Алистер Маклин - Puppet on a Chain

‘I’ve climbed better ladders than those damned stairs of yours,’ I said feelingly.

‘I’m sorry. The girls’ hostel is cheaper, but with George … They don’t pay very highly at the Balinova.’

It was obvious from the two tiny rooms, neat but threadbare like George’s clothes, that they paid very little. I said: ‘People in your position are lucky to get anything.’

‘Please?’

‘Not so much of the “please” stuff. You know damned well what I mean. Don’t you. Miss Lemay – or may I call you Astrid?’

‘How do you know my name?’ Off-hand I couldn’t ever recall having seen a girl wring her hands but that’s what she was doing now. ‘How – how do you know things about me?’

‘Come off it,’ I said roughly. ‘Give some credit to your boy-friend.’

‘Boy-friend? I haven’t got a boy-friend.’

‘Ex-boy-friend, then. Or does “late boy-friend” suit you better?’

‘Jimmy?’ she whispered.

‘Jimmy Duclos,’ I nodded. ‘He may have fallen for you – fatally fallen for you – but he’d already told me something about you. I even have a picture of you.’

She seemed confused. ‘But – but at the airport–’

‘What did you expect me to do – embrace you? Jimmy was killed at the airport because he was on to something. What was that something?’

‘I’m sorry. I can’t help you.’

‘Can’t? Or won’t?’

She made no reply.

‘Did you love him, Astrid? Jimmy?’

She looked at me dumbly, her eyes glistening. She nodded slowly.

‘And you won’t tell me?’ Silence. I sighed and tried another tack. ‘Did Jimmy Duclos tell you what he was?’

She shook her head.

‘But you guessed?’

She nodded.

‘And told someone what you guessed.’

This got her. ‘No! No! I told nobody. Before God, I told nobody!’ She’d loved him, all right, and she wasn’t lying.

‘Did he ever mention me?’

‘No.’

‘But you know who I am?’

She just looked at me, two big tears trickling slowly down her cheeks.

‘You know damn well that I run Interpol’s narcotics bureau in London.’

More silence. I caught her shoulders and shook her angrily. ‘Well, don’t you?’

She nodded. A great girl for silences.

‘Then if Jimmy didn’t tell you, who did?’

‘Oh God! Please leave me alone!’ A whole lot of other tears were chasing the first two down her cheeks now. It was her day for crying and mine for sighing, so I sighed and changed my tack again and looked through the door at the boy on the bed.

‘I take it,’ I said, ‘that George is not the breadwinner of the family?’

‘George cannot work.’ She said it as if she were stating a simple law of nature. ‘He hasn’t worked for over a year. But what has George to do with this?’

‘George has everything to do with it.’ I went and bent over him, looked at him closely, lifted an eyelid and dropped it again. ‘What do you do for him when he’s like this?’

‘There is nothing one can do.’

I pushed the sleeve up George’s skeleton-like arm. Punctured, mottled and discoloured from innumerable injections, it was a revolting sight: Trudi’s had been nothing compared to this. I said: ‘There’s nothing anyone will ever be able to do for him. You know that, don’t you?’

‘I know that.’ She caught my speculative look, stopped dabbing her face with a lace handkerchief about the size of a postage stamp and smiled bitterly. ‘You want me to roll up my sleeve.’

‘I don’t insult nice girls. What I want to do is to ask you some simple questions that you can answer. How long has George been like this?’

‘Three years.’

‘How long have you been in the Balinova?’

‘Three years.’

‘Like it there?’

‘Like it?’ This girl gave herself away every time she opened her mouth. ‘Do you know what it is to work in a night-club – a night-club like that? Horrible, nasty, lonely old men leering at you–’

‘Jimmy Duclos wasn’t horrible or nasty or old.’

She was taken aback. ‘No. No, of course not. Jimmy–’

‘Jimmy Duclos is dead, Astrid. Jimmy is dead because he fell for a night-club hostess who’s being blackmailed.’

‘Nobody’s blackmailing me.’

‘No? Then who’s putting the pressure on you to keep silent, to work at a job you obviously loathe? And why are they putting pressure on you? Is it because of George here? What has he done or what do they say he has done? I know he’s been in prison, so it can’t be that. What is it, Astrid, that made you spy on me? What do you know of Jimmy Duclos’s death? I know how he died. But who killed him and why?’

‘I didn’t know he’d be killed!’ She sat down on the bed-sofa, her hands covering her face, her shoulders heaving. ‘I didn’t know he would be killed.’

‘All right, Astrid.’ I gave up because I was achieving nothing except a mounting dislike for myself. She’d probably loved Duclos, he was only a day dead and here was I lacerating bleeding wounds. ‘I’ve known too many people walk in the fear of death to even try to make you talk. But think about it, Astrid, for God’s sake and your own sake, think about it. It’s your life, and that’s all that’s left for you to worry about now. George has no life left.’

‘There’s nothing I can do, nothing I can say.’ Her face was still in her hands. ‘Please go.’

I didn’t think there was anything more I could do or say either, so I did as she asked and left.

Clad only in trousers and singlet I looked at myself in the tiny mirror in the tiny bathroom. All traces of the stain seemed to have been removed from my face, neck and hands, which was more than I could say for the large and once-white towel I held in my hands. It was sodden and stained beyond recovery to a deep chocolate colour.

I went through the door into the bedroom that was hardly big enough to take the bed and the bed-settee it contained. The bed was occupied by Maggie and Belinda, both sitting upright, both looking very fetching in very attractive nightdresses which appeared to consist mainly of holes. But I’d more urgent problems on my mind at the moment than the way in which some night-wear manufacturers skimped on their material.

‘You’ve ruined our towel,’ Belinda complained.

‘Tell them you were removing your make-up.’ I reached for my shirt, which was a deep russet colour all round the inside of the neck-band, but there was nothing I could do about that. ‘So most of the night-club girls live in this Hostel Paris?’

Maggie nodded. ‘So Mary said.’

‘So Mary said.’

‘Mary?’

‘This nice English girl working in the Trianon.’

‘There are no nice English girls working in the Trianon, only naughty English girls. Was she one of the girls in church?’ Maggie shook her head. ‘Well, that at least bears out what Astrid said.’

‘Astrid?’ Belinda said. ‘You spoke to her?’

‘I passed the time of day with her. Not very profitably, I’m afraid. She wasn’t communicative.’ I told them briefly how uncommunicative she’d been, then went on: ‘Well, it’s time you two started doing a little work instead of hanging about night-clubs.’ They looked at each other, then coldly at me. ‘Maggie, take a stroll in the Vondel Park tomorrow. See if Trudi is there, you know her. Don’t let her see you – she knows you. See what she does, if she meets anyone, talks to anyone: it’s a big park but you should have little difficulty in locating her if she’s there she’ll be accompanied by an old dear who’s about five feet round the middle. Belinda, keep tabs on that hostel tomorrow evening. If you recognize any girl who was in the church, follow her and see what she’s up to.’ I shrugged into my very damp jacket. ‘Good night.’