“Thought I’d like to know.” He mimicked the educated accent. He shouldn’t have had to be called. Not this way. Not when the dirt had taken the woman, for now when they called it couldn’t be good, not from his point of view. Jesus, it had been . . . his mind searched for a word without success. Shock? Outrage? Neither fitted. There had been surprise, shock, rage, frustration, admiration, fear . . . yes, fear. He had tried to bury it but finally he had to face it. He was afraid because what had happened showed there was a mind in the house at least as ruthless as his own; what he was afraid of was that it might be sharper. For the first time he felt tired, a wave of exhaustion seemed to sweep over him and he slumped in the seat. Rich, staring in through the open door, thought he suddenly looked an old man.
“Well?” Bulloch said harshly.
“D’you want me to go?”
“Yes. Yes. You go.” Rich was surprised. “Find out what he wants.”
Rich turned and walked towards the house. He had seen Bulloch do it several times during the past few hours and often enough during the siege in Sutherland Street, but he had never done it himself. It was territory which Bulloch jealously guarded. Now he found himself alone in the centre of the stage, aware of the dozens of eyes behind him which belonged to other policemen, to newspaper, TV and radio reporters. He was aware, too, of what those same reporters must have been writing and recording in the past few minutes: that the police had allowed the kidnappers to take a second hostage. On the face of it, it sounded criminally negligent, yet what could they have done? They knew the snake was deadly, and the woman was said to be dying. It was not often Rich felt sorry for Bulloch but he did so now.
“Can you hear me?” Rich called, and heard the quiver in his voice. He stood on the pavement where Bulloch had stood.
“Yes, I can hear you. Where is your chef, where is M Bulloch?”
“Back there.”
“Fetch him, please.”
“You can talk to me.” He tried to make his voice sound firm but instead it sounded as though he were asking a favour.
“I do not wish to talk to you.”
“He’s having a little nap.”
“Nap? What is that?”
“A sleep. He’s a bit tired so he’s having a little sleep.” It was the best he could do and he hoped it was what Bulloch would have wanted him to say. Contempt was something Bulloch liked to give; not to receive.
There was a pause. When Jacmel spoke again his voice was angry. “I will throw something from the window. You show it to your chef. It will wake him up. Tell him every half-hour another, until the money comes and the car.”
Something shiny flickered against the dark exterior of the house and fell within ten feet of Rich. He flinched backwards in the dark, thinking it might explode.
Jacmel’s voice came again. “It is not a bomb. Do not be afraid.”
He took half a step towards the object then stopped. He crouched down on his hams and looked carefully. It seemed like a silver box of some sort. It had fallen and rolled on its side and the force of the fall had half-opened it and something white was visible. He moved slowly towards it. Silver. A cigarette box. He had nothing with him except a bail-point pen and he took this out and gingerly touched the box. It toppled sideways and closed. Couldn’t be a bomb, he told himself. You don’t chuck bombs about from first floor windows if you don’t want them to go off. He picked it up and walked slowly back to the car.
“What is it?” Bulloch said. He was sitting at the door and the roof light of the Rover was on.
“Cigarette box.”
“Let’s have a look.”
“I thought I’d let forensic have a go before we opened it.”
“D’you think it’s a bomb?”
“It crossed my mind.”
“Don’t be bloody silly. What’s the prize for blowing up policemen?”
Bulloch took the box, weighing it in his palm. Rich said, “He told me to tell you we’d better have the cash and the car in a hurry or you’d get another every half-hour.”
“What’d he mean? Another box?”
“I think there’s a note inside. I saw something white.” Bulloch wanted to know what was inside the box yet something held him back, something veiled, half-hidden from him, like a nightmare barely recalled.
He felt Rich’s eyes on him. “Let me give it to forensic, sir.”
“Don’t bloody . . .” He was going to say “patronize” but he checked himself. It was too self-revealing. His mind went back to the time Rich had stayed with him. During the following days, before he had returned to the office, he had been tempted to telephone Rich several times; he had never felt as lonely in his life. But he hadn’t, couldn’t; it would have shown a weakness no one had ever seen. So he had erased it, pretended it had never happened, but ever since then he had watched Rich like a hawk; one single wrong step; one flicker of an eyelid; one half-smile; anything that let Bulloch know that Rich remembered and that he knew that Bulloch remembered, and Bulloch would have come down on him like a mountain of slurry and buried him and his career; finished him. So far Rich had trodden lightly as a fire-walker and even now as Bulloch searched his face in the dim light of the car he concluded that he had not meant to patronize him, that Rich was as apprehensive as he was himself.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s bloody open it, stand back.” He pushed up the lid and looked at the small parcel in the dirty white handkerchief. He prodded it. It felt like some sort of tube. Hard but with a slightly soft exterior. A marking pen, perhaps, made of soft plastic. No wires, no ticking, no visible parts of a bomb, nothing to give any hint that it would blow up. It couldn’t be a bomb. A bomb wouldn’t be logical. Couldn’t be one, not if he’d thrown it down. What the hell was it, then?
He lifted out the small white parcel. There was a brownish mark at one end. He sniffed it. There was a faint smell but it was masked by the smell of the handkerchief and he couldn’t pin it down. He unrolled the handkerchief and stared down at what had been wrapped inside. “Oh, Jesus,” he said, feeling the bile come up into his throat. “Oh, Christ.” He was looking down at the fourth finger of a woman’s hand.
Rich stared at it numbly, too shocked to put form to the thoughts that suddenly surged through his head. It was left to Glaister to do that for them. He had come up to the car just as Bulloch unwrapped the bundle and now, as he saw the etiolated finger with the ragged skin at the knuckle joint where it had been severed, he said, “Oh shit, it’s the doctor’s.”
For one of the few moments in his life Bulloch felt disgusted, and he was not a man to whom disgust came naturally. The years of childhood and later the years in the police had choked any such embryo feelings, indeed he would have construed them now as weaknesses, and at any other time might have rounded on Glaister for allowing his emotions to come to the surface. Instead he felt the sweat break out on his face and neck. They weren’t playing games, that was clear. He wrapped the finger, with its pathetic ring still clinging to the lower segment, in the dirty handkerchief. His mind was trying to form a picture of what might have happened; and the brutality of the scene caused him uncharacteristically to cringe; hazily, before he managed to switch his thoughts to his own role, he saw the softly-rounded body of Dr Stowe, a gag plunged into her mouth, hands holding her arm, the blood spurting from the severed finger; what did they do then? Bandage it? He forced the thoughts away; and like some wonderful release, the anger came again. He could feel it build up inside him from its tiny pilot light that was never allowed to die. The anger brought agitation, the agitation energy. He looked up sharply at Glaister. “Got anyone there from forensic?” he said, jerking his thumb backwards to indicate the mobile control room.
“Leask, sir. From lab liaison.”
“Let him have a look at it before he takes it to Lambeth. He may be able to tell us something.” Glaister took the bundle gingerly. “And get Blanchet’s London man on the phone, I want to talk to him.”
“That’s why I came
across, sir. We’ve just been on to him. You were right. Both names on the company books. Maid’s name is . . .” He flicked over a page of the notebook he was holding, “. . . Tillion. Louise Tillion. Came over–”
“Never mind when she came over. What about the chauffeur?”
“David Arthur Jeram, sir.”
“Any form?”
“C.R.O. are ringing back.”
“All right. Get the maid’s particulars to Paris and find out who the hell she is.”
“We’ve already done it.”
Bulloch said, “Sometimes I have hope for you, Glaister.” It was the nearest thing to a compliment he was ever likely to utter and it had the effect of breaking the tension.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Get cracking.”
After Glaister had disappeared through the police cordon and past the waiting media people in the direction of the mobile control room, Rich waited for Bulloch to say what he had thought he was going to say earlier, what he had to say. Instead Bulloch got out of the car and said, “Any more coffee, Rich?”
Rich shook his head. “It’s finished.” Where the word “Sir” should have come there was only a vacuum that hung in the air between them and Bulloch was not the man to miss it. He knew what was bothering Rich and he knew he’d have to do something about it soon. No, not soon. Now. But he couldn’t bring himself to. It was as though there was some psychological block in his make-up that wouldn’t allow it.
Instead he said to Rich, “Get on to London Zoo. Dr Stowe mentioned someone there called Beale. He’s supposed to be the expert on snakes and poisons. Get him here.”
“Sir–”
“And Rich, there’s something else. Get me a traffic policeman’s uniform. Leggings. Goggles, helmet. The lot. Understand?”
“Sir, there’s–”
“Get moving, Rich.”
“You’ve got to get the money!”
“By Christ, you little sod, don’t you think I know my own business!” Bulloch went up like a volcano. “Where the hell do you get off telling me what to do?” And then, because his words had carried to the waiting newsmen, who had fallen silent to listen, he dropped his voice and said, “You do as I said.”
Rich stood his ground. “They’ll kill her, sir. They’re not fooling.”
“D’you think I haven’t considered that? D’you think I’d bloody leave her there? You forget there’s a boy in there, too.”
“I hadn’t forgotten, sir.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, sir.” He turned to go. Bulloch said, “And Rich, get someone to draw a revolver from Gerald Road and book it out to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bulloch watched him go, felt in his pockets for cigarettes and found none. He didn’t know where Rich kept them and savagely pushed his way through the waiting reporters towards the mobile control room oblivious of their questions and of the microphones thrust in his face.
The mobile control room was a dark blue caravan divided into small cubicle offices used for on-the-spot interrogations. It had its own switchboard with a line direct to the incident room which had been set up at Gerald Road. It was a clutter of paper and banging typewriters, of ringing telephones and radio static. Two detectives were watching closed circuit TV screens which showed the back and front of the house. It even had a lavatory. As he entered Bulloch saw Rich at the radio and heard the call go out: “Any motor cycle unit in the vicinity of Eaton Square please acknowledge.” Then Glaister was handing Bulloch a telephone.
“What’s his name?” Bulloch said, taking the receiver. “Blanchet’s office manager? Gent called Prothero, sir.” Bulloch sat down at one of the small tables. This was the part he hated, the time of the first defeat; the time to ask for the money. “Hello,” he said. “Detective Chief Superintendent Bulloch here.”
* * *
A silence had fallen over the house. No one had spoken for some time. It was as though they had been forgotten, Marion thought. Not very long ago she had been out there in the misty cold night with the sounds of traffic and trains, voices, footsteps, telephones, all the night noises that rumble deep down in the throat of a great city. Here there was nothing but the dust settling in the still room. Dave and Jacmel stood at the windows like frozen figures. Howard seemed to have nothing left to communicate. The boy slept, feverish, sick, breathing badly. When would the drug wear off, she wondered? When would they be faced with a crisis that no one could solve without medical help? When would the men make a move? When would the police charge in through the door at the rear? When would the snake show itself? When . . .?
“Look!” It was Dave’s voice, cracking like a whip in the stillness of the room. “They’re bringing the fucking car back!” Jacmel had seen it even before Dave. The yellow Cortina nosed its way through the barrier at the end of the cul-de-sac and came purring quietly down towards the house. It stopped. A policeman in uniform got out, closed the door, held up the keys so that the watchers in the house could see them, and placed them on the car roof. Then he walked quickly back to the far end of the street.
“We did it!” Dave said, his voice filled with relief and jubilation. “We bloody did it, mate. They fell for it. You’re a bloody genius!”
“He comes, too,” Jacmel said, unresponsive.
Bulloch’s massive hunched figure was coming through the mist. They watched while he reached the front of the house and took up his position on the pavement. “Can you hear me?” he called.
For the first time Jacmel allowed himself the faintest of smiles. He opened the window a foot or two. “Yes, I can hear you.”
“The money’s on its way.” Dave gave a thumbs-up to Jacmel who inclined his head slightly. “Did you hear that?” Bulloch called.
“We heard.”
“So there’s no need to hurt Dr Stowe again. Do you understand that?”
“Small notes. A mixture. Swiss francs. Pound notes. Old ones. None bigger than five. German marks. A mixture.”
“We’re working on it.”
Howard couldn’t see Bulloch but he could hear him, and his ears, now finely attuned to the war game these two were playing, could recognize the firmness in Jacmel and the lack of it in Bulloch. Their roles were completely reversed. He allowed his head to lie back on the sofa and he closed his eyes. At once he saw the huge sprawling complex of Shakespeare Close, with the river on the far side. They might take him with them, of course. There was just a chance. Or they might not. The point was they had the boy–and the woman now–and he didn’t have much value. But would they want to kill him? The answer to that was why not? They had killed a policeman. Another murder couldn’t make it worse for them.
“Did you hear?” Marion whispered and he could feel her breath on his cheek. “They’re bringing the money.” Again his ears could pick up waves of emotion: this time of relief and happiness. He felt her hand on his arm again and he looked down at it, seeing the soft white skin, the well-kept nails, the few freckles, the faint bloom of hair. He wanted to take the hand and put it against his mouth and his eyes and his tongue; wanted the tenderness that seemed to lie in the fingers, wanted to hold it on his lap as he had held the hands of girls in the cinemas of his youth. For so long there had been no softness in his life and now, as he yearned for it, he knew it was too late.
“Yes,” he said and put his hand on hers. “I heard. We’ll be all right soon.”
There was something in the tone of his voice that caused her to look quickly at him.
He tried to smile reassuringly. “We’ll be all right. You’ll see.”
But she turned away and some of the happiness had gone and there was a frown between her eyes.
* * *
Ruth Blanchet stood in the arrival section of London Airport’s Terminal 2 and watched the luggage go round and round on the carousel. “That’s mine,” she said to the porter, pointing to her expensive hide case. “The dark brown one. And that.” A smaller matching case hove in
sight. The porter picked them up and placed them on a luggage trolley.
“Red or green, love?”
“I haven’t been anywhere,” Ruth said bitterly, “so I’ve nothing to declare.” He looked at her oddly, shrugged, and led the way to the green exit where a customs official waved them through.
“Going to London?”
“Yes.”
“The bus is this way.”
“Get me a taxi, will you?”
“Cost you a packet, love, and the bus is just as quick.”
“A taxi, please. But first I want to make a phone call.”
“I’ll have it waiting.” He pointed. “Over there, to the right of the doors.”
She saw a line of pay phones and walked towards them, fumbling in her purse for the coins. She was tired and exasperated and angry. Each phone was being used. Well, that figured. In a way she would have been surprised if they weren’t. Nothing had gone right since she had left home; why should things start now? She stood there jangling the coins in her free hand, staring at an elderly woman who was feeding the phone with tenpenny pieces and seemed to be renewing an old acquaintanceship. She finally became uneasy under Ruth’s stare and turned away, but she still fed the coins into the slot.
Ruth’s feet in a pair of new crocodile shoes had begun to ache before she left London; now, with the long walks, first at Le Bourget and then back at London Airport, they were tender and sore. She had had a terrible day.
At first things had seemed to be going well. She had got a window seat on the London-Vienna flight and had allowed her fears for Philip to be eased away by the cosseting she received as a first-class passenger. After take-off she had ordered champagne. She realized it was the time of day when she would normally be having a cup of tea, but she didn’t care. Champagne, the hostess had suggested, and champagne she had ordered. Sipping it, she felt herself slowly unwind. After the second glass she began to tell herself that what she was doing was a good thing for both herself and for Philip. Dick Howard could be right after all, perhaps she did mother the boy too much, perhaps it was nothing more than a weak chest. Gradually, as the plane took her farther and farther from London, her thoughts moved with it, switching from the recent past to the immediate future. How long was it since she and Michel had been to bed together, a month, six weeks? Would he want her now, as soon as she arrived, or would they have dinner first, or now and again later? Would he have dinner sent up to the room? She had a momentary vision of herself in a filmy negligee in a huge rococo suite, champagne in an ice-bucket, caviare in a chilled dish, thin fingers of toast, warm, balmy air, a balcony, all Vienna laid out before her; and Michel coming out to her, encircling her, touching her breasts. But Michel was not a great romantic. He always folded his clothes before going to bed–legacy of a thousand nights in a thousand of his hotel rooms– and then he brushed his teeth and gargled with Listerine which made his kisses taste medicinal. And then he went to the lavatory–always–so that it had become an almost Pavlovian situation: the flushing of a cistern and there he was. Shazam!
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