Silhouette in Scarlet vbm-3 Read online

  ‘So do I,’ I said grimly.

  ‘The land of your ancestors,’ Schmidt mused. ‘Seeking out your roots – yes, it is very romantic. You will stay at the Grand?’

  ‘Fat chance. It’s too expensive.’

  ‘But you must stay there. It is very romantic. And very convenient.’

  He meant it was convenient for him. He’d know how to find me if he started to suffer from withdrawal symptoms. It was a tempting idea, though. The Grand is almost as romantic as Schmidt thinks it is, one of the famous old hotels of Europe. And – needless to say – it was not the hotel where John had booked a room for me.

  ‘Yes,’ Schmidt insisted. ‘You will stay at the Grand. The manager is an acquaintance of mine. I will telephone at once.’

  Oh, well, I thought. Why not? In for a penny, in for a few thousand kronor. I could always move to a cheaper place if I ran short of cash.

  It was raining what else? – the day I left, after depositing Caesar at a hideously expensive kennel. It was – of course – also raining in Stockholm. The plane glided down through soupy grey clouds into a landscape so shrouded in mist I couldn’t see a thing. Resignedly I struggled into the raincoat I had brought in the hope that I wouldn’t need it.

  I had decided to use the plane reservation. I doubted that John would meet me at the airport; he was conceited enough to assume I would trot obediently to the hotel he had selected and sit with folded hands until he condescended to get in touch with me. But with John I would never be certain. I came out of customs in a wary crouch, looking for trouble in the form of a dapper blond crook.

  There were a good many fair heads visible, but none had the silver-gilt glimmer of John’s. Reassured, I straightened up and went looking for the currency exchange.

  I love airports – the bustle and excitement, the air of expectation – people beginning or ending adventures of their own – tearful farewells, smiling reunions. The well-dressed balding man with the expensive briefcase and the frown of concentration – he might be a diplomat on a secret mission to an eastern trouble spot, or a businessman, brooding on the complexities of a billion-dollar deal, or a nervous husband meeting a lady friend in Copenhagen for the weekend and hoping to God his wife wouldn’t call the office. (Don’t worry about the well-dressed man, you’ll never see him again. He’s just an example of my imagination at work.)

  Nobody was paying any attention to me. You have no idea how great that made me feel. Bavarians are short and stocky and brown-haired. Usually I’m a head taller than any woman in a Munich crowd, taller than most of the men, and my yellow head glares like a beacon. But this place was filled with Swedes wonderful, tall, blond Swedes. There were at least three females in the vicinity who were my height. I knew then that the trip was going to be a success. Wonderful country! Wonderful people! Roots!

  I was so dazzled by this discovery that I didn’t mind the fact that I had, as usual, selected the slowest moving of the lines at the currency exchange. Some poor idiot with no idea of what he wanted or how to ask for it was at the counter arguing with the teller; the people ahead of me in line grimaced, muttered, or left to try their luck in another queue. I just stood there admiring the view. Tall, blond people – people like me. I knew how Gulliver felt when he got back from Lilliput.

  One man caught my eye, and not only because he was inches taller than his tall countrymen. He had to be a Swede. With a horned helmet on that magnificent thatch of flaxen hair, and a coat of chain mail covering those magnificent shoulders, he’d have been the image of a Viking warrior, like the ones in the books I read when I was a kid. Never mind that the Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets; the illustrations in the book had imprinted the image onto my brain. This man even had a long, droopy mustache like the one sported by Leif Eriksson.

  He stood sideways to me, reading a newspaper, and was unaware of being observed. I continued to stare, hoping he would look in my direction. Finally he shifted and glanced up. So much for the power of the piercing stare; he didn’t look at me. I followed his gaze to discover what was so much more fascinating than me.

  Characteristically, John had overdone the disguise just a bit. I guess he was trying to look like a Near Easterner of some variety. He had the build for it – slight, slim, lithe. Now his hair was dark and his complexion was a smooth, pale olive. The little black moustache and the too-well-tailored suit suggested Rudolf Valentino. I might not have recognized him if he hadn’t been ignoring me so ostentatiously. As he stared fixedly into the middle distance his profile was turned to me, and the outline of that impeccable structure was unmistakable.

  The sight of him brought on an overwhelming flood of emotion – frustrated anger, amusement, contempt, and another feeling, of the sort that Schmidt would probably call ‘romantic’. (By now you should have a pretty good idea of what that word means to Schmidt.) The first emotion predominated. I didn’t stop to think, I didn’t wonder why he was in disguise; the mere fact that he preferred not to be noticed was reason enough to publicize his presence. I opened my big mouth and yelled, ‘Hey, John. John Smythe! Hi, there, John.’

  My voice, at full volume, has been compared with that of Brunhild leading the ride of the Valkyries. John started convulsively. Every head within a thirty-yard radius turned towards me. I waved, I stood on tiptoe, I pointed. The heads turned in John’s direction.

  A wave of colour – sheer rage, I’m sure – darkened his cheek to olive drab. I knew his ability to combine speed of movement with inconspicuousness; one minute he was there, the next he was gone. It seemed to me that there was an odd little eddy of movement around the spot he had vacated – a kind of swirl of bodies.

  The man behind me nudged me. The line was moving. I closed up the gap that had opened between me and the person ahead.

  I had not the least intention of going after John. What bothered me was the impression that someone else had done just that. Uneasily I contemplated his original location, by a pillar next to the newsstand. It was a logical place for people to meet if they missed one another at the gate or the exit from customs. The crowd seemed thinner now. I tried to recall individual faces and shapes, but to no avail; I had not been paying attention to anyone but John and the Viking. The latter was still there, and he was still thoroughly uninterested in me. Folding his newspaper, he tucked it under his arm and strolled away.

  Nudged again, I shuffled forward. It would not have surprised me to learn that someone was following John. Someone usually was an outraged husband, a policeman, a fellow criminal. The list of people who might want to murder or cripple John was infinite. If I felt any guilt about raising the view halloo, my conscience was assuaged when I recalled that he had summoned me to Stockholm, right into the middle of whatever scam he was currently working. No, I didn’t feel guilty. I felt like killing the rat myself.

  After cashing a traveller’s cheque I headed for the exit. I had intended to take the airport bus into the city, but at the last minute I had a change of heart. Ducking out of the line, I ran like hell and threw myself into a taxi. I got some outraged stares from the people who were ahead of me, but I was past caring about good manners. It had occurred to me that in my anxiety to inconvenience John, I had made a slight mistake. In fingering him, I had also fingered myself.

  Chapter Two

  IT HAD STOPPED raining by the time the taxi reached the city, but I couldn’t enjoy the scenery; I was too busy watching for pursuers. There didn’t seem to be any, but it was impossible to be sure; every other car on the road was a cream-coloured Saab. The sun made a tentative watery appearance and I decided I was being paranoid. If John had been under surveillance, my uninhibited whoop of greeting must have convinced a watcher that I was unwitting – or vastly unqualified for the role of coconspirator.

  The Grand Hotel is on the waterfront, near where Lake Mälaren meets the Baltic. The weathered green copper of the roof supported half a dozen flagpoles, from which the yellow and blue of the Swedish flag rippled in the breeze. Crimson shades mark
ed the front windows and made a thick red line above the cafe and restaurant on the ground floor. Lined up at the quay in front of the hotel were some of the low white tourist steamers that ply the inland waterways. Even on a dull day the colours were stunning – clean, vivid colours, red and white and green and blue.

  The lobby was filled with a truly international crowd: Japanese businessmen and German tourists, American students and Saudis in flowing robes. It wasn’t until after I had been escorted to my room and the bellboy had left that my spirits received a slight check. He had arranged my suitcases in a neat alignment on the luggage rack. Prominently displayed were the labels, inscribed in my sprawling hand: ‘Dr Victoria Bliss, Grand Hotel, Stockholm.’

  The cases had been in plain view the whole time I waited in the currency-exchange line, including a good five minutes after I had raucously identified myself as a friend of John Smythe. It had been a waste of time watching for pursuing cars. If anybody wanted me, he knew where to find me.

  I don’t believe in sitting around hotel rooms when I’m on holiday, but I got out of that one faster than I usually do.

  I walked out of the hotel into the glorious sunshine I had yearned for. Gulls soared and swooped, crying hoarsely. A brisk sea breeze ruffled my hair. Waves slapped against the quay. There were boats all over the place – chugging busily along the water, docking, departing, bobbing at anchor. I felt like a kid with a fistful of money staring in the window of a toy store; the whole luscious city was spread out before me, parks and museums and shops and streets and canals.

  The tourist water buses looked like fun, but I was tired of sitting. Across the inlet the dignified eighteenth-century facade of the royal palace filled one corner of the little island called Gamla Stan, the Old Town, or the City Between the Bridges – everything in Sweden seems to have several different names.

  In the bulging shoulder pack I use in lieu of a purse I had a brochure on Gamla Stan that I had picked up at a travel agency in Munich. Six centuries of history, beginning with the thirteenth; cobbled streets and narrow alleys, medieval doors and baroque portals . . . I had visited a number of quaint old towns. Southern Germany has lots, complete with medieval ramparts and timbered houses. However, one can never get too much of a good thing. Also, the brochure had contained quite a few advertisements. The famous shop for Swedish shirts; Scandinavian knitwear; crystal from Swedish glassworks; old prints, books, maps; leather, silver, pewter, handwoven rugs, hand-embroidered blouses . . . I might claim that it was my antiquarian interests that led me to the twisty alleys of Gamla Stan, but if I claimed that I would be lying.

  Like similar sections in other cities – Getreidegasse in Salzburg, Georgetown in Washington, D.C., the Via Sistina in Rome – Gamla Stan has become chic and fashionable and very expensive. Many of the shops occupied the ground floors of old buildings. The sculptured stone portals and intricate iron grillwork formed surprisingly pleasant settings for displays of modern Swedish crafts. Pedestrian traffic was slow. People stopped to read guidebooks or stare in shop windows or gathered at corners where itinerant performers played and sang.

  I don’t know how long I wandered in purposeless content before I gradually realized I wasn’t relaxed any longer. Instead of admiring red wooden horses and knit ski caps, I was scanning the crowd, looking for a familiar profile. Instead of enjoying the diversified types strolling with me, I was beginning to feel surrounded and hemmed in. My back tingled with the uneasy sensation of being watched by unfriendly eyes.

  It was with an absurd sense of escape that I emerged from the crowded streets into Stortorget, the Great Square of Old Town. I’d seen so many pictures of it, on postcards and travel folders, that it was like an old familiar habitat. Earnest tourists were aiming cameras at number 20, the tall red brick house with its exuberant wedding-cake gable, which is the most popular subject for photographers; it would reappear on screens in a thousand darkened living rooms later that summer while guests tried to muffle their yawns and the host’s voice intoned, ‘Now this one is someplace in Stockholm – or was it Oslo?’

  The square was filled with people, but it didn’t give me the sense of claustrophobia the streets did. Rows of green slatted benches were flanked by great tubs of red geraniums, and the sun slanting down between the tall houses made the flowers glisten as if freshly painted. I decided my neurotic fancies were due in part to hunger, so I bought some jammy pastries from a shop and sat down on one of the benches where I could see the baroque tower of the Cathedral beyond the Borsen and the slit-like street beside it. When I had finished the pastries I licked strawberry jam off my fingers and continued to sit, staring dreamily at the green-patined curves of the cupola.

  I guess my feet did stick out, but he could have avoided them. I didn’t see him; I felt an agonizing pain in my left instep and heard a crunch and a thud and a curse as a large object fell flat on the bricks at my feet.

  I let out a howl and bent to clutch my foot. He let out a howl and stayed where he was, face down on the ground. He looked just as big prone as he had upright – a fallen Colossus, a toppled Titan.

  If the same thing had happened in Denmark, we would have been swarmed over by helpful natives. Swedes don’t interfere unless arterial blood is jetting. There were a few murmurs of inquiry and one man took a tentative step towards the recumbent body, but retreated as soon as it heaved itself to hands and knees.

  When he turned his head our eyes were on the same level. His weren’t blue, as a Viking’s ought to be; they were an odd shade of brown, like coffee caramels. Between the bushy brows, the bushier moustache, and the thick hair that had fallen over his forehead, I could see very little of his face. What I could see was bright red, and his eyes glittered like bronze spearpoints.

  ‘Clumsy, careless – ’ he began. Then his eyebrows rose and disappeared under his hair. ‘You were at the airport!’

  It sounded like an accusation. I half expected him to demand indignantly, ‘Are you following me?’

  ‘Yes, I was at the airport. So what? I think my foot is broken. Why the hell didn’t you look where you were going?’

  Still on hands and knees, he gave his head a toss that flung the blond berserker locks away from his eyes. Caesar had a trick like that when he was trying to be cute. I laughed. The Viking staggered to his feet, swayed, swore, and clutched his knee. The woman sitting next to me on the bench picked up her parcels and beat a hasty retreat. It may have been tactful consideration for a wounded fellow creature, but I think she was afraid he was about to fall on her.

  He took the vacated seat. We sat in stiff silence for a few seconds while he rubbed his knee and I nursed my foot.

  Finally he muttered, ‘Sorry.’ His voice was rather light for such a big man, once he had conquered the anger that had deepened it to a growl.

  ‘You should be.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  I caught the edge of the bench as he took my foot onto his lap; but he did it skilfully, without upsetting my balance. A woman of my size does not have small feet. His huge brown fingers reduced my size ten to something as dainty-looking as that of a Chinese maiden.

  He returned the foot to me. ‘There will be a bruise, I am afraid. Perhaps you had better visit a doctor.’

  ‘No, it’s all right. How about your knee?’

  Unconcernedly he rolled up his pants leg. His calf was as big around as the thigh of a normal man, thick with muscle and covered with fine hairs that glowed in the sunlight like the golden nimbus that surrounds the bodies of saints and divine heroes. I was so fascinated by this fabulous anatomical specimen that I didn’t get a good look at the wounded knee. I caught only a glimpse of reddened skin before he pushed the fabric down.

  ‘It is not so bad.’

  ‘I am glad,’ I said slowly, ‘that you did not tear your trousers.’

  ‘I too am glad. They were very expensive.’

  They didn’t look expensive. However, that is a relative term, and I didn’t feel I knew him well enough to p
ursue the subject. As I started to rise, he put this hand on my arm.

  ‘You will allow me to buy you – ’ he said.

  ‘I don’t really think – ’

  ‘A schnapps. Or something else, if you prefer.’

  ‘I don’t really – ’

  ‘You must allow me.’

  ‘Must’ was the word. It wasn’t an invitation; it was an order, and the weight of the hand on my arm reinforced it.

  All at once I was overcome by the most abject feeling of panic. I am – as I have mentioned a time or two – unusually tall. I am also built like my Scandinavian ancestors – big-boned, well-muscled. Wrestling matches with my brothers had toughened me at an early age, and I’d kept in reasonably good physical condition with exercise and diet. Now for the first time in my life I understood how my normal-sized sisters feel when a man grabs them. Small, weak, vulnerable.

  My eyes moved from the hand that dwarfed my not inconsiderably muscled arm, up along a couple of yards of coat sleeve, to his face. It was an almost perfect rectangle; the angles of jawbone and cheek were so square that the lower part of his face formed a straight line. His lips were full and healthily pink, bracketed by the luxuriant growth of hair on his lip. His nose rose out of the brush like a sandstone promontory; his eyes, wide-set and slightly protruding, met mine with unblinking sobriety. Every feature was larger than life-sized, but they harmonized perfectly. He was, to summarize, a handsome man with a gorgeous body, the kind of man who could turn a vacation into a memory of the sort little old ladies simper over when they sit rocking on the front porch of the nursing home.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  I could have eluded him if I had wanted to. He didn’t take my arm or hold my hand. At times, when the crowds thickened, we had to walk singlefile through the narrow streets. He preceded me, explaining solemnly, ‘I go first because I know the way. You will excuse the rudeness.’

  The stiff formality of his manner made me smile, and I dismissed that brief moment of panic. I just wasn’t accustomed to feeling fragile and feminine, that was my trouble.