The Tightrope Men. Desmond Bagley

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СКАЧАТЬ got up tiredly and twitched aside the window curtain to find that the weather had changed; the sky was a dull grey and the pavements were wet and a fine drizzle filled the air. The outdoor café in the gardens opposite would not be doing much business that day.

      He rang down for breakfast and then had a shower, finishing with needle jets of cold water in an attempt to whip some enthusiasm into his suddenly heavy body and, to a degree, he succeeded. When the floor waitress came in with his breakfast he had dressed in trousers and white polo-necked sweater and was combing his hair before the bathroom mirror. Incredibly enough, he was whistling in spite of having Meyrick’s face before him.

      The food helped, too, although it was unfamiliar and a long way from an English breakfast. He rejected the raw, marinated herring and settled for a boiled egg, bread and marmalade and coffee. After breakfast he checked the weather again and then selected a jacket and a short topcoat from the wardrobe. He also found a thin, zippered leather satchel into which he put the maps and the Spiralen leaflet which had a street plan of Drammen on the back. Then he went down to the car. It was exactly nine o’clock.

      It was not easy getting out of town. The car was bigger and more powerful than those he had been accustomed to driving and he had to keep to what was to him the wrong side of the road in a strange city in early rush-hour traffic. Three times he missed signs and took wrong turnings. The first time he did this he cruised on and got hopelessly lost and had to retrace his path laboriously. Thereafter when he missed a turn he reversed immediately so as not to lose his way again.

      He was quite unaware of the man following him in the Swedish Volvo. Denison’s erratic course across the city of Oslo was causing him a lot of trouble, especially when Denison did his quick and unexpected reversals. The man, whose name was Armstrong, swore freely and frequently, and his language became indescribable when the drizzle intensified into a downpour of heavy driving rain.

      Denison eventually got out of the centre of the city and on to a six-lane highway, three lanes each way. The windscreen wipers had to work hard to cope with the rain, but it was better when he fiddled with a switch and discovered they had two speeds. Resolutely he stuck to the centre lane, reassured from time to time by the name DRAMMEN which appeared on overhead gantries.

      To his left was the sea, the deeply penetrating arm of Oslofjord, but then the road veered away and headed inland. Presently the rain stopped, although no sun appeared, and he even began to enjoy himself, having got command of the unfamiliar car. And suddenly he was in Drammen, where he parked and studied the plan on the back of the leaflet.

      In spite of the plan he missed the narrow turning to the right and had to carry on for some way before he found an opportunity to reverse the car, but eventually he drove up to the entrance of the tunnel where he stopped to pay the two-kroner charge.

      He put the car into gear and moved forward slowly. At first the tunnel was straight, and then it began to climb, turning to the left. There was dim illumination but he switched on his headlights in the dipped position and saw the reflection from the wetness of the rough stone wall. The gradient was regular, as was the radius of the spiral, and by the time he came to a board marked 1 he had got the hang of it. All he had to do was to keep the wheel at a fixed lock to correspond with the radius of the spiral and grind upwards in low gear.

      All the same, it was quite an experience – driving upwards through the middle of a mountain. Just after he passed level 3 a car passed him going downwards and momentarily blinded him, but that was all the trouble he had. He took the precaution of steering nearer to the outer curve and closer to the wall.

      Soon after passing level 6 he came out of the tunnel into a dazzle of light and on to level ground. To his left there was a large car park, empty of cars, and beyond it was the roof of a large wooden building constructed in chalet style. He parked as close to the building as he could, and got out of the car and locked it.

      The chalet was obviously the Spiraltoppen Restaurant, but it was barely in business. He looked through a glass door and saw two women mopping the floor. It was still very early in the morning. He retreated a few steps and saw a giant Spiralen Doll outside the entrance, a leering figure nearly as big as a man.

      He looked about him and saw steps leading down towards the edge of a cliff where there was a low stone wall and a coin-in-the-slot telescope. He walked down the path to where he could get a view of the Drammen Valley. The clouds were lifting and the sun broke through and illuminated the river so far below. The air was crystal clear.

      Very pretty, he thought sourly; but what the hell am I doing here? What do I expect to find? Drammen Dolly, where are you?

      Perhaps the answer lay in the restaurant. He looked at the view for a long time, made nothing of it from his personal point of view, and then returned to the restaurant where the floor-mopping operation had been completed.

      He went inside and sat down, looking around hopefully. It was a curiously ad hoc building, all odd angles and discrepancies as though the architect – if there had been an architect – had radically changed his mind during construction. Presently a waitress came and took his order without displaying much interest in him, and later returned with his coffee. She went away without giving him the secret password, so he sat and sipped the coffee gloomily.

      After a while he pulled out the leaflet and studied it. He was on the top of Bragernesasen which was ‘the threshold of the unspoilt country of Drammensmarka, an eldorado for hikers in summer, and skiers in winter, who have the benefit of floodlit trails.’ There might be something there, he thought; so he paid for his coffee and left.

      Another car had arrived and stood on the other side of the car park. A man sat behind the wheel reading a newspaper. He glanced across incuriously as the restaurant door slammed behind Denison and then returned to his reading. Denison pulled the topcoat closer about him against the suddenly cold wind and walked away from the cliff towards the unspoilt country of Drammensmarka.

      It was a wooded area with tall conifers and equally tall deciduous trees with whitish trunks which he assumed to be birches, although he could have been wrong, botany not being his subject. There was a trail leading away from the car park which appeared to be well trodden. Soon the trees closed around him and, on looking back, the restaurant was out of sight.

      The trail forked and, tossing a mental coin, he took the route to the right. After walking for a further ten minutes he stopped and again wondered what the hell he was doing. Just because he had found a crude doll in a car he was walking through a forest on a mountain in Norway. It was bloody ridiculous.

      It had been the redhead’s casual theory that the doll had been left in the car by a previous hirer. But what previous hirer? The car was obviously new. The doll had been left in a prominent position and there was the note to go with it with the significant reference to the ‘Drammen Dolly’.

      Early morning – that’s what the note had said. But how early was early? Come out, come out, wherever you are, my little Drammen Dolly. Wave your magic wand and take me back to Hampstead.

      He turned around and trudged back to the fork in the path and this time took the route to the left. The air was fresh and clean after the rain. Drops of water sparkled prismatically on the leaves as the sun struck them and occasionally, as he passed under a tree, a miniature shower would sprinkle him.

      And he saw nothing but trees.

      He came to another fork in the trail and stopped, wondering what to do. There was a sound behind him as of a twig breaking and he swung around and stared back along the trail but saw nothing as he peered into the dappled forest, shading his eyes from the sun. He turned away but heard another sound to his right and out of the corner of his eye saw something СКАЧАТЬ