher who took an interest in the Berne Clinic that wintry afternoon in mid- February. The rider on the scooter who had – by driving the machine to the limit – kept up with Foley, took a different route.
The scooter proceeded up the hillside to the point where the sign indicated the turn-off to the Clinic. Here it swung right, following the road taken earlier by Newman. Instead of stopping at the gatehouse, it went on past full tilt, so fast that the Dobermans, again released, had no time to reach the gate.
The rider headed towards Thun, then turned off along a side track leading up the far side of the plateau. The surface of the track was diabolical but the rider continued upwards with great skill until, a snow-covered knoll to the left and close to the track obscured the grounds of the Clinic. The rider stopped, perched the machine against a pile of logs and used both hands to remove the helmet.
A cascade of titian hair fell down her back in a waterfall, was caught in the wind and streamed behind her. The girl opened the carrying satchel and took out a camera with a telescopic lens. She strode up the side of the knoll, her black leather pants sheathing her long, agile legs. At the summit she peered over. The entire, huge estate comprising the grounds and the buildings of the Berne Clinic spread out below.
Crouching down, she raised the view-finder to her eyes, scanning the laboratory complex, the igloo-like tunnel linking it to the side of the Clinic, the main building of the Clinic itself. Deftly, she began taking pictures, swivelling the lens, clicking almost continuously.
Inside Jesse Kennedy's room Newman, who had acute hearing, remained stooped as he searched for the
