Desmond Bagley - The Tightrope Men / The Enemy

‘Carey wants to see you,’ said Diana. ‘If you leave the hotel, turn left and walk about three hundred yards, you’ll come to a place where they’re building a memorial or something. Be around there at ten o’clock.’

‘All right,’ said Denison.

‘And here’s your darling daughter.’ Diana raised her voice. ‘Good morning, Lyn.’

Denison turned and smiled appreciatively at Lyn’s chic appearance. It’s the money that makes the difference, he thought; the grand ideas of the rulers of the fashion world are apt to look tatty when filtered through the salary of a junior London typist. ‘Did you have a good night?’

‘Fine,’ said Lyn lightly, and sat down. ‘I didn’t expect to see you at breakfast, Mrs Hansen.’ She glanced sideways at Denison. ‘Did you sleep in the hotel last night?’

‘No, darling,’ said Diana sweetly. ‘I brought a message for your father.’

Lyn poured coffee. ‘What are we doing today?’

‘I have a business appointment this morning,’ said Denison. ‘Why don’t you two go shopping?’

A shadow briefly crossed Lyn’s face, but she said, ‘All right.’ Diana’s answering smile was sickly in its sweetness.

Denison found Carey with his rump buttressed by a coping stone and his back to the Royal Palace. He looked up at Denison’s approach and said brusquely, ‘We’re ready to move. Are you fit?’

Carey nodded. ‘How are you getting on with the girl?’

‘I’m tired of being Daddy,’ said Denison bitterly. ‘I’m only getting through by the skin of my teeth. She asks the damnedest questions.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘A nice kid in danger of being spoiled rotten – but for one thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Her parents were divorced and it’s messed up her life. I’m beginning to realize what an unmitigated bastard Harry Meyrick is.’ He paused. ‘Or was.’ He looked at Carey. ‘Any news?’

Carey flapped his hand in negation. ‘Tell me more.’

‘Well, the mother is a rich bitch who ignores the girl. I don’t think Lyn would care if she dropped dead tomorrow. But Lyn has always had a respect for her father; she doesn’t like him but she respects him. She looks up to him like a … like a sort of God.’ Denison rubbed his chin and said meditatively, ‘I suppose people respect God, but do they really like him? Anyway, every time she tries to get near Meyrick he slaps her down hard. That’s no way to bring up a daughter and it’s been breaking her up.’

‘I never did like his arrogance myself,’ said Carey. ‘It’s the one thing that would have given you away in the end. You’re not bloody-minded enough to be Meyrick.’

‘Thank God for that,’ said Denison.

‘But you get on with her all right? As Meyrick?’

Denison nodded. ‘So far – but no future guarantees.’

‘I’ve been thinking about her,’ said Carey. ‘Suppose we took her to Finland – what would the opposition think?’

‘For God’s sake!’ said Denison disgustedly.

‘Think about it, man,’ Carey urged. ‘They’d check on her, and when they find out who she is they’d be bloody flummoxed. They might think that if you’re good enough to deceive Meyrick’s daughter you’re good enough to deceive me.’

Denison was acid. ‘That’s not far short of the mark. I had to tell you who I was.’

‘You can do it,’ said Carey. ‘It adds a bit of confusion, and there’s nothing like confusion for creating opportunity. Right now we need all the luck we can create for ourselves. Will you ask her if she’ll go with you to Helsinki tomorrow?’

Denison was troubled. ‘It’s all right for me,’ he said. ‘I’m going into this with my eyes open – but she’s being conned. Will you guarantee her safety?’

‘Of course I will. She’ll be as safe as though she were in England.’

It was a long time before Denison made his decision. ‘All right,’ he said resignedly. ‘I’ll ask her.’

Carey slapped him lightly on the arm. ‘Which brings us back to Meyrick’s character. As you said – he’s a right bastard. Bear that in mind when you’re handling her.’

‘You want her in Finland,’ said Denison. ‘I don’t. If I really act like her father she’s going to run and hide like she always has. Do you want that?’

‘I can’t say I do,’ said Carey. ‘But lean too far the other way and she’ll know you’re not Meyrick.’

Denison thought of the many ways in which he had hurt Lyn by his apparent forgetfulness. As in the case of her mascot, for instance; he had idly picked it up and asked what it was. ‘But you know ,’ said Lyn in astonishment. He had incautiously shaken his head, and she burst out, ‘But you named him.’ There was a hurt look in her eyes. ‘You called him Thread-Bear.’

He laughed sourly. ‘Don’t worry; I’m hurting her enough just by being myself.’

‘It’s settled then,’ said Carey. ‘You have an appointment at Helsinki University tomorrow afternoon with Professor Pentti Kääriänen. Your secretary arranged it.’

‘Who the devil is he?’

‘He was one of Hannu Merikken’s assistants before the war. You are to introduce yourself as Merikken’s son and pump him about what Merikken was doing in his laboratory from 1937 to 1939. I want to find out if there’s been any other leakage about his X-ray researches.’ He paused. ‘Take the girl with you; it adds to your cover.’

‘All right.’ Denison gave Carey a level look. ‘And her name is Lyn. She’s not a bloody puppet; she’s a human being.’

Carey’s answering stare was equally unblinking. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ he said.

Carey watched Denison walk away and waited until he was joined by McCready. He sighed. ‘Sometimes I have moments of quiet desperation.’

McCready suppressed a smile. ‘What is it this time?’

‘See those buildings over there?’

McCready looked across the road. ‘That scrubby lot?’

‘That’s Victoria Terrace – there’s a police station in there now. The authorities wanted to pull it down but the conservationists objected and won their case on architectural grounds.’

‘I don’t see the point.’

‘Well, you see, it was Gestapo Headquarters during the war and it still smells to a lot of Norwegians.’ He paused. ‘I had a session in there once, with a man called Dieter Brun. Not a nice chap. He was killed towards the end of the war. Someone ran him down with a car.’

McCready was quiet because Carey rarely spoke of his past service. ‘I’ve been running around Scandinavia for nearly forty years – Spitzbergen to the Danish-German border, Bergen to the Russo-Finnish border. I’ll be sixty next month,’ said Carey. ‘And the bloody world hasn’t changed, after all.’ There was a note of quiet melancholy in his voice.

Next morning they all flew to Finland.

Lyn Meyrick was worried about her father, which was a new and unwanted experience. Her previous worries in that direction had always been for herself in relation to her father. To worry for her father was something new which gave her an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She had been delighted when he suggested that she accompany him to Finland; a delight compounded by the fact that for the first time he was treating her like a grown-up person. He now asked her opinion and deferred to her wishes in a way he had never done before. Diffidently she had fallen in with his wish that she call him by his given name and she was becoming accustomed to it.

However, the delight had been qualified by the presence of Diana Hansen who somehow destroyed that adult feeling and made her feel young and gawky like a schoolgirl. The relationship between Diana and her father puzzled her. At first she had thought they were lovers and had been neither surprised nor shocked. Well, not too shocked. Her father was a man and not all that old, and her mother had not been reticent about the reasons for the divorce. And, yet, she had not thought that Diana Hansen would have been the type to appeal to her father and the relationship seemed oddly cold and almost businesslike.