by Burke, John
“So you should. It was you who pretended to need a lift that night.”
“But,” said McIntyre, “if there has to be trouble, I’m capable of being troublesome. So off to the far side of the room, if you don’t mind.”
Mark retreated. McIntyre leaned against the jamb of the door, the gun in his hand.
In every film and every television thriller, thought Ellen, the hero invariably hurls himself without a second thought at the gunman. A quick chop here, a kick there, and the villain’s gun goes skidding away. But in real life when you look down the wrong end of a gun you don’t have a go. It looks too solid, too sure of itself. Before it even speaks you’re in no mood to answer back.
Fiona stood above the tray. “Everything to your satisfaction?”
There were two plates covered by aluminium lids; and a butter-dish, a section of wholemeal loaf, a couple of segments of what looked like coffee mousse, and a hunk of cheese. Under her left elbow Fiona had also been carrying what might have been a roll of laundry. She laid it now on one of the beds and unwrapped the covering, which was a large bath-towel. Inside were two hand-towels, two toothbrushes in their plastic wrappings, two neatly folded flannels, a tube of toothpaste and a cake of soap.
“The service is uncanny,” said Mark.
She looked straight at him. Then she turned and pushed the door. McIntyre checked it with his left hand.
“Look, the Doctor says...”
“Nuts to what the Doctor says. I’m not on the National Health. Haven’t paid my stamp for ages.”
Fiona waved at McIntyre. At the same time she was half pouting at him, daring him either to snarl or to laugh. He compromised. He twitched a grin at her and shuffled back a few paces into the corridor.
“But don’t try to get away with anything.”
“With what? And why,” demanded Fiona with one of her finer flourishes, “should I want to get away?”
Mark closed in on her. He spoke in a swift, urgent undertone. “You say your husband told you a lot last night.”
“Whoops, dear. I plead the Umpteenth Amendment.”
“It’s not a comedy any longer.”
“There’s money in it.” Fiona clattered the covers off the plates, banging them together and creating an unnecessary din. “Enough money to make me smile, anyway.”
“And where did it come from? Just what did go on down in the Gwynbach mine?”
“A lot of creepy-crawlies.” Fiona dashingly dropped the two pieces of aluminium and bent to pick them up. “All very nasty and slimy, all of it.”
“Am I right about the bacteria proliferating?”
“Dirty little nits. I wouldn’t put anything past them.”
“The process worked too fast. Right? It undermined the road and the waterfall. Who’s paying for the results? Who’s behind it?”
Ellen listened to the pounding of her heart. Only it wasn’t her heart. It was the rush of footsteps again, up a flight of stairs, coming closer.
“No good asking me.” For no reason which Ellen could fathom, Fiona was glaring at the wall near the cot. “All I know is that there’s good money, and collecting it is one of my favourite occupations.”
“The mine.” Mark’s lips were hardly moving. “Whatever went on down there...”
“Don’t ask me.” Fiona pushed knives and forks noisily and pointlessly over the tray. “It’s no use, love. I never did go in for that science-fiction stuff. Give me nice healthy pornography any day.”
The door was thrust open again. McIntyre growled: “The Doctor says no muttering.”
“Right.” Fiona straightened up and sauntered across the room. “They’re just a lot of kids,” she declared. “Playing cops and robbers. Only, this lot are all robbers and no cops. But leave it to me.”
“Get a move on,” said McIntyre.
“Some of them get so impatient.” Fiona treated Mark and Ellen to an extravagant roll of her hips, and went out.
Again the door was locked.
The cold salmon and salad had been felicitously arranged on the plates; but Ellen had no appetite.
With a solemnity that seemed out of place, Mark said: “I think I’ll have a wash before dinner. Feel a bit sticky. Or do you want to go first?”
“After you.”
“No, after you. Choose your own flannel. Most civilised of them, I must say. For myself, I prefer to keep my flannel on the left side of the washbasin. Any objections?”
Ellen selected a towel and flannel, a pink-handled tooth brush, and took the cake of soap towards the bathroom.
“Don’t hurry,” said Mark brightly. “It’s a cold collation. Won’t spoil.”
As she tugged the light on, she realised that Mark was immediately behind her. He put his hands on her hips with the faintest pressure to indicate that she should keep moving. There was barely space for two of them in the bathroom. He squeezed round the door, and kissed her neck.
“Van Lynden heard us,” he murmured. “We beefed about the lack of toothpaste, towel, soap,...and lo and behold, they’re delivered.”
“A matter of course. Once they’d thought of it...”
“Once who had thought of it? David, the perfect puritanical host, maintaining his standards to the last? Or van Lynden himself, being super-civilised? Maybe you die tomorrow, but you get all the amenities tonight.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
The fan whirred and vibrated above their heads.
“And then,” murmured Mark, “there was that bit about us muttering. He didn’t like that. Couldn’t hear us. But how did he know we were muttering, from that distance down a couple of flights of stairs? And come to think of it, the way Fiona was fluttering her delectable charcoal eyelashes at that wall...” Gently he prodded her towards the washbasin, and withdrew. After a few seconds he called: “Is the water warm?”
“Fine,” Ellen shouted back.
When she emerged, he put his finger to his lips and indicated the wall behind the cot.
A small white plastic box was fastened eighteen inches from the end of the cot. At a glance Ellen would have identified it as a thermostat. But individual thermostats to control the level of central heating in each room? A bit plushy, she thought. A closer look, and she recognised it as the microphone of a baby alarm. Somewhere there must be a loudspeaker.
She knew precisely where. The table by the old chimney breast. David had told her all about it. Catering for every guest.
Mark was silently querying whether she understood. She nodded. In an impulsive rage, facing the microphone and enunciating clearly, she said: “They’re not very competent villains, are they?”
Mark put his arm round her shoulders and turned her away. With his lips close to her ear he said: “And I’m afraid we’re not very brilliant heroes.”
After they had eaten, in a silence conditioned by wariness and exhaustion, Ellen decided to have a bath. A good long soak. As she lay in the steaming water, letting herself go slack and drowsy, she found it impossible to believe that she was a prisoner. It couldn’t possibly go on. Things like this didn’t go on forever. But then, things like this didn’t happen – or happened only to other people.
Through the steady whirr of the fan she heard a heavier engine sound, reminiscent of the note of the truck which had brought them here. Then there was the click of a door, Fiona’s voice and breathy laugh, and a gruffer voice. “Stand back.” Evidently Fiona was coming to remove the tray.
She got out of the bath and was thankful to find a cologne stick in her bag. When she opened the door into the nursery she found it in darkness. Mark was at the window. He waved peremptorily, and she snapped off the bathroom light.
Standing beside him, trying to get a wider view of the yard, she saw the truck with its lights on. Two figures which must be those of David and McIntyre were humping long cylinders out of the back. She remembered the cold, comfortless feel of them when she and Mark were being bumped up the drive.
Facing outwards, shielded f
rom the baby alarm, she pressed closer to Mark and whispered: “What do they want oxygen cylinders for?”
“We don’t know they’re oxygen.”
“What else?”
“No idea.”
The cylinders clanged together. Ellen could hear the two men panting.
Mark eased himself quietly away from the window and went to switch the light on again.
Ellen had dressed again after her bath, but the heat was ebbing away now. It was a summer night, but cold. The house was cold; fear was an insidious chill.
“I’m like Fiona,” she said. “I don’t go much for science-fiction. Bacteria, that Research Centre, and...” She waved towards the window and what lay beyond. “All we need is the mad scientist.” She faced the microphone and metaphorically stuck her tongue out at it. “Van Lynden fits the part.”
Mark shook his head. “And there’s no such thing as science-fiction. Not anymore. It’s all happening – everywhere, all round us. Not just up on the Moon, but right here. Nuclear devices, new man-made plagues, nerve gases, thought control...”
“All right, all right,” she said before he could make any gruesome additions to the catalogue.
“It’s all here with us,” he said. “Not fiction. It’s all commonplace now.”
He was staring at that smugly listening ear fastened to the wall. Without warning he strode towards it and tried to get his fingers behind it and wrench it away. It wouldn’t budge. Mark swore under his breath – Ellen wondered how that would sound at the other end – and stamped into the bathroom. He returned with his toothbrush and tried to lever it in behind the plastic case. It snapped. He threw the two pieces across the room, then resignedly went to retrieve the end with the bristles.
“They’re not going to listen all night, are they?” said Ellen.
“Maybe they’ll take it in turns.” Mark faced the microphone again. “For all the good it’ll do them.”
There was nothing they could talk about. Nothing it was safe to talk about. Ellen was weary and ready for bed.
And what would the awakening be?
Mark put the light out and they undressed in the dark. Ring for room service, she thought foolishly. Shout down the wire. One nightie and one pair of pyjamas, please. Or else go and fetch our bags from the car.
There were no sheets on the bed. The blankets were not exactly damp but they clung to her naked body as she turned over on her side.
The darkness softened as her eyes grew accustomed to it. The shape of the window was outlined by the blur of a light from the yard below.
And light gleamed faintly on Mark’s shoulder as he crossed the room and sat on the edge of her bed.
She let her left arm lie along the top blanket. He was aware of the movement, groped for her hand, and found it. He sat with his head bowed for a moment, then raised her hand and kissed it.
“Goodnight,” he said gently.
Before he could get up, there was a swift, sharp clatter of footsteps across the cobbled yard. They heard the creak of an opening door, and within twenty seconds or so the roar of an engine being revved impetuously into life. Ellen knew the note of that engine. It was Fiona’s car. Light surged up more powerfully below the window, and cut a swathe across the ceiling. The car echoed out of the garage and turned. It accelerated, then slowed. The light dimmed, there was a squeal of brakes and somebody shouting something; and then the engine stopped as abruptly as though it had stalled.
Ellen, gripping Mark’s hand, waited for the sound of the car going down the drive. But there was no further movement.
Mark began to get up. She held on to his hand and drew it slowly, imploringly towards her. For a moment he resisted; then he turned, and his face came down on hers, and their mouths met.
They did not say a word. His lithe body slid between the blankets with her. Their mouths together, they laughed inaudibly at the narrowness of the bed and at the smoothness of flesh between the roughness of blankets. They would say nothing that van Lynden or the others might hear. And really, there was no need to say anything. His hands, first soothing, then exciting, had all the eloquence she desired. Her fingers lovingly responded. It was so easy to devise a silent mutual language – easy and beautiful.
No sound, until the moment when it was impossible to choke back that one long moan of utter joy.
“Ellen.” His mouth was hot against her cheek. “Ellen...dearest...Ellen...”
If anyone wanted to hear, let them hear. She was past caring.
Chapter Ten
The rasp of the truck’s engine stuttering into wakefulness jarred Ellen’s eyes open. She tried to move, but was trapped. Mark’s head was buried in her hair. Cramped, she struggled up on her elbow, and Mark awoke as the truck roared away over the cobbles and down the gravel.
He kissed her, mumbled something incoherent that sounded rather appealing, and rolled out of bed. His watch lay on the little table. He turned it to the light started to say something, then beckoned Ellen to follow him into the bathroom. He closed the door. They were close, touching; both still warm; her eyes sticky with sleep.
Under the whirr of the fan he said: “They must be on their way back to the Research Centre. Got to put on an act. A fair day’s work for a day’s pay.”
“Both of them,” Ellen mooted, “or just one?”
“That’s a point. If we could be sure we had only David Parr to deal with...” He pushed her hair back from her forehead and kissed her again. “I’ll leave you to it.” On his way back into the nursery he paused in the doorway and said loudly: “I wonder what time breakfast is?”
Ellen washed slowly, glancing at her reflection in the glass from time to time, surprised that she did not look more surprised. She felt reluctant to soap herself where Mark had kissed and touched her.
When she went out, he was at the window again. He turned. “Wonder if Commander Parr’s on duty below decks – listening? Commander Parr” – it was a shout – “we haven’t your brochure up here. What time’s breakfast?”
“Hungry?” said Ellen.
“Aren’t you?”
“You did once intimate that we’d have breakfast together when we both had the same appetite.”
He laughed, grimaced at the microphone, and gripped her shoulders, speechless yet as voluble as he had been last night.
By the middle of the morning there had still been no sound of life from the lower quarters of the house. Mark kissed her and wrapped his arms round her; they murmured nonsense to each other and found that it made exquisite sense; but the bars on the window cast a grim, slanting shadow on the floor, and the birdsong in the trees outside sounded far, far away.
Ellen lay on the rumpled bed.
They couldn’t have gone off for good, leaving their two prisoners to die of starvation. They couldn’t, could they?
And if they were coming back this evening, then what?
Mark began to pace up and down. After a while he turned aggressively towards the microphone.
“Commander Parr. Are you listening?”
The room was growing warmer. It must be the heat of the sun on the roof immediately above them.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Mark challenged. “Do you really know? The sort of men you’re dealing with – you can’t really believe they’ll play straight, can you? Exploiters with that much money behind them get pretty rough when it’s time to pull out. Promises don’t count for much. You’ve served their purpose, they’ll ditch you. You’re too gullible, Commander. Too naive. Do you hear me?” It was frighteningly like one side of a schoolboy slanging match. “And how do you know what their secret research will be used for? Have they told you? A South African and a Rhodesian – what could they be up to, given the opportunity? A lot of the Afrikaaners were pro-Nazi, remember. For a long time. And a lot of them still are, only more so. After all your big talk, Commander, are those the sort of people you’re allying yourself with? Men who will literally undermine this country and others. Do you think a di
scovery like this is going to stay on a purely commercial basis? Pollute the soil, undermine cities...it’s possible, isn’t it? You know better than I do what the experiments in that mine have turned up. Am I right, then? Do you hear me, Commander?” The microphone might be a deaf ear this morning. “If you’ve got any sense,” yelled Mark, “you’ll come and let us out now. Right now.”
Ellen wondered if Fiona was still in the building. They had heard her car last night, but there was no assurance that she had left. Perhaps Fiona was sitting beside the little loudspeaker, getting a great big giggle out of it.
Ellen found herself, without conscious volition, advancing on the microphone. She heard herself say: “It doesn’t fit, David. Not with all that big talk of yours. What about all that family tradition, and your sense of honour, and the things that kept you bashing on no matter what? How does that fit in with your new friends? Proud of them? Proud of yourself? Look at them – cheating on the Foundation that paid them, cheating on the people who gave them jobs in this country, cheating...Is the new paint so important? Or are you saving up for a new boat by next year?”
“Leave it,” said Mark wearily. “We’re wasting our breath.”
But they went on talking together, speculating, letting each sentence turn sour and contemptuous whenever it had the potential. Let David Parr eavesdrop. Let him – please, please let him, prayed Ellen – be goaded into something, no matter what. Anything to break the lull and give them a chance of getting at him, getting out of here.
Again she thought of kids lobbing insults over a wall or down an alley. A blind alley, though, with nobody at the end to answer; a blank wall that did not even return an echo. No one came pounding up in a fury. Either the baby alarm had been switched off and all their provocations were being wasted, or there was only David and he didn’t dare to come up on his own.
Or they had all cleared out, leaving Ellen and Mark to starve.
Shortly after noon Mark, who had been fruitlessly examining the window again, went very still. He stared at the door, his arms loose yet alert at his side. Ellen thought she heard the faint rustle of feet. She had a terrifying presentiment that if David came through that door, Mark would strangle him.