`Why not? I thought we were leaving tomorrow…'
`Maybe, maybe not.' Newman's tone was firm. 'When we've finished do you mind if I take a walk along the lake. Alone. I have some thinking to do.'
`You have an appointment? You've checked your watch three times since the main course…'
`I said a walk.' He grinned to soften his reply. 'Did you know that Geneva is one of the great European centres of espionage? It crawls with agents. The trouble is all the various UN outfits which are here. Half the people of this city are foreigners. The Genevoises get a bit fed up. The foreigners push up the price of apartments – unless you're very wealthy. Like you are…'
`Don't let's spoil a lovely evening.' She checked her own watch. 'You go and have your walk – I'll unpack. Whether we're leaving tomorrow or not I don't want my dresses creased.' Her chin tilted at the determined angle he knew so well. 'Go on – have your walk. Don't spend all night with her…'
`Depends on the mood she's in.' He grinned again.
Newman, his sheepskin turned up at the collar, pushed through the revolving doors and the temperature plummeted. A raw wind slashed at his face. Across the road, beyond iron railings, the Rhone chopped and surged; by daylight he guessed it would have that special greenish colour of water which was melted snow from peaks in the distant Valais.
By night the water looked black. Neon lights from buildings on the opposite shore reflected in the dark flow. Oddly British-sounding signs. The green neon of The British Bank of the Middle East. The blue neon of Kleinwort Benson. The red neon of the Hongkong Bank. Street lamps were a zigzag reflection in the ice-cold water. Thrusting both hands inside his coat pockets he began walking east towards the Hilton.
Behind him Julius Nagy emerged, frozen stiff, from a doorway. The gnome-like figure was careful to keep a couple between himself and Newman. At least his long wait had produced some result. Where the hell could the Englishman be going at this hour, in this weather?
Sitting in Pierre Jaccard's cubby-hole office at the Journal de Geneve, Nagy had received a pleasant shock. Jaccard had first pushed an envelope across his crowded desk and then watched as Nagy opened it. Thirty-year-old Jaccard, already senior reporter on the paper, had come a long way by taking chances, backing his intuition. Thin-faced with watchful eyes which never smiled even when his mouth registered amiability, he drank coffee from a cardboard cup.
`Count it, Nagy. It's all there. Two hundred. Like to make some more?'
`Doing what?' Nagy enquired with calculated indifference.
`You hang on to Newman's tail for dear life. You report back to me where he is, where he goes, whom he meets. I want to know everything about him – down to the colour of the pyjamas he's wearing…'
`An assignment like that costs money,' Nagy said promptly.
It was one of the favourite words in Nagy's vocabulary. He never referred to a job – he was always on an assignment. It was the little man's way of conferring some dignity on his way of life. A man needed to feel he had some importance in the world. Jaccard was too young to grasp the significance of the word, too cynical. Had he understood, he could have bought Nagy for less.
`There's another two hundred in this envelope,' Jaccard said, pushing it across the desk. 'A hundred for your fee, a hundred for expenses. And I'll need a receipted bill for every franc of expenses…'
Nagy shook his head, made no effort to touch the second envelope. Despite Jaccard's expression of boredom he sensed under the surface something big, maybe very big. He clasped his small hands in his lap, pursed his lips.
`Newman could take off for anywhere – Zurich, Basle, Lugano. I need the funds to follow him if I'm to carry out the assignment satisfactorily…'
`How much? And think before you reply…'
`Five hundred. Two for myself for the moment. Three for expenses. You'll get your bills. Not a franc less.'
Jaccard had sighed, reached for his wallet and counted five one-hundred franc notes. Which cleaned him out. Tomorrow he'd been on his way to Munich – but he was gambling again, gambling on Newman who had cracked the Kruger case. Christ, if he could only get on to something like that he'd be made for life.
Which was how Nagy, shivering in his shabby overcoat and Tyrolean hat, came to be following Newman who had now reached the lakeside. Earlier, just before crossing the rue du Mont Blanc, the Englishman had glanced back and Nagy thought he'd been spotted. But now Newman continued trudging along the promenade, his head bent against the wind.
As he approached the Hilton, which faces the lake, the street was so deserted that Newman heard another sound above the whine of the wind. The creaking groan of a paddle steamer moored to one of the landing stages, the noise of the hull grinding against the wood of the mooring posts. A single-funnel paddle steamer going no place: it was still out of season. Waiting for spring. Like the whole of the northern hemisphere. No more neon signs across the broadening expanse of the lake. Only cold, twinkling lights along some distant street. He stopped by the outside lift and pressed the button.
A small version of the external elevators which slide vertiginously up the sides of many American hotels, the lift arrived and Newman stepped inside, pressing another button. It occurred to him how exposed he was as the small cage ascended – the door was of glass, the lift was lit inside, a perfect target for any marksman.
Nagy timed it carefully, running up the staircase to the first floor so he saw Newman vanishing inside the restaurant. He waited, then followed. Before entering the restaurant, Nagy removed his shabby coat, stuffed his Tyrolean hat inside a pocket, smoothed his ruffled hair and walked inside. A wave of heat beat at his bloodless face.
The restaurant is a large rectangle with the long side parallel to the lake. Newman was sitting down at a window table at the far end, a table for two. The other chair was already occupied by a girl who made Nagy stare.
The little man sat at a table near the exit, ordered coffee from the English waitress who appeared promptly – the waitresses here are of various nationalities. He studied Newman's companion surreptitiously. Some people had all the luck he thought without envy.
The girl was in her late twenties, Nagy decided, memorizing her appearance for Jaccard. Thick, titian- (Nagy called it red) coloured hair with a centre parting, a fawn cashmere (at a guess) sweater which showed off her ample figure and tight black leather pants encasing her superb legs from crotch to ankle as though painted on her. Gleaming leather. The new `wet' look. Very good bone structure – high cheekbones.
A stunner. At first Nagy thought she was a tart, then decided he was wrong. This girl had class, something the little man respected. Exceptionally animated, their conversation gradually developed so she listened intently while Newman talked, drinking his cup of coffee at occasional intervals.
At one stage she reached across to straighten his tie, a gesture Nagy duly noted. It suggested a degree of intimacy. Something else for Jaccard. Nagy had the impression Newman was instructing her, that she asked a question only to clarify a point.
When Newman paid the bill and left she remained at the table. Nagy had a moment of indecision – who to watch now? But only a moment. Newman walked towards Nagy – and the exit, putting on his sheepskin as he walked past the little man without even a glance in his direction. Nagy, who had paid his own bill as soon as his coffee had arrived, followed.
This time Newman jibbed at the exposed elevator. He ran down the staircase and walked back briskly along the Siberian promenade. He dived inside the revolving doors of the Hotel des Bergues and went straight up to Room 406. Nancy, wearing a transparent nightdress, opened the door a few inches, then let him inside.