Алистер Маклин - Puppet on a Chain

‘Well, then, share it with us.’ Belinda, of course.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because there are men in Amsterdam who could take you and put you in a quiet dark room and make you talk.’

There was a long pause, then Belinda said: ‘And you wouldn’t?’

‘I might at that,’ I admitted. ‘But they wouldn’t find it so easy to get me into that quiet dark room in the first place.’ I picked up a batch of the invoices. ‘Either of you ever heard of the Kasteel Linden. No? Neither had I. It seems, however, that they supply our friends Morgenstern and Muggenthaler with a large proportion of pendulum clocks.’

‘Why pendulum clocks?’ Maggie asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I lied frankly. ‘There may be a connection. I’d asked Astrid to try to trace the source of a certain type of clock – she had, you understand, a lot of underworld connections that she didn’t want. But she’s gone now. I’ll look into it tomorrow.’

‘We’ll do it today.’ Belinda said. ‘We could go to this Kasteel place and–’

‘You do that and you’re on the next plane back to England. Alternatively, I don’t want to waste time dragging you up from the bottom of the moat that surrounds this castle. Clear?’

‘Yes, sir,’ they said meekly and in unison. It was becoming distressingly and increasingly plain that they didn’t regard my bite as being anywhere near as bad as my bark.

I gathered the papers and rose. ‘The rest of the day is yours. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.’

Oddly, they didn’t seem too happy about getting the rest of the day to themselves. Maggie said: ‘And you?’

‘A car trip to the country. To clear my head. Then sleep, then maybe a boat trip tonight.’

‘One of those romantic night cruises on the canals?’ Belinda tried to speak lightly but it didn’t come off. She and Maggie appeared to be on to something I’d missed. ‘You’ll need someone to watch your back, won’t you? I’ll come.’

‘Another time. But don’t you two go out on the canals. Don’t go near the canals. Don’t go near the night-clubs. And, above all, don’t go near the docks or that warehouse.’

‘And don’t you go out tonight either.’

I stared at Maggie. Never in five years had she spoken so vehemently, so fiercely even: and she’s certainly never told me what to do.

She caught my arm, another unheard-of thing. ‘Please.’

‘Maggie!’

‘Do you have to take that boat trip tonight?’

‘Now, Maggie–’

‘At two o’clock in the morning?’

‘What’s wrong, Maggie? It’s not like you to–’

‘I don’t know. Yes, I do know. Somebody seems to be walking over my grave with hob-nailed boots.’

‘Tell him to mind how he goes.’

Belinda took a step towards me. ‘Maggie’s right. You mustn’t go out tonight.’ Her face was tight with concern.

‘You, too, Belinda?’

‘Please.’

There was a strange tension in the room which I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Their faces were pleading, a curious near-desperation in their eyes, much as if I’d just announced that I was going to jump off a cliff.

Belinda said: ‘What Maggie means is, don’t leave us.’

Maggie nodded. ‘Don’t go out tonight. Stay with us.’

‘Oh, hell!’ I said. ‘Next time I need help abroad I’m going to bring a couple of big girls with me.’ I made to move past them towards the door, but Maggie barred the way, reached up and kissed me. Only seconds later Belinda did the same.

‘This is very bad for discipline,’ I said. Sherman out of his depth. ‘Very bad indeed.’

I opened the door and turned to see if they agreed with me. But they said nothing, just stood there looking curiously forlorn. I shook my head in irritation and left.

On the way back to the Rembrandt I bought brown paper and string. In the hotel room I used this to wrap up a complete kit of clothes that was now more or less recovered from the previous night’s soaking, printed a fictitious name and address on it and took it down to the desk. The assistant manager was in position.

‘Where’s the nearest post office?’ I asked.

‘My dear Mr Sherman–’ The punctiliously friendly greeting was automatic but he’d stopped smiling by this time ‘–we can attend to that for you.’

‘Thank you, but I wish to register it personally.’

‘Ah, I understand.’ He didn’t understand at all, which was that I didn’t want brows raised or foreheads creased over the sight of Sherman leaving with a large brown parcel under his arm. He gave me the address I didn’t want.

I put the parcel in the boot of the police car and drove through the city and the suburbs until I was out in the country, heading north. By and by I knew I was running alongside the waters of the Zuider Zee but I couldn’t see them because of the high retaining dyke to the right of the road. There wasn’t much to see on the left hand either: the Dutch countryside is not designed to send the tourist into raptures.

Presently I came to a signpost reading ‘Huyler 5 km’, and a few hundred yards further on turned left off the road and stopped the car soon after in the tiny square of a tiny picture-postcard village. The square had its post office and outside the post office was a public telephone-box. I locked the boot and doors of the car and left it there.

I made my way back to the main road, crossed it and climbed up the sloping grass-covered dyke until I could look out over the Zuider Zee. A fresh breeze sparkled the waters blue and white under the late afternoon sun, but, scenically, one couldn’t say much more for that stretch of water, for the encompassing land was so low that it appeared, when it appeared at all, as no more than a flat dark bar on the horizon. The only distinctive feature anywhere to be seen was an island to the north-east, about a mile off-shore.

This was the island of Huyler and it wasn’t even an island. It had been, but some engineers had built a causeway out to it from the mainland to expose the islanders more fully to the benefits of civilization and the tourist trade. Along the top of this causeway a tarmac highway had been laid.

Nor did the island itself even deserve the description of distinctive. It was so low-lying and flat that it seemed that a wave of any size must wash straight over it, but its flatness was relieved by scattered farm-houses, several big Dutch barns and, on the western shore of the island, facing towards the mainland, a village nestling round a tiny harbour. And, of course, it had its canals. That was all there was to be seen, so I left, regained the road, walked along till I came to a bus stop and caught the first bus back to Amsterdam.

I elected for an early dinner, for I did not expect to have much opportunity to eat later that night and I had the suspicion that whatever the fates had in store for me that night had better not be encountered on a full stomach. And then I went to bed, for I didn’t anticipate having any sleep later that night either.

The travel alarm awoke me at half-past midnight. I didn’t feel particularly rested. I dressed carefully in a dark suit, navy roll-neck jersey, dark rubber-soled canvas shoes and a dark canvas jacket. The gun I wrapped in a zipped oilskin bag and jammed into the shoulder-holster. Two spare magazines went into a similar pouch and I secured those in a zipped pocket of the canvas jacket. I looked longingly at the bottle of Scotch on the side-board and decided against it. I left.

I left, as was by now second nature to me, by the fire-escape. The street below, as usual, was deserted and I knew that nobody followed me as I left the hotel. It wasn’t necessary for anyone to follow me for those who wished me ill knew where I was going and where they could expect to find me. I knew they knew. What I hoped was that no one knew that I knew.