She couldn't delay any longer. Whatever was to be found was in the last deserted room. She crept toward its door, supporting herself with one hand on the damp coat of the wall. The doorknob felt cold, almost slimy. Her shadow, a furry blotch whose shape seemed quite unlike hers, cowered back.
When she edged the door open she found the room was dark. She had to grope along the unseen wall in search of a light switch. Here was something round, a socket into which her finger scrabbled. It was the switch, its lever broken off. She pressed down the stub.
There was no child in the room. Beneath the shadeless bulb were a straight chair and a lame desk, a filing cabinet, a bookcase piled haphazardly with books. A dark curtain thick as a blanket was nailed over the window. She stepped forward at once, and eased the door shut behind her. Perhaps this room would give her some idea of the aims of the group.
However untidy the books were, their themes were all too orderly. Encyclopaedia of Murder, A History of Torture, Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice, The Scourge of the Swastika--the obsession with sadism was almost suffocating. Here was an illustrated edition of de Sade, next to a lithographed book called The Manson Mandala. One shelf was full of books in unmarked jackets, which she preferred for the moment not to open: the group's preoccupations were already clear enough. ------------------------------------169
It wasn't her cold that made her feel ill now. She was recalling Iris's tone of appalled disgust as she said, "It made us do things. I like remembering them." She thought of Angela, of the child's cry. Why had it stopped? She must be trying to delay her search by going to the filing cabinet, for she was sure the drawers would be locked.
When she pulled the top drawer it rattled out at once, so loud amid the muffled thunder of the traffic that she was near to choking. It contained tapes and cassettes and reels of film in boxes identified only by numbers, and she felt dismayingly relieved not to be able to tell what was recorded on their contents. But the second drawer was unlocked too, and it was full of photographs.
She grabbed the first handful and took them to the desk beneath the glaring lamp. She had to hold up a photograph to rid it of the glare, but as soon as she made out what it showed she almost threw it away. Instead she forced herself to peer closer, in the desperate hope that her scrutiny would prove it to be faked.
The picture had been taken in a forest. She identified the giant trees at once: sequoias, in California. Spiked to one trunk was a naked body. Though it was abominably clear, she could tell neither its sex nor its age. Far too much of it had been removed.
She sorted through the handful of photographs, while her body twitched, desperate to turn away. The rest of the photographs were even worse. Several had been taken in California. She remembered the group that one of Manson's women had described as worse than the Family: perhaps there was a connection, after all.
Most of the photographs had been taken in houses much like the one in which Gerry was locked now. The rooms were evidently English; might some of them be in this very house? Her hands were beyond her control, unable to stop turning over the photographs. By now she knew that the ------------------------------------170
pictures weren't faked; they were too undramatically framed, flat as police photographs, appalling in their indifference to what they were showing. Perhaps she had been wrong to assume that the group chose houses in noisy areas because they were cheap; perhaps the noise was meant to drown sounds from within the houses.
She was unconsciously crumpling the photographs as she realized how much more was in the filing cabinet-- what must the tapes and films have recorded?--when the crying recommenced. She hadn't yet looked in the cellar. For a moment she was swaying on the chair and afraid she was going to faint, then she was running to the door, forgetting Barbara Waugh, her disguise, her mission. She knew only that she had to save the child.
She ran on tiptoe to the kitchen and found a carving knife in a drawer beneath the sink. She winced as the blade slit the skin of her thumb, but the sharpness was reassuring. She strode to the cellar door, though her legs felt wobbly, and shoved it open, holding the knife low.
A cramped passage slanted downward, enclosing a flight of steps, to a second door. The stagnant light from the hall gathered dimly in the passage and gleamed on a switch at the bottom. The crying had stopped while she was in the kitchen, but it must have come from down there. As she descended she felt as if the slant of the ceiling were forcing her downward. When she kicked open the door and found darkness beyond, she jerked the light switch down at once.
The cellar was large, with walls of unplastered brick, and it appeared to be quite empty. The single bare bulb left the corners in shadow, but certainly none of them hid a child. Bewildered, she stepped down into the open. Something the size of a child ran out above her at once, across the ceiling.
Her start was so violent that she dropped the knife, which clattered on the concrete floor. But there was ------------------------------------171
nothing above her except herself: the ceiling was covered with mirror tiles. She stared nervously up at herself, hanging there inverted, dwarfed and helpless. She had just begun to wonder if the mirror tiles were there so that victims of the group could watch what was being done to them when she heard footsteps coming down into the cellar.
She snatched up the knife and backed away, only to wish that she'd hidden just inside the door. It would have done her little good; there were four men on the steps. They came into the cellar and stared at her, their faces blank with purpose. They closed in quickly, keeping between her and the door.
They hadn't reached her when someone else ran lightly down the steps. It was a girl about six years old, in pink pajamas covered with blue rabbits. Grinning at Gerry between the men, she put two fingers in her mouth and wailed monotonously. It was the gagged cry that Gerry had heard.
Gerry had been lured down here like an animal to the slaughter, and she realized what she ought to have deduced sooner: the group didn't seek recruits among the vagrants at all, it sought victims. The little girl was giggling, and sounded innocently pleased with herself. Gerry raised the knife and clung to the handle, which was slippery with sweat. "Keep back," she said to the men.
They came forward, watching her eyes. They were spreading out now; the knife could never deal with all of them. "Don't try anything with me," she said, her voice rasping her throat. "I'm a reporter. I was sent here to investigate you."
The left-hand man smiled cruelly, revealing a few decayed brownish teeth behind his thick moist lips. "Of course you are," he said.
"I am. Look at this if you don't believe me." She managed to wrestle her notebook out of the canvas bag ------------------------------------172
beneath her left arm, and flung the notebook at him. "My paper knows I'm here," she lied.
He caught the notebook and tore it in half without a glance. The little girl squealed with delight. The men were unstoppable as robots, and they had almost reached Gerry; overhead she hung by her feet as the men closed in. She was nearly at the wall. "Barbara Waugh knows I'm here," she said, and realized they knew she was lying; she hadn't known where she would be brought. "Angela's mother," she said desperately.
"Names don't matter here," said the left-hand man, as the one on the right darted forward to twist her arm until she dropped the knife. The man with the thick lips picked it up. The little girl watched fascinated as the other men held Gerry while he cut the tendons in her arms and legs. ------------------------------------173
173
Twenty
East Anglia was a green table top which ended jaggedly in cliffs. Gulls swooped along the beaches, searching the frills of the waves. The North Sea sounded like an enormous stormy forest; waves exploded against the rocks of the cove above which Ted was standing. "Mummy said it would be nice if we could all go out for a drive sometime," Judy said.
The wind on the cliff top made his beard itch and tried to throw his voice over his shoulder. "Now, is that really what
she said?"
"Yes, because she said if we could afford a car we could go to new places on our holidays."
That sounded like Helen, and no doubt she'd hoped Judy would tell him. "I'll speak to her," he said.
On the drive home, the horizons of the flat land had the unreal closeness of backdrops; clouds that were propped ------------------------------------174
on their straight-edged bases supported models of churches. The car was nowhere in particular when Judy said, "Are you definitely going away next week?"
"Yes, I have to, love." He had the option of an Italian trip that would more or less coincide with Barbara's. Now Barbara was saying that she didn't think she would be able to go, but he could tell that she needed a holiday. "Since you're into things Arthurian I'll take you to Glastonbury as soon as I get back."
"We thought if you weren't going you might want to come with us."
He was sure Helen had thought nothing of the kind, whatever she might have said to Judy. "I'm afraid I'm already booked," he said.
"Are you going away with Barbara?"
"What?" The accusing note in her voice was an unpleasant shock, though he knew who had put it there. "What do you know about Barbara?" He had never even mentioned her name.
"She was the lady you used to visit when we were in the old flat."
She couldn't have known that at the time, she had been too young. "Yes, Judy, I'm going away with her. Just as you and your mother were going away with your Unqle Steve."
It didn't please him to score the point. The whole purpose of the divorce had been to protect Judy from similar hostilities. He was about to ask if there was anyone new--it seemed childish to call them uncles, but what else could he call them?--when Judy said, "Mummy says you prefer Barbara to us."
"Not to you, Judy." He restrained himself from saying more, though the monotonous landscape gave him little to do except grow angrier. Nevertheless, by the time he'd taken Judy home and she was washing noisily in the ------------------------------------175
bathroom, he was calm; it would achieve nothing to lose his temper. "Helen, I don't think there's much point in talking to her about Barbara Waugh."
"Why should that bother you?" Helen was cutting one of her old dresses into dusters, no doubt to show how she had to economize. "Does it make you feel guilty?" she said without looking up.
"Yes, of course it does. Everything you say to Judy about me is calculated to do so. I mean, telling her that we could go away together--would you really have wanted that?"
"It's obvious that you wouldn't. You begrudge her one day a week."
"Where in Christ's name do you get that idea?"
She stared at him. "Don't try to be funny. You haven't changed that much, don't pretend you have. Has your Barbara Waugh seen you in one of your moods? I expect you're more careful with her. She doesn't depend on you as we used to. She can always leave you when she's had enough."
He knew what was coming--innuendoes, accusing silences, stares that meant he ought to know what she was thinking, that if he didn't that put him further in the wrong--and yet he couldn't stop at this point; he had never been able to. "What moods are those?" he demanded.
"Why, the one you're in now is a mild example. Don't tell me you've forgotten your years as man of the house. For all I know you're just the same now when you take Judith out. She says you aren't, but I only hope for your sake that's true." She glared at him as her scissors chewed through the last section of cloth. "Do you know that each night before you're going to take her out she has nightmares?"
"I'm not surprised." ------------------------------------176
"If that's meant to mean something, it certainly means nothing to me."
That was always guaranteed to make him lose his temper. "It means that you've got her into such a state she doesn't know what she feels. I'd like to know what kind of shit you feed her about me."
"You're as filthy as some of the books you publish. That's something else you can teach her, except I won't give you the chance. You just remember I've got custody. I can soon make sure you don't see her if you give me cause."
"Maybe you wouldn't have custody if I contested it now." He was trapped in an argument that he didn't even want to win. "You'll have to show the court more than this kind of hysteria to keep me away from Judy."
"Do you think they'd believe you care about her? Not if I tell them how much you care for a woman who couldn't even look after her own child. No wonder you used to take it out on Judith. Nobody made you feel guilty except yourself.``
She was almost right, by mistake: when he'd come home after sleeping with Barbara he had been nervous in case he seemed too happy, which in turn made him anxious not to appear secretive--but Helen had already suspected him for months of having an affair with Barbara, and living up to her suspicions had relieved him of the illusion of guilt, made him feel freer than ever before in his life. Perhaps Barbara had helped to end the marriage, but hardly in the way Helen meant.
"I'm sorry, Helen, I won't argue about Barbara." He knocked on the bathroom door as she watched him coldly. "I'm going now, Judy. I'll take you to Glastonbury next time."
On Upper Street a carpet like a roll of sacking leaned against a shop window. A ragged man who had been ------------------------------------177
leaning next to it staggered toward Ted, but the empty wine bottle missed the car. No wonder Helen was depressed, Ted thought as he drove past bleary shops. The argument had been too familiar on the whole to hurt, and he was sure that Helen didn't seriously intend to keep him and Judy apart. Did she really think so little of the books he published? No doubt she sold Signed Adolf Hitler in the shop quite happily. He'd rejected that book nine years ago, but the gold swastika in the sunburst was in every bookshop now. He wished he'd asked her which books she was accusing him of, except that she wouldn't have told him; she was too devious for that. She was as devious as his private eye would be.
By God, of course she would. He punched the wheel, which shouted at an empty street. Of course, that was how the private eye would approach her job, not like Philip Marlowe in drag at all. He drove home fast, rewriting chapters in his head.
As soon as he reached his flat he began writing, crossing out whole pages, scribbling between lines. All at once everything that was wrong with the chapters he'd written seemed clear and manageable. He reworked three chapters in two hours, and the energy he'd generated drove him to begin a new chapter. There he found himself stranded halfway down the page. The private eye was herself now, she had none of Philip Marlowe's adolescent bitterness that the world was less romantically perfect than he wanted it to be, but the story demanded a betrayal next, a test for her compassion. What could it be?
Barbara might help. When he glanced across the lake he saw that her window was lit; behind her roof a raw sunset was blackening. She answered the phone before he could hear it ring. "Yes?" she said urgently.
"Hi, Barbara, it's Ted." He felt he should have said, "It's only me." ------------------------------------178
"Hello, Ted." She was doing her best not to sound disappointed. "What's up?"
"I've done some work on my novel but now I've reached a block. Do you fancy a drink?"
"Yes, come over and I'll give you several if you like. Just let me have a few minutes."
He'd meant they could go out to a pub. Still, at least he would be able to talk to her; they hadn't spoken at any length for weeks. She sounded too exhausted and on edge to bother with his novel. He'd concentrate on persuading her to go on holiday, with or without him. Certainly she needed the break.
He played a Charlie Parker record to give her a few minutes, and searched for a buttock to insert in the halfarsed Playboy jigsaw, then he strolled across to Barbara's, beside the pinkish lake. Beneath the Church of St. Giles, strings of white light squirmed like grubs. A thin pallid youth, tonsured like an untidy monk, stood by the willow on the red-brick plateau and watched Ted as he rang the bell.
Ted ma
naged to clench his fists in his pockets rather than show his dismay when Barbara answered the door. She looked worse than overworked: her face was haggard, almost colorless beneath the makeup; her eyes seemed unable to take any more. Something had happened since he'd called her.
"Come and sit down." She was doing her best to sound in control of the situation, but he could see how much of a strain that was. "There's something I have to tell you," she said. ------------------------------------179
179
Twenty-one
"Just let me have a few minutes," Barbara said, and sat with her hand over her face. She felt so dizzy she was certain that if the prop of her elbow moved she would slump across her desk. Whether she was here or at the office, she was at the mercy of the phone.
Did she wish that Gerry would phone or that she had never sent her in search of Angela? She'd wished both, desperately and irresolubly, ever since she had heard the cruel mocking voice of one of Angela's captors. She could only hope that he hadn't seen that Angela was phoning, hope that Gerry had infiltrated the group by now, but it seemed so much to hope. Even if she dared break her promise further she couldn't call the police, in case they drove the group into hiding before Gerry could infiltrate. In any case, they wouldn't believe her. It had taken her too long to believe in Angela herself. ------------------------------------180
She'd made herself work harder at the office and at home, to be sure her clients didn't suffer. Some days she suspected herself of making call after call in order not to sit brooding over the phone. Frequently she thought she was being watched, especially on the balconies and walkways of the Barbican. Alone in bed, too exhausted to sleep, she felt like a figure of rusty wire. She felt worse than she had after the police had told her Angela was dead. At least that had seemed final.
She let go of the receiver at last and trudged to the bathroom, where she revived herself with splashes of cold water. She lingered a few minutes over making up her face, though that couldn't make her eyes less uneasy. She seemed to spend most of her nights climbing the escalator, which crept steadily backward. Sometimes Angela was waiting at the top, sometimes she looked like Iris, gray and haunted. Last night Arthur's face had stared up, no larger than a pinhead. Angela was waiting against a restless darkness that looked impatient to take shape, but when Barbara glanced back at the top of the escalator a snake with a swollen head, pink and moist as a fetus, was waiting.
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