Silhouette in Scarlet

Chapter Seven

I HAD BEEN WONDERING the same thing. Both men relapsed into moody silence. Leif’s unblinking stare settled on John, and the latter began to show signs of strain. His face remained studiedly bland, but when he picked up the guitar he produced a series of chords so consistently off key that I suspected his fingers were none too steady.

I wandered towards the end of the field where the men were working. Georg was puttering away in his own little section. He had removed the topsoil from an area about a metre square. It was an academically neat excavation, with sharp right-angle corners and a level surface; at that rate it would take him about ten years to cover the entire field.

Max’s haphazard digging was no more impressive. The areas of exposed subsoil looked pitifully small amid the rolling waves of stubble. It was a hopeless project; a whole crew working for three months might accomplish something. Might . . . Nobody knew how deep the treasure was buried, or how widely it was scattered – or even if it was there.

Max stood with his shoulders bowed as he watched the diggers. ‘Can I go back to the house?’ I asked meekly. ‘I’m bored.’

‘If you like.’ He didn’t look at me. I took that for a bad sign. As I turned away he added, ‘We will all be returning shortly.’ And that was an even worse sign.

The sun was high and surprisingly hot. I headed for the shower. The cool water streaming over my body improved my physical state, but mentally I was in a grim mood. Max and his men, who had been engaging in strenuous physical activity most of the day, would be even hotter and dirtier and more discouraged than I. If Max had had any archaeological experience he would have seen at first glance that he couldn’t hope to find what he was looking for in the space of a few days. Sitting in his city office, he had probably visualized the procedure with the mental eye of ignorant optimism – a stretch of dirt about twenty feet square, with bits of gold sticking up out of the soil. He might be ignorant, but he wasn’t stupid, nor was he the man to waste time on a hopeless project.

I cut my shower short. I wanted to search the house before they got back.

Max and his crew had taken over one wing, the one on the south, corresponding to the flanking wing in which my bedroom was located. All the doors along the corridor were locked. I figured there wasn’t any point in trying to pick the locks. Max was not the man to leave weapons, or any other useful item, lying around.

On the second floor were more bedrooms, none of them in use. The curtains were drawn, the furniture draped with white dustcloths. One chamber, larger than the rest, with an adjoining bath and dressing room, was fancy enough to have been the master’s quarters. Perhaps Gus had occupied it until his physical handicap made stairs difficult. I opened the door of one of the heavy oak wardrobes. It was filled with women’s dresses, swathed in linen to keep off the dust. A strong smell of mothballs wafted out – the odour of the past, of memories preserved and cherished . . . Feeling like an intruder, I tiptoed out.

A door under the stairs presumably led to the cellar. It was locked and looked heavy enough to withstand a battering ram. I pressed my ear against it and then ventured a soft ‘Gus? Are you there?’ If he was, he didn’t answer.

I had explored the whole house except for one area – the kitchen and service section. It lay behind the dining room, separated from the latter by a butler’s pantry whose shelves were filled with shining glassware.

When I walked into the kitchen my first thought was, ‘Poor Mrs Andersson.’ So far the mess wasn’t too bad – dusty footprints dulling the white stone floor, trays of dirty coffee cups and dishes put down everywhere on counters and tables. But it was bound to get worse before it got better, and I could see that this was the housekeeper’s favourite place – sitting room as well as workshop. One end of the big room had been furnished with woven rugs, rocking chairs, and a few tables. An enormous peasant-style pewter cupboard stood against the wall, its looming blue sides painted with bright pink roses and red hearts. In the cupboard section, under the open shelves, were some of Mrs Andersson’s personal belongings, including stacks of magazines and a knitting bag. The latter held balls of soft grey yarn and one sleeve of a man’s sweater, almost completed. If she was a confirmed knitter, like some of my aunts, she probably worked on several projects simultaneously; this was the one she picked up when she sat rocking, after the meal had been served and the maids were cleaning the kitchen. I could see her sitting there, swaying back and forth in time with the click of her needles, her face . . . Suddenly the unwashed dishes and dusty floor struck me as horrible and disgusting.

Blue-and-white-checked curtains swayed at the windows, and sunlight streaked the flagstone floor. Except for a few homey touches of that nature, the working end of the kitchen was a model of modern efficiency, and every appliance was the best procurable – refrigerator, stove, two wall ovens, and a couple of kilometres of counter space and cupboards.

I started opening cupboard doors. Mrs Andersson might be a traditional, old-fashioned lady, but she had a sneaking fascination for the latest in cooking gadgets. I had never seen such things, except in gourmet-kitchen shops – the latest-model Cuisinart, with every attachment known to man or woman, an electric pasta maker, an ice-cream machine – not the Italian model with which I was familiar, which retails at a mere four hundred dollars, but the aristocrat of ice-cream makers, a Minigel. There were an American milkshake mixer, a German coffeemaker with a built-in digital clock timer, a Danish waffle iron . . .

I was raised by a Swedish cook – two of them, in fact, for when my grandmother came to visit, she kicked Morn out of the kitchen and took over. Being a normal child, I had fought the effort of these ladies to turn me into another of the same breed, but they had moulded me better than they, or I, had realized. Mrs Andersson’s kitchen brought old instincts to reluctant life.

Drawers and more cupboards . . . Baking pans of every variety, for quiches, for tarts, for madeleines, for popovers. Rosette irons, woks, fish poachers, larding skewers, artichoke steamers, poachette rings . . . What the poor, frustrated woman did with all of it I could not imagine. If Gus was as antisocial as he claimed, she didn’t often get the chance to cook an elaborate meal. Maybe she played with her toys during the long winter evenings and stuffed the housemaid and the gardener with chocolate shakes, poached eggs, and apricot flan.

As I continued to explore, I saw there was one conspicuous omission in the collection. No knives, no cleavers, nothing with a sharp edge. The knife we had used at lunch was on the table, its surface dulled by smears of cheese and sausage. The message was as clear as print: Don’t try it – my absence will be duly noted. Besides, it was a foot and a half long, not the sort of weapon a girl can conceal in her bra.

Next to the kitchen was a pantry, its shelves filled with canned and packaged and bottled goods. A deep freeze muttered and clicked in one corner. We wouldn’t starve, at any rate. No, we wouldn’t starve . . .

The deep freeze was packed to the brim. Thoughtfully I hefted a ten-pound roast, and those suppressed impulses stirred anew. They weren’t violent impulses – I was not contemplating a murderous assault on Max with a frozen rump roast. I didn’t need to resort to esoteric blunt instruments; the house and grounds abounded in large, hard, lumpy objects. I had no intention of getting that close to Max or any of his boys.

I put the roast back into the freezer and opened the fridge. The signs of clumsy foraging were only too evident; the food was all jumbled around, and some oaf had tipped over a jar of jam, which had leaked over two shelves before forming a sticky puddle on the bottom. Ancestral urges won. I cleaned up the mess. When I started to straighten the shelves, the first thing I found was a large fish. The layers of plastic wrap encasing it did not dull the hostile gleam of its bulging eyes. Pikes are not your ordinary placid fish – they are predators, and look as mean as they act.

The fish had been cleaned and scaled, and the gills removed, so I assumed it was supposed to be served with the head intact. I had never eaten pike, but my grandmother used to bake trout that way, brushed with beaten egg and sprinkled with breadcrumbs.

Well, why not? I had nothing better to do at the moment.

A short time later the place was – not spotless, I’ll never be a good Swedish housewife. But it was clean. The dishes were washed and stacked, the floor swept, and attractive smells were seeping out of the saucepans that bubbled on the stove. The pike was in one of the ovens, sans its head. Mrs Andersson and Granny wouldn’t have approved of decapitation, but I can’t stand those boiled white eyes looking up at me from a plate. When I opened the other oven, a heavenly odour almost cancelled out the stench of fish. The feeezer had contained stacks of pies, tarts, and pastries. All had been neatly labelled, but since my Swedish is minimal, the labels were of no use to me. This pie looked, and smelled, like red raspberry.

The first to respond to the smell of cooking was the cat. I had been wondering where it was; that cosy little sitting area absolutely demanded a fat, purring cat. it came in through the window, startling me so that I dropped the spoon I held – a big, fluffy tabby, its forehead marked with the customary black M, its jowls outlined in white. Tail elevated and bristling, it studied me warily for a moment, and I stared back, mesmerized by its glowing green eyes. Then it opened its mouth and emitted a ladylike, dainty little mew.

While the cat wove in and out around my feet, purring hoarsely, I found its bowl in a cupboard, and a can of cat food, identifiable by the picture on the label, in the pantry. He (his sex was obvious, as soon as he turned his back) tucked into the food with that accusing air of imminent starvation typical of cats. I wasn’t too worried about him. The island probably abounded in small rodents, and he had already demonstrated a commendable caution in approaching strangers. His chances of survival were probably better than mine.

When the kitchen door opened, he scuttled for cover under the table. He didn’t move fast enough.

‘What a touching tableau,’ John exclaimed. ‘The cook and her cat. Hello, cat.’ He squatted. After a moment a suspicious whiskered face appeared. The two of them contemplated one another in solemn silence for a time. Then, with a kind of feline shrug, the cat gave John an unmistakable cold shoulder and returned to its dinner.

‘Crushed again,’ said John. Rising, he sniffed appreciatively. ‘What’s for dinner?’

‘Your dinner? I haven’t the faintest idea.’

John raised one eyebrow – a trick of his I particularly abhor – and wandered into the pantry I lifted the lid of a skillet. Whole onions, cooked in butter and brown sugar, simmered in half a cup of beef stock. John came back empty-handed but unperturbed. Whistling, he opened the refrigerator door and draped himself over it, staring into the fridge in that maddening way men and children have, as if they expected a seven-course meal to materialize on a shelf. I almost snapped, ‘Close that door.’ I must have heard Mother say it a thousand times.

To my chagrin John found the food I had pushed to the back of the shelves. I suppose Mrs Andersson had taken it out of the freezer the night before. Murmuring affectionately, he removed a bowl of kidneys, a box of mushrooms, and the butter.

‘Lend me the knife,’ he said abstractedly.

I borrowed it back a little later to slice cabbage. John stirred things into his sautéed kidneys and mushrooms and fed scraps to the cat. It had transferred its fickle affections to John, and ignored me completely. obviously it preferred kidney to canned food.

It went out the window in a long, flowing leap when the others started to file in. They stood around watching and sniffing hopefully. I drained my potatoes and put them through the ricer, added butter and a generous amount of hot milk. John tossed linguine into a big pot of boiling water. Everybody else drooled.

Leif was the last to appear. He had showered and changed, and he looked like the kind of man a wife hopes will come home for dinner. I gave him a melting smile and waved my spoon toward the rocking chairs. ‘Sit down, Leif. Supper will be ready in a few minutes.’

With a broadening grin he took in the two chairs, the table with two place settings, and the ring of hungry faces. ‘I will get us something to drink,’ he said.

I suggested a light Riesling, to go with the fish, and told him where to find it in the pantry. As he opened the bottle, I met Max’s narrowed eyes.

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t trust anything I cooked,’ I said guilelessly.

‘I have enough for everyone,’ John announced, sloshing his linguine into a colander. Max turned his hostile stare onto John, who said impatiently, ‘I don’t give a damn whether you eat it or not, Max, but it surely must have occurred to you, as it has to Dr Bliss, that poisoning is an extremely slow and chancy method of incapacitating a large-sized group.’

Max thought this over, and as the truth of it dawned, his cheeks turned the colour of fresh liver. ‘But you were the one,’ he began.

‘I just threw that idea out to liven things up,’ John said. ‘Have a kidney.’

The pike was delicious. I guess the kidneys were too. The gang polished them off and gobbled up everything else in sight, including the remains of the pike, which I magnanimously contributed. Fish is no good the second day anyway.

‘Oh, dear,’ John said, surveying the scraped plates. ‘I ought to have made meatballs too. Never mind, we’ll have them tomorrow night.’

This hopeful suggestion hung twitching and dying in midair like a hooked fish. Max grunted and pushed his chair from the table.

‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ I said, as the rest followed suit. ‘I cleaned up one mess today. It’s your turn for KP.’

I honestly didn’t expect this order would be obeyed, but after a moment Max nodded. ‘Sir John will oblige.’

‘Sir John’ looked mutinous. ‘It’s not fair. I did the cooking.’

For a minute it appeared the situation was going to develop into one of those all too familiar family squabbles, like the ones my brothers and I had every day of our lives. ‘It’s your turn tonight. No, it’s not, I did it yesterday. You did not, I traded with you Tuesday . . .’

Max banged his fist on the table. ‘Hans.’

‘Aber, Herr Max, ich weiss nicht – ’

I decided to get out and leave them to settle it. The argument broke out again as soon as I left the room. Somehow I was not surprised to see that John had also slipped out.

‘Shall we take a little stroll in the garden?’ he asked.

‘That’s what I had in mind. A solitary stroll.’

Trotting to keep up with me, he remarked, ‘I sense a specific source of annoyance, over and above the general vexation I seem to arouse in you. You’d better tell me what it is; we can’t work efficiently while you are nursing some fancied grudge.’

I spun around. He ground to a halt and ducked, just in time to avoid the fist I shook under his nose. ‘Annoyance? I never had a very exaggerated opinion of your morals, but after seeing the end product of your latest caper I am not inclined to add myself to the list of victims.’

‘Ah – Georg.’

‘Georg,’ I agreed.

‘I suppose you wouldn’t believe me if I told you I was not responsible.’

‘I wouldn’t.’

‘We’d all have a better chance of getting out of this if you could bring yourself to cooperate with me.’

‘You cooperate first,’ I said.

‘If I’m to get out of the house tonight, I’ll need your help.’ He broke off with a grunt of exasperation as the front door opened and Rudi appeared. ‘Pretend to be angry,’ he muttered.

‘No trouble.’ I slapped his face hard. He yelled. Rudi grinned – at least I think the slit in the lower part of his face was intended to be a smile.

John retreated into the house, ostentatiously nursing his cheek. Rudi followed. I went down the steps into the garden.

The roses were beginning to bloom. I touched a creamy bud; its opening petals were as translucent as fine porcelain. Gus had talked about his rose garden the night before. His mother had set it out, nursing the prize plants through the long cold winter. Gus was enormously proud of it.

Where was he now, the kind old man who had welcomed kin so warmly? If he met his death through my carelessness and lack of foresight I would never forgive myself.

It was still bright daylight, and would be for many hours. If John meant to prowl tonight, he wouldn’t have a long period of darkness at his disposal. In fact, he might not have any. This far north, with midsummer almost upon us, a deep dusk is the most one can expect in the way of night. John would need all the distraction he could get, there was no question about that.

In the crystal-clear air the distant mountains of Norway looked like a low-hanging white cloud, the snow on their peaks shimmering in reflected sunlight. The lake was as calm as a fish pond. The island was almost in the centre of the lake, but the distance between our dock and the one opposite, on the mainland, seemed slightly shorter than it was elsewhere. If we had to swim, that was the obvious route – straight towards the garage-boathouse on shore. Gus was the one I was worried about; but with Leif to help, I could probably get him across. If we could get even fifteen minutes’ apart, night or day . . . Surely there would be people at the boathouse during the day, villagers who kept their boats there, and the old codgers. A flash of light caught my eye. It came from the shadows under the eaves of the garage, and as I squinted, shading my eyes with my hand, I thought I saw them – five shapes, rigid as statues in their wooden chairs.

‘Laugh,’ said a voice behind me.

I turned with a start. ‘Laugh,’ Max repeated, taking my arm. ‘One of them is watching us through binoculars.’

I stretched my mouth into a gaping grin. The crown of his dead, flat grey hair barely reached my nose, but the pressure of his fingers bit into my bicep. I let him turn me towards the house.

‘They are only inquisitive old men, with nothing better to do,’ Max went on. ‘But I would not want you to succumb to a foolish impulse. The situation has not changed. Mr Jonsson is still in my hands, and if a signal from you brought one of those doddering ancients to the rescue, he would only be added to my collection of hostages.’

‘I have only your word for it that Gus is still alive,’ I said, as he opened the door for me.

‘I wondered when you would bring that up. Would you like to talk to him?’

He led the way into the study. I took a chair by the desk while he opened a cupboard and removed a canvas-wrapped bundle. He made no attempt to conceal what he was doing. I suppose he thought I wouldn’t have enough technical knowledge to recognize the device.

I hadn’t seen that particular model before – it was a good deal more sophisticated than the ones my brothers owned – but I recognized it as a kind of wireless walkie-talkie. Max pushed a few buttons, and a long antenna wavered out. He pressed more buttons.

A harsh voice croaked a few words. Max answered in English, obviously the lingua franca of that cosmopolitan group. ‘Put Mr Jonsson on.’

After an interval I heard Gus’s voice. ‘Vicky? Are you there, my dear?’

‘Gus! Gus, are you okay?’

‘Yes, they have not hurt me. Have they hurt you?’

‘No. Don’t worry about me, Gus, I’m fine.’

‘Do nothing, Vicky. Do what they say. Take no risk.’

Before I could answer, Max played a tattoo on the buttons and the antenna retracted. He returned the gadget to the cupboard, locked it, and tucked the key ostentatiously into his jacket pocket.

He needn’t have worried. The walkie-talkie wouldn’t do me any good; it obviously had a limited range. I had been right all along – Gus was on the island. And now I knew where on the island.

I suspected the conversation had been set up in order to calm Gus as well as me. The hostage situation worked both ways; he wouldn’t try anything while I was in Max’s hands. At least I hoped to God he wouldn’t. He was a proud man, unaccustomed to intimidation, and if he lost his temper he might do something rash. The sooner I put my half-baked plan into action, the better. I had to cooperate with John. I knew it, and he knew it too. He had the best chance of scouting unseen; he could move like a shadow, and he knew dirty tricks I had never heard of. I figured I could count on him not to double-cross me, because he needed me as much as I needed him. Alone he was no match for Max and the boys, especially since Leif and Georg weren’t too crazy about him either.

My meditations were interrupted by an object that came flying in through the open window. It landed on a table and squatted there, staring with malevolent emerald eyes.

‘Ah,’ Max exclaimed. ‘What a beautiful cat. Hello, my friend; what is your name?’ He held out his hand and made cooing sounds.

To my surprise and disgust, the cat promptly responded. Another flying leap took it to the desk. Max scratched it under the chin. Not only did it accept the caress, it squirmed and wriggled and started to purr.

‘So much,’ I said, ‘for stereotypes.’

Leif would have said, ‘What?’ Max laughed, his hand moving over the cat’s head and neck with practised skill.

‘I’m sorry to disturb your prejudices, Dr Bliss. I am very fond of animals, and they like me. I have a cat of my own, an aristocratic Siamese named Marguerite.’

He certainly knew how to handle the species. The big tabby literally drooled on him. Finally it flung itself on its back in an abandonment of bliss, knocking Max’s briefcase to the floor. The crash startled it. With a hiss it bounced up and departed, via the window.

Smiling, Max bent to pick up his possessions. The briefcase had sprung open, scattering the contents – scissors, black papers, white cardboard mounts. Not all the papers were black, however. A few sheets were scarlet, bright as fresh blood.

‘You use red paper?’ I asked curiously.

Max’s deft hands paused in their work of gathering up the papers. ‘Sometimes,’ he said curtly.

‘When the mood takes you, or . . .’ The funniest feeling came over me; I don’t know why. I swallowed. ‘Or – or for a particular reason?’

‘For a particular . . . collection.’ Max’s back straightened, the briefcase in his hands. His eyes avoided mine. ‘We all have personal idiosyncrasies, Dr Bliss.’

‘Right,’ I mumbled. ‘Sure.’

Max selected a sheet of black paper. ‘You permit?’

I gave him the profile he wanted, without further comment. He made a sound of satisfaction. ‘You are a good subject, Dr Bliss. Such well-defined features.’

The sticky subject had been dropped. We were back on our old terms. I thought I knew the significance of the scarlet silhouettes, and I was no more anxious to talk about them than Max was. But, my God, the psychological impact of that little ‘idiosyncrasy’ . . .

Max was still snipping when a delegation trooped in, headed by John. He gestured at Rudi.

‘Must I have Peter Lorre dogging my footsteps?’

Instead of appearing offended, Rudi beamed with pleasure. I suppose if you are imitating a villain, it is a compliment to be compared to one of the greatest.

‘I have decided you require a permanent escort,’ Max said equably. ‘Don’t feel persecuted; Mr Hasseltine will also be guarded.’

He indicated Hans. That literal-minded soul was standing so close to Leif that his heavy breathing blew the latter’s hair into his face. Leif glowered.

‘I will not endure this,’ he exclaimed.

‘Sit down!’ Max shouted. ‘All of you, sit and be quiet. I am in no mood for childishness tonight.’

I gestured towards the sofa where I was sitting, and Leif joined me. Hans tried to squeeze his bulk into the narrow space between us. ‘Hey,’ I said. Max rolled his eyes.

‘Heaven give me patience. Hans, take a chair – that one, behind the sofa.’

Everyone subsided. The glum silence was broken by Max. He held up the finished silhouette.

‘It is not so pleasant as the last,’ he said in a worried voice.

‘I don’t feel as pleasant,’ I assured him. He had caught my scowl and out-thrust lip quite accurately.

Max picked up another piece of paper. It was black, not scarlet, but as his eyes focused on John, the latter sprang from his chair as if he had been stung.

‘This is a dull group,’ he announced. ‘What about a game?’

Without waiting for an answer, he threw open one of the cupboard doors. ‘Chess, checkers, Go, Monopoly . . . He must have bought out a toy shop. Anyone for a game of Scrabble?’

‘Why not?’ I stood up.

I don’t know what John would have done if someone else had accepted his offer. In fact, I didn’t know what he was going to do now that I had accepted it. The manoeuver was pretty obvious. Max thought so too. His eyes sparkled with malicious amusement.

‘What a charming idea. We will all be entertained. Rudi, sit at the table and call out the words as they are played.’

Apparently undisturbed by this suggestion, John poured the tiles out onto the table. I helped him turn them over and watched approvingly as he gave them a very perfunctory shuffle. I palmed the pieces I wanted – not very expertly, but nobody saw me. All eyes were glued on John.

I moved first. That was fine with me. I had only one question, but it was an important question, and I wasn’t sure when, if ever, I would have an opportunity to talk privately with John.

I spelled out ‘boss’ and rolled my eyes in Max’s direction as Rudi intoned the word like a bingo announcer.

‘No, no,’ John said. There was a brief but perceptible pause before he added, ‘You’ll have to do better than that, my girl.’

The confirmation came as no surprise. Directors of big criminal organizations don’t go into the field; they sit in fancy offices in New York or Hamburg or Marseilles, and give generous donations to charity. I realized there was another question I needed to ask, and cheated shamelessly as I collected my next tiles. Rudi didn’t notice; he was watching John.

John spelled ‘distract,’ using the second 5 in ‘boss,’ then folded his hands and smiled at me. One thumb was folded across; the other jerked up, indicating . . . Not Rudi, as I had expected. Hans, who was leaning over Leif’s shoulder trying to see the board.

If I had planned a spot of nocturnal spying, I’d rather have had Hans on my trail than Rudi. The latter was much more intelligent. However, Hans was much bigger. It was a moot point, and I figured John had his reasons.

Rudi announced ‘distract,’ with a thick Viennese accent. He was getting into the swing of it, rolling his r’s with fine effect. Max’s brow furrowed. It was beginning to dawn on him that he might be missing some nuance or other.

I spelled ‘initiame,’ slapping down the tiles with reckless haste, before Max could call the game off. It was the best I could do. I couldn’t find two t’s. John stared at me in consternation, while I thought the word at him as hard as I could. I don’t know whether ESP worked, or whether his quick mind made the right connection. He said, ‘Nothing,’ with crisp emphasis, and looked at his tiles. ‘Nothing,’ he repeated sadly. ‘What a rotten collection of useless consonants.’

‘Initiame,’ Rudi said. ‘Wait – that is not a word. She is cheating.’

He sounded shocked.

‘Enough,’ Max said. ‘I am weary of your tricks, Smythe. Come here and sit for me. I am desirous of adding your portrait to my collection.’

Peter Lorre couldn’t have done it better – the long hiss of the sibilants, the faint, derisive smile. But the paper he finally selected was black. John didn’t appear to be visibly heartened by this; he gave me a very thoughtful look before moving to obey Max.

I collected the scattered tiles and folded the board. We had not had much time, but it had helped. Max was a subordinate, who had no authority to initiate action. Before calling off the dig, he would have to contact his boss. That meant we had a little more time.

As I finished packing up the game, the door burst open and Georg Hasseltine came in, carrying a wooden crate. He was alone; no guard for Georg. His gaze wandered over the room, ignoring his brother’s raised hand with unconscious cruelty, and focused on me.

‘There you are, Dr Bliss. I have been looking for you.’ He put the box on the table and pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. ‘You will appreciate what I have found.’

It took all my willpower to be civil to the little creep, but one never knows when civility will pay off. Besides, I was curious. Max wasn’t; he went on cutting. He knew that whatever Georg had found, it was not the treasure.

To an inexperienced eye – mine, in this case – the objects Georg placed tenderly on the table might have come from a garbage pile: two lumps of corroded metal, a roughly shaped stone, and a handful of bones, brown and brittle with age. The young man stood gazing down on this unsightly assemblage with shining eyes. He looked little older than his true age as enthusiasm warmed his features. My irresponsible emotions veered from contempt to pity.

‘You see?’ Georg said eagerly. ‘You realize what it means?’

Leif got up and joined us, closely followed by the faithful Hans. ‘What is it, Georg?’ he asked.

‘You wouldn’t understand.’ Georg continued to beam at me. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’

My sympathies veered back, due north. ‘I don’t understand either,’ I said coolly. ‘I’m not an archaeologist, and the Iron Age isn’t my bag.’

Georg pounded on the give-away word. ‘I knew you would recognize them.’

‘Only that this is iron.’ I picked up one of the metal lumps. As I turned it in the light, it took on form. ‘Arrowhead?’ I hazarded.

‘More probably a point from a throwing spear. That isn’t definitive; a wandering hunter could have lost it. But the bones are those of domesticated animals – sheep and cattle. The spindle whorl proved my case.’

There was no point in pretending to be dense. If I didn’t say it, he would. ‘Kitchen midden,’ I said.

‘Yes. And that means habitation – probably a farm or fort. A rich settlement.’

‘Rich?’ Max rose, knuckles on the desk. ‘How do you know that?’

‘It’s a prime location,’ Georg answered. ‘Easy to defend, with its own water supply and ample pasturage. A coveted site. Only a strong leader could hold it. Probably a local chieftain or jarl.’

‘But the treasure,’ Max said. ‘Where would they have hidden it?’

Georg lifted one shoulder and smiled at me – one intellectual to another, deploring the ignorance of the hoi polloi. ‘The treasure is unimportant. I suspect that this – ’

‘Unimportant?’ Max’s voice was very quiet, but it wiped the smile from Georg’s lips. ‘What do you think we are here for, you young fool? If you have learned anything from your digging, you had better tell me at once, or – ’

‘Wait.’ Leif moved quickly, putting himself between the angry little man and Georg. ‘Let me talk to him. He will tell me.’

‘Talk, then. Persuade him. If you fail, there are other methods.’

Georg appeared shaken. Maybe his last fix was wearing off. He allowed Leif to lead him out.

John edged towards the door. ‘Excuse me,’ he murmured. ‘I know it’s frightfully early, but . . .’

‘Go, then. All of you – except you, Dr Bliss. I wish to talk to you.’

John didn’t favour me with a glance or a goodnight. He ambled out, followed by Rudi. When the door had closed behind them, Max let out a long sigh.

‘Please sit down, Dr Bliss. You have nothing to fear from me. I think we can help one another.’

I took the chair he indicated. Max turned to the window and stood staring out, hands clasped behind his back. I glanced at the desk. He had almost finished the silhouette. It was a gentler caricature than I would have expected; he had turned John’s admittedly pointed nose into a modified Pinocchio pecker and made his chin recede more than it actually did, but that was all. Hand and scissors had slipped, perhaps when Georg said the magic word ‘rich.’ A ragged tear ran across the shadow head, from the bridge of the nose to where the ear would have been.

Max turned from the window, once more calm and smiling. ‘Let us not waste time sparring with one another, Dr Bliss. You are an intelligent woman, and I am a very busy man. It would serve the interests of both of us if I could conclude this matter swiftly and leave you in peace.’

I didn’t say anything, but he interpreted my expression accurately. ‘You doubt that I would leave you alive and well? Consider the pros and cons. I have nothing to gain by harming you and your friends, and a great deal to lose. I will even make concessions, if it will ease your mind. For instance, I might restore Mr Jonsson to you.’

‘So far as I can see, that concession would just make it simpler for you,’ I said. ‘Get all the pigeons in the same place, so to speak.’

‘But if you had a gun,’ Max said softly. ‘A thirty-eight, fully loaded? Picture it. You and Mr Jonsson, locked in one of the upstairs rooms. We could not reach you from the window, but you could see us leave – and you could shoot to kill if anyone tried to enter by the door.’

Talk about your seductive pictures. What’s more, some odd sixth sense told me he was sincere – not planning any nasty little tricks like setting fire to the house. Watching the play of emotions on my face, Max sidled up to the desk and lowered himself into a chair. ‘I will consider any reasonable suggestion,’ he murmured. ‘Only help me to find the treasure.’

‘I don’t know where it is,’ I wailed.

‘But you are the possessor of expert knowledge, training, that might give me a clue.’ His voice changed. It held a note of purely human curiosity. ‘How the devil did Smythe trick you into joining him in this? Your reputation is excellent, and now that I have met you I find it impossible to believe you wanted to swindle Mr Jonsson.’

‘It’s too complicated to explain,’ I said mournfully. ‘But you’re right – he did trick me, the bastard.’

‘He will be punished. For that and other injudicious acts.’

‘I don’t suppose you’d include him in your amnesty offer.’

‘No. Why should you care? You owe him nothing; he is responsible for your present plight.’

‘How true.’

‘Are you in love with him?’

‘No. None of your business.’

‘I take a fatherly interest.’

I gaped at him. He went on seriously. ‘He is not a proper associate for a lady of your worth. You will be better off without him. Mr Hasseltine, now – there is a fine man, young and healthy. What are your feelings for him?’

My head was spinning. I couldn’t believe I was getting advice on affairs of the heart from a leader of organized crime. Uncle Maxie’s Love Column . . .

‘Now, look here, Max,’ I said. ‘Not that I don’t appreciate your interest – but let’s get back to basics, okay? Your deal has its attractive points, and I’d be strongly tempted to take you up on it, except for one detail.’

‘Your professional conscience?’

‘Well . . . I hate what you’re planning to do. My training and my moral senses are howling with outrage. But there isn’t one artefact in existence that I’d place above a human life. Especially mine.’

‘Then what is the difficulty?’

He still sounded like kindly old Uncle Maxie, weary but patient I waved my arms wildly. ‘Max, I don’t have the information! Georg is the archaeologist; I’ve just enough background to think he may be right in his assessment of the site. There may have been a fifth-century house here, with all the attendant features – outbuildings, a defensive wall, maybe a cemetery. If the graves weren’t robbed in antiquity, they might contain all kinds of goodies – like the chalice. It’s equally possible that the chalice was one object in a cache of treasures buried by the owner in time of war for safekeeping. If you had a couple of trained scholars on the spot, with the necessary equipment, they could plot the site and locate the cemetery. But there’s no way on earth anybody could pinpoint the location of a cache. Where would you bury your savings, if you were in the ancient owner’s position? In the farmyard? Under the living-room floor? In the pigsty? Damn it, Max, even if we had a complete plan of the house and outbuildings, we still wouldn’t have a clue. It’s hopeless. Why don’t you give up and go home?’

Elbow on the table, chin propped on his hand, Max listened attentively to my peroration.

‘I am tempted to tell you why,’ he said when I finished talking, breathless and flushed. ‘Better still, I am tempted to show you. Wait here.’

Naturally I waited. I couldn’t take my eyes off the mutilated silhouette. The tear was like a ragged wound.

Max was back in a few minutes, carrying a manila envelope. He opened it and handed me the contents.

They were colour photographs, eight-by-ten in size. Six of them – sides, top, and bottom. The object was shaped like a little house, with the roof sloping up to a richly ornamented ridgepole – a doll’s house, about a foot long. But doll’s houses, even royal doll’s houses, aren’t made of gold. Insets of scarlet and blue enamel, in a convoluted interlace pattern, studded the side and roof. It had been beautifully restored – at least I assumed it had, for a thing like that couldn’t have been buried for fifteen centuries without getting battered.

‘So this is it,’ I murmured. ‘Funny. I postulated its existence, but never once visualized what it might be like. It’s . . . nice, isn’t it?’

‘Does it alter your image of the honest Scandinavian farmer?’ Max asked with a cynical smile.

‘It’s a reliquary,’ I said. ‘Probably Celtic. I admit you wouldn’t expect to find a Christian church or monastery in this area so early – but that doesn’t prove this was raiders’ loot. Maybe he got it in trade, or bought it, or – or something.’

‘You cling stubbornly to your preconceptions,’ Max said, amused.

I wasn’t sure myself why I resented the suggestion that the fifth-century lord of the island was a barbaric burner of churches. He wasn’t my ancestor; probably he wasn’t Gus’s ancestor either, despite the latter’s claim. And so what if he was? Nobody’s ancestors are perfect.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, shrugging my fantasies aside.

‘No. What does matter is the quality of the hoard. If the two objects found thus far are representative – and we can assume they are, since they were discovered by accident – then it is worth a great deal of trouble to me.’

‘Granted. But the treasure is looking more and more like a cache; you wouldn’t expect to find something like this reliquary in a pagan grave. Which makes your chances of finding it remote. Would I be rudely intruding into classified matters if I asked where you got this?’

‘What you really mean is why didn’t we ask the thief to draw us a map.’ Max spoke lightly, but I had hit a sore point. His hands began to move restlessly around the desk, as if they ached to be holding scissors and paper. ‘I see no reason why I shouldn’t tell you. We have not been able to locate the original finder. It could have been anyone – a farmhand, a trespasser, a hunter, a pair of lovers seeking privacy. The man we dealt with was several steps removed from the finder, and unfortunately the member of our organization who purchased the reliquary from him was too dense to see the implications. Not until it was viewed by one of our consultants did these emerge.’

‘You can’t blame the poor man,’ I said soothingly. ‘It’s pretty damned far-fetched, Max. Only a specialist in Scandinavian antiquities would make the connection.’

‘Yes, we were told that much when we questioned the seller a second time.’ Max saw my lips tighten, and went on quickly, ‘The only useful thing that emerged was his admission that he had not come to us first. When I heard Smythe’s name, I knew he was the man to follow. He has a number of annoying qualities, but he is without peer in his own field.’

With some self-disgust I realized I had been enjoying the conversation. The insights I had gained were interesting and possibly useful, but that wasn’t the reason why I found myself chatting away in such a relaxed fashion. The strange little man had a certain charm; you certainly couldn’t call it integrity. But there was unquestionably rapport between us, a sense that under far different circumstances we might have been friends. Even now, I think Max really did like me.

‘I’d help if I could,’ I said, and halfway meant it.

‘Then talk to Smythe.’ Max leaned forward, his eyes intent. ‘In my business one develops an instinct for such matters. I think he knows more than he admits. Find out what it is. If you succeed, you shall have your Mr Jonsson and all the security you wish.’

The interview was at an end. I found my own way out. Max was reaching for his scissors when I left the room. I don’t know what he used for a subject.