The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett [93]
Vandam was bitterly disappointed.
Kernel said: “The men I am using are completely reliable, and they are reporting directly to me.”
Vandam grunted, then roused himself to be courteous. “Yes, I’m sure,” he said. “Thank you for coming in.”
Kernel stood up. “No trouble,” he said. “Good-bye.” He went out.
Vandam sat brooding. He read Kernel’s report again, as if there might have been clues between the lines. If Sonja was connected with Wolff—and Vandam still believed she was, somehow—clearly the association was not a close one. If she was meeting anyone, the meetings must be taking place away from the houseboat.
Vandam went to the door and called: “Jakes!”
“Sir!”
Vandam sat down again and Jakes came in. Vandam said: “From now on I want you to spend your evenings at the Cha-Cha Club. Watch Sonja, and observe whom she sits with after the show. Also, bribe a waiter to tell you whether anyone goes to her dressing room.”
“Very good, sir.”
Vandam nodded dismissal, and added with a smile: “Permission to enjoy yourself is granted.”
The smile was a mistake: it hurt. At least he was no longer trying to live on glucose dissolved in warm water: Gaafar was giving him mashed potatoes and gravy, which he could eat from a spoon and swallow without chewing. He was existing on that and gin. Dr. Abuthnot had also told him he drank too much and smoked too much, and he had promised to cut down—after the war. Privately he thought: After I’ve caught Wolff.
If Sonja was not going to lead him to Wolff, only Elene could. Vandam was ashamed of his outburst at Elene’s apartment. He had been angry at his own failure, and the thought of her with Wolff had maddened him. His behavior could be described only as a fit of bad temper. Elene was a lovely girl who was risking her neck to help him, and courtesy was the least he owed her.
Wolff had said he would see Elene again. Vandam hoped he would contact her soon. He still felt irrationally angry at the thought of the two of them together; but now that the houseboat angle had turned out to be a dead end, Elene was his only hope. He sat at his desk, waiting for the phone to ring, dreading the very thing he wanted most.
Elene went shopping in the late afternoon. Her apartment had come to seem claustrophobic after she had spent most of the day pacing around, unable to concentrate on anything, alternately miserable and happy; so she put on a cheerful striped dress and went out into the sunshine.
She liked the fruit-and-vegetable market. It was a lively place, especially at this end of the day when the tradesmen were trying to get rid of the last of their produce. She stopped to buy tomatoes. The man who served her picked up one with a slight bruise, and threw it away dramatically before filling a paper bag with undamaged specimens. Elene laughed, for she knew that the bruised tomato would be retrieved, as soon as she was out of sight, and put back on the display so that the whole pantomime could be performed again for the next customer. She haggled briefly over the price, but the vendor could tell that her heart was not in it, and she ended up paying almost what he had asked originally.
She bought eggs, too, having decided to make an omelet for supper. It was good to be carrying a basket of food, more food than she could eat at one meal: it made her feel safe. She could remember days when there had been no supper.
She left the market and went window-shopping for dresses. She bought most of her clothes on impulse: she had firm ideas about what she liked, and if she planned a trip to buy something special, she could never find it. She wanted one day to have her own dressmaker.
She thought: I wonder if William Vandam could afford-that for his wife?
When she thought of Vandam she was happy, until she thought of Wolff.
She knew she could escape, if she wished, simply by refusing to see Wolff, refusing to make a date with him, refusing to answer his message.