The Tightrope Men / The Enemy by Desmond Bagley Page B

Hampstead. Hampstead, for Christ’s sake!’
    ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ said McCready. He left the room.
    Carey loosened his tie with a jerk and sat biting his thumbnail. He looked up as McCready came back holding a book. ‘What have you got there?’
    ‘London telephone directory.’
    ‘Give me that,’ said Carey, and grabbed it. ‘Let’s see - Dennis, Dennis, Dennis…Dennison. There’s a George and two plain Gs - neither in Hampstead.’ He sat back, looking pleased.
    McCready took the book and flipped the pages. After a minute he said, ‘Denison, Giles…Hampstead. He spells it with one “n”.’
    ‘Oh, Christ!’ said Carey, looking stricken. He recovered. ‘Doesn’t mean a thing. He picked the name of someone he knows. His daughter’s boy-friend, perhaps.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ said McCready non-committally.
    Carey drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘I’ll stake my life that this is Meyrick; anything else would be too ridiculous.’ His fingers were suddenly stilled. ‘Mrs Hansen,’ he said. ‘She’s been closer to him than anybody. Did she have anything to say?’
    ‘She reported last night that she’d met him. He’d broken a date with her in the morning and excused it by pleading illness. Said he’d been in bed all morning.’
    ‘Had he?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Did she notice anything about him - anything odd or unusual?’
    ‘Only that he had a cold and that he’d stopped smoking. He said cigarettes tasted like straw.’
    Carey, a pipe-smoker, grunted. ‘They taste like straw to me without a cold. But he recognised her.’
    ‘They had a drink and a conversation - about morals and religion, she said.’
    ‘That does it,’ said Carey. ‘Meyrick is ready to pontificate about anything at the drop of a hat, whether he knows anything about it or not.’ He rubbed his chin and said grudgingly, ‘Trouble is, he usually talks sense - he has a good brain. No, this is Meyrick, and Meyrick is as flabby as a bladder of lard - that’s why we have to coddle him on this operation. Do you really think that Meyrick could stand up against four men with guns and knives and coshes? The man could hardly break the skin on the top of a custard. He’s gone out of his tiny, scientific mind and his tale ofimprobable violence is just to save his precious superiority, as I said before.’
    ‘And what about the operation?’
    ‘As far as Meyrick is concerned the operation is definitely off,’ said Carey decisively. ‘And, right now, I don’t see how it can be done without him. I’ll cable London to that effect as soon as I’ve had another talk with him.’ He paused. ‘You’d better come along, George. I’m going to need a witness on this one or else London will have me certified.’
    They left the office and walked along the corridor. Outside the room where Meyrick was held Carey put his hand on McCready’s arm. ‘Hold yourself in, George. This might be rough.’
    They found Meyrick still sitting at the desk in brooding silence, ignoring the man he knew only as Ian who sat opposite. Ian looked up at Carey and shrugged eloquently.
    Carey stepped forward. ‘Dr Meyrick, I’m sorry to…’
    ‘My name is Denison. I told you that.’ His voice was cold.
    Carey softened his tone. ‘All right, Mr Denison; if you prefer it that way. I really think you ought to see a doctor. I’m arranging for it.’
    ‘And about time,’ said Denison. ‘This is hurting like hell.’
    ‘What is?’
    Denison was pulling his sweater from his trousers. ‘This bloody knife wound. Look at it.’
    Carey and McCready bent to look at the quarter-inch deep slash along Denison’s side. It would, Carey estimated, take sixteen stitches to sew it up.
    Their heads came up together and they looked at each other with a wild surmise.

SEVEN
    Carey paced restlessly up and down McCready’s office. His tie was awry and his hair would have been tousled had it not been so close-cropped because he kept running his hand through it. ‘I