The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett [125]
Strong arms caught her in a tight grip. She struggled desperately, got free and was seized again. She slumped in defeat: after all that, she thought; after all that.
She was turned around, grasped by the arms and marched toward the houseboat. She saw Wolff walking toward her. She struggled again, and the man holding her got an arm around her throat. She opened her mouth to scream for help, but before she could make a sound the man had thrust his fingers down her throat, making her retch.
Wolff came up and said: “Who are you?”
“I’m Kernel. You must be Wolff.”
“Thank God you were there.”
“You’re in trouble, Wolff,” said the man called Kernel.
“You’d better come aboard—oh, shit, she threw away the fucking plank.” Wolff looked down at the river and saw the plank floating beside the houseboat. “I can’t get any wetter,” he said. He slid down the bank and into the water, grabbed the plank, shoved it up onto the bank and climbed up after it. He picked it up again and laid it across the gap between the houseboat and the bank.
“This way,” he said.
Kemel marched Elene across the plank, over the deck and down the ladder.
“Put her over there,” Wolff said, pointing to the couch.
Kernel pushed Elene over to the couch, not ungently, and made her sit down.
Wolff went through the curtains and came back a moment later with a big towel. He proceeded to rub himself dry with it. He seemed quite unembarrassed by his nakedness.
Elene was surprised to see that Kemel was quite a small man. From the way he had grabbed her, she had imagined he was Wolff’s build. He was a handsome, dark-skinned Arab. He was looking away from Wolff uneasily.
Wolff wrapped the towel around his waist and sat down. He examined his hand: “She nearly broke my fingers,” he said. He looked at Elene with a mixture of anger and amusement.
Kemel said: “Where’s Sonja?”
“In bed,” Wolff said, jerking his head toward the curtains. “She sleeps through earthquakes, especially after a night of lust.”
Kemel was uncomfortable with such talk, Elene observed, and perhaps also impatient with Wolff’s levity. “You’re in trouble,” he said again.
“I know,” Wolff said. “I suppose she’s working for Vandam.”
“I don’t know about that. I got a call in the middle of the night from my man on the towpath. Vandam had come along and sent my man to fetch help.”
Wolff was shocked. “We came close!” he said. He looked worried. “Where’s Vandam now?”
“Out there still. I knocked him on the head and tied him up.”
Elene’s heart sank. Vandam was out there in the bushes, hurt and incapacitated—and nobody else knew where she was. It had all been for nothing, after all.
Wolff nodded. “Vandam followed her here. That’s two people who know about this place. If I stay here I’ll have to kill them both.”
Elene shuddered: he talked of killing people so lightly. Masters and slaves, she remembered.
“Not good enough,” Kemel said. “If you kill Vandam the murder will eventually be blamed on me. You can go away, but I have to live in this town.” He paused, watching Wolff with narrowed eyes. “And if you were to kill me, that would still leave the man who called me last night.”
“So ...” Wolff frowned and made an angry noise. “There’s no choice. I have to go. Damn.”
Kemel nodded. “If you disappear, I think I can cover up. But I want something from you. Remember the reason we’ve been helping you.”
“You want to talk to Rommel.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be sending a message tomorrow night—tonight, I mean, damn, I’ve hardly slept. Tell me what you want to say, and I’ll—”
“Not good enough,” Kernel interrupted. “We want to do it ourselves. We want your radio.”
Wolff frowned. Elene realized that Kemel was a nationalist rebel, cooperating or trying to cooperate with