Goodbye California - Alistair [83]
‘I agree. Come, Mrs Ryder. Your daughter’s shoulder requires attention. Dr Hitushi here is a highly qualified physician.’ He paused and looked at Peggy. ‘I am genuinely sorry about this. Tell me, did you notice anything peculiar about either of your attackers?’
‘Yes.’ Peggy gave a little shiver. ‘One of them – a little man – didn’t have a left hand.’
‘Did he have anything at all?’
‘Yes. Like two curved fingers, only they were made of metal, with rubber tips.’
‘I’ll be back, soon,’ Susan said and permitted Morro to guide her by the elbow out in the passageway where she angrily shook her arm free. ‘Did you have to do that to the poor child?’
‘I regret it extremely. A beautiful child.’
‘You don’t wage war on women.’ Morro should have shrivelled on the spot, but didn’t. ‘Why bring her here?’
‘I don’t hurt women or permit them to be hurt. This was an accident. I brought her here because I thought she’d be better with her mother with her.’
‘So you shock people, you tell lies and now you’re a hypocrite.’ Again Morro remained unshrivelled.
‘Your contempt is understandable, your spirit commendable, but you’re wrong on all three counts. I also brought her here for proper medical treatment.’
‘What was wrong with San Diego?’
‘I have friends there, but no medical friends.’
‘I would point out, Mr Morro, that they have fine hospitals there.’
‘And I would point out that hospitals would have meant the law. How many small Mexicans do you think there are in San Diego with a prosthetic appliance in place of a left hand? He’d have been picked up in hours and have led them to me. I’m afraid I couldn’t have that, Mrs Ryder. But I couldn’t leave her with my friends either because there she would be lonely, with no one capable of looking after her wound, and that would have been psychologically and physically very bad for her. Here she has you and skilled medical attention. As soon as the doctor has finished treating her I’m sure he’ll permit her to be wheeled to your suite to stay there with you.’
Susan said: ‘You’re a strange man, Mr Morro.’ He looked at her without expression, turned and left.
Ryder awoke at 5.30 p.m., feeling less refreshed than he should have done, because he had slept only fitfully. This was less because of worry about his family – he was becoming increasingly if irrationally of the opinion that they weren’t in as grave danger as he had at once thought – than because there were several wandering wisps of thought tugging at the corners of his mind: only he couldn’t identify them for what they were. He rose, made sandwiches and coffee, and consumed them while he ploughed through the earthquake literature he had borrowed from Pasadena. Neither the coffee nor the literature helped him any. He went out and called up the FBI office. Delage answered.
Ryder said: ‘Is Major Dunne around?’
‘Sound asleep. Is it urgent?’
‘No. Let him be. Got anything that might interest me?’
‘Leroy has, I think.’
‘Anything from eight-eight-eight South Maple?’
‘Nothing of interest. Local nosey neighbour, a rheumy-eyed old goat – I’m quoting, you understand – who would clearly like to know your Bettina Ivanhoe, if that’s her name, better than he does, says that she hasn’t been to work today, that she hasn’t been out all morning.’
‘He’s sure?’
‘Foster – that’s our stake-out man, spends most of his time round the back – says he believes him.’
‘Eternal vigilance, you’d say?’
‘Probably with a pair of high-powered binoculars. She went out this afternoon, but walking: there’s a supermarket on the corner and she came back with a couple of carry-bags. Foster got a good look at her. Says he hardly blames the old goat. While she was out Foster let himself in and put a bug on her phone.’
‘Anything?’
‘She hasn’t used the phone since. More interesting, our legal friend was on the phone twice today. Well, only the second conversation was interesting. The first was made by the judge himself to his chambers. Said he’s been stricken by a case of