Echo of Barbara

by John Burke

  Adam Collier hit him. Roger’s head was jolted round, and he fell backwards into the chair. Adam pulled him up with one hand, and hit him again. This time Roger lurched back across the room and hit the wall. He crumpled up and began to sob.

  Sam said: ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re very chivalrous,’ said Barbara. ‘Both of you. This remarkable young woman seems to have made quite an impression on you.’

  The two men seemed unaware of her presence. They were looking questioningly at one another.

  Adam Collier said: ‘She’s not your daughter. And if what he says is true —’

  ‘It makes no difference,’ said Sam.

  ‘We’re going to get her back.’

  ‘Yes.’ Sam’s whisper was harsh. ‘But we’re going to have to wait. I asked them for proof . . . and they said I’d have it. What will they do to her? How will they prove they’ve got her?’

  Barbara said: ‘In all the most fashionable sadistic thrillers —’

  ‘What will they do to her?’ said Sam.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Paula had slept in her clothes. She had dozed off in ten or fifteen-minute snatches, each time waking up with a sour taste in her mouth. The room was stuffy, the window wedged tightly shut. The night had been interminable, and the day went slowly.

  Willie McKenna sat watching her vacuously, with a permanent leer that had frozen on his face. Willie and the other man, Russell, had taken it in turns to guard her: spasmodically they tried talking to her, but she refused to answer. Now Russell was away with Legat — away getting in touch with Sam Westwood — and Willie sprawled again in the chair. He looked as frowsty and bored as she felt.

  She wondered how long it would be before there was some news from the other two. In spite of her reluctance even to acknowledge Willie’s existence, she found herself saying:

  ‘I may be here for days. It’s impossible.’

  ‘If you’re here for days,’ said Willie, yawning, ‘you’re here for days.’

  ‘You’ve no idea how far they may have to go to . . . to find the diamonds.’

  ‘Not far,’ said Willie. ‘We did the job not fifty miles out of London, and he didn’t have time to go a long way away to hide them. Anyway, what would he be doing that for?’

  They waited. Paula closed her eyes and played a pointless, monotonous game: she tried to visualize Sam meeting Legat and Russell, getting into a car and driving into the country somewhere. They got out. Legat took a spade out of the back of the car. Sam indicated a spot close to a hedge, and Russell began to dig. Ten minutes later they lifted out a huge treasure-chest.

  Then Legat turned and shot Sam.

  Of course it wouldn’t be like that. The diamonds wouldn’t be buried in a field, and there had surely never been any treasure-chest. More likely they were in a small case in a house somewhere — right here in London, even.

  And Legat wouldn’t shoot Sam. Murder was too big a risk to run.

  They might beat him up, though; and leave him there.

  Willie McKenna yawned again, voluminously.

  Paula got off the bed and went to the door beside the greasy washbasin.

  ‘Don’t be long,’ said Willie.

  She went in to the tiny, cramped lavatory.

  The window in here could not have been opened in years. The place smelt foul. The catch on the window was rusted, and if she tried to open it she would make a noise. ‘Don’t spend too long in there,’ Legat had warned her. ‘Watch her, Willie. If she tries anything like smashing the window or anything, let her have it. Don’t try to be smart,’ he had grinned, ‘or you’ll have to sit in there with the door open each time.’

  Although the window was closed, she had noticed that another smell came seeping in from outside, over and above the stench of bad drains. It was a spicy, burnt, rather sickening smell. This time it was even more pungent than before.

  Resounding up the well in the centre of this block of buildings, whatever it was, there came a sudden indignant voice.

  ‘If something isn’t bloody well done soon . . .’

  There was the clatter of a dustbin lid.

  ‘It’s number twenty-five again,’ said another voice. ‘Them Indians again.’

  ‘I tell you, if half the mugs what go in there could see what comes out the back door . . .’

  Paula went back into the room.

  An Indian restaurant, number twenty-five. But number twenty-five where? And what good would it do her if she knew?

  She said: ‘When can I have something to eat?’

  Willie glanced at his watch. ‘It’s only an hour since you had something.’

  ‘I’m hungry. I want a decent meal.’

  ‘You’ll have cold meat and cheese next time,’ he said, ‘just the same as you had them last time.’

  ‘You could send next door to the Indian restaurant for something.’

  Willie stiffened. He pushed his feet against the floor and sat upright. ‘How do you know there’s an Indian restaurant next door?’

  ‘I can smell it,’ said Paula.

  He stared at her suspiciously for a couple of seconds, then snorted.

  ‘Not at this time of day,’ he said. ‘Wait till the boys get back later on. Maybe we celebrate this evening. But maybe by then you’ll be in a hurry to get away, huh?’

  Paula sauntered towards the window. Willie was at once on his feet, and his hand gripped her arm. She jerked herself free.

  He said: ‘Keep away from the window.’

  She went back and slumped on the bed. This could go on for hours. She lay on her side and studied the repellent wallpaper. The real Barbara Westwood, she imagined, would probably have been hysterical. But the Hastings home had been nothing wonderful, and her life since she had left it had been nothing wonderful; she felt dully that this was just another inevitable stage in the degradation that living had nearly always been for her.

  She thought about Sam, and there was a strange sweetness in the memory. In spite of everything — the falseness of her position and the knowledge that she must soon shatter the illusion — she had experienced intimations of happiness, for such a short time.

  The happiness, such as it was, had led only to trouble. Sam was going to have to surrender his stolen treasure.

  Adam Collier. She wondered how much he had been told about her disappearance.

  There were footsteps on the stairs, coming up fast. Willie was on the alert. He turned towards the door. A key grated in the lock.

  Willie said: ‘Is that —’

  ‘It’s us,’ said Legat.

  The door opened and the two men came in. One glance at their faces was enough. Something had gone wrong.

  Paula felt cold inside. She sat up, crouching defensively on the edge of the bed.

  Legat stared at her. His expression was not pleasant.

  Willie said: ‘Did you get the stuff?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he —’

  ‘He didn’t come,’ said Legat, his eyes still on Paula. ‘He said’ — he was speaking very slowly and deliberately — ‘that he had no proof we’d got you.’

  Willie giggled incredulously. ‘Is that the truth, now?’

  ‘He said,’ Legat continued, ‘that before he would take us and show us where he’d stashed the stuff, he wanted evidence that you were with us.’

  There was an ominous silence. All three men were looking at Paula. Their expressions were avid and calculating at the same time.

  In a soft voice, Russell said: ‘Well.’

  Willie’s knife turned over like a gleaming fish in the palm of his hand. ‘We could maybe send him an ear,’ he said with relish.

  Paula made herself sit quite still. ‘I doubt,’ she said levelly, ‘whether he’d recognize my ear. Ears are all much alike, you know.’

  ‘Well, then . . .’

  ‘You’re all talk,’ said Paula. ‘That’s all it is — talk. You sound like a lot of kids playing Red Indians.’

&n
bsp; Willie’s lips came together. He plodded towards her.

  Legat said: ‘Stop the cheap drama, Willie. You’re not frightening anybody.’

  Willie stood where he was. His eyes were sulky and malicious. Then he murmured: ‘We’ll see, we’ll see,’ and turned away.

  ‘Your father,’ said Legat, ‘presumably knows your handwriting?’

  ‘Handwriting can always be forged,’ said Paula.

  ‘All the same, I think you’re going to write him a letter. You’re going to tell him that there’s no fake about it: we’ve got you, and we don’t hand you back until we get our share of the Mannerlaw stones. You can send him your love as well, if you like.’

  He was about to say something else, but his attention was suddenly distracted. He seemed to be looking at something above Paula’s head. Gradually a smile sneaked across his face.

  It was Russell who said: ‘That’s it. You got it.’

  ‘The hair,’ said Willie.

  Legat said: ‘All nicely packed ready. If you slice it off above the ribbon, Willie, it’ll stay all nice and tidy, just the way it is.’

  ‘No,’ whispered Paula from her dry throat.

  ‘First of all we’ll have the letter,’ said Legat. He stooped. She looked down on his almost obscenely curly head. From under the bed he drew a small case, opened it, and took out a few sheets of writing paper. ‘Here. Write what I tell you.’

  ‘I haven’t got a pen,’ said Paula.

  Legat glowered, and fumbled in his pocket. He took out a cheap liquid-lead pencil.

  ‘Now.’

  ‘Suppose I don’t want to write anything at all?’

  ‘Don’t you want to get out of here?’ said Legat. He nodded peremptorily at the paper. ‘Start writing, or else I’ll change my mind and leave you to Willie.’

  Paula balanced the paper awkwardly on her knee.

  Legat said: ‘Write this.’ He stared upwards for inspiration, his tongue caressing his top lip. ‘Er . . . ‘This is to let you know it’s true what they say. They’ve got me, and they won’t let me go until you share out with them. Go to the Red Lion at the same time tomorrow, and wait there for a telephone call.’’ He looked at Willie and Russell. All three of them nodded: it would have been comic if it had not been so real. ‘And you can finish off,’ he said, ‘with a little warning. Go on. Write this: ‘They’re sending something to show you it’s true. If you don’t do what they say this time, they’ll make the next instalment worse.’ Now, what does he call you — his usual name for you?’

  ‘Barbie,’ she said.

  ‘Sign it, ‘Barbie’, then.’

  She signed it. Her fingers were trembling, and the writing sprawled unevenly.

  Legat took the sheet of paper from her and read it, silently mouthing the words. He muttered his satisfaction as he reached the end.

  Paula saw Willie’s eyes widening in anticipation. He was looking at her hair.

  Suddenly she whimpered. She put one hand to her mouth, and slid from the bed. Legat turned. Willie took a menacing step forward.

  She sobbed: ‘Let me . . . I’ve got to . . .’

  She stumbled past them towards the lavatory, and slammed the door behind her. She made a violent retching noise, and heard Russell’s snigger outside. It was echoed by Willie.

  She made the sound again, and moaned. As she did so, she was holding on to her tightly drawn-back hair with one hand while she loosened the ribbon with the other. The liquid-lead pencil, which she had carried with her as she rushed in was on the window-ledge. She put the ribbon down beside it, not letting go of her hair. It was difficult to hold the ribbon steady as she wrote clumsily along its inner side. She rested the side of her hand against it.

  A fist pounded on the door. ‘Come on. Get a move on. You can’t go on being sick all day.’

  She retched again. And she wrote: Next to 25 — Indian restaurant. Then she put the pencil in her pocket and swiftly but carefully twisted the ribbon round her hair again.

  They were waiting for her as she came out — like executioners, she thought wildly. She might have been Mary Queen of Scots, or Anne Boleyn, or someone like that. Had executioners then looked like these three — degenerate, lank-faced, detestable?

  ‘Feel better?’ said Legat. ‘It’s not going to hurt, you know.’

  She wanted to curse him — to use some filthy, utterly derogatory word, no matter what the result was — but she could only stand there, feeling dizzy and, all at once, genuinely sick.

  ‘Right, Willie,’ said Legat.

  She turned her head away, not wanting to catch even a glimpse of his face. She heard his quickened breathing as he approached her. One hand rested for a moment on her shoulder, and she knocked it aside.

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to touch me.’

  ‘Now, look —’

  Legat said: ‘Do as she says. Leave her alone.’

  She felt the sudden tug on her hair as Willie took hold of it below the ribbon. There was a prickling all over her scalp. Then it was over, with a strange, brittle crackling sound as though the knife had sheared through an electric flex. She felt a final tug, and then was released.

  Willie laughed with glee. ‘That’s quite a hair style you have there now.’

  ‘Give it to me,’ said Legat.

  Paula forced herself to turn round. She saw the neat brown bun of hair, gathered into the ribbon and then splaying out jaggedly on the other side. Legat picked it up and studied it musingly.

  ‘There’s some brown paper in that case,’ he said to Russell. ‘Wrapped round those tools. Get it out. And some string — just about enough, I think.’

  They found a piece of cardboard as well, and packed the hair in it. When the parcel was complete, Legat put his hand in his pocket.

  ‘Where’s my pencil?’

  Paula sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at the floor, trying to appear dejected and completely indifferent.

  Legat said: ‘Hey. What did you do with that pencil I lent you?’

  Slowly she lifted her head. ‘Pencil.’

  ‘That dry pen thing. You know. To write the letter.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ she said absently. She shook her head, then reached into her pocket. ‘Oh . . . I hadn’t realized.’

  She was sure that as he took it from her he must get a message through it: it went tingling down her arm and through the pencil into his hand. He must surely guess. When he sat in the chair with the package on his knee and began to address it in tilting capitals, she thought he could hardly fail to wonder. And once he thought about it, he would open the package just to make sure.

  Legat said: ‘There we are. Very nice. A really nice little present for our old friend Sam.’ He held it out to Willie. ‘Go out and post this. And bring some food with you when you come back. And something to drink. Drop in on Tony and get him to wrap something up for you.’

  Willie went to the door. There he hesitated. ‘This means we’ll be waiting until tomorrow. More hanging around. And all the time there’s no telling what . . .’

  ‘This is the best way,’ said Legat. ‘There’s nothing I’d like better than to go down there again and liven him up. But that could be walking into a trap. Sam Westwood may have called the cops in; he may not. I don’t know the way his mind works. But he won’t just be sitting and waiting quietly for us to break into his house. We’re not going to him: he’s going to come to us — with his hands full.’

  Willie nodded and went out. Paula watched him carrying that parcel out. Perhaps she ought to have felt triumphant; but maybe nobody would find the message, and if they did how would they know where the Indian restaurant was or where the street was? She felt suddenly lax and deflated.

  Russell said: ‘Tomorrow —’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said Legat, staring at Paula, ‘there had better be results. I’m getting impatient. Very impatient.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  They had all been in the sitting-room for an hour before th
e postman came. Adam Collier had arrived immediately after breakfast — as though, thought Roger viciously, he fancied himself as a member of the family and intended to impose himself on the others. Anyone could see what he was after; he had admitted it himself: it was his job to get his hands on the Mannerlaw diamonds if he could. And yet Sam Westwood did not throw him out of the house.

  Roger lit one cigarette from another, and crushed the butt into the tangle in the ashtray.

  His sister was reading a magazine. She had her legs crossed, her skirt neatly and smoothly adjusted. She turned over the glossy pages with the very tip of her right middle finger. Roger was sure she was not reading, not even seeing; it was all part of her usual act.

  When the knock came at the front door, it was Roger who went to collect the parcel. He carried it back into the room with a feeling of unaccountable exhilaration. He was aware of Barbara glancing surreptitiously at it.

  And of Sam — tense, waiting.

  Roger put the parcel down on the brass-topped table. His father reached out and touched it.

  Roger cleared his throat. ‘Do you want me to open it?’ He was consumed by a burning eagerness. He wanted to know what they had done to that girl — what sort of thing they had thought of.

  Sam snatched the parcel up and began to unwrap it quickly, as though afraid that if he did not go wildly at it he would never be able to open it.

  As he spread the brown paper out flat and removed a bent piece of cardboard, Barbara dropped her magazine and stood up.

  Mrs. Westwood sat with her head in her hands. Adam Collier took an unsteady step forward.

  ‘Just the way I do it myself,’ said Barbara curtly. ‘She certainly got all the little details right, didn’t she?’

  Roger looked at the odd little knot of hair looped with ribbon. So that was all.

  Sam whispered: ‘If I’d gone along with them yesterday, instead of asking for proof. . .’

  ‘It was my fault,’ said Adam. ‘I took Fred’s word for it. We all got our wires crossed. I didn’t ask enough questions. But you’re not to blame.’