Dead Line

falconry centre – doesn’t matter. Mr Ryerson’s the one who decides. He likes to say “the buck stops here”.’

‘All right, Dougal. I’m going to go and find him now. And thank you very much for remembering this. It could be important.’

Dougal left, looking happier than he had when he arrived.

She looked at Peggy, who pre-empted her before she could say anything. ‘I’ll cook you some more pasta when you get back.’

Unless you were really ill – you couldn’t be sick over a customer – you never left your shift. Even in the rough informality of the Moravian tavern, her mother had taught

Jana a professionalism she had always stuck to. If you show up for work, you work.

So she had resisted at first when Tony, the maitre d’, had asked her to leave her tables and go to Mr Ryerson’s office right away. He’d been insistent, and he cut her off when she’d started to object. ‘I’ll wait on your tables myself. Now go.’

She felt nervous as she approached the office, and part of her wanted to walk right past the door and head off… where? Back to Moravia, to a mother who would say I told you so for the next three, or even thirty-three years? No, she couldn’t do that, but she sensed trouble lay ahead behind the closed door.

When she knocked, Ryerson called out ‘Enter’ in a grim voice that didn’t bode well. She opened the door hesitantly, and felt more nervous still when she saw that Ryerson had someone with him. A woman, probably ten years or so older than her, but trim, attractive – and watching her closely with cool, green eyes.

‘Sit down please, Jana,’ said Ryerson, and she did, facing the two of them. ‘This is Miss Falconer. She’d like to ask you a few questions.’

Jana steeled herself. I have done nothing wrong, she thought to herself, hoping this simple mantra would help – and that it was true. Oh Sammy, she voiced silently to herself, not even sure if that was his real name, why aren’t you here? He had been so confident and knowing. Please God, let this not be about him, prayed Jana.

But it was. Jana knew as soon as the woman named Falconer began to speak. ‘We’re looking for a man,’ she said quickly. ‘We believe he stayed here at the hotel, and we have reason to believe you may have been in contact with him.’

‘Contact?’ asked Jana. She thought it best to play dumb for now, pretend she didn’t know why they had called her in, didn’t understand what this woman was getting at. ‘I am a waitress, so I see many people, miss. Is that contact?’

‘Of course,’ said Miss Falconer, with an easy smile Jana found disconcerting. ‘But we’re talking about close contact. I’m sure you know what that means.’

Jana decided to say nothing. Miss Falconer put a photograph down on the desk and pushed it towards her. ‘Have a look, please. Have you ever seen this man?’

Jana took her time, but she could see from a glance that the photo was of Sammy. She felt panic moving like an army of ants along her limbs. She was surprised to be pinned down so quickly and accurately. She said faintly, unable to put force in her voice, ‘I think I’ve seen his face. Was he a guest here?’

Miss Falconer ignored her reply and said flatly, ‘You waited on him two nights in a row when he first came here. He was alone, so it would be odd if you didn’t remember him, Jana.’

The use of her Christian name jolted her. She felt increasingly exposed. Sammy had said he would be nearby, but no one was to know – ‘hush-hush’ he had insisted. Now she tried to shrug.

‘The thing is,’ said the English woman, ‘we know you know this man. You were seen with him. And not in the restaurant.’

‘What do you mean?’ She wanted to sound indignant.

‘What was his room number?’ Miss Falconer asked sharply.

‘Four…’ and Jana kicked herself. She felt trapped. ‘It was only conversation. He had lived in Slovakia,’ she said, making up the first thing that came to mind. ‘He spoke Czech. So we talked, that is all.’

Miss Falconer smiled, but it was a knowing rather than a friendly smile. Yet her voice softened. ‘Jana, I know there are rules, and of course they have to be followed. Breaking them once isn’t the end of the world. But not telling me the truth now would be very serious indeed.’

‘I am telling you the truth.’ She paused, wondering how much to give to this woman. ‘I was in his room.’ There, she thought, let them make what they liked of that. No one else could know exactly what had happened in Room 411.

‘All right, so you had an affair with this man.’

‘I did not say that.’ How did this woman know so much?

Miss Falconer was shaking her head. ‘No one’s criticising you for that.’

Jana was frightened to think where this was leading. Then she realised that if they knew everything, they wouldn’t be pressing her like this. Should she come clean? she wondered. No, she told herself harshly. That way led only to trouble – she would lose her job, maybe even worse. She could be deported, forced to return home and face the sneers of her mother. She could think of no worse fate.

So give a little, she thought, and hope that would satisfy this woman with the penetrating eyes. Playing on her sympathy would not be enough. There was something steely about this woman, cold and businesslike. She would throw her a bone, the same way you chucked a titbit at a barking dog and kept the sirloin safely tucked behind your back.

So she hung her head, forcing tears into her eyes, then looked up defiantly, straight at Liz. ‘Have you never been in love?’ she demanded, letting the tears overflow from her eyes. She had played her trump card and sensed she had played it very well. Let this woman think she was a fool, an innocent, a dupe; let her think anything she liked, so long as she didn’t discover what else Sammy had asked her to do. I’ve got to tell Sammy he has to get out of here, Jana thought, wondering just how ‘nearby’ he was.

FIFTY-TWO

‘Poor girl,’ said Peggy, stifling a yawn.

‘I don’t know so much about that,’ replied Liz, twirling her wine glass of sparkling water by its stem. She’d come back from her interview with the Czech girl dissatisfied, and she needed to understand why. Even though she wanted to go to bed and get a good night’s sleep to help her cope with whatever the next day would bring, her mind was racing.

‘She sounds like a classic victim of a honey trap, only this time it was a man doing the trapping.’

Liz shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. There’s something hard and calculating about that girl. I don’t see her being taken in that easily.’

‘Girl?’ asked Dave teasingly. He looked half asleep himself, slumped at the end of the sofa. ‘If I called her that you’d be jumping down my throat.’

‘No I wouldn’t,’ said Liz. ‘She is a girl. She can’t be more than eighteen or nineteen. Which I know makes her look like the innocent victim of a ruthless man. But there’s something about her that doesn’t ring true. I’m not sure she wasn’t just peddling me a line.’

There was a noise outside and Peggy stood up and walked to the window, lifting the corner of a curtain to look out. She turned around with a startled look on her face. ‘There’s a man with a gun out there!’

‘He’s Israeli security,’ said Dave calmly. ‘They would only come if we let them mount their own patrols. They don’t trust anybody else – not since the Munich Olympics. And I know their Prime Minister’s already here.’

‘Really? I didn’t see a helicopter or a motorcade or anything,’ said Peggy.

‘Low key. He came a day early. They like to mix things up, so nobody knows for certain in advance who’s where when.’

‘That must be a bit of a problem for all of you doing the conference security,’ said Peggy, sitting down again.

‘We cope,’ Dave replied, yawning hugely.

Liz said nothing. She was still brooding on her interview. ‘What could she have been holding back?’ Peggy said, trying to be helpful.

‘I don’t know. She was too quick to get all weepy and pathetic. I didn’t believe it. It just didn’t ring true