My guess is that you wont have to wait long. She did not respond and he regarded her intently. She had fallen asleep as readily as a puppy might, which was not surprising considering she had been up all night. So had he, but sleep was the last thing he could afford.
He put on his jacket and took the keys from the zippered compartment of her bag. In the lobby he saw two suitcases standing before the desk and, after checking to make sure they were Lyns, he said to the porter, Id like these taken to my daughters room. Whats the number?
Did she have a reservation, Mr Meyrick?
Its possible.
The porter checked and took down a key. Room four-thirty. Ill take the bags up.
In Lyns room Denison tipped the porter and put the two cases on the bed as soon as the door closed. He took out the keys and unlocked them and searched them quickly, trying not to disturb the contents too much. There was little that was of value to him directly, but there were one or two items which cast a light on Lyn Meyrick. There was a photograph of himself or, rather, of Harry Meyrick in a leather case. The opposing frame was empty. In a corner of one suitcase was a small Teddy-bear, tattered with much childish loving and presumably retained as a mascot. In the other suitcase he found two textbooks, one on the theory and practice of teaching, the other on child psychology; both heavyweights, the pages sprinkled with diagrams and graphs.
He closed and locked the suitcases and put them on the rack, then went down to his own room. As the lift door opened on to the third floor he saw Armstrong just stepping out of the other lift. Armstrong held out an envelope. Mr Carey told me to give you this.
Denison ripped open the envelope and scanned the sparse typescript on the single sheet. The only thing it told him that he had not learned already was that Lyn Meyricks sport was gymnastics. Carey will have to do better than this, he said curtly.
Were doing the best we can, said Armstrong. Well get more later in the day when people have woken up in England.
Keep it coming, said Denison. And dont forget to remind Carey that Im still waiting for an explanation.
Ill tell him, said Armstrong.
Another thing, said Denison. She said shed find me either here in Oslo or in Helsinki in Finland. That baffled me until I realized I dont know a bloody thing about Meyrick. Carey mentioned a dossier on Meyrick I want to see it.
I dont think that will be possible, said Armstrong hesitantly. Youre not cleared for security.
Denison speared him with a cold eye. You bloody fool! he said quietly. Right now I am your security and dont forget to tell Carey that, too. He walked past Armstrong and up the corridor to his room.
TWELVE
Carey walked past the Oslo City Hall in the warm mid-afternoon sunshine and inspected the statuary with a sardonic eye. Each figure represented a different trade and the whole, no doubt, was supposed to represent the Dignity of Labour. He concluded that the Oslo City Fathers must have been socialist at one time.
He sat on a bench and looked out over the harbour and Oslofjord. A ship slid quietly by the ferry bound for Copenhagen and there was a constant coming and going of smaller, local ferries bound for Bygdøy, Ingierstrand and other places on the fjord. Camera-hung tourists strolled by and a tour bus stopped, disgorging more of them.
McCready walked up and sat on the bench. Carey did not look at him but said dreamily, Once my job was easy just simple eyeball stuff. That was back in the days when Joshua sent his spies into the land of Caanan. Then the bloody scientists got busy and ballsed the whole thing up.
McCready said nothing; he had encountered Carey in this mood before and knew there was nothing to do but wait until Carey got it off his chest.
Do you realize the state weve got ourselves into now? asked Carey rhetorically. I think youre George McCready, but I could be wrong. Whats more, you could think youre George McCready and, if Harding is to be believed, still be wrong. How the hell am I supposed to cope with a situation like that?
He disregarded McCreadys opening mouth. The bloody boffins are lousing up the whole damned world, he said violently, and pointed towards the line of statuary. Look at that crowd of working stiffs. Theres not a trade represented there that isnt obsolete or obsolescent. Pretty soon theyll put up a statue of me; therell be a plaque saying Intelligence agent, Mark II and my jobll be farmed out to a hot-shot computer. Wheres Denison?
Asleep in the hotel.
And the girl?
Also asleep in her own room.
If hes had five minutes sleep thats five minutes more than Ive had. Lets go and wake the poor bastard up. Mrs Hansen will join us at the hotel.
He stood up, and McCready said, How much are you going to tell him?
As much as I have to and no more, said Carey shortly. Which may be more than I want to tell him. Hes already putting the screws on me through young Ian. He wants to see Meyricks dossier.
You cant expect him to carry out an impersonation without knowing something of Meyrick, said McCready reasonably.
Why did that damned girl have to turn up? grumbled Carey. As though we dont have enough trouble. I had a row with Harding this morning.
Im not surprised.
George I have no option. With Meyrick gone I have to use Denison. Ill play fair; Ill tell him the truth maybe not all of it, but what I tell him will be true and let him make up his own mind. And if he wants out thats my hard luck.
McCready noticed the reservation and shook his head. The truth, in Careys hands, could take on a chameleon-like quality. Denison did not stand a chance.
Carey said, Something Iredale told me gave me the shudders. This silicone stuff that was rammed into Denisons face is a polymer; its injected in liquid form and then it hardens in the tissues to the consistency of fat and its permanent. If Denison wants to get his own face back it will be a major surgical operation theyll have to take his face apart to scrape the stuff out.
McCready grimaced. I take it thats a part of the truth youre not going to tell him.
That and a few other titbits from Harding. Carey stopped. Well, heres the hotel. Lets get it over with.
Denison woke from a deep sleep to hear hammering on his door. He got up groggily, put on the bathrobe, and opened the door. Carey said, Sorry to waken you, but its about time we had a talk.
Denison blinked at him. Come in. He turned and went into the bathroom, and Carey, McCready and Mrs Hansen walked through into the bedroom. When Denison reappeared he was wiping his face with a towel. He stared at Diana Hansen. I might have known.
You two know each other, said Carey. Mrs Hansen was keeping tabs on Meyrick. He drew back the curtain, letting sunlight spill into the room, and tossed an envelope on to the dressing-table. Some more stuff on the girl. We have quite a few people in England running about in circles on your behalf.
Not mine, corrected Denison. Yours! He put down the towel. Any moment from now shes going to start playing Do you remember when? No information you can give me will help in that sort of guessing game.
Youll just have to develop a bad memory, said McCready.
I need to know more about Meyrick, insisted Denison.
And Im here to tell you. Carey pulled the armchair forward. Sit down and get comfortable. This is going to take a while. He sat in the other chair and pulled out a stubby pipe which he started to fill. McCready and Diana Hansen sat on the spare bed.
Carey struck a match and puffed at his pipe. Before we start on Meyrick you ought to know that we discovered how, and when, the switch was made. We figured how wed do a thing like that ourselves and then checked on it. You were brought in on a stretcher on July 8 and put in room three-sixty-three, just across the corridor. Meyrick was probably knocked out by a Mickey Finn in his nightly Ovaltine or something like that, and the switch was made in the wee, small hours.
Meyrick was taken out next morning before you woke up, said McCready. He was put into an ambulance, the hotel management co-operating, and driven to Pier Two at Vippetangen where he was put aboard a ship sailing to Copenhagen. Another ambulance was waiting there which took him God knows where.
Carey said, If youd contacted the Embassy as soon as it happened wed have been able to work all that out so damned fast that we could have been waiting at Copenhagen.
For Gods sake! said Denison. Would you have believed me any the quicker? It took you long enough to check anyway with your doctor and your tame psychiatrist.
Hes right, said McCready.
Do you think thats why it was done this way? To buy time?
Could be, said McCready. It worked, didnt it?
Oh, it worked all right. What puzzles me is what happened at the Spiralen the next day. Carey turned to Denison. Have you got the doll and the note?
Denison opened a drawer and handed them to Carey. He unfolded the single deckle-edged sheet and read the note aloud. Your Drammen Dolly awaits you at Spiraltoppen. Early morning. July 10. He lifted the paper and sniffed delicately. Scented, too. I thought that went out in the 1920s.
Diana Hansen said, This is the first Ive heard of a note. I know about the doll, but not the note.
Its what took Denison to the Spiralen, said McCready.
Could I see it? said Diana, and Carey passed it to her. She read it and said pensively, It could have been
What is it, Mrs Hansen? said Carey sharply.
Well, when Meyrick and I went to Drammen last week we lunched at the Spiraltoppen Restaurant. She looked a little embarrassed. I had to go to the lavatory and I was away rather a long time. I had stomach trouble some kind of diarrhoea.
McCready grinned. Even Intelligence agents are human, he said kindly.
When I got back Meyrick was talking to a woman and they seemed to be getting on well together. When I came up she went away.
Thats all? asked Carey.
Thats all.
He regarded her thoughtfully. I think theres something youre not telling us, Mrs Hansen.
Well, its something about Meyrick. I was with him quite a lot during the last few weeks and he gave me the impression of being something of a womanizer perhaps even a sexual athlete.
A chuckle escaped from McCready. Did he proposition you?
He had as many arms as an octopus, she said. I thought I wasnt going to last out this operation without being raped. I think hed go for anything on two legs that wore skirts, with the possible exception of Scotsmen and I wouldnt be too sure of that.
Well, well, said Carey. How little we know of our fellow men.
Denison said, He was divorced twice.
So you think this note was to set up an assignation.
Yes, said Diana.
But Meyrick wouldnt have fallen for that, no matter how horny he was, said Carey. He was too intelligent a man. When you and he went to Drammen last week he checked with me according to instructions. Since you were going with him I gave him the okay.
Did Meyrick know Diana was working for you? asked Denison.
Carey shook his head. No we like to play loose. But Meyrick didnt find the note. He pointed his pipe stem at Denison. You did and you went to the Spiralen. Tell me, did the men who attacked you give the impression that they wanted to capture or to kill you?
I didnt stop to ask them, said Denison acidly.
Um, said Carey, and lapsed into thought, his pipe working overtime. After a while he stirred, and said, All right, Mrs Hansen; I think thats all.
She nodded briefly and left the room, and Carey glanced at McCready. I suppose we must tell him about Meyrick.
McCready grinned. I dont see how you can get out of it.
I have to know, said Denison, if Im going to carry on with this impersonation.
I trust Mrs Hansen and she doesnt know, said Carey. Not the whole story. I work on the need to know principle. He sighed. I suppose you need to know, so here goes. The first thing to know about Meyrick is that hes a Finn.
With a name like that?
Oddly enough, its his own name. In 1609 the English sent a diplomat to the court of Michael, the first Romanov Czar, to negotiate a trade treaty and to open up the fur trade. The courtiers of James I had to get their bloody ermine somewhere. The name of the diplomat was John Merick or Meyrick and he was highly philoprogenitive. He left by-blows all over the Baltic and Harry Meyrick is the end result of that.
It seems that Harry takes after his ancestor, commented McCready.
Carey ignored him. Of course, Meyricks name was a bit different in Finnish, but when he went to England he reverted to the family name. But thats by the way. He laid down his pipe. More to the point, Meyrick is a Karelian Finn; to be pedantic, if hed stayed at home in the town where he was born hed now be a Russian. How good is your modern history?
Average I suppose, said Denison.
And that means bloody awful, observed Carey. All right; in 1939 Russia attacked Finland and the Finns held them off in what was known as the Winter War. In 1941 Germany attacked Russia and the Finns thought it a good opportunity to have another go at the Russkies, which was a pity because that put them on the losing side. Still, its difficult to see what else they could have done.
At the end of this war, which the Finns know as the Continuation War, there was a peace treaty and the frontier was withdrawn. The old frontier was too close, to Leningrad, which had the Russians edgy. An artilleryman could stand in Finland and lob shells right into the middle of Leningrad, so the Russians took over the whole of the Karelian Isthmus, together with a few other bits and pieces. This put Meyricks home town, Enso, on the Russian side, and the Russians renamed it Svetogorsk.
Carey sucked on his pipe which had gone out. It gurgled unpleasantly. Am I making myself clear?
Youre clear enough, said Denison. But I want more than a history lesson.