The Tide Can't Wait

by Louis Trimble

  That, at least, she thought as she watched him go, was not a lie. She was going to miss him if only because his leaving made her feel alone—and afraid again.

  “Sometimes you aren’t a very admirable character, Lenny Corey,” she told herself as she walked into the inn.

  Seeing Mrs. Doddsby, she asked for a bath. “I fell into a pond and got full of silt,” she explained.

  “Tim,” Mrs. Doddsby directed her husband, “go light the Geyser for Miss Corey. It’ll be ready that quick, Miss Corey.”

  Lenny went on up to her room. The liquor had worn off and she felt heavy, depressed. The hot bath was soothing and she lay in it until the water began to turn cool. In her room, she glanced out the window to see Barr walking Portia to her cottage. With a faint smile at Barr’s obviousness, she stretched out on the bed, closed her eyes and fell asleep.

  When Lenny awakened, she dressed, choosing a yellow cotton that did not clash with her hair. The dress was a favorite of hers, having a bodice that did not emphasize the fullness of her breasts and a skirt that flared about her long, fine legs when she walked. A quick brush at her hair, a slash of lipstick, and she went down to the dining room. It was past seven. Barr was drinking a whisky and chatting desultorily with Doddsby.

  He grinned as she approached him. She stopped, flushing. “What’s the matter? Did I forget something?”

  “Everything seems very much in the right place,” he assured her. “Whisky?”

  “I’m too hungry.”

  “Ah, dinner for two,” Barr said. “And can the lady have a whisky with her suet pudding?”

  “It’s steak pie tonight,” Doddsby said. He fixed the whisky, and followed Lenny and Barr to a table in the dining room. He set down the glass. “Steak pie or omelette.”

  They both decided on steak pie. Lenny sipped the whisky, glad for something to do while she waited. Barr had not asked her to dinner; he had just taken it for granted that he could join her. She was not sure that she liked his attitude. She was equally unsure as to any success if she complained.

  Barr said, “Over your ducking?”

  “Yes. I had a bath.”

  “Sorry we intruded.”

  “Are you?” She was surprised to hear the words pop out of her. “I thought you’d followed us.”

  Barr’s grin was easy. “I did. Even so, you were glad to see Portia and me.”

  She decided to play it straight. “I was. Very.”

  “Unwanted boy friend?”

  “Old friend from the school where I taught. He’s sweet but a little too serious.”

  Something she had said appeared to be clicking over files in Barr’s mind; she could tell it by the suddenly still expression on his face. But when he spoke, he still gave the impression of doing nothing more than indulging in light chatter. “Honorable intentions?”

  Lenny was annoyed. She said sharply, “Is that your business, Mr. Barr?”

  He said quietly, “Very much so,” and then he smiled and sipped his drink. “And so,” he said, “the dog came in and paid four to one to win and I had ten quid on him.”

  For a moment Lenny thought he had gone mad. And then she saw the waitress with their soup at the side of the table. Lenny felt better now; Barr had definitely revealed his position. She felt very good indeed. She had achieved a kind of victory.

  When the girl had gone, she said, “Is it Portia’s business, too?”

  “Drink your soup,” Barr said. “Hot soup is good for you.”

  There were other diners, Lenny saw now, close to them. She lifted her spoon. Barr ate and talked, not only about dogs who paid four to one but about church architecture. By the time the meal was over, Lenny felt as though she had had a tour of England’s cathedrals. Lenny found it hard to associate a man with so much academic knowledge with the lean, hard agent seated across from her. Yet there could be no doubt. As she listened, she realized that he was the Barr who had written the book which had first aroused her interest in church architecture.

  She said on impulse, “What kind of book are you writing now?”

  He was laughing at her. “A novel. It’s a thriller. You know, spies and that sort of thing. Of course, like all of my breed, I don’t know a cloak from a dagger.”

  The coffee came and after they were done, Barr suggested a walk. His tone of voice was a command and she went docilely. Outside, she found the air cooler than she had anticipated.

  “Let me get a wrap.”

  “Hold it.” He went inside and returned with a gray gabardine topcoat which he draped about her shoulders. They went up onto the barren headland by way of a faint path. A slice of moon swam in the soft black sky, tinting the calm waters of the little cove and throwing everything about them into silvery light and dark shadow. They sat on a wide rock, smoking and looking out over the water.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “You’re bursting with it.”

  “I’d like to know more about you. A few minutes ago I was thinking of you as an agent.”

  “Of sorts,” he admitted.

  “How can I be sure?”

  He laughed. It was a genuine laugh, coming from deep inside. “No wonder you’ve been pecky! But you’re right to question me. Let me put it this way—I get my answers from the Chief. So does Stark. I sent him to see you. Satisfied?”

  “I’ll have to be unless you have some kind of identity card.”

  “We don’t work that way,” Barr said. “If anything should happen to one of us, there’s no diplomatic sizzling.”

  “Just what is your job?” She was genuinely curious.

  He said with deep sincerity, “To try to help keep peace in the world.”

  “And Portia?”

  “Ah,” he said, “that was my doing, telling Stark to have you be on the lookout for her. I think Portia is working only for Portia. But I never know.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He said, “Portia knows Leon Roget. She’s known him for a number of years.” And the way he said it told Lenny a great deal. He took a second cigarette and lighted it, and she saw his expression as the lighter flame flared up. Then she understood even more. He spoke harshly. “You spent a good deal of time with Roget in London. Did you learn anything?”

  “Yes. But I doubt if you’ll believe me.”

  “Just because I don’t trust you doesn’t mean I expect you to lie every time you open your mouth.”

  She was not angry. She knew she deserved what he had just said. Why should he trust her? Even so, she wanted him to.

  “I accepted this—this job because I had to. I resented having been followed and spied on. I still do, in a way, but I suppose it has taken me a while to understand the importance of everything—the work you’re doing. But it doesn’t matter—how I feel.”

  “You’re trying to say that you understand enough to co-operate?”

  “Put it that way,” she said. “This morning I was thinking about it and—well, it’s sort of nice to be doing something to make up for what I did. I didn’t know about Leon then; I do now. I knew the first night in London.” “He told you?”

  She said quietly, “It wasn’t anything he said. It was the way he looked. It’s hard to explain. But three days ago I still thought I was in love with him. Then I wasn’t—it was just in the way he looked.”

  “I think I understand,” Barr said, so dryly that she winced. And she remembered him saying, “Portia knows Leon Roget.”

  She said quickly, wanting to have this explanation over with, “Leon knows about me, too. I don’t know how he found out, but he knows why I’m here.” She tried to tell him everything, all her reactions, what she had guessed from what Leon had not said.

  “But,” Lenny finished, “he doesn’t know that I know he knows.” Despite the heavy tension within her, she almost laughed at the bewilderment on his face. “I mean, Leon isn’t aware that I know he’s realized why I’m here.”

  “Thank you,” Barr said in a dry voice. “Let’s hope you’re right…. Wha
t about this Price character?”

  “Tommy?” She told him about Tommy Price, how they had met, how good a friend he had always been. While she talked, she had the impression that Barr already knew this.

  “You already know about Tommy,” she said accusingly.

  “We know about everyone with whom you’ve had contact since you met Roget,” he said. “What I don’t know is—what did you tell Price about Leon?”

  “I told him I didn’t feel the same about Leon. I had to. He’s very perceptive and he guessed.”

  “Did you tell him anything else?”

  His insistence made her angry. “Of course not. But it wouldn’t matter if I had. Tommy’s my friend. He could help. He knows Leon.”

  Barr made a sound. “Rule one—keep your mouth shut.”

  “Rule two?” She was still angry.

  “Don’t trust anyone. Not even yourself.”

  She felt herself flushing in the dark. One of the things she feared most was her own nature. “Thank you, Professor.”

  “You don’t have to mock me. I’m only doing a job.”

  “I’m doing a job, too,” she reminded him. “If I’m going to do it halfway decently, I’ll have to be trusted enough to be told something.”

  “If I could trust you,” he said bluntly.

  He stopped. She felt his hand on her arm, the fingers squeezing lightly, in warning. She sat still. The night seemed the same except that the moon was higher and brighter. The soft breeze carried the scent of the sea on it. Listening, she caught distant sounds. There was a boat putting softly around beyond the mouth of the cove. She listened for something else, sure that Barr hadn’t been disturbed by a distant boat.

  He was speaking so softly that she had difficulty picking his voice out of the light breeze. “To your right. Something just cut across the light from Portia’s window. Start a quarrel with me. Then jump and run—head for the inn.”

  A moment before she would have been glad to quarrel and run from him. Now the thought of leaving the protection he represented frightened her. But there was no questioning his tone of voice. “Your conversation is very pleasant—and that’s all I came for. Conversation.” Her voice was shrill, loud.

  Barr chuckled.

  She said, even more loudly, “If I ever take another walk with you, I’ll bring handcuffs. Good night!”

  She turned and started off. Barr came up from the rock and grabbed her arm. She swung about and slapped him, startled at the sound her hand made hitting his face. She hadn’t meant to hit him so hard. Or had she?

  His whisper cut in, “Run!”

  She ran. The uneven ground rose to trip her. She cursed the impulse that had made her wear high heels. She felt herself falling and she thrust out her hands. The jar went up through the heels of her palms to her shoulders as she struck the grassy but hard ground. She had started to push herself up when she heard the noise, very soft, something like the pop of a wine cork muffled in a towel.

  She looked back the way she had come. It was dark there and Barr was not in sight. The popping came again and this time she heard the bullet as it struck a rock and whined off into the night.

  Now she understood Barr’s order. Someone was stalking them with a silenced gun. She was not sure how she knew that it was a silenced gun, but she did know, just as she knew that somewhere close by, in the dark shadows cast by the rocks, someone with a gun was trying to kill Barr or kill her—or both of them.

  CHAPTER VII

  Lenny found it hard to comprehend. She had the feeling that all this must be out of a book and that she could lay it aside when she chose.

  She moved and her foot kicked against a small stone, sending it noisily into another. A form moved and the light in Portia’s window was a tiny clear rectangle of yellow again.

  The plopping sound came. But before she heard it, her ears registered the whine of a searching bullet just above her flattened body. And now the reality of this slammed into her.

  From near the rock where they had been sitting, a noise made her twist her head. She could see the rock etched by the moonlight and another form arcing up, blurred by movement. It struck the grass near the cliff’s edge. A figure rose, cutting off the light from Portia’s window again. It moved, a dark bulk against the night, and then was gone. Lenny thought, Barr, drawing attention from her. But she dared not rise and run now. Either they were both marked for death or the stalker could not tell them apart.

  Even so, she could not simply lie there and do nothing. Nor could she crawl forward over the rough ground. She did not know how to maneuver silently.

  Her hands slid carefully along the grass until her fingers closed about the rough coldness of small stones. They were half-buried and she dug at the sod to loosen them. She broke a fingernail and swallowed a soft cry of pain. Finally she had three stones, each nearly the size of a baseball. Carefully she twisted around until she faced the direction she had last seen the stalker.

  And she saw him again. A dark bulk rose, moved, disappeared. He was getting closer to the rock and she knew that he was trying to outflank Barr. The dryness of fear clogged her throat, making breathing difficult.

  The figure appeared, moving toward the rock in a semicircle. There was no sound from Barr; it was as though he had never existed. Lenny got to her feet, ran forward, her eyes on the moving shadow, and then dropped to the ground, breathing hard, hurt where the rocks she carried gouged into her breast.

  She repeated the process, angling so that she and the stalker would meet. When she saw him again, he could not have been over ten feet away.

  She lay flat to the ground, fighting herself to keep from sobbing, forcing the muscles in her arms and legs to quiet. Pure terror gripped her.

  Something moved not five feet to her left, and then she realized that this must be Barr. The stalker was standing almost invisible against rock, but moonlight glinted on the barrel of his gun. The only sound was the distant putting of a ship’s motor from somewhere beyond the headland.

  Barr moved again and she realized that he did not know she was near him. He was trying to get around to the other side of the rock and flank the stalker—as the stalker was trying to flank him. It was a deadly game of hide-and-seek.

  Barr rose up. Lenny saw again the glint of moonlight on gunmetal as the stalker swung his weapon—Barr had been seen. She rose.

  The rock was heavy and she knew that she had misjudged even as she released it. She could hear the soft plop in the grass off to her left, away from Barr and herself. The gun swiveled in that direction.

  Lenny stood openly and threw the second rock, putting the swing of her shoulders behind it. When she heard the rock strike stone, she was already running. Her shoes wobbled on the uneven ground and she kicked them off, scarcely pausing.

  Barr cried, “Lenny!” but she did not stop. She did not learn until later that her third rock had struck the stalker, not hard enough to down him but with enough force to give Barr the chance he needed.

  Barr’s topcoat flapped about her body and she shrugged out of it, every step expecting to hear that deadly plop and feel the shock of a bullet striking her.

  “Lenny!”

  She saw the pathway in the moonlight and plunged down it. Behind her someone was running. There was a gunshot, loud this time, unsilenced. She plunged on down the path.

  “Lenny!” Barr cried her name for the third time, his voice close behind her now. But even if she had wanted to, she could not stop. She had to run to keep from falling.

  Ahead of her was the soft, slow-moving darkness of water. She had forgotten about the tide. It was in and the lower end of the path had become part of the cove. Her right side struck bruisingly against the rubbly wall of the cliff face as she tried to slow down. A rock gouged her feet.

  She could hear Barr behind her as she staggered away from the cliff. She knew it was Barr; the stalker would have shot her by now. She felt Barr’s hand reach for her, and she plunged another step forward.

  A
harsh white light sprang up from directly ahead, blinding her, pinning them both against the backdrop of darkness. She threw up one arm against the light and felt herself being violently pushed from behind.

  She fell with her arms flailing, and as she fell, she heard sounds that she had come to recognize instinctively. Someone was behind that merciless light, shooting at them.

  She struck feet first and her dress billowed up about her, pushed by the water. She felt herself go all the way down until her feet struck bottom. She thrust with her legs and surfaced. The water came barely to her neck. Through the sting of salt in her eyes, she saw that the white light was gone. Barr’s voice came from beside her, sharp and commanding.

  “Diver!”

  She went down instantly. Barr went with her, gripping her arm, his fingers hurting. She jerked free and caught the cloth of his coat, following him, using her feet to propel herself. She did not know in what direction they were going, nor what the reason was—she only knew that she must stay close to him.

  Her clothing made her movements slow and awkward. Her lungs burned with the need for air, and finally she gave a tug at Barr’s coat and let herself surface. They broke water together. As she took the first heady gulp of air, she heard the buzzing, like the searching of angry wasps. She went down, her lungs only half-filled, clinging to his coat with the violence of desperation, with no idea but that of survival.

  He surfaced and she came alongside him. The light was back, sweeping the water where they had been, coming closer to where they were. Barr said, “Once more—on the other side of these rocks. Can you make it?”

  There was no need for an answer. As the spotlight swept away from them, its backwash revealed a brief glimpse of a small launch, now inside the cove. She had only one choice—to follow Barr.

  He went down and soon she could feel the roughness of rocks on both sides. She scraped an elbow, struck roughly with a kicking foot, and then his hand was on her arm, guiding her. She came up to find herself in water little deeper than her waist. The rocks rose sheer about them, forming the walls of a natural pool with the steep face of the headland at their backs. There was no wind here, but the air that struck her damp body was chill, making her teeth chatter.