No Escape (20 page)

After feeling furious with her for half an hour and resisting for another ten minutes a strong wish to ring her up himself, he decided to have it out with her at the hospital the next day. She must stop seeing Stone. She must stop being Garrod's stooge. It was far too dangerous

But the next day proved more and more frustrating. Tim's work kept him totally occupied all through the working hours. He could make only one attempt to find Jane in the X-ray Department and she was not there at that time. But he managed to get away from the hospital just after six and after going home rang her up and found her in. Not only in but very anxious to talk to him.

“Why didn't you call me last night, then?”

“I—well, I was—it was rather late.”

She sounded confused—upset. The thing was getting her down, Tim decided.

“Look, have you fed yet? No, you can't have. Come out to dinner.”

“I'd love to, only—”

“Only what?”

“Well, I've got to go to a wretched party—”

“Go on.”

“Tim, I don't really want to go, but I must. Garrod knows and he'll be keeping watch and—”

Tim exploded.

“God damn it, don't say this Stone wants you out
again
? Two days running!”

“I'm terribly sorry—”

Her voice broke: to Tim's horror she seemed to be crying.

“Listen,” he said, speaking in a slow gentle voice, as he did in the children's ward. “Tell me when and where this party is, then we can arrange something. Right?”

She told him. Gerry had left a message with Mary that morning to say she must bring a warm coat because the party was going to be on a houseboat on the Thames. He hadn't said where the houseboat was. She had told Superintendent Garrod and he had said she was to carry on. Everyone would know, including the River Police.

“Damn Garrod!” said Tim fiercely. “O.K. Well have dinner at that little place round the corner from you. Meet me there in half an hour.”

Jane agreed and rang off. She was pleased to remember that she had not suggested this restaurant the night before to Gerry. It would have been contaminated now if she had done so. As it was it remained and she hoped would always remain a special property of hers and Tim's.

When Jane had rung off. Tim got on to Garrod, was told to mind his own business, but managed to discover, aided by his previous intuition, that the houseboat party was expected to take place on Giles Winter's boat near Hammersmith Bridge.

So, after a warm, encouraging, delightful meal with Jane, who looked quite lovely that evening, he thought, much prettier than the Cooper girl could ever hope to be, with her cold, set face and manner, Tim set off in his own car for Hammersmith Bridge. He parked it in a side turning off the approach road and went on foot to the tow path. In the car he had exchanged his jacket for an old wind-cheater over a sweater. His appearance was now quite unremarkable, a slightly scruffy young man among hundreds who looked just the same.

Meanwhile Jane, feeling comforted and protected and more than ever in love with Tim, walked home quickly to wait for Gerry. He came punctually at a quarter to nine and they drove off together.

Though the party seemed to he composed of much the same type of person she had met before and had no particular wish to meet again, Jane lost most of her misgivings in the interest and excitement of boarding a boat on the river.

The party was still assembling when Gerry led her down to the towpath, having parked his car in the same side road where Tim had put his. In fact, as the two appeared together at the river wall Tim, standing back in the shadows, saw them arrive and was pleased to find his reasoning had been correct.

Two dinghies were plying back and forth between the cabin-cruiser and the landing steps. Jane and Gerry had to wait in an informal queue until those in front of them had been taken off.

There was a good deal of wind. Jane was glad she had brought a scarf. She tied it over her hair while they waked.

Then it was their turn, Jane was handed into the small rocking boat and sat down. Gerry followed. A long-haired boy, whom Jane had not seen before, pushed off and took them across. They were welcomed on board and led below. Jane found herself being greeted effusively by Ronald Bream and his wife. Tom and Toni came up, the former carrying two glasses of wine. Jane answered the greetings politely and while Gerry started a brisk conversation with his friends, stood back and looked about her.

The saloon of the launch was tightly packed with visitors. There must have been quite thirty there, she thought, realising that the boat was much larger than she had imagined and very pleasantly roomy below.

“What d'you think of her?” asked Giles Winter at her elbow.

She turned with a start to face him. The same thin face and strange cold eyes. Remembering Sheila, Jane felt renewed dislike and revulsion.

“She's quite big, isn't she?” she said, feeling confused and stupid. “How many of you live here?”

“Only me. Only at weekends. But I have a crew, of course, when I go to sea.”

“Oh!” Gerry had spoken of a houseboat, not an active craft. “I thought it was a houseboat,” she added, to explain her surprise.

“So she is, most of the time. But I take her out occasionally.”

“Is that why we had to come on board in a dinghy? I wondered. The other boats seem to be joined together and to the wall.”

Giles laughed.

“Yes, I'm on a mooring. Observant girl, aren't you? The noticing kind.”

Jane flushed. There was a barely hidden antagonism behind his speech, a contemptuous dislike that the voice did not conceal.

“How many crew do you take?” she asked, determined to hold her own with him.

“I have berths for four. Two in here and two in the cabin up forward. Like to see?”

She gave a rather artificial laugh.

“Not a hope, is there? With all this crowd.”

Tom was at her side with a bottle, filling her glass. Toni handed a plate of cheese bits on sticks and another of olives. Gerry, behind them, said, “Why don't we all go on deck? No air down here.”

Very slowly they pushed through the crowd to the foot of the companion-way and up it into the night air. There were fewer people here, mostly younger than those below, Jane noticed several flushed faces and blank eyes; she heard blurred speech and silly phrases. The drink had been circulating very freely up here in the dark, she thought; the drink or the dope? Probably both, and highly dangerous at that.

Gerry took her arm, edging her along towards the bows. Here among the various tackle on the deck some of the couples had bestowed themselves for further enjoyment. Gerry moved inboard to put himself between Jane and the dark humped forms, squeezing her to the rail.

They were on the river side of the launch, the windward side, but Jane welcomed the cold stream of air against her face. She looked down at the dark water. The tide, which had been full and slack when they came off to the launch, had now turned. The water ran past in rippling circles, chuckling as it ran off the curve of the hull. She remembered Sheila again and shivered. The wine had loosened her thoughts and her tongue.

“Did she fall in from here?” she asked the river, staring down at it.

There was no answer. Looking up Jane saw that she was alone with Gerry; the others had gone back along the deck. She felt his arms go round her, saw his face close to her own.

“Sheila!” she cried, pushing him away. “Did she fall in from here, from this boat? She must have! There was nowhere on the towpath—”

He pulled her close.

“Darling, darling!” the soft false voice was murmuring. “I love you. Love me as you did the other night. Darling!”

He was so intent upon subduing her that he did not hear, or did not rightly interpret, the powerful chug of the police launch engine. But Jane heard it and fought him off with renewed vigour. A moment later a brilliant beam swept the decks from end to end.

“Christ!”

Gerry dived for the shelter of the wheelhouse behind them, still clutching Jane with one hand, trying to drag her with him. But freed from his arms she had clung to the rail with one hand and now tore herself from his grasp and stood upright, her face turned to the searchlight, staring full into it to make sure of recognition.

The light swept away and was turned off. The launch appeared to move on up the river. Looking round Jane found herself quite alone.

The cabin cruiser rocked as the visitors crowded out on to the decks. Standing still where Gerry had left her, Jane saw that their numbers were already very much reduced. They must have been leaving quietly from the other side all the time she had been there with Gerry. How long was that? Surely not more than a few minutes?

She put a hand to her head. It was aching and she felt more than ever confused and far away. How silly to come here at all! How absurd to drink anything with this bunch of obvious crooks!

What a panic they were in just because a searchlight had played over them! She laughed aloud.

“Jane!”

She started violently. It was Tim's voice, low, urgent, but she could see no one. The wind was stronger than ever now, blowing straight across the river from the opposite bank. She hugged her coat round her, wondering if she had really heard a voice or not.

“Jane!” it came again. “Listen. I'll get you off and you must go home as quick as you can. Don't recognise me. Go round to the boats and I'll get you off.”

She moved obediently. As she passed into the small crowd waiting near the rail on the shore side of the launch she looked down and saw Tim, sitting in one of the dinghies, waiting to move up for passengers.

But before his turn came, or hers, Gerry was beside her again, taking her arm, pushing her forward, ordering people out of their way and succeeding in moving them. She saw with disgust and mounting fear that Tim was not able to help her now. She was forced into a waiting dinghy and swept away with Gerry.

Looking back despairingly she saw Tim tie up the small boat he was in and clamber quickly on board the launch. Then they were at the steps, she was helped up them and with Gerry again at her elbow, marched away.

In silence they reached the side road and the sports car. In silence Gerry unlocked it and ordered her into the passenger seat. Her head was clearer now. An acute sense of danger sharpened her clouded wits.

“Where are we going?” she asked, when he failed to take the road that led to her flat.

“The hospital,” he said. “There is something there you have to show me, my dear.”

Tim stayed where he was until he saw Gerry moving off along the towpath with Jane. Though he would have preferred to see her leave alone, when he could have caught her up before she had gone very far, he was relieved to see her back on solid earth and moving away from the river.

When there was no further chance of his being recognised, he pulled himself up on to the deck of the launch. But three of the remaining guests who stood clustered near the rail, impatiently waiting to get ashore, asked to be taken off, so he embarked once more. The ebb was beginning to run fast, now. He had some difficulty getting alongside the steps and more still in returning again to the cabin-cruiser.

Arrived there he found his services were no longer needed. The other dinghy had removed the last of the guests, the deck was deserted.

Tim's first thought was to go ashore by himself, take his car to Jane's flat and find her there. But the empty deck above him was very tempting. If the launch was really deserted, why not take a look round her? He was puzzled by the sudden dispersal of the party. It was not late. They had seemed to be enjoying themselves. Drink was circulating freely, morale was high, but no one showed the usual bad temper and aggression of the partly drunk.

True the wind had got up, with the suddenness it often showed over water. The launch was rolling at her mooring. Being a good sailor he had not been bothered by it. Perhaps they had. Perhaps they felt sick. Particularly the addicts. Well, serve them right if they did.

He had not understood the full significance of the searchlight. He had not realised how it would seem to the guilty consciences on board. The little addicts, as fearful of losing their supplies as they were of having them found in their pockets, were ready to panic at the slightest hint of police interest. Though they knew nothing of the Bream gang's inner workings and depended upon them with a pitiful, desperate trust, they knew that at the first danger sign of trouble with the police they must remove themselves immediately and thereafter swear total ignorance. They had a double interest in this; to save themselves from the penalties of the law and also from the reprisals of the gang if they should in any way betray it.

Climbing back on to the launch Tim moved silently round the decks. The wind was stronger now, blowing direct inshore. No one lurked in the shadows, no one rose up to confront him. It would have been too cold to stay out in any case, he decided. But a light still shone in the cabin, so he went up to the open door of the wheelhouse, passed in and peered down the companionway.

At first he saw only litter and the stains of spilt drink and cigarette ash. Then he saw a leg thrust out and as he moved down to discover the owner a drunken voice said, “Whas—at?”

Giles Winter was sprawling on one of the bunks, his jacket off, his tie hanging loose, his eyes half-closed.

“The others have all gone ashore,” said Tim. “D' you want to be ferried over?”

“Who th'hell are you?”

“One of the party. The dinghy's outside.”

“Live here,” Giles said, rolling over so that his face was hidden from Tim. “My boat. Sleep aboard. You want sleep aboard?”

“Not particularly,” Tim said. But he moved towards the forward cabin door. It was a chance to have a real look round. A chance not to be missed.

“Please yourself,” Giles muttered, not looking round.