The Night Manager

They were in Jonathan's tiny flat in the Klosbachstrasse, drinking Scotch and Henniez water, and the drink was doing neither of them good. Jonathan sat in the only armchair, while Burr roamed the room in search of clues. He had fingered the climbing gear and studied a couple of Jonathan's cautious watercolours of the Bernese Oberland. Now he stood in the alcove, working his way through Jonathan's books. He was tired, and his patience was beginning to run out, with himself as well as Jonathan.

"You're a Hardy man, then," he remarked. "What's that about?"

"Exile from England, I suppose. My shot of nostalgia."

"Nostalgia? Hardy? Bollocks. Man as mouse and God as uncaring bastard, that's Hardy. Hullo. Who've we got here? Colonel T. E. Lawrence of Arabia himself." He held up a slim volume in a yellow dust jacket, waving it like a captured flag.

"The lonely genius who wished only to be a number. Forsaken by his country. Now we're getting warm. Written by the lady who fell in love with him after he was dead. Your hero. Well, he would be. All that abstinence and flawed endeavour, beans out of the can; he's a natural. No wonder you took that job in Egypt." He looked at the flyleaf. "Whose initials are these? Not yours." But by the time he asked, he knew.

"My father's, actually. It was his book. Will you put it back, please?"

Noticing the edge to Jonathan's voice, Burr turned round.

"Have I touched a nerve? I believe I have. Never occurred to me that sergeants read books." He was probing the wound deliberately. "Officers only, I'd have thought books were."

Jonathan was standing in Burr's path, blocking him in the alcove. His face was stone pale, and his hands, instinctively freed for action, had risen from his sides.

"If you could put it back on the shelf, please. It's private."

Taking his time, Burr replaced the book on the shelf among its companions. "Tell us something," he suggested, announcing another change of topic as he ambled past Jonathan to the centre of the room. It was as if their conversation of a moment ago had never taken place. "Do you handle hard cash at all at that hotel of yours?"

"Sometimes."

"Which times?"

"If we get a late-night departure and somebody pays cash, we handle it. The reception desk is closed between midnight and five a. m., so the night manager stands in."

"So you'd take the cash off them, would you, and you'd put it in the safe?"

Jonathan lowered himself into the armchair and folded his hands behind his head. "I might."

"Suppose you stole it. How long before anybody noticed?"

"End of the month."

"You could always put it back for accounting day and take it out after, I dare say," said Burr thoughtfully.

"Meister's pretty watchful. Nothing if not Swiss."

"I'm building up a legend for you, you see."

"I know what you're doing."

"No, you don't. I want to get you inside Roper's head, Jonathan. I believe you can do it. I want you to lead him to me. I'll never nail him else. He may be desperate, but he doesn't drop his guard. I can have microphones up his arse, overfly him with satellites, read his mail and listen to his telephones. I can smell him, hear him and watch him. I can send Corkoran to jail for five hundred years, but I can't touch the Roper. You've four more days before you're due back at Meister's. I want you to come to London with me in the morning, meet my friend Rooke and hear the deal. I want to rewrite your life from day one and make you love yourself at the end of it."

Tossing an air ticket onto the bed, Burr placed himself at the dormer window, parted the curtains and stared out at the dawn. There was more snow in the air. The sky was dark and low.

"You don't need time to think about it. You've had nothing but time since you jacked in the army and your country. There's a case for saying no, same as there's a case for digging a deep shelter for yourself and living in it for the rest of your life."

"How long would it take?"

"I don't know. If you don't want to do it, a week's too long. Do you want another sermon?"

"No."

"Want to call me in a couple of hours?"

"No."

"How far have you got, then?"