Madam, Will You Talk?

by Mary Stewart

  ‘And why not? I’ve seen it done, and to women. It works, as often as not.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ I said sharply. The nightmare terror was seeping into me again, cold, cold. I could see him a little better now, towering over me, silhouetted against the faintly glowing cast, like some shadow of fear. ‘If you so much as moved a finger towards me, I’d scream the place down.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you. Not yet. But I think we’ll get things plain and clear, you and I.’

  He flung away his cigarette, and at the sharp movement my inside twisted over with a little thrill of fear, and I began to feel sick. Cold and sick. I put a shaking hand backwards on to the firm stone, and the hand slipped a bit. It was clammy.

  Richard Byron spoke without emphasis, but his voice beat at me with the wince of hammer on steel.

  ‘I gather that you know who I am. I told you I was a friend of David’s. That was not true, as presumably you know. I am David’s father, and I have an idea that that gives me a right to know where David is.’

  I said nothing. I was leaning back against the stone, fighting off the same feeling of unreality and nightmare that I had experienced in the streets of Nîmes. And fighting off, too, waves of sickening blackness that kept washing over me out of the cold night.

  ‘I did a murder once,’ said Richard Byron pleasantly, ‘and got away with it. They say it’s easier the second time. And I assure you, you stupid little fool, that I’d do another today as easily as I’d stub out a cigarette, to get hold of my son.’

  The gates of the eastern sky were opening behind him; the aubade must have blown, and I had never heard it. … Pure and piercing, the first fingers of the dawn stabbed the sky. Then they were blotted out again by another wave of darkness which washed up from the damp ground at my feet. I was falling … I clawed at the stones … they were slipping sideways from me … the whole world was slipping sideways, away from the sun.

  From a great way off, a voice spoke in the blackness.

  ‘Nothing could be easier than murder, you know. …’

  I put out my hands in a futile little gesture, and his shadow towered over me, then stooped like a hawk. …

  And I fainted.

  I was buried, and they had put a heavy stone on top of me. But I was not dead, and I was struggling to lift it, only they had tied my hands as well, and I could not move … I could not even open my eyes. Then, of itself, the stone lifted off me, and I could move my head and my hands a little, in the silence and the darkness. I must have been crying, or had I died of drowning? … my face was wet and cold.

  I struggled back to the edge of consciousness, and opened my eyes, to find that the darkness, at any rate, was real, and so were the tears on my face. Tears? I slowly put up a hand, and found that not only my cheeks, but my forehead and hair were damp – someone had put cold water on me. That was it. I had fainted, for some reason, and someone had put cold water on my face to bring me round.

  Hazily I turned my head. I was lying on a bed beside a window whose slatted shutters were barring out the faint grey light of early morning. I looked into the room. In the darkness I could see the shape of a chest of drawers … another bed … Someone was lying on the other bed, smoking. I saw the cigarette glow and fade, glow and fade.

  I murmured: ‘Johnny?’

  The voice that answered me dispelled the dream, and brought reality back with a rush. It said: ‘So you’re round again. Who’s Johnny? Is he in this too?’

  I didn’t answer for a bit. Then I said: ‘You can’t get away with this, you know.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘What are you doing in here? Why won’t you leave me alone?’

  He said lazily: ‘This is as comfortable a way of keeping an eye on you as any. And I’ve told you why I won’t leave you alone. You’re my link with David, and I’ll keep my hand on you till I get what I want.’

  I said: ‘But this is my room. Don’t you imagine the folk at the inn will want to know who you are? You can’t get away with this sort of thing, even in France. What if I start to scream?’

  The cigarette glowed placidly, and I could hear the smile in his voice, as he said: ‘Scream away.’

  I bit my lip. Of course I couldn’t scream; I could see in my mind’s eye the result if I did – the fuss, the explanations, the recriminations, perhaps the police – then names … and addresses. No, I couldn’t scream.

  He laughed in the darkness. ‘I’m your husband, anyway. I got here late last night, and didn’t want to disturb them. After all, I don’t imagine you specified a single room, did you? And all the rooms here are double, which was lucky.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I said again.

  ‘Stick to you like a leech, my dear, like a lover.’ He settled himself comfortably on his bed. I stared into the dark, somehow too exhausted to be afraid; I felt empty and tired. I remembered to be glad that I had not told Madame where I had come from, and that I had registered merely ‘en passant’. He would get no information either from the inn or from the register.

  ‘Won’t they think it a bit odd that we each arrive in our own cars?’

  ‘I didn’t bring mine up,’ he said. ‘I left it a couple of hundred yards down, round the bend out of sight. I wasn’t going to let you see it, if by any chance you happened to be about when I arrived. Don’t worry about that.’

  I did not bother to explain how little I was worrying. I turned away towards the window, and turned the pillow over, so that the dry side was against my cheek. This would have to wait till morning. I could do nothing, and common sense told me that if Richard Byron wanted information out of me, at least he would not murder me in my sleep. Neither, I thought, would he risk trying anything approaching violence, now that people were within call, and now that, if I were frightened enough, I would risk police investigation. I was still in coat and shoes, of course, so I slipped the latter off and wrapped the former warmly round me, and curled up with my back to the other bed.

  Richard Byron said: ‘Who’s Johnny?’

  I said shortly: ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I’m going to sleep.’

  I heard a faint scrunching sound as he ground out his cigarette in a tray between the beds. He said nothing. The springs of the other bed creaked heavily, and I tensed myself unconsciously. But he was only settling himself down and relaxing.

  After a while, to my own vague surprise, I drifted off to sleep.

  10

  And Charity chased hence by Rancour’s hand

  (Shakespeare)

  I awoke to an empty room, dredged with sunlight through the shutters, and the comforting sounds of breakfast on the terrace below the windows. For a long drowsy moment I wondered why I should be lying so uncomfortably curled up on the top of the quilt, wrapped in my coat. Then I remembered, and sleep fled incontinently as I turned over to look at the other bed. It had not been a nightmare, that strange interview among the dark ruins, my fainting, the implacability of the man who was going to stick to me like a lover – I could see the impression where he had lain on the other bed, the dent left by his head in the pillow, and a little pile of cigarette-butts in the ash-tray between the beds.

  I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I felt a little stiff from sleeping curled up, and as if I had not slept long enough, but otherwise the night’s adventures did not seem to have affected me physically to any great extent. But mentally I was in a turmoil. Where was Richard Byron now? What did he propose to do today? And how, how, how was I going to get away from him?

  I crossed to the door, locked it, then took off my coat and frock and washed, afterwards patting cold water into my cheeks till the skin tingled and I felt fresh and invigorated. I brushed my hair hard, then shook out the green dress, thanking heaven and the research chemists for uncrushable materials, and put it on again. The familiar routine of doing my face and hair did a good deal to restore my confidence. Somehow I would get away from him, get back to Avignon, make some ex
cuse to Louise, and we would drive off somewhere else for our holiday, at any rate until Loraine and the boy had left for the coast. Or at worst, if I could not shake my enemy off, I could lead him astray, away from Avignon … though I felt a little cold quiver of the familiar fear to think what he might do if I thwarted him again.

  At any rate I would get ready for whatever opportunity might come. I put my book, my dark glasses, my toothbrush, all the small things I had brought for the night, into my bulky handbag, glanced round the room to see that nothing was forgotten, then put my coat round my shoulders and unlocked the door and went out into the corridor.

  Richard Byron was waiting for me at the foot of the inn’s single flight of stairs. He was leaning against the newel-post, smoking the inevitable cigarette, and as I came hesitantly down the stairs he looked up and gave me a sardonic good morning.

  ‘I hope you slept well?’ he said, straightening up.

  ‘If we are husband and wife,’ I said, ‘you ought to know. And I should like a cigarette, please.’

  He gave me one, and we went out on to the terrace. One or two people were still breakfasting, but I had slept late, and most of the guests had already gone into the ruined town, or had left in their cars.

  He followed me to a table near the edge of the terrace, and held a chair for me.

  I sat down in the shade without looking at him or speaking, and watched the smoke from my cigarette curling up in delicate blue fronds towards the hanging vines that clothed the terrace wall. We sat for some minutes in silence, but it was not the comforting silence of companionship; I could feel his eyes on my face, and was intensely conscious of his presence on the other side of the little table, and between us the air positively sizzled with unasked questions and ungiven answers.

  So I watched the tip of my cigarette, and then the waiter came with the coffee and croissants.

  The coffee was smoking hot and delicious, and smelt wonderful in that sunny still air. I put one of the flat oblongs of sugar into my cup, and stirred it slowly, enjoying the smell and the swirl of the creamy brown liquid in the wide-mouthed yellow cup.

  ‘Have a roll,’ suggested Richard Byron, and handed me the flat basket where the new hot croissants reposed on their snow-white paper napkin. There was something in the ordinary familiar little gesture over the breakfast table that made me suddenly still more sharply conscious of the queer and uncomfortable situation that I was in now, deeply in. I took a roll, still without looking at him, but memory stirred queerly … Johnny passing me the toast-rack, the marmalade … I bit my lip. Johnny had never seemed so far away, so utterly gone. I said it to myself, deliberately: so dead.

  I was alone. Any help I got now would only come from myself, and I was well aware that I am not the stuff of which heroines are made. I was merely frightened and bewildered, and deeply resentful of the situation in which I found myself.

  Which is why I sat eating my rolls without really tasting them, and staring at the golden distance of the southern plain beyond the rocks, without really making any plans at all. With every mouthful of hot and fragrant coffee, I felt better, but my brain was numb, and I dared not look at Richard Byron, in case he should see how afraid of him I was. Though, I told myself, if he doesn’t know by now that you panic every time he comes near you, my girl, he must be mad.

  Mad. The coffee suddenly tasted vile, and I put down my cup unsteadily on the saucer. That was the root of the matter, of course – even a heroine might legitimately be afraid of a mad-man, and a mad-man who had cheerfully, not very long before, admitted to a murder. I had to get away. I didn’t know how, but I had to get away.

  Then my eyes fell on my car, which was standing where I had left it, facing down the hill, about fifty yards from the terrace steps. And I remembered something Richard Byron had said last night … something about leaving his car a short way down the road, parked off the track. If I could somehow get to my car without him, get a start, I might get away. The Riley was fast and utterly reliable; I had not seen, in Nîmes, what make of car he drove, but I knew the Riley could be depended upon to give the average touring car a run for its money. And I had filled up last night with petrol and oil. Everything I had brought with me was in my handbag … I had only to go.

  And if Richard Byron had posed as my husband, then Richard Byron could do the explaining, and pay the bill.

  My heart was beginning to thump again, and I dared not look at him. I fumbled in my bag, ostensibly for a handkerchief, but in reality to make sure of my car keys. I took out my book of Provençal poetry, and laid it on the table, while I rummaged beneath my nightdress in the bag. My fingers closed over the keys, and I slipped them into a top compartment where I would be able to reach them easily, then I took out my handkerchief and a cigarette, put the book back, and closed the bag.

  Richard Byron struck a match and held it for me across the table. I tried not to look at him, but something drew me to raise my eyes across the flame, and I saw that he was watching me with a curious expression on his face.

  ‘What did you come up here for anyway?’ he asked.

  I tried to speak lightly: ‘What does anyone come up here for? To see the lair of the wolves of Orange.’

  ‘I can’t help wondering,’ he said slowly, ‘just where you come into all this. And who is Johnny?’

  My fingers tightened on my bag. ‘Do you mind?’ I said. ‘I don’t particularly want to talk to you. And I don’t feel too good this morning.’

  I saw his hand make an abrupt movement of impatience, and he bit back something he had been going to say. We were alone on the terrace now, and the waiter had vanished. A couple of sightseers came out of the inn, paused for a moment in the shade of the terrace roof, then stepped out into the blinding morning sun. The girl was wearing white, and swung a scarlet bag in one hand. The man, in khaki shorts and a loose linen jacket, carried an enormous camera. They were laughing. They strolled past us, below the terrace, and away towards the ruins, and disappeared round a high wall of rock, and as they went, the normal safe and happy world seemed to go with them and suddenly I was, again, alone with Richard Byron, caught in the dark circle of his little personal hell.

  For a short while we sat there, in the hot silence, while the sunlight moved a fraction, and laid its slanting glare across the toe of my sandal. Somewhere, a cicada started to rasp, dry and rhythmic.

  I dropped my half-smoked cigarette and ground it out gently on the floor. I leaned my forehead on my hand.

  ‘Is there any more coffee?’ I said, as if with difficulty.

  I felt him glance sharply at me.

  ‘No. It’s finished. What’s the matter?’

  I shook my head a little. ‘It’s nothing. It’s only—’ My voice trailed away, and I said nothing.

  There was another short silence, while I could feel him staring at me. I sensed the puzzlement and suspicion that there must be in his glance, but this time I had an advantage I had not had in Nîmes – there must have been no possible doubt about the genuineness of my faint last night, and I must be looking quite definitely the worse for it this morning. I lifted my head and looked at him, and I know my eyes were strained and shadowed, and my lips, under the brave coral paint, were dry.

  ‘I’m all right, thanks,’ I said, ‘but would you ask the waiter for some water – or a cognac; yes, a cognac?’

  I don’t know quite what I was planning to do. I had some general idea of establishing the fact that I was too rocky to make any violent attempt at escape; I think, too, that with hazy memories of thrillers I had read, I toyed with the idea of throwing the cognac into his eyes and making a run for it before he could recover.

  But suddenly the opportunity was there, and for once, like every other heroine, I took it, and took it fast.

  Richard Byron called the waiter, called again. I drooped in my chair, indifferent. But the waiter, whether because he did not hear, or because he was busy and we were so late – I suspect he helped in other ways in that little inn besides
waiting at table – at any rate, the waiter did not come. After calling, and going up to the inn door to peer into the empty lobby, Richard Byron, with a long backward look at me, went into the inn.

  It was all the start I needed.

  As I ran the fifty yards between the terrace and the car, I snatched out the keys. It took three seconds to open the door and slip into the driving seat, leaving the car door silently swinging. That blessed engine came to life at a touch, and the Riley slid forward on the slope as I lifted the brakes.

  As she gathered way I saw, out of the tail of my eye, Richard Byron, with the patronne, emerging from the inn door. He started forward, and I slammed the car door and went into gear. As the car rounded the first bend, gathering speed, I saw the patronne, gesticulating wildly, catch Byron’s sleeve, so that he had to turn and speak to her …

  Well, let him do the talking, I thought grimly, then I began to laugh. Let him explain why his wife bolts without a word, let him get out of the silly mess of his own making – and pay the hotel bill into the bargain.

  The Riley sighed down the curling hill, round another sweeping bend, and there, by the verge, parked in a bay of rock, stood a big grey car. A Bentley.

  A Bentley, I thought savagely, braking hard. It would be. Something that could give me a fairly alarming chase, unless I did something drastic to it first. I slipped out of the car, with thoughts of tyre-slashing, taking sparking-plugs, and other acts of thuggery storming through my mind. But there was a garage at the hotel, and who knew what spares might be available? As I stumbled across the stones to the grey car I thought wildly. Not the rotor-arm, for the same reason – and I had nothing to slash tyres with anyway … The bonnet was unlocked, and I lifted it, with half an eye on the road behind me.

  It came automatically after all; it was the way Johnny had taught me to immobilize the car during the war, when we had to leave it parked for hours at the R.A.F. Station dances, and when the young officers, after about one in the morning, thought nothing of ‘winning’ someone else’s car for a joy-ride with a girl in the blackout. Not a usual method at all, but one very difficult to detect, and which could give an awful lot of trouble … And so simple. I whipped off the distributor-cap, gave one of the screws a turn and a half with the end of my nail-file, to break the electric contact, put back the cap, closed the bonnet, and raced back to the Riley, all in less time than it takes to tell.