The Tightrope Men

At the bottom of a pocket in the wallet he found an American Express credit card, complete with the ubiquitous fake signature. He looked at it pensively, flicking it with his fingernail. With this he could draw money or traveller’s cheques anywhere; he could use it to buy an airline ticket to Australia if he felt the urge to emigrate suddenly. It represented complete and unlicensed freedom unless and until someone put a stopper on it at head office.

He transferred it to the small personal wallet along with the driving licence. It would be better to keep that little bit of plastic available in case of need.

Meyrick had an extensive wardrobe; casual clothing, lounge suits and even a dinner-jacket with accessories. Denison investigated a small box and found it contained personal jewellery – studs, tiepins and a couple of rings – and he realized he probably held a thousand pounds’ worth of gold in his hand. The Patek Philippe watch on his wrist would cost £500 if it cost a penny. H. F. Meyrick was a wealthy man, so what kind of a civil servant did that make him?

Denison decided to get dressed. It was a sunny day so he chose casual trousers and a sports coat. The clothing fitted him as though made to measure. He looked at himself in the full-length mirror built into the wardrobe door, studiously ignoring the face on top of the body, and thought crazily that it, too, had probably been made to measure. The world began to spin again, but he remembered the small scar on his shin that belonged to Denison and that helped him to recover.

He put his personal possessions into his pockets and headed for the door, key in hand. As the door swung open a card which had been hung on the outer handle fell to the floor. He picked it up and read: VENNLIGST IKKE FORSTYRR – PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB. He was thoughtful as he hung it on the hook inside the door before locking the room; he would give a lot to know who had hung out that sign.

He went down in the lift with a couple of American blue-rinsed matrons who chattered to each other in a mid-West twang. ‘Say, have you been out to Vigeland Park? All those statues – I didn’t know where to look.’ The lift stopped and the doors slid open with a soft hiss, and the American ladies bustled out intent on sightseeing.

Denison followed them diffidently into the hotel lobby and stood by the lifts for a while, trying to get his bearings, doing his best to appear nonchalantly casual while he took in the scene.

‘Mr Meyrick … Mr Meyrick, sir!’

He turned his head and saw the porter at the desk smiling at him. Licking lips that had suddenly gone dry he walked over. ‘Yes?’

‘Would you mind signing this, sir? The check for the meal in your room. Just a formality.’

Denison looked at the proffered pen and laid down the room key. He took the pen and scribbled firmly ‘H. F. Meyrick’ and pushed the slip across the counter. The porter was hanging the key on the rack but he turned and spoke to Denison before he could slip away. ‘The night porter put your car away, sir. Here is the key.’

He held out a key with a tag on it and Denison extended his hand to take it. He glanced at the tag and saw the name, Hertz, and a car number. He cleared his throat. ‘Thank you.’

‘You sound as though you have a cold coming on,’ said the porter.

Denison took a chance. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘Your voice sounds different.’

‘Yes, I do feel a bit chesty,’ said Denison.

The porter smiled. ‘Too much night air, perhaps.’

Denison took another chance. ‘What time did I get in last night?’

‘This morning, sir. The night porter said it was about three o’clock.’ The porter offered Denison a man-of-the-world smile. ‘I wasn’t surprised when you slept in this morning.’

No, thought Denison; but I was! He was growing bolder as he gained confidence. ‘Can you tell me something? I was having a discussion with a friend about how long I’ve been here in Oslo and, for the life of me, I can’t remember the exact day I booked in here. Could you check it for me?’

‘Certainly, sir.’ The porter moved away and began to run through cards in a file. Denison looked at the car key. It was thoughtful of Hertz to put the car number on the tag; he might even be able to recognize it when he saw it. It was also thoughtful of the night porter to put the car away – but where the hell had he put it?

The porter returned. ‘You checked in on the eighteenth of June, sir. Exactly three weeks ago.’

The butterflies in Denison’s stomach collided. ‘Thank you,’ he said mechanically, and moved away from the desk and across the lobby. An arrow pointed the direction to the bar and he glanced sideways and saw a dark, cool cavern with a few drinkers, solitary or in couples. It looked quiet and he desperately wanted to think, so he went in.

When the barman came up, he said, ‘A beer, please.’

‘Export, sir?’

Denison nodded absently. June 18. He had reckoned he had lost a week so how the devil could he have booked into the Hotel Continental in Oslo three weeks earlier? How the hell could he have been in two places at the same time?

The barman returned, poured the beer into a glass, and went away. Denison tried to figure where he had been on June 18 and found it difficult. Three weeks was a long time. Where were you at 6.17 on the evening of June 18? No wonder people found it difficult to establish alibis. He found it extraordinarily difficult to focus his thoughts; they flicked about, skittering here and there wildly out of control. When did you last see your father? Nuts!

A vagrant thought popped to the surface of his consciousness. Edinburgh! He had been to Edinburgh On the 17th and the 18th he had taken off as a reward for hard work. There had been a leisurely morning and he had played golf in the afternoon; he had gone to the cinema in the evening and had dined late in Soho, getting back to Hampstead fairly late.

He – as Giles Denison – had dined in Soho at about the same time as he – as Harold Feltham Meyrick – had dined in Oslo. Where was the sense of that?

He was aware that he was looking at bubbles rising in amber liquid and that he had not touched his beer. He lifted the glass and drank; it was cold and refreshing.

He had two things going for him – two things that kept him sane. One – Giles Denison’s scar on H. F. Meyrick’s shin – and two – the change in the timbre of Meyrick’s voice as recognized by the hotel porter. And what did that imply? Obviously that there were two Meyricks; one who had booked in on June 18, and another – himself – who had just been planted. Never mind why and never mind how. Just accept the fact that it was done.

He drank some more beer and rested his chin in his hand, feeling the unaccustomed flab of his jowl. He had lost a week of his life. Could so much plastic surgery be done in a week? He added that to the list of things to be checked on.

And what to do? He could go to the British Embassy and tell his story. Mentally he ran through the scenario.

‘What can we do for you, Mr Meyrick?’

‘Well the fact is I’m not Meyrick – whoever he is. My name is Giles Denison and I’ve been kidnapped from London, my face changed, and dumped into an Oslo hotel with a hell of a lot of money and an unlimited credit account. Can you help me?’

‘Certainly, Mr Meyrick. Miss Smith, will you ring for a doctor?’

‘My God!’ said Denison aloud. ‘I’d end up in the loony-bin.’

The barman cocked his head and came over. ‘You wish something, sir?’

‘Just to pay,’ said Denison, finishing his beer.

He paid from the loose change in his pocket and left the bar. In the lobby he spotted a sign saying GARAGE, so he went through a door and down a flight of stairs to emerge into a basement car park. He checked the number on the Hertz key and walked along the first row of cars. It was right at the end – a big black Mercedes. He unlocked the door.

The first thing he saw was the doll on the driver’s seat, a most curious object made of crudely carved wood and rope. The body was formed of rope twisted into a spiral and coming out in the form of a tail. His feet were but roughly indicated and the head was a round knob with a peg nose. The eyes and a mouth twisted to one side had been inked on to the wood, and the hair was of rope teased out into separate strands. It was a strange and somehow repulsive little figure.

He picked it up and discovered a piece of paper underneath it. He unfolded the deckle-edged note-paper and read the scrawled handwriting: Your Drammen Dolly awaits you at Spiraltoppen. Early morning, July 10.

He frowned. July 10 was next day, but where was Spiraltoppen and who – or what – was a Drammen Dolly? He looked at the ugly little doll. It had been lying on the driver’s seat as though it had been deliberately left for him to find. He tossed it in his hand a couple of times and then thrust it into his pocket. It made an unsightly bulge, but what did he care? It was not his jacket. The note he put into his wallet.

The car was almost new, with just over 500 kilometres on the clock. He found a sheaf of papers relating to the car hire; it had been rented five days earlier, a fact which was singularly devoid of informative content. There was nothing else to be found.

He got out of the car, locked it, and left the garage by the car entrance, emerging on to a street behind the hotel. It was a little bewildering for him; the traffic drove on the wrong side of the road, the street and shop signs were indecipherable and his command of Norwegian was minimal, being restricted to one word – skal – which, while being useful in a cheery sort of way, was not going to be of much use for the more practical things of life.

What he needed was information and he found it on the corner of the street in the form of a bookshop. He went inside and found an array of maps from which he selected a map of central Oslo, one of Greater Oslo, and a motoring map of Southern Norway. To these he added a guide to the city and paid out of the slab of Norwegian currency in Meyrick’s wallet. He made a mental note to count that money as soon as he had privacy.

He left the shop intending to go back to the hotel where he could study the maps and orient himself. He paused on the pavement and rubbernecked at the corner of a building where one would normally expect to find a street name – and there it was – Roald Amundsens Gata.

‘Harry!’

He turned to go in the direction of the hotel but paused as he felt a hand on his arm. ‘Harry Meyrick!’ There was a note of anger in the voice. She was a green-eyed redhead of about thirty and she was flying alarm flags – her lips were compressed and pink spots glowed in her cheeks. ‘I’m not used to being stood up,’ she said. ‘Where were you this morning?’

Momentarily he was nonplussed but remembered in time what the hotel porter had thought about his voice. ‘I wasn’t feeling well,’ he managed to get out. ‘I was in bed.’