“But …” began Adam.
“No explanations. Just be at the consulate at eleven. Now you’d better get off the line,” said Lawrence. “Eleven, and don’t be late.”
“Right,” said Adam, “and …” but the phone had already been put down. Thank God for Lawrence, he thought. The Lawrence of old, the Lawrence of old who didn’t need to ask any questions because he already knew the answers. Christ, what had he got himself involved in? Adam checked the street once again. Still no one in sight. He quickly stole the two hundred yards back to the hotel. The front door remained unlocked, the porter asleep, the television screen still faintly humming, the silver dot in place. Adam was back on his bed by four-oh-five. He didn’t sleep. Rosenbaum, Heidi, the taxi driver, the Russian gentleman at Sotheby’s. So many pieces of a jigsaw, none of them fitting into place.
But the one thing that worried him most was the conversation with Lawrence—the Lawrence of old?
The two policemen arrived at the Hotel Monarche at twenty past seven that Thursday morning. They were tired, discontent, and hungry. Since midnight they had visited forty-three hotels on the west side of the city, on each occasion with no success. They had checked over a thousand registration cards and woken seven innocent Englishmen who had not come anywhere near fitting the description of Adam Scott.
At eight they would be off duty and could go home to their wives and breakfasts; but they still had three more hotels to check before then. When the landlady saw them coming into the hall she waddled as quickly as possible from the inner office toward them. She loathed the police and was willing to believe anyone who told her that the Swiss pigs were even worse than the Germans. Twice in the last year she had been fined and once even threatened with jail over her failure to register every guest. If they caught her once more, she knew they would take her license away and with it her living. Her slow mind tried to recall who had booked in the previous evening. Eight people had registered, but only two had paid cash—the Englishman who hardly opened his mouth, Mr. Pemberton was the name he had filled in on the missing card, and Maurice, who always turned up with a different girl whenever he was in Geneva. She had destroyed both their cards and pocketed the money. Maurice and the girl had left by seven, and she had already made up their bed, but the Englishman was still asleep in his room.
“We need to check your registration cards for last night, madame.”
“Certainly, monsieur,” she replied with a warm smile, and gathered together the six remaining cards: two Frenchmen, one Italian, two nationals from Zurich, and one from Basle.
“Did an Englishman stay here last night?”
“No,” said the landlady firmly. “I haven’t had an Englishman,” she added helpfully, “for at least a month. Would you like to see the cards for last week?”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” said the policeman. The landlady grunted with satisfaction. “But we will still need to check your unoccupied rooms. I see from the certificate that there are twelve guest bedrooms in the hotel,” the policeman continued. “So there must be six that should be empty.”
“There’s no one in them,” said the landlady. “I’ve already checked them once this morning.”
“We still need to see for ourselves,” the other officer insisted.
The landlady picked up her pass key and waddled toward the stairs, which she proceeded to climb as if they were the final summit of Everest. She opened bedrooms five, seven, nine, ten, and eleven. Maurice’s room had been remade within minutes of his leaving but the old lady knew she would lose her license the moment they entered twelve. She just stopped herself from knocking on the door before she turned the key in the lock. The two policemen walked in ahead of her while she remained in the corridor, just in case there was any trouble. Not for the first time that day she cursed the efficiency of Swiss police.
“Thank you, madame,” said the first policeman as he stepped back into. the corridor. “We are sorry to have troubled you,” he added. He put a tick on his list next to the Hotel Monarche.
As the two policemen made their way downstairs, the landlady walked into room number twelve, mystified. The bed was undisturbed, as if it had not been slept in, and there was no other sign of anyone having spent the night there. She called on her tired memory. She hadn’t drunk that much the previous night—she touched the fifty francs in her pocket as if to prove the point. “I wonder where he is,” she muttered.
For the past hour Adam had been crouching behind a derelict coach in a railway goods yard less than half a mile from the hotel. He had a clear view for a hundred yards in every direction. He had watched the early-morning commuters flooding in on every train. By twenty past eight Adam judged they were at their peak. He checked that the icon was in place and left his hideout to join the flood as they headed to work. He stopped at the kiosk to purchase a newspaper. The only English paper on sale at that time in the morning was the Herald Tribune, the London papers didn’t arrive until the first plane could land, but Adam had seen the Herald Tribune come in on the train from Paris. He made two other purchases at the station kiosk before rejoining the scurrying crowds: a city map of Geneva and a large bar of Nestlé’s chocolate.
There were still over two hours to kill before he could present himself at the consulate. Although it was some way in the distance, he could already see the building he had marked out as his next place of sanctuary. He steered a route toward it that allowed him to stay in contact with the largest number of people. When he arrived in the square he continued under the shop awnings round the longest route, clinging to the wall, always avoiding the open spaces. It took a considerable time, but his judgment was perfect. He reached the front door as hundreds of worshippers were leaving after the early-morning Communion service.
Once inside; he felt safe. Saint Peter’s was set out like most of the great cathedral
s of the world, and Adam found his bearings in a matter of moments. He made his way slowly down the side aisle toward the Lady Chapel, dropped some coins in one of the collection boxes, lit a candle, and placed it in a vacant holder below a statue of the Virgin Mother. He then fell on his knees, but his eyes never closed. A lapsed Catholic, he found he no longer believed in God—except when he was ill, frightened, or in an airplane. After about twenty minutes had passed Adam was distressed to see that there were now only a handful of people left in the cathedral. Some old ladies dressed in black filled a front pew, moving their rosary beads methodically and chanting, “Ave Maria, gratia plena …” A few tourists were craning their necks to admire the King beam roof, their eyes only looking upward.
Adam rose slowly, his eyes darting from side to side. He stretched his legs and walked over to a confessional box partly hidden behind a pillar. A small sign on the wooden support showed that the box was not in use. Adam slipped in, sat down, and pulled the curtain closed.
First he took out the Herald Tribune from his trench coat pocket, and then the bar of chocolate. He tore the silver paper from the chocolate and began to munch greedily. Next he searched for the story. Only one or two items of English news were on the front page, as most of the articles were devoted to what was happening in America. “The Pound Still Too High at $2.80?” one headline suggested. Adam’s eyes passed over the smaller headlines until he saw the paragraph he was looking for. It was in the bottom left-hand corner: “Englishman Sought after German Girl and Swiss Taxi Driver Murderer.” Adam read the story and only began to tremble when he discovered they knew his name.
“Captain Adam Scott, who recently resigned his commission from the Royal Wessex Regiment, is wanted … please turn to page fifteen.” Adam began to turn the large pages. It was not easy in the restricted space of a confessional. “ … for questioning by the Geneva police in connection with …”
“Au nom du Père, du Fils et du Saint-Esprit.”
Adam looked up from the paper, startled, and considered making a dash for it. But he allowed his long-ago training to take hold, and he found himself saying automatically, “Father, bless me, for I have sinned and wish to confess.”
“Good, my son, and what form has this sin taken?” asked the priest in accented but clear English.
Adam thought quickly, I must give him no clue as to who I am. He looked out through the gap in the curtain and was alarmed to see two policemen questioning another priest by the west door. He drew the curtains tight and turned to the only accent he could ever imitate with conviction.
“I’m over from Dublin, Father, and last night I picked up this local girl in a bar and took her back to my hotel.”
“Yes, my son.”
“Well, one thing led to another, Father.”