Goodbye California - Alistair [89]
‘That makes two of us.’
‘Jeff, go see if the FBI man is intercepting a phone call. I know I’m just wasting your time.’ Jeff left.
‘Poor bloody kid.’ Parker shook his head. ‘Imagine if that were Peggy.’
‘Just what I am meaning. Old man a spy, probably an industrial one. Called back to Russia to report and now being held over her head – along with her mother, probably. Being blackmailed to hell and back. One thing: we can probably tell our super-spies in Geneva what they can do with themselves. She’s intelligent. I’ll bet she has total recall about this Russian weather report or whatever.’
‘Hasn’t she had enough, John? And what will happen to her parents?’
‘Nothing, I should imagine. Not if the report leaks out that she has been arrested or disappeared or held incommunicado. That’s the way they’d act themselves.’
‘Not the way we act in our great American democracy.’
‘They don’t believe in our great American democracy.’
They waited until Jeff returned. He looked at them and shook his head.
‘It figures,’ Ryder said. ‘Our poor little Bettina has no place left to go.’
They went back inside. She was sitting straight again, looking at them without expectation. Her brown eyes were dulled and there were tear stains on her cheeks. The men didn’t bother to sit down. She looked at Ryder.
‘I know who you are.’
‘You have the advantage over me. I’ve never seen you before in my life. We are going to take you into protective custody, that’s all.’
‘I know what that means. Protective custody. Spying, treason, a morals charge. Protective custody.’
Ryder caught her wrist, pulled her to her feet, and held her by the shoulders. ‘You’re in California, not Siberia. Protective custody means that we’re going to take you in and keep you safe and unharmed until this blows over. There will be no charges preferred against you because there are none to prefer. We promise that no harm will come to you, not now, nor later.’ He led her towards the door and opened it. ‘If you want to, you can go. Pack some things, take them to your car and drive off. But it’s cold out there and dark and you’ll be alone. You’re too young to be alone.’
She looked through the doorway, turned back, made a movement of the shoulders that could have been a shrug or a shiver and looked at Ryder uncertainly. He said: ‘We know of a safe place. We’ll send a policewoman with you, not a battle-axe to guard you but a young and pretty girl like yourself to keep you company.’ He nodded to Jeff. ‘I know my son here will take the greatest care, not to say pleasure, in picking out just the girl for you.’ Jeff grinned and it was probably his smile more than anything else that convinced her. ‘You will, of course, have an armed guard outside. Two or three days, no more. Just pack enough for that. Don’t be a dope; we just want to look after you.’
She smiled for the first time, nodded and left the room. Jeff grinned again. ‘I’ve often wondered how you managed to trap Susan, but now I’m beginning to –’
Ryder gave him a cold look. ‘Green’s all through here. Go and explain to him why.’
Jeff left, still smiling.
Healey, Bramwell and Schmidt had foregathered in Burnett’s sitting-room after dinner, excellent as was all the food in the Adlerheim. It had been a sombre meal, as most meals were, and the atmosphere had not been lightened by the absence of Susan who had been eating with her injured daughter. Carlton had not been there either, but this had hardly been remarked upon, because the deputy chief of security had become a highly unsociable creature – gloomy, withdrawn, almost secretive: it was widely assumed that he was brooding over his own defects and failures in the field of security. After a meal eaten quickly and in funereal silence all had left as soon as they decently could. And now Burnett was dispensing his post-prandial hospitality – in this case an excellent Martell – with his customary heavy hand.
‘Woman’s not normal,’ Burnett was speaking and, as usual, he wasn’t saying something,