Murder in Focus (24 page)

“It sounds to me like someone coming home,” said Harriet coolly, and picked up the box of negatives. She put them on the desk, inserted her fingers into the edge of the curling mass, and gently pushed it to one side. She gestured fiercely at Sanders to get her the stack of prints, which she slipped carefully into the space she had just created against the side of the box. “There.”

“What do you mean, there?” said Sanders.

“We just take this box and slip down the back stairs—all these houses have back staircases—and out the kitchen door to the garden. We can climb over the fence into a neighbor's yard if we have to.”

He took five seconds to find a flaw in the plan, failed, and nodded. “If you insist on bringing that stupid box, give it to me,” he whispered. She shook her head. “Stay behind me, then,” he added, and glided over to the door.

“Gladly,” murmured Harriet, and picked up her box.

The broad upstairs hall was empty, although they could hear footsteps clearly enough on the polished wood floor beneath them. The main stairway was in front of them, taking up the center space to the right. To its right were the enormous bedrooms they had already explored; no staircases there. The most likely spot for such a thing would be down a narrow corridor to their left, across from the rear bedroom.

Sanders moved gently across the hall to the railing that protected them from pitching into the foyer; a board creaked and he silently cursed the owner of the house—what was her name? Mrs. Smythe?—for not falling prey to broadloom. He glimpsed the top of a head, surmounted by thick, dark, slightly graying hair, and ducked back to the relative obscurity of his place by the wall. This time he moved as rapidly as he could, sticking close to the wall to get away from creaking boards, until he made it into the narrow corridor. Harriet followed behind, her running shoes making slight squeaking noises as she tried to advance with silent haste. The cardboard box in her arms, although insignificant in weight, hampered her seriously by its clumsy bulk, and twice, unable to see the surface in front of her feet, she misjudged where she was and bumped noisily into something.

There was one closed door in the middle of the corridor and a pair of doors facing each other at the end of the hall. The stairs. One set to the third floor, one to the kitchen. Sanders cautiously turned the handle of the door to his right and opened it silently. He stopped so abruptly that Harriet slammed the box into his back and swore.

“What the hell?”

“Get back,” he said tightly.

“Come on, John,” she whispered, giving him a nudge with the carton, “let's get the hell out of here. I think I made a bit too much noise back there for comfort.”

“That's easier said than done, I'm afraid,” said a voice she did not recognize. “Inspector Sanders would have difficulty moving forward, Miss Jeffries. He would have to walk through me, I'm afraid. Just as you would have to walk through my friend here if you wanted to go back.”

Harriet spun around and found herself staring into the barrel of a small pistol held in the hand of an elegantly dressed, handsome, middle-aged man with dark, slightly graying hair. He made a slight bow. “Fräulein,” he murmured. The gun never strayed from her abdomen.

Peter Rennsler glanced at his watch and settled himself more firmly into his perch. His hold on his weapon was still light, his arms still relaxed and easy. The first session should be over in a few minutes, he reckoned, although there was a certain inexactitude about the hour when the talks were expected to finish for the day. From where he was sitting, he could fire straight into the window of the limousine as it moved up the slight rise past the guarded entrance gate. Behind him, the man who was to create the diversion that would let him slip away again had arrived and set up his position. He frowned. He didn't like plans that depended on the actions of others. For their completion or for their success. But he had allowed himself—foolishly—to be talked into this one. And he particularly didn't like plans that involved weapons at his back. He sighed lightly—it was too late now—and shifted position a hair's-breadth to relieve a slight tightness in his thigh.

The dark-haired man reached over to his right and opened the door beside him. “Please, Fräulein,” he said with a grin of mocking courtesy. “You do not need to stand in the corridor. If you would go in there,” he gestured sharply in the direction of the doorway, “and put down that ridiculous box, I am sure that we would all feel more at ease.” Harriet glanced helplessly back at Sanders. His nod was almost imperceptible. She shook her head in confusion and walked into the room. “Sit down on the bed, please, Miss Jeffries. We are very pleased to see you; we had lost track of you temporarily. The person assigned to follow you is very impressed but frustrated by your driving skills. If we had realized that you were so reckless on the roads we would have hired a more professional driver.” He smiled. “It was enterprising of you to find us. Perhaps in a while you will tell us just how you managed to do it. That would be most interesting.” He stood by the door as she stalked into the room, put down her box, and perched on the edge of the bed. The room was starkly furnished: a small dresser made of drab, light-coloured wood; a narrow, sagging bed, stripped down to its grubby mattress; a narrow, boxy, dark brown desk; and a couple of straight-backed chairs filled the available wall space. It reminded her of the cheap and smelly boarding house rooms she had lived in during those days when success and prosperity had seemed impossible dreams. The sense of unreality was sharpened by the heavy curtains that covered the one window, creating a dim twilight. Their captor reached over and turned on a bright overhead light; then with contemptuous impatience he kicked the box of prints under the bed. “Now, Inspector, I will relieve you of the weight of that—” He reached into Sanders's jacket and removed the pistol from its holster, slipping it into his own pocket. “And if you would be so kind as to follow her example—” A rough push in the diaphragm and Sanders found himself sitting, breathless, beside Harriet.

He pulled up a straight-backed chair and sat down facing them. “So,” he said conversationally, “I am Karl Lang. This is my house that you have broken into, by the way. And behind me is my friend and business associate, uh, Mr. Green. Do come in, Mr. Green.”

Sanders turned his attention to Green. Even without the scar it was a memorable face. Under the bare bulb in the ceiling the dark eyes and strong cheekbones stood out more strikingly than they had in the diffuse light of the restaurant in Brockville or in Harriet's picture. He smiled and Sanders could feel Harriet shiver beside him. Sanders had seen that kind of smile before. It used to appear with frequency on the face of a certain fellow officer, now edged out into Administration. It was the expression of someone who felt himself in control, powerful, untouchable, and who was confronting a member of a subhuman species without power or influence. It was a dangerous look, and it made him nervous. He wondered what particular reason Green had for feeling untouchable. Madness? Or something more pragmatic and real and therefore more menacing? Simple wealth, perhaps.

Green pulled a chair out from the desk in the corner and placed it backward in front of Sanders and Harriet. He straddled the chair comfortably, leaning his elbows on the back, and watched them for a minute or two with those bright, cold eyes before opening his mouth. “That picture,” said Green at last. “I must insist that you produce that picture for us. You really should have stuck to photographing buildings, Miss Jeffries. Then you would never have bothered us.”

“I don't know which picture you're talking about,” said Harriet steadily. “I take a great many pictures.”

“Come now, Miss Jeffries, or may I call you Harriet? Please don't try to irritate me. You know which picture. The picture I watched you take. The picture your friend told the police about, the picture you tried to say wasn't developed yet, the picture you are—for reasons unknown to me—hiding. Where is it?” There was a long silence. “I see,” he said. He looked at the two of them side by side on the gray mattress and frowned. “Inspector, you will stand up—very slowly—and move over there to the corner. Now!” Sanders eased himself upright and walked sideways over to the east wall of the room. Mr. Lang followed his progress steadily with his pistol. “Stop. That will do,” snapped Green, as Sanders neared the desk. “Karl,” Green said softly. “Hold this for me, would you?” He handed his pistol to Mr. Lang, who pocketed it without taking his eyes off Sanders. “Just until I can get Miss Jeffries ready. There now,” he said, grabbing her by the elbows and forcing her upright and very close to him, his knees pressing her thighs painfully against the bed frame. “You don't need that on.” He reached around her to each shoulder, pulled off her jacket, dropped it on the floor beside her, and grabbed the waistband of her sweatshirt.

Surprise had slowed her reactions. Now she looked down in amazement at what was happening, and blinked. She jerked her arms up between them and pushed as hard as she could against his chest. “Get your filthy hands off me.”

He grabbed her by the wrists, clamped them together, and encircled them with the long and very strong fingers of his left hand. Using her trapped arms as a lever, he pushed her backward until she thought her spine would snap, and then with his free hand slapped her on the cheek. She felt her jaw move sickeningly to the right and her head begin to spin under the force of the blow. “Shut up,” he said, released her for a moment, and yanked the sweatshirt off. It caught her ears and her hair as he pulled it over her head, and she could feel involuntary tears of pain prickle her eyes. “Now sit down again.” He yanked off his tie, grabbed her hands again, moved them around behind her, and knotted the tie around Harriet's wrists before fastening it also to the bedpost. “That's better,” he said, and stood back. “Now. One of you is going to tell me where that picture is.” He smiled. “Do you know why I know that? Because I am not stupid enough to try to force the answer out of you, Inspector. You look like one of those moral fools who prefers to die silent and noble in a pool of his own blood.” He stared lazily at Sanders, who willed his body to stay motionless and relaxed. “Am I right? But perhaps after watching a little persuasion of Miss Jeffries, Inspector, you will change your mind. I fancy you are not very good at watching, are you?” Green turned his chair around, pulled it closer to Harriet, and sat down. “Herr Lang, on the other hand, enjoys such displays. They have a bizarre fascination about them that he appreciates. But I don't suppose you share his tastes, Inspector. I expect either you or Miss Jeffries will let us know where that picture is soon enough.”

“I can't imagine that one or two little pictures could possibly be worth all this time and trouble,” said Sanders. He paused to get his voice under control and then plunged on in an attempt to forestall whatever Green was planning to do. “And expense, of course.”

“The fate of my country depends on that picture,” said Lang suddenly. “If I am discredited, then who else will have the strength and determination to take over and cure the malaise she has fallen into?”

“But you're not even in the picture—”

“Ah,” said Green, interrupting Sanders, “but I am. And I am glad to see that we are acknowledging the fact that the picture exists. Now it only remains to find out where.” He reached over and placed one thin hand behind Harriet's head, grabbed her hair, and wrenched it back. She drew her breath in sharply. With his other hand he reached down and took a knife from a leg sheath. He balanced it in his palm as if trying to decide what to do with it before grasping it firmly and placing the point against her larynx. She could feel a tiny area of cold, sharp pressure in her throat, nothing more. “A twitch of the knife, Miss Jeffries, that's all it takes.” Her mouth felt black, dry, and bitter-tasting with fear, and in spite of herself she swallowed. The pressure increased and the slight pain intensified. “But what would be the point?” he said, as he pulled back the knife and eased the pressure. “You would be incapable of answering me then, wouldn't you? But it is an action I would find very easy to do, Miss Jeffries, believe me.”

Sanders had been watching intently as the knife pressed into and then moved back from her throat. When it was a safe distance away, he spoke, his voice friendly and casual. “It would be a very messy business, Mr. Green,” Sanders said. “It's difficult to conceal that much blood, you know. Especially here, in the city, in a house.”

“True, Inspector.” Green's voice was as level and as casual as Sanders's; only a quick flicker of his tongue to the corner of his mouth seemed to betray any emotion at all. “But then, I wasn't planning anything quite so crude.” He dropped the point down six inches and left it resting lightly on her breastbone. “The knife is remarkably sharp—too precise for mere butchery.” Slowly and delicately he drew the point along the yellow cloth of her T-shirt, from her breastbone down and to the right along the outside of her breast. She screamed. The cloth separated, and a thin line of blood welled up from the tracery he had made. He moved the point back to her breastbone and waited. “Go ahead, scream,” said Green. “Louder. No one can hear you but the inspector.” The point began to move again, and Harriet made a gurgling sound in her throat. This time the cloth was not cut. “Do you believe me now?” said Green, his face suffused with heightened colour, “or do you still think I'm bluffing? I think you still believe we're bluffing,” he said in tones of mock amazement. “I don't suppose she knows what one can do to a girl and leave her capable of answering questions. You do, Inspector, don't you? Perhaps you've seen what's left when an interrogation like that is over. Not a very pleasant sight, is it?” He leaned back casually, his hands linked around his right knee, one eyebrow raised. “Well? The picture?”