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

I thanked her and hung up, wondering whether she'd gossip in the ladies'. But she wouldn't. Editors' secretaries are hired because they won't gossip, in the ladies' or anywhere else.

I stood at the window, brooding, for a while; wondering if Alsa was somewhere among all those lights. A couple of times another question flickered in my mind. Was she even still alive? I tried not to think about that. Instead I tried to think what I could do next. In the face of police non-cooperation I could do precious little, and my mind was now so weary and leaden I was incapable of thinking clearly. I hated the idea of going to bed and leaving it till morning, but knew I had to.

I woke at four. No, that's not quite accurate. I was awakened at four. There was no intermediate, dopey stage. One minute I was fast asleep; the next I was awake, alert and tense, and wondering why. Someone in the room? I lay still, listening hard, but I could hear nothing except my own heartbeat. I reached for the light switch, but carefully. If someone were in the room, bed was not a helpful place to be. With my thumb on the switch, I hesitated. Somewhere in my mind there was the memory of a small sound. Had I heard it, or had it been part of a dream? Was it the sound that had awakened me?

I switched on the light and looked round the room, blink ing. Nobody there. Nobody in the bathroom either. Odd. I had a feeling it was a sound that had awakened me, but the silence was complete; few things are quieter than a hotel at four A.M. I began to prowl round, looking at things. Maybe it had been one coat hanger banging against another, something like that. I looked, but they all seemed still enough and there was no draught in the wardrobe to set them swinging.

Then my bare foot touched something moist on the carpet. Water? I glanced at me ceiling, but there was no sign of moisture up there, so I bent and rubbed the carpet with my fingers and found die moist spot. All right; where had the water come from? Was it, for instance, raining? I pulled back the curtain and it was raining cats and dogs. But it hadn't been raining when I went to bed, had it? No. I crawled round on my hands and knees wondering if there were other drops of water, and mere were, several of diem, half a dozen single drops more or less in a line from me door across the room, and two or three close together by my bed.

It was no longer a question of whether somebody had been in the room, but of who? And why? My scalp was still prickling; my heart thudding. There's nothing quite so alarming as die knowledge that somebody broke through and found you defenceless, even if he did nothing.

I thought about mat for a moment. The intruder, whoever he was, hadn't come here to do nothing. He'd come to do something. What? My bag lay on die stand. I lifted me lid and looked at the contents, but they hadn't been particularly tidy to begin with; there was no way of knowing if he'd been through mem, and it didn't really matter, because die bag held only my clothes. My passport and wallet, men? Hotel thieves like to have passports and wallets, not just for the money, but because there may be credit cards and almost certainly things like driving licences and letters, and documentation of a personality can be useful to criminals.

But bo▒ were still in my pockets, so it wasn't a hotel thief. Those drops of water beside die bed puzzled me: had the intruder just stood there, looking at me-the thought made me shiver involuntarily  or was there something else?

The Bible lay in the drawer with the telephone directory; the phone on die bedside table. The phone. I picked it up, not just the receiver, the whole thing.

Then I turned it over and looked carefully at the screws that held on the base plate. Steel screws, and in two places there were small, shiny scratch marks on the screw heads. Fresh scratch marks.

I've been through the experience before, in one or two places. I'd been bugged.




CHAPTER SIX

I'm no electronics engineer, so there was no way of knowing whether the bug only worked when the phone was used, or whether it was the nastier type that listened constantly. If it were the second variety, the listener would know I'd been handling the phone, and might be wondering if I'd inspected it. The best thing now would be to pretend to make a call, any call, and behave as naturally as possible. I I picked it up and waited a while, deliberately mumbling and muttering to myself when there was no answer. The hall porter was presumably dozing in his cubicle somewhere; either that or he'd been paid to stay out of the way while somebody came up to my room. I held on for a couple of minutes, then swore softly, replaced the receiver and went back to lie on the bed and brood.

I was wiser about only one thing. The fact that somebody had me bugged was clear proof Alsa hadn't voluntarily gone off somewhere. But then I'd never believed she had. Apart from that, two hours' thought got me precisely nowhere. I wasn't even sure what to do next.

Around six I took a shower, shaved and dressed and went downstairs in search of nourishment. The hotel dining room wouldn't be open for another hour, so I went out, found a workman's cafe and had some breakfast. As I finished the second cup of coffee, I decided I'd start at the obvious place and went to look for a taxi.

Strom Brothers AB was about three miles from the city centre and still not open when I arrived. I hung about in the drizzle for a while, and then the gates opened and cars began to roll up. The usual thing: works people arriving half an hour before the office staff. I persuaded the watchman to open up the waiting room. At five-to-eight people began flooding in and exactly at eight a girl asked what I wanted. I explained and was taken to see the works manager, a man called Morelius.

Morelius was grave and sorry and said he understood my concern for Miss Hay. He, too, was concerned and he would naturally help in any way he could. I asked if he'd been Alsa.

He told me she had spent just one afternoon at the print works. She'd arrived from Moscow, booked herself into the Scanda Hotel, then rung Strom Brothers and they'd sent a car to pick her up. The way I saw it, while she was waiting for the car, she must have rung Scown in London to say she'd arrived safely.

'Did she bring material here that afternoon, Mr Morelius?'

'Some, I think.' He frowned, remembering. 'She had a briefcase and one of those flat portfolios artists use.'

'Is any of it still here?'

'Yes.'

'May I see it?'