The Little Walls

by Winston Graham

  ‘‘I know that, Philip. I know how you feel.’’

  Do you? I thought.

  In the end I persuaded him to come, and we went down to the beach about eleven, taking sandwiches in case we wanted to stay out. Sanbergh wasn’t down, but he’d been there and Ernesto knew all about the boat. I started up the engine and we puttered slowly away from the towering cliffs. From the beach Jane waved an exhausted hand.

  It was unusually hot for the time of year, and the fog still hung about in a peculiar way, like steam that had lost the kettle. It would be without movement for a bit and then unexpectedly a patch of it would drift across to another part of the sea or coast. I remember there was a speed-boat out carving a great white wound in the sea, and the man driving it seemed to take a special delight in roaring his way into a cloud of fog and suddenly shooting out at the other side. I thought it might be hard luck for anyone in a rowing-boat who happened to get in his way in the fog. A good distance out there were a few fishing-boats, and beyond that two coasting vessels leaving the Bay.

  Martin sat in the bows in a blue T-shirt and a pair of linen trousers. He’d suggested taking charge of the motor, but I said that was my job. He didn’t have much to say, but began at once unravelling a fishing-line he found in the bottom of the boat, frowning occasionally when the smoke from his cigarette drifted into his eyes.

  After a time he raised his eyes and said: ‘‘You’re taking a wide course for those rocks.’’

  ‘‘I’m not making for them yet. We’ve all day.’’

  He said: ‘‘You’re the skipper.’’

  The engine was sputtering a bit and I turned and tinkered with it. I didn’t want anything to go wrong with that.

  ‘‘It was queer Leonie going off suddenly,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Was it? I think we should have expected it.’’

  ‘‘You said last night you thought she’d gone to join Buckingham.’’

  ‘‘I thought it likely.’’

  ‘‘Yet she left Holland apparently to get away from him.’’

  ‘‘Did she tell you that?’’

  ‘‘The letter that she left behind proves it.’’

  He drew at an end of the twine, pulling a loop out. ‘‘ Perhaps women don’t ever get men like Buckingham quite out of their system.’’

  ‘‘I’ve often wondered about that,’’ I said.

  ‘‘About what?’’

  ‘‘Why so many women make fools of themselves over cheats and rogues.’’

  ‘‘Because what you call evil is always more attractive than good.’’

  We purred farther out into the bay. I didn’t look back, but could just see the rocks out of the corner of my eye. It was going to be a point of nice judgment.

  I said: ‘‘ I’ve been thinking some more about Grevil.’’

  ‘‘God, I thought we’d talked ourselves out. What more is there to say?’’

  ‘‘I couldn’t see, if he was innocent why he should stand in the way of the police when they came to his hotel. It argued foreknowledge. But now I don’t think that. I think when the police came, all sorts of bits of evidence probably came up from the back of his mind—perhaps something odd in Buckingham’s behaviour in the matter of the crates, whisperings in Java or between officials at the airport—all the bits came together and he suddenly realised what was in the packing-case along with his own specimens. So on the impulse of the moment he tried to cover up for Buckingham, not condoning what he’d done, but trying to save him from arrest because of their friendship, and not at first thinking of himself at all.’’

  ‘‘You’ve got a good imagination.’’

  ‘‘It’s not all imagination. Did you know Grevil kept a diary?’’

  He scratched his arm, stared at the place, and took all me time in the world. ‘‘No.’’

  ‘‘It wasn’t a proper diary—just notes on his work, but he got so preoccupied with this man … It helps to piece things together. I’m sure Grevil saw Buckingham as a quite exceptional person who’d somehow got on the wrong track. When he found out how he’d been let down he decided he didn’t care, he’d still go on protecting the fellow out of friendship, and out of a deep sense of loyalty and trust.’’

  ‘‘You seem to know all about it.’’

  ‘‘Not all. I don’t know what happened after the police had left Grevil. I suspect that Buckingham must have got wind of their visit somehow—he probably watched the hotel until they left and then phoned from a local call-box to see what had happened. He would probably find Grevil feeling pretty furious, and he would arrange to meet him at the bridge in De Walletjes that evening. After their meeting there, realising how deeply he was involved himself and how much he’d been cheated and played for a sucker by Buckingham, Grevil found he couldn’t face the situation and committed suicide.’’

  Martin flung down the fishing-line. ‘‘Why?’’ he said savagely.

  ‘‘What d’you mean?’’

  ‘‘I mean, why? Is there anything you’ve told me to provide one valid motive for jumping in a canal?’’

  I stared at him. He’d taken out another cigarette and was lighting it from the last one, which was barely half done.

  I said: ‘‘It’s a motive of a sort. The man who flies high has farthest to fall. Suicide at best is an act of unreason.’’

  He threw the half-used cigarette away, watched it drift towards me. ‘‘That’s right, tell me your brother was a religious fanatic without a spark of humour or a sense of proportion. A Saint Theresa in khaki shorts and sun-blinkers. A Saint John of the Cross persecuted by nobody but himself. Pity we didn’t realise that before. It would have saved a lot of trouble.’’

  I said: ‘‘I don’t see what you have to whine about. It saved you a hell of a lot of trouble when he jumped in the canal.’’

  He slowly bent the new cigarette until it snapped. The muscles of his arm rippled as he threw the white paper and the crumpled tobacco after the first. There wasn’t much obvious change in his face except that the bones seemed to become sharper, his temples more hallowed.

  He said: ‘‘When did you know?’’

  ‘‘Pangkal’s letter on Tuesday.’’

  ‘‘Before that——’’

  ‘‘Oh, something. A hunch. No more.’’

  ‘‘When?’’

  ‘‘At the beginning. That tin of cigars you had on the table in England. El Toro.’’

  ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘They’re made by Claasen of Hapert. They’re the brand Grevil always smoked when he could get them. Did he give you them?’’

  ‘‘Yes.’’

  ‘‘You can’t get them in England anywhere.’’

  He glanced at the land, at me, at the glittering empty sea. He was sizing everything up. ‘‘You were surprised when I agreed to come to Holland, then?’’

  ‘‘I thought if you were mixed up in it in some way you might, be afraid of what I should discover. But now, from that angle, I see you’d nothing to fear.’’

  He stared at me grimly. ‘‘Nothing at all.’’

  ‘‘Then why did you come?’’

  ‘‘Does it matter?’’

  ‘‘It was to trace Leonie, wasn’t it.’’

  He shrugged. ‘‘She’d disappeared without a word—or apparently without a word. I didn’t know what had become of her. When I got to England I went to see her mother, but she wouldn’t tell me where she was.’’

  ‘‘You left Amsterdam a day too soon. That was careless.’’

  ‘‘When I knew there was a man coming from Java, I knew it was time to leave. And men—after the brush with Jodenbree—I was afraid of him informing.’’

  We sat there not speaking in the hot sun. The speed-boat had got tired of its game and had disappeared towards Naples. We watched each other with careful hatred.

  I said: ‘‘ That farce you played at De Walletjes put me off. I thought then that my hunch was wrong.’’

  ‘‘What farce?’’

 
‘‘What you call your brush with Jodenbree.’’

  ‘‘Ask him if he felt it was a farce!’’

  ‘‘Then why did you do what you did?’’

  ‘‘You wouldn’t understand if I told you.’’

  ‘‘Suppose you try.’’

  ‘‘Some other time.’’

  ‘‘There won’t be another time.’’

  I had changed course so that we were making a slow arc back towards the island. A smear of fog lay right in our path. He turned his head because the island was in my view now and out of his. He said with a sudden taut movement: ‘‘If you’ve got some plan, Philip, drop it now.’’

  I said: ‘‘ When I invited you to Capri, that put me off too. I thought if you were Buckingham and I could it confront Leonie with you, the shock would be certain to make her give it away. But it didn’t. I don’t know how it didn’t.’’

  ‘‘I wired her I was coming, as soon as I got the address from you—at Naples airport.’’

  There was a pause.

  I said: ‘‘ Now that we’re out in the open, now there’s nothing more to hide, what happened at your last meeting with Grevil?’’

  He hesitated, looking me over, I thought he was going to refuse; but perhaps he reasoned that the longer he could keep me talking …

  ‘‘We had a set-to on the bridge. He accused me of getting him into the mess and told me I must get him out of it. I said how could I? I’d hoped all along to get away with the whole dreary business of the dope-running without him knowing—would have done with any luck at all. I tried all ways to come at that case in his bedroom, but he didn’t give me one single chance. I think I could have got the stuff and delivered it to Jodenbree before the police moved. The afternoon they did move I’d at last persuaded Leonie to get Grevil out without me. That was to have been the arrangement but it went awry … Well, it went awry. I told Grevil that. I told him he’d no reason to be surprised that I was making use of him. I’d never pretended to him for an instant about my own character or my own philosophy of life. If he cared to build up some elaborate make-believe system of his own to explain it and then tried to fit it on to me for his own pleasure, it wasn’t my responsibility if me thing fell off at the first test. If he was let down, he had only himself to blame!’’

  The fog patch was much nearer. ‘‘And what did he say to that?’’

  ‘‘What you might expect. That it was a choice I had to make—something of that sort—a challenge to meet on my own. I told him I’d have none of it and left him there.’’

  ‘‘Then he could be sure.’’

  ‘‘Sure of what?’’

  ‘‘That you wouldn’t perhaps change your mind and go to the police.’’

  ‘‘Oh yes. I left him in no doubt. The moral issues were his, not mine. I told him he was free to do what he pleased about them. Let him go to the police if it pleased him, and maybe they’d believe him after all. Or if he didn’t want to do that, he was always talking about principles and the virtues of self-sacrifice and giving up the best for others. Well, here was a chance to show there was something in it. The challenge existed for him as well as for me. If there was anything in this stuff about ‘ greater love hath no man’, then this was the opportunity to prove it!’’

  I stared at Martin. ‘‘If Grevil got what he asked for, you won’t kick, I suppose, if you get the same?’’

  He knew he was in for trouble. He’d been in too many tight corners before, and as the wisps of fog closed round us he knew it was coming now.

  ‘‘No,’’ I said, as his eyes travelled over me. ‘‘ I’ve got no gun, no knife. You can’t hang for Grevil. After all, it wasn’t your fault, was it? Well, this won’t be my fault either.’’

  He sat and watched me with that bint of delicacy in his face strangely heightened. It was as if the closeness of danger refined his senses.

  As the sun went in I said: ‘‘Rats swim. You swim, you bastard, as Grevil never had the heart to.’’

  I reached down and pulled the bung out and threw it away over the sea. As he came at me I lurched to the edge of the boat, kicked at his clutching fingers and jumped into the water.

  When I came up we were well into the fog. The boat was still afloat but settling quickly. He was aboard and trying to wrench the outboard motor off to lighten the weight. It wouldn’t budge. I’d seen to that last night. I clutched sat the bows and half hauled myself in. My weight rocked me boat as I scrambled aboard, and he turned to ward me off, but the boat was foundering under us. I dived off again as he lost his balance and fell forward. When I came up he too was in the water. The fog was only thin and you could see a corner of the island through it; it was blowing over us. The boat went down quickly. It should have done, because there were heavy stones under the stern-sheets. It would be a long swim home.

  I swam towards him, dived, opened my eyes, saw him just above. I grabbed one of his legs, began to drag down. It was hard to avoid his other kicking leg. I held on till no breath any longer, then let go and surfaced. Eyes smarting, I gulped at the air. He came up a few seconds later. He saw me but didn’t attack. Instead he headed off for the island. I swam after him.

  We were out of the fog before I caught up. I dived again. But this time he was fighting. He curled round in the water with exaggeratedly laboured movements, reached his hands to my throat. Before he could grip I slid away, managed to get above him. With my foot I kicked him on the back of the head as I swam up.

  He was late surfacing this time, and coupling. He swam quite near to me and our eyes met. He didn’t say a word, but again turned away, began to make for the shore. For a bit I kept my distance. Once or twice he looked back, knowing I was behind. The island was still a long way.

  I dived and got a hand round each of his ankles. He kicked with a slow-motion frenzy, but I held on in bitter obstinacy. We went down. Again he doubled up; this time he got his hands under my chin. He was pressing my head back. Mustn’t let go. This was how Grevil had died. Water in the mouth, in the lungs, in the head, voluntarily giving up his life. Water in the brain. Clean water here, but foul and lethal to the human heart. Martin Coxon was going with me. Going together. Wasn’t as intended. A life for a life. Good Old Testament ethics. Not two lives for one, that neither ethical nor common sense.

  I loosed his ankles and at once he gave up his grip of my neck.

  His face for a few seconds was close mine as I swam up. Far gone. Soon he would be floating lifeless.

  I surfaced, but it came late. Water and air breathed together, I coughed and retched, knew just enough to keep afloat, to keep buoyancy. For a few seconds I was almost out. The sun had gone in again, the noise of the water was shouting, the fog inside me a part of exhaustion and break up.

  His hands got me. I’d thought I’d done for him, but he had the last reserves of strength. I tried to fight, but he was too strong. In this last attack he seemed to speak with several voices. Then something was hooked under my arms and I was hauled out of the water. The sun came from behind the shadow of a sail as I was lifted on deck …

  A fishing-boat and a new-landed fish. I gasped and lay flat in the sun. A man was bending over me talking Italian, but the chief centre of interest had shifted. Two others were leaning over the stern chattering like a sub-machine gun to someone in the sea. Then the one man moved away, and I lay there and listened with intense bitterness to Martin Coxon being rescued.

  His shadow blackened the deck, and he was slumped down near me. Companion in distress. They’d done a good job, these Italian fishermen. Seeing me stirring they began to shoot questions at me. It took a long time, but then I realised they were asking if there’d been any others in our boat. When I shook my head they seemed satisfied to let me recover in my own time while they worked on Coxon.

  He was really out and a bad colour. I thought for a bit that the job was done and that this interference was too late. But one of them understood artificial respiration, and about five minutes he began to come round. Then one o
f them ducked into the tiny cabin and came out with two cups and a fiasco of Chianti. Martin couldn’t drink it at first, but I had some and it made me feel better. Better in health, that was.

  One of the Italians, a fat little man who looked like the boss, squatted on his haunches beside me and asked a question in labial Italian. When I shook my head he thought it over and pointed to himself and made a circle to include his ship. ‘‘Salerno.’’

  I nodded that I understood. Then he pointed at me. ‘‘ Capri?’’

  I hesitated. Coxon was recovering. We couldn’t go back from here. We had to go on.

  The little man tried again. ‘‘Sorrento?’’

  ‘‘No,’’ I said on the impulse. ‘‘Amalfi.’’

  He showed his gold eye-tooth in a beaming grin—perhaps because I’d understood, perhaps because that was on his way home. He called to the helmsman, and it sounded as if they were cheerfully speculating on whose boat it was we’d lost with our clumsy seamanship.

  The strength was coming back quickly. My shirt and trousers were drying in the scorching sun. Underneath Coxon was a dark stain of damp like blood, and his sandals were steaming on his feet. They had brought him into a sitting position, but I ‘‘couldn’t yet see his face. I was interested to see his face. Then I heard his voice for me first time. He evidently knew some Italian.

  It’s queer when you’ve got to know a person pretty well and then suddenly tried to kill him—and have narrowly failed and now must meet him again; there’s no precedent in your affairs to go by, no euphemisms to hide behind. The swords have been out. Nor in this case had violence and passion cleared the air. None of the enmity had been split; the feud between us wasn’t of that kind. Even if the past had been forgivable, there would have been the future. Even if there had not been Grevil between us, there would still have been Leonie. That was how I felt. I knew he felt the same.

  I thought he felt the same. But when I saw his face I wasn’t sure any longer.

  Chapter Nineteen

  He said: ‘‘ I want—to talk to you.’’

  I shifted round so that I could see him better. His lips were putty-coloured.