Desmond Bagley - The Tightrope Men / The Enemy

As he ate voraciously he glanced through The Times. The world still seemed to be wobbling on its political axis as unsteadily as ever and nothing had changed, so he tossed the newspaper aside and gave himself up to thought over a steaming cup of black coffee. What could be the motive for spiriting a man from his own bed, transforming him bodily, giving him a new personality and dumping him in a luxury hotel in the capital of Norway?

No answer.

The meal had invigorated him and he felt like moving and not sitting. He did not yet feel up to encountering people so he compromised by going through Meyrick’s possessions. He opened the wardrobe and in one of the drawers, underneath a pile of underwear, he found a large travelling wallet. Taking it to the dressing-table he unzipped it and went through the contents.

The first thing to catch his eyes was a British passport. He opened it to find the description of the holder was filled out in his own handwriting as was Meyrick’s signature underneath. The face that looked out of the photograph on the opposite page was that of Meyrick, who was described as a civil servant. Whoever had thought up this lark had been thorough about it.

He flipped through the pages and found only one stamped entry and his brow wrinkled as he studied it. Sverige ? Would that be Sweden? If so he had arrived at a place called Arlanda in Sweden on a date he could not tell because the stamping was blurred. Turning to the back of the passport he found that the sum of £1,500 had been issued a month earlier. Since the maximum travel allowance for a tourist was £300 it would seem that H. F. Meyrick was operating on a businessman’s allowance.

At the bottom of a pocket in the wallet he found an American Express credit card, complete with the ubiquitous fake signature. He looked at it pensively, flicking it with his fingernail. With this he could draw money or traveller’s cheques anywhere; he could use it to buy an airline ticket to Australia if he felt the urge to emigrate suddenly. It represented complete and unlicensed freedom unless and until someone put a stopper on it at head office.

He transferred it to the small personal wallet along with the driving licence. It would be better to keep that little bit of plastic available in case of need.

Meyrick had an extensive wardrobe; casual clothing, lounge suits and even a dinner-jacket with accessories. Denison investigated a small box and found it contained personal jewellery – studs, tiepins and a couple of rings – and he realized he probably held a thousand pounds’ worth of gold in his hand. The Patek Philippe watch on his wrist would cost £500 if it cost a penny. H. F. Meyrick was a wealthy man, so what kind of a civil servant did that make him?

Denison decided to get dressed. It was a sunny day so he chose casual trousers and a sports coat. The clothing fitted him as though made to measure. He looked at himself in the full-length mirror built into the wardrobe door, studiously ignoring the face on top of the body, and thought crazily that it, too, had probably been made to measure. The world began to spin again, but he remembered the small scar on his shin that belonged to Denison and that helped him to recover.

He put his personal possessions into his pockets and headed for the door, key in hand. As the door swung open a card which had been hung on the outer handle fell to the floor. He picked it up and read: VENNLIGST IKKE FORSTYRR – PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB. He was thoughtful as he hung it on the hook inside the door before locking the room; he would give a lot to know who had hung out that sign.

He went down in the lift with a couple of American blue-rinsed matrons who chattered to each other in a mid-West twang. ‘Say, have you been out to Vigeland Park? All those statues – I didn’t know where to look.’ The lift stopped and the doors slid open with a soft hiss, and the American ladies bustled out intent on sightseeing.

Denison followed them diffidently into the hotel lobby and stood by the lifts for a while, trying to get his bearings, doing his best to appear nonchalantly casual while he took in the scene.

‘Mr Meyrick … Mr Meyrick, sir!’

He turned his head and saw the porter at the desk smiling at him. Licking lips that had suddenly gone dry he walked over. ‘Yes?’

‘Would you mind signing this, sir? The check for the meal in your room. Just a formality.’

Denison looked at the proffered pen and laid down the room key. He took the pen and scribbled firmly ‘H. F. Meyrick’ and pushed the slip across the counter. The porter was hanging the key on the rack but he turned and spoke to Denison before he could slip away. ‘The night porter put your car away, sir. Here is the key.’

He held out a key with a tag on it and Denison extended his hand to take it. He glanced at the tag and saw the name, Hertz, and a car number. He cleared his throat. ‘Thank you.’

‘You sound as though you have a cold coming on,’ said the porter.

Denison took a chance. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘Your voice sounds different.’

‘Yes, I do feel a bit chesty,’ said Denison.

The porter smiled. ‘Too much night air, perhaps.’

Denison took another chance. ‘What time did I get in last night?’

‘This morning, sir. The night porter said it was about three o’clock.’ The porter offered Denison a man-of-the-world smile. ‘I wasn’t surprised when you slept in this morning.’

No , thought Denison; but I was! He was growing bolder as he gained confidence. ‘Can you tell me something? I was having a discussion with a friend about how long I’ve been here in Oslo and, for the life of me, I can’t remember the exact day I booked in here. Could you check it for me?’

‘Certainly, sir.’ The porter moved away and began to run through cards in a file. Denison looked at the car key. It was thoughtful of Hertz to put the car number on the tag; he might even be able to recognize it when he saw it. It was also thoughtful of the night porter to put the car away – but where the hell had he put it?

The porter returned. ‘You checked in on the eighteenth of June, sir. Exactly three weeks ago.’

The butterflies in Denison’s stomach collided. ‘Thank you,’ he said mechanically, and moved away from the desk and across the lobby. An arrow pointed the direction to the bar and he glanced sideways and saw a dark, cool cavern with a few drinkers, solitary or in couples. It looked quiet and he desperately wanted to think, so he went in.

When the barman came up, he said, ‘A beer, please.’

‘Export, sir?’

Denison nodded absently. June 18. He had reckoned he had lost a week so how the devil could he have booked into the Hotel Continental in Oslo three weeks earlier? How the hell could he have been in two places at the same time?

The barman returned, poured the beer into a glass, and went away. Denison tried to figure where he had been on June 18 and found it difficult. Three weeks was a long time. Where were you at 6.17 on the evening of June 18? No wonder people found it difficult to establish alibis. He found it extraordinarily difficult to focus his thoughts; they flicked about, skittering here and there wildly out of control. When did you last see your father? Nuts!

A vagrant thought popped to the surface of his consciousness. Edinburgh! He had been to Edinburgh On the 17th and the 18th he had taken off as a reward for hard work. There had been a leisurely morning and he had played golf in the afternoon; he had gone to the cinema in the evening and had dined late in Soho, getting back to Hampstead fairly late.

He – as Giles Denison – had dined in Soho at about the same time as he – as Harold Feltham Meyrick – had dined in Oslo. Where was the sense of that?