The Tightrope Men

Twenty-Six

‘I’m tired,’ said Harding. ‘But I don’t think I’ll sleep.’

Denison inspected the narrow patch of ground for stones before he unrolled his sleeping bag. He flicked an offender aside and said, ‘Why not?’

‘I can’t get used to broad daylight in the middle of the night.’

Denison grinned. ‘Why don’t you prescribe yourself a sleeping pill?’

‘I might do that.’ Harding picked a blade of grass and chewed it. ‘How are you sleeping these days?’

‘Not bad.’

‘Dream much?’

‘Not that I can remember. Why?’

Harding smiled. ‘I’m your resident head-watcher — appointed by that chit over there.’ He nodded towards Lyn who was peering dubiously into a camp kettle.

Denison unrolled his sleeping bag and sat on it. ‘What do you think of her?’

‘Personally or professionally?’

‘Maybe a bit of both.’

‘She seems to be a well-balanced young woman.’ There was amusement in Harding’s voice. ‘She certainly knew how to handle Carey — she caught him coming and going. And she jabbed me in a sore spot. She’s very capable, I’d say.’

‘She took her father’s death pretty coolly.’

Harding threw away the blade of grass and lit a cigarette. ‘She lived with her mother and stepfather and didn’t have much to do with Meyrick apart from quarrelling. I’d say her attitude to her father’s death was perfectly normal. She had other things to think about at the time.’

‘Yes,’ said Denison pensively.

‘I don’t think you need worry about Lyn Meyrick,’ said Harding. ‘She’s used to making up her own mind — and the minds of others, come to that.’

Diana Hansen came down the hill looking trim and efficient in the neat shirt and the drab trousers which she wore tucked into the tops of field boots — a world removed from the cool sophisticate Denison had met in Oslo. She cast a look at Lyn and walked over to the two men. ‘Time to do your bit with the theodolite, Giles.’

Denison scrambled to his feet. ‘Are they still with us?’

‘So I’m told,’ said Diana. ‘And there’s another party. We’re becoming popular. I’d go up on that ridge there — and stay in sight.’

‘All right.’ Denison took the theodolite out of its case, picked up the lightweight tripod, and walked up the hill in the direction Diana had indicated.

Harding smiled as he watched Denison’s retreating figure. He thought that Lyn Meyrick would make up Denison’s mind were she allowed to. From a psychiatric point of view it was most interesting — but he would have to have a word with the girl first. He got up and walked over to where Lyn was pumping the pressure stove.

Denison stopped on top of the ridge and set up the theodolite. He took the sheet of paper from his pocket, now much creased, and studied it before looking around at the view. This was the bit of fakery Carey had given him to make the deception look good. It had been written with a broad-nibbed pen — ‘No ballpoints in 1944,’ Carey had said — and artificially aged. Across the top was scrawled the single word, Luonnonpuisto and below that was a rough sketch of three lines radiating from a single point with the angles carefully marked in degrees. At the end of each line was again a single word — Järvi, Kukkula and Aukio — going around clockwise. Lake, hill and gap.

‘Not much to go on,’ Carey had said. ‘But it explains why you’re wandering around nature preserves with a theodolite. If anyone wants to rob you of that bit of paper you can let him. Maybe we can start a trade in theodolites.’

Denison looked around. Below ran the thread of a small river, the Kevojoki, and in the distance was the blue water of a lake pent in a narrow valley. He bent his head and sighted the theodolite at the head of the lake. Every time he did this he had a curious sense of déjà vu as though he had been accustomed to doing this all his life. Had he been a surveyor?

He checked the reading on the bezel and sighted again on the hill across the valley and took another reading. He took a notebook from his pocket and worked out the angle between the lake and the hill, then he swept the horizon looking for a possible gap. All this nonsense had to look good because he knew he was under observation — Carey’s red herring appeared to be swimming well.

It had been at lunchtime on the first day that Diana had said casually, ‘We’re being watched.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Denison. ‘I’ve seen nobody.’

‘McCready told me.’

McCready had not been in evidence at Kevo Camp and Denison had not seen him since Helsinki. ‘Have you been talking to him? Where is he?’

Diana nodded across the lake. ‘On the other side of the valley. He says that a party of three men is trailing us.’

Denison was sceptical. ‘I suppose you have a walkie-talkie tucked away in your pack.’

She shook her head. ‘Just this.’ From the pocket of her anorak she took a small plate of stainless steel, three inches in diameter; it had a small hole in the middle. ‘Heliograph,’ she said. ‘Simpler than radio and less detectable.’

He examined the double-sided mirror — that is what it amounted to — and said, ‘How can you aim it?’

‘I know where George McCready is now,’ she said. ‘He’s just been signalling to me. If I want to answer I hold this up and sight on his position through the hole. Then I look at my own reflection and see a circle of light on my cheek where the sun comes through the hole. If I tilt the mirror so that the circle of light goes into the hole, then the mirror on the other side flashes light into George’s eyes. From then on it’s simply a matter of Morse code.’

Denison was about to experiment when she took the gadget from him. ‘I told you we’re being watched. I can get away with it by pretending to make up my face — you can’t.’

‘Has McCready any idea of who is watching us?’

She shrugged. ‘He hasn’t got near enough to find out. I think it’s about time you started your act with the theodolite.’

So he had set up the theodolite and fiddled about checking angles, and had repeated the charade several times during the past two days.

Now he found what might, by a stretch of imagination, be called a gap and took the third reading. He calculated the angle, wrote it into his notebook, and put the notebook and the fake paper back into his pocket. He was dismantling the theodolite when Lyn came up the hill. ‘Supper’s ready.’

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Hold this.’ He gave her the theodolite. ‘Did Diana say anything about another group following us?’

Lyn nodded. ‘They’re coming up from behind very fast, she says.’

‘Where’s the first group?’

‘Gone on ahead.’

‘We’re like the meat in a sandwich,’ Denison said gloomily. ‘Unless it’s all a product of Diana’s imagination. I haven’t seen anyone around — and I certainly haven’t seen George McCready.’

‘I saw him signalling this morning,’ said Lyn. ‘He was on the other side of the valley. I was standing next to Diana and saw the flash, too.’

Denison collapsed the tripod and they both set off down the hill. ‘You and Harding have had your heads together lately. What do you find so interesting to talk about?’

She gave him a sideways glance. ‘You,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve been finding out about you; since I can’t ask you I’ve been asking him.’

‘Nothing bad, I hope.’

She smiled at him. ‘Nothing bad.’

‘That’s a relief,’ he said. ‘What’s for supper?’

‘Bully beef stew.’

He sighed. ‘I can’t wait.’