Krysalis: Krysalis (24 page)

“I rang the number. This woman answered. ‘Mr. Somebody’s consulting rooms,’ that’s what she said.”

“You don’t remember the name?”

She shook her head. “The receptionist said it so fast. ‘Who is this?’ she asked. And I said, ‘I want a consultation.’ And she said, ‘Who is your G.P. and do you have a referral?’ And I said, ‘Not yet.’ And she said, ‘To see a psycho-something you need a referral,’ but I just heard ‘psycho,’ see, that was enough. I put the phone down. Mum’s barmy, I thought.” She sighed, a great long shudder that rose from the depths.

David slipped off the rock and marched down to the sea.

He rejected all that Juliet had said. His wife was a barrister, sane and successful in a mad world. Her grip on things was total. And they had no secrets from each other, none whatsoever; the openness of their shared existence was almost tedious. If Anna had consulted a psychiatrist before they met he would have known about it. Surely?

Yes, but it would explain a lot. Suppose Anna wasn’t at fault? What if she was very sick … hence the vodka bottle in her desk, the writ alleging negligence that wasn’t negligence at all, but illness …

But why had she never told him?

It seemed she had never confided in her daughter, either. Poor Juliet. A somber thought entered his mind: how would it be for her if Anna never came back? He remembered reading harrowing stories of people who just disappeared, leaving their families not knowing whether they were alive or dead.

How would it be for him?

David swung around to find that the rock he and Juliet had occupied was now empty.

“Juliet!” he cried. The wind took his voice, nullifying it. Then he caught sight of her at the cliff stairway, and he began to run. But he had to detour in order to collect his shoes and socks, so that by the time he caught up with her she was already striding across the field.

The bull seemed closer this time.

“Juliet, listen to me. I need to talk to you. Oh, for Christ’s sake, can’t you slow down?”

She shook her head and ploughed on.

“Juliet, you have to hear what I’ve got to say. Your
mother …” Suddenly his ankle turned awkwardly, making him stumble. “Your mother took something when she left. Something of mine. A file …”

Juliet was running. For an instant David did not understand her sudden urgency. Then he heard the beat of hooves and, ignoring the pain in his ankle, started to sprint.

The girl side-vaulted the stile, landed in a crouch and tumbled over, clutching her knee. David, still twenty or so yards from the wall, dared not look around. His throat was dry with terror. His chest hurt. He tried desperately to listen for hooves, but the blood coursing through his eardrums blotted out all other sounds. Ten yards. Five. Then he was clutching the top bar of the stile, his stomach pressed against it. As he brought up the left foot to complete the crossing, his toe caught in a rung and he fell down beside Juliet, banging his forehead on the ground.

Only by screwing up every muscle in his face did he manage to keep himself from blubbing like a kid. He had wrenched a muscle in his right thigh and his arm rippled with fiery pains where he’d landed on it.

He sat up. Through the stile he could see nothing. There was no bull. Not without difficulty, David managed to haul himself back to the vertical. The bull had changed position, but now he was unconcernedly plucking at a patch of long grass. David realized that for most of his sprint he had been chased by a phantom.

He wheeled around to catch sight of Juliet’s face contorted into a scowl. She backed away, fists clenching and unclenching by her sides.

“You say mum took a file. Stole it, you mean?”

“Look—”

“You’re accusing her of being a thief, stealing government
papers.” Her eyes blinked, two tears jetted down her cheeks. “How can you do that, David? You
… shit!”

She broke into a run, sobbing. When David tried to follow, another shaft of fire sprang up his leg, crippling him. Purple patches floated before his eyes. He swore, then limped after her in the direction of the farm.

By the time he got there the sun had mellowed to an orange disk, bathing the yard in flame. As he made his way around the gate he found himself confronted by a wrathful trio: Juliet, the girl called Fergie, and Timmy the deaf mute.

“Get in.” Fergie jerked a thumb toward his car. “Don’t stop till you hit the road.” She was seething with rage. “If you come back, we’ll call the police.”

“I want to talk to my stepdaughter,” he grated.

Sarah tapped Timmy on the arm, and when he looked at her she pointed toward David. The cobbler advanced slowly, still carrying his hammer.

“Are you threatening me?”

“We’re exercising the right to have you off our premises.”

“Your
premises? Don’t make me laugh!”

“We’ve had enough of you. And your German friends. Tell them to stay away, d’you hear?”

“David …” Juliet’s voice sounded fearful. “Just … go.”

“Not until we’ve talked. Talked properly.”

Timmy was within a foot of David now. He stopped and uttered a selection of horrid grunts, culminating in a drawn-out moan. His eyes were fishlike, cold. He looked brutish.

“I want to talk to Juliet,” David said quietly, but with great force, and Timmy hit him.

He did not use the hammer, which was as well or David would have been killed. Instead, he dropped the tool on the cobbles and punched David’s jaw. David saw the blow coming and ducked, but Timmy’s fist landed on his forehead, setting off a fresh round of explosions in his already damaged skull. He swayed groggily, once more unable to see straight.

Timmy came at him again, butting into his stomach. David doubled up with an “ouf!” of pain and fell to his knees. While he fought to regain control he found himself looking up at Timmy, silhouetted against the sky. The deaf mute clasped his hands and raised them above his head.

Before the blow could connect, however, it was intercepted.

Another black figure had come to stand behind the first, with something long in his hands. This object swung through a horizontal plane into the small of Timmy’s back. The shape dissolved, reorganized itself, and the shaft came down vertically to land on the cobbler’s left shoulder. David heard a crack. Timmy collapsed to the ground, holding his neck while he rocked to and fro. Above him …

Above him, Albert was practicing off-drives with considerable
élan,
using for bat the fence post that had just broken Timmy’s collarbone. “Evening,” he said, catching David’s eye. “Get in the car, will you, be a good chap.”

As David staggered away he heard Albert ask engagingly, “Any more for any more? Come on, don’t be shy.” But the two girls backed off, numbed by the controlled, precisely directed violence radiating from this stranger. Albert threw away the stake and came around the front of the car to let himself in. “Right,”
he said as he slid into the passenger seat. “Off sharpish, yes, mm?”

David put the Rover into gear. The last thing he saw through the rear-view mirror was Juliet running forward to help Timmy up while Sarah continued to stand rooted to the spot.

“You do get yourself into some scrapes. Ouch! As indeed … do I. What on earth …?” Albert felt underneath him. His hand emerged holding a white paper bag. “Chocolates?”

“Juliet’s favorites.” David sighed. “I didn’t even get a chance …”

“Never mind.”

Until this moment David had been driving on automatic pilot. Now he started to come to himself. “Er … thanks.” He paused, embarrassed by the inadequacy of his reaction. “You may have saved my life back there.”

It was true, he realized. If he was able to drive away from New Pendoggett Farm, it was all due to Albert. This man was going out of his way to help. He felt gratitude flood through him without knowing how to express it. “Do you have a car?” he asked awkwardly.

“Yes, I left it at the gate. There it is, beside the postbox.”

David pulled over next to Albert’s Morgan and switched off the engine. “It was really lucky you arrived when you did.”

“Coincidence, wasn’t it?”

“You were sent to interview Juliet, I suppose?”

“Mm-hm. Doesn’t seem much point now, does there?” Albert sighed. “David, David, David, what are we going to do with you?”

He was wearing cavalry twill trousers, a checked
shirt, knitted tie and a riding jacket, while a tweed cap was pulled well forward over his eyes, its brim almost resting on the tops of his flattened spectacles. It occurred to David that it would be difficult for the communards to describe Albert’s face to the police.

“Do with me? I don’t understand. We agreed I ought to try and find out as much as I could.”

“Yes, but not by using the third degree.”

“They
attacked
me!”

He felt almost churlish, defending himself against his savior, but Albert seemed not to mind. “What did you manage to extract from Juliet, before the fracas?” he asked.

“Very little. She hasn’t seen Anna, nor heard from her.”

“Was she telling the truth, do you think?”

“Yes.” David opened his mouth to tell Albert what Juliet had said about the mysterious doctor, but to his surprise heard himself say instead, “Why did that girl mention German friends?”

“I wondered if you’d taken that on board. Mean anything to you?”

“No.” David knew he ought to tell Albert about the “psycho-whatsit,” as Juliet had called him. It was important. But because it was so important, he wanted to think about it first. To package it. Construct some way of passing on the information that wouldn’t make him out a complete idiot for not having known. “I don’t have any German friends.”

But Anna did! Brewster, the chairman of the Krysalis vetting committee, had said so.

“Did Juliet say if anybody else had been snooping around asking questions?”

“No.”

“German friends, now. Anna Lescombe, whatever are you up to?”

David wanted to ask what was going through Albert’s mind but the other man forestalled him by abruptly getting out of the car. “Be seeing you, then,” he said through the window.

As David watched him start the Morgan he suddenly resolved not to tell anyone about Anna’s psychiatrist.

CHAPTER
18

Barzel drummed his fingers on the steering wheel while he stared through the windshield down the road that Lescombe must surely use. He looked at his watch. Dusk already, soon it would be dark. He desperately wanted the by-now-familiar Rover to appear within the next ten minutes. Once night fell, he could easily miss it.

A mistake, wasting today. For two pfennigs he’d give up, now, and catch the next plane to Corfu … only then he remembered what was at stake, and resolved to give David those extra few minutes.
He had to know if Lescombe was part of Kleist’s plot.

But things were going badly. If he had been a superstitious man he might have believed that some unseen power was on Kleist’s side. He’d had to use an HVA charter jet to fly back to London from Athens the night before. First they had run into headwinds, and then a thunderstorm. The pilot wanted to divert, until he saw Barzel’s gun. Then he changed his mind, which was all
right in one way but Barzel’s stomach still heaved at the memory of their landing.

He’d driven down to Cornwall early, after snatching a couple of hours’ sleep, on the strength of an update that told him David Lescombe was planning to visit his stepdaughter. Before getting entangled with David, Barzel wanted to put to rest an ugly hunch that had occurred to him overnight: that the blonde woman with Kleist wasn’t Anna Lescombe at all, but a decoy, deliberately chosen to lead him away from his real quarry. The Cornish farm where Juliet lived was said to be out in the wilds. Suppose Anna was shacked up there, what in hell would
that
signify?

He’d prowled around the farm boundary, keeping out of sight. A lot of people seemed to live there, too many for Barzel’s liking. Anna wasn’t among them, or if she was, she certainly didn’t show herself.

He was making his way back to the Audi when two people stepped out into his path, a ferocious-looking dyke and a male humanoid who communicated only in grunts.

“What do you want?” the woman snapped. When he didn’t answer immediately, she’d asked the same question in fluent German, catching Barzel on the raw. He prided himself on how well he fitted into the landscape.

“You’re trespassing,” she went on. “Clear off or I’ll call the police.

“My dear young lady—”

“Shove that! Timmy …”

The humanoid had advanced threateningly. Barzel looked down and noticed for the first time that he was carrying a wicked-looking hammer. “Can I speak to Juliet?” he’d asked quickly. “That’s all I want to do. I’ve got a message from her mother.”

“Have you indeed?” the girl sneered. “You can give it to me, then.”

“It’s not written down.”

“Tell me what you want to say.”

“No. It’s private.”

“Timmy, junk this pig.”

The humanoid grunted in what sounded like satisfaction. Barzel swiftly weighed up the situation. The only sure way out was to draw his gun and he didn’t feel like doing that—too risky; once he’d gone they’d call the police for sure. Retreat.