Woollie knew as well. He had been leaning sideways off the stool to observe her, but subsided against the door, letting Ian glimpse the movements of the hand in the man's lap, a regular movement that kept pace with his song. The notion of what he might be doing now that he was unaware of being watched came close to making Ian laugh, although there would have been no humour in it. Instead he widened the slit between his eyelids.
The album was spread open, and Woollie was running his fingers over and over a photograph as he might have stroked a child's head. It wasn't just this spectacle that horrified Ian—it was the recognition that his own hand on Charlotte's neck was following the rhythm of the lullaby. He felt implicated with their captor. He ran his hand down to the small of Charlotte's back and rested it there and closed his eyes to keep out the sight of the fingers caressing the dead picture. As long as the man kept repeating the song Ian would know where he was.
The lullaby blurred into little more than a monotonous sound. When Charlotte snuggled against him, the rise and fall of her chest was unexpectedly calming. He stroked her upper back to keep her breaths steady, then remembered he shouldn't be taking his pace from the lullaby but carried on stroking until he had to be reminded to continue by the song he'd grown unaware of hearing. If he breathed in time with Charlotte that would show him exactly how fast to rub her back, which he thought he was still doing somewhere in the distance near the song. Much further away a phone was ringing, but it seemed to have nothing to do with him, not while he felt as safe in her arms as she was in his, at the end of some old story he used to know. His breathing settled into her slow placid rhythm, and then he couldn't hear the song or the phone or feel his hand or any other part of himself.
FORTY-EIGHT
"Are you asleep, love?"
"She isn't really."
"He isn't either."
"Never mind trying to have a laugh with me. We haven't got time for that now."
"He's not."
"Nor's she."
"Trying another of your games, are you? Having one more go at confusing me?"
"You won't know he has till he's done it."
"Nor her, 'cos she's as sly as me."
"Only because you're making her like you," Hector snarled, lurching off the stool that was wedged between the half-open door and its frame. For a second, perhaps quite a few of them, he couldn't shake off the conviction that he had indeed heard the children talking—if not their actual voices, at least their thoughts—and he didn't know what he was about to do with the knife that had found its way into his hand. Just in time he recognised that he'd been voicing his suspicions of the children: as yet he hadn't any evidence that they were pretending to be asleep. He mustn't let himself be rushed into causing any unnecessary upset or mess, not when he was so close to summoning John's help. Though his legs felt as brittle with insomnia as the rest of him, he managed not to make a noise as he approached the bed. Flattening his free hand against the wall above the headboard, he leaned down to peer at the dim faces that were turned to each other on the pillows.
They might be asleep. When he aimed a long slow hot breath at each of them, they didn't stir. He lowered the blade toward the boy's face and twisted the point no more than half an inch from the entrance to the ear. That failed to provoke a response, although surely the girl would have been unable to restrain herself if she were able to see him apparently torturing her playmate. He repeated the trick on her ear with as little effect, then drew the duller edge of the knife across her throat and did so rather less gently to the boy. He watched the dark lines fade from both throats, then pushed himself away from the bed. A growl at the medley of aches the movement brought with it escaped through the gap where his teeth should have been, but the children didn't stir. For the moment they were thoroughly asleep, and he needn't waste time wondering if they were about to have another try at tricking him.
They thought they'd persuaded him that the boy had been imitating a horse. If they believed he'd been too quick for Hector to have seen him reaching for the knife they must be desperate, which meant they were dangerous. That was how the boy was affecting his playmate, him being too old and too spoiled by his life to value the peace she deserved—too narrowed by his own self-centred adolescence to let her enjoy a stillness he couldn't understand. Soon Hector was going to have to deal with him, but first he had to phone John. He eased the door wider and propped it with the stool and padded softly out of the room.
He'd spent hours listening for sounds of the boy's mother. He'd heard her come home just in time to answer the phone as the boy had followed his playmate to sleep. Her voice had been barely audible enough for him to tell she was having a long conversation, undoubtedly about her son. Once it was over he'd heard so little for so long that he'd begun to wonder if she could have sneaked out of the house, but the night that had darkened the room before it was dark outside had emphasised sounds her house wasn't quite able to contain. At last he'd succeeded in hearing her slow ascent of the stairs and a selection of bathroom noises followed by three muffled clicks, the latter pair in the same location toward the front of the house—her bedroom light being switched on and eventually, no doubt reluctantly, off. Since then he'd waited until the children had begun speaking in his head, unless he'd been speaking aloud on their behalf, and surely that was more than long enough for her to have fallen asleep. He slid the knife into his pocket and placed one foot on the dimmest of the stairs, and heard a stealthy movement in the room behind him.
"I hear you, son," he muttered. It occurred to him to put some kind of face around the door on the chance that the girl was awake too, but she never seemed to appreciate Hector's efforts to amuse her, and in any case he was tired of playing games. Instead he sidled noiselessly into the room.
His eyes had to adjust to the dimness again. Though they took only a couple of seconds, that was longer than he ought to have to wait. His gums clamped his tongue, his hand groped for the knife, which was ready in his grasp by the time he distinguished the figures on the bed. He thought they were pretending not to have moved until he saw that the boy's hand had slid off the girl's back and was lying on the quilt between them.
Perhaps he was indeed as asleep as he must want Hector to think, but he was less so than the girl, who hadn't shifted at all. He was the threat, not her. Things had started to go wrong once he'd intruded. If he wakened while Hector was on the phone, there was no telling what tricks he might play. Hector dodged around the bed and in one swift movement returned the knife to his pocket, sat on the boy's legs, gathered his wrists in one hand and used the other to press the boy's mouth shut, his thumb and fingers digging into the bony cheeks, as he turned the boy's head to face him.
The boy emitted a snore that in less fraught circumstances Hector would have made the basis of a joke, and his eyes stuttered open. In a wink they were as wide and protruding as they could go. "Keep very still, son," Hector said, gripping the wrists harder and leaning more of his weight on the legs as his captive's struggles began to shake the bed. "Wake your playmate and it's all over. Settle down or there'll be no coach."
At first the boy seemed not to understand. If he carried on struggling, Hector might as well finish him off. He would struggle just as much, but not for long. When all at once the boy went limp Hector grew hot with frustration. He could still rid himself of the trouble, he didn't need an excuse—but if the boy created too much trouble while he was being put to sleep for good he was bound to awaken the girl. "You and me are going down to the phone," Hector muttered instead. "Don't make a sound when I let go of your face."
The boy's lips moved under his palm as if they were preparing to cry out, and Hector only had to bring his thumb and forefinger together to pinch the boy's nose shut for as long as it took. He wouldn't have known what else to do if he hadn't remembered the knife. No sooner had he released the boy's mouth than he snatched out the knife and jabbed it at his captive's face, so fast that he managed to halt it scarcely a couple of inches short o
f the rapidly blinking right eye. "Just seeing you keep quiet," he murmured. "I'm going to get up off you now. Don't you move a muscle till you're told."
He freed the boy's wrists and planted his hand between the children, and waited. Even when Hector raised the knife an inch, then several, the boy's wrists stayed crossed on his chest. All the children Hector had brought peace had lain that way as he'd covered them up for the night, and he couldn't help feeling that the boy yearned for the same peace even if he didn't know he did. The impression was so powerful he had to remind himself that he was supposed to be phoning John. He lifted himself from the bed, and as Hector's weight left him the boy uttered a grunt of pain, but nothing more. "I'll let you have that," Hector whispered. "It's all the noise you're going to make. Worm yourself over here, slow as you like."
The boy took him at his word. He spent so long over inching himself down the bed that Hector began to suspect him of stalling. By the time the boy eased himself off the corner of the mattress Hector was having difficulty in keeping the knife to himself. "Quiet out of the room," he muttered, and saw the boy step over the board that would have creaked. Though it looked like obedience, it could be the start of some trick, and so Hector followed close enough to find the boy's face with the knife the instant there was any need. As the boy sidled past the stool, however, Hector thought of another way to deal with him. "Wait out there," he whispered, and groped under the stool.
He'd straightened up before the boy peered warily at him. Perhaps he suspected Hector of being about to harm the girl, which showed how little he knew about Hector. "Turn yourself round, son. Never mind looking at me," Hector said. "Let's have your hands behind your back. Let's see you cross your wrists since you're so good at it."
The boy didn't move except for clenching his fists at his sides. "What for?"
He'd spoken far too loud. For a moment Hector didn't know which hand he was about to use on him. He glanced back to see the girl hadn't been disturbed, then he poked at the air immediately in front of the boy's face with the knife in his left hand, holding the other and its contents out of sight behind the door. "Can't have you trying to run out of the house, can we?" he whispered. "Can't have you getting hold of the phone either. Your playmate doesn't want you spoiling things for her now, so better do as you're told."
"Come away from her, then."
"I will as soon as you turn round, that's a promise. Keep me waiting any longer and maybe she'll wake up and start making a fuss, and then I won't be able to call John, so you figure out for yourself what I'll have to do."
The trouble was that the threat made Hector feel threatened himself, less in control of the situation than he ought to be, in danger of having to finish things off because his plans weren't as complete as he should have ensured they were. The boy's eyes glinted in the dimness as if he realised some or all of this, and insomnia surged through Hector's hot raw grimy brittle skull, urging him to give up his efforts to think ahead, just to act and assuage his frustration. Then the boy's shoulders drooped, and his fists opened as he turned, crossing his wrists behind his back.
Hector was on him at once, using a fingernail to scratch the end of the insulating tape loose from the roll. In a second he'd wrapped it tight around the boy's wrists. He bound them again and a third time for luck before cutting the tape off the roll. "That's the way," he murmured, watching the fingers wriggle in the murk like undersea creatures eager for food. "No point struggling, that won't help your playmate. Don't struggle now either."
The boy's head swung toward him, just what Hector wanted. It was still turning when he stretched the tape across the mouth. The boy jerked his head away, which only stuck the tape to his right cheek. He tried to retreat, giving Hector space to dance around him thrice on tiptoe, unspooling the tape around the parcel of a head, over and over the mouth. "Done up properly now, aren't you?" he muttered, slashing at the end of the gag with the knife.
"No need to flinch. I've done what I'm doing for now. Careful as you go down. We don't want you breaking your neck."
Or did he? The boy would be able to make even less noise if that happened, and not much while it did—but there would have to be the sound of his fall, which was more than Hector needed to risk. Silencing the boy had revived Hector's ability to think. As he followed one step behind his captive, who swayed like a drunk as he lowered his weight onto each stair so gingerly it was comical, Hector's plan completed itself in his head. He restrained himself from laughing aloud, but he stretched his mouth wide in a grin that felt like a wound, nearly healed. He knew how to bring John to them without revealing their whereabouts, and once the call was finished he knew what the boy's fate would be.
FORTY-NINE
Just when Jack thought his mother had finally left him alone she reappeared in her pink dressing gown. "Let me make up the couch for you at least. You look as if you're never going to bed."
"Don't worry, I'll do it. You need your sleep."
"So do you, John. We've both got jobs that take a lot out of us." She tramped to the sofa, her footfalls and indeed her whole body expressing dissatisfaction, and yanked at the cushions until they unfolded into a segmented mattress. She stooped to lift the heap of bedclothes from beside the sofa and rose red-faced with sudden anger. "It's ridiculous, these people expecting you to wait up all hours till they get around to phoning. Who do they think they are? You're important too. More important, because you're the one that writes the books."
"You wouldn't expect publishers to see it that way."
"Then they should. You tell them your mother said so." She shook a pillow hard as if to make it see sense and flung it on the couch. "What time is it supposed to be where they are?"
"It's eight hours earlier in California."
"So they should be well back from their lunch even if it's on expenses, shouldn't they? What are they making you wait for?"
"I won't be the only—"
"They won't have many writers over here, will they? They ought to deal with you first. I know," she declared, and let go of the sheet he was helping her to spread. "Why don't you call them?"
Jack was well into wishing he hadn't told her the story, but it had been the only explanation he could invent for staying up. "It isn't done," he had to tell her now.
"Who says so?"
"You don't ever pester a publisher. It can turn them right off you and your work. And it makes you look desperate, so you can't negotiate when they come up with an offer."
"That isn't pestering, ringing them so you can get to bed. You tell them your mother's seen how not sleeping can affect people. You say she knows what she's talking about because she has to look after people with that kind of problem."
Jack took the quilt from her and flapped it across the sheeted mattress. Now he wasn't only worried that his father might call before she was out of earshot, he was afraid how much more dangerous his father might have grown for lack of sleep. "I don't think that's going to help," he said.
"Well, I'm sure I'm not qualified to advise you about your business. I'm just your mother." She pulled the quilt straight and stalked out of the room. She had one foot in the hallway when she glanced forgivingly at him. "Shall I make you a bedtime drink?"
"I never use them, thanks."
"You did when you were little."
"Yeah, well, I grew up. I know more about myself."
To his dismay, she turned back to him, looking no more persuaded by his claim than he was. "I don't like to think of you sitting up all by yourself," she said. "I won't be able to sleep."
"Sure you will."
"You may know a lot, John, but there are things you don't know about me." She paused long enough for him to grow nervous of what revelation she might have decided to share with him at last, and of how she could hardly have chosen a worse time for it, before she said "Most likely you've forgotten, but there was one night when you were twelve and the trains were stopped so you were hours late home from going to the West End for some silly thing or other
, and even after you got in I didn't sleep a wink all night."
"Why, what did you figure I'd been doing?"
"Just what you said you had. You never gave me any reason to doubt anything you said." That felt to Jack uncomfortably like an accusation, especially when she paused before saying "It was what could have been done to you I was afraid of."
"Well, you don't have to worry any more," he said, his thoughts chasing one another around the dark hollow inside his skull as he tried to find a way to bring the conversation to an end. "I can handle myself."
"I'll have to keep remembering that then, won't I?" The look she sent him was as heavy as her words. It might have been her silence that was weighing her down, trapping her in the doorway, and he was searching desperately for another parting shot when she shook her head. "Good night," she sighed and turned away slowly, letting him see a few more dissatisfied headshakes. He heard her plod to her bedroom and close the door, and the creak of her bed, and the sound of a cord snapping the light off. "Good night," he called, but there was no response.
He mustn't assume she was unable to hear. He hurried to the door and shut it as fast as he could without making a noise, then he sat by the phone. He was reaching for the remote control, to put the television news on low, when the phone rang.
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