I said: “Now, off the top. Who told you to pick up Bettina Harkan?”
He waited a long time before answering, and I wondered if he was plucking up courage to tell me the truth or deciding just how much he could fool me—or might dare to. He was gauging my temper and finding that perhaps I wasn’t really a very violent man; but he couldn’t be sure. He said at last, his voice a whisper: “Alexander Ming.”
“And your relationship with him is...?”
“I work for him.”
“Doing what?”
A long pause again. Then: “Marketing.”
“Drugs?”
“Yes. I’ll make a deal with you, Cain.”
“No deals.”
“You’d better wait till you hear what I have to offer.”
“And in return, you want...?”
“I want out. I want a couple of suitcases I’ve got hidden away, and an escort to the airport when you’ve finished with me. If I don’t get away...if I talk and stay here...”
“Yes, they’ll kill you. Has it occurred to you that I might do that myself?”
“I don’t think you will.” He was surprisingly sure of that. His courage was coming back slowly, and I was glad of it; more helpful in many ways.
I said again: “No deals, and you’ll talk. What you tell me will decide what I’m going to do to you, or with you. First of all, how did you manage to pick up Bettina so easily?”
He told me the truth, “I got one of the hotel girls to slip a mickey finn into her whisky bottle. The girl works for us sometimes.” He was talking more easily now, glad he’d planted a seed in my mind.
I said: “Next question. Why did Ming want her?”
“She was claiming to be Sally Hyde. Sally Hyde had said she was here looking for Ming, so...so he wanted to know what she was up to. He wasn’t really sure whether she was Sally or not, so...he told me to find out. After all, I was sure to know whether it was she or not. You understand what I’m saying? The only reason I was brought into this at all was that...well, I was the only man who could know, one way or the other.” The words were tumbling out now, a comfort to him. He said: “Otherwise, I’d have had nothing to do with it at all.”
“And you knew, of course, that she was a substitute. Did you wonder why?”
I think he knew what was coming. He licked his lips again, and his throat sounded dry. “That was what Ming wanted to know. If it wasn’t really Sally, then he wanted to know why she was pretending.”
“And you found that out.”
“Yes.”
I said: “How, Wentworth?”
“She told me. She told me that you’d hired her to impersonate Sally, to sit tight till someone picked her up.”
“She told you? You just asked her?”
“That’s right.”
“Willingly?”
Now the comfort had all gone. He said, stuttering: “Well, not...not exactly willingly.”
“Tell me what you did to her.”
“I’d...I’d rather not. I’m not...not very happy about what...what Ming made me do.”
“You mean he was there too?”
“No, but...but if I didn’t find out, he’d have...he’d have killed me. It’s as simple as that.”
“And so?”
“So I had to find out.”
I said: “I’m waiting, Wentworth.”
He whispered: “I had to hit her a couple of times.”
“With your hand?” He desperately wanted to lie; but with Bettina in bed upstairs, how could he? He said, trembling: “I used a stick.”
“And you hit her where?”
“On the face...the body. Cain, please, I...”
“How hard?”
