Terror's Cradle

CHAPTER SEVEN

There could have been two Schmids, of course. But that possibility was disposed of quickly. This was the real Inspector Schmid, the only Inspector Schmid, the genuine article. And he was far from amused: impersonating a police officer was a very serious matter. Presumably impersonating two was doubly serious. Schmid demanded immediate descriptions of the impostors and sent Gustaffson off as soon as I'd given them, to make sure the descriptions were circulated at once to the whole Gothenburg force. When that was done, he looked at me grimly. 'I have here a note to telephone you, Mr Sellers. I would have done that.'

Ì had a feeling the other man wouldn't,' I replied. Ànd I was right.'

Òkay.'

We went over the whole business and Schmid was very far from happy. I got the impression he was accustomed to clearing his cases quickly and efficiently, and liked continuing mysteries no more than I did. When I told him about the rooms on either side of Alsa's and the lift direct to the garage, he said yes, he was aware of the possibilities and was pursuing inquiries with some vigour. Messieurs Maisels and Cohen were, it seemed, salesmen. He'd spoken to both

next morning; they'd known nothing and said they had heard nothing, and were leaving for home forthwith. He'd had no reason to keep them in Sweden and had had to let them go. Mr and Mrs Scott were tourists and had stayed only one night, leaving for a Lake Vattern resort next morning.

It was all very pat. I said so and Schmid didn't disagree. Schmid was a familiar type, a hard-nosed and patient professional, not especially happy to see me, but perfectly prepared, since I was there, to find out if there was anything I knew that he didn't. We went over the whole ground several times. Then he said, 'You think she was carrying something, do you not?'

`Depends what you mean. I don't believe she was a courier. Certainly not intentionally.'

Ìntent is not involved. She may have been carrying something.'

Ìf she was, she didn't know,' I said.

`You are wrong. Okay?'

`Go on.'

He looked at me speculatively. 'You are also right.' I said, 'Just tell me.'

`You are right about part of the time. Wrong about the other part. Look at it this way, Mr Sellers. She had spent nearly two weeks in Russia. I am told there was no trouble.'

I nodded, thinking about the sudden search at Sheremetyevo Airport. Maybe Schmid didn't know about that.

He went on. 'She arrived here in Gothenburg and behaved perfectly naturally?'

`Yes.'

Tor a while. Describe to me what she did.'

Àll right. She went out to the printers'. To Strom Brothers, with Marasov.' I was watching him as I spoke. Marasov's name wasn't news to him. 'They worked for a while, then she left and returned o the Scanda Hotel with Marasov. They had one drink, then Marasov left.'

`Your deduction from all this?'

I said, 'All right, she was behaving normally'

`She was. But afterwards, no. Afterwards she telephones London. She even telephones to America. To a Mr Sellers, person-to-person. Okay?'

Ì didn't get the call,' I said. I didn't enlarge on it. Schmid nodded. 'Does she often telephone you like that?' `No.'

`You are her lover? Fiancé?'

`Neither. A friend.'

Òkay. She is not able to speak to her friend. She leaves the hotel. Alone.'

`Where did she go?'

' 'I do not know. But she was out for quite a long time. Nearly three hours.'

`Having dinner?'

`Perhaps. But not in any restaurant in Gothenburg! `You've checked them all?'

We are thorough. Not inspired, perhaps, but thorough. If she left the city it was not by taxi. We checked that, too. When she returns, she goes to her room. Half an hour passes. Then she telephones the police and says she believes her life is in danger. What does that mean?'

I said, 'You believe it means she had found something?' Èxactly.'

`When?' I asked. 'If she'd found something, when did she find it? Before she went out, or after?'

`That,' he said, 'is a problem. Logically it was when she returned. It is sensible? She returns, finds what it was she carried, and telephones the police.'

`Because her life is in danger. But what made her think that? Why did she believe she was in danger?'

Schmid said, 'Perhaps it was the fire.'

I must have looked as surprised as I felt. 'What fire was that?' I demanded. Àt the Scanda Hotel. The letter box. A small quantity of phosphorus was placed in the letter box, Mr Sellers. All the letters were burned. You did not know.'

`No,' I said. 'I didn't know. Had she posted a letter?'

`We do not know. The heat of burning phosphorus is intense. Nothing was left except small ash.'

I remembered the workman in the hotel foyer, working on a cupboard. I said, without thinking. 'She'd phone. She wouldn't write letters.'

`No? A birthday card to a relative? A postcard? The British send many postcards.'

I said, 'Or whatever it was she'd found. Perhaps, when she found it, if she found it, she put it in an envelope and posted it. Postal services are secure.'

Schmid nodded. 'Very secure in Sweden, as in most countries. But not until the letter is collected. The letter box was not secure. Okay?'

Òkay.'

Òkay. If she posted the thing she found. If it was destroyed . . .' He paused and left me to finish.

`You mean, why was she kidnapped?'

Ìf she was kidnapped.'

I said lamely, 'Yes.' I could see his problem very dearly. `So you see.'

`Were there,' I asked, 'any indications at all that she had been in another room? The ones on either side, for in-, stance?'

Schmid shook his head. 'No trace. We took what we believe are Alison Hay's fingerprints from some papers. There were no such fingerprints in either room, though there were many in her own.'

Àmericans one side, Jews the other.'

`Frenchmen,' he corrected. 'Possibly Jewish. You have thought they were Israeli? Why?'

I shrugged helplessly. `No reason. I'm trying to find some reason for it all. You've had trouble with' Arab terrorists in Sweden.'

`We have trouble with Germans and British and Americans, too. Also with Russians and Greeks, Norwegians and Danes. This is a cosmopolitan city. Ìt's not the same thing!'

`No, Mr Sellers, it is not. But conclusions cannot yet be

reached. There are too many possibilities.'

I said bitterly, 'Okay, it's a bloody fine intellectual exercise. Meanwhile, where the hell is she? Who's got her? And why?'

His answer didn't help. 'We have a small population and a big country, Mr Sellers. There are more places to hide than could ever be searched.'

Àll right then. Let's start at the beginning. Who could have used her to bring something out of Russia?'

The question was rhetorical and stupid and a product of frustration. Schmid answered counting on his fingers. 'American, British to begin. Sweden, since this is where she came. France — we have Frenchmen, okay? The Russians themselves.'

`Why the Russians?'

`Who knows,' Schmid said, 'why the Russians do things?' Àll right. I'm sorry.'

`Do not be. We are not inactive, Mr Sellers. I wish you to believe that.'

Ì believe it. Can I see Alison's room?'

`No.'

`Why not?'

`Because that room isall we have. I have examined it. There appears to be nothing—'

`There may be something I'd notice that you wouldn't.'

Àgreed, Mr Sellers. But I think not. Understand please that my work is progressive. We find one thing, then another. Perhaps something in the room will be step two, useful when we have taken the first step.'

Àll the same —'

But he was wearying of it. He said, `Do the British police allow journalists to examine important evidence during an investigation? I think not. Neither do we.'

I left him then and set off back to the Scanda Hotel, walking for once. There was no hurry; there seemed to be nothing I could do. If Gothenburg's police hadn't been able to trace where Alsa went, the night she disappeared, it was unlikely I could. Equally, if they'd found no clue as to where she'd been taken, I hadn't much chance either. But the stuff locked up in her room was different and I wanted to see it. The more I thought about it, the more I was certain there'd be something there. Alsa had made the phone call to the police because she was scared. But at least she'd had time to make the phone call. But why had she made it from her room. Why hadn't she gone down to the lobby where there were people? Because she daren't? Because she knew somebody was waiting, either outside or in the adjoining rooms? She'd returned to the hotel, spent a while in her room, then rung the police. Why hadn't she telephoned immediately, the moment she'd come in. Why had she waited? Because something must have happened after she went to the room. Either that or she'd found something.

I knew Alsa. She might have been scared, but she wouldn't have panicked. She'd think, tightly and clearly, before she acted. She wouldn't reach instantly for the phone the way I would. Alsa used to tease me sometimes. You, she'd say, are a telephone reporter; too idle to use your feet. It wasn't entirely untrue.

I didn't realize it then, but I'd almost got on to something with that train of thought. The train, however, was derailed when I reached the hotel. I was crossing the lobby to the lift when a voice said, 'Is that Mr Sellers?'

I looked round and he was walking towards me, grinning, apparently, as surprised as I was. Damn it, what was his name? Then I remembered. I said, 'This is a surprise, Mr Elliot. What are you doing here?'

`Just gonna ask you the same thing.' He laughed. 'Buy you a drink?'

As we walked towards the bar, I said, 'The odds against this are rather large.'

`Yeah. Good to see you. I'll say they're large, Mr Sellers. I thought you were staying in London.'

Ì thought you were going to Lapland.

`Still am. Question is when. My cameraman's been recalled, so I'm stuck.'

`But you were flying to Stockholm.'

`Yeah. Bell's Whisky, right?' I nodded and he, ordered.

`There's another cameraman been photographing the Norwegian Skerries or some such. He's due back in Gothenburg. Doesn't know I'm waiting, poor bastard. What brings you?'

I said, 'It's a bit difficult. You know!' One reporter-toanother talk, I'm on a story and I'm not telling you, so don't inquire.

`Hell. I don't work for the wire services!'

`There are people in the newspaper game,' I said, 'who don't let their left hands know what their right hands are doing.'

Òkay, okay. If it's that good. Skol !'

`Skol.'

I sipped the whisky, 'making myself smile at him but remembering Schmid counting on his fingers. Who'd be likely to be interested in things brought out of Russia? The Americans for one, and more-than most. I wondered whether Elliot really did work for National Geographic and probed gently as we talked, but he was technically sound and full of Charlie this and Fred that and how pleasant it always was to return from foreign fields to the manicured headquarters in the Maryland countryside. Whether he worked there or not, his cover was too good even to dent, so I stopped trying. He'd just said, 'How 'bout dinner tonight, John?' – by that time we'd reached the John and Harvey stage – when my name was paged over the hotel Tannoy. At the desk I was told there was a phone call for me and I went into the foyer kiosk to take it.

`Hello?'

`Mr Sellers. Mr John Sellers?' It was a man's voice, possibly a trace of accent.

`Yes.'

`You will be interested in a house at Storgatan forty-one, Gothenburg.'

Yes, there was a trace of accent. Swedish, I thought, at any rate Scandinavian. 'Why will I be interested? And who's speaking?'

`Storgatan forty-one,' he said, and hung up.

I replaced the receiver and went to fetch my raincoat from the bar. Elliot had gone and his glass was empty. I put on the coat, went out to look for a cab and there was Elliot on the steps. He smiled. 'Stuffy in there. Thought I'd get a breath of air.'

`Fine,' I said meaninglessly, staring angrily across at the empty taxi rank. I crossed the pavement and stood at the edge, looking up and down the road for a cruising cab.

`Drive you somewhere?' Elliot called. He was holding up his car keys invitingly. I hesitated. I didn't want him with me, but impatience was the dominant emotion at the time. 'All right. Thanks.'

He walked towards a blue Saab 99 parked just off the road and opened the door. 'Don't worry,' he said as I joined him. Ì'm not horning in on your big exclusive. Just bored; that'

s all. Where'd you wanna go?'

`Storgatan forty-one, wherever that is.'

He laughed. 'It's okay. There's a street guide in the pocket here. You look for it while I get-this thing moving.'

Storgatan was a dismal street off the main Gothenburg Moludan road, about three miles away, and we cruised slowly along it until I saw number forty-one. Most of the houses were empty and it was probably a demolition area. The house was old, or at least middleaged, one of a terrace, three stories high. I told Elliot to stop the car and walked back to the house.

There were eight or nine stone steps leading from the iron gate up to the front door and I went up them slowly, already aware that. Storgatan forty-one was empty. The windows were dirty and the only curtains were a couple of tatty rags hanging limply at one upstairs window. The paint of the door and the wooden front was more than peeling, it was almost peeled. The house was fast becoming derelict. Perhaps there wasn't much point in knocking at the door, but

I knocked anyway, as much from habit as anything else. The knock echoed hollowly : the unmistakable sound of an empty house.

I gave it a minute, then tried the door. Peeling and dirty it might be, but it was also strong and locked. There was an iron rail to the steps and I held on to it as I tried to peer into the ground floor window. All I could see through the grubby pane was old floorboards with a few bits of yellowish newspaper lying about.

`No luck?' Elliot called. He'd climbed out of the car and was leaning easily against it. Ì'll try the back,' I said. As I came down the steps I stopped to look in through the cellar window, but that room, too, was deserted; empty and filthy like the rest of the house. As an afterthought, I went back to the door and had a look at the locks, wondering whether they'd been used recently, but it was impossible to tell.

`Do I come along?' Elliot asked.

Ìf you like.' I was marching urgently down the street, wondering who'd sent me here and why. The house must hold something, and it must be something to do with Alsa's disappearance. Suddenly I felt bile rush into my throat at the thought of what the secret of Storgatan 41 might be.

The street at the rear was cobbled and the yards — nobody could call them gardens —

were full of broken-down outhouses and sour earth. From the rear, number forty-one looked even more dismally decayed than from the front.

`Realtor's dream,' Elliot said sardonically as I pushed open the bent, wooden gate. A few weeds were fighting their battle for survival in the hard-packed ground. I walked first to the cellar window, rubbed away some of the muck with my hand, and looked in. There was a chipped stone sink and a few rags hanging on nails on the walls. Nothing else. The back door, too, was locked and what I could see of the ground floor back room was simply a repeat of the front : dusty floorboards and old newspapers.

`How bad you want to get in?' Elliot asked.

`Badly enough.'

`Well, I reckon that window there's just waiting for a jack-knife blade.' He was pointing to the cellar window. Ànd I just happen to have the jack-knife. '

`Give it to me, then.'

The window was the sliding sash type, with a turner-bar securing the two halves. As Elliot had kindly pointed out, it was easy with the jack-knife. I poked the blade between the top of one frame and the bottom of the other and pushed. The bar turned. Now, would the window slide? The top half wouldn't move, but the bottom half did, with a bit of effort, creaking upward awkwardly. When I'd raised it, I held it carefully in case it crashed down again.

`Coming?'

Why not! What's a little burglarizing matter?'

Strangely enough I hadn't thought of the illegality; now he'd mentioned it, I didn't care anyway. `Coming?' I asked again.

`Sure. I'll take the weight while you go through.' A second later we were in the house. We looked at the cellars first but they were empty. So were the ground floor rooms. As I started up the worn, wooden stairs, Elliot asked, 'Just what do you plan to find?' There was no answer I could bear to make.

The first things I found were in what had been a bedroom. A few paper food bags lay crumpled in a corner with some plastic cups that still contained the dregs of coffee with the remains of a film of cream white on the surface. I'm not inexperienced in the matter of dirty cups and at a guess the liquid was no more than a day old. There was nothing else on the first floor.

That left the attic rooms and I looked up the gloomy stair in trepidation. It was possible Alsa was up there. And if she was . . . well, if she was, there hadn't been a sound. The stair rail must have been well polished in its time by dedicated Swedish housewives, because it was still shiny brown in patches where the dust had been disturbed as somebody held on to it to go up or down.

I took a deep breath and hurried up. There were two doors on a little landing at the top. As it happened I opened the wrong one first. That room was empty. The other room was not. In there, two men lay on the floor, both wearing suits, both in early middle-age. Behind me Elliot said suddenly, 'Jesus!'

I stepped forward and went to look at the man nearest me. His face, mottled with tiny skin haemorrhages, was already darkening, and round his neck was a deep, heavy red mark made by the ligature that had been used to strangle him. The other man had died in exactly the same way.