He shook his head. “It’s not true. I have a great affection for her. Her family, long ago, were very kind to me. Katerina, as you probably know, will say anything that happens to suit her. I shall see you tomorrow?”
He sounded a little anxious.
“Yes.”
As I reached for the door handle, he said, “One word of advice, Mr Carver. Please don’t fall in love with Katerina. Excuse me if I sound impertinent. But, for your own good, it is a temptation which should be sternly resisted.”
I gave him a reassuring little shrug, but as I went down to the lobby I had a feeling that the advice was already a little tardy. But, like a good boy, I made a mental note – temptation, resist. I gave a debby-looking number in the reception desk one of my great big diamond-drilling smiles just to check that everything was in working order and she looked right through me.
At the office, Wilkins was out to lunch, but there was a telephone memo on my desk. It read:
Miss Katerina Saxmann called. 10. 00 hrs.
Message: Still not certain answer to question.
If anxious for answer, try Paris, Balzac 35.30.
Flying this morning.
At the bottom of the slip Wilkins had pencilled in Balzac 35·30 is George V. For the moment I was not certain what she meant about the answer to a question. Then I remembered that she had promised to let me know if she loved me.
At that moment the telephone went.
A voice said, “Mother Jambo.”
I said, “I’m going to Paris tomorrow to have a chat with somebody who lives at....” I fished in my pocket and brought out the slip. Slowly I read the address. It was repeated to me, and then the telephone clicked off.
They did it very neatly, in about thirty seconds flat. I had walked down to the corner just after ten to post my three-monthly letter to my sister in Honiton, telling her that I might be away for some time. I was coming back, smoking, relaxed, wondering what bundle of nonsense would be tossed to me in Paris the next day, when it happened.
Two of them reached out from the side entrance to Mrs Meld’s house and jerked me into the darkness. Some sack-like affair went over my head, the loose end jerked tight around my neck. I was suddenly on my back with the cigarette which had been knocked out of my mouth burning the side of my neck. I roared once and kicked out. I caught someone on the shin as a hand clamped over the sack and my mouth. Then I lay there, held, and a pair of hands went over me, and from the way they did it I knew it was a professional ... just the patter of tiny fingers that missed nothing.
Thirty seconds flat. I heard them run and I was free to sit up and struggle with the draw-loop of the sack mouth, and that took me a few seconds to release. When I stood up there was a cab turning out of the far end of the street, and a courting couple went by me, holding arms as though they were skating side-by-side. Mr Meld turned into the side entrance and smiled at me with a great gust of closing-time beer fogging the air.
“Nice night,” he said.
“Lovely.”
“Yes, very nice.” He looked up at the purple sky and smiled. “Yes, a very nice night for London.” Then, looking at me, he went on, “You do know you’ve got a lighted cigarette burning your collar, don’t you?”
I brushed it off, refused an offer to come in and have a bit of late supper and watch the television, and went up to my flat, carrying my own shoe-bag in one hand. Because of the bag, I knew before I got there that they would have been through the place. But I would never have known it, except for the shoe-bag in my hand. My sister had made it for me as a Christmas present one year. There were little blue flowers embroidered to form the word SHOES.
I got myself a drink and sat down and then went slowly through my pockets. They had taken the Paris address and the message memo from Wilkins which I had slipped into the same pocket. I sat there, wondering about it all, wondering if a fifteen per cent increase from Sutcliffe was really enough – in view of the fact that the word which one of the men had used when I had caught him on the shin with my foot had been one of about the only four I knew in that language.
CHAPTER FIVE
A PILLOW FROM HONEY CHILD
Wilkins disapproved of the whole affair. There were times when I wondered why she had bothered to put money into a business which clearly offended her moral and commercial instincts. I could not believe that it was just for the pleasure of being near me. Wilkins’s whole romantic life was bound up with a Suez canal pilot – a Finn – who had stayed on to work under Nasser after the Suez blow-up. She saw him about once a year. Maybe that was as much romance as she wanted.
She said, “Your trouble is that you keep expecting life to be larger, brighter, more exciting, and more rewarding than any decent person could tolerate.”
“Tuppence coloured?”
“More than that. Don’t you know that half the time it isn’t even penny plain? You’re an incurable romantic.”
“I deny it,” I said.
She ignored me and went on, “I’ve checked through your suitcase. You didn’t put any spare pants in. You’ll have to get some in Paris.”
Raincoat was at London Airport, and I was given a discreet VIP treatment. There was no trouble about the automatic. I didn’t care for it much. I would have preferred something like a Webley, say, a
