Chapters (38)
- Cover
- Also by Philip Kerr
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
They fetched me back to the room with the chandelier a couple of hours later. I figured something was wrong because Harold Hennig was already there and wearing handcuffs, like me; there was a large bruise below his eye and his shirt was torn. It seemed like a strange way to treat your star witness. They made us sit at opposite ends of the room. I tried to ignore him and he paid me the same compliment. There were now three men behind the desk, including the monk. One of the other men looked like a duchess who was aware of a bad smell under the floorboards. In that house, there probably was. The other man was an avuncular type with large ears and irregular teeth. Around his neck was a striped tie that matched the monk’s and I wondered if it meant they’d been to the same school, or if they just went to the same boring tie shop in London. The two thugs from Portsmouth were also there, but now they were accompanied by others of similarly anthropoid stature. And once again I had a strong sense that there were yet more people listening to these proceedings through the open door in the next room. From time to time I could hear matches being lit and chairs creaking.
“Well, we all know why we’re here,” said the monk.
“I wish I did,” I remarked.
“So let’s get started, shall we?” He nodded at one of the thugs who was standing by one of the other doors. “Would you fetch the witness in here, please?”
“So this is a trial,” I said.
The thug went out, and when he came back in he was followed by Anne French. I felt my stomach turn. And while I wasn’t yet able to understand why she was there, I was increasingly certain that I was facing something calamitous. Not least because she avoided my eye. That wasn’t so surprising, I suppose; it was what Harold Hennig said that really caught me unawares.
“Anne, my love. What are you doing here?”
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” I said, already wondering just how intimate they might have been while I was on duty at the Grand Hôtel.
She didn’t answer Hennig any more than she looked my way. Me, I don’t believe in the devil but I’m still scared of him, and I was now possessed of an uncomfortable feeling deep in my guts that he’d arranged for something doubly unpleasant to come my way.