Silent Children (40 page)

The boy emitted a snore that in less fraught circumstances Hector would have made the basis of a joke, and his eyes stuttered open. In a wink they were as wide and protruding as they could go. "Keep very still, son," Hector said, gripping the wrists harder and leaning more of his weight on the legs as his captive's struggles began to shake the bed. "Wake your playmate and it's all over. Settle down or there'll be no coach."

At first the boy seemed not to understand. If he carried on struggling, Hector might as well finish him off. He would struggle just as much, but not for long. When all at once the boy went limp Hector grew hot with frustration. He could still rid himself of the trouble, he didn't need an excuse—but if the boy created too much trouble while he was being put to sleep for good he was bound to awaken the girl. "You and me are going down to the phone," Hector muttered instead. "Don't make a sound when I let go of your face."

The boy's lips moved under his palm as if they were preparing to cry out, and Hector only had to bring his thumb and forefinger together to pinch the boy's nose shut for as long as it took. He wouldn't have known what else to do if he hadn't remembered the knife. No sooner had he released the boy's mouth than he snatched out the knife and jabbed it at his captive's face, so fast that he managed to halt it scarcely a couple of inches short of the rapidly blinking right eye. "Just seeing you keep quiet," he murmured. "I'm going to get up off you now. Don't you move a muscle till you're told."

He freed the boy's wrists and planted his hand between the children, and waited. Even when Hector raised the knife an inch, then several, the boy's wrists stayed crossed on his chest. All the children Hector had brought peace had lain that way as he'd covered them up for the night, and he couldn't help feeling that the boy yearned for the same peace even if he didn't know he did. The impression was so powerful he had to remind himself that he was supposed to be phoning John. He lifted himself from the bed, and as Hector's weight left him the boy uttered a grunt of pain, but nothing more. "I'll let you have that," Hector whispered. "It's all the noise you're going to make. Worm yourself over here, slow as you like."

The boy took him at his word. He spent so long over inching himself down the bed that Hector began to suspect him of stalling. By the time the boy eased himself off the corner of the mattress Hector was having difficulty in keeping the knife to himself. "Quiet out of the room," he muttered, and saw the boy step over the board that would have creaked. Though it looked like obedience, it could be the start of some trick, and so Hector followed close enough to find the boy's face with the knife the instant there was any need. As the boy sidled past the stool, however, Hector thought of another way to deal with him. "Wait out there," he whispered, and groped under the stool.

He'd straightened up before the boy peered warily at him. Perhaps he suspected Hector of being about to harm the girl, which showed how little he knew about Hector. "Turn yourself round, son. Never mind looking at me," Hector said. "Let's have your hands behind your back. Let's see you cross your wrists since you're so good at it."

The boy didn't move except for clenching his fists at his sides. "What for?"

He'd spoken far too loud. For a moment Hector didn't know which hand he was about to use on him. He glanced back to see the girl hadn't been disturbed, then he poked at the air immediately in front of the boy's face with the knife in his left hand, holding the other and its contents out of sight behind the door. "Can't have you trying to run out of the house, can we?" he whispered. "Can't have you getting hold of the phone either. Your playmate doesn't want you spoiling things for her now, so better do as you're told."

"Come away from her, then."

"I will as soon as you turn round, that's a promise. Keep me waiting any longer and maybe she'll wake up and start making a fuss, and then I won't be able to call John, so you figure out for yourself what I'll have to do."

The trouble was that the threat made Hector feel threatened himself, less in control of the situation than he ought to be, in danger of having to finish things off because his plans weren't as complete as he should have ensured they were. The boy's eyes glinted in the dimness as if he realised some or all of this, and insomnia surged through Hector's hot raw grimy brittle skull, urging him to give up his efforts to think ahead, just to act and assuage his frustration. Then the boy's shoulders drooped, and his fists opened as he turned, crossing his wrists behind his back.

Hector was on him at once, using a fingernail to scratch the end of the insulating tape loose from the roll. In a second he'd wrapped it tight around the boy's wrists. He bound them again and a third time for luck before cutting the tape off the roll. "That's the way," he murmured, watching the fingers wriggle in the murk like undersea creatures eager for food. "No point struggling, that won't help your playmate. Don't struggle now either."

The boy's head swung toward him, just what Hector wanted. It was still turning when he stretched the tape across the mouth. The boy jerked his head away, which only stuck the tape to his right cheek. He tried to retreat, giving Hector space to dance around him thrice on tiptoe, unspooling the tape around the parcel of a head, over and over the mouth. "Done up properly now, aren't you?" he muttered, slashing at the end of the gag with the knife.

"No need to flinch. I've done what I'm doing for now. Careful as you go down. We don't want you breaking your neck."

Or did he? The boy would be able to make even less noise if that happened, and not much while it did—but there would have to be the sound of his fall, which was more than Hector needed to risk. Silencing the boy had revived Hector's ability to think. As he followed one step behind his captive, who swayed like a drunk as he lowered his weight onto each stair so gingerly it was comical, Hector's plan completed itself in his head. He restrained himself from laughing aloud, but he stretched his mouth wide in a grin that felt like a wound, nearly healed. He knew how to bring John to them without revealing their whereabouts, and once the call was finished he knew what the boy's fate would be.

Just when Jack thought his mother had finally left him alone she reappeared in her pink dressing gown. "Let me make up the couch for you at least. You look as if you're never going to bed."

"Don't worry, I'll do it. You need your sleep."

"So do you, John. We've both got jobs that take a lot out of us." She tramped to the sofa, her footfalls and indeed her whole body expressing dissatisfaction, and yanked at the cushions until they unfolded into a segmented mattress. She stooped to lift the heap of bedclothes from beside the sofa and rose red-faced with sudden anger. "It's ridiculous, these people expecting you to wait up all hours till they get around to phoning. Who do they think they are? You're important too. More important, because you're the one that writes the books."

"You wouldn't expect publishers to see it that way."

"Then they should. You tell them your mother said so." She shook a pillow hard as if to make it see sense and flung it on the couch. "What time is it supposed to be where they are?"

"It's eight hours earlier in California."

"So they should be well back from their lunch even if it's on expenses, shouldn't they? What are they making you wait for?"

"I won't be the only—"

"They won't have many writers over here, will they? They ought to deal with you first.
I
know," she declared, and let go of the sheet he was helping her to spread. "Why don't
you
call
them?"

Jack was well into wishing he hadn't told her the story, but it had been the only explanation he could invent for staying up. "It isn't done," he had to tell her now.

"Who says so?"

"You don't ever pester a publisher. It can turn them right off you and your work. And it makes you look desperate, so you can't negotiate when they come up with an offer."

"That isn't pestering, ringing them so you can get to bed. You tell them your mother's seen how not sleeping can affect people. You say she knows what she's talking about because she has to look after people with that kind of problem."

Jack took the quilt from her and flapped it across the sheeted mattress. Now he wasn't only worried that his father might call before she was out of earshot, he was afraid how much more dangerous his father might have grown for lack of sleep. "I don't think that's going to help," he said.

"Well, I'm sure I'm not qualified to advise you about your business. I'm just your mother." She pulled the quilt straight and stalked out of the room. She had one foot in the hallway when she glanced forgivingly at him. "Shall I make you a bedtime drink?"

"I never use them, thanks."

"You did when you were little."

"Yeah, well, I grew up. I know more about myself."

To his dismay, she turned back to him, looking no more persuaded by his claim than he was. "I don't like to think of you sitting up all by yourself," she said. "I won't be able to sleep."

"Sure you will."

"You may know a lot, John, but there are things you don't know about me." She paused long enough for him to grow nervous of what revelation she might have decided to share with him at last, and of how she could hardly have chosen a worse time for it, before she said "Most likely you've forgotten, but there was one night when you were twelve and the trains were stopped so you were hours late home from going to the West End for some silly thing or other, and even after you got in I didn't sleep a wink all night."

"Why, what did you figure I'd been doing?"

"Just what you said you had. You never gave me any reason to doubt anything you said." That felt to Jack uncomfortably like an accusation, especially when she paused before saying "It was what could have been done to you I was afraid of."

"Well, you don't have to worry any more," he said, his thoughts chasing one another around the dark hollow inside his skull as he tried to find a way to bring the conversation to an end. "I can handle myself."

"I'll have to keep remembering that then, won't I?" The look she sent him was as heavy as her words. It might have been her silence that was weighing her down, trapping her in the doorway, and he was searching desperately for another parting shot when she shook her head. "Good night," she sighed and turned away slowly, letting him see a few more dissatisfied headshakes. He heard her plod to her bedroom and close the door, and the creak of her bed, and the sound of a cord snapping the light off. "Good night," he called, but there was no response.

He mustn't assume she was unable to hear. He hurried to the door and shut it as fast as he could without making a noise, then he sat by the phone. He was reaching for the remote control, to put the television news on low, when the phone rang.

He couldn't help feeling that his father had been awaiting the exact moment—that he'd been watching every move Jack made. Jack dislodged the receiver with a clatter before he managed to capture it and raise it to his face. "Yes," he whispered.

The only answer was a crackle of static, and he wondered if his whisper might not be identifiable enough. "Yes," he said more urgently and louder.

"You're sounding very positive, John. Hope that's how you're feeling."

The whisper was so close and so like his it might almost have been his own. "If I can," he said, turning away from the door and crouching over the receiver as he lowered his voice.

"Keeping a secret, John?"

"Not that I'm aware of. How do you mean?"

"You'd think you were, talking like that. Or are you trying to sound like me for a laugh?"

"I shouldn't think we've any time for that. I'm just—"

"You haven't got much time, you're right there, and you're not the only one that hasn't." Nevertheless his father added "Feeling like me, is that why you're sounding like me? Having to admit you're my son?"

"I'm just keeping it quiet because my mother's in the next room. She'd hardly gone to bed when you rang."

"What have you told her?"

The question felt like chill spit in Jack's ear. "Nothing," he said with all the conviction he could put into a whisper.

"Then who's she going to think is ringing this late if she's still awake? You're meant to be intelligent, aren't you?"

"I mean I didn't tell her anything about you. I said a publisher was calling from the States."

"I'm your publisher now, eh? I'll be helping you with a book."

The short laugh his father released seemed less amused than bitter, and Jack felt it best to move them on. "You said we didn't have much time. Where do you want—"

"Stay right where you are, son."

"I don't understand. If you don't want me to—"

The laugh that greeted this was wilder—dangerously so, since Jack couldn't imagine what had provoked it. "Only till I say where to come," his father said. "I'll tell you this, though. You can be here in ten minutes from when you hang up, and if you aren't I'd start getting nervous."

"I'll be out of here as soon as you say, but I want something in return."

"Think you're haggling with that publisher, do you? Let's have it, then. Maybe it'll be a laugh."

"I want to know the little girl's all right."

"Never better. I've been taking care of her."

"No, I mean I want to hear."

"You just did. I'm not talking that soft."

"I want to hear her speak."

"Not asking me to wake her and upset her, are you? She's asleep. She's a sleepy child. That ought to show you how happy she's been to have me looking after her."

Jack could scarcely bear to consider the alternatives, but he was about to repeat his insistence when his father whispered "If you got here and she'd come to any harm you wouldn't help me, would you?"

That had to make sense—Jack prayed it did. "Okay, let me hear the other one."

"Which?"

"Whoever else you've got there," Jack said, his whisper cramping his parched mouth. "Last time you said there were two."

"I never said that."