Puppet on a Chain (21 page)

I wasn't, but it had been a near thing. Less than thirty seconds after I had begun my surveillance of the cabin, two men emerged, one carrying a sack over his shoulder. Although the sack's contents had clearly been heavily padded, there was an unmistakable angularity to it that left me in little doubt that this was the case that interested me.

The two men went ashore. I watched them for a few moments to get a general idea of the direction they were taking, slid back down the muddy bank -- another item on my expense account, my suit had taken a terrible beating that night -- and set off to follow the two men.

They were easy to follow. Not only had they plainly no suspicion that they were being followed, those narrow and crazily winding lanes made Huyler a shadow's paradise. Eventually the two men brought up at a long, low building on the northern outskirts of the village. The ground floor -- or cellar as it would be in this village -- was made of concrete. The upper storey, reached by a set of wooden steps similar to another concealing set of steps from which I was watching at a safe distance of forty yards, had tall and narrow windows with bars so closely set that a cat would have had difficulty in penetrating, the heavy door had two metal bars across it and was secured by two large padlocks. Both men mounted the stairs, the unburdened man unlocking the two padlocks and opening the door, then both passed inside. They reappeared again within twenty seconds, locked the door behind them and left. Both men were now unburdened.

I felt a momentary pang of regret that the weight of my burglar's belt had compelled me to leave it behind that night, but one does not go swimming with considerable amounts of metal belted around one's waist. But the regret was only momentary. Apart from the fact that fifty different windows overlooked the entrance to this heavily barred building and the fact that a total stranger would almost certainly be instantly recognizable to any of the villagers in Huyler, it was too soon yet to show my hand: minnows might make fair enough eating but it was the whales I was after and I needed the bait in that box to catch them.

I didn't need a street guide to find my way out of Huyler. The harbour lay to the west, so the terminus of the causeway road must lie to the east. I made my way along a few narrow winding lanes, in no mood to be affected by the quaint old-world charm that drew so many tens of thousands of tourists to the village each summer, and came to a small arched bridge that spanned a narrow canal. The first three people I'd seen in the village so far, three Huyler matrons dressed in their traditional flowing costumes, passed me by as I crossed the bridge. They glanced at me incuriously, then as indifferently looked away again as if it were the most natural thing in the world to meet in the streets of Huyler in the early morning a man who had obviously been recently immersed in the sea.

A few yards beyond the canal lay a surprisingly large car park -- at the moment it held only a couple of cars and half a dozen bicycles, none of which had padlock or chain or any other securing device. Theft, apparently, was no problem on the island of Huyler, a fact which I found hardly surprising: when the honest citizens of Huyler went in for crime they went in for it in an altogether bigger way. The car park was devoid of human life nor had I expected to find an attendant at that hour. Feeling guiltier about it than about any other action I had performed since arriving at Schiphol Airport, I selected the most roadworthy of the bicycles, trundled it up to the locked gate, lifted it over, followed myself, and pedalled on my way. There were no cries of 'Stop thief!' or anything of the kind.

It was years since I'd been on a bicycle, and though I was in no fit state to recapture that first fine careless rapture I got the hang of it again quickly enough, and while I hardly enjoyed the trip it was at least better than walking and had the effect of getting some of my red corpuscles on the move again.

I parked the bicycle in the tiny village square where I'd left the police taxi -- it was still there -- and looked thoughtfully first at the telephone-box, then at my watch: I decided it was still too early, so I unlocked the car and drove off.

Half a mile along the Amsterdam road I came to an old Dutch barn standing well apart from its farm-house. I stopped the car on the road in such a position that the barn came between it and anyone who might chance to look out from the farm-house. I unlocked the boot, took out the brown paper parcel, made for the barn, found it unlocked, went inside and changed into a completely dry set of clothing. It didn't have the effect of transforming me into a new man, I still found it impossible to stop shivering, but at least I wasn't sunk in the depths of that clammily ice-cold misery that I'd been in for hours past.

I went on my way again. After only another half-mile I came to a roadside building about the size of a small bungalow whose sign defiantly claimed that it was a motel. Motel or not, it was open, and I wanted no more. The plump proprietress asked if I wanted breakfast, but I indicated that I had other and more urgent needs. They have in Holland the charming practice of filling your glass of jonge Genever right to the very brim and the proprietress watched in astonishment and considerable apprehension as my shaking hands tried to convey the liquid to my mouth. I didn't lose more than half of it in spillage, but I could see she was considering calling either police or medical aid to cope with an alcoholic with the DT's or a drug addict who had lost his hypodermic, whichever the case might be, but she was a brave woman and supplied me with my second jonge Genever on demand. This time I didn't lose more than a quarter of it, and third time round not only did I spill hardly a drop but I could distinctly feel the rest of my layabout red corpuscles picking up their legs and giving themselves a brisk workout. With the fourth jonge Genever my hand was steady as a rock.

I borrowed an electric razor, then had a gargantuan breakfast of eggs and meat and ham and cheeses, about four different kinds of bread and half a gallon, as near as dammit, of coffee. The food was superb. Fledgling motel it might have been, but it was going places. I asked to use the phone.

I got through to the Hotel Touring in seconds, which was a great deal less time than it took for the desk to get any reply from Maggie's and Belinda's room. Finally, a very sleepy-voiced Maggie said: 'Hullo. Who is it?' I could just see her standing there, stretching and yawning.

'Out on the tiles last night, eh?' I said severely.

'What?' She still wasn't with me.

'Sound asleep in the middle of the day.' It was coming up for eight a.m. 'Nothing but a couple of mini-skirted layabouts.'

'Is it -- is it you!'

'Who else but the lord and master?' The jonge Genevers were beginning to make their delayed effect felt.

'Belinda! He's back!' A pause. 'Lord and master, he says.'

'I'm so glad!' Belinda's voice. 'I'm so glad. We -- '

'You're not half as glad as I am. You can get back to your bed. Try to beat the milkman to it tomorrow morning.'

'We didn't leave our room.' She sounded very subdued. 'We talked and worried and hardly slept a wink and we thought -- '

'I'm sorry. Maggie? Get dressed. Forget about the foam baths and breakfast. Get -- '

'No breakfast? I'll bet you had breakfast.' Belinda was having a bad influence on this girl.

'I had.'

'And stayed the night in a luxury hotel?'

'Rank hath its privileges. Get a taxi, drop it on the outskirts of the town, phone for a local taxi and come out towards Huyler.'

'Where they make the puppets?'

'That's it. You'll meet me coming south in a yellow and red taxi.' I gave her the registration number. 'Have your driver stop. Be as fast as you can.'

I hung up, paid up and went on my way. I was glad I was alive. Glad to be alive. It had been the sort of night that didn't look like having any morning, but here I was and I was glad. The girls were glad. I was warm and dry and fed, the jonge Genever was happily chasing the red corpuscles in a game of merry-go-round, all the coloured threads were weaving themselves into a beautiful pattern and by day's end it would be over. I had never felt so good before. I was never to feel so good again.

Nearing the suburbs I was flagged down by a yellow taxi. I stopped and crossed the road just as Maggie got out. She was dressed in a navy skirt and jacket and white blouse and if she'd spent a sleepless night she certainly showed no signs of it. She looked beautiful, but then she always looked that way: there was something special about her that morning.

'Well, well, well,' she said. 'What a healthy-looking ghost. May I kiss you?'

'Certaintly not,' I said with dignity. 'Relationships between employer and employed are -- '

'Do be quiet, Paul.' She kissed me without permission. 'What do you want me to do?'

'Go out to Huyler. Plenty of places down by the harbour where you can get breakfast. There's a place I want you to keep under fairly close but not constant surveillance.' I described the window-barred building and its location. 'Just try to see who goes in and out of that building and what goes on there. And remember, you're a tourist. Stay in company or as close as you can to company all the time. Belinda's still in her room?'

'Yes.' Maggie smiled. 'Belinda took a phone call while I was dressing. Good news, I think.'

'Who does Belinda know in Amsterdam?' I said sharply. 'Who called?'

'Astrid Lemay.'

'What in God's name are you talking about? Astrid's skipped the country. I've got proof.'

'Sure she skipped it.' Maggie was enjoying herself. 'She skipped it because you'd given her a very important job to do and she couldn't do it because she was being followed everywhere she went. So she skipped out, got off at Paris, got a refund on her Athens ticket and skipped straight back in again. She and George are staying in a place outside Amsterdam with friends she can trust. She says to tell you she followed that lead you gave her. She says to tell you she's been out to the Kasteel Linden and that -- '

'Oh my God!' I said. 'Oh my God!' I looked at Maggie standing there, the smile slowly dying on her lips and for one brief moment I felt like turning savagely on her, for her ignorance, for her stupidity, for her smiling . face, for her empty talk of good news, and then I felt more ashamed of myself than I had ever done in my life, for the fault was mine, not Maggie's, and I would have cut off my hand sooner than hurt her, so instead I put my arm round her shoulders and said: 'Maggie, I must leave you.'

She smiled at me uncertainly. 'I'm sorry. I don't understand.'

'Maggie?'

'Yes, Paul?'

'How do you think Astrid Lemay found out the telephone number of your new hotel?'

'Oh, dear God!' she said, for now she understood.

I ran across to my car without looking back, started up and accelerated through the gears like a man possessed, which I suppose I really was. I operated the switch that popped up the blue flashing police light and turned on the siren, then clamped the earphones over my head and started fiddling desperately with the radio control knobs. Nobody had ever shown me how to work it and this was hardly the time to learn. The car was full of noise, the high-pitched howling of the over-stressed engine, the clamour of the siren, the static and crackle of the earphones and, what seemed loudest of all to me, the sound of my harsh and bitter and futile swearing as I tried to get that damned radio to work. Then suddenly the crackling ceased and I heard a calm assured voice.

'Police headquarters,' I shouted. 'Colonel de Graaf. Never mind who the hell I am. Hurry, man, hurry!' There was a long and infuriating silence as I weaved through the morning rush-hour traffic and then a voice on the earphones said: 'Colonel de Graaf is not in his office yet.'

'Then get him at home!' I shouted. Eventually they got him at home. 'Colonel de Graaf? Yes, yes, yes. Never mind that. That puppet we saw yesterday. I have seen a girl like that before. Astrid Lemay.' De Graaf started to ask questions but I cut him short. 'For God's sake, never mind that. The warehouse -- I think she's in desperate danger. We're dealing with a criminal maniac. For God's sake, hurry.'

I threw the earphones down and concentrated on driving and cursing myself. If you want a candidate for easy outwitting, I thought savagely, Sherman's your man. But at the same time I was conscious that I was being at least a degree unfair to myself: I was up against a brilliantly directed criminal organization, that was for sure, but an organization that contained within it an unpredictable psychopathic element that made normal prediction almost impossible. Sure, Astrid had sold Jimmy Duclos down the river, but it had been Duclos or George, and George was a brother. They'd sent her to get to work on me, for she herself could have had no means of knowing that I was staying at the Rembrandt, but instead of enlisting my aid and sympathy she'd chickened out at the last moment and I'd had her traced and that was when the trouble had begun, that was when she had begun to become a liability instead of an asset. She had begun seeing me -- or I her -- without their ostensible knowledge. I could have been seen taking George away from that barrel-organ in the Rembrandtplein or at the church or by those two drunks outside her flat who weren't drunks at all.

They'd eventually decided that it was better to have her out of the way, but not in such a fashion that would make me think that harm had come to her because they probably thought, and rightly, that if I thought she'd been taken prisoner and was otherwise in danger I'd have abandoned all hope of achieving my ultimate objective and done what they knew now was the very last thing I wanted to do -- go to the police and lay before them all I knew, which they probably suspected was a great deal. This, too, was the last thing they wanted me to do because although by going to the police I would have defeated my own ultimate ends, I could so severely damage their organization that it might take months, perhaps years, to build it up again. And so Durrell and Marcel had played their part yesterday morning in the Balinova while I had overplayed mine to the hilt and had convinced me beyond doubt that Astrid and George had left for Athens. Sure they had. They'd left all right, been forced off the plane at Paris and forced to return to Amsterdam. When she'd spoken to Belinda, she'd done so with a gun at her head.