The Face That Must Die (30 page)

“
Ah, there you are,” the other man said. “Get in.”

He sounded as though he were taking up a previous conversation. Her mind refused to work; all she could do was switch on the dashboard light. It revealed the detective whom Fanny had met, sitting with his arm around Peter. Peter’s forehead was darkened by a large bruise, if it was nothing more serious. Dried blood linked the corner of his mouth to his right eye.

“
Get in and make no noise,” the man said.

Her mind seemed incapable of grasping the situation. She couldn’t struggle past the notion that Peter was dead. She had no idea what to do. Who was this man?

As she faltered, his free hand reached towards the hand that dangled negligently beyond Peter’s shoulder. She heard a slight click; a blade gleamed. His free hand pulled back Peter’s right eyelid, exposing the moist white ball, unconscious or lifeless. She had never felt before how thin the skin of an eyeball was.

“
I won’t tell you again to get in.”

She thought of Mr Craig, and knew at once what this man had done to him. The police had caught the wrong man. Everything seemed unreal — that wasn’t a detective, that wasn’t Peter, that wasn’t a razor — but nothing was unreal enough. The gear lever punched her leg as she clambered in.

“
That’s right. Now close the door. Get behind the wheel. Start the engine. Gently. You wouldn’t like my hand to jerk, would you?”

Perhaps if she obeyed everything he said, immediately, not questioning, the nightmare which threatened her wouldn’t arrive. Surely this must end soon — but she knew it had hardly begun. In the mirror she saw the dull gleam of the blade, hovering before Peter’s eye.

“
You’re going to drive me to Wales,” the man said.

* * *

Chapter XXXIII

She could only concentrate on driving, in the hope that that would hold back her panic. She mustn’t make a single error. The traffic lights at Sefton Park Road jolted the van slightly; so did those at Lodge Lane. Each time the hovering gleam wavered.

“
That’s right,” the man said. “Just you go slowly. We don’t want the police stopping us, do we? You won’t be able to stop me now.”

He sounded as though he had a personal score to settle with her. The steering wheel’s jacket was already damp with her sweat. “Which part of Wales do you want me to drive to?” She was trying to gain some hold on the situation, but her voice was jerky, uneven.

“
Oh, don’t you know? All right, we’ll pretend you don’t. You just keep going until I tell you not to.”

He was insane. She was beginning to realise that now. If she told him he’d mistaken her for someone else, that might make him worse. Her hands were shaking. When she grasped the wheel, it trembled. She had to slow the van still more as it manoeuvred over the potholes of Lodge Lane.

“
No need to go to sleep. We can move a bit faster than that. What do you think you’re driving, a hearse? Eh, a hearse?”

He was laughing, a dry insect sound. She halted the van beside a block of dark shops; a broken window grinned jaggedly. Perhaps he would attack her, but she couldn’t go on like this. “I can’t drive if you hold that so close to him,” she muttered dully. “I can’t concentrate. I won’t risk it.”

“
Don’t you tell me what to do!” His voice was thin and vicious. The blade gestured before Peter’s face. “I’ve got the upper hand now! I’ll cut him again!”

Her indifference hardly shocked her; the nightmare had drained her emotions. In any case, Peter might be dead. “That won’t do you any good. It won’t make me drive.”

He stared at her in the mirror. Her face felt slack, too burdened to show concern. At last the blade drooped beside Peter’s shoulder. “All right,” the man said. “Now get on with what you’re here to do. And just remember, I’ve had enough of all your tricks. I’ll have his eye out in no time.”

It had begun to rain. She wished she could feel it on her cheeks, to refresh her. The van’s cacophony of small noises surrounded her, refusing to be left behind. The smell of petrol had turned cloying; it clung to her nostrils. In the mirror heads swayed, and the gleam.

Rain glittered on splashes of light outside pubs. It slashed headlamp beams obliquely, and made the van sound like a tin can beneath a storm. Vague lights drifted underwater on the roadway. Shops and terraced streets glistened blackly. A few people ran, hiding their heads.

She drove across the lights at Smithdown Road. “Where are you going?” the man demanded.

His voice twitched her hands on the wheel. “To the tunnel,” she said almost angrily.

“
Is that so. Just make sure you’ve no idea of heading for Cantril Farm.”

A Bingo hall swam up, spreading its carpet of light. Another set of traffic lights stood on the roots of their deformed reflections. She turned left, hurling a puddle aside.

“
Where are you going now?”

“
To the tunnel. That’s the way to Wales.”

“
I know the way. Don’t think I don’t. You’ve underestimated me long enough.”

She mustn’t answer. His words might drag her into his madness. Whenever she spoke to him she felt her mind unfocusing. She drove. Rain pelted the van; rain rushed incessantly over land bared by demolition. It emphasised her metal cell.

The van rolled downhill, towards the city centre. Ahead and to her left was the university clock. Nearly five to ten. Surely the downtown streets would be crowded. Mightn’t someone see what was wrong? Mightn’t they call the police or even be quick enough to overpower the man before he injured Peter permanently — if he hadn’t already done so?

Rain streamed down bright display windows. Streams deepened in the gutters. Rainbow patches of petrol shone on the roadway, amid the riot of neon. London Road was almost deserted. A few couples hurried, or huddled in doorways; sombre figures queued in a chemist’s. Whenever anyone crossed in front of the van, the gleam lifted in the mirror.

The empty foyer of the Odeon sailed by on its amber glow. Two men were striding away from the cinema. Could she call out, wrench, the van off balance, disarm the man? He might go berserk, and even her nightmare failed to show her what would happen then.

She drove towards the Mersey Tunnel. There were few pavements now. Cavernous subways led beneath the roadway, but nobody was walking. The tenements of Gerard Gardens stood close to the road, deafened by incessant traffic.

The tunnel closed overhead. It was bright and pale as a hospital corridor, and seemed as ominous. Rear lights led her along the subterranean trail. She felt the city pressing on the tunnel, and then the weight of the river. She was trapped and helpless as a puppet in a tin box.

Overhead lights flicked by. In the mirror the faces flickered monotonously with shadow; the image in the frame looked like a senile film — unreal, unconvincing. Peter was so still. She hadn’t seen or heard him breathing. Mightn’t he be dead? If he were, that would end the nightmare; she could jump from the van at the far end of the tunnel, without worrying about him.

Her thoughts — surely they weren’t hopes — dismayed her. She mustn’t think such things, she must plan how to save him. Somehow, when she halted at the toll booth, she had to alert the man in the booth without letting the madman see.

She passed the halfway sign: LIVERPOOL/BIRKENHEAD. The tunnel was interminable; its vanishing point receded like an optical illusion. Sweat stung her eye. She dabbed the trickle away, blinking and weeping. She must clutch the tollman’s hand when she paid him, and show him with her eyes that something was wrong behind her. Suppose he spoke and gave her away?

The string of red lights dawdled uphill. A string of white lights was let down beside them. The vanishing point became a curve in the tunnel, and crept forward. Nearly there. It’ll work, she reassured her shaking hands.

An arch of glaring light advanced down the tunnel, dazzling her; a driver had neglected to switch off his headlights. She was groping stealthily in her handbag for the toll, so as not to betray to the man with the razor what was coming, when he spoke.

“
Just one thing before we get there. Don’t try talking to your friends in the pay box.”

Had he known all the time what she was planning? Could he read her mind? The mirror flashed a warning. The gleam looked as though it was touching Peter’s unprotected eye.

If the van jerked, if a car in front halted suddenly, if her hands (which felt cramped by panic) twitched on the wheel — Cars nosed between the booths and sped away. Paid, the red signs sprang to green. She mustn’t do anything here. Later she could take him off guard, jam on the brakes, attack him with something: not now, not when the razor was so ready.

A green light passed the car ahead. She inched the van into the space and rolled the window down. It would be all right, the man in the booth couldn’t see behind her. She had the correct money, she wouldn’t need to wait for change, the madman wouldn’t have time to wonder if she was planning to trick him. She tried to stop her hand from trembling as it lifted the coins towards the booth. Her tightness seized her fingers with cramp, which jerked the coins from them. She heard the money fall on the road beside the van.

Oh dear God, please no! She didn’t dare glance at the mirror. She wasn’t trying to trick him, she wouldn’t leave the van, she must slide the door open just a crack and reach down —

“
It’s all right, love,” a man called. “I’ll get it for you.”

He had been chatting to the man in the next booth. As he strode over, she glimpsed a sharp flash in the mirror. Should she grab the money before the man reached it? But he was bending beside the van; coins clicked, or something did. When he straightened up, she saw he was a policeman.

She was paralysed. Not until his uniformed arm, beaded with raindrops, reached into the van could she stretch out her hand for the coins. How ought she to sound so as not to arouse suspicion? Grateful, casual, cool? “Thank you very much,” she said and sounded like an extra who was unable to make her single line convincing.

He was staring past her. “What’s the matter with your friend?”

Her tongue felt poisoned, swollen. Her mouth felt like a rag doll’s, sewn. Mustn’t she tell him? This might be her only chance of rescue. The taste of petrol churned in her. If she opened her mouth she might be sick.

She was struggling to force words past her panic when behind her the man said “Too much to drink. He was in a bit of bother. We’re taking him home.”

Surely the policeman wouldn’t believe that. She glanced at the mirror, and saw what he saw: two dim figures sitting in the back, one slumped against the other. Peter’s injuries were mitigated by the darkness; the razor hid behind his hair.

After a while the policeman said “Yes, he looks as if he’s had enough. You’d better take care of him.”

He stared at Cathy, then reached for her hand. Was he about to give it a secret clasp, to tell her he’d seen what was wrong? No, he’d scrutinised her only to judge whether she was sober, and now he was taking the toll from her hand to pass to the booth. The green light sprang up ringing.

“
Good night,” the policeman said and turned away. Cathy’s hands clenched on the wheel. Was she about to cry for help? Perhaps, but she subsided miserably. From beside Peter’s face the gleam had crept out, ready.

* * *

Chapter XXXIV

She drove towards Chester. Her mind felt empty as a balloon. Though the rain had slackened, few people were about in Birkenhead. Roads and pavements reflected desertion and bright windows. Other places passed beside the main road: Port Sunlight, Bromborough, Ellesmere Port. None was as present as the watchful face in the mirror. Beside the swaying razor, Peter’s eyelids twitched.

So he was alive. Or had only shadows moved? Before she could read his face, which looked like a mask in the sodium glow, the streetlamps swept behind. Night seized him. From the darkness the man’s voice murmured “Just you keep still if you know what’s good for you.”

Peter was moving, then. She was distressed by how little that heartened her: if anything, it made her more tense. Peter might begin to struggle, inadvertently or otherwise. Oncoming headlights displayed the faces in the mirror. Peter’s face was still, perhaps unconscious. The man’s eyes flickered warily.

Afterimages of headlights clung to her eyes. She felt insomniac, light-headed. Was her mind trying to comfort her with the cliché that it was all a dream? She knew that it was nothing of the sort, though her emotions had fallen into a doze. She couldn’t plan any escape, for she didn’t know how Peter might react and couldn’t communicate with him. Lights drew the tableau of faces into the mirror and let them collapse into darkness.

Abruptly the man spoke. Were the lights bothering him? He sounded dangerously irritable. “Don’t take all night. We’ve a long way to go.”

Petrol stations passed, bright as day. Occasional houses blinked between trees. Her patch of light unrolled the road. Everything outside the van seemed unreal, unattainable as a film on a screen. The van enclosed her with the nightmare, from which everything else was separate.

She bypassed Chester, and headed for North Wales. “That’s right,” the man said approvingly. Was he becoming amiable? Might he let them go? But he said “Trying to tell me you didn’t know where we were going. You won’t see me falling for that, oh no.”