A Pigeon Among the Cats (18 page)

“But the lace is beautiful,” Myra protested. “You certainly couldn't get anything like it at home.”

“I expect you could in London if you knew where to go.”

“At ten times the price.”

“Well, perhaps,” she put the handkerchiefs back in their wrapping and said defiantly, “I know one thing. I've seen all I want to of this famous glass. Hideous! Great ugly animals and birds in the crudest pink and blue! The old-fashioned Edwardian fingerbowls — my mother had some — were fussy, over-decorated, but not half as vulgar as these monstrosities. And they're
everywhere
!”

“For the tourists,” Flo said sadly. “Not the Grand Tour ones any more, just our wealthy plebs, bless their hearts.”

She smiled at her friends, to excuse if only to herself, the vehemence with which she had spoken. For she refused to consider her attitude a snobbish one when it related to people earning, at what she felt were inferior jobs, anything up to twice as much as she did herself.

The discussion faded into lassitude as the three women sipped their coffee, ordered ices, listened to classical music and gazed at their neighbours, similarly occupied. It was only when Rose caught sight of Gwen Chilton with the three forbidding figures of the day before that she roused herself to point them out.

“On the right, in the sun, moving towards the boats, the most extraordinary set of toughs. D'you see where I mean? Only yesterday Gwen was looking terrified out of her life. Today she seems happy enough.”

“I hope she doesn't bring them over here,” Myra said. “I might get up and run. Anything more like
The French Connection
…”

“Or
The Godfather
…”

“You needn't worry. They'll be out of sight in a minute.”

There was no further sign of Gwen's nasty-looking new friends when the three women, having finished their leisurely refreshment, wandered slowly to the waterside to go back to the Lido for lunch.

It was after this meal, at which Gwen did not appear, that Rose Lawler made up her mind she had seen quite as much as she cared to of Venetian glass.

“I know you love watching processes,” she said to Myra. “I remember how you enjoyed that leather business in Florence. Well, so did I, actually. But then the end results were pretty and I adore the smell of real leather. But glass — no. I simply could not endure to see a huge blue swan emerging from a twirling lump of molten glass. Very highly skilled, no doubt. But not for me, I think.”

“What will you do then?” Flo demanded.

“Oh, take a book into the garden here at first, I suppose. And then go for a swim.”

“I expect you'll have to book again from here.”

“Very likely.”

Mrs. Lawler found this was not difficult. And when she reached the beach a couple of hours later she found she was told she would soon be alone.

So much the better, she decided. She left her watch with her money at the gate keeper's lodge. The woman attendant there remembered her from the day before and said, when she handed over the metal number on its rubber ring, “You go for a swim again, signora? A long swim, as yesterday?”

“That wasn't a long swim,” Rose laughed. “But yes, I shall swim again.”

“Be very careful, signora. Those warning posts are real, not for fun, you know.”

“I'll be careful.”

When she reached the hut Rose found the other occupants, not the Bankses this time, were packing up and about to leave.

“Going already?” she asked.

They laughed.

“We've been here since before two,” the younger of the two women said. “Cooked quite enough by now.”

The man, cooked a good deal more than enough, Rose thought, said impatiently, “Come on, girls. All set, surely?”

“He's overdone it,” the older woman sighed. “And I nearly killed myself oiling his back.”

“All three acres of it,” added the other.

As it seemed that a quarrel, or at any rate a dreary argument was building, Rose smiled and went into the hut to change. She made a neat pile of her clothes, hesitated over the number ticket, then hid it in a pocket of her cotton slacks. The gate keeper would never give her property to anyone else; they had talked for several minutes and the woman had already recognised her as someone who had been in the sea the day before.

After a brief warming in the afternoon sun Rose set off down the beach. There were a few bathers in the shallows but no one she recognised. Two men were attempting to swim a little farther out, but finding it frustrating. She stood up to watch them. They did not look like Italians, so she ventured to say, “Very shallow, even out here, isn't it?”

“Aye,” one of them answered, in a north-country voice. “It is an all. No tide's not an advantage.”

“It gets a bit better farther out,” she said, letting herself drop forward again.

“Beyond t' post, it do,” said the other man. “Sudden like. Thee need t'watch it.”

“I will.”

She pushed forward lazily, then stood again, watching the two men as they began their cheerful retreat. Then turning on her back she began a slow, beautifully executed back stroke, on and on in the peaceful mild ripple of this sheltered corner of a tideless sea, not a cloud overhead, the westerly sun still warm on her left cheek. This was heaven … this was what …

“Rose! Rose! It is you, Rose, isn't it?”

The voice came from behind her, from the sea. Gwen Chilton's voice. How the devil …

Turning over, pushing herself up, treading water, for there was no bottom here, Rose found herself about ten yards from a fair-sized white launch that she recognised from the day before. Gwen was standing in the cockpit, waving to he while two of her strange new friends stood, one on either side.

“Come aboard!” the black-haired, dark-faced one called.

“I don't think …” she began, but the launch swept forward, cutting off her retreat, narrowing the distance between her and Gwen's reaching hand.

“You'll go aground,” she protested, hoping to scare them off. This failed. There was nothing to do but reach for the rungs of a small ladder that had suddenly appeared just below where Gwen stood.

“I was just thinking of going back,” she said. “I must, if I'm to be in time for a shower before dinner.”

“You must have dinner with us,” the dark man said. “Introduce us, Gwen, my dear.”

“Mrs. Lawler, this is Jake,” Gwen said.

“Then thank you Jake, I'm sorry, but I must be going.”

Jake made a sign, the ladder rose a foot or two and as she let go her hold on the rungs strong hands seized her by the shoulders and lifted her inboard, dripping, breathless with shock, furious.

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Lawler, but you must be staying,” said Jake.

The launch, its engines revving, propeller thrashing, reversed away, then made a tight turn, heeling so steeply that Rose would have shot overboard on the other side of the boat if Jake had not supported her.

“That would not do at all,” he said. “The propeller can be very dangerous, you know. Terribly dangerous.”

She knew then that her situation, her whole situation, was terribly dangerous. She understood with a sick feeling in her stomach that her knowledge of Gwen Chilton, liar, potential thief, was real, these associates of hers were real thugs, not film fantasies, and that their behaviour must be related to her knowledge. Gwen had told them she knew too much. Would they silence her by blackmail? Or did they mean to kill her?

She shivered, realising that her inward chill was combined with a physical state of coldness. She saw that Jake was looking at her, a cruel smile on his full lips.

“I'm cold,” she said. “Have you got such a thing as a towel handy?”

“Sure,” he answered, the smile widening to a hearty appreciation of her manner. “Fetch the lady a towel, honey!”

“I'll come with you, Gwen.”

Rose expected to be stopped but no move was made to do this, so she went below and with the ample towel Gwen provided she soon dried and warmed herself, stripping off the wet bathing dress and throwing it to Gwen who squeezed the water from it into the galley sink before hanging it up over the gas jets of the stove.

Jake's head and shoulders appeared at the head of the companion way. Mrs. Lawler managed a modest scream and pulled the towel more closely about her. But she was not the object of Jake's immediate concern.

“We'll have that meal in just an hour from now, Gwen love, and Mrs. Lawler will eat with us.”

The dark face disappeared to Rose's relief. She would not have spoken in any case. The launch was at his command together with his two henchmen and his cowed mistress. Remembering Gwen's evident pleasure in Owen's company, Rose even felt a slight compassion for the poor stupid girl. Watching her as the bully barked his instructions from above deck, she understood very clearly that this now ageing young woman was no skilled criminal but a rootless, rudderless creature, who needed instruction by the day, the hour, the minute, even in an emergency. Dimly Mrs. Lawler began to see a way of using Gwen to aid her possible escape.

For escape she meant to attempt later that evening, if any way presented itself. So she sat still, huddled in her towel until Gwen brought her back her bathing dress, not fully dry but warm enough to put on.

“They'll be down here in a jiffy,” Gwen said. “At least two of them will.” She had turned on the cabin lights and shut the door at the top of the steps, standing against it as Rose discarded the towel. “My!” she said. “You don't look up to much, I will say.”

“I hope your Jake will agree with you and stop frightening a poor old schoolmistress,” Rose answered tartly. “Have you got a comb?”

All this time she had kept her bathing cap on, with the earflaps turned up, as much from habit as anything else. Now she pulled it off and shook out her short, greying locks.

Gwen supplied a small comb from her handbag and as she bent over Rose to give it to her she whispered, “It isn't my fault! I swear it!”

“When?” Rose whispered back. It was clear from Gwen's distracted manner that she might be near to death and if she was to have any chance of avoiding it she must know when the final approach would come.

But Gwen only shook her head and went back to the galley. Presently she came into the cabin again to lay the table for a meal for four.

Rose saw that it was now very nearly dark outside. She moved to the other side of the cabin. Yes, they were well out to sea, the shore lights were a long way off. But for a little while now she noticed less movement of the boat, less noise from the engines. Was that significant? Probably just a move to make the meal pleasanter, easier to serve. The last meal of her life, she wondered, still unnaturally calm.

Jake and his deck hand Abe came down into the cabin. Jake poured drinks, including a stiff dry martini for Rose. She drank it as a necessary prelude to what might be coming, but at the meal that followed, some savoury pasta, cold meat and salad, peaches and grapes, she ate very little and refused altogether the wine Jake offered her with mock deference.

“And now,” she said boldly, when the others had all finished eating. “I really must go back to the Lido, Mr. — er— Jake.”

He stared at her without expression.

“Yes,” he said. And after a few seconds of silence, “Ya, Mrs. Lawler, back to the Lido. O.K. O.K. Eh, Abe boy?”

“As yo' say, boss,” Abe replied.

So the launch turned and made for the shore again, eating up the miles as the sky darkened and the lights ahead grew brighter. Rose stood beside Jake, tense, unbelieving and yet half inclined to trust that earlier feeling of unwilling hope. So she must play the part she had tried to sketch to Gwen, the silly old schoolmarm, given to curiosity and prying into the affairs of others. The final opportunity was nearly upon her.

When the end lights on the little pier were very nearly abeam she said, putting an anxious note into her voice, “It gets shallow very suddenly, Jake. Where the last of the posts sticks up. Only I don't see it yet.”

“I know,” he answered. He signalled to the third man who was driving the launch and Abe moved forward to the side of the cockpit. “You don't see that post yet because it's all of two mile in from here. Maybe you won't see it, not ever, Mrs. Lawler.”

“What d' you mean?” She knew well enough but there was only one chance for her, to get back in the sea alive and whole. “I expect I can swim in from where you picked me up.”

“But I say you'll have to swim in from here, ma'am.”

“But I couldn't.
I couldn't! I'd drown
!”

“Found drowned,” Jake told her, savouring the words with open pleasure, rolling them off his tongue, repeating them with full, deep-throated American intonation that made them doubly horrific.

“Why? What have I done? How have I ever … ?”

“Because you bin tormenting my little Gwen,” he said. “You bin interfering with my orders to her, my instructions. So I rub you out, see, an you don't interfere no more, never.”

“You can't do it!” Rose cried wildly, so terrified by the big brute's manner and looks that she nearly dived overboard while he was still speaking. In fact she took a step away from him and saw the glint of a knife in Abe's hand that checked her.

“You can't mean me to
drown
,” she forced out, recovering.

“I do mean just that,” Jake answered. He was enjoying the situation. He had got that squeak of fear from her at last, the buttoned-up British bitch. He played for another.

“I can't use the gun,” he said. “Nor yet the knife. I can't clobber that lousy superior dial. I want it natural — just natural goddam egg-head fool action. So!” he yelled and Abe at this signal sprang at Rose, lifted her sheer off her feet and threw her into the sea.

She let herself meet it with the stinging splash of a full belly-flop. It nearly winded her, but she let herself sink, then bobbed up again, on her back now, to let out a water-clogged scream, followed by a cry for help.