by John Creasey
“So he didn’t,” Gissing said softly. His face lost every hint of amiability, became vicious. “You’ve got a bad memory.”
“If he knows anything, he didn’t tell me.”
“He just sent you here for a pleasant little vacation?”
“You know the answer to that one,” Roger said. “He hoped that they’d trace you over here, and I could identify you.”
Gissing laughed, and this time his laugh did nothing to give Roger an easy mind. It was hot, so hot that Gissing took off his gloves. He leaned further back in his chair.
“I know about that. You’re the only man here who could point a finger and say “That is the man who talked to David Shawn.” Now he can’t find you, and so he can’t identify me. You didn’t find a fingerprint or anything that would help at “Rest” — I hadn’t been there for weeks. Clarice won’t talk, and no one else can — no one would rat on me. That puts you on a hook, but you can climb off it. You can have a long vacation, up in these hills, and when it’s all over and I’ve gone, you can go back to your wife and family. You’re like Shawn, quite the family man. But first, you have to tell me what Marino told you.”
“I’ve told you all he told me.”
Gissing’s right hand strayed to the table by his side. Absently — or was it absently? — he picked up a paper-knife; all that betrayed his tension beneath the cloak of calm. He had put prints on that knife and it became a vital thing. He nursed the knife. His dark eyes held no expression. His lips were set tightly. Slowly he began to smile.
“You do understand, don’t you, West? I’m going to get that story. If you have to be smashed up before you’ll talk, it is not going to worry me. But sooner or later you are going to talk.”
“There isn’t a thing more I can tell you,” Roger declared flatly.
Insisting on that was a waste of time. Everything was a waste of time. They would set to work on him and they would know their job, it was going to be hell. He hadn’t even reached the stage of thinking about escape. He simply felt fear creeping into him, driving away the warm glow from the whisky. Then he had a wild idea — “escape” came to him as a word; escape and the desire to hurt Gissing. The man wouldn’t expect —
Gissing had hurtled Shawn away from him, without effort Gissing would never be unprepared, and two silent, powerful men were a few feet away. The only hope he had was to use persuasion, trying to make Gissing believe what he didn’t want to believe. He wouldn’t succeed by raising his voice, if there were a chance it would come by holding himself steady, behaving as Gissing behaved.
He shrugged.
“Now let’s have the story, West.”
“There isn’t a story,” Roger said. “You’ll only waste your time. I can’t get away so I can’t identify you, you’ve drawn my teeth already.” He actually managed a smile. “You’re good at kidnapping, you might be luckier next time.”
Gissing’s eyes narrowed, he weighed the paper-knife in his hands; pale hands, well shaped, well tended; the nails were filmed with colourless varnish.
“I’m lucky this time,” he said.
“You just think you’re lucky.”
Gissing put the knife down and stood up, slowly. He drew nearer. He was close enough for Roger to reach with his foot One kick, and he would stagger away, but — two pairs of eyes were watching.
Gissing looked down; from this angle his expression was vicious.
“West, I am the man who kidnapped the boy, and had Scammel killed. Jaybird, just behind you, followed Shawn to Barnes to make sure he wasn’t leading the police there. He saw those detectives who took too much notice of Shawn, and he ran them down. The other man behind you brought the boy here. That is how tough we are.”
“I still can’t tell you anything more.”
“If you don’t know, who does?” Gissing asked, and kept his voice casual
Roger shrugged.
“Who does?” repeated Gissing, and he spoke as if Roger wasn’t in the room, seemed to have lost interest. “I have to find out what Marino knows, now. Who can tell me? Lissa Meredith?”
The name came questioningly and was an obvious guess. Roger, half prepared for it, showed no reaction, but his heart leapt; could she be in the kind of danger he was in now?
“I don’t think so,” he answered. “She said Marino kept her in the dark. She just has to try to calm Shawn down.”
“Would she tell you what she knew?” Gissing asked flatly. It was almost as if he were convinced that Roger had told the truth. Could he be? No, it was too easy, he was fooling, he would switch back to threat and menace in a moment. “Maybe not. What about Carl Fischer?”
“Who?”
“ Doctor Fischer.”
“Oh,” said Roger. “I don’t know much about him. He’s a friend of Shawn’s as well as a doctor attached to the Embassy.”
“Attached nothing, he’s over here with Shawn now. Carl Fischer and the Meredith girl are trying to smooth him down, hoping to get him back to England. They haven’t a chance. Do you think they have a chance?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Roger wished the man would move, wished the stare from those dark eyes wasn’t so intense. He wanted to get up. Gissing crowded him, now. He was inviting an assault. It would be easy. A toecap cracking against his knee, a spring, a savage blow over the head, but — two men standing in the doorway.
Then a bell rang, blasting the quiet. It was no ordinary bell, but a harsh, strident warning. It made Gissing back away and swing round, it made the two men exclaim, it gave Roger a chance he wasn’t likely to get again. The bell wrenched their thoughts away from him, put alarm into them.
McMahon and Jaybird leapt out of sight.
17
DARK NIGHT
IT was only a lightning flash of time. Gissing stared at the doorway, the bell clanging, the men scrambling towards another door — then he moved back, his right hand dropped to his pocket, he actually started to say:
“Don’t mo —”
Roger slid forward in his chair, hooked the man’s feet from under him, sent him crashing. Gissing’s hand came from his pocket, the side that lay uppermost. Farther away, footsteps sounded like a stampede. Gissing lashed out with his foot, his hand went back to his pocket. Roger snatched at the ankle as the foot swung past him, caught hold, heaved Gissing’s leg backwards. The man gasped with pain. Roger let him go, bent down and knocked the hand away from his pocket. Gissing hadn’t any fight left.
Roger’s fingers touched cold steel. He drew out the gun. He saw Gissing’s face twisted, heard only the man’s harsh breathing, but knew the other threat might return. He turned the gun in his hand, struck Gissing on the base of the skull, heard the soughing breath as unconsciousness came. He turned the gun again, looked towards the doorway, and saw the drapes move.
He fired.
The bullet tore through the drapes, a man grunted and pitched forward into sight.
Throughout all this the bell was still clanging.
The falling man had a gun in his right hand but no control over it. Roger went forward. The gun fell at his feet, and he kicked it away. The man hit the floor with a heavy thud, and didn’t move. He wouldn’t move again by himself, Roger knew. He must have been crouching, and the bullet had hit him in the temple. It was a small, clean hole, and the blood hadn’t started to ooze out
Gissing unconscious, a dead man, and the helpless boy downstairs.
Suddenly the bell stopped. It was as if agonizing pressure had been eased from Roger’s ears.
If he could get that boy —
He heard a shot, and thought it came from outside. Footsteps thudded, their sound dulled by the closed windows; then more footsteps, nearer now and coming from the rooms through which Roger had been brought. Two men at least were approaching, and luck couldn’t last. He opened a door at the far end of the room. Another, just a gauze-filled wooden frame, was immediately beyond it The footsteps drew nearer inside the house, farther away outside. Roger
unhooked the catch of the outer door, and found himself on a wide verandah lit only by the light from the room.
He heard a shout: “Get him!” A shot barked from behind him, and he heard the bullet bite into the door-frame. He swung right, jumped down the verandah steps and rushed towards the beckoning darkness. More shots barked as he raced blindly over the grass, but he wasn’t hit Against the grey sky he could see the dark outline of the spiked tops of trees. Some way off these trees offered shelter. His footsteps seemed to thump out a call. “Here I am, here I am: He could hear the others running, and looked up at the tops of the trees and wondered how far away they were, and whether he could reach them. He was breathing hard, but didn’t feel panic, just unnatural calm. Then he heard two more shots, farther away, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the flashes. He was running at right angles to that spot.
Brushing against a bush, he felt a branch hard against his shoulder, and ducked; another branch plucked at his hair. So he had reached the trees. He sensed rather than saw the straight trunks and the low branches. The men behind him were blundering through the undergrowth. They hadn’t gathered their wits yet, but soon they would use flashlights. He stopped running and walked on swiftly. A murmur of voices came from behind him, and then there was a shout from a long way off — where the last shooting had been. A shout of triumph?
He could see a little now, stopped and turned round. The light from the house, two hundred yards away at least, showed up the trees in silhouettes, and he saw he was in a small thicket. Between him and the house there were rows of young firs, then trees with taller, thicker trunks. Against the glow he saw a man appear from the house, running towards the thicket, light coming from his flashlight. With a powerful light they had a chance of finding him; and they knew where they were, what the ground was like. Roger moved cautiously, wondering whether caution would help him. He walked parallel with the edge of the turf and the first line of young trees, until the man with the flashlight was within a hundred yards. Then he turned towards the grass — the old gambit, doubling back; nothing else could help him.
Other flashlights were shining, on the far side of the turf. He stared towards them, fancying that one man was being dragged along by two others; a third and a fourth, lighting the way, were in the party. Then he heard the man coming towards the thicket call out:
“See him?”
“This way.”
They were heading for the spot where Roger had first disappeared into the trees. He reached the grass, then turned again and walked along the edge of the thicket away from the house, the light of which was now too far away to show him up. The shadowy darkness of the trees hid him.
One party with their prisoner was going towards the house, the other was looking for Roger in the wrong place. Grant him just a little luck, and he would get away. A little more still, and he would find a telephone and get help, bring a rescue party to the house in time to save the boy, perhaps catch Gissing.
How had that alarm been raised?
The grounds might be ringed with a trip-wire; or a gate protected with an alarm. Did it matter? Someone had blundered into the alarm system, and been caught; it didn’t seem to matter who. Roger quickened his step, sure that there was no immediate danger. He could no longer hear the men who were seeking him.
He could see much better now. Another row of trees was facing him; the trees seemed to grow completely round the grounds with the house built in a clearing. It was downhill, here — the big disadvantage was that he didn’t know what the ground would be like a few steps ahead. There was a danger of running round in circles, too. He mustn’t hurry, he must keep his bearings.
There were no stars.
He looked for a light, other than the lights at the house and those from the flashlights, but saw nothing. He had his back to the house, and the glow from that would shine for a long way, if he kept his back to it he could at least be sure that he was getting farther away.
The trees were thinning.
The ground was even but slippery with pine-needles; he couldn’t go too fast. The immediate danger was past, but any mistakes now could damn him. If he were taken back, he wouldn’t find a smooth-voiced Gissing, he would find a devil.
He kicked against something that struck his ankle, and then heard a sound — a long way off, like the ringing of a bell. It went on and on. He glanced over his shoulder. The flashlights had stopped moving towards the house. He felt sweat breaking out. This was the trip-wire, the alarm had gone off again. He hadn’t a knife, couldn’t break it. He didn’t try, but began to run along it, then realized that if the wire ran round the clearing, they wouldn’t know whereabouts it had been touched again. He climbed over, and ran on.
Were there guards?
He had taken it for granted that everyone in the grounds had gone towards the man who was now a prisoner, but he must not take that or anything else for granted.
He stopped running, and now and again looked over his shoulder. The light from the house fell away to a dim glow, well above him, and the hillside was much steeper. Twice, he nearly pitched forward. The trees were all about him. He looked round again, and the light had vanished, but by going downhill he could be sure that he was getting farther away. His legs felt stiff and heavy, his back ached and his head throbbed. He hadn’t been aware of any of that at first, now he had time to think of it; and it became an obsession — that, and the need for keeping out of the way of the men who would be searching. If he had any idea where to go, it would have given him hope, but this was an unknown wilderness. There was no light anywhere, only the greyness of the sky and the darkness of the trees.
He stumbled on.
He didn’t know how long the transition took, but after a while he stopped thinking clearly, stopped being afraid of pursuit, somehow dragged one foot in front of the other and made himself go forward. He had no watch. He had no sense of time. Now his whole body ached, every muscle seemed to groan in protest. There was a sharp pain at the back of his right foot, another where he had kicked against the wire, but he knew that he must go on, and clung to that, forcing his feet to carry him farther. After a while, he knew that he would soon have to stop, that it would soon be impossible to keep moving. Each leg seemed like a leaden weight. The sharper pains were worse. His head now throbbed as badly as it had done after the blow at “Rest”. His mouth was wide open and he was gasping uncontrollably.
The hillside was behind him, he was on level ground now. Gradually he became aware of something different, as if his feet were being clawed back into the earth. He had taken a dozen floundering steps before he realized that he was walking through marshland That set a new conscious fear flaring into his mind. Marshes — bog. God! Where was he? Why didn’t he come to a road?
He didn’t come to a road.
He came to a clearing in the trees. A long way off there was light — light of all colours, tiny bars of green and blue and red and yellow. So far off that they were as far away as the stars. He stopped and swayed, putting one hand against a tree for support, then leaned against the tree. Water was up to his ankles. He studied the lights, and slowly the truth dawned. This was a lake. The patch of treeless darkness ahead was the smooth surface of the water. On the other side, miles away, was a village.
He was still breathing through his mouth.
He made himself think. The lights seemed to be directly opposite him, but he couldn’t judge which was the quicker way round. Right or left? He could turn in the wrong direction and never get there. This might be one lake or a string of lakes. There was no means of telling, he had to take a chance. So, woodenly, he turned right.
Sand and water were underfoot. He could hear the soft rippling of the water, which was cold at first, and slowly became icy. Trees grew right to the water’s edge nearly everywhere, now and again they receded and he could walk on dry ground, but the stretches were never long. The lights seemed to be just as far away, and he was haunted by the fear that this lake would run into another, and that
he couldn’t reach that village. There was no light in front of him, no gleam that offered hope.
He came to a clearing.
He took Gissing’s gun from his pocket, went a few feet away from the water and plodded on, but tremors ran through his legs, they wouldn’t support him much longer.
A pain stabbed so sharply that he called out, and paused.
It would be easy to stop, to sit down, to stretch out, to rest. He longed to make the sand of the water’s edge a couch. He stared downwards all the time, and yet he didn’t see the boat. .He kicked against it, barked his shin, and fell. The gun dropped from his hand and plopped into water; was lost for good. A tree-stump? A rock? A fallen branch? He looked, and saw the dark outline of the small boat — long, canoe-like. The handle of a paddle stuck up.
He thought dully: “A boat. A boat: He turned his head to stare at the inviting lights. Were they nearer or further away?
He had a boat.
He saw something that seemed to grow out of the calm water; a small landing-stage. A boat and a landing-stage meant that someone often came here, might live here. He turned his head slowly, and made out the shape of a building, not big, but standing dark and solid against the trees. A building, but no light.
He turned towards it, less acutely conscious of the burden of his body. He did not expect to find anyone here. The door would be locked and the windows securely fastened — unless whoever lived here was asleep. He called out, but his voice was only a croak. He called again, and knew that it would be difficult to hear the sound more than a few yards away. He reached the side of the building, and banged, but had no strength to thump. The walls seemed to echo.
No one spoke, nothing happened.
He moved towards the left, where the hut faced the lake, and kicked against steps which led — where else could they lead? — to a front door. There was no rail. He mounted the steps unsteadily. The door faced him, he pushed, and the door opened.
That was so unlikely, that he stopped swaying drunkenly, hand stretched out, door creaking as it swung away from him. An age passed before he stepped up, and into the hut. It was darker here than it had been outside. That ordeal had ended in an empty hut and a canoe he hadn’t the strength to use, but he could rest. He must rest. There would be a chair, surely there would be a chair.