The Lonely Sea (20 page)

The rain had almost stopped now, and the wind changed—changed so that the stern of the
Jeannie
had moved out seven or eight feet. Duncan it was
who caught up a heaving line and threw an end to Michael so that he could pull the stern close in. The line hit Michael on the chest, and fell into the water before he could clutch it.

Duncan Glass pulled in the line, coiled it and flung it once more. Michael lifted his hand to catch it as it whistled towards him, but again he missed it—it seemed to strike the back of his wrist and glanced off into the sea.

‘For God's sake man, are you blind?' Glass shouted in exasperation. He hauled in the rope, but I took it from him, and threw it carefully so that it fell over Michael's shoulders. My mouth was dry, I felt as cold as the tomb.

‘He
is
blind, Duncan,' I said, and my voice was only a trembling whisper. ‘He's completely stone blind.'

And he was. The rest we learned later that night, sitting before a great fire in Glass's library, stiff tots of whisky in our hands.

‘We were both in the same train smash, Lord Glass,' old John was saying. He seemed to be glad to be talking, glad that the secrecy and concealment were all over. ‘That's how I got my leg—well, shortened a bit. And Michael—he got hurt at the same time. He—well, you've seen, he doesn't see too well.'

Doesn't see too well, I thought—the boy moved in a world of utter dark! The longer I sat there,
the clearer things became—and the more I writhed in shame, for myself and my people. No wonder the boy had never left his father's side. No wonder everything on the deck of the
Jeannie
had always been in exactly the same place. No wonder, now, that he moved so surefootedly aboard in the dark—day and night were all the same to Michael Tallon. And no wonder that he had had little Mairi describe everything so minutely to him—not only had he wanted to ‘see' the new world he was living in, but he himself, we found, was an artist, just finishing his final year in the School of Art and she had represented for him the one place where his real interest in life lay—or had lain.

‘But good God, man,'—it was Glass speaking—‘Why did you never tell us?'

‘Because there is—or was—hope for him yet.' Old John sounded suddenly tired. ‘They told us in Glasgow that there's a man in Baltimore, in Johns Hopkins Hospital, who's a genius in the particular eye surgery Michael needs. So—well, we were trying to save a little money to go there and pay for the operation.'

The simplicity of it all, the magnificence of it all, left Glass and myself with nothing to say. A onelegged man, a blind boy, the bitter toil from the dawn till long beyond the sunset—no, this lay beyond tears…After a while, Glass said weakly: ‘But you could still have told us.'

‘And lost my fishing licence? A blind crew? Where would the money have come from then?'

‘I don't know, I don't know at all.' Glass drained his whisky tumbler, sat still for a moment, then smiled, a long slow smile. ‘But, by God, I know where it's coming from now.'

Michael hasn't had his operation yet—but the last letter from John said that the preliminary tests were almost over. And when it does come—well, I know he'll carry with him the hopes and prayers of every soul in Inverglas.

It wanted almost an hour to sunset when I took the hill road out of Tarnford, but already the brief spring twilight was all but gone. The sky above was dark not with the coming of night but with deeppiled banks of thundercloud that stretched its purple-black shroud over hills and valleys to the limits of the horizon. The rain, thick gleaming metallic rods in my headlights, battered against the windscreen, bounced inches high off the smoking roadway ahead, and churned into a miniature boiling cauldron, the water trapped in the upturned hub-cap of the spare wheel on the engine bonnet.

I didn't really care about the weather, about the rain, about the dazzling electric blue of the lightning that left the outline of its jagged path imprinted on the retina of the eyeball long seconds after the flash had gone or the continuous artillery rumble of the thunder overhead. I didn't care, because I was too tired to care. I'd been up all the previous night
trying to save one of the Colonel's thoroughbred mares, and had just reached home when a panic call from Tarnford, where the big cattle fair had been held that day, had had me on my way again. Foot-and-mouth, they had suspected. A false alarm, but I hadn't taken any chances. Eleven solid hours in the pens, and now I was exhausted.

Perhaps it was because of the exhaustion, perhaps because of the rain streaming down the windscreen, that I didn't see the swinging red lanterns on the road before me until it was almost too late. I stamped on the brake; brought the Land Rover to a sliding halt, and stuck my head through the side-screen.

‘What the devil are you fools trying to do?' I said angrily. ‘Get yourselves killed or what?' I peered at the approaching figure, caught a gleam of wet cape in the reflected light from my headlamps. ‘Police, is it?'

‘Yes, sir.' The voice was curt, impersonal. ‘May we see your driving licence, please?'

‘My driving licence?' I suppose my voice sounded a bit testy, but as a vet I'd been too long accustomed to share with doctors and ministers of religion a comparative immunity from the attentions of the police. ‘Why on earth—' I broke off, as memory came flooding back. ‘Of course! Sellers and Riordan.'

Sellers and Riordan. They'd talked about nothing else in the market all day, even the foot-and-mouth
had come a very poor second as a topic of interest. With reason. In six short days Sellers and Riordan had become the most talked-about pair in England. In seven brief days they had established themselves the reputation of the two most ruthless, most murderous criminals at large in Britain. In seven brief days they had held up a bank in Stepney, killed the manager, wounded a cashier, shot down a policeman who had tried to stop their escape, been arrested after a desperate struggle, remained in custody exactly 24 hours, then escaped, leaving behind them a dead warder, and another who might live or die.

And now they were supposed to be in the neighbourhood. They had been traced through Amesbury and Frome, had been seen in Glastonbury and now all Devon north of the Moor and Somerset west of the Quantocks were alive with police and an estimated 1200 troops, every man armed. But on Exmoor, in this weather, 12,000 wouldn't have been too many.

‘Yes, sir, Sellers and Riordan.' The policeman's voice, more friendly now, brought me back to the present. ‘Your licence, please.'

I handed it over and he nodded.

‘Mr Cartwright. Thought I recognized you, sir. Going far?'

‘Home. Lipscombe.'

‘Lipscombe, eh? It's a fair way.' He looked at me, but I couldn't see the expression on his face. ‘You'll watch your step, sir?'

‘They're as near as that, you think?' Instinctively, I peered into the surrounding darkness, trying to pierce the slanting curtains of rain.

‘Near enough,' he said grimly. ‘A constable saw them outside Tiverton, just over an hour ago.'

‘He could have been mistaken.' I was trying to reassure myself, I knew. ‘Five hundred others are supposed to have seen them today also.'

‘The other 500 didn't get a bullet in the shoulder,' he said unemotionally. ‘So be careful, Mr Cartwright. No stopping. No lifts—not even to your own grandmother.'

‘The level crossings?' I tried to keep the anxiety out of my voice. ‘Three of them between here and Lipscombe. If the gates are shut…'

‘No.' The policeman shook his head positively. ‘Too obvious. Riordan's far too cagey to try to board a stopped car there.'

‘But if he does…?'

‘Then it's curtains for Riordan. There's a platoon of soldiers with machine-pistols at every crossing in North Devon. You won't see them. But they'll be there all right.'

No doubt the policeman was right. No doubt there were hidden guards at the first crossing I came to, but as I sat there in the darkness and lessening rain, engine turned off so that I could listen
the more intently while I waited for the goods train to come through, the knowledge didn't make me feel any the more happy. I kept turning and twisting constantly in my seat, pulling my muffler high around my neck. I could not forget how the warder had died: he had been garrotted. It would have been just as easy for them to knock him out, but they had garrotted him. That would have been Riordan's work. A wild animal, many called him, an animal devoid of all pity and humanity and fear.

The train took an eternity to pass, but pass it eventually did, and I was on my way even as the gates opened, accelerating to maximum revs through all the lower gears. I kept to the middle of the road, occasionally swerving to right or left as some imaginary figure or shadow appeared to resolve itself vaguely in the rain still lancing diagonally down through the glare of my headlights. I was rattled. I was more than rattled. I was scared, badly scared.

The second level crossing was open and then I was on the twisting, hilly five-mile stretch that lay between there and Hurford, the station that served Lipscombe.

The road was absolutely deserted. I hadn't seen a cyclist, a car, or pedestrian since I'd left Tarnford. The reason wasn't far to seek. The western regional radio programme had been interrupted by constant warnings throughout the day,
and no one was abroad that night. Fear lay heavy over the land. Even the houses looked afraid, the front doors shut—and doubtless barred—with the windows heavily curtained.

It was near the top of that long rise before you dip down to Hurford that I saw him—first an indistinct barely moving blur by the roadside, a blur that, as I approached, resolved itself into the figure of a man crawling slowly, painfully along the side of the road. Crawling, I realized in horror. He was coming downhill towards me, his head hanging low and shaking stupidly from side to side. Even as I approached, my hands ivoryknuckled on the wheel and staring at him in a kind of sick fascination, he flopped over on to the grass verge and lay quite still, one arm outflung on the road, his face up to the night sky.

Anger overcame fear. I could not doubt that Riordan and Sellers had passed this way, and left their mark. I braked violently, jumped out of the Land Rover while it was still moving and bent over the still pathetic figure.

‘The good Samaritan,' a jeering voice said behind me. ‘Just stand up, sucker, and keep quite still.'

I stood up and I kept quite still. A tall thin man had appeared from nowhere, and he was standing now in the light of my headlamps, a pistol in his hand: I was enough of a movie addict to know that the clumsy cylinder attached to the muzzle of the pistol was a silencer. I was aware that the man
I had seen crawling along had jumped briskly to his feet behind me.

‘Riordan and Sellers,' I said unemotionally. There was no fear in me at the moment: but I knew it would come later.

‘None other, sucker,' the tall man agreed. ‘I'm Riordan, he's Sellers. Into the car and start driving. You've a couple of back-seat passengers.'

‘There's no back seat. It's a Land Rover.'

‘All the better. Get in.'

Even if I hadn't known who he was, there was something in that voice that made for unquestioning obedience. I got in, while Riordan clambered over the two seats to my left and Sellers scrambled over the tailgate and through the back screens. Both had guns, and one gun was on me all the time.

‘On your way. But take it easy. I want to talk to you.'

Carefully, without any fumbling but like a man in a dream, I started the Land Rover. Riordan's voice reached me above the sound of the engine as we moved off.

‘Name, mister?'

‘Cartwright.'

‘You seem a pretty cool customer, Cartwright. Not thinking of doing anything clever, are you?'

‘No.'

‘What's your job?'

‘Vet—veterinary surgeon.'

‘Where do you live?'

‘Lipscombe.'

‘About four miles from here?'

‘About that…What are you going to do with me?'

‘Shut up.' His voice was expressionless. ‘How far is Tarnmouth beyond that?' Tarnmouth was a tiny fishing village.

‘About the same again. Four miles.'

‘That's where we're going. All of us.'

I said nothing. I was trying to think desperately of what I might do, but the fear was beginning to well back and thought, constructive thought, wouldn't come. All I could think was that I had two ruthless murderers behind me, murderers with guns and an utter disregard for human life.

‘Why are you going to Tarnmouth?' I asked. My voice was no longer steady.

‘To catch a boat, Mr Cartwright.'

And then I remembered. Riordan was an Irishman, a Kerryman. He had friends, the police knew that, but they didn't know he had friends of that kind—willing to take the risk of rendezvousing with him and slipping him across the St George's Channel at night. And once in the hilly wilds of Cork and Kerry…That was as far as that line of thought got when another, and dreadful one, supplanted it. They could never let me live and give this information to the authorities.
As sure as the sun would rise next morning, they were going to kill me.

Riordan was speaking again.

‘How long have you lived here, Cartwright?'

‘Seven years.'

‘And a vet, eh? Everyone knows you?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Fine. You're our safe conduct, Cartwright. Nobody will ever suspect the good healer. But remember this, and remember it good. If we're stopped, you're not to mention any place or person whatsoever by name. Understand?'

‘I'm afraid I…'

‘Look, Cartwright. If the police stop you and you volunteer the information that you're going to Timbuctoo Farm or been to see Mr Smith the Grocer and there's no Timbuctoo Farm or Smith the Grocer, they're going to get very suspicious, aren't they? So as little as possible—and nothing I can't check on.'

He was shrewd, all right, Riordan. The thought had never even occurred to me.

‘What are all these sacks for, Cartwright?' Riordan was speaking again. ‘Vets usually carry these?'

‘Quite often. For sick animals and…'

‘All right,' he interrupted. ‘They'll cover us fine. You're carrying sick animals, if anyone asks. Remember, if we're stopped, I can see every flicker of expression on your face in the driving
mirror. And the point of the gun is three inches from your back.'

The third set of level-crossing gates were closed, to let through the evening train. As I braked, John Howarth, the station master, came hurrying up.

‘I thought it was you, Peter. Mary's coming off this train. Will you take her home? It's a filthy night, and with these two damned murderers around I…'

‘Of course, I will,' I said. ‘Tell her to wait in the bus shelter on the other side.'

‘Thank you, boy.' He looked closely at me. ‘You're looking a bit under the weather, you know. Too much—sorry, here she comes.' He hurried off, and we could hear the train approaching in the distance.

‘Mary, eh?' Riordan murmured from under the sacks. ‘Friend of yours, hey?'

‘Yes,' I said shortly. ‘And I'm not going to pick her up.'

‘You are, you know.'

‘Do you think I'm going to let you two damned murderers…'

‘You said you would. If you don't, after promising, they're going to be as suspicious as hell when she tells the station master.'

‘I don't give a damn. You can't make me do it.'

‘Of course, she doesn't have to tell the station master—by the way, is he a friend of hers too?'

‘Her father.'

‘So. Well, Mr Cartwright, where's this bus shelter?'

‘A hundred yards or so beyond the line.'

‘And buses this time of night?'

Like a fool I answered: ‘No'.

‘So the shelter's deserted,' Riordan said softly. ‘I've got a silencer and she could lie there for hours. No suspicions.'

Three minutes later I pulled up by the shelter. Mary came running out, pulled open the door of the Land Rover and jumped inside, tendrils of dark wet hair clinging to her neck and cheek, but cheerful and smiling as always.

‘Hullo, Peter! Am I glad to see you tonight! The thought of walking home…' She broke off and peered at me. ‘Why, whatever in the world is the matter, Peter?'

‘Move over to the middle seat, Mary.' Fear for her had driven all fear for myself, and my mind was working at last. I thought I saw a glimmer of hope, no more than a desperate chance: but then I was a desperate man.

She moved slowly across, staring at me.

‘I'm afraid 1 have a bad shock for you, darling,' I said. I put my arms round her slender shoulders, felt them stiffening under my pressure, sensed
rather then saw the widening of the eyes. ‘You've

heard of Riordan and Sellers?'

She nodded dumbly.

‘They're right behind us, darling—and they have guns in their hand.'

She said nothing, just turned slowly in her seat then put her hand to her mouth to stifle a frightened shuddering sigh as she saw the gun, the pale gleam of a face in the gloom.