It was the last part of her letter that had decided him. “Do you remember that night we burnt the vineyard?” she had written. “As though you could forget! When we drove there you told me how the rich Moslems from Algiers and Oran were offering you less and less for the vines.” He remembered, for the need to sell had by then been one of the central facts of his life and he had just realized what was happening to him. It had started nearly three months earlier and it had worked this way: an expensively dressed young Moslem had arrived in a new Mercedes and had offered him a sum which they both knew to be too low. He had refused and the young man had said insolently that the way things were going politically that sum would soon seem enormous. Three weeks later another Moslem had arrived, this time in a not-quite-new Citroen and offered him a lesser sum. This, too, he had refused. A month later a farmer in a dusty Renault had offered him a sum still smaller. Again he had refused, but this time with a feeling of panic. It was only by chance that he had told the story to another vineyard owner, also a member of the O.A.S. and found that he had experienced something so similar that it had to be a calculated psychological game which must already have yielded a goodly number of vineyards, farms and businesses. The subtlety lay in the first bid: it had to be low enough for the owner to refuse yet high enough to make him frightened when he saw how it was being eroded. Most farmers had sold on the third or fourth bids.
All this he had explained to Louise as they drove out to the vineyards that day. But now her letter told him something he had not known, which swung his mind towards her plan. Behind the Moslems, she had written, was a syndicate of French businessmen, hotel owners, land speculators, developers, who had callously waged a psychological war on the pieds noirs. It was their money which had bought the Mercedes cars and the expensive clothes and it was their money that paid for the cheaply-bought hectares. The head of the syndicate, she had found out recently, was Michel Blanchet, the man for whom she now worked. She told him this, she said, lest he had any qualms about what she was suggesting.
Deep down in Jacmel, in the very deepest and darkest area of his psyche, was the caul of knowledge with which all whites in Africa are born, the knowledge that one day they will be forced to leave, to give up what they have created and get out. The knowledge is a kind of built-in spectre that accompanies them to every feast. What made it tolerable was that even the most hardened pied noir could recognize a kind of justice. But what enraged Jacmel as he read Louise’s letter was the cynical arrangement of white businessmen. It was one thing for his vineyard to be turned over to a Moslem village co-operative; quite another that it should be owned by white speculators using Moslem front-men. If anything was needed to sway Jacmel it was this. Three days after receiving the letter he left for London on his first visit.
Now he was on his second and all the careful planning of the first visit had gone wrong. But he had grown used to that in Algiers during the final phase. He had become an expert at extempore action. The two situations were not dissimilar in at least one respect; in the last days of the Algerian war he had been alone against the forces of the French army and the F.L.N. He was alone again. In a way there was a kind of parabolic logic about it. He was not enjoying himself in the sense that what was happening was pleasurable; but at least it had a tension and a vitality he had missed for a long time. There were no thoughts of morality to cross his mind and muddy the picture. In that respect he was much like Bulloch. Had he been asked to rationalize what he was doing he would not have hesitated: the life he had been brought up to had been wrenched away from him; he knew only one other way.
He stood in the icy room of the house off Eaton Square and looked down at the couple on the sofa. They were pitiable.
In another place at another time he might have felt sorry for them. Now they represented counters in a game he was playing with Bulloch. If they had to be sacrificed, he would do what was necessary. It was time now to put another section of his plan in action, but first he must find whether there was an alternative way out, just in case. It had not been possible before. Dave would never have gone through the house an hour ago even with Howard leading. But now the house was as cold as a tomb and if they were right the snake would already be too chilled and stiff to move. There might be something in the cellar, a door, a window; perhaps boarded over; hidden behind a cupboard; a false wall. These old houses had many such things. He needed to know, for the really dangerous time was when the money was handed over. If the police were going to make a move it would be then. He did not think they would, not with a woman and a child in the house as hostages. However, he wished to be sure, for if there was a way out it meant that there was also a way in. He turned now to Dave, hardening his face, preparing his tone, so that when he spoke it would ring like iron.
* * *
“The leggings, sir?”
“Yes, the leggings.”
“And the helmet, sir?”
“And the helmet.”
The traffic policeman had parked his motor-cycle by the side of the road and he and Bulloch were standing near the police Rover. The traffic policeman looked large and menacing in his black uniform, almost as large as Bulloch.
“Can I ask why, sir?” the traffic policeman said.
“No, you cannot ask why.”
They stood staring at each other in the light of the cars, the smoke coming out on their breaths. Rich stood to one side of Bulloch and on the other side was a short, rotund gentleman who had arrived a few minutes earlier by police car. He was Mr Beale and they had had to fetch him from Orpington. Mr Beale was from the London Zoo. He gave the impression of having been woken suddenly and having dressed hurriedly; pyjama bottoms could be seen peeping out from the ends of his trousers. In one hand he held what looked like a fishing rod but was in fact a pair of long catching tongs, and in the other a box about three feet long and eighteen inches wide containing a canvas bag with drawstring top. He looked as though he was about to leave on a butterfly-catching expedition.
“You’ll want the gloves, too,” he said.
“And the gloves, Williams,” Bulloch said to the traffic policeman.
“And the goggles,” Mr Beale said, addressing himself to Bulloch and not the traffic policeman.
“And the goggles,” Bulloch said.
Williams first took off the heavy, stiff leather leggings and Bulloch began to fasten them round his own legs covering his calves from knee to ankle. But whereas the traffic policeman was wearing large black boots Bulloch had on a pair of soft suede shoes and the combination was ludicrous. No one laughed.
As Williams divested himself of each piece of clothing he passed it to Rich who held it for Bulloch and soon Bulloch began to take on the appearance of some eccentric lunar explorer. After the leggings he put on the helmet, then the goggles, then the heavy gauntlets, and closed as much as he could the thick sheepskin collar of his coat. The only flesh visible when he had finished were small areas on either side of his face near the jawbone.
“The gun, Rich?”
“Yes, sir.”
Bulloch clipped the holster to the waistband of his trousers and pulled out the revolver. It was a Smith & Wesson short-barrelled •38 holding five shots. He broke it and checked that each cylinder was loaded. Then he replaced the pistol in the holster under his coat but left the buttons open so that he could get at it.
“You want a shotgun,” Mr Beale said. “That thing’s no good.”
Bulloch turned and looked down into the chubby face, from which the fragrant bowl of a shell-briar emerged.
He was tense now and he had to keep a strong grip on his temper.
He spoke softly as to a child: “We haven’t got a shotgun, Mr Beale. I am not allowed to use a shotgun. I am what is known in the police force as an authorized shot, which means that I can use a hand-gun. If we wished to use a shotgun, I would have to apply for someone to come here who is qualified to use a shotgun, Mr Beale.” Each thought was spelled out. “I am not going in after the snake. I am prob
ably not even going in. I’m going to have a look around and am protecting myself while doing so. Is that clear?” He did not wait for Mr Beale to reply but went on. “There are at least two men, two women and one child in the house, Mr Beale. Those are the ones that I am interested in. Once they are out of the way the snake is your responsibility. Understood?”
Mr Beale removed his pipe and stared up at Bulloch for a moment before he said, “In that case I think you’d better let me come with you, Mr Bulloch.”
“By all means, Mr Beale, but keep behind me.”
A few minutes earlier when Rich realized what Bulloch was about to do he had gathered himself to open the argument once more, but Bulloch seemed to guess what he was going to say for he pre-empted an outburst by saying, “This is the only time we’ve got left. Once they’ve got the money it’ll be too late. If there’s any chance of doing something it’s before we hand over the money.” Rich watched Bulloch as he finished dressing and then said, “I’m coming too, sir.”
“No, you’re not.” Rich ignored him.
The three of them walked round to Sloane Mews at the back of the house. Sampson and Hodges were waiting for them at the door of a small building that had once been a ground floor garage and was now Eaton Dressmaking. Wedding gowns a speciality.
Bulloch went in the door and Sampson said, “Over against the far wall, sir. Behind the pressing-machine.” Someone switched on a torch and guided Bulloch through a maze of sewing machines and tailors’ dummies. He negotiated the pressing machine and stood looking at the wall as Hodges played the torch over it. At first he saw nothing then when Hodges moved the torch he could make out a faint shadowy outline under the floral pattern of the paper.
Now that the moment had come he paused and looked about the shop once more. A door led away to the right. “What’s that?” he said.
“Leads to a small kitchen, sir,” Hodges said.
“And that?” He pointed to another door.
“Toilet, sir.”torch
“Nothing in either?”
“No, sir.”
He turned back to the wallpaper. He couldn’t postpone it any longer. “Anyone got a knife?”
“Try mine,” Mr Beale said.
Bulloch slipped the blade under the paper and cut around the outline. The paper was dry and old and peeled away quite easily. In a few minutes he had stripped away enough to reveal what was underneath. The doorway, if it was a doorway, had been covered by a large sheet of hardboard. He pushed the blade of the knife under one side and attempted to lever it away. But the pins holding it down had embedded themselves in the wood over the years and with a slight click the blade of the knife snapped in two.
“Sorry about that,” Bulloch said, handing it back to Mr Beale, who held it in his hand and stared down at it for some moments without replying.
“Try these, sir,” Rich said, holding out a pair of heavy dressmaking shears he had picked up from one of the tables.
Bulloch opened the blades and pushed one under the hardboard and when he exerted pressure it began to come away. Until then they had been talking in whispers, now as they watched him prise up each side of the hardboard, no one spoke. They were children again and this was like the door in Alice. It must have been boarded up for thirty or forty years and they stood there, not knowing whether it might open on to a magic garden or the pit leading to the centre of the Earth. Bulloch gently pulled away the hardboard and passed it back to the men behind him. There it was: a door. It was an ordinary door with an architrave surrounding it. Long ago it had been painted white but London’s air had penetrated paper and hardboard and had turned it a brownish cream.
Bulloch looked at it carefully. It had an old Yale lock which would not give either Sampson or Hodges a moment’s difficulty. He also noted that it opened into the house so that if, as was likely, the door had been boarded over in the same fashion on the inside, then pressure from the outside would push away the hardboard. He moved away from it and motioned to Sampson. He spoke close to his ear. “Can you open that lock?”
“I think so, sir.”
He searched in the torchlight until he found a can of Singer sewing-machine oil and squirted it into the lock and also along the parts of the tongue he could see. When he was satisfied he took the heavy sewing scissors, this time keeping the blades together, and prised away part of the architrave, exposing the rounded end of the lock tongue. He inserted the point of one of the blades and forced it round the end of the tongue. Slowly the tongue moved backwards, stiffly at first but then more easily as the oil flowed over it. Sampson kept the scissor-blade in place and turned to Bulloch. “It’s open, sir,” he whispered.
Bulloch pulled out the revolver and held it in his right hand then took the scissors in his other hand to keep the tongue of the lock from returning. All he had to do now was exert pressure. What would he find on the other side? Would they be waiting for him with guns? Or would the snake be there? Which part of the house would he enter? A cellar? The kitchen? Or would it be a forgotten room, itself boarded up? Flashes of childhood nightmares entered his brain. Stories he had read. Of houses where the number of windows did not correspond with the number of rooms; of cupboards filled with human bones; steps that disappeared down into the dark void; The Cask of Amontillado; The Prisoner of
Chillon; rats . . . creatures of the primeval ooze . . . the sweat was cold on his face and neck.
He nodded to Sampson who took hold of the brass door handle and began to turn. As he did so Bulloch put his weight to the door. As with the lock it seemed at first to stick and Hodges leant his own weight. Slowly it began to move. They could hear the slight tearing sound of the paper on the far side. Then ripping as the hardboard pins came loose. Bulloch knew he could open the door by himself now and he waved both Sampson and Hodges away. He held the gun ready and put his left shoulder to the door. He eased it forward, opening it half way, wide enough for him to see round and go through if need be.
“The torch,” he whispered.
Sampson passed him the torch and he held it in his free hand. Then slowly he put his head round the door and switched on the torch. As he did so he heard a woman scream. It was so loud, so near, that it froze his blood. At that moment light suddenly flooded through the half-open door.
The pupils of his eyes had grown large in the dim torchlight and now, as they rapidly contracted under the impact of a fluorescent strip in the cellar, he was momentarily blinded. He could hear voices and see shapes dimly. Then his vision cleared. He found himself on the threshold of a cellar. One at least of the shapes he had expected to be that of a woman, for his mind had placed her there after the scream. Instead he saw two men and in the background he could still hear the woman screaming. It had to be Dr Stowe and something inside him cringed again at the thought of continued mutilation. In the remaining few seconds before the cellar became a battlefield he registered the picture before him. The men. One in semi-uniform. The chauffeur. With shotgun. Must be Alec Nash’s killer. The second: the Frenchman? The screaming rang continuously in his ears.
* * *
Howard and Dave were also aware of the screaming. It had begun as they made their way down towards the cellar door after having searched the remaining rooms of the house. For a horrible moment Howard thought it was Marion and that she was being attacked by the snake but at the same moment Dave paused and listened and said, “That’s Mrs Blanchet.”
Howard knew he was right. As she screamed again he could make out the word, “Ph-i-l-i-p!” drawn out in anguished ululation. She must be in the street. But how did she know? How had she got back? Dave motioned him forward with the shotgun and he opened the cellar door with care, switching on the bright strip light.
“Get on,” Dave said.
It was then that something odd began to happen to the cellar wall ahead of them. It seemed to bulge. They stood transfixed. Automatically Dave pushed past Howard and stopped on the bottom step. Then, like in a movie Dave had once seen of an earthquake in
Tokyo, the wall split and began to open. A figure appeared in the opening. He saw the strange leggings, the huge goggles, the helmet. He thought of Frankenstein’s monster, of Dracula, of some dreadful being entombed in the cellar walls and now breaking loose. His nerves, drawn to fine threads, snapped. He began to raise the shotgun and as he did so the figure, too, raised a gun and pointed it at him. He felt sick with fear. “No!” he cried. He heard the crashing sound of the revolver in the confined space and felt something smash into his chest. He tried to say, “Stop! You’re wrong. It’s not me you want,” but all he could hear of his own voice was a mumble.
Then he was falling forward and, too late, his fingers were pulling at the triggers of the shotgun, both together, but the barrel was already swinging up to point at the ceiling. He seemed to fall very slowly and while he fell he heard the sound of his own gun firing. It came from a long way away, more of an echo than the original explosion. He did not feel anything as he crashed on to the hard cellar floor, for by that time all feeling had left him and life itself was hastening away.
For a few seconds the tableau remained then the gun in Bulloch’s hand swung to cover Howard, who was half way up the cellar steps. The two men stared at each other. “For God’s sake,” Howard cried suddenly. “Don’t shoot, I’m not one of them!”
“Who are you?”
“I live here. They took me when they took the boy.”
“Is he still alive?”
“Yes.”
“How many of them are left?”
“Only one. The Frenchman.”
“Where’s the boy?”
“In his bedroom.”
“Can you get the light on in the sitting-room?”
“I don’t thi–-Watch out!”
There was a movement at the far end of the cellar and both men swung towards it.
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