Prime Target by Hugh Miller

at the hem of the jacket, just where it hung low.
    She touched the hem and felt something hard. She took out the jacket and fingered the object. It was a key. It had been sewn into the hem.
    Carefully, stitch by stitch, she unpicked the hem enough to fish out the key. It was made of brass with a toughened plastic top, the kind used to open high-security lockers and strongboxes. Sabrina slipped it into her pocket.
    By 2.15 she believed she had made a thorough search of the room. She stood by the door, letting her eyes do a slow pan, left to right, up and down. No area had been missed. She walked slowly round the place again, looked in the closets, drawers, bathroom cabinets and under the bed.
    Still on her knees she paused and looked under the bed again. She saw something, paper, folded and tucked under a canvas strap supporting the mattress near the foot of the bed. Only one folded edge was showing, but she knew she should have seen it first time.
    â€˜For that,’ she told herself, reaching for the paper, ‘you get one drink instead of two.’
    It was a sheet of computer printout paper with perforated sides, folded in four. She opened it andspread it flat on the carpet. There was a vertical row of printed names, with an address opposite each. At first sight the names appeared to be all male, and all German. At the bottom were a couple of pencilled lines in tidy handwriting she recognized from the manuscript:
Journal note: list completed 2/15/96, passed to ES, 2/24/96.
    Sabrina looked at the names again. They meant nothing to her. She folded the list and put it in her pocket. As an additional act of penance for missing the paper the first time, she made one more trawl of the room, swift but detailed. She found nothing new.
    Finally she put everything back as it was, using the Polaroids to guide her. She put out the light, opened the curtains and left, locking the door behind her.
    Ten minutes later, back in her room with a drink and the list beside her, she called Philpott on her mobile, using the scrambled satellite line. It was after ten o’clock in New York, but he was still at his desk.
    â€˜I assumed you’d like a progress bulletin on the Emily Selby case,’ Sabrina said. ‘I got into her room and picked up a couple of things.’
    â€˜Specifically?’
    â€˜A key and a list of names. Men, all German I think.’
    â€˜Do you have the list there?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Read out a few of the names.’
    They’re not in alphabetical order - looking at the addresses, I’d guess they’re graded in order of their proximity to Berlin. Here goes. Gunther Blascher, Walter Höllerer, Johann Boumann, Andreas Wolff, Friedrich Schadow, Albrecht Schröder, Kurt Ditscher, Karl Schinkel -’
    â€˜That’ll do. Fax it to my secure number.’
    â€˜Do the names mean anything?’
    â€˜We’ll discuss it when you get back.’ A phone was ringing. ‘I’ll talk to you soon. Just get that list to me.’
    â€˜Very good, sir.’
    Sabrina thumbed the red button and put down the phone. She looked at her watch. There was hardly any night left. For a while she stood there, wondering if she should get in the tub or go straight to bed.
    Tub, she decided. And no bed. At a pinch, a long hot soak could do the work of six hours’ sleep. She could get herself dressed and ready for the day at a comfortable pace, take an early breakfast, read the morning paper and still be out on the street by 7.30.
    She ran a hot bath and undressed as it filled. As she climbed in and sank up to her neck, the heat seeped smoothly into her muscles. She closed her eyes and her mind drifted. She thought of home, the reassurance and comfort of her own apartment in New York, her favourite weekend restaurant…
    Abruptly she thought of lunch. Today. Her eyesopened. She had forgotten. Lunch with gooey-eyed Inspector Lowther.
    â€˜Merde,’
she groaned, in a perfect