‘Fuzz,’ he said. ‘We must telephone for the fuzz. And for an ambulance. Oh, my God, if I’d ever realized what a ghastly bitch she was - ’
‘There, there,’ Thouless soothed him. ‘You’re quite all right here. The danger’s over.’
‘No, it’s not,’ said the young man. ‘Not so long as that dreadful woman’s on the loose. I can’t think what possessed me. I can’t think why I didn’t see through her. Oh, my God,’
‘Have some more brandy,’ said Thouless, pouring. ‘Why don’t you tell us quickly what’s happened, and then we’ll telephone.’
The young man looked at Padmore and the Major. ‘Who are these people?’ he said suspiciously.
‘Visitors.’
‘And who are you?’
‘My name’s Thouless.’
‘You must know her, you live so near. Perhaps you’re a friend of hers. Perhaps you’re all friends of hers. Perhaps you’re in league. Perhaps you’re hiding her out here. Oh, my God.’
‘We’re not hiding anyone out,’ said Thouless a shade impatiently. ‘Come on, man, come on. Tell us what’s happened. Have you been knocked over by a car?’
‘If only it was just that,’ the young man moaned. ‘If only I’d never set eyes on her. Oh, my God.’ He mastered himself with an effort, again made an inventory of the room, and apparently concluded, with reluctance, that he’d have to trust them. The whole story - not a very lengthy or complicated one - came pouring out.
He was a student from the University, he said, and had recently been having a bang with Ortrud Youings; his name, aptly enough, was John Thomas. He did not dilate on how and where he had first met Ortrud, but simply said that she had invited him to come and stay. Her husband, she told him, was away, so they could have a delightful, höchst erfreulich, time together; and since (his hearers gathered) Thomas had so far made no great mark with his studies, he had felt no compunction about putting the University behind him for a week or two, and accepting the invitation. Though Thomas had had no notion of this, to her meek and doting husband Ortrud had simply said, as on a number of previous occasions, that she was going to move a man into the house; and grief-stricken but obedient as ever, he had taken himself off to the flatlet over Clarence Tully’s stables. Thomas had at first been slightly surprised to see a large, blond man drive up to the pig-farm every day in a battered black Volkswagen, and attend lovingly to the pigs. He had concluded, however, that this was an employee, and soon dismissed the matter from his mind.
At first, all had gone well. Ortrud was a good cook, and had had not the slightest objection to her lover’s lounging in bed for most of the day, reading light fiction or slumbering. But her sexual demands were heavy, and Thomas, though young and strong, had found it more and more exhausting to keep pace with them: he had begun to pine, to imagine lethal ailments, to find it increasingly difficult to do the simplest thing without getting giddy spells. He had begun to think wistfully that the University syllabus was less demanding than he had previously imagined. On the other hand, he was much too afraid of Ortrud to make a unilateral break. He could only hope that she would quickly get tired of him, and make the break herself; and since he was becoming alarmingly subject to impotence, there did seem to be a very real hope that she would shortly do this.
It was at this stage, on the Friday afternoon, that Youings, who had come as usual to attend to the pigs, made the mistake of entering the house; he had needed a clean shirt, and had thought that he could abstract one from the bedroom without arousing notice. Creeping in at the front door, which gave on a combined entrance hall and parlour, he had discovered Ortrud and Thomas there entangled in an embrace, and for some reason this had proved too much even for his infatuation. He had embarked on a mild remonstrance, but had never had the chance to finish it. For Ortrud was enraged at seeing him. Thrusting Thomas from her arms, she had picked up a heavy poker from among the fire-irons and had hit her husband a colossal blow on the head with it, flooring him.
It had all happened too quickly for Thomas to do anything about it; he had witnessed the assault aghast; all he knew was that he must get away from this terrible woman as rapidly as possible. Moreover, he knew now that this big, blond man was not an employee, but was married to Ortrud. He, Thomas, had been ruthlessly deceived. He stood there paralysed by dread while Ortrud bent over the body on the floor, favoured it with a cursory inspection, and straightened up again, the poker still in her hand.
’Tod,’ said Ortrud sepulchrally. ‘He has gone to his fathers.’
‘Oh, my God,’ said John Thomas.
He himself looked at the sprawled figure, and although he had little experience of such things, it occurred to him, sanguinely, that this victim of Ortrud’s impulsiveness, even if very seriously injured, might not actually be dead: for one thing, his head was still bleeding freely. Ortrud, however, had no such arrière-pensées: she must clear out of here, and fast. Pausing only a moment to arrive at her decision, she seized John Thomas in an iron grip, propelled him hapless into the small, stone-walled downstairs lavatory, threw down the poker beside him, and before he could collect himself, had locked him in and taken the key away.
His first reaction had been one of relief: here, he felt, was at least a temporary refuge. He heard Ortrud climb the stairs, heard her bumping about in the bedroom - packing, presumably; heard her come down again (and at this he cringed, deadly afraid that she was proposing to fetch him out); heard her leave the house (relief, relief), clamber into the Volkswagen and start it up. Peering with precaution out of the lavatory’s little window, he watched the car drive away. He even had the presence of mind to take its number, which he wrote down on a piece of lavatory paper with a stub of pencil he luckily happened to have on him.
Apart from the intermittent grunting and squealing of the pigs, the farm was mercifully quiet.
And now Thomas began to gather his wits together again. He must somehow get out, he must somehow escape. Moreover, there was the matter of the unfortunate husband who was still, in all likelihood, lying gory and unconscious on the floor of the entrance hall: patently he needed a doctor and an ambulance, and it was up to him, Thomas, to summon these aids as fast as possible. He tried the door, but it was solid and unyielding. He fished in his pockets for some implement to unscrew the lock, but they yielded nothing. It had to be the window, then. Balanced precariously on the lavatory seat, Thomas put his head out and called, ‘Help! Help! Oh, my God, help!’ He did this for some time, as loudly as he could, but no one came.
Nothing for it, then, but to try to get out of the window.
Unhappily, the house was old, and the window consequently diminutive.
Thomas struggled and heaved and pushed, eventually managing to get his head and shoulders outside. But here he got stuck, his upper parts projecting like a gargoyle’s from a church tower, his legs waving feebly inside. A further interval passed while he remained in this uncomfortable position. Then, summoning up the last of his resolution and valiantly disregarding the pain to which he was subjecting himself, he began to wriggle systematically. At first he thought that that was going to be no good, either. But his shoulders were wider than his waist or his buttocks, and presently he found that he was moving. As he redoubled his efforts, he soon found, indeed, that since there was nothing for him to hold on to, he was moving altogether too quickly for safety. But by then it was too late to stop, and finally he emerged from the window like a cork from a bottle and fell heavily on to the paving below.
He was grazed and bruised and stunned. By good chance there were no bones broken, however, and after a minute or two he lurched to his feet, looking round him wildly for assistance. Through a rift in the trees, he caught sight of the roof of Thouless’s bungalow. Making as much speed as his injuries allowed, he left the pig-farm and hastened down the lane towards it.
And here he was.
Rousing themselves hastily from the morbid fascination induced by this saga, Thouless, Padmore and the Major all went into
action. The Major set out at once for the pig-farm, to see if there was anything he could do for poor Youings. Thouless, lingering only to snatch the piece of lavatory paper with the car number which was still clutched crumpled in Thomas’s still tremulous hand, made for his telephone and rang Sergeant Connabeer at the desk in Glazebridge police station, giving him a succinct, accurate account of what had happened, and asking for an ambulance; this done, he adjured Thomas to remain resting on the sofa, and hurried after the Major. Padmore, having grabbed the telephone when Thouless was finished with it, dictated the story to the Gazette and then followed the other two. They found Youings barely conscious, and did what they could for him until the ambulance arrived and he was carried out to it. The Major remonstrated with the ambulance men: surely, he said, nothing ought to be done until the police arrived. But the ambulance men merely shook their heads. They knew a critical injury when they saw one, and this wouldn’t wait. They drove Youings away to the Glazebridge Hospital, and the three rescuers were left kicking their heels, with nothing more that they could do.
Eventually, the police still not arriving, they had posted on up the lane to the Dickinsons’ cottage, to put Fen in the picture.
‘So that’s it, my dear fellow,’ said the Major, who had gained control of the latter part of the narrative. ‘Terrible woman, terrible. I hope they catch her. And I do hope that poor silly Youings is going to recover.’
‘But what a story!’ said Padmore. ‘On top of everything else, what a story! I’m sure the Gazette won’t send me back to Africa now, after all I’ve done for them here. They’re absolutely bound to assign me to Crime.’
‘My headache’s worse,’ said Thouless.
The sun was low in the west. Abandoning its activity for the day, the wasp on the deck chair settled on the lobe of Fen’s ear, stung him, and flew away. Leaving the others still sitting on the grass, Fen went into the cottage to see if the Dickinsons had any blue bag.
3
Meanwhile, in Glazebridge that afternoon, there had been a great brouhaha of which none of them heard until later, when Padmore got a statement out of a revivified Ticehurst, and after ringing the Gazette again, passed it on to the others.
At 2.15, Widger left the police station and drove to Aller to see Fen.
At 3.15, Ling, jaded and despondent, sneaked out, appropriated a police car, and sought out an unpopulated stretch of country where he went for a slow, melancholic walk in the woods, revolving in his mind the Chief Constable’s ultimatum and all the other injustices of life.
At 4.30, Sergeant Connabeer at the desk received Thouless’s telephone call.
At 4.35, having vainly searched the building for Widger or Ling, Connabeer hurriedly entered the room where Rankine and Crumb were working. After one look at Crumb, he summoned Rankine out into the corridor and gave him the gist of Thouless’s message.
Rankine was highly gratified. Despite being outranked by Crumb, it was evidently he, Rankine, who for the time being was going to be in charge of this fresh development, and he was determined to make a success of it. Pausing only to ask Connabeer to send an ambulance to the pig-farm, and to put out a general alarm for Ortrud and the Volkswagen, he borrowed a constable, a Panda and a jemmy and drove off towards Aller at a great pace, beguiling the constable, as they went, with a homily on the principles of safe motoring. On the Burraford side of Hole Bridge, however, they received a check: the Panda came to a halt, and was found on investigation to have run out of petrol. Dispatching the constable to fetch a spare can from wherever he could, Rankine sat fretting, constantly on the lookout for Ortrud, but thinking it unlikely, if she were trying to escape, that the rascally woman would have taken this particular route. There was no traffic. Once an ambulance from Glazebridge swept past, ignoring Rankine’s signals and cries, and fifteen minutes later it came back again in the opposite direction, going faster than ever and still obstinately disregardful. Rankine paced up and down beside the Panda, gnawing at his nails and sometimes talking to himself.
After about twenty minutes the constable came back with petrol borrowed from a reluctant householder, and they got on the move again. The pig-farm was deserted, but the pool of blood on the entrance hall floor restored Rankine’s spirits, and with great energy he went to work with the jemmy on the locked lavatory door, forcing it open eventually with a loud detonation and a shower of oak splinters. Inside, he found the poker, wrapped it carefully to preserve fingerprints, took a quick look round and then, notebook at the ready, conveyed the constable - who apart from fetching the petrol had contributed nothing yet, and was destined to remain thus unemployed throughout - down to Thouless’s bungalow, intent on getting preliminary statements from Thouless himself and, more importantly, from John Thomas. But here he was brought to a stand, for the bungalow too was deserted. Revived by Thouless’s brandy, and in any case thoroughly apprehensive at being left alone, John Thomas had decided to escape, and was already hitch-hiking his way back to the congenial familiarity of the University campus. It not occurring to Rankine to visit the Dickinsons’ cottage and find out if Fen had anything to say, he wandered round the outside of the bungalow, baffled and perplexed and peering in at windows, tried the doors, which were all locked (the front door had locked itself automatically on John Thomas’s departure), and at length, reluctantly concluding that he had better report to Widger, drove the Panda back to Glazebridge police station, arriving there just in time to witness, and even assist in, the arrest.
At 5.00, since Rankine had not come back, Detective Sergeant Crumb judged that it was time for him to go home. Preparing himself with some disingenuous excuse for the interruption, he tapped on the door of Widger’s office, and on receiving no reply, opened it and glanced in. The room was empty. Good. Crumb put on the overcoat which he wore even in the warmest weather, and went confidently downstairs.
Here, an impulse which he was shortly to regret led him to stop for a few minutes for a gossip with Sergeant Connabeer; and Connabeer, who had been longing for a confidant and was even willing that it should be Crumb, gave him all the details of Thouless’s telephone call. Crumb paid relatively little attention to these, but inevitably some of them stuck, and he was as well primed as he was capable of being when he emerged from the station, crossed the car-park to the ring-road, and stood there on the pavement for a moment, waiting for the traffic to allow him to cross. Immediately to the right of the car-park’s entrance, the Gas Board’s hole in the road had deepened, he saw; the three men delving in it were now penned in by tarmac up to their shoulders. It was surrounded by small cones, feebly lit up at nights, but although only single-line traffic could pass it, it was not yet extensive enough for the Board to have put up temporary traffic lights.
As Crumb stood on the pavement close to this hole, he looked first down the road, towards Glazebridge town, and then up it, in the Burraford direction. And from the Burraford direction he saw approaching a battered black Volkswagen such as he dimly remembered Connabeer’s having described to him a minute or two ago. It was being driven by a large young woman with blonde hair assembled in a bun at the back.
No one knew, either then or afterwards, what was in Ortrud Youings’s mind. The best guess was that, in her instant determination to escape after hitting her husband on the head with the poker, she had originally set out from the pig-farm in the direction opposite to Glazebridge, intending to get to a port or an airport, and so leave the country; but that then, in an access of low cunning, she had changed her plans and circled round through the lanes into Glazebridge, arguing that her pursuers would not expect her to do this and so would be thrown completely off the scent. Anyway, whatever the reason, here she was on the ring-road close to the police station; and here too was Crumb, watching her approach.
Crumb had long sight. He could make out the Volkswagen’s number as it came nearer, and there was no doubt in his mind that it resembled, roughly, the number which Connabeer had mentioned to him, and to which he had paid such scant attention a
t the time. Suddenly madness seized him. Policemanly instincts which he had thought buried thirty years deep abruptly reasserted themselves. Single-handed, he would make an arrest - an important arrest. It would be a good mark on his undistinguished, indeed dubious, record. He might even, he thought maniacally, be awarded the Police Medal. He might even, he thought even more maniacally, get promotion and swell his impending pension. Yes, he, Crumb, would make an arrest. He would be the hero of the hour …
Besides, it was only a woman. Arresting a woman would be a piece of cake.
Crumb moved. He moved faster than he could ever recall moving before. He planted himself on the ring-road between the Gas Board’s hole and the opposite pavement, directly in the path of the oncoming car, and held up an imperious hand.
The Gas Board men suspended their labours to regard this tableau with fugitive interest; they were not, however, given the opportunity to contemplate it for more than a few brief seconds, for the Volkswagen was only a short distance from Crumb, and still moving at an undiminished speed, when it was suddenly borne in on Crumb, on a wave of dread, that it wasn’t going to stop. Instead, it was going to run him down.
He hurled himself on to the pavement with only inches to spare, and stood there gasping with indignation and relief. The Volkswagen drew level with him, passed him, and then with a strident squealing of brakes stopped. As Crumb started forward to apprehend its driver, it suddenly and rapidly reversed. Then it came forward again, mounting the pavement with a jolt and once more heading towards Crumb. The Gas Board men scrambled out of their hole and stood gazing in paralytic be musement. Cars approaching from both directions scented imminent disaster, possibly a pile-up, and came to a halt. As to Crumb, he remained gazing at the Volkswagen in dazed incredulity for a moment, and then turned on his heel and ran. The woman was mad! She was out to kill him! Crumb had never experienced such horror in all the days of his career.
The Glimpses of the Moon Page 22