by L. P. Davies
“And a matching hat.” She switched on the cooker. “If I were you, Axel, I’d have it stuffed and mounted.”
She had finished her breakfast while he was still eating.
“Help yourself to more coffee,” said she, coming to her feet. “I’ve just had a thought. Presumably the villagers have morning papers. So someone has to bring them. If I can waylay that someone, we might get ourselves something to read.” When she had gone, he finished the last slice of toast, emptied his cup, refilled it at the cooker and took it with him into the hall. The front door was open. Louise was at the bottom of the drive, talking to a small girl with a bicycle. Putting his cup on the hallstand Axel started towards them.
Louise turned. “Oh, there you are. I was just going to call you. This is Annie Smallhurst. Annie lives in the village, she’s seven, she’s in the third grade and we mustn’t keep her talking in ease she’s late for school.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Annie,” Axel said gravely.
She had a very pink, well-scrubbed face, untidy yellow hair and two missing front teeth. One of her very thin legs was astride a bicycle that seemed far too large for such a tiny person. The brown canvas satchel slung from her shoulder was open. From it had presumably come the exercise book Louise was looking at.
“I remember when I was at school,” she said, “every time I had to start a new exercise book I always started off with my very best writing. But I could never keep it up. The farther I got into the book, the worse my writing became. But Annie does her best writing all the way through. See—” She offered the book for Axel’s inspection.
“Very nice,” he said of the childish scrawl.
“Now, look at the first page and you’ll see what I mean.” There is a reason, her eyes told him.
He looked at the first page. A memory of his own schooldays. Still the same old subjects for essays. This one: “What I did at the Seaside.” And at the very top of the page Annie had started off her nice new book by writing the date out in full and embellishing it with wavering scrolls. The year had come in for particular attention. 1979.
“I see what you mean,” Axel said.
“I’ll ‘ave to go,” Annie fretted. “Or else.” She almost snatched the book back, stuffing it hurriedly into her satchel. About to push herself away, she glanced at Axel. The glance became a stare. Small blue eyes widened.
“Is it ‘im?” she asked Louise. “It’s jus’ like ‘im. It isn’t ‘im, is it, miss?”
“Who?” Louise asked.
“You know—‘im.” Annie looked shyly at Axel. “You know. Axel Champlee.”
“No,” Louise told her steadily. “No, it isn’t, Annie.”
Disappointed, the little girl hoisted her foot to the pedal. The bicycle started to wobble away.
“Where have you seen Axel Champlee?” Louise asked quickly.
The bicycle swerved across the lane. “On the telly,” its rider called back, struggling with the handlebars.
“When?”
“Las’ Saturday!” Annie shouted back, and then, bicycle at last under control, vanished round the bend.
“More than I bargained for,” Louise said. “I just wanted you to see the year for yourself, written in Annie’s own hand. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. You know … Have you ever been on television, Axel?”
He shook his head. “Never. It’s a medium I abhor.”
“No school on Saturdays,” she mused. “So it could have been any time during the day.”
“You know where I was all day Saturday,” Axel said. “With you.”
“That was your Saturday. Annie’s Saturday would be your Friday. I think …” She put her hands to her forehead. “Now I’m getting all confused. Let’s get sorted out. Yes.” She looked at him through the triangle of her palms. “Your Friday, Axel.”
“And you know where I was and what I was doing on my Friday.”
“You were in Barkley House. All day?”
“From the moment I woke up till the time I escaped.”
“And Annie says she saw you on television. You couldn’t have been in two places at the same time.” She let her hands fall. “A recording?”
“I’ve never made one. I’ve never at any time had anything to do with television.”
“Which leaves only the one answer. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Someone who looks like me,” he said. “Near enough to pass for me. I’ve been mistaken for him once. Adrian Wolfax. While I was in Barkley House, he was impersonating me in front of a television camera.”
“It all fits,” Louise said excitedly. “We’re getting somewhere at last. To add credence to the impersonation, to make sure nothing went wrong, Carla and your servant went with him to the studio. Which is why they suddenly left the house and you found yourself alone. They drugged you—they must have drugged you after all—to keep you out of the way while the broadcast was on. But for some reason you came round before you were supposed to. What’s it all about, Axel? Something to do with the struggle between Mosaic and ICN?”
You’re forgetting one thing. They did more than drug me. They did something to my mind, put something in there. A command that I had to obey. And while one Axel Champ-lee is murdering Kendall Ibbetson in Barkley House, another Axel Champlee is in a television studio, being watched by millions of people.”
“An alibi,” the girl breathed.
“Arranged by Carla,” Axel said. “To protect the family name.”
“But it was all wasted because you didn’t—” She broke off.
He read the look on her face.
“Not that I know of,” he said with an effort. “So far as I know, Kendall is still alive.”
They walked back to the house.
“It might help if we could find out what that broadcast was about,” Louise mused. “Would it be reported in the papers? In yesterday’s, if it was.” She looked at him. “There’s bound to be a copy in the village.”
No,” he said as they entered the hall.
“Only a few minutes’ walk away, Axel. Surely they wouldn’t try anything in broad daylight.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
She raised her brows at the brusqueness of his voice.
“We’re going to have to leave the house sooner or later,” she pointed out. “That’s if you’re still willing to talk to Uncle Vince.”
In the kitchen she threw him a towel.
“Let’s do something sane and sensible. You wipe, I’ll wash.”
His head was beginning to ache.
“It’s like a skein of wool,” the girl said, filling the sink with dirty dishes. “You find a loose end, unravel it and it comes away. Little bits fit together to make pieces, but you can’t put the pieces together.”
He wished she would stop talking.
“Like Barkley House.” She handed him a plate without looking at him. “We’ve been to the place where you say it should be and there was no house there. It was the right road—it was the only road. The house doesn’t exist, and so neither do the people connected with it. But three of them were in your room last night; I smelled the scent one had left behind. So there we have two pieces that don’t fit together.
“Another thing that doesn’t make sense. Why did they try to change your appearance? You said to make you doubt the evidence of your own eyes and start you off thinking you were going out of your mind. I don’t think that was it. I think they had something more positive in mind.”
She rested her hands on the edge of the sink and stared down at the frothy water.
“Now, if they had changed Adrian Wolfax’s face to look like yours, that would have made sense. But they didn’t, they changed you to make you look like him. There’s got to be some reason …”
She pulled out the plug. The water gurgled away.
“Suppose it was like this—” Now she had only the empty sink to gaze at. “We know that two rival television companies are at each other’s throats. ICN
and Mosaic. That came from an outside source, and so it has to be true. Mosaic have ICN on the run. If ICN are to survive, they have to do something drastic. One of the two big noises behind Mosaic is a man named Adrian Wolfax. Just by chance ICN know of the existence of a certain Axel Champlee, who bears a strong resemblance to Wolfax. They get hold of Champlee, change his face to more closely resemble Wolfax, tamper with his mind to further confuse the issue, then send him out to kill off Mosaic’s other big noise, Julius Sibault. Then Champlee is returned to normal and Wolfax is arrested for Sibault’s murder. And that would be the end of Mosaic.” She looked up. “It fits most of the facts as we know them, Axel.”
He gave her back the towel in silence.
She rounded the thing off. “Axel Champlee is really nobody in particular, just a man in the street. But fitted out with a new, temporary background. Only he—you—slipped away before you could be returned to normal. So long as you’re free, you’re a threat to them. But they have to be careful how they go about getting you back. Force might attract attention to themselves. So, instead, they’re doing their best to persuade you to go back under your own steam. Carla and the rest of them are probably ICN employees.”
Axel’s head was throbbing now. The terrible feeling of emptiness hovered, waiting.
“A party game!” he cried harshly. “That’s what you’re making of it—a bloody party guessing-game!”
He stumbled blindly out of the kitchen, across the hall and into the room with the french windows. He sent the tilted chair crashing across the floor, flung the window open and stepped out into the fresh air of the terrace. The girl followed, standing in the opening of the window.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He didn’t look at her.
“You’ve taken my time away,” he told the garden. “My year. I’ve tried to accept your time, tried to put it in the empty space. Part of me can accept it, but it doesn’t fit, it isn’t right. Now you are trying to take the rest away, the me who I am. And there’s nothing at all to put in its place. Don’t you understand? I can’t become empty. I’ve got to have something, even though that something’s wrong. Can’t you understand that?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.
“Leave me with what I have until you have something else to put in its place. Something real. Something as real to me as the me I’m hanging onto now. Take that away, and I would go mad. All you are offering are things that conflict, that have no sense or reason. Guesses—party-game guesses.”
“I was only trying to help,” she said miserably. “I thought at the start I might be doing wrong. It seems I was …”
The throbbing was easing, the pain subsiding, the emptiness receding. Axel took his hands from his face and turned to look at her.
“You say Barkley House doesn’t exist. I know it does. You say I’m not Axel Champlee the industrialist. I know I am. My mind has been tampered with. I know that something has been done to it, but my home, my relations and associates are not figments of that tampering. What someone did to me was put a command in my mind. A command that I know I will have to obey when the time comes. I am going to kill someone. Who, I don’t know. I do know where. That is one thing I am certain about. I know where it is going to happen.
“I have to find my way back to Barkley House. I have to go into my study and take the gun from the drawer in the desk. I have to point the gun at someone and press the trigger. Nothing I can do, that anyone can do, can prevent it happening. I am going to kill somebody.”
10
Axel went into the pink and gold room where Louise, with no particular reason for being in that part of the house, had taken herself after his outburst.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said with the awkwardness of one unaccustomed to tendering apology.
“No.” She was relieved that he had broken the hour’s silence. “No, you were right, Axel. I should have known better than mess about with something I don’t understand. I’m only thankful you pulled me up. From now on, no more guessing-games. What are we going to do now?’’
He went to stand by the window.
“You can’t go on like this,” she told his back.
He didn’t need her to tell him that.
“What kind of person is your uncle, Louise?”
“He’s a doctor, which means he has to respect confidences. He’s not a psychiatrist as such, but running a clinic in a place like St. Anatole means coping with people’s problems as well as their bodily ailments. He’s had years of experience of both. As a person, he’s inclined to be excitable, swears a lot and loses his temper easily. But he can be trusted.”
“And he knows Julius Sibault.”
“Only by repute, Axel. So far as I know, they’ve never actually met.”
“It isn’t going to be easy getting in touch with him,” Axel said slowly.
Louise came eagerly to his side. “The nearest phone will be at the Swan. It’s only a short drive from here.”
“You weren’t listening when I said it wouldn’t be easy. Have you checked your car?”
She didn’t understand. “My ear?”
“They’ve already cut the phone. If their idea is to try to isolate us—”
Without giving him time to finish, she flew from the room. Knowing what she would find, he watched through the window as she ran down the drive to open the door of her tiny car. She took her time over the return journey.
“All in order,” he said laconically before she could report.
She nodded. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you think about it. The phone is a means of communication, the car is a means of transport. I’m not to be allowed to talk to anyone, but I can be allowed to leave.” He paused. “So long as I leave in the right direction.”
He went on quickly, allowing no space for her expected interruption.
“They’ve got a man out there.” He pointed at the trees. “Presumably the one at the back of the house will be back in position again. There are four more of them close to. Carla, Nolan, Gregson and a man I couldn’t identify. There are probably more.
“They’ll let us walk out of here and get in the car. So long as we point the bonnet in the direction of Grenfelle and keep going, they won’t stop us. But if we change direction, or stop to use a telephone, they’ll resort to force, even if it means attracting attention. When we leave here they’ll follow. You told me you know how to handle a car. Would you be able to shake them off?”
“I think so, Axel. I don’t know the roads round here all that well, but I think I can.”
“Thinking isn’t good enough,” he said bleakly. “If you’ve any doubts, we’re better off staying where we are.”
“I can do it,” she said. “When?”
“There’s nothing to be gained by waiting,” he said.
They went out to the car, Louise just as she was, not bothering about collecting her cardigan. The part of the lane that was visible was empty.
“We shake them off,” the girl said as she pressed the starter. “And then what? Norwich?”
“No. The nearest telephone kiosk.”
“Fair enough.” She reversed across the drive and swung out into the lane. The car leaped forward as she trod hard on the accelerator. Axel fastened his safety belt and then sat sideways so that he could look out of the rear window. The road behind was still empty. He clung to his seat as they took a bend with undiminished speed. The road straightened out behind, and was no longer empty. Louise saw the black saloon in her mirror at the same time Axel saw it through the window.
“Company,” she murmured. “Not the one that followed me to Bridford. Bigger job.” She eyed her speedometer. “Faster. Let’s see how much faster.” She pressed the accelerator pedal down to the floor. “Some of these big flashy jobs are all show.” The black saloon maintained its position. She grimaced. “Not this one. So we’ll have to use cunning. I think I know just the place. Let’s see what the driver’s like.”
Another sweeping bend, the saloon out of sight again, and ahead, the junction with the Wymondham road. She swung to the right, in the opposite direction to that in which Littledene lay. It was a few minutes before the black saloon came into view again, now a good quarter-mile behind, but clearly coming up fast.
Another bend, and then the road was dipping into a hollow, narrowing, bordered on either side by masses of trees. They bumped over a bridge, roared up the incline on the other side.
“Hold tight,” Louise said as they neared the top. “Here we go.” She wrenched the wheel over. The car shuddered, skidded, and then was off the road and onto turf, rocking violently as she steered between tree trunks with only inches to spare on either side. In a small open space she swung round in a half-circle and stopped with a jerk that threw Axel forwards against his belt. Switching off the engine she leaned out of her open window to listen. They both heard the muted roar of the pursuing car as it raced by.
She pressed the starter and they rocked and swayed back through the trees, back onto the road, pointed now in the direction from which they had come.
“First part of mission accomplished,” she reported smugly. “Pursuit given the slip. How was that?”
He looked anxiously through the rear window. “They won’t fall for anything as simple as that.”
“They will,” she told him confidently. “The road they’re on is all twists and turns. They’ll keep expecting to spot us each time they round a bend. By the time they find we’re not in front we’ll be miles away. The next thing we do is get off this road. There’s a turning somewhere along here on the right.”
It was little more than a cart track, grass-grown, deeply rutted. “It’s got to lead somewhere …” Louise leaned forward, peering ahead. “Even if only to a farm.”
It led to another lane, which in turn linked with a road, a main road by the volume of traffic. Louise recognised landmarks. “We’re about ten miles from Norwich.”