Ransom

by Jon Cleary

  “Are you going to be sick?” Carole sat up.

  Sylvia blinked, opened her eyes wide, then shook her head. She felt the pain in her wrist and for the first time became aware of the stiffness and swelling in it; she must have sprained it when Carole had knocked her over with the car door. She lay back on the bed, drawing the blanket closely around her. Her gaze was unfocused; then she found she

  was looking at the blank spaces on the walls where the pictures had hung. She tried to remember the pictures that had hung on the walls of her own rooms in the cottage on Fishers Island, but that was too long ago. Even yesterday was difficult to recall now.

  “What pictures did you have there?”

  Carole looked around the room. She remembered how often she had lain on the bed where Sylvia lay: as a child, as a young girl, even as a widow when she had come here with her parents for two days after Roy’s death. The pictures had been ones she had brought home from her one trip abroad. It had been just after she had met Roy and he had persuaded her to accompany him on a charter flight to Russia. They had gone there, ninety young middle-class Americans seeking the truth, as Roy had told her. She had been interested only in him then; and she could remember the young Russians who had tried to make a pass at her and the other girls in the best American style. Roy had taken the pictures, of himself and herself saluting all the Communist ikons, wrapping their arms round a Russian soldier, even toasting a picture of Lenin; and she had brought them back and hung them here in this room, as much to annoy her parents for their opposition to Roy as for any other reason.

  When she had come here to the cottage last week she had been surprised to find the pictures still hanging on the walls. Maybe she didn’t know her parents quite as well as she thought she had; maybe they had kept this room exactly as it had been, hoping some day she would come back. Suddenly she loved them again and wanted to see them.

  “I’d never seen this place till a week ago.” She stood up quickly, picked up the pieces of cord hanging on the foot of Lisa’s bed. “Give me your hands.”

  “Do you have to tie us up again? If we promise - ?”

  Carole roughly grasped Lisa’s hands, began to bind them together. Lisa, noticing the sudden change in the girl’s mood, said nothing and did not struggle. Her hands and her

  ankles were bound; then Carole turned to Sylvia. The latter held up her swollen wrist, but Carole hesitated only a moment.

  “I’m sorry. You’ll just have to put up with it.”

  She bound Sylvia as she had done Lisa. Both women lay back on their beds and Carole, relenting for a moment, pulled their blankets up to cover them completely. She grabbed up their clothes, bundling them under her arm, picked up the tray with the plates and went out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  The light had been left on and Lisa turned her head and looked at Sylvia. “This is her room, you know.”

  “What does it matter now?” Sylvia was cold and aching and utterly dispirited. She had been thinking of her children before Abel had come into the room and she had been on the verge of weeping for them, almost resigned never to seeing them again. She had seen the look on Abel’s face, first when he had dragged her back into the house and again when he had come into the room some fifteen minutes ago. She knew that her and Lisa’s only insurance lay with Carole and she knew that the odds there were terribly against them.

  Lisa caught the other woman’s despair. “I suppose you’re right. All we can do is pray for a miracle.”

  “Are you religious?”

  “Not particularly. Are you?”

  “No. But I believe in God.”

  “I suppose everyone does when something like this happens to them. Or if they don’t believe, they hope there might be a God.” She tried to remember the prayers of her childhood, but they were as dim as the rhymes she had known then. She remembered going to church in Marken with an aunt when she had been there on holiday; she had spent all her time staring at the barque and the herring boat hung from the ceiling and her aunt, a strict Calvinist, had chided her for her lack of attention to God. “I wonder if Scobie is saying his Hail Marys?”

  “What?” Sylvia had been lost in her own thoughts,

  regretting how little time she had spent with her children over the past four years.

  “Nothing. I was thinking of a part-time believer.” Lisa turned her head on the pillow and began to weep silently, grieving for the happiness that she was going to miss before it had really begun.

  “Oh, I agree he may be good Presidential timber, but the termites have got into him.”

  “I can’t relate to him, you know? He has so many chips on his shoulders they look like - what d’you call them?-epaulettes.”

  “Personally, I’d rather eat my own words than someone else’s.”

  All the carefully rehearsed ad-libs came across with their usual hollowness; Carole glanced at the smug faces on the television screen and went on out to the kitchen with the tray and the women’s wet clothes. She loathed all the instant pundits one had to listen to these days; wit and wisdom had been diluted to the level of the commercials. She did not know who was the subject of the discussion, but none of those on the screen looked as if he really cared about the truth of his opinions. Talk was the panacea for everything: so long as a subject was discussed, nothing more need be done.

  She stopped at the kitchen door, turned back to Abel. “Have they discussed what we’ve done?”

  He stared at her for a moment, then recognized that she was offering him a truce. But he was still cautious; he had lost contact with her and he didn’t know if they would ever be as close again. And that frightened him: he had realized he had no future but her. “No, they said nothing. Maybe they been told not to.”

  “Directives like that have never stopped them before.

  Maybe they think everything has been said.” She hung out the clothing, some in the kitchen, some in the living-room. He watched her but said nothing and she gave him no encouragement to make a comment. At last she moved across and stood beside him, put her hand on the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Abel. We shouldn’t fight.”

  He reached up, took her hand and kissed it. “It’s okay, baby. We’re just getting uptight, that’s all. You think everything has been said? Or are they holding back, trying some trick on us?”

  She reached across, turned down the sound on the television set: the silent faces went on mouthing their skin-deep profundities. She sat down on the floor at his feet, leaned on his knee and looked up at him. They had taken off their wigs and dark glasses: they had nothing to hide from each other. Or so she hoped he would believe.

  “We have the final trick in there.” She nodded at the bedroom door. “Whatever they try, they’re not going to sacrifice them.”

  “If this storm keeps up, what’re we gonna do?” His hand caressed the top of her head; he got immense pleasure just from touching her. “They said on TV it’s letting up down south, but they’re not sure when it’s gonna move away from up here. It could go on for another day. That’s gonna be a long time, baby.”

  “Those men in The Tombs, they’re going to be there an even longer time if we don’t get them out.”

  “You think they appreciate what we’re doing? I never really been sure how much they mean to you - personally, I mean. You sure you never met any of ‘em? One of ‘em isn’t - wasn’t someone you - ?”

  “Loved?” She smiled, shook her head. She recognized the jealousy in him and worked quickly to douse it. She lifted herself to her knees, pulled his face down to hers and kissed him. “Honey, I told you - it’s nothing but political. It’s our duty - we believe in the same things those men do.”

  He kissed her back, convinced again, because he wanted

  to be convinced, that she loved him. He was too inexperienced to know that love could be a treacherous echo, that too often it told a man only what he wanted to hear.

  “I been listening to the news. We’re world-wide - it’s all over, ev
erywhere, Europe, Africa, everywhere. We’ll get ‘em out, baby.”

  “We’ve got to.” She thought of Mark being imprisoned for ever. Had her parents been to see him, to offer him what help they could? Or was he as alone as she had been these past four years ? She had never told Abel of her personal interest in The Tombs; that would have meant telling him too much about herself. But Mark had to be rescued … “Once this storm lets up everything will be all right.”

  “Except maybe for this guy - what’s his name - ?”

  “Frank Padua. I don’t know - maybe he’s nothing - “

  But she looked worried and it was his turn to comfort her. He stroked her neck, felt the satiny skin under his fingers, felt the blood moving into his loins. “Let’s go and lay down, baby.”

  “I won’t be able to sleep - “

  “Just lay down, that’s all.” He kept his voice gentle but it was getting huskier; he was still uncertain of her, he did not want to press himself on her. “It may be a long day tomorrow - “

  I don’t want him making love to me again, she thought. He had all at once become physically repulsive to her; despite her attempts to educate him in bed, he was still as crude as a young animal. She remembered once as a teenager she had gone cycling over towards Bridgehampton. She had been riding down one of the lanes between the potato fields when suddenly a youth had appeared in front of her. She had recognized him for what he was, one of the field workers brought up from the South. He had pulled her from her bicycle and dragged her into some nearby bushes. She had struggled violently and had only been saved when a truck, loaded with other field workers, had come rattling down the lane. Sometimes she thought those two minutes

  were being repeated when Abel was in bed with her: he raped her but with her consent. All of his brutality came out of him when he thought he was most loving, and it sickened her.

  But she needed him, had to bind him to her till at least noon today. She stood up, took his face in her hands again and kissed him. “Gently, honey. No rough stuff.”

  He stood up, holding her to him. “Have I ever hurt you ?”

  “No,” she lied, “you never have.”

  They moved towards the main bedroom at the front of the house, forgetting the television set still beaming its silent pictures in the corner of the room. They did not see that the talk show had finished and an announcer, face as serious as that of a priest beside a grave, had come on the screen. He mouthed a silent message at them, but they did not look back. As they went through the doorway the announcer disappeared and Michael Forte, looking equally serious, the principal mourner, came on the screen.

  In the bedroom Carole undressed and climbed into bed beside Abel. Then she sat up. “I’ve left the car out in the driveway.”

  “Forget it, baby. Nobody’s gonna see it tonight. I’ll put it in the garage before daylight. G’mon, baby, I’ll be gentle like you say.”

  She had decided she would do the love-making; that way she could control it. He lay back, flattered by her actions. She did love him, he was finally convinced: a girl had to love a man to be the one to start everything. His life once again had a future.

  Finally they fell asleep, she turned away from him, he with his arms wrapped round her. When the phone beside the bed rang once, they both came awake instantly. Carole, nearer to the phone, automatically reached for it, then stopped her hand. The phone had gone silent again, but the one buzzing note rang in their ears like an explosion.

  Lisa, lying awake in the other bedroom, heard the single buzz of the phone out in the living-room. But the phone rang only once and after a few moments’ strained listening she convinced herself it had been a trick of hearing, perhaps a noise made by the storm. Then, because her hearing was for the moment so acute, she heard the diminishing note in the fury of the storm. She saw Sylvia lift her head and stare at her.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “The phone?” Sylvia said.

  So she hadn’t imagined it. “Yes. But why didn’t it ring further? Do you think it was some sort of message for them?”

  “Who from? Do you think there is someone else in this with them?”

  But they had no answers: they could do nothing but ask pointless questions. But if the storm was petering out … “Listen! Is the storm easing off?”

  Sylvia struggled up, her head cocked to one side. There was a waning of the tumult outside; the rain beat less strongly against the shutters, the wind was dropping. They both knew it would still be a wild night outside, but Hurricane Myrtle was moving away.

  “How long do hurricanes take to blow themselves out?”

  “It could be a perfectly fine day in four or five hours,” Sylvia said. “That is if it doesn’t, swing around again. Sometimes it goes on raining, but not always.”

  “Then those men could be on a plane for Cuba by eight or nine o’clock. Perhaps earlier.”

  “Yes.” Sylvia lay back, stared up at the ceiling. The light had been left on and they were glad of it; the darkness was too vast, left them wandering at the mercy of their imagination. “Today’s Election Day. I’d forgotten about it.”

  “Do you want to go on being - what do they call you? In Sydney she’s the Lady Mayoress.”

  “In America you’re never anything but your husband’s wife, whatever he happens to be. I’m the Mayor’s wife, nothing more.” She was still staring at the ceiling. “I don’t know - I mean, if I want to go on being the Mayor’s wife. Just being Michael’s wife is enough. None of this would have happened - to you or me - if I’d been a nobody. I’m sorry.”

  “What for?”

  “Do you - ” She turned her head, looked at this woman who for fifteen or sixteen hours had been closer to her than any other woman since her girlhood, yet whom after today she might never see again. Who, and the thought chilled her, might also die with her. “Do you hate me for what’s happened to you?”

  “No,” said Lisa slowly. “Unlike my husband, I’m a fatalist. This was in my stars - you just happened to be part of the plot.”

  “Thank you,” said Sylvia, but she was incapable of fatalism and she did not know whether to believe Lisa Malone or not.

  Chapter Ten

  “That was a stupid thing to try,” said Jefferson. “Do you want all four of you to finish up in prison?”

  “I didn’t stop to think.” Mrs Birmingham, in a white raincoat and hood, sat slumped in the back seat of the car beside Malone. “It was a mother’s instinct, I guess.”

  Your mother’s instinct has been a bit bloody slow up till now, Malone thought. “Your daughter had better be at the cottage,” he said. “If she isn’t - if she has been there and she’s skedaddled with my wife and Mrs Forte, I’ll see you do finish up in prison.”

  “I can understand your bitterness, Inspector,” said Birmingham, sitting beside Jefferson in the front seat. “We have nothing personal against you or the police - “

  “Mr Birmingham,” said Malone with none of his usual tolerance, “your tolerance gives me a pain in the arse.”

  Now the small clues were linking up into a definite trail, no matter how inconclusive it might prove in the end, he had thrown off his exhaustion but at the expense of not being able to control his raw nerves. His self-control was not helped by the fact that he was sustained only by hope; he had placed all his bets on the Birminghams’ daughter being one of the kidnappers and Lisa being in the cottage out at Sunday Harbor. He shut his mind against the thought of what his reaction might be if the cottage should prove to be empty. For the first time in his life he was afraid of the black mysteries that lay within himself.

  Jefferson, behind the wheel of the car, remarked the change in Malone but made no comment. He saw Willard Birmingham stiffen at the Australian’s reply; then the tall man turned up the collar of his raincoat, sank back in the seat and stared out of the car. Jefferson felt only a flicker of

  sympathy for him, but it was not enough to prompt an apology for Malone’s rudeness. He knew where his real
sympathy lay.

  They were on the Long Island Expressway again, deserted at this hour of the morning but for the occasional patrolling police car looking for vehicles that might have broken down in the storm.

  The four of them rode in a prickly silence for several miles. Then Elizabeth Birmingham glanced at the dark, stiff profile beside her. “If our daughter has - has kidnapped your wife and Mrs Forte, then I suppose we’re to blame in some way.”

  “Not necessarily.” Malone realized she was trying to offer him some sympathy. He turned towards her, softening his tone. “Don’t torture yourself with the idea, Mrs Birmingham. Your daughter, whatever she’s done, has chosen her own life.”

  “I sometimes wonder,” said Elizabeth Birmingham, and looked at the silent shape of her husband in front of her. “Though that’s the first time I’ve ever admitted it to anyone.”

  Her husband looked back at her. “We should’ve been franker with each other. Because I’ve often wondered the same thing myself.”

  Dear Christ, never let Lisa and I have secrets from each other, not if they lead to situations like this.

  Then Jefferson said, “Do you know the cops out at Sunday Harbor?”

  “Just casually. I’ve never had any cause to call on them for anything.” Birmingham sat up, like a man gradually becoming aware of the fact that he was going into battle.

  Jefferson had phoned Police Headquarters and he knew that Ken Lewton and probably someone from the FBI would already be on their way out to the far end of the Island. Headquarters would have contacted the Sunday Harbor police and the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department and asked them to watch the Birmingham cottage but to make

  no move till Lewton and the FBI men had arrived. Until they did arrive Jefferson knew he would have to be the liaison man and he was always very much aware of his colour and his rank whenever he had to deal with out-of-town cops. There were still a lot of country law enforcement officers who could not understand how a coon had got to be a captain. He did not know how metropolitan the Sunday Harbor cops would be in their thinking.