In a few rough words, the kind of words Krista had heard but never used herself, Katie made it clear what they wanted of her. Krista was horrified when she took in their meaning. They left her in no doubt but that they would go to any lengths to make her act as a decoy to this foreigner.
“All you’ve got to do is be nice to him. What’s the harm in that?” Leo insisted.
“But why?” she asked, stammering with fear. “Why? Why can’t Katie do it?” She knew that this was something Katie could do much better than herself.
“Because Katie’s got to go and warn Hank,” replied Leo firmly.
“Hank’s in danger,” said Katie. “This man you’re going to meet tonight has something on Hank. Unless you manage to detain him in the restaurant he’ll give information to the police.”
Krista had caught their interchange of glances. Were they lying? They had got her here by a trick. Katie wasn’t ill, never had been. She didn’t know what to believe, but she sensed that whatever the reason they wanted the tourist decoyed, it was for a dishonest purpose.
“No, no. I don’t like it. It’s wrong. What’s Hank done? Why should the police want him?”
“So you won’t help Hank?”
“Not in this way.” said Krista firmly.
“All right then, you silly little fool; we’ll just have to make you. This is no joking matter.” She turned to Leo. “What’s the use of waiting? It’s after seven now. We must get there by eight or some other woman will get hold of him.”
Katie’s words convinced Krista that they were lying. It was all a trick. She remembered Robert’s anxiety. How he’d kept on asking her to come straight home. She moved back towards the door again, but Leo caught her by the arm.
“Will you do as we want?” repeated Katie. “It’s to help Hank.”
“No,” said Krista with a firmness that she didn’t feel. “Let me go, please.” She set her lips together and tried to twist out of Leo’s grasp.
“I’m sorry,” he said regretfully, just as he had done with Leila, “but it’s entirely your own fault. You’ll have to be coaxed. Can’t I persuade you to change your mind? You’re so very pretty.”
“Get on with it. Take her arms,” snapped Katie to Eddie. “What are you waiting for?”
Leo was torn with conflicting emotions as he gripped Krista’s soft arm. The dress she was wearing had short sleeves, her thin arms looked pathetically childish as the two lads each gripped one. Katie sat down in the chair in which she had been sitting when Krista had first entered the room. She lit a cigarette. Then she looked at Krista’s frightened face. “Twist!” she shouted brutally. The arms were wrenched violently backwards.
Krista went very white, and tiny beads of sweat ran down her forehead. She set her lips more tightly. Her face was rigid. After a moment her torturers relaxed their agonizing hold, but not their hands from her arms.
“Look,” coaxed Leo; “we hate to do this. Remember Leila and her injured arm? She got it because she was as obstinate as you are being. I hope you’re going to be more sensible. It would be such a pity to break this little white arm.” His voice was soft, almost a caress, he had modelled himself on a film gangster whom he admired. Krista shrank back. She knew about Leila. Moe hadn’t believed that story about her having fallen from a motor cycle.
“I won’t do it. I can’t. It’s something wrong you are doing. You can break both my arms, but I still won’t,” she said bravely.
“Twist,” said Katie sharply. “Give her some more.”
Eddie had seized Krista’s arm again. “Wait,” cried Leo suddenly. He had seen the same determination in this frail slip of a girl as there had been in Leila. He admired it. And this girl. She was a peach! Lovely, fragile, something he longed to break yet wanted to enjoy first. He wouldn’t have her marked. He was damned if he would. There were other tactics.
“Katie,” he said smoothly, “you’d better be going. You must go and do something about Hank. There’s not much time.” He looked at Krista.
“Hank? What is it he’s done?” she asked faintly.
“Only murder,” said Leo soothingly. He didn’t like the livid bruises coming up already on the girl’s arms. Her skin was the fair kind which marked immediately. They would look very noticeable in a restaurant. He asked her if she had a coat. But Krista was beyond answering. Her head had begun swimming alarmingly, the whole room was revolving. She staggered as they released her, then swayed uncertainly.
“Now the little fool’s going to faint,” snapped Katie contemptuously. “Get her some water, Eddie.”
Leo fetched the water. Krista drank some. Her arms were so painful that he had to hold the glass to her lips. She sank down in the chair he offered her. She looked terrible. He didn’t like it. “Look,” he said coaxingly, running a hand down her limp arm, “I hate to do this. You want to help Hank, don’t you? Hank is wanted for murder, and if you detain this man you’ll be helping Hank. Now, then, won’t you do what we want?”
But Krista could not answer. Her mind was upside down. Was this really true? Was Hank really a murderer? She could not believe it. Her horror was so great that the ability to speak was leaving her. Her mouth was dry, in spite of the water Eddie had given her. Her head ached. The motor cycle had made her feel sick, and now, shocked beyond endurance, she collapsed in a heap in the chair. Her arms were burning, agonizing members of her outraged body. With difficulty she raised one to her face and broke into heartbroken sobbing. It was Katie’s behaviour far more than the boys’ which had so appalled her. She had recognized in her face such unconcealed hatred that she was terrified.
Leo brought her some more water. “Let’s try some schnapps, Leo,” suggested Eddie, “and you rub her arms, Katie. She’s going to look fine in the restaurant with those marks on them.”
But at Katie’s approach Krista shrank back so wildly that Leo pushed her away. “We’ll have to get going,” he said curtly. “The storm’ll break any moment now. We must get her there while he’s still on that terrace. You’d better go ahead, Eddie. You’re on duty, aren’t you?”
“There’s plenty of time,” said Eddie, “I’m not on duty till eight. It’s all arranged. I told you so.”
“See to her face,” ordered Leo to Katie. Katie opened a powder compact and thrust it into Krista’s hand. “Powder your face,” she said brutally, “and comb your hair. You’ve got to attract a man. Think of that, little innocent, a man!”
Leo began to give Krista her orders in a low careful voice. “You can’t go wrong if you watch Eddie. He’s the waiter there. He’ll give us the signal and then you just walk in and join the man at his table. All you’ve got to do is to smile . . . and damn well smile. I’ll be watching you, so will Eddie. Just let him paw you a bit. He’ll be pretty well sozzled by the time he comes so he won’t expect you to talk much. Don’t let him paw you too much. I’m reserving that for myself . . .” He laughed in a possessive way and put his hand on Krista’s white face. “Don’t be frightened,” he said laughing.
But Krista was slowly gathering her strength again. This could not happen. It could not! The Blessed Virgin would surely save her. She began to pray urgently and determinedly.
“Ready?” asked Eddie, looking at Krista’s now thickly powdered face. Katie kept on telling her to use more.
“Some lipstick?” suggested Leo, looking appraisingly at the curve of Krista’s immature mouth. Katie drew a scarlet line across her lips and held up a mirror for Krista to see the effect.
“Too much,” commented Leo. “He likes them innocent-looking.”
Krista wiped the stuff off with shaking hands. Tears kept dripping down the thick powder on her cheeks and forming little channels.
“Oh, stop slobbering,” snapped Katie impatiently. “You look hideous. No man will look twice at you except to laugh.”
Krista stood up. Her legs felt like jelly. Her head was bursting; like her legs, it didn’t seem to be attached to the rest of her body. The thunder crashing on t
he still air was ignored by the others. It added to her terror. “Oh, Holy Mother, give me strength,” she breathed.
“Come along, my dear,” said Leo softly. He put an arm caressingly round her shoulders. Katie’s sharp eyes took this in, but she made no comment.
“I’m not coming with you. I won’t!” said Krista quietly. She gripped the back of the chair and clung to it with all her remaining strength.
“Why, you wretched little idiot!” cried Katie. “I told you she’d be useless, Leo. I said she’d only make a mess of it.” She advanced menacingly towards Krista, who shrank from her. “This is your last chance!” she shouted. “Are you coming? Or do we have to carry you?”
Leo held up his hand. “Listen,” he whispered. “Listen.” There was the sound of a motor cycle stopping outside, then hurried steps to the door, followed by a loud insistent knocking. Leo switched out the light and threw open the window. Hank was below. “Have you got Krista there?” he shouted. “They’re looking for her at home. They telephoned the factory.”
“Damn! Damn!” swore Leo. He threw the key of the door out of the window. “Come on up—and don’t make such a noise,” he called angrily.
They sat in darkness. Krista felt a hard hand on her shoulder. “Keep quiet. Remember,” breathed Katie.
Hank came in noisily. “Why in the dark?” he began, switching on the light. Then he caught sight of Krista. In one rapid glance he took in the livid marks on her bare arms, the shocked rigid tear-stained face and her relief at his advent. “Why, you double-crossing beasts, you liars!” he shouted to Leo and Katie. “You promised me you wouldn’t use her.” He flung himself upon Leo in a fury. Katie switched out the light again. Through the windows the sudden streaks of lightning across the river lit up the room as the two lads grappled. Leo, taken unawares by Hank’s violent attack, lost his balance and crashed backwards. Eddie rushed at Hank with a spanner which he had pulled from his pocket. Hank caught him and threw him across a chair as easily as if he had been a cushion. His strength, always prodigious, was increased by fury. Krista, terrified, cowered down behind a chair in the corner as Hank advanced again at Leo who had now regained his balance. She screamed as she saw the Luger in Leo’s hand.
“Take care, Hank, he’s got a gun!” she cried warningly, before Katie’s hands came down over her mouth. But the sight of the gun had brought uppermost in Krista all her instincts for self-preservation. She began to kick and struggle violently. Katie never dreamed that she had so much strength in her slight body. She forced Krista down again and held her on the floor. Eddie was picking himself up slowly. Hank stood ready for him. “Come any nearer and I’ll shoot,” screamed Leo, the gun pointed at Hank. “Take his arms, Eddie.” But a loud knocking at the front door startled them all. In their excitement they had not noticed the persistent ringing of the bell. The knocks were the kind which proclaim authority. Nobody moved. In the darkness they could hear each other breathing in short, jerky gasps.
“Open up! Open up!” came a stern voice from the street.
Hank moved cautiously to the window, backing away from Leo who still covered him with the gun. He took a rapid look down into the street. “Police,” he said briefly. There was such fear in the word that it reached them all. “Lots of them. We’ve been double-crossed!”
In that brief glance below at the group of police and the cars, he saw for himself the black bottomless pit. Who had given them away? Anna! The thought of his father doing so never entered his head. What a fool he’d been not to have shut her mouth for her. When he’d seen his father this morning not one word had been said, although he knew his mother would have pleaded for him. When he’d caught up with him as he hurried off to work and grasped his arm frantically, saying: “Have you thought of something Pa?” his father had said quietly, “Yes, I’ve settled it. I stayed up all night. Go off now. I’ll see you tonight. Don’t worry. It’s settled.” His father’s face had looked so strange. Old, tired and ravaged, but Hank hadn’t thought of anything of that. He heard only the calm confidence in his voice.
“Thanks, Pa, thanks,” he had said, and had put his hand timidly on his father’s arm. But Joseph had brushed it off. Then he had suddenly caught Hank roughly by the shoulders and said, “God help you, Hank. God help us all.”
When Hank had got home there was already an outcry going on because Krista hadn’t come back from work. She always told them if she was going to be late. Anna, suspicious and frightened for her safety, had telephoned the factory and was told that the door-keeper had seen Krista leave on the back of a motor cycle. Thoroughly alarmed now, Anna regretted that she hadn’t warned the girl. Somehow they had always taken it for granted that Krista should be protected and spared all possible unpleasantness. When Hank came in she attacked him at once. Where was Krista? She was anxious for her. Where was Katie? She hadn’t returned from the hospital, although visiting-hours ended at four. Moe was furious and apprehensive but couldn’t do much with an injured foot.
Hank’s immediate thought was that the others had outwitted him. Leo had left the works early, and Katie was also missing. Gutting short Anna’s accusations that he hadn’t kept his word to her, he dashed off on his motor cycle through the storm. He made straight for Eddie’s room. Anna had insisted that he tell her where he was going, and in a fury he had shouted out Eddie’s address as he went down the lane with Anna following him. As he rounded the bend to the level-crossing gates he saw an American car approaching. A flash of lightning lit up the face of Krista’s friend Paul. Hank did not stop. He was frightened for Krista. Arriving at Eddie’s place he saw the light in the window, the motor cycles parked outside, and rushing upstairs had found his fears justified.
Now he stood looking down at all those police. The thought crossed his mind, even in his terror, that Anna couldn’t have got on to them so quickly.
“Police!” breathed Katie now. Her face was ashen. Krista could feel her trembling violently. The knocking became more insistent. Suddenly Hank ran to the door, braving Leo’s gun. “There’s a yard behind which goes down to the river. There’s a wall right above the water. Let’s make a run for it. Come on.”
The knocking now was violent. “Open up. Open up, or we’ll smash the door!” shouted the same stern voice. Dragging the struggling Krista with her, Katie followed the lads in a wild rush down the stairs. Krista caught her foot and fell heavily to the bottom of the flight. Katie, who had saved herself from doing the same, hauled Krista roughly to her feet. “Come on, you little idiot. Come on, I tell you.” She shouted to the three boys to come and help her. Leo came resentfully back and helped drag the still resisting girl out through the kitchen to the garden.
“Lock the door after you. It’ll delay them,” cried Eddie. Already the heavy tramp of feet proclaimed that the front door had yielded and their pursuers were in the kitchen.
“Leave the girls,” shouted Leo to Hank, who had gone back to help Krista. She was now incapable of resisting them any more. Her breath came in great tearing gasps, her whole body one searing pain from the fall and from the arm-twisting. Her head had a shooting pain which almost blinded her. She did not care any more what happened to her. All she wanted was to fall down and lie still.
Katie released her suddenly and she collapsed in a limp heap on the patch of grass in the yard. Katie raced after the others frantically. “Don’t leave me! Beasts, beasts!” she screamed. “Wait for me.”
But Leo was already high up on the wall above the Rhine. Hank was trying to scale it, but he was heavier and not as agile as Leo. He caught violently at Leo’s foot. Leo, brandishing the Luger, shouted, “Let go or I’ll shoot. Let go!”
Kicking wildly at Hank’s face Leo freed his foot, and turning, faced them. Raising the gun high so that they could all see it, he stood on the wall outlined against the wild sky. “If anyone tries to stop me I’ll shoot,” he was screaming.
Hank was still trying frantically to get up on the wall. “Don’t shoot!” he cried. “I’m not tryin
g to stop you, give me a hand up!” He caught again at Leo’s foot. Leo, kicking viciously at his hands, took aim and deliberately shot again and again. Hank fell back with a terrible cry and collapsed at the foot of the wall. Krista, who had been watching, horrified, managed to stagger up, and in spite of the warning shouts from the police now swarming into the garden reached Hank.
The whole garden seemed filled with police. “Stop him! Stop him!” shouted the man directing them. But Leo, poised on the high wall, outlined dramatically against the stormy sky, began to shoot wildly at the advancing men. Before they were ordered to retaliate he had thrown up his arms high above his head, twirled round, and taken a magnificent headlong dive far out into the river below. They heard the splash as he hit the water. Eddie, at the other end of the wall, followed suit.
Krista sat there, dazed, with Hank’s head in her lap. She was frantic at the ever-widening pool of blood. She hadn’t believed what Katie and Leo had said about his being a murderer. To her he had always been gentle. She knew he was cruel, but not to her. He was the brother who had given his skin for grafting when she had been so terribly burned. The brother who had protected her at school; fought her battles for her. She held his head between her hands and sobbed.
“I’ve had it!” he said grimly. “The police have got me. Watch out for Leo and Katie. Katie hates you. She’s got it in for you.” He gave a sound which was half a choke, half a sigh, and closed his eyes.
But the mists of unconsciousness were closing over Krista too. The world was revolving in coloured patterns, just as it did before she went to sleep. A tremendous sense of peace was coming over her so that when amongst the colours she distinguished the face of Paul she was not in the least surprised. So she often saw him before she went to sleep. When she heard his voice anxiously questioning the large fat policeman whose face was also revolving round in the colours and she realized vaguely that he was actually there, she was not surprised. She had prayed to the Blessed Virgin to save her; and just as the twins and Robert had been sent that time when Leo had thrown himself on her in the woodland, so now the Blessed Virgin had sent Hank, and then Paul. It seemed quite natural somehow that it should be Paul who carried her to a seat when the police were attending to Hank. “I knew you would come. I knew you would come . . .” she kept repeating, shivering violently. Paul wrapped his coat round her but the shaking grew worse. He was alarmed, but the policeman re-assured him.
A House on the Rhine Page 30