"Kyle, Duncan - Terror's Cradle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kyle Duncan)

I swallowed and rose. Just a few hours earlier I'd been cringing, exhausted and terrified, in the Valley of Fire. My emotions, as I entered Scown's office were not dissimilar. The two secretaries exited slickly past me, getting out of range.

The stiff quiff of white hair with the wave in it bristled up from his forehead and the cold blue eyes looked me over. 'Well?'

I told him. Briefly. He likes short sentences, Scown does. Then I waited for the blast.

He said, 'Money up the spout. Good story lost.'

I blinked. It was like being tapped with a feather when you're expecting to be hit by a bus. There'd be more to come.

Surprisingly there wasn't. He said, 'Silly cowl 'Susannah. Yes, she is.'

'Not her, you bloody idiot. Alison Hay.'

Alsa! That phone call. Damn! I said, 'Why? What's she done?'

He looked up at me for a moment and there was something in his eyes I hadn't seen before. He said, 'Christ only knows. She's vanished,'




CHAPTER FIVE

'Off the face of the bloody earth,' Scown said. He was staring at me angrily, but the anger wasn't for me.

My whole body seemed to tighten, then shrivel. Alsa? Vanished? 'Where?' I demanded.

'She was in Gothenburg,' Scown was a Scot but the accent was usually neutral. At moments of stress he reverted a bit, and he was reverting now; the o of Gothenburg was contemptuously emphasized.

'When?'

'Night before last.' That was when she'd phoned me.

Scown knew what he was telling me, and what I was feeling. Alsa was something special in several people's lives, including both of ours. Her father had been Scown's only real friend and Scown had worked him into an early grave by way of gratitude. But long before that Joe had plucked me off the Yorkshire Post and opened his kingdom and his home to me. Like his daughter, Joe Hay had been the special kind, with heavy emphasis on the word kind. Though there wasn't much humanity left in Scown, what trace there was had been directed at Alsa since Joe's death. But he had weird ways of showing it, like sending her to Russia.

'What happened?'

'She phoned me. When she got in from Moscow. She was okay then. Night before last, fairly late, she rang the local police.'

'Why?'

'She said . . .' He paused. 'It's bloody stupid. She told diem she was in danger. Asked for help. When they got to her hotel, she'd gone. No message. Nothing.'

'And nothing since?'

'No.' He exhaled hard through his nose in exasperation, nostrils widening. 'Not a bloody word.'

"What do the police say?'

'What do they ever say? Bugger all!'