put down grit. The fifty francs she gave him each February was an investment that produced dividends when snow and ice made the drive difficult.
The garage doors, controlled by an electronic beam swung up and she drove in, parking beside Hinkle’s 1500 Volkswagen. Collecting the mail, her briefcase and the paper bag, she walked along the underground passage to the villa. She remembered she had left the door from the cellar to the villa unlocked and she frowned at her carelessness. Shrugging, she opened the door, shut and locked it, then walked up the stairs and into the big entrance hall. She put the mail on the table and took off her coat and hat which she left in a recess. She carried her purchases to the kitchen, then she looked at her watch. The time was now n. 15. Time for a drink, she told herself, then she must get down to work. It would take her an hour or more to check through all the stock lists… but first a drink.
She walked briskly into the big living-room and then came to an abrupt standstill, her heart missing a beat.
Standing awkwardly by the big picture window, his peak cap in his hand, was Larry.
CHAPTER FIVE
For a long moment, she stood staring at this big, blond boy aware only of the faint sound of the central heating motor below and the violent beating of her heart.
During that moment, her mind was paralysed by shock, then her resilience absorbed the shock and fury gripped her, sending blood to her face, making the veins in her neck throb and giving her face an expression of vicious rage.
“How dare you come back!” she screamed at him. “Get out! Do you hear me! Get out!”
He flinched, then rubbed the side of his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Excuse me, ma’am… I had to see you.”
She strode to the door and threw it open.
“Get out or I’ll call the police!”
The moment she had said it, she knew she had lost control of herself. Police? The last thing she would want was a curious Swiss policeman here. She forced down her rage and her mind began to function. What was he doing here… more blackmail! He wouldn’t dare! He was an Army deserter… and yet Archer was a thief and a forger and he hadn’t hesitated to blackmail her. Could this lout of a boy realize what she stood to lose if he gave her away?
But she was determined to intimidate him.
“Get out!” she screamed at him.
“Ma’am… please… won’t you listen to me? I want to say I’m sorry.” He twisted his cap, his face in despair. “Honestly, ma’am… I want you to believe me… I’m sorry.”
She drew in a deep breath, controlling her fury.
“Rather late, isn’t it?” she said bitterly. “Sorry? After what you have done? After the way I treated you? You have the impudence to come here and tell me you’re sorry. Oh, go away! The sight of you sickens me!”
“Yeah… I guess you have reason.” He shuffled his feet. “Ma’am, I want to help you. When I told Ron, he said I was a dirty sonofabitch. He said if I didn’t do something about this, he’d never speak to me again.”
Helga stiffened.
“You told Ron?”
“Yes, ma’am. I told him last night on the phone. You see, ma’am, I owe him money. This fat guy gave me fifteen hundred dollars. I guess I was a little excited. I haven’t had so much money in one lump before. I told Ron I was buying a second-hand car and then he wanted to know how I got the money… so I told him.”
How many more were going to know what a reckless, mad fool she had been? she thought. This boy, that awful little queer, Archer and now this man, Ron.
She went over to the bar, poured a large slug of vodka into a glass and without bothering to add ice, she gulped it down. The neat spirit made her eyes water, but it knitted her together so she ceased to tremble. She sat down, opened her bag and took out her cigarettes. She lit one, then she pointed to a chair away from her.
“Sit down!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Awkwardly and sheepishly, he sat on the edge of the chair and looked down at his hands.
“Ron was real wild with me, ma’am,” he said. “He said a blackmailer is the dirtiest thing on earth. He said I was a stinking creep to have done such a thing. I - I told him I wasn’t a blackmailer. I was paid to do a job and I did it. I wouldn’t blackmail anyone.” He looked up, staring miserably at her. “He said what I had done was blackmail and he’d never speak to me again unless I came to you and explained.”
“Did you tell him who I was?” Helga asked.
He nodded.
“I guess I did. I told him everything: how you got my passport for me and about this fat guy. He said I had to help you… so I’m here, ma’am. I’ve been waiting for hours here hoping you would come. I’m going to help you, ma’am.”
Helga made an impatient movement, sending her cigarette ash on the carpet.
“Help me? You? What do you think you can do? It’s now much too late for anyone to help me! Now, get out! The sight of you sickens me!”
“He’s got photos of us, hasn’t he?”
“You know he has and he’s now blackmailing me!”
“I’ll get them from him, ma’am, and I’ll give them to you!”
“You’re talking like the fool you are! They are now out of reach. He’s mailed them to his bank!”
There was a pause, then Larry said quietly, “Is he out of reach, ma’am?”
There was this deadly note in his voice she had heard before when he had said to Friedlander: What would it cost you if you got your hands crushed in a door?
She regarded him, her body suddenly tense.
“What do you mean?”
He put his cap down on the floor beside him and took out a pack of chewing gum. As he stripped off the wrapper, he said, “If I could get hold of him, ma’am, I could persuade him to get the photos from the bank and then you could have them.”
She pressed her hands to her face.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. These photos are far too important for him to be persuaded to part with them. Just go away and leave this to me… you’re talking nonsense.”
He fed a strip of gum in his mouth and began to chew.
“Ma’am… do you want me to help you?” There was an edge to his voice: a male edge which told her he was getting bored with her hysterics.
“How can you help me?” She was shrewd enough to soften her voice. “Nothing would persuade him to part with those photographs.”
He regarded her, his Slav features without expression.
“I don’t know about nothing, ma’am… but I could.”
Again there was this note in his voice and she looked closely at him and she felt as if an icy draught had brushed over her, leaving her cold.
“But how?”
“With these.” And he held up his huge hands. “He’s soft and fat… there would be no trouble.”
Her eyes opened wide as a flicker of hope came to her. Her heart began to pound.
“But the photos are in the bank by now.”
He shrugged.
“All he has to do is to write to the bank and tell them to send the photos here… they’d do that, wouldn’t they?”
She got up, her legs unsteady, and went to the bar.
