Nothing But the Night

by John Blackburn

  Four of them were already on their way. Lord Fawnlee leaned far back in his corner seat in the railway compart­ment with Eric Yeats beside him, and they both smiled at Mary Valley who lay half-asleep with her head on Mrs Rheinhart’s lap. Mary looked quite peaceful and happy but they all knew the fears that were lodged in her brain. The memory of that crazed, cursing woman dragging her towards the well of the stairs and, beyond that, other memories which were just as horrifying. She was safe now, though, back with her friends and protectors, and soon the reunion with the other children would remove all fear for ever.

  ‘Eight o’clock and we’re due in at five past.’ Fawnlee raised the blind to look out at the Glasgow suburbs: tall tenements, a ribbon of concrete highway and blast furnaces glowing like burning castles.

  ‘Wake up, darling. This is Glasgow where we stay the night.’ Mrs Rheinhart raised the child into a sitting posi­tion. ‘Then, in the morning, off to Bala and home for good.’

  ‘Home. That will be nice.’ The little girl rubbed her eyes and followed Fawnlee’s stare at the encircling city. She smiled at the road and the tenements and then the locomotive whistled, a gasp came from her mouth and her body shuddered.

  ‘That sound,’ she said, pointing out towards the glare of a furnace. ‘The noise and the flames.’ Her other hand grasped Mrs Rheinhart’s for protection and her voice was a whimper. ‘It was like that, just like that, when we burned the cattle.’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Naturally the government are concerned, deeply concerned, ladies and gentlemen, but we must look at the situation in its true perspective.’ Mr Ivor Mudd, P.C., M.P., Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Home Affairs, was a fierce Welshman with hair like streaks of black boot polish and a gammy leg earned while playing rugby for his country.

  ‘I am the last person to deny that Mrs Harb must be found and found quickly, but I will not be bullied and these recent demonstrations have been quite inexcusable.’ He rolled a malevolent eye over the assembled journalists and then turned to the secretary at his side. ‘What did I say to you on the subject, Pomfret?’

  ‘That the disturbances at your meeting last night were caused by hooligans, the rabble and persons with an uninformed fear of the mentally sick, Mr Mudd.’ Pomfret was about to continue, but his superior waved him aside.

  ‘Quite so. Also by elements who had been stimulated into hooliganism by the Popular Press. Which means you, my friends.’ Once again Mudd’s single eye glowered at his audience. Its neighbour was hidden by a cotton shield, having been put out of action by a well-aimed potato hurled across the Albert Hall.

  ‘All the same, as I have said before, one must be realistic and I am not going to be coerced in any way.’ He filled his lungs to deliver the slogan which had been largely responsible for winning him his majority at the last general election.

  ‘My name may be Mudd, but it is quite certainly not Craven, or Coward, or Cur. Everything necessary is being done to apprehend this unfortunate woman and I will not be forced into illegal action by anybody. Do you think I can be forced, Pomfret?’

  ‘Most certainly not, sir.’ The man took a step closer to the edge of the platform. ‘Only last night, ladies and gentlemen, while in severe pain from his injury, Mr Mudd informed me that . . .’

  ‘Minister, may I please ask a question.’ This time Pomfret was cut short by the bitter, rasping voice of Carl Johnston of the Daily Echo.

  ‘All of us here deplore last night’s demonstration as much as you must do.’ Johnston stared at the eye shield hoping that there was a real throbbing shiner behind it. ‘We are also aware that your government was not in office when this “unfortunate woman”, as you call Anna Harb, was released from Broadmoor. But the point is that she has killed four times in her life and is obviously a grave public danger. Surely the public should know what steps are being taken to apprehend her before she kills again.’

  ‘The public do know, Mr Johnston.’ Mudd’s eye glared at him from a face which was laced with the blue marks of coal scars. ‘Every police force in this country and on the Continent has a description of Mrs Harb and her picture has been circulated in the Press.’

  ‘But is that enough, Minister?’ Johnston pulled a copy of the Echo from his pocket. ‘It appears probable that this woman is hiding on Bala and waiting for the opportunity to make another murderous attack upon her daughter. My colleague John Forest is now on Bala and he describes the island rather vividly:

  ‘A wild, empty region of four hundred square miles with a human population of less than five thousand: the descendants of Celts and Vikings who settled there generations ago. A haven for sea birds and red grouse and grey seals; beloved of the mountaineer, the angler and the deer stalker. An island with a total police force of ten men and two women.’

  ‘I have been given the necessary figures about Bala, Mr Johnston, and being a busy man who was born in a miner’s cottage in the Rhondda, I take little interest in angling or the slaughter of inoffensive deer.’ Mudd’s hand rapped on his desk. ‘Nor do I read the Daily Echo, though I have heard that Mr Forest has been writing clichés for so long that he has begun to think in them.’

  ‘Then you should start to read the Echo, Minister.’ Johnston smiled inwardly. The reference to the miner’s cottage was always a sign that Mudd was about to lose his temper. With a little luck he might be forced into some really damaging statement. ‘Whatever you may think of his literary style, John Forest has made it very clear that the Chief Constable of Bala has quite inadequate forces to search the island thoroughly and it is vital that both police reinforcements and the military are sent there at once.’

  ‘Which I refuse to do.’ The Minister’s fist beat the desk a second time. ‘I told you that I shall not be coerced in any way, ladies and gentlemen, and I mean just that. The very thought of sending troops to hunt down a single woman should be abhorrent to any civilized community and the government is in full agreement with me over this.’

  ‘But Anna Harb is known to be insane, Mr Mudd, and has already attacked her child before.’ The features editor of the Informed Woman put the next question. ‘If little Mary Valley is in danger, surely you agree that any means to protect her would be justified?’

  ‘In my opinion, no evil means can be justified, Miss . . . Mrs Marjoriebanks.’ He had cocked an ear towards Pomfret for the information. ‘But is Mary Valley in any danger? The island police are naturally keeping a watch on the Van Traylen Home and there is no real reason to believe that the woman is anywhere near Bala. The view of Scot­land Yard is that the woman is most probably being sheltered by some of her criminal associates in London or has managed to leave the country.’ Mudd rubbed his shielded eye which was aching painfully.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, some of you witnessed yesterday’s demonstrations in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere, and in view of Mrs Harb’s mixed ancestry I would ask you to give this business the minimum of publicity from now on. We don’t want any repetition of the Notting Hill race riots of some years ago.

  ‘Yes. Mr Cornhill, I am aware that there are witnesses who claim to have seen Anna Harb on the car ferry to Bala.’ Mudd had been a notable chapel singer in his youth and his powerful bass voice drowned the interruption.

  ‘Two Irish labourers named Sean Connor and Desmond Joyce who were returning to Lochern, where they are employed on a building site, after a long week-end in Glasgow. Having seen her picture in the papers a good twenty-four hours later, they told the police that they thought . . . thought, Mr Cornhill, that they had recognized the woman on the boat. They described her as being dressed in a brown anorak and admitted that the hood covered most of her face. The only person who has paid much attention to this story is Mr Forest of the Echo, and it will take more than the Echo to make me send troops to Bala.’

  ‘I think we should give the Minister the benefit of having expert advice, ladies and gentlemen.’ Johnston was smiling at him in a most friendly manner now. Mudd had often lost his temper at other Press
Conferences and he fancied there was a way to make him drop a really thunderous brick at this one.

  ‘Connor and Joyce are young men with good eyesight, but I have naturally read my colleague’s account and the time factors are not really in their favour, are they? The boys thumbed lifts from Glasgow and reached Torar ferry pier at midday on Monday. The next ferry did not leave till three o’clock and I’m wondering how they would have whiled away those three long hours.’ Johnston gave a slight chuckle as he bowed towards the bench. ‘I apologize for my early doubts, Minister. There does seem little evidence to support Forest’s theory that the woman is on the island.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Mudd was always ready to forgive a repentant enemy. ‘My friends, there is small cause to worry about Mary Valley’s safety. The only evidence that Harb was on the island came from Connor and Joyce and I think we can discount that. The lads obviously found some nice, snug bar in which to pass the time and had had quite a few jars before the boat sailed.’ His good eye gave a knowing wink. ‘We all know the Irish, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, Minister, we do know the Irish. Me mither was Irish.’ Johnston was on his feet and there was a sudden brogue in his voice. ‘Because Anna Harb has coloured blood you ask us to play down the story to avoid racial disturbances. It is you who are the racialist, Minister. Without any justification at all you have insulted a friendly nation and accused two young men of good character of being so intoxicated that they could not recognize a woman who was standing a few yards away from them. May I quote you on that, Mr Mudd?’

  ‘You may quote me.’ Pomfret was plucking his arm, but the Minister roared back. His black eye was becoming more painful every minute and Johnston’s second change of face had infuriated him past the bounds of reason.

  ‘Your miserable paper has blown up this business out of all perspective, Mr Johnston. There is no reason to imagine Anna Harb is on Bala and the evidence of Connor and Joyce can be completely discounted. They were probably so intoxicated that they couldn’t even have recognized their own mothers.’ He threw back his head and made the statement which almost led to his resignation.

  ‘I refuse to be coerced by the statement of two drunken Irish hooligans.’

  Four hours after Ivor Mudd blotted his political copybook the telephone rang in the Lochern police station. The caller was a local man named Angus McBride, employed by a construction company from the mainland who had been building a road across the north-east of the island. The work had ceased for the winter and McBride’s job was to make periodic tours of inspection and see that the plant and other equipment was kept greased and free from rust. In one shed it appeared that he had discovered a vehicle that had no right to be there: a Dormobile with a London registration number. When the patrolmen arrived McBride had already forced the front door and was able to show them that the vehicle had been hired from a firm in Bayswater some five days previously. In the rear compart­ment, they found several items of female clothing including a brown anorak.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Checkmate, Mark. You should concentrate more.’ Kirk had already started to replace the pieces of his travelling chess set. ‘If you had returned your knight to queen’s bishop three a couple of moves back, this con­temptible rout could have been avoided. I’ll give you a rook next time.’

  ‘Sorry, Charles, but I’m in no mood for chess at the moment.’ Marcus was looking out of the window, seeing a line of beaches which were almost blindingly white under the early afternoon sun, brown mountains to the north and, out to sea, a jagged ridge of purple and blue which were the Cuillins of Skye. He leaned forward towards the driver whom they had engaged at Glasgow airport.

  ‘How much farther is it, Mr McAdam?’

  ‘Another twenty minutes will see us safely there, sir.’ The man grinned at him through the mirror. ‘I say see, but you’ll most probably smell Torar first, I shouldn’t wonder. A terrible stench the canning factory makes on a warm day like this.’ He had driven with agonizing slowness since they had turned on to the narrow coast road and now pulled into the side to allow a bus to lumber past.

  ‘Still, it’s grand weather for the time of year; quite exceptional. Let’s hope it stays like this for all your holiday, gentlemen.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Marcus turned to the window again. He had been born on the Polish steppes, spent most of his life in flat country and the sight of mountains usually excited him. But in his present mood he found this spectacular landscape merely sad and depressing. Glencoe, and Moidart and Skye, he thought. Memories of betrayal and massacre and little, bloody, unimportant wars.

  Holiday indeed. He frowned at Kirk who had insisted on keeping the heater on, the windows tightly shut and was now engaged in lighting another cigar to thicken the already overpowering atmosphere. What a fool he had been to allow Tania to persuade him to accompany Charles on this completely fruitless journey to Bala. A change was not what he needed to forget Haynes’s death. He knew that his nerves had been shattered by it, he knew that he couldn’t sleep without drugs and his temper had become unbearable recently, but he also knew the cure: to con­centrate completely on his work at Central Research and forget the whole unfortunate business. His wife and his old friend had been so persuasive that he had allowed himself to feel a slight thrill at playing amateur detective at first, but that was several hours ago. Now, as the car wound slowly on between the white beaches and the foothills, he felt nothing except self-disgust for his weakness.

  Because it was crazy all right. There had been an official denial that Anna Harb was on the island and the whole business was a waste of his time. People died violent deaths each minute of the day and everything was coincidence. Kirk’s fears were merely based upon a hunch and the reading of a computer which its own operator admitted was inconclusive. In half an hour they would be on board a ferry boat and the night would be spent in a small and probably uncomfortable hotel. The next morning Kirk proposed to call upon the assembled guardians at the orphanage and attempt to warn them of the supposed dangers. Marcus had little doubt that they would be received with ridicule or annoyance.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mark?’ Kirk looked up from a map he had been consulting. ‘The view not to your taste?’

  ‘There is nothing wrong with the view, but I’ve never enjoyed a wild goose chase, Charles.’

  ‘Neither have I, but in this case I sincerely hope that that is what we are on. The authorities share your present opinion that I am a senile busybody and that these people are in no danger, while all I have to support my fears is a hunch and the reading of Reilly’s box of tricks. All the same, something tells me that the whole Van Traylen Fellowship is in very great danger indeed, and I am delighted that Tania persuaded you to play Watson to my Holmes.’ He smiled at Marcus’s scowl of fury and then raised his voice to admonish the driver.

  ‘Mr McAdam, I quite realize that the road is narrow, the camber uneven and there are many blind corners. But would it be possible for you to drive just a little faster. I’m not asking you to be a Stirling Moss, but perhaps you might risk thirty instead of twenty miles an hour. My friend and I have a boat to catch, remember.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, gentlemen.’ The man frowned sadly. ‘When you hired me in Glasgow, I promised me that I’d have you at Torar in good time for the ferry and I’m a man of my word. Have a little faith now.’

  ‘Faith may be an excellent thing in religion, Mr McAdam, but it has no place in modern transport.’ Kirk glowered at the stolid back, but he might have been talking to a stone statue.

  ‘Just you relax and enjoy the view, sir, and rely on Angus McAdam. There’s the boat putting in now.’ He nodded towards a little red-funnelled steamer disappearing behind a promontory to the north. ‘Takes her a good fifteen minutes to turn round and berth and you’ll be able to smell Torar at any moment.’

  ‘I can smell it now.’ As the car topped a rise, a stench of rotting fish came through the heater vent and the general pulled hard at his cigar. The sun was just startin
g to sink towards the west and mist was rising in spirals around the ridges of the Cuillins. Somewhere behind them lay the Island of Bala and journey’s end.

  ‘So we can, sir, which means there’s no call to hurry.’ McAdam slowed to a walking pace to give way to a convoy of three cars and a lorry which had been crawling behind them.

  ‘Safe and sound, gentlemen, that’s my motto, and it’s the only one for the road. Let the other fools break their necks, if they’ve a mind to.’ He changed into second gear and the car proceeded down a final hill into the town.

  Though Torar was small, there was an aura of grandeur and self-sufficiency about the place which made it a real town or even a miniature city, complete in itself. They crawled past a repertory theatre, a court house, two banks, a customs house, the offices of the Inner Isles Clarion and Daily Advertiser and the Municipal Buildings: a noble pile of nineteenth-century Gothic with two statues before its portico. One showed Prince Charles Edward Stuart gazing soulfully out towards Skye, and his neighbour was Queen Victoria crouched in widow’s weeds with a sour look on her stone face.

  ‘Here we are, gentlemen.’ McAdam drew up alongside a broad quay, white with bird droppings, and got out to open the door for them. ‘Safe and sound and in plenty of time, as I promised.’ Drifters were tied up alongside the quay and crates of gutted fish were being loaded on to lorries. To the right lay the source of the smell which had troubled them from a mile back. A line of corrugated iron sheds, each proudly bearing a notice that they were the home of PURRY PUSS CAT FOODS which KEEP PUSSY PURRING. Sea birds wheeled and screamed overhead, and at the end of the quay the red-funnelled steamer had just tied up. A lift was raising cars from its lower deck and passengers were walking down the gangway.