The Tightrope Men. Desmond Bagley
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soothingly, ‘You’ll be all right.’
Denison was plaintive. ‘It’s all very well you wanting me to go on being Meyrick but surely you can tell me something. Who is Meyrick, for instance?’
‘It will all be explained tomorrow,’ said McCready, hoping that he was right. ‘In the meantime, go back to the hotel like a good chap, and don’t leave it until I call for you. Just have a quiet dinner with … with your redhead and then go to bed.’
Denison had a last try. ‘Are you in Intelligence or something? A spy?’
But to that McCready made no answer.
So Denison was delivered to the hotel and he had not been in the room more than ten minutes when the telephone rang. He regarded it warily and let it ring several times before he put out his hand as though about to pick up a snake. ‘Yes?’ he said uncommunicatively.
‘Diana here.’
‘Who?’ he asked cautiously.
‘Diana Hansen, who else? We have a dinner date, remember? How are you?’
Again he caught the faint hint of America behind the English voice. ‘Better,’ he said, thinking it was convenient of her to announce her name.
‘That’s good,’ she said warmly. ‘Are you fit enough for dinner?’
‘I think so.’
‘Mmm,’ she murmured doubtfully. ‘But I still don’t think you should go out; there’s quite a cold wind. What about dinner in the hotel restaurant?’
Even more convenient; he had just been about to suggest that himself. In a more confident voice he said, ‘That’ll be fine.’
‘Meet you in the bar at half past seven,’ she said.
‘All right.’
She rang off and he put down the telephone slowly. He hoped that McCready was right; that he could manage a sustained conversation with this woman in the guise of Meyrick. He sat in the armchair and winced as pain stabbed in his side. He held his breath until the pain eased and then relaxed and looked at his watch. Half past five. He had two hours before meeting the Hansen woman.
What a mess! What a stinking mess! Lost behind another man’s face, he had apparently dropped into the middle of an intrigue which involved the British government. That man, Carey, had been damned patronizing about what had happened on top of the Spiralen and had not bothered to hide his disbelief. It had been that, more than anything else, that had driven Denison into disclosing who he was. It had certainly taken the smile off Carey’s face.
But who was Carey? To begin with, he was obviously McCready’s boss – but that did not get him very far because who was McCready? A tight little group in the British Embassy in Oslo dedicated to what? Trade relations? That did not sound likely.
Carey had made it clear that he had warned Meyrick not to move far from the hotel. Judging by what had happened on the Spiralen the warning was justified. But who the hell was Meyrick that he was so important? The man with the title of Doctor or perhaps Professor, and who was described on his passport as a civil servant.
Denison’s head began to ache again. Christ! he thought; I’ll be bloody glad to get back to Hampstead, back to my job and the people I …
The thought tailed off to a deadly emptiness and he felt his stomach lurch. A despairing wail rose in his mind – God help me! he cried silently as he realized his mind was a blank, that he did not know what his job was, that he could not put a name to a single friend or acquaintance, and that all he knew of himself was that he was Giles Denison and that he came from Hampstead.
Bile rose in his throat. He struggled to his feet and staggered to the bathroom where he was violently sick. Again there was that insistent beat in his mind: I AM GILES DENISON. But there was nothing more – no link with a past life.
He left the bathroom and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. You must remember! he commanded himself. You must! But there was nothing – just Giles Denison of Hampstead and a vague mind picture of a house in a half-forgotten memory.
Think!
The scar on his shin – he remembered that. He saw himself on the small child-size bicycle going down a hill too fast, and the inevitable tumble at the bottom – then the quick tears and the comfort of his mother. I remember that, he told himself in triumph.
What else? Beth – he remembered Beth who had been his wife, but she had died. How many years ago was it? Three years. And then there was the whisky, too much whisky. He remembered the whisky.
Denison lay on the bed and fought to extract memories from a suddenly recalcitrant mind. There was a slick sheen of sweat on his brow and his fists were clenched, the nails digging into his palms.
Something else he had remembered before. He had come back from Edinburgh on June 17, but what had he been doing there? Working, of course, but what was his work? Try as he might he could not penetrate the blank haze which cloaked his mind.
On June 18 he had played golf in the afternoon. With whom? Of course it was possible for a man to play a round of golf alone, and also to go to the cinema alone and to dine in Soho alone, but it was hardly likely that he would forget everything else. Where had he played golf? Which cinema did he go to? Which restaurant in Soho?
A blazing thought struck him, an illumination of the mind so clear that he knew certainly it was the truth. He cried aloud, ‘But I’ve never played golf in my life!’
There was a whirling spiral of darkness in his mind and, mercifully, he slept.
Denison walked into the bar at a quarter to eight and saw the woman who called herself Diana Hansen sitting at a table. He walked over and said, ‘Sorry I’m late.’
She smiled and said lightly, ‘I was beginning to think I was being stood up again.’
He sat down. ‘I fell asleep.’
‘You look pale. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’ There was a vague memory at the back of his mind which disturbed him; something had happened just before he had fallen asleep. He was reluctant to probe into it because he caught a hint of terror and madness which frightened him. He shivered.
‘Cold?’ Her voice was sympathetic.
‘Nothing that a stiff drink won’t cure.’ He beckoned to a passing waiter, and raised his eyebrows at her.
‘A dry Martini, please.’
He turned to the hovering waiter. ‘A dry martini and … do you have a scotch malt?’ Normally he bought the cheapest blend he could buy in the cut-price supermarkets but with Meyrick’s finances behind him he could afford the best.
‘Yes, sir. Glenfiddich?’
‘That will do fine. Thank you.’
Diana Hansen said, ‘Food may be better than drink. Have you eaten today?’
‘Not much.’ Just the meal in the police station at Drammen, taken for fuel rather than pleasure.
‘You men!’ she said with scorn. ‘No better than children when left on your own. You’ll feel better after dinner.’
He leaned back in his chair. ‘Let’s see – how long have we known each other, Diana?’
She smiled. ‘Counting the days, Harry? Nearly three weeks.’
So he had met her in Oslo – or, rather, Meyrick had. ‘I was just trying to find out how long it takes a woman to become maternal. Less than three weeks, I see.’
‘Is that the