The Tightrope Men / The Enemy

‘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 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 (#ulink_6e5cb339-55a2-5791-8333-c56eac9704a9)

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.’