I was thinking about Mary and the look in her eyes when she said she had plans for me. ‘What? Oh. Yes.’
‘Wait fifteen minutes. Most of us will have left the house by then. If you take reasonable precautions – I suggest the balcony – you should be able to leave unseen. I beg you won’t try something brave and foolish. You would only be caught again.’
‘Where are you taking him?’
Max clicked his tongue against his teeth. ‘Now, Dr Bliss, you know better than to ask that.’
‘Max. Please. You said you owed me a favour – ’
‘I am doing you that favour. I would be in great trouble if it were known I had connived at your escape. Catch the first plane to Cairo and leave the country as soon as you are able.’
‘You know I won’t do that.’ A sensible woman wouldn’t have wasted her breath arguing with him. Vicky Bliss went right on talking. ‘You asked me a question once, remember? I didn’t know the answer then. I do now. I love him, Max. Please . . .’
Max took a step towards me. ‘Are you crying?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘I would if I thought it would do any good,’ I said, sniffing.
‘It would not. Honestly, I cannot comprehend why an intelligent woman like you should behave this way. You ought to be thanking me for . . . Stop that!’
‘I can’t,’ I snuffled. The conversation, between a courteous criminal and a weeping wardrobe, might have seemed funny to a detached observer. I was not detached, and Max was clearly uncomfortable. I couldn’t figure him out. I never had been able to figure him out. Only in fiction do you find cold-blooded villains with one soft streak in their flinty hearts. But if he didn’t mean to let me go, why had he sent Rudi and Hans away?
‘Fifteen minutes,’ Max repeated. ‘There is no use trying to follow, they will have left the house by now. She is still here, however, and she would like nothing better than to get her hands on you. You can do him no good by allowing yourself to be recaptured.’
He thought he was being so clever. I said, between gulps, ‘I can’t get out. He locked me in.’
‘But there is no key. How . . .’ He came to the wardrobe. ‘Ah, I see. That is good, it will hold you just long enough. Auf Wiedersehen – or rather, goodbye, Dr Bliss.’
I threw a few more sobs at him as he walked to the door. His shoulders twitched but he didn’t stop or turn around.
I waited a few minutes, just in case. When I tried the door again it opened without difficulty. The bolt was part of the carved ornamentation. It wasn’t concealed, just inconspicuous, unless you were looking for it. I could have forced it if I had thrown myself against the door hard enough. Max had saved me the trouble. It would have been a pity to damage such a beautiful antique.
John had pulled the bedclothes apart before he was interrupted. In case I haven’t mentioned it, the sheets were linen, fine as silk. They knotted nicely. I took them out onto the balcony. My window overlooked the garden. I could hear sounds of activity at the back of the house – my friends the movers, I assumed. On this side there was no one in sight, not even a gardener, but I kept an eye peeled as I tied the end of one of the sheets around the wrought-iron railing. I slung my bag around my neck before I climbed over the balcony and took hold of the makeshift rope.
I have done some rock climbing and had become rather vain about my ability to lower myself smoothly down a chimney or rock face. I soon discovered that a bedsheet is not a good substitute for ropes and pulleys. My thigh muscles wouldn’t work the way they were supposed to, the sheet kept stretching, and the bag kept banging against my chest. I didn’t dare discard it, though. It’s bad enough to be on the run. Being on the run sans money, passport, and other useful items complicates the problem even more.
I had to drop the last ten feet, not because the linen gave out but because my thighs lost the struggle. Scrambling up, I scuttled along the side of the house, ducking under the windows, till I reached the corner.
Two of the gardeners were at work on the flowers that lined the driveway. Kneeling, their backs to me and the house, they appeared to be weeding the beds. Their dusty faded robes blended with the shadowed foliage and their white turbans looked like cauliflower. There were no vehicles in the driveway. The gates at its far end were closed. So was the door next to the gates. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I had anticipated it would be there, for the use of visitors who came and went on foot.
I had two choices. Well, actually, I had quite a few, but turning myself in didn’t appeal to me and neither did trying to get over a wall ten feet high that was topped with barbed wire and broken glass. I could make a run for it or try to bluff my way out. I decided on the second alternative. The gardeners were bound to see me – I intended that they should – and they were more likely to stop a frantic fugitive than a casual stroller.
I stuck to the shrubbery as long as I could, but I was still ten yards from the gate when I had to leave the path and step out into the open. One hand in my pocket, the other in my bag, I strode briskly towards the gate. One of the weeders sat back on his haunches as I passed him and gave me a curious look. I gave him a pleasant nod and managed not to break into a run. My back felt exposed, as if it had been stripped not only of clothing but of skin. My neck muscles ached as I fought the impulse to look over my shoulder.
The pedestrian door was locked. I had expected that, but I had hoped there would be a simple bar or bolt. No such luck. There wasn’t even a visible keyhole. The damned thing was probably electronically controlled, like the main gates. I heard the gardener call out; from the inflection it must have been a question. ‘Don’t you know you’re supposed to check out before you leave, you rude person?’ or ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, lady?’
I strolled on without replying, but the next demonstration of interest was too emphatic to ignore. The bullet hit the steel panel of the big gate with a ringing crack. Obviously it was time I stopped fooling around. I took the gun out of my bag, squatted down, pressed the barrel against the metal box at the base of the nearest column, and squeezed the trigger a few times. The position was unstable and my legs were as unsteady as my shaking hands. The recoil toppled me over onto my back. The next bullet whistled through the empty space where my head would have been if I hadn’t fallen over. The son of a bitch must be using a rifle. No hand weapon could have been so accurate at that distance.
The control box was a mess of smoking, ragged metal and the gate was ajar. So far so good, but I wouldn’t get far unless I could delay pursuit. I looked back. The man with the rifle had stopped shooting and started running. He was still some distance away, but the gardener wasn’t. I could see the whites of his eyes, so I stood up and pointed the gun in his general direction. He was no hero; with a yell he dived into the nearest bush. With an answering yell – I was beginning to lose my famous cool by that time – I dived through the door and ran . . . straight into a pair of grasping arms.
Eyes blurred, ears ringing, on the ragged edge of hysteria, I punched him in the stomach. My fist bounced off a surface as resilient as a beach ball. He staggered back, pulling me with him, and we fell onto the seat of a waiting vehicle which took off with a scream of tyres and a stench of burning rubber. The door flapped wildly until someone slammed it.
He’d fallen on top of me again. I stared up into the face in such intimate proximity to my own and burst into tears. ‘Schmidt! Oh, Schmidt, God bless you, what the hell are you doing here?’
Schmidt’s eyes were overflowing too, but only, as he was careful to explain, because I had hit him in the solar plexus. As soon as we had untangled ourselves he put an arm around me and pressed me to his stomach. ‘Put your head on my shoulder, little darlin’,’ he said tenderly. ‘All will be well. Papa Schmidt is on the case.’
That set me off again and Schmidt had to lend me his handkerchief and tell me to blow my nose like a good girl. The cab took a screeching turn into an alley hardly wider than the one I had traversed earlier that day and went careening along, scraping the walls on both sides.
‘What’s he doing?’ I gasped.
‘Eluding pursuit.’ Schmidt’s happy grin stretched from ear to ear and from moustache to double chin. Leaning forward, he tossed a handful of bills onto the front seat and shouted something in Arabic. The driver let out a whoop and roared across an intersection filled with traffic. I shut my eyes.
‘Schmidt.’ I had to raise my voice to be heard over the roar of the engine and the screams of rage from the other drivers, but I strove to speak calmly. ‘Schmidt, I think he’s eluded it. Wouldn’t we be less conspicuous if he drove at normal speed?’
‘That is probably true,’ Schmidt said reluctantly. Another fistful of money and another longish speech produced the desired effect. ‘I have instructed him to drive us around the city for a while,’ Schmidt said, settling back. ‘Now we can talk, eh? What has happened?’
