Inserting the card inside the slot, Novak waited while the door slid open and gestured for them to walk inside. Newman followed Nancy who stopped suddenly as Novak and Astrid joined them and the door slid shut. He took her by the arm.
`Easy does it, old girl..
`It's not that,' she whispered. 'He's awake!'
In a single bed centred with its head against the far wall lay a gaunt-faced man with a hooked nose, wispy white hair, a high forehead, a firm mouth and a prominent jaw. His complexion was ruddy. For a brief moment his eyes had flickered open as Nancy walked in, then closed again like a shutter closing over a lens. Newman doubted whether either Novak or Astrid had seen the eyes open – they had been masked by his own bulk.
`You see,' Novak said gently, 'he sleeps well. He is a very strong man, a tough constitution. I was going to add, for his age – but he's one of nature's survivors..
`You think he will survive then?' Nancy asked quietly.
`He is very sick man,' Astrid broke in. 'Very, very sick man.'
Newman stood back from the rest of them, hands in his pockets as he watched. He had the distinct impression Novak was glad to see the two visitors. Glad? No, relieved. And not because one of his own kind – Nancy – had arrived. Astrid stood with tight lips and looked at her watch.
`Five minutes. Your visit. No more…'
Newman turned on her, raising his voice. 'Dr Novak, I want this woman out of the room. Who the hell is she to dictate the length of our stay? You're in charge of Jesse Kennedy's case – Dr Kobler said so in front of me. Kindly assert your authority.'
`You will see that the visit is five minutes and not one second more…' Astrid was speaking German like a machine-gun. 'I will report this outrage to Professor Grange unless you do as I say…'
`Tell her to fuck off,' Newman snapped. 'Or has this fat old bag got you by the short and curlies? Novak! Are you – or are you not – the physician in charge here?'
Waldo Novak flushed. He spoke to Astrid over his shoulder, also in rapid German. 'I suspect that the last thing Grange would be pleased to hear is that you were responsible for a scene. If these people storm out of the Clinic have you any idea of the potential consequences? Newman is a foreign correspondent of international repute, for God's sake. Kindly leave us alone…'
She was mouthing protests as he extracted the computer card key and inserted it in the slot. The door slid open. She bit her lip and shuffled out into the corridor. The closing door shut out her enraged face. Novak looked at Newman and Nancy apologetically.
`Every institution has one of them. The faithful servant who is tolerated because she has been on the staff since the dinosaurs.'
`She's a bit of an old dinosaur herself,' Nancy commented.
She had her handbag open and was using a handkerchief to dab at her eyes. Newman noticed that Jesse's gnarled hand was now lying outside the sheet. When they had entered it had been underneath. His eyes were still closed. Nancy pulled up a chair close to the bed, sat down and took his hand in hers.
`He doesn't know you're here,' Novak told her.
`What sedative are you using, Dr Novak?' she asked.
He hesitated. 'It's not normal to discuss treatment.. he began and then stopped speaking. Newman noticed he had glanced towards a porthole-shaped mirror let into the side wall. Above it was a coat-hook. Of course! The window in the door was of frosted glass. Every hospital or clinic had some technique for observing seriously ill patients.
I bet that next room is empty, he said to himself. And I bet that corpulent old pig is standing on the other side of that fake mirror. That is what is worrying Novak. He took off his jacket, walked over to the mirror and hung the jacket over it.
`Dr Novak..!' Nancy's tone was sharp-edged.
`Keep your voice down, Nancy,' Newman whispered. 'All the time.'
He looked round the room carefully, searching for a hidden microphone. Then he took a chair and placed it alongside Nancy's and gestured to Novak to sit down. The American sank into the chair and stared at Nancy who started speaking again, this time very quietly.
`I'm a doctor. I'm entitled to know the treatment… `Sodium Amytal,' Novak said promptly. 'He's a very vigorous man and must be kept in bed.'
He looked up over his shoulder at Newman who had rested a hand on the shoulder. Jesse's eyes flickered open, stared straight at Newman and frowned, his head jerked in a brief gesture. Get Novak away from me and Nancy.
`Novak,' said Newman, 'let's leave her with him. He is her grandfather. Come over with me by the window…' He waited until Novak joined him. The window, which presumably looked on the outside world from the daylight showing through, was also frosted. Which was another peculiarity of the Clinic.
What is it?' Novak enquired, his back to the bed.
`You and I have to meet outside. Very fast. You live on the premises?'
`Yes, I do. Why?'
`I guessed as much. This place smells of a closed community – a community locked away from the normal world. I suppose they do let you out,' he continued with a trace of sarcasm.
`During my off-duty hours I do what I like…'
`Don't sound indignant. But so far we haven't exactly felt welcome inside this place. I repeat. I insist on meeting you – so suggest somewhere. Thun would be closest?'
`I suppose it would be.' Novak sounded dubious. `I don't see why I have to meet you anywhere..
`Don't you?' Newman, observing what was happening behind Novak's back, kept talking fast. `You're not compelled to, I agree. But then I could start writing articles about this place – naming you as my informant…'
`For Christ's sake, no…'
`No smart lawyer will get me for libel. I'm an expert at hinting at things and I know just how far I can go. Be honest with yourself, Novak – you're desperate to talk to someone. I sensed it within minutes of meeting you…'
The Hotel Freienhof…' The words tumbled out. `… in Thun on the Freienhofgasse… it overlooks the Inner Aare… a stretch of the river flowing in from the lake… the cheaper restaurant… do you know the place?'
`I'll find it. Tomorrow suit you?'
`Day after tomorrow. Thursday. Seven in the evening. It will be dark then…'
While Newman distracted Novak's attention Nancy had been talking to her grandfather, who suddenly woke up, his eyes fierce and alert. She leaned close to him so they could whisper and he spoke without any trace of being drugged.
`What are they doing to you here, Jesse?'
`It's what they're doing to the others. I never wanted to come to this place. That bastard Dr Chase shot me full of some drug in Tucson after I fell off the horse. I was hustled aboard a Lear jet and flown here.
`What do you mean – what they're doing to the others?'
`The patients. It's got to be stopped. They're carrying out some kind of experiments. I keep my ears open and they talk when they think I'm doped out of my mind. The patients don't survive the experiments. A lot of them are dying anyway – but that's no reason for murdering them…'
`Are you sure, Jesse? How are you feeling?'
`I'm OK. As long as I'm inside here you've got a pipeline into this place. Don't worry about me…'
`I do,' she whispered.
`Nancy.' Newman had left the window and was walking round the bed. 'Maybe it would be better if we came back another day when your grandfather isn't sedated…'
She looked up at him and saw him stop suddenly. Her expression was a mixture of pathos, anxiety and puzzlement. Newman put a finger to his lips to hush both Novak and Nancy. Jesse lay inert in the bed, his eyes closed. Newman bent down close to the head of the bed and listened. No, he had not been mistaken. He had caught the sound of a whirring noise, of machinery working.
Lee Foley had followed Newman at a discreet distance until he rounded a bend on the snowbound hillside in time to see Newman turn off along the narrow road leading to the Berne Clinic. He drove the Porsche straight past the turn-off and continued up the slope towards the fir forest.