‘I’m afraid Dr Von Jonek is not available at the moment,’ said the voice. ‘If you would care to leave your address and telephone number, he will be informed of your call.’
MacLean gave the name of the hotel and the police chief’s room number, then he moved a chair over to the window and sat down to wait. Fifteen minutes later he watched a blue BMW pull up outside the hotel and two men get out. From the way they looked about them when they stepped out the car MacLean reckoned that they were the people he had been waiting for. He gave them time to reach the police chief’s room before going downstairs and walking along the corridor. He heard the commotion before he saw it.
The tall policeman was almost shouting that he was not named Pascal and that he didn’t know anyone who was. No, he would not be going anywhere with his visitors. He was a policeman, not a professor, and a chief of police at that. He knew his rights and who the hell was asking him all this anyway? He wanted to see ID and he wanted to see it now.
‘Is something the matter?’ asked MacLean innocently as he approached.
One of the men from the company, becoming anxious that he and his colleague were beginning to attract a serious amount of attention, put his hand on the policeman’s chest to back him into the room. The policeman’s wife immediately started screaming and another resident looked out and said she’d call for the local police. MacLean watched the pantomime grow. He now knew exactly what happened when you asked Lehman Steiner about Von Jonek. As the local police arrived, he checked out of the hotel and found another.
Three in the morning is the hour when troubles double and prospects halve. For MacLean, lying awake in the darkness, it was the time when a myriad self-doubts formed themselves into a crack regiment and marched through his head. How could he possibly hope to find Von Jonek if Lehman Steiner sent round heavies at the mere mention of his name? He could hardly break into the company’s offices and start rifling through filing cabinets.
The church clock in the square struck five and brought MacLean perilously close to admitting that he didn’t know what to do. Time was passing and he was no nearer being able to get Cytogerm for Carrie. Five people had died since he had come to Switzerland and all he had really found out was that Von Jonek was a scientist and that he was in charge of a research project with a budget of 18 million dollars. Whether it had anything to do with Cytogerm was still his guess; it had not as yet been confirmed. And of course, the name of a woman, May Haas.
‘Don’t change the plan unless you have to,’ repeated MacLean to himself in the darkness. The question was, did he have to? How could he find Von Jonek if he didn’t know how to go about it? The answer was simple when it finally came to him: he needed help; he needed expert advice about cracking Lehman Steiner. He needed someone to tell him how to go about getting the information he required. There were two people in his past with that kind of expertise, Doyle and Leavey. He would have to find them.
MacLean checked post restante at the main Post Office and found a letter from Tansy waiting for him. She had finally snapped under the strain of being nice to Nigel and Marjorie and had moved out into a rented flat on her own. She was worried about Carrie because the surgeons were beginning to make noises about starting surgery and she did not know if she could stall them much longer. Could he possibly phone her? Now that she was living on her own, it would be quite safe. The number was written at the foot of the letter in black marker pen as if it had been added just before posting.
MacLean called Tansy in the early afternoon and had to swallow at the sound of her voice. He told her that he was coming home on the first available flight.
‘You’ve got it?’ said an excited Tansy.
MacLean confessed that he hadn’t and screwed his eyes tightly shut because of the disappointment he knew he was inflicting. ‘It’s a bit more complicated than I thought,’ he said.
‘I see,’ said Tansy. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be stalling the surgeons after all?’
MacLean heard the flat note that had crept into her voice and dug the fingernails of his left hand into his palm in a subconscious attempt to inflict pain on himself rather than her. ‘I haven’t given up,’ he said. ‘It’s just a change of plan.’
MacLean’s flight was fifteen minutes late in getting in to London Heathrow; not a lot but just enough to ensure that he missed the British Airways shuttle connection to Edinburgh. He caught a British Midland flight an hour later and consoled himself with gin as they climbed out of the murk and mist shrouding London to find blue skies and sunshine.
Another hour and the aircraft crossed the eastern fringes of the Scottish capital to bank steeply above the Firth of Forth and start its final approach. His seat on the left side of the aircraft allowed him to see the two mighty bridges that spanned the estuary immediately below him, the old, Victorian rail bridge with its dull red maze of intricate ironwork and the road bridge with its simple suspension design. He had seen this view many times but, even now, with his troubled mind, it gave him pleasure.
He called Tansy from the airport and was relieved to hear that she sounded better. He had been afraid that his failure to get Cytogerm for Carrie might have pushed her into deep depression but it seemed that she had come to terms with the news. She gave him her new address and he said that he would be there in twenty minutes, just as soon as he found a cab.
Tansy flung her arms round MacLean’s neck as soon as she opened the door and they held each other for a long time before either could speak. When they did break apart Tansy said, ‘Thank God you’re all right. I was so worried about you. I should have told you that on the phone but when you said you hadn’t got the damned stuff all I could think about was Carrie and the consequences.’
MacLean held her tight again and said, ‘It’s all right, I understand. I feel the same way and I meant it when I said it’s not over yet.’
Tansy looked at him questioningly.
‘It’s going to be more difficult than I imagined,’ said MacLean. ‘I’ve come back to get help. I can’t do it on my own.’
‘Then you know where to get Cytogerm?’ asked Tansy.
MacLean told her what he had learned in Geneva, stressing the positive aspects first. Lehman Steiner were spending 18 million dollars a year on a research project headed by Hans Von Jonek, the man who had demanded the Cytogerm files from him under the pretext of being an archivist. It was odds on that Cytogerm must feature in this research. Jean-Paul Rives had discovered where Von Jonek was carrying out this research but had died before he could tell him.
‘Died?’ asked Tansy, as if she was afraid of hearing the answer.
MacLean almost balked at going on with the story but felt he had no option but to tell Tansy the full horror of what had happened. He saw her visibly pale.
‘All these people,’ she whispered, shaking her head. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘I know,’ said MacLean softly. ‘But there’s no going back.’
‘But your friends were innocent people and now they’re dead,’ protested Tansy with tears in her eyes.
‘They didn’t just die Tansy,’ said MacLean. ‘They were murdered. They were murdered by Lehman Steiner, just as Jutte and all the rest were. That’s the measure of what we are up against. Eva and Jean-Paul died trying to help Carrie. We must go on, we owe it to them.’
Tansy wiped her eyes and took several deep breaths before she could speak. ‘Just what is it you intend to do?’ she asked in a low monotone.
‘I’m going to find Doyle and Leavey,’ said MacLean.
‘The men on the oil rig?’
‘Like I say, I can’t fight Lehman Steiner alone.’
‘Do you think they’ll help?’
‘When I tell them why, yes.’
‘I hope so,’ said Tansy, looking up at him. ‘I can’t bear the thought of you being in such danger. She broke into tears and MacLean held her close to him.