Secret Story (34 page)

She stared at him as if she meant to equal the contempt he felt for her. “She was my friend.”

“So give her a rest. It’s people like you that keep digging her up.” He was letting his fury distract him when she hadn’t answered his first question. “I asked you what you said,” he hissed and wiped his mouth.

“I told you.”

“You’re a liar. You said something about Colin. You said it was Colin.”

The girl enlarged her eyes as she had on the stairs. “Is that his name?”

“You know it is,” Dudley said with almost more frustration than he could contain in words. “No, it’s Mr Killogram.”

“If you’re so sure of yourself,” a second girl said, “why are you asking?”

“I’m sure of everything. It’ll take more than a few bitches to stop me.” Dudley was about to back up his declaration however he could when a voice behind him said “Leave them alone.”

It was Mr Killogram. He must want to deal with them himself. Dudley swivelled to meet him, only to find Mr Killogram staring not at the girls but at him. “They were saying things about you,” Dudley felt he should make clear. “They don’t care how they mess up our film.”

“Pity.”

“It’s worse than that,” Dudley said and found a threat he could allow everyone to hear. “Maybe Walt can sue them for losing us money.”

As the girls did their best to sound incredulously amused Mr Killogram said “It’s a pity I couldn’t carry on.”

“You still can if we get rid of them. Vincent, doesn’t the captain have to chuck them off for causing trouble?”

“We’d love him to try it,” the foremost girl said with an even more spurious laugh.

Vincent jabbed his glasses against the bridge of his nose to scrutinise her. “Don’t I know you? Did you phone me?”

“That’s me. The girl you told you’d be filming round the river when you thought I was the press.”

“How stupid are you?” said Mr Killogram.

Though he was looking at Dudley, he could hardly be addressing him. “Who’s that meant for?” Dudley said.

“Christ, you are.” Mr Killogram let his grin sag. “You’re as stupid as that stupid bloody name of yours.”

“What’s wrong with my name?”

“The one you keep calling me.”

“Mr Killogram.”

“No, the name’s Colin Holmes. They know it is even if you’ve forgotten.”

“I expect that shows you’re famous, but you can’t say what your character’s called. I wrote him. You’re the actor.”

“I’ll go on acting, shall I?”

Dudley struggled to master his emotions. Just because he and Mr Killogram had disagreed, that needn’t mean they had to part. After all, at times he had arguments inside his own head. “You can when there’s nobody trying to interfere,” he said. “You were getting good before.”

“I mustn’t have been bad enough, must I.”

Dudley felt the deck lurch underfoot as if the world had. Mr Killogram’s remark was addressed to the girls. Presumably Vincent was too thrown to notice, since he said “I don’t get this at all. Why would you want to be bad in a film?”

“It’s these bitches,” Dudley said through a grin like a skull’s. “They made him sneak into our film to spoil it.”

“Wrong as usual,” said the false Mr Killogram. “It was all my idea and I’m proud of it.”

“Don’t tell us you’re another of what’s her name, Angela’s friends.”

“She had plenty. I shouldn’t think you’d know what that’s like.” The man who had pretended to be Mr Killogram widened his pitying smile. “I was in plays with her at school,” he said. “Quite a few of us carried on acting. Maybe you’ll hire some more of us and not know.”

“You aren’t telling us she was an actress. She couldn’t put on much of a performance.”

Dudley was remembering how the best she could produce was to throw out her hands as if they could ward off the train. He didn’t grasp that he’d said too much until Vincent intervened. “You can’t say that, can you? You never saw her. Don’t lose it, Dudley.”

“It’s their fault if I have,” Dudley complained, surely not too late. “They’ve got me so I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“Try thinking you shouldn’t be making this film,” said the man who’d tried to steal Mr Killogram’s identity. “That goes for all of you, the ladies in particular. I can’t believe you want to be mixed up with a film about killing women for pleasure.”

At the end of an awkward silence Joan said “We knew what it was when we signed up. We’re professionals even if we’re independents.”

Dudley was overcome by a rush of appreciation he wouldn’t have expected to feel. “You’re my kind of people,” he told the film crew.

It was Red who answered, and only following a pause. “We need the work.”

As Dudley strove to be content with that, the actor said “How about you, Lorna? Surely you’ve got more ambition than being killed off in the first scene.”

“You have to start somewhere,” Lorna said, then turned to Dudley and Vincent. “As long as I’m staying with your film, maybe you could give me a bit more to do.”

“I should think we can work something out, can’t we, Dudley?”

Dudley meant his mutter to commit them to no more than would rid them of the betrayer. The actor left Lorna a disparaging glance and led his admirers downstairs, telling them “Pity you showed up so soon. I’d have had them going for days.” Dudley glared after him until Vincent murmured “I’ll make some calls when I get home and we’ll have another casting session. Is there anyone you’d like to see again that we saw?”

“I wanted him.” Dudley knew he sounded childish, which enraged him all the more. “Get someone that can be trusted this time,” he said and began to pace the deck like a beast in a zoo as the ferry crawled towards Liverpool. He was so impatient to be
home that he had to keep clenching his teeth to prevent his thoughts from shaping his mouth. Patricia had encouraged him to choose the actor, which was one more reason he was glad to have packaged her. At least the time it took to reach her would let him invent more for her to deserve.

“Oh, Patricia, how on earth have you managed to end up in this state?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re outside, mummy. How did you know where I was?”

“We had our doubts about that text that was supposed to be from you and so we had it traced. They can locate where the last message came from, you know.”

“Did you bring the police?”

“Just your father. For a bank manager he makes quite a house-breaker. It must be all that working with safes.”

“Get me out of here, then, before Dudley comes back.”

“I’d like to see him. I’d like more than a word with him.”

“So long as you don’t find yourself in trouble with the law, Gordon. Patricia, it may hurt while I’m taking this off you. It won’t last long, I promise.”

How could Patricia have been talking if her head was taped up? Being jerked out of her drowse by the realisation brought her close to tears. She felt moisture prickling the corners of her bound blind eyes until she succeeded in biting her flattened lip. Apart from the lapse in continuity, couldn’t she be rescued that way? If Dudley was home, surely her parents would insist on being let in, however plausible he tried to sound. The thought helped her fend off the other scene her mind kept producing, of Dudley pressing his unseen face against hers, smearing the tape with his tongue as he bruised fistfuls of her and scrabbled at her clothes. She was still capable of kicking, however awkwardly, which let her regain some sense of her unviolated self. If her parents didn’t save her, perhaps Dudley’s mother would. She had started to feel as she used to as a child with her head under the bedclothes, drifting into sleep and dreams, when she understood what that might imply. Was she being starved of air?

She twisted onto her back, stubbing half her fingertips against the bath, and tried to sit up. She’d raised her upper body only a few inches when a wave of dizziness broke in her head, leaving her throat harsh with nausea. Giving it time to subside felt like sinking helplessly into the dark. She reared up, unable to judge how badly she was wobbling, and barely remembered to duck so that just her shoulders and the nape of her neck thumped the lid of her prison. As the impact shook her she thought she felt the merest hint of shifting overhead.

Or was it her dizziness? She did her best to relax before pressing her shoulders against the barrier with all the strength she could find. This time all the unsteadiness seemed to be hers. The weight of her thoughts and the blackness dragged her head low. She no longer had the energy to budge the lid, she realised miserably, if indeed she ever could have—and then she wondered how much Dudley had. Could he really have planted such a
heavy object on top of her without wakening her? Mightn’t she be trapped by a heap of objects that she could unbalance?

She was afraid to yield to this last hope in case it was dashed, but the alternative was to let the life be crushed out of her by her plight. She was unbending from her crouch when she grasped that she ought to plan. What did she want to happen? If the obstruction ended up on the floor it might leave her way clear, but equally it might create a further obstacle. She needed it to fall into the bath on the side away from the room.

Her mind seemed to be swimming in giddiness. Where would she have to apply the remains of her strength? If she was under the side that fell it might pin her down. She inched away from the unseen wall to prop her shoulders and the back of her head against the lid. Then, with a series of movements so cramped they felt as though she was trying to take it off guard, she attempted to jerk it away from the wall.

Even these efforts revived her nausea. She had an impression of rubbing her head soft, which she suspected had to mean that she was close to fainting. The thought enraged her but lent her no strength. Nor did the notion that Dudley was in the room and relishing her struggles. She had to believe that he wouldn’t have covered the bath unless he was leaving the house, but how much longer might he stay away? The idea of wasting precious time drove her to thrust her clumsy body upwards in a last attempt to dislodge the lid. The action set the darkness reeling around her and inside her, but was that the only movement? She levered at the barrier with a residue of energy she wouldn’t have believed she had. She couldn’t be sure that she was experiencing more than vertigo until she felt and heard the lid crash into the bath.

Had it trapped her afresh? Her effort had robbed her of sensation except for a limpness so generalised she hardly knew which parts of her were which. She was afraid to move, to discover how
much she was able to, if at all. Once her exhausted body finished quivering she made herself extend her legs, which felt like rediscovering the single awkward mass they’d become. By stretching out her toes she was able to determine that one corner of the lid had tipped into the farther right-hand corner of the bath. The space above the upper end was clear. There was at least enough room for her to lift her head as high as sitting up would let her. She turned giddy with renewed hope before she recognised that she was back in exactly the same situation as when she had tried to clamber out of the bath.

No, not exactly. Dudley wasn’t there. She mustn’t imagine that he was watching her. She was resting her spine against the end of the bath before she made the effort to hoist her hands over the edge when she wondered if she had a chance to free them. Could she saw through the tape with the edge of the lid?

She struggled around to prop her left shoulder against the end of the bath and strained to find an edge with her wrists. It was too high. She had to squirm towards the taps and lie on her side in order to drag the tape between her wrists along the edge. Her cramped posture lent her unwieldy movements some force, but not enough; the edge was far too dull. Perhaps she could split the tape with the uppermost corner of the lid. When she managed to grip the edge with one hand and pull herself along the lid, she found that the corner was well out of reach.

She mustn’t let that rob her of determination. She still had the chance to escape. She fell on her side, bruising her shoulder, and did her utmost to transform her frustrated rage into vigour. She laboured into her sitting position and rested while she took several of the deepest breaths she could. She stiffened her body and heaved it as high as she was able with what felt like every reserve of her strength. Her nails scraped over the end of the bath, and her hands were just capable of gripping the edge.

If she gave in to the aching temptation to rest for even a moment they might lose their hold. She clutched the edge and performed a desperate shackled kick to lift her feet. As they wavered up she swung her body on the throbbing pivot of her wrists towards the side of the bath. Her feet swung over it, her ankles grazed the edge, and then most of her weight was beyond it. The burden was too painful for her wrists to support. Her hands opened and she sprawled out of the bath.

She had time to worry that the sink would crack her head. Only the floor thumped all the breath out of her. It was the shock as much as the impact; either the floor had grown soft or she had. By fingering the surface underneath her she identified it as a mattress. So Dudley had indeed been her unseen sleeping companion, but that didn’t mean he was anywhere near. She mustn’t think he’d strewn the floor with obstacles to hinder her escape; surely he believed he’d left her helpless. He was going to be sorry for underestimating her. As soon as she recovered her breath she set out to reach the door.

It was beyond her feet, and not nearly as distant as her blindness and her restricted movements made it seem. She struggled up on her left shoulder and her elbow and squirmed away from the bath. Her elbow bumped off the mattress onto the floor, and in a few inches it was rubbed raw. She could still hitch herself along with her shoulder, and bending her knees helped. Before long her bare soles encountered the outside of the bath. She pressed them against the yielding plastic and skewed herself further, then shoved with her legs. A second thrust carried her off the mattress, and a third slammed her right shoulder into whatever was blocking her path.

It was made of wood. She was sure her muffled ears had heard that. It must be the door. She leaned her spine against it and sat up, and an object dug into her scalp—not a weapon, the
doorknob. She ducked as if that might leave the pain behind, and once it faded she decided she’d rested enough. She had no idea how much more time she might have. She needed to stand up and open the door.