I came back, made her a long soft drink and then squatted on a footstool and faced her.
I said, “What do you know about Hans Stebelson?”
She was rubbing the cool glass against her chin and she went on rubbing it, saying nothing.
“He hired me to trace you. Paid a lot of money. Too much. But I’m pretty sure he knew where you were all the time.” I watched her all the time I spoke, but there was nothing for me to read.
“He’s from Cologne,” she said. “He is mad with love for me and, because he is rich, does not understand why I do not want to marry him. When I marry, it will be someone like you with the right kind of body.”
“I might apply. But for the moment let’s stick to Stebelson.”
“His family is from Cologne. Like mine. I know his sister well. She is much younger than Hans. Her, I like. I come to England because Hans never leaves me alone. He’s in England now?”
“You know he is.”
“No, that is not so.” She said it without emphasis and I wouldn’t have liked to testify either way about it being a lie.
“Then why did he telephone you at the Boutique Barbara the morning of the day you left Brighton? How did he know you were there?”
“Nobody telephoned me at the shop that morning. At least, not up until eleven o’clock. That is when I left. So, it is Hans who employs you? He is rich, you know. Very rich. You should charge him much.”
“How could he know about the Boutique Barbara?”
“I think I know. When I do it, I said to myself after it was a mistake. But I write sometimes to Greta, his sister in Cologne. But I never give her my address – this because Hans pesters her too for news of me so he can come after me. But I let her know two weeks ago that I was in Brighton and work at a dress shop. And I sent her a little cardigan. English wool. Afterwards I remember that the shop name tab is in it. You know what trouble it is to send a cardigan to Germany? All the customs forms!”
“And you think he got the shop address from her?”
“For sure. If he thought she had it, he would twist her arm until she talks.”
I lit a cigarette. It held water if you didn’t have far to carry it. Stebelson was on the list with Dino and myself. And Stebelson was rich. He would pay well just to know where she was. Straightforward. And no suggestion in Katerina’s manner that it was any other than that. I could have believed it all – except that there was a man on the corner right now watching my flat, and that my raincoated friend had been sitting in the same armchair that she was in now only a few days ago. I couldn’t sweep that under the edge of the carpet.
I put out a finger and ran it gently down the front of her tibia. She wrinkled her nose at me.
“Next question, please,” she said.
“Mrs Vadarci,” I said. “What about her?”
“She is my new job. She is Swiss. Some time ago she was staying in Brighton at the Metropole. She came into the shop to buy things, but her English is not very good. I talk to her in German and she takes a fancy to me. So – she offers me a job as her secretary-companion and now I am in London.”
“With her?”
“Yes, of course. We stay at Claridge’s.”
“Claridge’s!”
“Why not? She is very wealthy. She is going to pay me well. We shall travel. She only speaks German. But I speak French, Swedish and Italian.” She stood up and looked at the clock on my mantelshelf. “I must go back to her now. I said I was going to the cinema.”
I helped her on with her light coat. “I’ll walk down with you and find a taxi,” I said.
At the door Katerina turned to me.
“Kiss me here,” she said.
We kissed and everything went from my mind.
Then, as she moved gently away from me, she said, “Something worries you still, eh? Surely not this stupid business of Hans. He is mad. Perhaps you are jealous? You think I really love him, perhaps. Oh, Rex, darling, I tell you something, I love you. Yes, I think I do. I will telephone you tomorrow and let you know for sure.”
She went laughing down the stairs, holding my hand, and we walked together through the warm summer evening as far as the front of the Tate Gallery before I flagged a taxi for her. She blew me a kiss with the tips of her fingers as she got in. I said “Claridge’s” to the cabby. She drove off, waving back through the rear window. Over the river the moon was cutting little sharp-edged black shadows along the ridges of the up-coming tide. On the Vauxhall side I could see the buses going along like moving shop-front windows and I heard Katerina saying, “Something worries you still, eh?”
And something did. When I had checked Mrs Vadarci at the Dorchester and they said she wasn’t there, although she had been recently, I had called the
