“What the devil does that mean?”
“It means that someone fixed the steering and the brakes so that eventually if you put any particularly heavy stress on them, they’d give way.”
Conal, despite his suspicions, took longer to digest the information than the old man who in an instant put back the twenty years his relief seemed to have stripped from him—and more.
“They’re trying to kill my girl,” he said rising to his feet. “We have to find her.”
“They?” said Gilpin. “Who are they, Mr Connolly?”
“How in the name of God should I know?” raged Old Pat. “Do you not think if I knew, I wouldn’t be having them shot down like beasts in the forest?”
Gilpin stuck out his pointed chin and said softly, “There’ll be no shooting in Boston unless we do it, Mr Connolly. Remember that. Do you have any idea where your granddaughter is now?”
“None at all,” replied Old Pat surlily, not caring to be reprimanded by a public servant.
“And what was this woman, McHarg, doing in the car, do you know that?”
Old Pat shot Conal a warning glance and said evenly, “She was a friend of my granddaughter’s. She must have loaned the Porsche to her for the day.”
“Generous,” observed the policeman with an ironic inflection. “We’d better find Miss Connolly as soon as we can, to be on the safe side. I assume if she loaned her car, she’s likely to be in town somewhere still? Any ideas?”
The two Connollys exchanged glances and shook their heads.
“OK. She’s staying here with your other boy, right? I’d better talk to him. He might have a better notion of her movements. And the bodyguard, I’ll want to see him too.”
“Sam? He made a statement to your men, then hung around till I got here. I sent him home to dry off.”
“OK. I’ll get to him. Now, Professor Connolly, where’s he?”
“Upstairs. The stress of all this has been too much for him. He’s pretty shook up, you’ll find.”
Gilpin went out, Conal accompanying him to the foot of the stairway to point out Christie’s room. As the Captain disappeared, the front door opened and Sam came in.
“Mr Conal,” he said, “is your grandfather still here?”
“In here,” said Old Pat imperiously from the study door. “I want to talk with you.”
Sam moved like a recruit responding to a drill-sergeant. The poor bastard must have been terrified for his life when he saw the Porsche go into the water, thought Conal. Now he’d been given a second chance and he was eager to reestablish himself.
“Mr Connolly, sir,” he said, obviously desperate to pre-empt reproof, “I’ve been doing a bit of checking. It seemed likely that Miss Deirdre’d need a car, her not having the Porsche and all. So I’ve been ringing round. I was right. She’s rented a convertible, picked it up this morning about fifteen minutes after ditching me.”
He paused triumphantly.
“You’ve got the licence details and everything?” asked Conal. “Great. We can get Gilpin to put a trace on it.”
“Hold it,” said Old Pat. “Not so fast. How long’s she rented this car for?”
“Just a couple of days,” said Sam.
“So she wants a couple of days away,” mused Old Pat. “Let’s not be so quick to let the whole of our gabby police department know how she’s spending those days, shall we? Sam, have you got enough connections to do a trace yourself?”
Sam shook his head, reluctant to admit inadequacy, but even more frightened to claim more than he could deliver.
“No need,” said Conal suddenly, striking his forehead in a gesture more Latin than Irish. “I know where she is!”
“What?”
“I remember now. She’s booked the Lodge. I overheard her calling old Goffman at the ceilidh last week.”
“She never said anything to me,” proclaimed the old man.
“Well, there wouldn’t be much point if she didn’t want you to know,” mocked Conal, moving towards the telephone. “I’ll ring Goffman.”
There was no phone at the Lodge itself, this being one of its charms for those in search of peaceful isolation.
“No!” snapped the Granda. “What could that old fool do? I doubt there’s any danger for Dree. Whoever fixed that car will still be thinking she’s lying on a slab in the morgue, most likely. Besides, we can be there ourselves just about as quick as he can crawl up the mountainside in that old truck of his.”
“You came down from Castlemaine in the chopper?” asked Conal, quick on the uptake.
“How else would I come, thinking my darling Dree was dead?”
Conal considered the idea. “But if you’re so certain Dree’s safe now…”
“Now, but not forever,” said Old Pat. “I don’t know who’s done this thing, but I mean to find out before they can try again, which might be sooner than we think.
“Besides,” he added thoughtfully, “I should like to see for myself what manner of thing it is that turns my lovely open Deirdre into some kind of conspirator.”
Conal too. The shadow of a suspicion had touched his mind. He wiped it away as an absurdity, but he knew there was no way he was going to let the Granda go by himself.
And however you looked at it, it was surely better than prancing up Fifth Avenue in front of an army of potato-brains.
The Granda was heading for the door, pausing only to pick up an old scuffed leather briefcase. It looked to be fairly weighty.
“What the hell have you got there, Granda?” asked Conal.
“My medication,” he replied promptly. “I’m a sick old man, Con. I daren’t be too far from a whole storeful of pills and potions.”
Sick old man, thought Conal. Bullshit!
“What about Gilpin?” he asked, nodding upwards.
“Christie will be spewing his heart out about his English whore,” said Old Pat disgustedly. “And Gilpin will be lapping up the scandal like mother’s milk and wondering whether he dare arrest him on suspicion of murder. That’s the way their minds work. Let’s be on our way before he decides to take all our fingerprints.”
They left. The cop in the car outside touched his cap. Nice lives these rich Micks lead, he thought settling back comfortably in his seat. No worries, no hassle. And Gilpin would be out soon, full of good whisky and self-importance. Well, at least it would put him in a good mood.
He closed his eyes and tried to catch a few moments’ sleep.
CHAPTER 5
The Connollys’ mountain lodge was built against a hillside. From the slope below, the trees had been cleared, partly for use in construction, partly to give a clear view away over the darkly forested landscape filleted here and there with a briefly glimpsed strip of silver where a fast-moving river caught the eye of the sun. Behind and above the building the trees remained, mainly tall Douglas firs whose needles and heavy cones formed a rough carpet in the fall and whose strong trunks provided a necessary barrier against the winter snows which might otherwise have avalanched over the Lodge as spring returned.
The road to the house went no further and its approach was visible for about a quarter of a mile as it snaked down the hillside to where the forest began again. Half a mile further down, it joined the highway which about a mile to the south ran through the small settlement, optimistically called Summit, where the Goffmans lived.
Deirdre stopped to pick up the keys but refused Mrs Goffman’s invitation to drink tea and catch up on local gossip.
“That girl’s in an awful hurry,” said Mrs Goffman, rather put out.
Mr Goffman, who had long developed a deaf ear to his wife’s overactive voice, didn’t reply, though Deirdre’s haste and agitation had not escaped him. But he also knew the value of a blind eye to the behavior of those who employed you and a still tongue when it came to their business.
Deirdre drove straight up to the Lodge at high speed. The private road had been badly pitted by a couple of hard winters and her hired car’s suspension groaned protestingly b
ut she made no attempt to slow down. There was no precise time for the rendezvous, and for all she knew, Arthur was already there, waiting for her. Logically the thought should have made her drive slowly, reluctant to begin an encounter the outcome of which was going to cause pain and tribulation whichever way it went.
But the only logic in her heart was the logic of a lover hastening to a tryst.
It was no good! She’d told herself a thousand times. This was no state to start their meeting in. No turbulently emotional reunion could be allowed to pre-empt what had to be a cool, calm and considered decision. But still her foot kept hitting the accelerator and still her pulses raced in time with the high-revving engine. It would be better if he wasn’t there, she told herself. Better if she had time to recover her composure, think herself into the role of hostess receiving a weekend guest.
But when she burst out of the trees into the sunlit clearing before the Lodge and saw that no other car stood there, all she felt was a vast cold-drenching disappointment.
Inside she did the usual checks. Mr Goffman had switched the generator on to run the deep-freeze, which he had restocked. There were fresh gas-cylinders for the oven and for heating too, if required. But the preferred source of heat was the huge fireplace where a wigwam of logs stood ready for lighting. She tossed a match into their center and soon a plume of smoke was rising above the Lodge, its sharp resiny smell mingling pleasantly with the sweeter natural odors of the forest.
After that Dree went round the building, unlocking the shutters which for security purposes Mr Goffman left to the attention of the new arrivals.
Finally, as there was still no sign of another car, she took a shower and changed her clothes. Water was pumped up from a well beneath the kitchen floor and in addition just a couple of furlongs from the house by the edge of the clearing a fast-moving mountain stream ran. Neither source had been known to dry up.
Refreshed by the shower, she felt herself in control of her emotions once more and set about reinforcing this feeling by busying herself in a conventional domestic role, checking for dust, setting the table, laying out the makings of a meal.
When she heard the sound of a vehicle approaching, she was able to remove her apron and glance in the mirror to check her face and hair with hardly more than a qualm of anticipation, and that too mild to be called either joyous or fearful.
She went to the door and stood there, a welcoming smile on her face.
A jeep came out of the trees, more hesitantly than her own approach. She saw with surprise, concern, disappointment, that there were two men in it.
But it was Arthur who was driving.
He brought the jeep to a halt some twenty yards from the house and climbed out. He stood there for a moment, fair hair ruffled by the breeze which always blew here as though believing this glade had been cleared for its benefit alone. On his face was a smile, but no more than the smile which he put on to greet the hundreds of reception parties which lay in wait for him year by year as he stepped from plane, train and limousine.
Deirdre felt her own hostess’s welcome smile stretching wider and stiffer till it felt obscene and grotesque. She would have liked to step back into the house, escape to her bedroom, turn the key in the lock, but she couldn’t move. Perhaps they would remain like this for ever, petrified into effigies of the Noble Lady greeting the Royal Visitor.
The thought released her, but only into its fantasy.
She was wearing jeans, but her hands went out at either side as though gathering a full skirt and she dropped a curtsey.
The Prince’s formal arrival smile disappeared as though exorcized. He threw back his head and laughed.
And then they were both running, stumbling over the rough ground between them, till they met thigh to thigh, breast to breast, and mouth to mouth.
After what might have been five minutes or five days, Dree felt her perimeter of perception move slowly outwards again to take in sky and trees and the Lodge and finally the jeep.
“Who’s your chaperon?” she whispered.
“Oh God. Dewhurst. I’d forgotten him.”
Turning, he called, “Do step down, Mr Dewhurst.”
Slowly the policeman climbed out of the jeep. His face was a blank, showing neither disapproval of nor enthusiasm for the situation. As they had driven down from Canada (at speeds which had scared the living daylights out of him till he’d wondered aloud what a traffic cop would make of this pair of speeding limeys), Dewhurst had kept the same lack of expression on his face during the Prince’s explanation of what was going on.
“So you see,” he had concluded, “I’m not really putting you in an awkward situation, Mr Dewhurst. You’ll be able to report as fully as you feel necessary because, after this weekend, either the whole world is going to know, or else there won’t be anything to know.”
The simplicity of youth, thought Dewhurst glumly. The touching belief that their decisions decided anything! And the naive hope that it would be possible to make a calm, considered judgment on the basis of a two-day reunion in this remote and romantic setting after half a year of separation!
If it wasn’t for me being here, he thought cynically as he approached, they’d be inside by now pulling the clothes off each other. Or mebbe even outside.
“How d’you do, Miss,” he said stretching out his hand as the Prince made the introductions. He’d seen the girl before, he realized. But it had never occurred to him that she and the Prince were having a thing, though their families seemed to have got wind of it. Bloody nobs, they always closed ranks, kept it in the family. But if things went wrong it wouldn’t be Sorry, Inspector Dewhurst, we should have told you, it would be On your bike, Constable!
His mood wasn’t improved when a quick check round the Lodge revealed the absence of a telephone. And the Prince had the keys to the jeep in his pocket. Still, this couldn’t be the only human habitation round here. They had to get their supplies from somewhere. For all he knew these bloody trees screened off a whole building estate in the next glade two hundred yards up the hillside!
He drank some coffee, ate a sandwich and then, partly out of duty because he ought at least to get to know the lie of the land, and partly out of consideration because these two youngsters had been long separated and would clearly prefer to be on their own, he excused himself, to Stretch his legs, as he put it, on account of them being stiff after the drive.
Dree and Arthur watched him go with mingled relief and amusement.
“There,” said the Prince. “Aren’t our policemen wonderful?”
“Approaching, no. Departing, yes, they’re terrific,” answered Dree.
But now a silence fell between them which made them realize just how useful Dewhurst’s presence had been, providing an excuse not to talk as well as an inhibition against going to bed. Had he not been there when they met, Dree guessed—no, she knew—they would have made love instantly and talked afterwards. But now that physical burning rage for his body and all its delights which she had felt as they embraced had faded. It was still there in her breasts, her stomach, her thighs, ready to flare up again at a touch, a caress, but now it was talk first. It had to be.
“I want you,” she said.
“And I want you,” he answered.
But they didn’t move out of their respective chairs.
“And I shall have you,” she went on casually. “Even if you’ve come to tell me your family are marrying you off to some horse-faced halfwit with a pedigree like a Derby winner, I shall still have you before I knock your teeth in. OK?”
“OK. Well, that’s something to look forward to,” he said a trifle shakily.
“But first we’ve got to talk,” she went on. She was surprised to find herself more or less taking control of the proceedings, even more surprised to meet such little resistance from one who she knew to be strong-willed, positive and accustomed to command. Was that a good sign or a bad? And a good or bad sign of what?
“Art,” she said. “Listen, importan
t things first. Do you still feel the same? I mean, not that you like me, or are very fond of me, or would just adore to jump in the sack with me. No, what I want to know is do you love me, want to stay with me, feel that life would be empty without me.”
Such emotional earnestness was not in his tradition and clearly took him aback. This was more difficult for him, she realized. He was used to dealing in understatement, saving up the intense poetic outburst for moments of high passion. Well, that was OK and she loved to hear it and she accepted its sincerity, but as a precocious school-friend of hers had once assured an open-mouthed circle of less-advanced listeners, you could get a grizzly to sing serenades if you got a hold of his balls.
Arthur took such a long time to reply that she began to think he must be seeking the phraseology of evasion, the ambiguities which would make her letdown as gentle as possible.
But in the end all he did was nod and say, “Yes. I can’t add anything to that. And you?”
“Me too,” she said.
They sat and grinned at each other like children. The grins were genuine expressions of joy, but behind them they both felt the start of sadness and pain. For, though not children, they were both very young, younger than their years in that both of them had been brought up in protected environments which prepared them thoroughly for their specific roles but couldn’t provide the kind of maturation which comes from struggle and hardship. Dree knew all about the tragic and often sordid history of her forbears, but unlike the Granda in whose mind it was still a living reality, it meant little to her. Arthur had been trained to understand the social and economic problems of his country from an early age, but not all the reading, writing, listening, talking and touring in the world could remove the fact that to him money was mainly an abstract concept and hardship an alternative he sometimes chose in pursuance of military or sporting expertise.
Such upbringings must produce some kind of selfishness, especially as selfishness is as various as, say, goodness and some of the varieties of the latter are much more harmful than the former.
So even now as they sat and grinned at each other, there was a tiny unacknowledged part of both their minds which wished that the other had offered the easy way out by confessing the death, or at least the dilution, of love.
Who Guards a Prince? Page 20