The Prize (45 page)

‘I’ve got some mighty important calls to make, and I haven’t got much time.’

‘Hop in,’ said Gottling.

And he thundered down the stairs after Craig, and through the spinning door behind him, and then caught up and pointed off to his compact Volvo station-wagon alongside the quay. Craig had forgotten his overcoat, but the last of the setting sun was still visible, and the air was only slightly chilled.

They trudged through the low-packed snow, and Craig began to speak of what had happened and was happening in a sort of oral shorthand. With brevity, he filled Gottling in on his relationship with Emily Stratman.

Once inside the station-wagon, Gottling looked at him questioningly.

‘Just a few blocks for the first stop,’ said Craig. ‘Nordiska Kompaniet.’

Gottling started the car, and crouched over the wheel in his near-sighted way, as Craig picked up his story. He related all he knew of Emily’s tardiness which became absence, of his visit to her room, the typewritten sheet, and then he recited what he had heard on the miniature tape machine, feeling better to know that another shared the facts, should anything happen to him.

When he had finished, Gottling belched across the wheel, and cursed classically. ‘Those friggin’ Commies,’ he said.

‘We don’t know—’

‘The hell we don’t,’ said Gottling. ‘Who wants the old man in East Berlin, anyway? Those little Prussky puppets? They’re go-betweens. It’s the big boys who want Stratman on their side. Goddammit, Craig, don’t you ever read the papers any more? Every other week some fag Englishman or little American with goggles turns up in Moscow and says peace it’s wonderful, and hands them a briefcase of discoveries. Do you think all the defectors do it just for love and money? Well, maybe most, because their heads are screwed on backwards, but dollars to doughnuts, every tenth man is blackmailed into crossing the line—they’re holding a relative or somebody—and the poor bastard scientist or diplomat—what can he do?’ They were on Hamngatan, and he swung the Volvo to the kerb. ‘Here’s your N.K. What gives here?’

Craig opened the door. Then, one foot still on the floorboard, and the other on the kerb, he explained, in rapid-fire sentences, about Lilly Hedqvist and Nicholas Daranyi and himself.

‘I know Daranyi,’ said Gottling. ‘Always nosing around for gossip. I’m one of the decadent little bastard’s pet sources. I do it to let off steam. He knows it. But I like him. I like rabbits.’

‘Do you think I’m crazy to gamble Walther’s freedom—maybe even Emily’s life—on a longshot? Should I go to the police?’

‘Police? Ha! Those crooks. For all we know, they pulled the job. Naw, play it like a one-man team, Craig, a decathlon entry—all by your lonesome and no bumbleheads with billy clubs. Go in and see that broad of yours, and find out where the slob Daranyi lives—I wish I knew, but I don’t. Now, take off, and I’ll keep my engine revved up.’

Craig pushed through a glass entrance door, and once inside the cavern of the crowded store, he tried to take his bearings. His eyes fell on the information booth to his left, and he fought through the swarm of shoppers to the pert Swedish girl in the booth. It was imperative that he see one of the assistants, Miss Lilly Hedqvist, in ladies’ wear, he pleaded. There had been an emergency in her family. The pert girl rang a bell. A slender young boy came on the run. There was an exchange in Swedish. The boy was gone. Craig was asked to wait. Ignoring the shoppers with bundles, who came and went before him, he waited, and he worried about Emily.

It was several minutes before Lilly arrived, blue eyes opened wide with concern. Craig drew her aside, to a corner near the doors.

‘Lilly, I haven’t much time. Emily Stratman is in trouble—’

‘Trouble? In what trouble? I do not understand.’

‘I won’t go into it now, but we’re trying to stay away from the police to protect her and her father. It’s all tied up with her uncle being here for the Nobel awards, and I remembered something—you told me Daranyi was investigating the Nobel laureates—’

‘It is true.’

‘Where do I find Daranyi?’

‘He should be home. I will take you there.’

‘I haven’t got time. Just tell me—’

‘No, it is better I take you. One minute. I will inform the manager my mother is very ill. Wait outside.’

Craig went outside, shivered as the breeze nipped at him, signalled Gottling to wait, and then himself stalked back and forth before the wide entrance of Nordiska Kompaniet. Lilly had said one minute, and it was literally one minute later that she burst out of the store, tugging on a bright plaid coat.

Craig hustled her into the rear of the station-wagon, and swung himself into the front seat beside Gottling, who had, as he had promised, kept his motor running. Craig blurted his introduction, and Gottling’s dissipated face bore an expression of appreciation for Craig’s taste.

‘Tell him where to go, Lilly,’ said Craig.

She spoke in Swedish, Gottling nodding, and all Craig could make of it was M
ه
rten Trotzig’s Lane and V
ن
sterl
ه
nggatan. Gottling shifted, viewing the oncoming traffic through his rear mirror, and jolted the Volvo into a sudden skidding U-turn. Now he straightened the car, and retraced their original course, heading towards the Strommen canal, and then over the bridge towards the looming Royal Palace and the Old Town.

Once, Gottling said in English, ‘I always thought Daranyi lived on handouts. He must be loaded to live in the Old Town.’

‘He is honest and works hard,’ said Lilly, defensively.

‘I’m not criticizing, young lady, I’m envying,’ said Gottling. He glanced at Craig. ‘No use brooding, my friend. You’re doing all you can. Don’t try to outguess fate. That’s the recipe for ulcers. Let’s see what old Daranyi has to say.’

Gottling now addressed himself to Lilly in Swedish as they drove on, and Craig lapsed deeply into himself. He was sickened with fear for Emily and Walther. Actually, less so for Walther, whom he had never seen, who had no existence in his memory, who was a wraith. It came down to Emily, actually. He tried to visualize her, her glossy dark hair and green eyes and virginal bearing, and he remembered how she shrank from men and violence. And now, despite Eckart’s reassurances, the apprehension of where she was, who was with her, what was at stake, corroded Craig’s insides like a bitter acid.

Gottling bumped his Volvo recklessly, twisting and turning through the crooked streets of the Old Town, and from the window Craig caught a name on a street-sign that whisked past, and it was V
ن
sterl
ه
nggatan.

Lilly had moved forward to the edge of the back seat, and now her hand, pointing ahead like an aimed arrow, came between Craig and Gottling.

‘It is there,’ she said, ‘right there past the lane where’—and then she caught her breath—’where the ambulance is parked.’

Craig peered through the windshield. There was an ambulance—at first he had thought it a truck—against the pavement, and several dozen curious spectators, young and old, gathered around it in respectful attendance.

Gottling swerved to the kerb across from M
ه
rten Trotzig’s Lane, braked, and the motor died.

‘What has happened?’ Lilly cried. ‘Do you think something has happened?’

The three of them were instantly out of the car and across the street, with Lilly running ahead to the ambulance. When Craig caught up to her, she was still conversing in an indistinct hum of Swedish with the white-coated driver and his assistant, who were leaning against the fender, smoking. A throng of spectators had pressed closer to Lilly and the ambulance men, to catch what they could of the talk.

Craig shoved his way roughly through the wall of people and was at Lilly’s side. ‘Lilly—what is the matter?’

She was frantic. ‘It is terrible, Mr. Craig. I was always afraid this would happen. Daranyi has been stabbed many times, and he is inside, and the physician is with him.’

‘How did it happen?’

‘Oh—they do not know.’

‘Is it very serious?’

‘Come, quick, we must go inside.’

Lilly took Craig’s hand, and the crowd parted. As they hurried into the apartment building, Gottling called to them that he would wait. Craig waved gratefully, and stayed with Lilly.

Inside Daranyi’s living-room, so bachelor-neat and Middle European, Craig found four or five people seated in repose. They were mostly elderly, and obviously neighbours who were Daranyi’s friends, and who had come to hear the worst. Lilly was addressing one squat old lady now—a shopkeeper, it turned out—and Lilly spoke in tearful Swedish, and the old lady’s replies were almost inaudible.

‘What is it, Lilly?’

‘It is bad, Mr. Craig. He was attacked in the street—half an hour ago—and the physician is examining him now. I must see. I must find out the truth—poor Daranyi—’

She left Craig and went to the bedroom door, turning the handle gently, and then easing herself inside.

A voice from behind was directed at Craig. ‘Hiya, Mr. Craig.’ He spun about, and seated on a brown leather chair was Sue Wiley. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

‘What are
you
doing here?’

‘I’m dying by inches, I’m a wreck,’ she said, eyes blinking, hands fluttering. ‘Can you imagine such a thing? You want the morbid details?’

Craig pulled a chair towards her and sat sideways in it. ‘I didn’t know you knew Nicholas Daranyi.’

‘We had a transaction,’ said Sue Wiley. ‘Never mind about that. Let’s say we were both in the business of information, and we found each other. Anyway, I got to thinking about the Ceremony this afternoon, and I figured I could use some more dope on it—past performances, such and since Daranyi is a historian—’

‘Historian?’

She stared at Craig. ‘Isn’t he?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. What happened?’

‘I decided to drop in on him for an interview a little while ago, before getting back to change for the Main Event. I took a taxi here, and kept it, and pounded on his door, but no one was home. So I started to leave, and just as I got outside—I happened to look up—and there he was, coming along the pavement. I started to call out to him, but before I could open my mouth—whambo!’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning two hoodlums pounced on him—in broad daylight, mind you—I guess they were hiding in that skinny little lane. They came out, one in front of him and one behind—and the bigger one in front clamped a hand over Daranyi’s mouth, and the other one behind lifted a blade—some kind of knife or dagger—and began punching it into Daranyi. Well—boy, oh boy—I stood on that pavement absolutely petrified. And then I started to yell, to scream bloody murder—and the hoodlums froze the way I’d been frozen—and then they just broke away and ran like crazy. And that little Hungarian, he flopped down in the street like a dead whale. Well, everybody was in the street by then, and my taxi-driver was calling the cops.’

Craig asked himself: why Daranyi? Was this in some way a part of Eckart’s intrigue? He was on the right trail, he felt, and then, sagging inside, he realized that he might be too late. ‘Did you recognize either of them?’