The Old Vengeful (34 page)

“We’ve got to go to London?” she echoed him stupidly.

“
You
have. I have to take you there.” The stretched skin shivered. “I spoke to David Audley. I told him what you said about the
Shannon
—and the
Vengeful
. He was … he was rather upset by it, Miss Loftus.”

Her mouth opened. “David Audley?”

He nodded. “I spoke to him. He’s getting a message to Kyle of Lochalsh, to our security people there. They’re going to abort the trials, Miss Loftus.”

Her mouth closed, but her brain swirled. “You spoke to … David Audley?”

“Yes.” He gestured urgently. “Come on—
at once
means what it says in our business. It means
drop whatever you
’
re doing and move—it
means
this instant
, Miss Loftus. It means
now
—“ he turned on his heel and opened the door for her.

She couldn’t think straight. “But, Mr Aske—“

“Come on, Miss Loftus—
now
!”

She went through the door. The passage was dark now, no longer green-shadowed, with the feeble light of the distant chandelier in the hall blackening the windows.

He overtook her at the entrance, reaching past her to lift the heavy iron latch on the outer door.

She didn’t want to go outside, even though outside was only blue-grey, and much lighter than the yellow gloom around her.

“Quickly, Miss Loftus—“ He handed over her raincoat.

Cobwebs of rain drifted around her, and the wet smell of the countryside entered her lungs—the smell of growing things, sharpened by a distant hint of autumn to come.

Aske crunched past her on the gravel, reaching this time for the car door—swinging it open for her.

No!

He was already moving round the front of the car, as though he took for granted that the open door must suck her in, regardless of her own free will.

She straightened up. “I can’t go just like this, Mr Aske. I must say goodbye to Cathy.”

She didn’t wait for his reaction, but turned on her heel back towards the house.

Through the door again—then to the doorway into which Cathy had disappeared—through that door—

A waft of warmer air and light engulfed her simultaneously: the kitchen was huge and bright with the innumerable reflections of electricity on copper pots hanging in descending size from a great beam, and Cathy herself was bending over the kitchen table—a great expanse of ancient working surface which looked as if it had been not so much scrubbed as holystoned colourless like the old
Vengeful
’
s
quarterdeck, only by generations of kitchen-maids under cook’s eagle eye.

“Oh, Elizabeth!” Cathy half-straightened up over her own small area of chaos in the expanse. “Something’s gone wrong with Mummy’s
crèmes brulées
—they haven’t bruléed properly, darn it!”

“Where’s your father, Cathy?”

“He isn’t back yet.” Cathy bent over the chaos.

“But you said he went somewhere with your mother?”

“Um—yes.” Cathy prodded one of the messes tentatively. “They went to Guildford to look at curtain material.”

“Together?”

“Uh-huh. She’s been on at him for ages—it’s for his study, so she says he’s got to like it. And when he couldn’t go to France she said she’d got him at last.” The child looked up again. “He was waiting for you, but he didn’t expect you so early—he’ll be back any moment, I should think.”

“He didn’t go to London?”

“Why should he go to London?” Cathy looked puzzled. “The curtain shop’s in Guildford.”

“Could he have changed his mind?”

“Why should he do that? It’s a super shop.” Cathy licked her finger. “He didn’t, anyway.”

“How do you know, dear?”

“Because he left the telephone number. He always leaves it, when he knows where he’s going, in case an urgent message comes. So if he’d changed his mind he’d have phoned. That’s the proper drill, you see, Elizabeth.” The child spoke with all the certainty of someone who knew her drill and was proud of being a Ranger’s daughter. “And he wouldn’t leave Mummy in Guildford—there are no buses home … What’s the matter, Elizabeth?”

The front door clattered.

“They’ll be back soon,” Cathy reassured her. “They must be caught in the traffic.”

Elizabeth walked quickly round the table and picked up one of the
brulées
.

“Miss Loftus!” said Aske sharply from behind her.

“You’re right, dear.” She scrutinised the
brulée
closely. “Could it be something to do with the sugar you used?”

“
Miss Loftus
!” He sounded close to bruléeing himself.

“I was just coming, Mr Aske.” She allowed herself a touch of irritability, but then smiled at the child. “I would leave them, if I were you, Cathy dear—they’ll be all right.” She set the
brulée
down among its fellows. “But now we must go, dear—“ she started moving as she spoke.

“What?” squeaked Cathy. “But, Elizabeth—“

“Must go!” She blotted out the child’s voice with her own as she accelerated out of the kitchen. “Give my love to your mother, and tell her I’ll be back soon—“ Aske was standing aside for her, but was looking past her at
the child, and that wouldn
’
t do
“
—come on, Mr Aske, then! Don’t just stand there!” She checked her advance momentarily, long enough to shepherd him ahead of her before the child could betray them both, almost pushing him. Yet even as he moved, he did so crab-wise and doubtfully, still looking past her, as though spiked on a dilemma.

“Elizabeth!” she heard Cathy call behind her.

“That poor child!” snapped Elizabeth severely at Aske. “You didn’t give me a chance to explain—she won’t know what to think … . Do you want me to go back? Have we time for that? Surely we have?” She slowed down perceptibly.

“No.” Aske’s doubts resolved themselves. “We must go—you’re right. I’ll get David Audley to phone her.”

The delicate spatter of rain had increased to a drizzle slanting out of a uniformly grey-black sky pressing down on them, out of which the dark had come prematurely.

“A damned dirty night,” said Aske. “And by the look of it there’s most of it still to come. Fasten your seat-belt, Miss Loftus. The roads are going to be slippery.”

Elizabeth fastened her belt unwillingly: it was like snapping her freedom away.

Then the engine was alive; and in quick succession the headlights blazed ahead, darkening the half-light, and the windscreen wipers swept the rain away contemptuously.

“Where are we going?” She tried to push back the reality with a matter-of-fact question as the car moved forward.

Fact
—matter-of-
fact
: they had turned themselves inside out with so many theories, these last twenty-four hours, that the fact of his deliberate lie filled her mind like a monstrous plant in a hot-house which had stifled all other growth.

“London,” he answered eventually. “I told you.”

“But where exactly?”

“One of our places. You don’t really need to know, and I’m not at liberty to say, anyway—sorry.” He shook his head apologetically.

She tried to think. “Paul said we should stay inside the house, and not go anywhere.”

“Yes. But Dr Audley says otherwise, and he outranks Dr Mitchell. He’s the boss.” He braked suddenly, and swung the wheel. In the half-gloom Elizabeth missed the signpost and could see only that they had taken a more minor road at a junction.

She tried to look over her shoulder. “I think you’ve taken the wrong road—“

“This is a short-cut. Don’t worry.”

They were never going to meet Audley and Faith coming back from Guildford on this road, thought Elizabeth.

“You must be tired,” said Aske solicitously. “Why don’t you lie back and close your eyes, and leave the navigation to me? I’ll wake you up in good time.”

“Yes…” She was aware of the truth of what he had said: under her present mental confusion and disquiet she was bone-weary. So much had happened so quickly, and all of it so strange and so frightening, that it was no wonder she couldn’t think straight—that she was starting to imagine things … and it was all beyond her understanding in any case. There was nothing she could do … there never had been anything she could do, from the start she had been helpless, pushed one way, then pulled another—it was her role in life, it seemed. “Yes … perhaps I will.”

“That’s right … You can let the seat back, if you like—there’s a catch down by the side somewhere.”

“Yes.” She fumbled between the seats.

“Don’t undo the safety-belts by mistake … When we’ve had our little talk with Dr Audley I’ll put you into a nice hotel for the night,” he said soothingly.

A little talk with Dr Audley, she thought to herself almost lethargically—she could feel the seat-belt releases, but not the seat-reclining catch, darn it!—but that was one thing she wasn’t going to have …

“Then you can dream about Lieutenant Chipperfield, and Mr Midshipman Paget, and Chard and Timms, and all the rest of them,” murmured Aske.

Elizabeth’s hand found the catch, and closed on it.

Lieutenant Chipperfield, and Midshipman Paget, and Tom Chard, and Abraham Timms
—they had all been trapped by misfortune, far from home and in a hostile land—

The car slowed.

“What is it?” asked Elizabeth.

“There’s a phone-box just ahead.” Aske brought the car to a halt, and Elizabeth saw the dim-lighted box in the headlights. “There’s another routine call I’ve just remembered I ought to make, in case anyone phones the house. I won’t be a moment, Miss Loftus.”

They seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, with no other light in sight through the rain-blurred windows of the car, and only a road sign warning “Bend” picked out in the dipped beams as an evidence of civilisation.

She stared at the shadowy figure in the phone-box, and a terrible certainty consumed her, driving out everything else—a certainty built out of innumerable small happenings cemented to that one great lie by an instinct which was suddenly so strong that she could feel her hand on the seat-catch shake—

Treachery!

Treachery? But if
not
treachery—if she was
wrong
?

No. No, no, no, no, no—treachery!

“Well, that’s all right, then!” said Aske cheerfully, glancing at her quickly as he let out the clutch. “But you haven’t put the seat down yet—you’ll doze much better with it down.”

The car was accelerating fast. Elizabeth could see the red reflectors of the bend in the distance.

“I can’t find the catch,” said Elizabeth hoarsely.

“I’ll find it for you—“ he took one hand off the wheel.

Faster—the rain slashed down on to the screen—

“No—I’ve got it now!” said Elizabeth.

“Fine. Sweet dreams, Miss Loftus, then.”

There were no sweet dreams, only nightmares in which the red reflectors burned like eyes, increasing in numbers as the car entered the bend.

Elizabeth released Aske’s safety-belt and twisted the wheel into the red eyes.

The fate of the hero’s daughter

THE CAR DOOR
slammed outside, but Mitchell discovered that he didn’t want to get up now, after having listened so attentively for so long for any slightest distant noise which might herald Audley’s return: somewhere along the line of time marked by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner he had ceased to expect good news and had started to fear the worst, his unwillingness told him.

And the fear only took hold of him more strongly as he glanced down at the papers on the desk in front of him: his own hand-written account of the untimely passing of Patrick Lawrence Donaghue, William Harold Fullick and Julian Alexander Carrell Oakenshaw, each of whom had died by the hand which had wielded the pen; and, beside it, impeccably-typed, Del Andrew’s report on the three dead men—
Copies to the Prime Minister
’
s Office (restricted); the Home Secretary (restricted); the Director of Public Prosecutions (restricted); The Acting-Director, DI/R & D (Col.J. Butler, CBE, MC)
.

Everything was relative to the occasion, he thought. For the past three days he had been worried sick about all this, and it had been in the back of his mind, warping his judgement and disturbing his concentration the whole time except for that one hour with Elizabeth, when he had exchanged need for need.

But now the bill for that one hour had been delivered, and he couldn’t pay it: he didn’t give a damn any more for the three men he’d killed, yet the thought of Elizabeth, whom he had failed to preserve, was a cure for the original sickness more expensive and painful than he could endure.

It was no good: he had to make himself get up—he couldn’t put it off any longer. What was coming, was coming whether he wanted to hear it or not.

He got up, and walked to the door. He felt stiff with sitting, and very tired, and cold inside and out—the house itself was cold now, he could feel the chill of it on his cheeks and on the tip of his nose.

Not again
, he prayed to himself,
not again
.

The sound of the door seemed unnaturally loud, as all sounds always did in the small hours. But it wasn’t the only one loose in the Old House; there were other noises night-walking in it now.

Not Elizabeth—Frances he could accept, had learned to accept—but not Elizabeth too, for Christ
’
s sake!

A board creaked loudly, and he saw Faith Audley halfway down the staircase, enveloped in a red velvet dressing-gown with a fur collar, her pale hair unbound, like a ghost out of the Old House’s past. Then the kitchen door at the end of the passage ahead of him banged open, and Audley came through, and he was nothing like any sort of ghost: rain glistened on his face and plastered down his hair, and he carried a bulging brief-case under one arm and an untidily unfurled umbrella under the other.