The Key to Midnight

and purchased a tin of body powder to replace the one that Alex had emptied into the toilet in London. In the car again, he slipped the extra magazines of ammunition into the talc. Joanna put the resealed can in her suitcase.
        They drove from the outskirts of Brighton to Southampton. No one followed them.
        At the Southampton airport, they abandoned the stolen Ford in the parking lot.
        Aurigny Airlines hadn't yet sold out the Saturday morning flight to Cherbourg. Alex and Joanna sat behind the starboard wing, and she had the window seat. The flight was uneventful, with such an utter lack of turbulence that it almost seemed as though they hadn't left the ground.
        The French customs officials thoroughly inspected the luggage, but they neither opened the can of body powder nor took a close look at the hair dryer.
        On the express turbotrain from Cherbourg to Paris, Alex's mood brightened somewhat, apparently because Paris was his favorite city. He usually stayed at the Hotel George V; indeed, he was so well known by the staff that he might have gotten a room without a reservation. They stayed elsewhere, however, in less grand quarters, precisely because they didn't want to go where Alex was well known.
        From their hotel, he telephoned another hotel in Saint Moritz. Speaking fluent French and using the name Maurice Demuth, he inquired about reserving a room for one full week, beginning Monday. Fortunately, a recent cancellation had made a room available, and currently there was no waiting list for week-long accommodations.
        When Alex put down the phone, Joanna said, 'Why Maurice Demuth?'
        'So if anyone connected with Rotenhausen should go around Saint Moritz checking advance bookings at the hotels, he won't find us.'
        'I mean, why Maurice Demuth instead of some other name?'
        'Well… I don't know. It's just a good French name.'
        'I thought maybe you knew someone with that name.'
        'No. I just plucked it out of the air.'
        'You lied so smoothly. I better start taking everything you say with a grain of salt.' She moved into his arms. 'Like when you tell me I'm pretty - how can I be sure you mean it?'
        'You're more than pretty. You're beautiful,' he said.
        'You sound so sincere.'
        'No one has ever done to me what you do.'
        'So sincere… and yet…'
        'Easy to prove I'm not lying.'
        'How?'
        He took her to bed.
        Later, they ate dinner at a small restaurant overlooking the Seine, which was speckled with the lights of small boats and the reflected amber wedges of the windows in the buildings that stood along its banks.
        As she nibbled flawless oie rotie aux pruneaux and listened to Alex's stories about Paris, she knew that she could never allow anyone or anything to separate her from him. She would rather die.

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    58
        
        In Saint Moritz, Peterson had a gray Mercedes at his disposal. He drove himself, continuously peeling a roll of Life-savers and popping a series of butter-rum morsels into his mouth.
        Low over the towering mountains, the sky appeared to be nine months gone, bulging with gray-black storm clouds that were about to deliver torrents of fine dry snow.
        During the afternoon Peterson played tourist. He drove from one viewing point to another, enchanted by the scenery.
        The resort of Saint Moritz is in three parts: Saint Moritz-Dorf, which is on a mountain terrace more than two hundred feet above the lake; Saint Moritz-Bad, which is a charming place at the end of the lake; and Champfer-Suvretta. Until the end of the nineteenth century, Saint Moritz-Bad was the spa, but thereafter it lost ground to Saint Moritz-Dorf, which is perhaps the most dazzling water playground in the world. Recently, Moritz-Bad had been making a concerted effort to recapture its lost position, but its ambitious recovery program had led to a most unlovely building boom.
        An hour after nightfall, Peterson kept an appointment in Saint Moritz-Bad. He left the Mercedes with a valet at one of the newer and uglier hotels. Inside, he crossed the lobby to the lakefront cocktail lounge. The room was crowded and noisy.
        The hotel's day-registration clerk, Rudolph Uberman, had gone off duty fifteen minutes ago and was waiting at a corner table: a thin man with long, slim hands that were seldom still.
        Peterson shrugged out of