The Tightrope Men / The Enemy. Desmond Bagley
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surged forward and came out of the tunnel like a shell from a gun. The fee-collector threw up his arms and jumped aside as the car shot past him. Denison screwed up his eyes against the sudden bright glare of sunlight and hurtled down the hill towards the main street of Drammen at top speed.
At the bottom of the hill he jammed on his brakes and wrenched the wheel sideways. The car heeled violently as it turned the corner and the tyres screamed again, leaving black rubber on the road. Then he literally stood on the brake pedal, rising in his seat, to avoid ploughing into a file of the good people of Drammen crossing the street at a traffic light. The car’s nose sank and the rear came up as it juddered to a halt, just grazing the thigh of a policeman who stood in the middle of the road with his back to Denison.
The policeman turned, his face expressionless. Denison sagged back into his seat and twisted his head to look back along the road. He saw the pursuing car break the other way and head down the road at high speed out of Drammen.
The policeman knocked on the car window and Denison wound it down to be met by a blast of hot Norwegian. He shook his head, and said loudly, ‘I have no Norwegian. Do you speak English?’
The policeman halted in mid-spate with his mouth open. He shut it firmly, took a deep breath, and said, ‘What you think you do?’
Denison pointed back. ‘It was those damn fools. I might have been killed.’
The policeman stood back and did a slow circumnavigation of the car, inspecting it carefully. Then he tapped on the window of the passenger side and Denison opened the door. The policeman got in. ‘Drive!’ he said.
When Denison pulled up outside the building marked POLISI and switched off the engine the policeman firmly took the car key from him and waved towards the door of the building. ‘Inside!’
It was a long wait for Denison. He sat in a bare room under the cool eye of a Norwegian policeman, junior grade, and meditated on his story. If he told the truth then the question would arise: Who would want to attack an Englishman called thing Meyrick? That would naturally lead to: Who is this Meyrick? Denison did not think he could survive long under questions like that. It would all come out and the consensus of opinion would be that they had a right nut-case on their hands, and probably homicidal at that. They would have to be told someother than the strict truth.
He waited an hour and then the telephone rang. The young policeman answered briefly, put down the telephone, and said to Denison, ‘Come!’
He was taken to an office where a senior policeman sat behind a desk. He picked up a pen and levelled it at a chair. ‘Sit!’
Denison sat, wondering if the English conversation of the Norwegian police was limited to one word at a time. The officer poised his pen above a printed form. ‘Name?’
‘Meyrick,’ said Denison. ‘Harold Feltham Meyrick.’
‘Nationality?’
‘British.’
The officer extended his hand, palm upwards. ‘Passport.’ It was not a question.
Denison took out his passport and put it on the outstretched palm. The officer flicked through the pages, then put it down and stared at Denison with eyes like chips of granite. ‘You drove through the streets of Drammen at an estimated speed of 140 kilometres an hour. I don’t have to tell you that is in excess of the speed limit. You drove through the Spiralen at an unknown speed – certainly less than 140 kilometres otherwise we would have the distasteful task of scraping you off the walls. What is your explanation?’
Denison now knew what a Norwegian policeman sounded like in an extended speech in the English language, and he did not particularly relish it. The man’s tone was scathing. He said, ‘There was a car behind me. The driver was playing silly buggers.’ The officer raised his eyebrows, and Denison said, ‘I think they were teenage hooligans out to throw a scare into someone – you know how they are. They succeeded with me. They rammed me a couple of times and I had to go faster. It all led on from that.’
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