The Insulators (6 page)

How could he—

She stopped herself from these reproaches; if he had had to go then he could not possibly have warned her, lest she should show her emotions and warn all those who watched.

At half-past eleven, there was no sign of him.

Nor by twelve.

She had not the slightest doubt now that he had made his attempt and wondered, anguished, whether he had been caught already, whether he really had a chance, did not help. She made herself her usual malt drink, then went to bed, acutely conscious that he wasn’t with her; that he hadn’t made the drink for her as he usually did. She was obsessed by fear, and was sure she would not sleep.

But she did sleep.

And she was still asleep next morning when Ashley and Parsons with two other men opened the door of her apartment with a pass key. The first awareness of waking was of a hand at her shoulder, shaking vigorously, and when at last she opened her eyes there was bright sunlight, and she knew that she was late.

Then Ashley asked in a cold, cruel voice: “Where is Carr? Where is he?” And after a pause he clutched her shoulders and his fingers bit into the flesh with sharp and intended pain. “You know. And if you don’t tell us at once, we’ll thrash the truth out of you.”

She remembered the attack on Paul Taylor.

They took her out of her apartment to a small, barely furnished room, a strange room of mirrors. By the time she reached this room she was out of the shock, and knew that everything Philip had said about The Project was true. Philip’s disappearance had shaken them so severely that they gave up all pretence. These were evil men. She would never be free from this place; might not even get out of this room alive.

A man she did not know asked in a cold voice: “Where is Carr?”

Janey gasped: “I don’t know, I don’t know!” And it was the simple truth. The awakening and all that had followed brought terror but the question, repeated, relief and elation, for Philip must have got away.

The man in front of her, not Ashley, not Parsons, had the thinnest lips and the thinnest face she had ever seen in a man. He had a long, hooked nose and hooded eyes and a high, domed forehead, the thin, grey hair receding. It was like looking at a man made-up to appear unearthly – inhuman.

“I do not believe you,” he said in a thin, precise voice. “You were lovers too long for him to deceive you.”

“He told me nothing,” she cried. “Absolutely nothing!”

She was standing in front of the man who was behind a crescent-shaped desk; and she stood in a room of mirrors. She could see herself, naked to the waist, wearing only a white miniskirt, which she wore for tennis. She could see her own reflection and the reflection of the man who stood behind her, holding a short whip in his right hand. There was no pretence about his disguise; he wore a white mask which covered his face, with slits for the eyes and the mouth.

It was very bright, glaring bright; and the lights all seemed to shine on her, as if to reveal her nakedness mercilessly. She was terrified with part of her mind but positively detached with the other. It was silent in here; there was no sound but her breathing and their voices – and the soft breathing of the man behind her.

The one at the desk looked at him; she saw this in the mirror. And the man in the mask, the one who looked as the executioner would before raising his dreadful axe, nodded back. She saw this; she knew that the gestures and the glances were intended to wear at her nerves, and she was already close to screaming point.

The man at the desk nodded.

The man behind her raised the whip, and lashes seemed to spray from it. She gasped, fought back fear but was the more terrified. He flicked with his wrist and a dozen lashes stung her, but there was no great pain; nothing she could not bear. But what would she do if he really struck savagely?

Darkness, blackness, fell upon the room.

The silence was suddenly broken by what seemed a thunderclap, but it was not simply one, or two, or even three; where there had been silence there was this hideous noise, assailing her like a physical thing – worse, far worse, than the threatened lash. It was pitch black, and the thunder did what seemed impossible, became louder and yet louder until it filled her body and her head, seized her nerves and tore at them until they were red-raw. She began to sway, but as she moved one way hands pushed her back, when she went off balance other hands pushed her; and this happened again and again. Her head seemed to be severed from her shoulders, it was as if the roaring was concentrated inside her head and there were no bones, no brains, no eyes or lips or nose or mouth, just this dreadful noise and the constant pushing, and the awful agony of trying to breathe.

Suddenly, all went still and silent.

And as her body spun and her head seemed to be turned to jelly and was one great ache, the lights flashed on. At first they dazzled her, and made more pain but slowly she was able to open them and see the man again, although he seemed blurred and shapeless, too. And she saw herself, and the man behind her, masked, perhaps the one who had been here before.

He held her wrists, behind her.

He held her so that her head was thrust back and her bosom forward.

The man at the desk said: “I shall not warn you again.”

There was no strength in her body, her mouth seemed so dry that it could burn and her tongue clove to the roof. But she made herself gasp: “You’ve no right to do this to me. You’ve no right to—” She broke off as she felt a slight pressure behind her. Her arms were drawn still further back, and she thought the man was easing his grip on her wrists – oh, dear God, he was pinioning them with one big hand and holding the whip in the other.

“You have no rights here,” a man said. “You will have no mercy, unless you tell the truth.
Where is Carr?”

She gasped: “I don’t know!”

Silence followed and as suddenly, another period of stygian darkness.

She could hear her own breath, rasping. She tried to brace herself against what agony would come next, and slowly became aware of dim lights, of pictures, of one picture thrown against a mirror and then reflected a dozen times. It was a man – oh, God, it was Paul Taylor, being clubbed, and clubbed and clubbed again.

Next, there was a woman.

Soon there were men and women, so beaten, so bruised, so broken, that they seemed like limp rag dolls, not the human beings they had once been nor the lovely body that she was. She tried to close her eyes but could not, the pictures flashed in horrible succession, first the living then the dead.

As suddenly as before all went still and quiet and dark. But soon lights appeared, and she could see the man at the desk and the darkened mirrors which gave little reflection. The man spoke gently. “Janey,” he said. “We don’t want to do these things to you.”

She made herself say: “You’ve no right to treat me –
anyone
– like this. I’m just an employee, and—”

“Tell us what you know and what you were plotting, and you need not worry,” he promised her.

They had no right to treat her like this but she had no power to prevent them. She had no doubt that what she had suffered so far was nothing compared with what she could suffer at their hands. It was no use talking about right, all she could do was try to ease her own situation, and there was only one way she could do that – by telling them a little, enough to save herself but not to hurt Philip.

And Philip had escaped.

She gasped: “I don’t know anything, I wasn’t plotting. All—” she caught her breath.

“Go on,” the man urged, softly. “Go on, Janey.”

“All I know is that he once talked about this being like a prison, and of trying to escape.”

“So he did? And how, without being overheard?”

“He—he told me when we were in bed together. But I don’t know where he planned to go; I tried to persuade him not to try. I swear I did!”

“Why didn’t you tell us before, Janey?”

“I—I love him,” she managed to blurt out, aware of his cold gaze. That made her hesitate for a long time before repeating in a broken voice: “Because I love him so.” And then, belatedly, she went on: “Why
should
I tell you? I work for you. I’m not a slave.”

“Janey,” the man said, “you should have spoken of this talk of prison.”

She was broken enough in spirit to say: “I know, I know.”

“Then why
did
you keep silent?”

She said in an anguished voice: “Because I love him so.”

There was silence. Soon, her fears flooded back and reached an agonising crescendo when the man behind her moved. But it was not to strike her. He released her wrist and draped a wrap over her shoulders. She clutched it at the neck to hide herself. At the same instant, a chair was placed behind her and the man who had threatened violence and pain now helped her to sit down. Another man appeared, with a tall mug of coffee, hot but not too hot to sip. It poured warmth through her veins and eased her fear; and she began to tremble from reaction.

“I am inclined to believe you,” the man conceded in his gentler voice. “But you know now what will happen to you if you are ever caught out in a lie. This is no ordinary place, but those who serve faithfully are treated well.” He paused long enough to let the words sink in, with all their sinister implications, before going on: “We know that Philip Carr put a powerful sleeping powder into the malt bedtime drink you had last night. His fingerprints were found on the tin which contained it, and some of the drug was also found in his room.” He paused again, and when he spoke next there was a steely note in his voice. “Now listen and watch with great care. I want to know whether you have ever seen the men whose photographs will soon appear; or whether he mentioned any of their names in your hearing – indeed whether you have ever heard the names before, from Philip Carr or anyone else.” He paused again as she sipped, and the shivering passed: “Do you understand?”

Philip must have meant her to sleep soundly that night so as not to be worried because he was late. Or so that she could not reveal his activity and so raise the alarm!

“Yes,” she said, “I understand.” On the word the lights went low and another photograph appeared on the screen. But there was nothing horrific about this. It was the face of a pleasant-looking, rather wistful man, with a pale golden tan and silky fair hair, well-shaped lips which gave him a droll look. She had a vague feeling that the face was familiar, as a film star’s might be; but she could not place him.

Someone she hadn’t heard before said: “That is Palfrey. Dr Stanislaus Alexander Palfrey.” He pronounced the first syllable of the surname as if the ‘a’ were in fact an ‘o’ and after a pause the man at the table pronounced it differently: “Pal, as in pal, frey. P
a
lfrey.”

Suddenly, she knew who the man was. Her expression changed and her eyes lit up as she exclaimed: “I know who he is!”

“Who is he, then?”

“He’s the leader of a kind of Secret Service.”

“Kind of?” the other asked sharply.

“Yes. He—my husband was fascinated by him and often talked about him. I remember now. Bruce used to say: ‘Palfrey for Calamity’.” Still excited, she stared even more intently at the photograph, which was so good that the man Palfrey seemed to be alive. “Whenever the country’s been threatened with calamity, the world for that matter, this man Palfrey with his organisation has—”

She stopped, abruptly, drawing in her breath so sharply that it hissed between her lips. Then, silence fell, utter and complete. The picture faded from the mirror and the lights went low. Gradually, her own breathing and that of the men sounded, but seemed to add to the silence, not to break it.

At last, the man said: “Go on, Janey.”

She closed her eyes, and said huskily: “Is The Project a cal—” She checked herself and went on: “Does Palfrey think The Project a calamity?”

“I have no doubt that he does,” the man answered. “And it would be, for him and for his outworn concepts of human society. What Palfrey and his friends, what the governments of the world don’t understand, is that today’s world
is
outworn.”

Across his words came another voice, one she hadn’t heard before; a deep and resonant voice which seemed to come from about the man’s head although no one was there.

“Stop there, Ramon.”

The man with the lean features and the thin lips broke off and said quickly: “At once, sir.”

“Show Miss Wylie the other photographs.”

“At once,” the man repeated; and he sounded as much in awe of the unseen speaker as Janey was.

There were moments of silence before another, remarkably handsome, face appeared, but one with which she was not familiar. Quietly, a name was uttered, broken into syllables: “An-drom-o-vitch.” But it meant nothing to her.
“Stefan An-drom-o-vitch,”
the speaker intoned, and the name appeared on the mirror beneath the face. She was vaguely aware of having heard it before, and the fact that it was Russian suddenly reminded her.

“Isn’t he a very big man? Palfrey’s friend or—or—
deputy,”
she burst out. “That’s it! His deputy.”

“You are quite right,” Ramon said. “Did Carr ever mention him?”

“No.”

“Or Palfrey?”

“I’ve told you – no.”

“Or this woman?” asked Ramon, as the picture changed.

The woman whose head and shoulders appeared on the mirror looked to be in her mid-thirties, but she might be forty. She was attractive, in a particularly English way: soft looking and wholesome. She had dark hair, groomed rather formally, as if she had come from the same hairdresser as Barbara Castle, a Cabinet minister in Britain for so long. She had blue eyes and full, well-shaped lips, rather a short nose with a short upper lip. She wore a dress with a shallow V at the neck and although the photograph was cut above the breast line there was a hint of a full figure.

“Joyce Morgan,” the announcer stated, and the name appeared beneath the picture.

“No,” said Janey, with hardly a pause.

“Are you quite sure?” demanded Ramon.

“Yes, absolutely.”

“Very well.”

Other pictures appeared, other names were uttered and shown, but she recognised none. As she watched, she became aware of two things. First, that she liked all the faces, particularly Palfrey’s, the Russian’s whose name she could not recall properly, and the woman’s, Joyce Morgan. Second, there were many non-English faces, one or two she placed from features as well as from names as French, Italian, German and Spanish; but there were many who might be from any country in the world.

At long, long last, the pictures were finished and a brighter light came on but not with the fierce brightness of the floodlights. Everything in the room seemed normal, she was now so used to the mirrors and the men.

The man who had been called Ramon, said: “If you recall any of these names, you must tell Mr Ashley at once.”

“I will,” Janey promised. And immediately felt shame that she should be so eager to.

“And if you recall anything that Carr said you must report at once.”

“I will,” she assured him, mechanically.

“All right,” he said. “You may go back to your apartment.”

The man behind her came and helped her to her feet, then led her to one of the mirrors, which proved to be a door. She was very unsteady and could not have walked without his aid, and he did not seem surprised, for at the end of a long, narrow passage there was a hallway, and on one side, two wheelchairs with canvas backs and seats, invalid chairs. He helped her into one, and pushed her. She was so mortified that tears stung her eyes, and soon she was crying.

Suddenly, they stopped in front of an open lift, and he pushed her into it, followed, and pressed a button for the door to close, and the lift went slowly upwards. She had nothing with which to dry her eyes, until, still standing behind her, the man gave her a paper handkerchief. As she dried both cheeks and eyes, the lift stopped and the door opened. Only then did she realise that she was in the passage which led to her own apartment. He pushed her towards the rooms and opened the door; once inside, he came to the front of the chair and helped her out.