The doctor said helplessly, “I don’t know, Sir Alec. I received an anonymous call that there had been an accident. When I got here, I found Lady Nichols on the floor of her bedroom. Her—her kneecaps had been hammered to the floor with spikes.”
Alec closed his eyes, fighting off the spasm of nausea that gripped him. He could feel the bile rising in his throat.
“We’ll do everything we can, of course, but I think you had better be prepared. It’s unlikely that she’ll ever walk again.”
Alec felt as though he could not breathe. He started toward the ambulance.
“She’s under heavy sedation,” the doctor said. “I don’t think she’ll recognize you.”
Alec did not even hear him. He climbed into the ambulance and sat in a jump seat, staring down at his wife, oblivious to the back doors being closed, the sound of the siren, and the ambulance beginning to move. He took Vivian’s cold hands in his. Her eyes opened. “Alec.” Her voice was a slurred whisper.
Alec’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, my darling, my darling…”
“Two men…wore masks…they held me down…broke my legs…I’ll never be able to dance again…I’m going to be a cripple, Alec…Will you still want me?”
He buried his head in her shoulder and wept. They were tears of despair and agony, and yet there was something else, something he hardly dared admit to himself. He felt a sense of relief. If Vivian were crippled, he would be able to take care of her, she could never leave him for anyone else.
But Alec knew that this was not over. They were not finished with him. This was only their warning. The only way he would ever get rid of them was to give them what they wanted.
Quickly.
CHAPTER 50
Zurich.
Thursday, December 4.
It was exactly noon when the call came through the switchboard at the Kriminal Polizei headquarters in Zurich. It was routed through to Chief Inspector Schmied’s office, and when the chief inspector had finished talking, he went to find Detective Max Hornung.
“It’s all over,” he told Max. “The Roffe case has been solved. They’ve found the killer. Get out to the airport. You’ve just got time to catch your plane.”
Max blinked at him. “Where am I going?”
“To Berlin.”
Chief Inspector Schmied telephoned Elizabeth Williams. “I am calling to bring you some good news,” he said. “You will no longer need a bodyguard. The murderer has been caught.”
Elizabeth found herself gripping the telephone. At long last she was going to learn the name of her faceless enemy. “Who is it?” she asked.
“Walther Gassner.”
They were speeding along the autobahn, heading for Wannsee. Max was in the back seat, next to Major Wageman, and two detectives sat in front. They had met Max at Tempelhof Airport, and Major Wageman had briefed Max on the situation as they drove. “The house is surrounded, but we have to be careful how we move in. He’s holding his wife hostage.”
Max asked, “How did you get on to Walther Gassner?”
“Through you. That’s why I thought you would like to be here.”
Max was puzzled. “Through me?”
“You told me about the psychiatrist he visited. On a hunch, I sent out Gassner’s description to other psychiatrists and found out that he had gone to half a dozen of them, looking for help. Each time he used a different name, then ran away. He knew how ill he was. His wife had phoned us for help a couple of months ago, but when one of our men went out to investigate, she sent him away.” They were turning off the autobahn now, only a few minutes from the house. “This morning we received a call from a cleaning woman, a Frau Mendler. She told us she was working at the Gassner house on Monday and that she talked to Mrs. Gassner through the locked door of her bedroom. Mrs. Gassner told her that her husband had killed their two children and was going to kill her.”
Max blinked. “This happened on Monday? And the woman didn’t call you until this morning?”