Comes the Dark Stranger - Jack Higgins [28]
For a long moment they looked into each other’s eyes, and then Shane turned away and walked down towards the gate, and behind him the woman started to cry.
The sound of that crying seemed to pursue him all the way back to the hotel, and when he reached his room he sat on the edge of the bed, his head spinning, so that he could not make sense of any of it.
He lit a cigarette and lay back against the pillows, staring up into the darkness, and after a while there was a light tap at the door and he ran his fingers through his hair and got to his feet. When he opened the door, Laura Faulkner was standing there.
He stood to one side, and she walked past him into the room. He closed the door and said, ‘How did you find me?’
She shrugged. ‘It was easy. I worked my way through the classified directory, telephoning each hotel in turn.’
He frowned. ‘You must have wanted to see me pretty badly.’
‘I was worried about you,’ she said. ‘Especially after that phone call this afternoon.’
He laughed lightly. ‘It didn’t mean a thing. I thought I saw you in town, that’s all, and I wanted to make sure.’
She was wearing a loose, open coat over a black cocktail dress that moulded her exquisite figure. Her dark hair hung down to her shoulders, framing the lovely face and she had brought a faint trace of delicate perfume into the room that set his nerves tingling.
‘Who’s looking after your father?’ he said. ‘Or is he fit to be left on his own?’
She shook her head. ‘I arrange for the cleaning woman to come in if I want to go out. She’s very dependable. I was supposed to go to a party at a friend’s house tonight, but I changed my mind.’
‘Because of me?’ Shane said.
‘Because of you.’
There was a moment of fragile stillness between them, and she seemed to sway towards him, and then there was a sudden excited whining at the door and a scratching sound.
She laughed lightly. ‘Oh, damn that dog. I left him to look after the car.’
She opened the door, and the Dobermann slipped into the room like a black shadow and sniffed suspiciously at Shane’s shoes before going to his mistress.
For some inexplicable reason Shane felt alive again. He reached for his jacket, and said, ‘It seems I’ve spoilt your evening. Is there anywhere reasonable you’d like to go for a drink and a dance perhaps?’
She smiled warmly. I’d like that. ‘I’d like that a lot.’ She appeared to think for a moment and nodded her head. ‘I know just the place. It’s a roadhouse about five miles out of town. It’s always nice and quiet during the week.’
‘Sounds just what I need,’ he said, and pulled on his trench-coat.
He opened the door and stood to one side to let her pass. She paused in front of him, a strange expression on her face, and lightly touched the bulge under his jacket that was the butt of his Luger. ‘Do we really need that with us?’
For a moment he hesitated, and then he went back into the room and slipped the Luger under his pillow. When he returned she smiled and slipped a hand through his arm. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. He locked the door and they went downstairs.
Visibility was still very bad, and she drove slowly and carefully on the road out of town. The car was a small coupé and far from new, but the engine pulled well; and when they had climbed the hill out of the valley in which the town lay, the fog was thinner and visibility much improved.
The red glow from a neon sign indicated the roadhouse long before they reached it. It was a low, rambling building with a large car park at one side, and Laura Faulkner turned the car through the gates and halted. ‘What about the dog?’ Shane asked.
She smiled. ‘I’ll leave him in the car. We can’t stay long anyway. I’ve got to be back home no later than midnight.’
There were no more than a dozen couples