The Pursued

by C. S. Forester

  19

  Sergeant Hale was walking down Simon Street. Later that night he had an appointment with a ‘copper’s nark’ – a man who in exchange for a few shillings was willing to give information regarding the criminal activities of his associates. Hale expected no information this evening; the purpose of the meeting was merely to hand over to the copper’s nark money he had lately earned. It would take less than a second. But the hour chosen was sufficiently late, after the closing of the public houses, to make it very unlikely that anyone would see it done, and the rendezvous was sufficiently out of the way to be safe.

  As he walked heavily yet silently in his rubber-soled shoes down Simon Street Hale knew that he was ten minutes early. It was a regrettable weakness of his, of which he had been conscious from childhood, to be ten minutes early for any appointment. At the corner of the lane beside the railway, at the back of the odd numbered houses in Harrison Way, he paused for a moment. If he made a detour, walking down this lane to the farther end, and so to his appointment via Trecastle Road, he would be late for his appointment by at least five minutes, or perhaps even more. It was a prospect which mildly irritated him, and his impulse was to discard the thought. After all, Constable Clough, No. 79, who had this beat at present, was reliable, and the lane had therefore been properly patrolled.

  Next Sergeant Hale, about to walk down Simon Street, remembered how that woman – what was her name? Mrs Clair, that was it – had spoken to him about her son-in-law who lived in one of the houses backing on to the lane – 77, where that girl gassed herself – saying that he was going queer in the head. It was that which turned the scale. The sergeant decided that he might as well walk down the lane, just to see if there was anything deserving his attention.

  In No. 77 there was a light in the back living room, shining through the curtained French window. That was all, when the sergeant arrived at the garden gate. Then, as he was about to move on, he heard a door – it sounded like the door from the kitchen into the scullery – open and close, and another light in the back of the house was switched on, not shining directly into the garden, but onto the side of the house next door. Someone must have just come home and entered by the side door. The sergeant lingered on idly against the hedge; this sign of activity in the house was just enough, combined with what Mrs Clair had said to him, to keep him waiting a second or two longer, almost against his wishes.

  And then he heard, distinctly, a man’s voice raised in anger or surprise, and then the voice was cut short. Even this was all comparatively insignificant – just enough to keep the sergeant from continuing his walk. The sitting-room light went out. They were probably going to bed – but no, the French windows were being cautiously opened; the sergeant heard the unmistakable gentle noise of it, a little muffled. This was more interesting. Someone was whispering, someone was creeping slowly down the path. The sergeant withdrew along the hedge away from the gate; he found a little gap in it which would help to conceal him in the darkness. Whoever it was – and it sounded like two people – came creeping down the path. The gate squeaked a little, and someone came out and looked both ways as though to make sure no one was about. Sergeant Hale stood very still in his niche in the hedge. This time he heard a fresh whisper – a woman’s voice.

  ‘Come on,’ it said ‘it’s all right.’

  From the deliberation of their steps it seemed as if they were carrying something heavy. So they were; with sharp nervous gasps they lifted their burden onto the top of the railings which fenced off the railway. One of them began to climb over, and Sergeant Hale thought it was time to interfere.

  ‘What’s all this?’ he demanded, emerging from the hedge.

  The woman squeaked with fright and surprise; the man jumped down again from the railings with guilt clearly visible in every movement despite the darkness. Neither of them said a word.

  ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ asked Sergeant Hale. He had no suspicion at all as to what it was, but he brought his electric torch out of his pocket and flashed it on the bundle against the railings.

  ‘My God!’ he said, and his hand went like a flash to his whistle.

  Then it was that Mrs Clair recovered her quickness of wit. She leapt for his hand and clung to it.

  ‘Come on, George,’ she said. ‘Hit him! Go for him!’ George came rushing in and locked his arms around the sergeant’s broad figure at the very moment that the sergeant threw off Mrs Clair’s grip. The two men swayed and tottered in a tense struggle, grunting with the efforts they were exerting. George was still dull of brain, as he had been ever since he had struck that blow in the sitting-room. He fought hard against a practised fighter. And even as they closed Mrs Clair turned and ran wildly up the garden path again. One single thought streaked through her brain as she ran – she thanked God that she had had the foresight to take that fifty pounds out of the bank, that she had brought it with her tonight, in her handbag.

  She snatched open the French window. Marjorie was just entering into the sitting-room, pail of steaming water in one hand and a scrubbing brush in the other. At her mother’s sudden entrance she started and screamed; the pail fell with a clatter, sending a torrent of water across the floor.

  ‘Come along!’ said Mrs Clair. ‘Come along! It doesn’t matter about that.’

  She took her handbag hurriedly out of the leather carrying bag on the side table. She seized Marjorie’s arm and dragged her out of the room.

  ‘Is your hat upstairs?’ she asked, in the hall.

  ‘Yes,’ said Marjorie.

  ‘Then we’ll have to do without it.’

  She snatched open the front door and hurried Marjorie into the street. They were almost running as they went on down towards the High Street. They had hardly covered a hundred yards when they heard behind them the sound of a police whistle, clear and penetrating in the silent night.

  ‘We mustn’t hurry now,’ said Mrs Clair. She moderated her pace, and they walked almost slowly now, two apparently respectable and harmless women, who might well be expected to ignore the pealing of the police whistle behind them.

  Only one or two people came to their doors at the sound, and Mrs Clair and Marjorie walked sedately past them, every step taking them nearer to safety. They turned a corner at last, and then another. Now they were in the High Street, and Mrs Clair wasted half a second as she stood uncertain as to which way to turn. The approach of a motorbus decided her. She hailed it and they got in.

  ‘Two, to the terminus,’ said Mrs Clair, giving the conductor a shilling from her handbag.

  It was a long ride, all the way to Croydon. Passengers got in and out, and at every fresh entry the women peered round for fear it was a policeman. Mrs Clair was shaking with fear; not with the fear of any consequences which would follow what they had done but with the blind panic fear of the pursued, now that the decisive moment had passed. She felt weak and cold. She was conscious that her face was pale and her hands trembling. Then she realized that Marjorie beside her was convulsed with sobs. It would draw attention to them. People would easily remember a young woman, hatless and coatless on a rainy evening, who sat sobbing in an omnibus. That would help the pursuers, later. Mrs Clair forced herself to appreciate the fact that they were in no immediate danger, that no one could arrest them in the next few minutes.

  Mrs Clair rallied her ebbing strength. For herself she would be content to abide by what she had done, but poor little Marjorie must be guarded and protected. She sat upright in her seat, forcing herself to appear serene and unruffled, and she nudged Marjorie to call her attention to herself. Marjorie started and looked round at her, and met her mother’s severe frown and shake of the head. It reminded Marjorie insanely of the wordless reproofs she had received in church, nearly thirty years ago, when the sermon had grown wearisome to her. The warning conveyed by her mother’s gestures, but to a far greater degree the example of her mother’s apparent calmness, steadied Marjorie too. She made h
erself check her sobbing, and to settle herself in a natural position on her seat. They could not talk, could not exchange meaningless conversation, as might have been best if they wished to be inconspicuous. But they sat rigid, side by side, restraining themselves from looking round over their shoulders whenever anybody new climbed into the bus, all the way to Croydon.

  Mrs Clair, for this matter, had no time or attention to spare for refinements of acting. Her mind now was busy with plans of escape. Save the elementary precaution of drawing that fifty pounds from the bank she had taken no thought about it before, so confident had she been that there would be no need for flight. Now the long journey to Croydon seemed all too short for her to consider the details of what they were to do next – and the details, as Mrs Clair acutely realized, were as important as the main plan.

  Croydon was a great traffic centre, she was aware, and from there trains and buses left in all directions, back to London, to other suburbs, down to the sea coast. They must gain the coast, she decided instantly. The holiday season was still at his height. August had not yet run its course. They were two homeless women, now, and where would it be more natural for two women to seek temporary lodgings than in a holiday town? There was the question of tonight, too. Without luggage, and with Marjorie without hat or coat, every hotel and lodging house would look askance at them, would remember them afterwards. Tomorrow they would be able to remedy that, but tonight they would not dare to find a room for them. Mrs Clair conjured up her memories of south-coast towns, wondering whether they could shelter there all night or not.

  ‘East Croydon Station,’ chanted the conductor, as the bus came to a stop.

  Mrs Clair nudged her daughter again, and they followed the large contingent of passengers who were leaving the bus. In the brilliantly lighted booking hall Mrs Clair studied the indicator board. There was one more train due to leave for Brighton that night, in a quarter of an hour’s time. She opened her handbag and peeled a note from her precious roll, and approached the booking office window.

  ‘Three singles, Brighton, please,’ she said, firmly. As they went down the steps to the platform Marjorie whispered urgently to her – she had revived sufficiently now, thanks to her mother’s example, to take an interest in their plans.

  ‘What did you buy three tickets for?’ she asked.

  ‘Never you mind,’ said Mrs Clair.

  One ticket went into her handbag, and she only tendered two to be punched at the gate. The idea which had guided her had been that the police would be inquiring after two women; the purchase of three tickets would help to throw them off the scent if they followed it as far as the Croydon booking office here. But she could not bring herself to explain this to Marjorie. It seemed to her an indelicate subject to discuss with her. So she said ‘Never you mind,’ just as she had said it when the child Marjorie had begun asking questions about how she was born. And Marjorie was reminded of that when her mother answered her. In this new helplessness of hers and dependence on her mother she seemed to be returning to her childhood.

  There was a belated boy selling evening newspapers; Mrs Clair bought two. Then the train came in and half emptied itself of passengers. There were only three other people in the compartment Mrs Clair chose, and she was able to seat Marjorie in a corner and sit beside her. She passed her a newspaper and set her an example by opening the other one and holding it up in front of her. Mrs Clair was thinking quickly and clearly of everything again now. It would not be her fault if those other passengers were able to recognize their descriptions later. The train ran on through the darkness, its steady rhythm being constantly broken by stops at intermediate stations – this was the last stopping train between London and Brighton. All the other three passengers, the man with the spats and the gold watch chain, the woman who had been shopping at Peter Robinson’s, and the youngish man with the pale face, got out before Brighton was reached, but a young married couple with a tendency to giggle got in, and they were never alone throughout the tedious journey. Marjorie read the same paragraph of print – something involved and to do with stocks and shares – over and over again as it swayed before her eyes while she held the newspaper in front of her. It meant no more to her at the end of the journey that at the beginning.

  When the train stopped at Brighton Mrs Clair lingered so as to enable the young couple to be clear of the carriage before she started to descend. Marjorie had put down her newspaper on the seat with the intention of leaving it behind, but her mother took it up again.

  ‘I expect we shall want these,’ she said, cryptically.

  At the barrier their tickets were taken from them without question and without a glance directed at them, and they came out into the streets. There was only the tiniest rain falling now, an almost negligible amount, and here in this town of holiday makers Marjorie’s hatlessness would pass without remark.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ asked Marjorie, and then she shuddered, clinging to her mother’s arm. She remembered so well the other occasions when that question had been asked.

  ‘Oh, we’ll be all right, dear,’ said her mother placidly.

  Downhill, of course, led to the sea, to the illuminations and the promenade – Mrs Clair knew this not from any topographical deductions but from experience of many seaside towns. The illuminations had mostly faded out by now, but the promenade was well lighted with street lamps, and as they emerged into it they were greeted by the sound of gentle fine-weather waves breaking upon the beach. The breath of air from the sea was a tonic after the stuffiness of the railway carriage. It called up a wave of memory in Marjorie’s mind. The last time she had breathed sea air George had been with her. Then, inconsequently, a fresh memory arose, blotting out its predecessor – the memory of something huddled in a red pool on the sitting-room linoleum.

  ‘Oh, Mother, Mother,’ said Marjorie.

  Mrs Clair’s thin arm pained her where her daughter’s fingers gripped it.

  ‘There, there,’ she said soothingly. ‘Just a little way further.’

  They were on the promenade now, close to the pier. Mrs Clair walked steadily along towards Kemp Town. In one shelter there were two people still sitting – lovers, presumably. They passed several more shelters before Mrs Clair stopped.

  ‘Let’s sit here,’ she said.

  As she lowered herself to the bench she suddenly realized that she was very, very tired. Marjorie sat beside her.

  ‘Here,’ said Mrs Clair. ‘I’ve brought these to keep you warm.’

  In the train she had remembered that newspaper helped when one was exposed to cold. Away back in the war she had put sheets of newspapers between the blankets.

  ‘Tuck this up round you,’ said Mrs Clair. ‘Under your skirt.’

  Marjorie stood obediently while her mother lifted up her clothes and provided her with an additional petticoat of newspaper.

  ‘There,’ said Mrs Clair. ‘That’ll be better. Just a minute. I’ll fold this one to go under your – under you when you sit down. Comfy? Now try and go to sleep, dear. Put your feet up. That’s right. Goodnight, dear.’

  With the cessation of traffic the sound of the sea came more clearly to them still. They could hear the little waves breaking, the rattle of the shingle as the water ran back. For a space Marjorie almost believed she would sleep. She was so tired, and her mother had been so comforting. Then as she sat there with eyes closed she heard a measured tread approaching. Her limbs stiffened. She was tense with anxiety. Murder! Was this the police come to arrest them? She stared through the darkness at her mother’s profile seen dimly in the opposite corner.

  ‘Mother!’ she said in terror.

  ‘Sh!’ said Mrs Clair.

  The tread came nearer. It was level with them now. Then it passed by – it was only some belated pedestrian making his way home along the promenade.

  ‘Go to sleep, darling,’ said Mrs Clair. ‘Mother’s here.’

  That was an o
ld formula, too, thirty years old.

  It took some time for the rapid beating of Marjorie’s heart to quiet down again. Then, more than once, she dozed, lightly and fitfully. Each time she awoke with a start, sweating with terror. Some new frightening thoughts had come to her. She had not noticed Ted’s eye at the time – the one eye there was to be seen – but she remembered it clearly now. Half open and dull, so that you could see just a bit of lifeless white and some of the pupil. The vision of it came to her, twenty times magnified as she slept.

  ‘Sh! dear,’ said Mrs Clair. ‘Mother’s looking after you.’

  Then something else, if possible more terrible, occurred to her.

  ‘Mother!’ she said, starting out of her doze. ‘What about the children?’

  ‘Somebody will be looking after them all right. Don’t be afraid about that,’ said Mrs Clair soothingly.

  That must have been telepathy, for Marjorie’s question had come just when Mrs Clair was in an agony of anxiety about the children herself. But she allowed herself to show no sign of her anxiety when she reassured her daughter.

  ‘I don’t mean now, Mother,’ said Marjorie, wildly – it had not occurred to her until then that there was a chance that her sleeping children were at this moment alone in the house – ‘I mean what’ll happen to them? What’ll they do when – when –’

  Words failed Marjorie to describe the vague future of whether or not they should evade the police.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about them now, dear. They’ll be all right. We’ll see about it, afterwards.’