The Tightrope Men
He stopped and the officer stared at him with hard, grey eyes but said nothing. Denison let the silence lengthen, then said slowly and clearly, ‘I would like to get in touch with the British Embassy immediately.’
The officer lowered his eyes and consulted a typewritten form. ‘The condition of the rear of your car is consistent with your story. There was another car. It has been found abandoned. The condition of the front of that car is also consistent with your story. The car we found had been stolen last night in Oslo.’ He looked up. ‘Do you want to make any changes in your statement?’
‘No,’ said Denison.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
The officer stood up, the passport in his hand. ‘Wait here.’ He walked out.
Denison waited another hour before the officer came back. He said, ‘An official from your Embassy is coming to be present while you prepare your written statement.’
‘I see,’ said Denison. ‘What about my passport?’
‘That will be handed to the Embassy official. Your car we will keep here for spectrographic tests of the paintwork. If there has been transfer of paint from one car to another it will tend to support your statement. In any event, the car cannot be driven in its present condition; both indicator lights are smashed – you would be breaking the law.’
Denison nodded. ‘How long before the Embassy man gets here?’
‘I cannot say. You may wait here.’ The officer went away.
Denison waited for two hours. On complaining of hunger, food and coffee were brought to him on a tray. Otherwise he was left alone except for the doctor who came in to dress an abrasion on the left side of his forehead. He dimly remembered being struck by a tree branch on the chase along the trail, but did not correct the doctor who assumed it had occurred in the Spiralen. What with one thing and another, the left side of Meyrick’s face was taking quite a beating; any photographs had better be of the right profile.
He said nothing about the wound in his side. While alone in the office he had checked it quickly. That knife must have been razor sharp; it had sliced through his topcoat, his jacket, the sweater and into his side, fortunately not deeply. The white sweater was red with blood but the wound, which appeared clean, had stopped bleeding although it hurt if he moved suddenly. He left it alone.
At last someone came – a dapper young man with a fresh face who advanced on Denison with an outstretched hand. ‘Dr Meyrick – I’m George McCready, I’ve come to help you get out of this spot of trouble.’
Behind McCready came the police officer, who drew up another chair and they got down to the business of the written statement. The officer wanted it amplified much more than in Denison’s bald, verbal statement so he obligingly told all that had happened from the moment he had entered the Spiralen tunnel on top of Bragernesasen. He had no need to lie about anything. His written statement was taken away and typed up in quadruplicate and he signed all four copies, McCready countersigning as witness.
McCready cocked his eye at the officer. ‘I think that’s all.’
The officer nodded. ‘That’s all – for the moment. Dr Meyrick may be required at another time. I trust he will be available.’
‘Of course,’ said McCready easily. He turned to Denison. ‘Let’s get you back to the hotel. You must be tired.’
They went out to McCready’s car. As McCready drove out of Drammen Denison was preoccupied with a problem. How did McCready know to address him as ‘Doctor’? The designation on his passport was just plain ‘Mister’. He stirred and said, ‘If we’re going to the hotel I’d like to have my passport. I don’t like to be separated from it.’
‘You’re not going to the hotel,’ said McCready. ‘That was for the benefit of the copper. I’m taking you to the Embassy. Carey flew in from London this morning and he wants to see you.’ He laughed shortly. ‘How he wants to see you.’
Denison felt the water deepening. ‘Carey,’ he said in a neutral tone, hoping to stimulate conversation along those lines. McCready had dropped Carey’s name casually as though Meyrick was supposed to know him. Who the devil was Carey?
McCready did not bite. ‘That explanation of yours wasn’t quite candid, was it?’ He waited for a reaction but Denison kept his mouth shut. ‘There’s a witness – a waitress from the Spiraltoppen – who said something about a fight up there. It seems there was a man with a gun. The police are properly suspicious.’
When Denison would not be drawn McCready glanced sideways at him, and laughed. ‘Never mind, you did the right thing under the circumstances. Never talk about guns to a copper – it makes them nervous. Mind you, the circumstances should never have arisen. Carey’s bloody wild about that.’ He sighed. ‘I can’t say that I blame him.’
It was gibberish to Denison and he judged that the less he said the better. He leaned back, favouring his injured side, and said, ‘I’m tired.’
‘Yes,’ said McCready. ‘I suppose you must be.’
FIVE
Denison was kept kicking his heels in an ante-room in the Embassy while McCready went off, presumably to report. After fifteen minutes he came back. ‘This way, Dr Meyrick.’
Denison followed him along a corridor until McCready stopped and politely held open a door for him. ‘You’ve already met Mr Carey, of course.’
The man sitting behind the desk could only be described as square. He was a big, chunky man with a square, head topped with close-cut grizzled grey hair. He was broad-chested and squared off at the shoulders, and his hands were big with blunt fingers. ‘Come in, Dr Meyrick.’ He nodded at McCready. ‘All right, George; be about your business.’
McCready closed the door. ‘Sit down, Doctor,’ said Carey. It was an invitation, not a command. Denison sat in the chair on the other side of the desk and waited for a long time while Carey inspected him with an inscrutable face.
After a long time Carey sighed. ‘Dr Meyrick, you were asked not to stray too far from your hotel and to keep strictly to central Oslo. If you wanted to go farther afield you were asked to let us know so that we could make the necessary arrangements. You see, our manpower isn’t infinite.’
His voice rose. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have been asked; maybe you should have been told.’ He seemed to hold himself in with an effort, and lowered his voice again. ‘So I fly in this morning to hear that you’re missing, and then I’m told that you isolated yourself on a mountain top – for what reason only you know.’
He raised his hand to intercept interruption. Denison did not mind; he was not going to say anything, anyway.
‘All right,’ said Carey. ‘I know the story you told the local coppers. It was a good improvisation and maybe they’ll buy it and maybe they won’t.’ He put his hands flat on the desk. ‘Now what really happened?’
‘I was up there walking through the woods,’ said Denison, ‘when suddenly a man attacked me.’
‘Description?’
‘Tall. Broad. Not unlike you in build, but younger. He had black hair. His nose was broken. He had something in his hand – he was going to hit me with it. Some sort of cosh, I suppose.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I laid him out,’ said Denison.
‘You laid him out,’ said Carey in a flat voice. There was disbelief in his eye.
‘I laid him out,’ said Denison evenly. He paused. ‘I was a useful boxer at one time.’
Carey frowned and drummed his fingers. ‘Then what happened?’
‘Another man was coming at me from behind, so I ran for it.’
‘Wise man – some of the time, anyway. And…?’
‘Another man intercepted me from the front.’
‘Describe him.’
‘Shortish – about five foot seven – with a rat-face and a long nose. Dressed in jeans and a blue jersey. He had a knife.’
‘He had a knife, did he?’ said Carey. ‘So what did you do about that?’
‘Well, the other chap was coming up behind fast – I didn’t have much time to think – so I charged the joker with the knife and sold him the dummy at the last moment’
‘You what?’
‘I sold him the dummy. It’s a rugby expression meaning …’
‘I know what it means,’ snapped Carey. ‘I suppose you were a useful rugby player at one time, too.’
‘That’s right,’ said Denison.
Carey bent his head and put his hand to his brow so that his face was hidden. He seemed to be suppressing some strong emotion. ‘What happened next?’ he asked in a muffled voice.
‘By that time I’d got back to the car park – and there was another man.’
‘Another man,’ said Carey tiredly. ‘Description.’
‘Not much. I think he wore a grey suit He had a gun.’
‘Escalating on you, weren’t they?’ said Carey. His voice was savage. ‘So what did you do then?’
‘I was in the car by the time I saw the gun and I got out of there fast and …’
‘And did a Steve McQueen through the Spiralen, roared through Drammen like an express train and butted a copper in the arse.’
‘Yes,’ said Denison simply. ‘That about wraps it up.’
‘I should think it does,’ said Carey. He was silent for a while, then he said, ‘Regardless of the improbability of all this, I’d still like to know why you went to Drammen in the first place, and why you took the trouble to shake off any followers before leaving Oslo.’
‘Shake off followers,’ said Denison blankly. ‘I didn’t know I was being followed.’
‘You know now. It was for your own protection. But my man says he’s never seen such an expert job of shaking a tail in his life. You were up to all the tricks. You nearly succeeded twice, and you did succeed the third time.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Denison. ‘I lost my way a couple of times, that’s all.’
Carey took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. ‘You lost your way,’ he breathed. His voice became deep and solemn. ‘Dr Meyrick: can you tell me why you lost your way when you know this area better than your own county of Buckinghamshire? You showed no signs of losing your way when you went to Drammen last week.’
Denison took the plunge. ‘Perhaps it’s because I’m not Dr Meyrick.’
Carey whispered, ‘What did you say?’
SIX
Denison told all of it.
When he had finished Carey’s expression was a mixture of perturbation and harassment. He heard everything Denison had to say but made no comment; instead, he lifted the telephone, dialled a number, and said, ‘George? Ask Ian to come in here for a minute.’
He came from behind the desk and patted Denison on the shoulder. ‘I hope you don’t mind waiting for a few minutes.’ He strode away to intercept the man who had just come in and they held a whispered colloquy before Carey left the room.
He closed the door on the other side and stood for a moment in thought, then he shook his head irritably and went into McCready’s office. McCready looked up, saw Carey’s expression, and said, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Our boy has rolled clean off his tiny little rocker,’ snapped Carey. ‘That’s what’s the matter. He started off by telling cock-and-bull stories, but then it got worse – much worse.’
‘What did he say?’
Carey told him – in gruesome detail.
Ten minutes later he said, ‘Discounting a lot of balls about mysterious attackers, something happened up there on top of the Spiralen which knocked Meyrick off his perch.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘When they wish these eggheads on us you’d think they’d test them for mental stability. What we need now is an alienist.’
McCready suppressed a smile. ‘Isn’t that rather an old-fashioned term?’
Carey glared at him. ‘Old-fashioned and accurate.’ He stabbed his finger at the office wall. ‘That … that thing in there isn’t human any more. I tell you, my flesh crawled when I heard what he was saying.’
‘There isn’t a chance that he’s right, is there?’ asked McCready diffidently.
‘No chance at all. I was facing Meyrick at the original briefing in London for two bloody days until I got to hate the sight of his fat face. It’s Meyrick, all right.’
‘There is one point that puzzles me,’ said McCready. ‘When I was with him at the police station in Drammen he didn’t speak a word of Norwegian, and yet I understand he knows the language.’
‘He speaks it fluently,’ said Carey.
‘And yet I’m told that his first words were to the effect that he spoke no Norwegian.’
‘For God’s sake!’ said Carey. ‘You know the man’s history. He was born in Finland and lived there until he was seventeen, when he came to live here in Oslo. When he was twenty-four he moved to England where he’s been ever since. That’s twenty-two years. He didn’t see a rugby ball until he arrived in England, and I’ve studied his dossier and know for a fact that he never boxed in his life.’
‘Then it all fits in with his story that he’s not Meyrick.’ McCready paused for thought. ‘There was a witness at Spiraltoppen who said she saw a gun.’
‘A hysterical waitress,’ sneered Carey. ‘Wait a minute – did you tell Meyrick about that?’
‘I did mention it.’
‘It fits,’ said Carey. ‘You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if the story Meyrick gave to the police wasn’t the absolute truth. He was razzled by a few kids out for a joyride in a stolen car and the experience knocked him off his spindle.’
‘And the gun?’
‘You told him about the gun. He seized that and wove it into his fairy tale, and added a few other trimmings such as the knife and the cosh. I think that in the Spiralen he felt so bloody helpless that he’s invented this story to retain what he thinks is his superiority. At the briefing I assessed him as an arrogant bastard, utterly convinced of his superiority to us lesser mortals. But he wasn’t very superior in the Spiralen, was he?’
‘Interesting theory,’ said McCready. ‘You’d make a good alienist – except for one thing. You lack empathy.’
‘I can’t stand the man,’ said Carey bluntly. ‘He’s an overweening, overbearing, supercilious son-of-a-bitch who thinks the sun shines out of his arse. Mr Know-it-all in person and too bloody toplofty by half.’ He shrugged. ‘But I can’t pick and choose the people I work with. It’s not in my contract.’
‘What did you say he called himself?’
‘Giles Denison from Hampstead. Hampstead, for Christ’s sake!’
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ said McCready. He left the room.
Carey loosened his tie with a jerk and sat biting his thumbnail. He looked up as McCready came back holding a book. ‘What have you got there?’
‘London telephone directory.’
‘Give me that,’ said Carey, and grabbed it. ‘Let’s see – Dennis, Dennis, Dennis … Dennison. There’s a George and two plain Gs – neither in Hampstead.’ He sat back, looking pleased.
McCready took the book and flipped the pages. After a minute he said, ‘Denison, Giles … Hampstead. He spells it with one “n”.’
‘Oh, Christ!’ said Carey, looking stricken. He recovered. ‘Doesn’t mean a thing. He picked the name of someone he knows. His daughter’s boy-friend, perhaps.’
‘Perhaps,’ said McCready non-committally.
Carey drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘I’ll stake my life that this is Meyrick; anything else would be too ridiculous.’ His fingers were suddenly stilled. ‘Mrs Hansen,’ he said. ‘She’s been closer to him than anybody. Did she have anything to say?’
‘She reported last night that she’d met him. He’d broken a date with her in the morning and excused it by pleading illness. Said he’d been in bed all morning.’
‘Had he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she notice anything about him – anything odd or unusual?’
‘Only that he had a cold and that he’d stopped smoking. He said cigarettes tasted like straw.’
Carey, a pipe-smoker, grunted. ‘They taste like straw to me without a cold. But he recognised her.’
‘They had a drink and a conversation – about morals and religion, she said.’
‘That does it,’ said Carey. ‘Meyrick is ready to pontificate about anything at the drop of a hat, whether he knows anything about it or not.’ He rubbed his chin and said grudgingly, ‘Trouble is, he usually talks sense – he has a good brain. No, this is Meyrick, and Meyrick is as flabby as a bladder of lard – that’s why we have to coddle him on this operation. Do you really think that Meyrick could stand up against four men with guns and knives and coshes? The man could hardly break the skin on the top of a custard. He’s gone out of his tiny, scientific mind and his tale of improbable violence is just to save his precious superiority, as I said before.’
‘And what about the operation?’
‘As far as Meyrick is concerned the operation is definitely off,’ said Carey decisively. ‘And, right now, I don’t see how it can be done without him. I’ll cable London to that effect as soon as I’ve had another talk with him.’ He paused. ‘You’d better come along, George. I’m going to need a witness on this one or else London will have me certified.’
They left the office and walked along the corridor. Outside the room where Meyrick was held Carey put his hand on McCready’s arm. ‘Hold yourself in, George. This might be rough.’
They found Meyrick still sitting at the desk in brooding silence, ignoring the man he knew only as Ian who sat opposite. Ian looked up at Carey and shrugged eloquently.
Carey stepped forward. ‘Dr Meyrick, I’m sorry to …’
‘My name is Denison. I told you that.’ His voice was cold.
Carey softened his tone. ‘All right, Mr Denison; if you prefer it that way. I really think you ought to see a doctor. I’m arranging for it.’
‘And about time,’ said Denison. ‘This is hurting like hell.’
‘What is?’
Denison was pulling his sweater from his trousers. ‘This bloody knife wound. Look at it.’
Carey and McCready bent to look at the quarter-inch deep slash along Denison’s side. It would, Carey estimated, take sixteen stitches to sew it up.
Their heads came up together and they looked at each other with a wild surmise.
SEVEN
Carey paced restlessly up and down McCready’s office. His tie was awry and his hair would have been tousled had it not been so close-cropped because he kept running his hand through it. ‘I still don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘It’s too bloody incredible.’
He swung on McCready. ‘George, supposing you went to bed tonight, here in Oslo, and woke up tomorrow, say, in a New York hotel, wearing someone else’s face. What would be your reaction?’
‘I think I’d go crazy,’ said McCready soberly. He smiled slightly. ‘If I woke up with your face I would go crazy.’
Carey ignored the wisecrack. ‘But Denison didn’t go crazy,’ he said meditatively. ‘All things considered, he kept his cool remarkably well.’
‘If he is Denison,’ remarked McCready. ‘He could be Meyrick and quite insane.’
Carey exploded into a rage. ‘For God’s sake! All along you’ve been arguing that he’s Denison; now you turn around and say he could be Meyrick.’
McCready eyed him coolly. ‘The role of devil’s advocate suits me, don’t you think?’ He tapped the desk. ‘Either way, the operation is shot to hell.’
Carey sat down heavily. ‘You’re right, of course. But if this is a man called Denison then there are a lot of questions to be answered. But first, what the devil do we do with him?’
‘We can’t keep him here,’ said McCready. ‘For the same reason we didn’t keep Meyrick here. The Embassy is like a fishbowl.’
Carey cocked his head. ‘He’s been here for over two hours. That’s about normal for a citizen being hauled over the coals for a serious driving offence. You suggest we send him back to the hotel?’
‘Under surveillance.’ McCready smiled. ‘He says he has a date with a redhead for dinner.’
‘Mrs Hansen,’ said Carey. ‘Does he know about her?’
‘No.’
‘Keep it that way. She’s to stick close to him. Give her a briefing and ask her to guard him from interference. He could run into some odd situations. And talk to him like a Dutch uncle. Put the fear of God into him so that he stays in the hotel. I don’t want him wandering around loose.’
Carey drew a sheet of paper towards him and scribbled on it. ‘The next thing we want are doctors – tame ones who will ask the questions we want asked and no others. A plastic surgeon and –’ he smiled at McCready bleakly – ‘and an alienist. The problem must be decided one way or the other.’
‘We can’t wait until they arrive,’ said McCready.
‘Agreed,’ said Carey. ‘We’ll work on the assumption that a substitution has been made – that this man is Denison. We know when the substitution was made – in the early hours of yesterday morning. Denison was brought in – how?’
‘On a stretcher – he must have been unconscious.’
‘Right!’ said Carey. ‘A hospital patient in transit under the supervision of a trained nurse and probably a doctor. And they’d have taken a room on the same floor as Meyrick. The switch was made and Meyrick taken out yesterday morning – probably in an ambulance at the back entrance of the hotel by arrangement with the management. Hotels don’t like stretchers being paraded through the front lobby.’
‘I’ll get on to it,’ said McCready. ‘It might be an idea to check on all the people who booked in on the previous day, regardless of the floor they stayed on. I don’t think this was a two man job.’
‘I don’t, either. And you check the comings and goings for the past week – somebody must have been watching Meyrick for a long time.’
‘That’s a hell of a big job,’ objected McCready. ‘Do we get the co-operation of the Norwegians?’
Carey pondered. ‘At this time – no. We keep it under wraps.’
McCready’s face took on a sad look at the thought of all the legwork he was going to have to do. Carey tilted his chair back. ‘And then there’s the other end to be checked – the London end. Why Giles Denison of Hampstead?’ His chair came down with a thump. ‘Hasn’t it struck you that Denison has been very unforthcoming?’
McCready shrugged. ‘I haven’t talked to him all that much.’
‘Well, look,’ said Carey. ‘Here we have this man in this bloody odd situation in which he finds himself. After recovering from the first shock, he not only manages to deceive Mrs Hansen as to his real identity but he has the wit to ring up Meyrick’s home. But why only Meyrick? Why didn’t he check back on himself?’
‘How do you mean?’
Carey sighed. ‘There’s a man called Giles Denison missing from Hampstead. Surely he’d be missed by someone? Even if Denison is an unmarried orphan he must have friends – a job. Why didn’t he ring back to reassure people that he was all right and still alive and now living it up in Oslo?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ admitted McCready. ‘That’s a pointer to his being Meyrick, after all. Suffering from delusions but unable to flesh them out properly.’
Carey gave a depressed nod. ‘All I’ve had from him is that he’s Giles Denison from Hampstead – nothing more.’
‘Why not put it to him now?’ suggested McCready.
Carey thought about it and shook his head. ‘No, I’ll leave that to the psychiatrist. If this is really Meyrick, the wrong sort of questions could push him over the edge entirely.’ He pulled the note pad towards him again. ‘We’ll have someone check on Denison in Hampstead and find out the score.’ He ripped off the sheet. ‘Let’s get cracking. I want those cables sent to London immediately – top priority and coded. I want those quacks here as fast as possible.’
EIGHT
Giles Denison stirred his coffee and smiled across the table at Diana Hansen. His smile was steady, which was remarkable because a thought had suddenly struck him like a bolt of lightning and left him with a churning stomach. Was the delectable Diana Hansen who faced him Meyrick’s mistress?
The very thought put him into a dilemma. Should he make a pass or not? Whatever he did – or did not – do, he had a fifty per cent chance of being wrong. The uncertainty of it spoiled his evening which had so far been relaxing and pleasant.