‘Me?’ I stared at her thinking she was having a bit of fun. ‘Who? When?’
‘Didn’t give her name. I didn’t ask her, see. You’d been gone about ten minutes and she said it was urgent, so I told her she could wait in your room. ‘Course she may be a newspaper girl. But she didn’t look it. I’ve had them before, see, when there was that Eddie Stock here and they mistook him for the fellow that did the Barking shotgun hold-up…’
But by then I had turned and was hurrying down the basement stairs. It had to be her. There was nobody else, no girl at any rate, that could have found out where I was. Unless Saltley had sent his secretary with a message. I don’t know whether the eagerness I felt stemmed from my desperate need of company or from a sexual urge I could hardly control as I jumped down the last few stairs and flung open the door of my room.
She looked up at my entrance, the jut of her jaw just as determined, but the squarish, almost plain face lit by a smile. There were other parts of her that jutted, for she was wearing slacks and a very close-fitting jersey-knit sweater. A fleece-lined suede coat lay across the bed and she had the typescript of my book in her hands. She got up and stood facing me a little awkwardly. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’ She held up the dog-eared typescript. ‘I couldn’t resist.’ She was unsure of herself. ‘Salt was very stuffy about it at first — the address, I mean. But I got it out of him in the end. Such an incredible, marvellous story. I just had to see you.’ She had a sort of glow, her eyes alight with excitement.
‘You believe it then?’
‘Of course.’ She said it without the slightest hesitation. ‘Salty said nobody could possibly have invented it. But then of course,’ she added, ‘we want to believe it, anyway Daddy, Mother, me, Virgins Unlimited… I told you about the syndicate, didn’t I? The rude name they call it. The other syndicates, too.’ She was nervous, talking very fast. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ She put the typescript carefully down beside her coat. ‘I read a couple of chapters, that’s all, but I’ve learned so much — about you and what you want out of life. I’d like to take it with me. It’s so moving.’
‘You like it?’ I didn’t know what else to say, standing there, gazing at her and remembering that letter I’d received at Ras al Khaimah.
‘Oh, yes. What I’ve read so far. If I could borrow it… there’s a publisher, a friend of ours, lives at Thorpe-le-Soken…’ Her voice trailed away. ‘I’m sorry. I’m being bossy. Daddy says I’m always trying to run other people’s lives for them. It’s not true, of course, but I’m afraid I sometimes give that impression. Do sit down please.’ She looked quickly round the room and I could almost see her nose wrinkling at the bare bleakness of it. ‘Did you get a letter from me?’ She said it in an offhand way, busying herself with picking up her coat and hanging it on the hook of the door. ‘Perhaps the bed will be more comfortable. That chair’s an arse-breaker, I can tell you.’ She plumped herself down on the far side of the bed. ‘Well, did you?’ She was watching me intently, her eyes bright. ‘Yes, I see you did. But you never replied.’
I hesitated, my blood beginning to throb at the invitation I thought I could see in her eyes. ‘Yes, the dhow brought it to me.’ I sat down on the bed beside her and touched her hand. ‘And I did reply to it. But if you believe my account of what happened you’ll realize the reply is still on board that tanker.’
Her fingers moved against mine. ‘I only know what Salty told me. Daddy and I were at his office late this afternoon. He gave us an outline, but very brief. Daddy was there to decide what action should be taken as a result of your report.’ She gripped my hand. ‘When I insisted Salty give me your address, and Daddy knew I intended seeing you, he said to give you his warmest thanks for risking your neck and achieving — well, achieving the impossible. Those were his words. And Salty thought the same, though of course he didn’t say so. What he said was that he’d only given you what had been agreed, but that if your information resulted in any of the GODCO claims being set aside, then there would be a proper recompense.’
‘I had my own motives,’ I muttered.
‘Yes, I know that. But it’s just incredible what you did, and all in little more than a week.’
‘Luck,’ I said. ‘I was following Choffel.’
She nodded. ‘Tell me what you said, would you please.’
‘To Saltley?’ I half shook my head, remembering that long cross-examination and not wanting to go over it all again. But then I thought it might help for her to know, so I started to tell her about Baldwick coming to see me at Balkaer. But that wasn’t what she wanted. It was the letter. ‘What did you say — in that letter I never received. Please tell me what you said.’
I shook my head. It was one thing to write it in a letter, another to say the same words to her face. I took my hand away and got up. ‘I don’t really remember,’ I muttered. ‘I was touched. Deeply touched. I said that. Also, that I was lonely — a little afraid, too — and your letter was a great comfort… to know that somebody, somewhere, is concerned about whether you live or die, that makes a great difference.’
She reached out and touched my hand. ‘Thank you. I didn’t know how you’d feel. It was so—‘ She hesitated, blushing slightly and half smiling to herself. ‘After I posted it — I felt a bit of a fool, getting carried away like that. But I couldn’t help it. That was the way I felt.’
‘It was nice of you,’ I said. ‘It meant a great deal to me at that moment.’ And I bent down and kissed her then — on the forehead, a very chaste kiss.
‘Go on,’ she said, and giggled because she hadn’t intended it as an invitation. ‘You started telling me about the man who came to your cottage. I interrupted, but please… I want to know everything that happened after I left you that day at Lloyd’s.’ She patted the coverlet beside her. ‘You went off the following day by air for Nantes…’
I took it up from there, and now she listened intently, almost hanging on my words, so that halfway through, when I was telling her about my eerie night walk the length of the tanker’s deck, I suddenly couldn’t help myself — I said, ‘I warn you, if you stay and listen to the whole thing I may find it very difficult to let you go.’
‘I could always scream the house down.’ She was suddenly laughing and her eyes looked quite beautiful. But then she said quickly, ‘Go on, do — how did you and Choffel land up alone on that dhow together?’
But at that moment footsteps sounded on the stairs. There was a knock at the door. ‘Can I come in?’ It was Saltley. He checked in the doorway, smiling at the two of us sitting on the bed, his quick gaze taking in the details of the room. ‘So this is where you’ve holed up.’
‘Why have you come?’ I was on my feet now, resenting the intrusion.
He unbuttoned his overcoat and seated himself on the chair. ‘Have the police been to see you?’ And when 1 told him about the Special Branch visit, he said, ‘That was inevitable, and I warned you.’ He was staring at me, the smile gone now and his eyes cold. ‘Are you sure you didn’t shoot Choffel?’
‘Why do you ask? I told you how it was.’
And Pamela, suddenly very tense, asked, ‘What’s happened?’
He turned to her and said, ‘It was just after you left. A girl came to see me, a dark-haired, determined, very emotional sort of person. A secretary at some clinic in France, she said, and in her early twenties. She had flown in from Nantes this morning and had been given my name and the address of the office by the Lloyd’s agent.’