Robert Goddard - Name To a Face

“I’m not a monster. Or a murderer. I think she’s coming round to understanding that. And she must realize the only reason we haven’t shopped her to the police is that we want to do our best for her-and draw a line under this whole bloody episode.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am. According to Nathan she sounded humble, almost apologetic. She wants to put it all behind her, Tim. We just have to make it possible. And we will. Tomorrow.”

It was not yet eleven o’clock when Harding returned to his room. Tozer had called an early halt to their drinking session to ensure they both had a clear head in the morning. Harding felt far from sleepy, however. And he needed, for his own sake, to check Barney’s optimistic assessment of their situation with Carol. Her number was busy the first time he tried it. And the second. But not the third.

“Nice of you to call” was her barbed greeting.

“Have you just been talking to Barney?” he asked, ignoring the rebuke.

“Yeah. We’ve been saying goodnight, like the happily married couple we are.”

“How did he seem?”

“Fine. The way he tells, it, tomorrow gets the job done.”

“What about Nathan Gashry? How did he seem?”

“Grouchy and grudging. As you’d expect. He didn’t enjoy having to call me.”

“Why do you think Hayley went through him?”

“You tell me. You know her better than I do.”

“I have this feeling she may be more interested in confrontation than conciliation.”

“I’m sure you can handle that.”

“I’m doing my best on your behalf as well as my own, Carol. Remember that.”

“I’m trying to.”

“How did Hayley know Barney and I were both here? That’s what worries me.”

“Barney thinks she may have a mole at the clinic.”

“I doubt it.”

“What’s your theory then?”

“I don’t know. But…”

“Got an itchy feeling between the shoulder blades?”

“Sorry?”

“They tell me it’s a sign you’re being watched.”

Harding sighed. “Thanks for the advice.”

“Listen, Tim.” She sounded suddenly more serious. “Maybe Barney’s right. Maybe Hayley’s willing to come quietly. That’d be fine as far as it goes. But it doesn’t get us off the hook with Tony Whybrow, does it? What are we going to do about him?”

“I don’t know.”

“No. And neither do I. That’s what should be worrying you.”

Harding felt, if anything, less drowsy after his conversation with Carol than before. He resorted to Euromush television in the hope it might knock him out. But long before the rules of an Italian game show had become clear to him, his phone rang, only for the caller to cancel the moment he answered. The number had been withheld, which was suspicious in itself. A repeat performance a minute or so later convinced him someone was trying to tell him something.

It was the recollection of Carol’s crack about an itchy feeling between the shoulder blades that prompted him to go to the window and check the street outside. He had closed the shutter earlier. A surreptitious peek was hardly possible. There was nothing for it but to open the window and then the shutter to see if there really was anyone keeping watch on his room.

The figure on the opposite pavement was walking away. But Harding’s instinctive impression was that she had been stationary until the instant he opened the shutter. Her face was obscured by the brim of a hat. But he recognized the short, belted mac. She was Hayley’s height and build. In that moment, there was no doubt in his mind. It was her.

He only realized it was raining heavily when he burst out of the hotel. There were several groups of people making their way along the street, clutching umbrellas, and a couple of taxis dropping off passengers. His glimpse of Hayley in the distance, rounding a corner, was scarcely more than a guess. But he raced in pursuit.

There she was again, surely, rounding the next corner into the main shopping street. He was running headlong now, oblivious to the rain and the traffic and the passers-by. But she was running too, a twitch of shadow implying a backward glance. And the lights of Marienplatz U-Bahn station gleamed ahead. Suddenly, she vanished from sight.

Harding’s plunge down the steps to the station was slowed by a collision with a couple coming up. The male half fired some insults after him as he reached the concourse. He did not look back. His eyes scanned the escalators leading down to the platforms. There was no sign of Hayley. She could have taken any one of them. He could hear trains pulling in and out even as he stood there, hesitating. Every line on the system went through Marienplatz, to judge by the number of destinations on offer. He had no idea where Hayley was going. If evading him was her priority, she could have chosen the first train to anywhere, or even exited the station at the other end of the concourse.

He checked all the platforms in the end, futile though he knew the effort would be. The clocks of the city churches were striking midnight as he made his way back to the hotel. It had stopped raining and was growing rapidly colder. He was shivering, though whether the drenching he had received was the cause he could not have said.

By morning Harding had convinced himself he might have been mistaken. Maybe the woman he had seen was not Hayley after all, but someone who merely happened to look like her, someone hurrying through the rain to catch a late train home. Why should she be watching him when they were due to meet soon anyway? And why should she run from him? It made no sense. But what about the phone calls? Who had made them? Who-and why?

He said nothing to Tozer about what had happened. His doubts and suspicions were too vague to put into words and nothing seemed likely to dent the other man’s confidence that their rendezvous with Hayley would bring a resolution of their problems. Harding had more problems than Tozer knew about, of course. A resolution of them all was way out of reach. But Hayley had said she wanted to meet them. And he badly wanted to see her again-to talk to her, to make her understand. The circumstances would not be ideal. They would be about as far as possible from ideal. But they were the only ones on offer.

Nymphenburg. The baroque, white-faced palace flung back the clear winter light at them as they walked towards it. A tunnel led beneath the central block to a formal garden, beyond which the park, patched with old snow and fresh frost, stretched its wooded acres into the distance. The sky was cloudless, every shadow sharply etched.

Halfway along the path leading through the garden to the canal basin, Tozer checked his watch and announced they were early for their appointment with Hayley They diverted to the nearest bench and sat down. Tozer lit a cigarette and gazed back at the palace.

“Know anything about the Bavarian royal family, Tim?” he asked, to Harding’s surprise.

“As much as you, I expect.”

Tozer chuckled. “You underestimate me. Carol and I toured the castles down near the Austrian border the year after we were married. Y’know: the fairytale ones built by Mad King Ludwig. Neuschwanstein and the rest. As King of Bavaria, Ludwig must have whiled away quite a lot of his time here in his day, mustn’t he?”

“So?”

“So, we remember him as mad. Which is how a lot of people remember Hayley. I wondered… if she chose to meet us here… to make some kind of point about that.”

“Are you serious?”

“Not sure. But I’m definitely serious about making this meeting work. For all of us. I’m going to follow Lawton’s lead. Tell Hayley about her sister. What happened to her the day she died. I mean when she really died, not when Hanckel pulled the plug on her four years later. Hayley’s never heard my account of the accident, has she? It’s time she did.”