She slipped on her mink coat, glanced in the mirror, adjusted her hat, then picking up the briefcase holding the stock list, she left her suite.
She had the stock lists for the previous month at the villa and she wanted to check the prices against the prices Archer had given her. She wanted to be certain just how much money he had stolen. He had said glibly two million dollars, but she wanted to know the exact sum.
The doorman opened her car door with a flourish. She nodded to him, started the engine, then joined the traffic crawl along the lake.
Drugged by the pills, she had slept heavily and she still felt heavy headed and irritable. The day after tomorrow, she thought, she would have to drive to Agno to meet Herman’s plane. She wondered in what mood she would find him. Usually, after a plane trip, he was testy and difficult. She would have to get something out of the deep freeze ready for Hinkle to cook. Herman was faddy about his food. One of his favourite dishes was breaded veal with spaghetti: this Helga never ate. She had the middle-aged woman’s horror of getting fat. There would be filets of veal in the freezer. She would get them out tomorrow.
She stopped at the Migros store at Cassarate and bought onions, a tin of peeled tomatoes and a tin of tomato puree. She knew there would be packets of spaghetti in the store cupboard. She bought a dozen eggs and a litre of milk. Hinkle was a genius at making an omelette which she could always eat. She paused for a moment thinking, but could think of nothing else to buy. With her purchases in a paper bag, she got into the car and drove up the twisting road to Castagnola. She stopped at the Post Office and collected some dozen letters. The girl behind the counter gave her a friendly smile.
“Will you be staying long, madame?”
“Till the end of the month. Please have the letters delivered tomorrow.”
She drove up to the villa. The snow plough had been at work and the road was clear but there were high banks of snow either side of the road and once when she pressed too hard on the gas pedal, the back wheels of the car slipped, a slip she quickly corrected. The private drive to the villa had also been cleared and the roadman had put down grit. The fifty francs she gave him each February was an investment that produced dividends when snow and ice made the drive difficult.
The garage doors, controlled by an electronic beam swung up and she drove in, parking beside Hinkle’s 1500 Volkswagen. Collecting the mail, her briefcase and the paper bag, she walked along the underground passage to the villa. She remembered she had left the door from the cellar to the villa unlocked and she frowned at her carelessness. Shrugging, she opened the door, shut and locked it, then walked up the stairs and into the big entrance hall. She put the mail on the table and took off her coat and hat which she left in a recess. She carried her purchases to the kitchen, then she looked at her watch. The time was now n. 15. Time for a drink, she told herself, then she must get down to work. It would take her an hour or more to check through all the stock lists… but first a drink.
She walked briskly into the big living-room and then came to an abrupt standstill, her heart missing a beat.
Standing awkwardly by the big picture window, his peak cap in his hand, was Larry.
CHAPTER FIVE
For a long moment, she stood staring at this big, blond boy aware only of the faint sound of the central heating motor below and the violent beating of her heart.
During that moment, her mind was paralysed by shock, then her resilience absorbed the shock and fury gripped her, sending blood to her face, making the veins in her neck throb and giving her face an expression of vicious rage.
“How dare you come back!” she screamed at him. “Get out! Do you hear me! Get out!”
He flinched, then rubbed the side of his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Excuse me, ma’am… I had to see you.”
She strode to the door and threw it open.
“Get out or I’ll call the police!”
The moment she had said it, she knew she had lost control of herself. Police? The last thing she would want was a curious Swiss policeman here. She forced down her rage and her mind began to function. What was he doing here… more blackmail! He wouldn’t dare! He was an Army deserter… and yet Archer was a thief and a forger and he hadn’t hesitated to blackmail her. Could this lout of a boy realize what she stood to lose if he gave her away?
But she was determined to intimidate him.
“Get out!” she screamed at him.
“Ma’am… please… won’t you listen to me? I want to say I’m sorry.” He twisted his cap, his face in despair. “Honestly, ma’am… I want you to believe me… I’m sorry.”
She drew in a deep breath, controlling her fury.
“Rather late, isn’t it?” she said bitterly. “Sorry? After what you have done? After the way I treated you? You have the impudence to come here and tell me you’re sorry. Oh, go away! The sight of you sickens me!”
“Yeah… I guess you have reason.” He shuffled his feet. “Ma’am, I want to help you. When I told Ron, he said I was a dirty sonofabitch. He said if I didn’t do something about this, he’d never speak to me again.”
Helga stiffened.
“You told Ron?”
“Yes, ma’am. I told him last night on the phone. You see, ma’am, I owe him money. This fat guy gave me fifteen hundred dollars. I guess I was a little excited. I haven’t had so much money in one lump before. I told Ron I was buying a second-hand car and then he wanted to know how I got the money… so I told him.”
How many more were going to know what a reckless, mad fool she had been? she thought. This boy, that awful little queer, Archer and now this man, Ron.
She went over to the bar, poured a large slug of vodka into a glass and without bothering to add ice, she gulped it down. The neat spirit made her eyes water, but it knitted her together so she ceased to tremble. She sat down, opened her bag and took out her cigarettes. She lit one, then she pointed to a chair away from her.
“Sit down!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Awkwardly and sheepishly, he sat on the edge of the chair and looked down at his hands.
“Ron was real wild with me, ma’am,” he said. “He said a blackmailer is the dirtiest thing on earth. He said I was a stinking creep to have done such a thing. I - I told him I wasn’t a blackmailer. I was paid to do a job and I did it. I wouldn’t blackmail anyone.” He looked up, staring miserably at her. “He said what I had done was blackmail and he’d never speak to me again unless I came to you and explained.”
“Did you tell him who I was?” Helga asked.
He nodded.
“I guess I did. I told him everything: how you got my passport for me and about this fat guy. He said I had to help you… so I’m here, ma’am. I’ve been waiting for hours here hoping you would come. I’m going to help you, ma’am.”
Helga made an impatient movement, sending her cigarette ash on the carpet.
“Help me? You? What do you think you can do? It’s now much too late for anyone to help me! Now, get out! The sight of you sickens me!”
“He’s got photos of us, hasn’t he?”
“You know he has and he’s now blackmailing me!”
“I’ll get them from him, ma’am, and I’ll give them to you!”
“You’re talking like the fool you are! They are now out of reach. He’s mailed them to his bank!”
There was a pause, then Larry said quietly, “Is he out of reach, ma’am?”
There was this deadly note in his voice she had heard before when he had said to Friedlander: What would it cost you if you got your hands crushed in a door?
She regarded him, her body suddenly tense.
“What do you mean?”
He put his cap down on the floor beside him and took out a pack of chewing gum. As he stripped off the wrapper, he said, “If I could get hold of him, ma’am, I could persuade him to get the photos from the bank and then you could have them.”