Krysalis: Krysalis Page 5

  So long since she had felt herself falling, falling, Alice in the white rabbit’s burrow, the fantasy amused her, soon he would begin to count… so normal. So reassuring. It hadn’t been a mistake to come back, after all

  “You can open your eyes, Anna.”

  She lay still, staring into the liqueur-rich pools, which now were lit from within. When at last he stood up quietly and moved out of her vision she remained immobile.

  Her head was placed so that she could see another of his lutes, in a glass-fronted case beside the door. He had made it; for Gerhard, as well as being a lutenist, was also a luthier. She knew this instrument. He had explained it all to her, long ago. Spruce for the body, sycamore for the neck, a sound board of cedar and fingerboard of rosewood, for the bridge, pearwood, and plum for the pegs, strings of gut, assembled with pearls of skin glue, a jewelers’ piercing saw, dedication and love. The beautiful lute expanded to fill her vision until she was aware of nothing else.

  Sometimes, as now, he used the instrument to focus a patient’s attention, but he’d also played it to soothe her, in the old days, before her perceptions of him had changed. Anna wondered dreamily if Gerhard guessed how much she’d come to loathe this lute, which had sent her dear friend Robyn into such ecstasy….

  Solid bars of golden light angled through the windows, telling her that the sun was out. Suddenly the rays were blocked and she heard Gerhard say, “Can you see my wristwatch, Anna?”

  She looked. “Yes.”

  “It’s an Omega.”

  For an instant nothing happened. Then all her limbs seemed to relax, as a body settles after losing its struggle with death.

  Gerhard slowly let out a sigh. The worst obstacle, the fear that had kept him awake every night since Barzel’s visit, was behind him. Two years away notwithstanding, she remained his creature.

  Now he had to focus her.

  “Anna,” he said quietly, settling himself at her head. “Can you hear me?”

  A long pause. “Yes.”

  “’Omega’ is the same now as always. When you awake, you will not remember anything of what happens between my having spoken the word Omega and my speaking the other word known only to you. Do you understand?”

  Half a minute passed. During that time Anna neither moved nor uttered a sound. Eventually Gerhard rose and took a few steps around the room. “Anna,” he murmured. When still she failed to respond, he removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands with it. This had to work. It had to!

  “Yes.”

  He stopped in midstride and wheeled around, not sure what he had heard. Anna’s eyes remained shut; her lips were parted. Gerhard hesitated no longer, but again took his place at her head.

  “Everything I say now you will record, deep inside your mind, and you will obey the instructions I shall give you, answer the questions I shall put. Do you understand?”

  Her brow slowly furrowed into a frown; she opened her mouth, closed it again. “Yes.” A whisper.

  “David has a safe in the house. It was delivered three weeks ago. Do you know how to open that safe?”

  After another of those nerve-racking waits she shook her head. The silence went on. And on. Gerhard ground his right fist into his left palm. His breathing had become shallow; he could feel sweat trickling down his back.

  I can’t do this, he told himself. I can’t destroy another human being, not one I love—

  You don’t love Anna. Think of Ilsa!

  Think of what it’s going to be like in prison, if you let Barzel down….

  “There is a problem,” he said hurriedly. “A serious one. For some reason, no one can now open the safe. David says there is a fault with the lock. But the Foreign & Commonwealth Office believes that he must have forgotten the combination. We both know that is ridiculous, don’t we? David would never do a thing like that.”

  He paused while studying her face, but could not tell how she was taking it. Please, he mouthed. Please, Anna…

  “David’s superiors urgently need to open the safe, right now. Our country depends on it. You are our last hope. Have you watched David open the safe?”

  Nothing.

  Gerhard wrestled with a mounting desire to pounce on her, pummel her with his fists while he screamed meaningless words. Eventually, to his unutterable relief, she nodded. But it was several minutes before he could speak again.

  “Then it is possible that, under hypnosis, you can throw some light on what has gone wrong. There is a square keyboard on the door: the nine digits and a zero, plus two other electronic keys. Go back to the day when you are watching David open the safe. Describe to me what his fingers are doing to the keyboard.”

  Anna said nothing.

  “Let me assure you, I would not ask you to do this if it were not important. Outside the room, important officials are waiting to find out if you can help.”

  Still she did not respond.

  He was fast approaching the end of his tether. This could not go on.

  “I’m not supposed to tell you this, Anna, but David’s career is in the balance. His superiors are very angry with him.” He was speaking quickly now, and his voice had risen in pitch. “They blame him for forgetting the combination. We both know that they are wrong, and that David is right. So you can save him. But between us we must somehow find a way to open that safe.”

  “Yes.”

  Her voice was low, although this time it sounded firmer. Gerhard, hearing a note of acquiescence there, wiped his forehead. He needed a few moments to adjust. Barzel would let him keep this house. His sister, Ilsa, still had a future. He no longer would become that pitiful shark.

  While he waited for the memories to surface from Anna’s subconscious, he opened a notepad and drew squares representing a keyboard, ready to record the safe’s combination.

  CHAPTER

  6

  As Anna opened the front door the phone began to ring and she rushed to answer it. “Yes?”

  “Darling? Is that you?”

  “David! Oh, I—”

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “Out. Why, what’s the—”

  “I’ve been ringing you all day. The marina people told me you didn’t phone them, you forgot to put the answering machine on, I’ve been worried sick. Darling, what is it?”

  Anna leaned against the wall, trying to clear her aching head.

  “… Only you told me you’d be working at home this weekend.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Keep calm.”

  “I am calm.”

  “I’ve got a headache.”

  “I’m sorry. A bad one?”

  “Dreadful.”

  “Poor darling. Try not to drink too much this evening, then.”

  “Why not?” she flared. “It is Saturday, you know. Are you going to tell me you don’t drink, you and the rest of them down at bloody Midhurst?”

  “Anna! Please don’t ever say things like that. This isn’t a secure line.”

  “Sorry, love. Wasn’t thinking. No, I forgot the marina.” Damn, damn, damn! “Sorry. Is there anything else I’ve done wrong?”

  “Hey, listen, it’s me? Remember me—David, your husband, the one who loves you most? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. I think I need a break.” She paused. “I might go to Paris on Monday.” When David did not respond at once she hurried on, “What’s going on with you, come to that?”

  “I don’t—”

  “You sound as if forgetting one phone call’s the end of the world. Well, I’ve got problems here, too. I lost a case on Friday. Juliet’s being a total little bitch.” The tears were flowing freely now. “You’re drifting away from me, you pick on my failings….”

  “Sweetheart, that’s just not true.”

  “Well, why did you phone me just now, then? It was because I forgot to phone the marina, wasn’t it? You wanted to carp—”

  “Listen, Anna, I’ve had a lousy day. I—”

  “I, I, I! David, I’m
telling you, there are two Is in this house! I’m miserable. And I can’t, make you care.” Was that her talking? What was going wrong? She didn’t mean to come down on him like this, she loved him … but before she could think of the right words to retrieve the disaster opening up in front of her, David had rushed into the breach:

  “You’re miserable! Successful banister, good-looking, rich, a husband who loves you … what else do you want?”

  “Time! Time to be with you now and then, like in the old days.” Anna’s warmth for him had somehow become a flood of resentment.

  “Next weekend. I promise. Assuming you’re back from … Paris, or wherever it was you—”

  “You promised this weekend.”

  “Anna … Anna, please, just try and pull yourself together, will you? And when I ask you to do something, would—”

  Anna found herself slamming down the phone. It fell to the floor. She stepped over it on her way to the kitchen, where she made herself an almost fatally anemic Bloody Mary. Part of her knew that it would make her feel worse, but another part craved the kick. She’d have just one drink, then she could attend to whatever it was that seemed so important. Oh, yes: the safe …

  Anna had a second drink without noticing. What possessed David to talk to her like that? She had been cradling her head in her arms, but now she raised it and shouted at the ceiling, “How could you?” before dissolving into tears.

  “How could you?” a voice murmured inside her. “You’ve been drinking too much, you’re feeling rotten … but it won’t mend matters if you snap at David, will it?”

  Strange. There wasn’t only this one voice inside her, there were others, too, all speaking at once … a sense of weirdness stole over her. She remembered hearing how people felt when they lived on Valium….

  She knew she had to do something. But she couldn’t remember the whole of today. Again—another of those fearsome blanks. One moment she was in the kitchen, the next she found herself entering the study, without any recollection of going there. Of course, the important thing. The safe.

  Why was the safe so important? David’s safe. Surely she ought not to touch it without his permission?

  Anna was swaying. She raised a hand to her forehead. Sleep. What she needed was sleep. Forget the safe. Tomorrow.

  Bed.

  The safe.

  Her hands knotted themselves into fists; she raised them to her temples in an attempt to drown out the monotonous drumbeat that was pounding in her head.

  David, where are you?

  Why aren’t you here?

  Sitting on her bed, she found she had made herself coffee. How could she have done that without remembering? She took the cup back to the kitchen, washed up, dried her hands, folded the tea towel neatly.

  She recalled knocking over the phone when David rang. It was suddenly important that she put it back on the hook. For a long time she sat on the lowest stair, gazing at the telephone, trying to work out why it meant so much to her.

  Then she was in her bedroom again, putting on her nightgown. But it was all wrong, because she ought to be dealing with the safe, for David’s sake, only she didn’t much care for David, right now. Yes, of course she did, she loved him…. Tomorrow. Everything could wait for tomorrow.

  Once in bed, however, her mind remained active. Outside in the darkened square, a passerby, or perhaps it was an animal, knocked over some empty milk bottles. Anna raised her head to listen, but the sound was not repeated. London seemed oddly silent beneath the faint, familiar sigh of mingled traffic and voices.

  Her vision blurred. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, then opened them and strove to focus on the window. She must be getting sick, she supposed; this wasn’t just alcohol. Flu … just when she was planning a few days off. No, worse than flu …

  Her mind strayed again, along with her eyes. The orange street lamps made bars of shadow out of the window frame, gridding her bed with black, so that for an instant she felt herself inside a cell.

  Fear gnawed at her. She was sick, all alone inside this big house. Helpless.

  She was so tired. Why, then, couldn’t she sleep? If only her head would stop pounding!

  Take a sleeping tablet.

  The pills were in the top drawer of her bedside table. She tipped some onto the sheet. David’s words were reechoing in her brain. Successful barrister, good-looking, rich, a husband who loves you … what else do you want? Anna picked up one of the tablets and chewed it, unable to face going to fetch a glass of water.

  She couldn’t hold her head upright. It kept falling forward. But still her brain wouldn’t let her rest.

  She absentmindedly took another tablet.

  Tomorrow, first thing, she would attend to the safe. If only her headache would go, perhaps she could do what she had to do tonight, before she slept?

  No. Too tired.

  Her fingers made contact with something small and round lying on the sheet. A pill would help….

  If Saturday had been a nightmare for Gerhard, Sunday was to become living hell.

  He’d given his housekeeper a couple of days off, anxious to ensure privacy for the likely period of the operation, so once Anna left on Saturday evening he was alone in the Hampstead house. At first he tried to stay awake; then, as the hours dragged by, all desire for sleep left him, to be replaced by insomniac terror.

  She was supposed to open the safe, bring him Krysalis, wait while he copied it, then take it back. A couple of hours’ work at the most. But of Anna there was no sign.

  Where was she? What was holding her up? Had she been caught? Perhaps David had come home unexpectedly….

  He dozed fitfully, a prey to lurid dreams. Sunday dawned, still without contact. Gerhard somehow managed to put off calling Anna until eleven. No answer. After that he dialed every fifteen minutes for three hours. Once he got the busy signal, and his heart soared, but next time he dialed, although the line was free, no one picked up the phone. He realized that someone else must have been trying to contact her and felt his legs go weak.

  David.

  What would Lescombe do when he got no reply from his own home?

  Kleist got into his Audi and drove to Islington. He circled the peaceful square several times, noting how the curtains of the Lescombes’ house were closed despite the hour, then accelerated away back to Hampstead. He let himself into the house and poured himself a large Scotch. While he was still trying to work out which was more dangerous—to alert Barzel or leave him in blissful unawareness of the catastrophe looming—he fell asleep.

  When he awoke, it was to discover that the clock read nearly six A.M. Monday already. His stomach felt nauseated. Disgusting gray matter coated his tongue. His skin was clammy, his hands shook. He tried the Islington number again. Same result.

  He sat staring at the wall, afraid to imagine what might have befallen Anna. “How could you?” he burst out suddenly, shocking himself. “How could you …?”

  He knew he must go and find out what had gone wrong.

  Had Anna set the burglar alarm. Had she?

  When she left on Saturday evening, she had seemed dog-tired. He’d fretted about that at the time. Would she have preserved enough presence of mind to go home and set the alarm before …

  Before what? Collapsing? Calling David? Calling the police?

  Gerhard tore a piece of cuticle from his thumb and swore. He was shaking. He was also reacting like a fool. Why on earth should she call the police?

  There was only one choice now. He had to go and find out for himself.

  He prepared carefully, selecting a flashlight, a tight-fitting pair of gloves, and—not without a great deal of hesitation—a gun that he had kept concealed in his house for many years past. Barzel’s idea, that. At last he was ready. He drove to Islington through deserted streets, parking a quarter of a mile from the Lescombes’ house and hugging the shadows for the rest of the way. There was no easy means of access from the back, so he was forced to descend to basement level in full v
iew of the square, only at quarter to seven in the morning there was no one about.

  Masking the butt of his gun with a corner of his overcoat, he smashed a pane of glass. It made surprisingly little noise. As he lifted the casement window, no bells went off. Gerhard heaved a sigh of relief and swung one leg over the sill. His heart was beating terribly fast. Until this moment, he could have talked his way out of trouble. Now he was a housebreaker.

  It was pitch black inside the cellar, but he dared not risk a light. Slowly, he groped his way upstairs. He had never visited this place as a legitimate visitor. He had no idea where Anna slept. Second-long bursts of light from his torch showed him over and over that he was in the wrong place.

  Then suddenly he was in the right place, the torch was shining onto Anna’s face, and already it was growing light outside.

  “Anna,” he breathed.

  No response. Her face was marble-white.

  “Anna!”

  As Gerhard shook her for the first time, the phone rang.

  He froze, staring at it in honor. He had to find a way of somehow making her answer that and get rid of the caller.

  She stirred, groaned, made an attempt to turn over.

  “Anna!” he cried. “For God’s sake, wake up!”

  The phone rang again. Anna changed position and uttered a groan. She looked terrible: her long blond hair tumbled in rats’ tails to frame a narrow oval face whose principal features were black circles around eyes that opened but a slit. She opened her mouth again, and this time the groan turned into a gag. “Head … hurts. Blind …”

  “Anna! Wake up. Anna!”

  Gerhard dragged her up to a sitting position and slapped her cheeks.

  The phone kept ringing.

  He folded her right hand around the telephone receiver. Her head lolled on her chest. “Answer it,” Gerhard hissed.

  “He … herro.”

  He heard pip-pip sounds, the caller was in a phone booth. “Anna! Anna, for Christ’s sake, is that you!” It was David.