The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett [130]
Wolff propelled Elene into the room and at last let go of her arm. Elene looked at the upholstery, the wallpaper, the marble fireplace and the Tatler photographs of Angela Vandam: these things had the eerie look of familiar objects seen in a nightmare. Angela would have known what to do, Elene thought miserably. “Don’t be ridiculous!” she would have said; then, raising an imperious arm, she would have told Wolff to get out of her house. Elene shook her head to dispel the fantasy: Angela would have been as helpless as she.
Wolff sat down at the desk. He opened a drawer, took out a pad and a pencil, and began to write.
Elene wondered what Gaafar might do. Was it possible he might call GHQ to check with Billy’s father? Egyptians were very reluctant to make phone calls to GHQ, Elene knew: Gaafar would have trouble getting past the switchboard operators and secretaries. She looked around, and saw that anyway the phone was here in this room, so that if Gaafar tried, Wolff would know and stop him.
“Why did you bring me here?” she cried. Frustration and fear made her voice shrill.
Wolff looked up from his writing. “To keep the boy quiet. We’ve got a long way to go.”
“Leave Billy here,” she pleaded. “He’s a child.”
“Vandam’s child,” Wolff said with a smile.
“You don’t need him.”
“Vandam may be able to guess where I’m going,” Wolff said. “I want to make sure he doesn’t come after me.”
“Do you really think he’ll sit at home while you have his son?”
Wolff appeared to consider the point. “I hope so,” he said finally. “Anyway, what have I got to lose? If I don’t take the boy he’ll definitely come after me.”
Elene fought back tears. “Haven’t you got any pity?”
“Pity is a decadent emotion,” Wolff said with a gleam in his eye. “Scepticism regarding morality is what is decisive. The end of the moral interpretation of the world, which no longer has any sanction ...” He seemed to be quoting.
Elene said: “I don’t think you’re doing this to make Vandam stay home. I think you’re doing it out of spite. You’re thinking about the anguish you’ll cause him, and you love it. You’re a crude, twisted, loathsome man.”
“Perhaps you’re right.”
“You’re sick.”
“That’s enough!” Wolff reddened slightly. He appeared to calm himself with an effort. “Shut up while I’m writing.”
Elene forced herself to concentrate. They were going on a long journey. He was afraid Vandam would follow them. He had told Kernel he had another wireless set. Vandam might be able to guess where they were going. At the end of the journey, surely, there was the spare radio, with a copy of Rebecca and a copy of the key to the code. Somehow she had to help Vandam follow them, so that he could rescue them and capture the key. If Vandam could guess the destination, Elene thought, then so could I. Where would Wolff have kept a spare radio? It was a long journey away. He might have hidden one somewhere before he reached Cairo. It might be somewhere in the desert, or somewhere between here and Assyut. Maybe—
Billy came in. “Hello,” he said to Elene. “Did you bring me that book?”
She did not know what he was talking about. “Book?” She stared at him, thinking that he was still very much a child, despite his grown-up ways. He wore gray flannel shorts and a white shirt, and there was no hair on the smooth skin of his bare forearm. He was carrying a school satchel and wearing a school tie.
“You forgot,” he said, and looked betrayed. “You were going to lend me a detective story by Simenon.”
“I did forget. I’m sorry.”
“Will you bring it next time you come?”
“Of course.”
Wolff had been staring at Billy all this time, like a miser looking into his treasure chest. Now he stood up. “Hello, Billy,” he said with a smile. “I’m Captain Alexander.”
Billy shook hands and said: “How do you do, sir.”
“Your father asked me to tell you that he’s very busy indeed.”
“He