A squat, obese old gentleman with a towel about his waist, passed them, another attractive young woman in white smock assisting him. Each side of the room was lined with cubicles, the interiors masked by plastic curtains.
An atmosphere of brooding quiet hung over the place and then a woman laughed as they passed one of the cubicles. Brady turned his head quickly and noticed that the curtain wasn’t properly drawn.
Another fat and aging gentleman lay face down on a couch while a young woman massaged him. She wasn’t wearing her white smock. In fact she wasn’t wearing anything.
Things were becoming a little clearer. At least it was possible to understand how Soames could have a connexion with a man like Das.
The girl went through another swing door and they entered a quiet white-tiled corridor. There was a door at the end marked private and she opened it and Brady followed her in.
This room was also white-tiled and heavy with steam. There was a shower stall in one corner and a large padded table in the centre.
The man who stood beside it wore only bathing shorts and his body was strong and powerful, muscles standing out like great knots. The face was heavyboned and hard, eyes cold, hair close-eropped to the skull.
“This is Mr. Harlow, Karl,” the girl said. “Will you get him ready? The professor will be along in ten minutes.”
Karl’s English was good, but with a heavy German accent. “You will please take off your bathrobe,” he said politely.
Brady obliged and the German led him across to the shower stall and pushed him inside. The heavy glass door closed and a score of needle jets came to life and played upon his body forcefully.
It was not only that the water was ice-cold, the jets themselves were physically painful. He stuck it for two or three minutes and then tried to open the door.
It was locked. He hammered on the glass and Karl frowned his surprise, pointed to his watch and shook his head. The German turned a valve and the jets increased in force until Brady was crouched down on the floor, gasping with breath, fighting against the agony.
When the door opened, he fell on to the floor and the German lifted him and grinned, exposing bad teeth. “How do you feel now, Mr. Harlow?”
“More dead than alive,” Brady gasped. “Is that supposed to do me good?”
The German grinned again. “Oh, no, Mr. Brady. It’s supposed to soften you up.”
Brady was not really conscious of the blow itself, simply of something exploding in the pit of his stomach and then the white tiles lifted to meet him.
He was not unconscious because he could hear voices far away in the distance as the pain swelled in his body to a peak of agony and then retreated like the tide. Slowly the blackness turned to grey and then he was aware of the light directly above his head, set in the ceiling like some baleful eye, its rays diffused by the steam.
There was no longer pain, only a warmth spreading throughout his body as expert hands massaged his stomach muscles. He groaned and tried to get up. A hand pushed him back down and a harsh American voice said, “Take it easy, lover. You’re doing fine.”
He closed his eyes, breathed deeply for a moment or two, opened them again.
A woman leaned over him, but such a woman as he had never seen before. Long black hair framed a man’s face, hard and big-boned with a wide, fleshy mouth.
She was well over six feet in height and the sleeves of her white smock were rolled back to expose biceps a wrestler might have envied.
“Who the hell are you?” Brady said.
“Soames,” she said calmly. “I guess you got my sex wrong, lover.”
Brady sat up and rubbed his stomach. “I suppose Das telephoned you from Manningham?”
She nodded. “I never thought you’d make it, not with the dragnet the cops have got out for you. You must be quite a man, lover.”
Brady hesitated for a moment. “There was a girl. She tried to see you earlier. What happened to her?”
Soames grinned. “I thought there was a connexion. She got my sex wrong, too. Said she’d been recommended to see me by a satisfied patient. It just didn’t jell. I only handle men.”
“I bet you do,” Brady said. “Is the girl all right?''
She nodded. “For the time being.”
Her words carried an implied threat, but there was little he could do about it at the moment. He tightened the towel at his waist and stood up. “What now?”
She opened the door and the German stepped into the room. “Karl will take you to get dressed. When you’re ready, he’ll bring you to my private office for a chat.” She paused in the doorway. “Don’t try to make a run for it, lover. I wouldn’t want to have you roughed up again. It isn’t often I get the chance of having a chat with someone from the old country.”
When she had gone, Brady turned to the German and raised his right fist. “Any time you feel like trying again, just say the word.”
Karl tossed Brady’s bathrobe into his face. “Put that on, and hurry.”
He was wearing a tee shirt, white jacket and pants. Brady grinned. “You look real pretty, Karl. I bet the old boys go for you in a big way.”
The German’s face became suffused with passion. He pulled Brady close, produced a .38 revolver with a specially shortened barrel from his pocket, and tapped him in the face. “Now or later, Brady. It makes no difference to me. If you want a few more hours, keep your mouth shut.”
He pushed Brady out into the corridor and through the main steam room past the cubicles. Brady took his time over getting dressed, his mind racing. Unless the German had been trying to frighten him, there was only going to be one end to this business.
He was more worried about Anne than he was about himself. As they mounted the back stairs, he thought of her alone in this place, helpless, perhaps in Karl’s tender care.
The thought filled him with sudden quick rage and he hesitated, but the German prodded him in the back with the .38. “Keep moving!” he grated.
Soames was waiting in her office at the end of the corridor. It was beautifully furnished in contemporary style, the walls decorated in pastel shades of blue and hand-made silk wallpaper.
The desk was a sheet of black glass and she sat on the other side, a cigarette in a long, silver holder jutting out of the side of her mouth, and signing letters.
She looked up at him calmly. “You look fine, lover. Just fine. Karl, wait outside in the corridor.”
The German went without a murmur and she grinned again. “A good boy, Karl. A trifle psychopathic at times, but the clients love him.”
“You’ve got quite a place here,” Brady said.
She shrugged. “I give the public what it wants. My girls are all trained masseurs with diplomas to prove it. Nobody can lay a finger on me.”
There was coffee on a side table and she filled two cups. “Cream and sugar?”
“Both,” Brady said.
She pushed a cup across to him. “Which part of the States do you hail from?”
He told her and drank some of his coffee. It was good — very good. He swallowed the rest and put the delicate cup down carefully. “Let’s cut the polite conversation and get down to business. Why do you want to see me dead?”
She put down her cup and lit another cigarette. “But I don’t. Not even a little bit.”
“Then what about Haras?” Brady said. “You put him in touch with Das, didn’t you?”
She shook her head and said tranquilly, “I never heard of Haras until Das spoke to me on the phone. It was someone else who asked me if I had a reliable contact in Manningham. An old friend.”
“Then Haras must be tied in with this other person?”