‘How long have you been married?’
‘Nearly a year.’
‘And I never knew.’
‘We couldn’t get in touch with you. We didn’t know where you were.’
‘That’s true. Where’s Arthur living? Not with you?’
‘Oh, no. He’s married too, and he’s got a place of his own; a brand-new bungalow.’
‘I saw it,’ Benton said. ‘At the corner of the thirty-acre.’
‘That’s it.’
‘Who did he marry?’
‘No one you’d know. Anne Perry. The Perrys are newcomers to the village. They took over Dennington’s shop.’
Somebody came into the house by the back door; they could hear movements in the kitchen. Molly went to the door of the living-room and called.
‘Dan! Guess who’s here.’
Dan came into the living-room. He was wearing a sweat-stained shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal his suntanned forearms. He had put on weight and bulged at the waist and the hair was receding from his forehead.
‘I saw the car. So it’s you, Tom.’
‘Hello, Dan. Congratulations. Bit late, but better late than never.’
‘What?’ Dan said. Then he glanced at Molly and got the message. ‘Oh, that. Well, yes.’ He looked faintly embarrassed, and Tom guessed that he was remembering the day when he had gone down on his face in the cow-dung.
‘How about you, Tom?’ Molly said. ‘Are you married?’
‘Not yet.’
Dan said with a touch of venom: ‘So they kicked you out of the army.’
‘Oh, you heard about that?’
‘It was in the local paper. Everybody knew about it. You got some publicity for the Benton name all right.’
‘Well, it’s over and done with now. I expect you’ve been able to live it down.’
‘What have you been doing since?’ Molly asked.
‘This and that. Nothing very grand. I’ve been living in London.’
‘Sounds nice.’ Molly sounded a trifle wistful. ‘I’d like that.’
‘This here ain’t good enough for you, I reckon,’ Dan said spitefully. ‘Allus hankering arter something you hain’t got; that’s you all over.’
Molly wriggled her shoulders but said nothing.
Rather against his inclination but under pressure from her, Benton agreed to stay for an evening meal. It was an uneasy gathering of three. After years of separation from his brother there ought to have been plenty to talk about, a wide variety of subjects to be discussed.
There was nothing.
Watching his brother and Molly, he wondered what relations between them were like. Was Dan still crazy about her? Perhaps; though he gave no evidence of it. When he spoke to her it was with a kind of grating unpleasantness and no show of affection. But even if he was not as crazy about her as he had once been, Tom would have made a bet that he was a jealous husband. Let her take one errant step away from the path of strict marital probity and he would punish her for it.
Maybe that had already happened. He had the feeling that she was afraid of her husband. Did he beat her? It was far from impossible that he did. Perhaps he had taken some revenge on her for the way she had treated him before the marriage. Certainly there must have been something to take so much of the spirit out of her.
And then the thought came into his mind: ‘One day he’ll kill her if she isn’t careful.’
He was not sorry to leave the house and get away in the car. He doubted whether he would ever return.
He thought of dropping in on Arthur and his wife, but decided not to. He had always liked Arthur even less than Dan; and besides, it was getting late and he wanted to get back to Pear Tree Farm. That was his home now.
When he came near the gateway he saw the car parked in the lane.
7
Waiting in the Wings
He stopped the Vauxhall and looked at the car that was pulled close in to the hedge. It was a black Ford Sierra and its lights were not switched on. In the darkness it would have been practically invisible if the headlamps of the Vauxhall had not picked it out.
Benton thought it seemed suspicious. Who would leave a car there? The only habitation anywhere near was the farmhouse, and if anyone had been going to call there they would surely have driven in through the gateway.
Unless they had wished to approach unobserved. And that possibility raised other questions that were more than a little disturbing.
Benton decided not to take the Vauxhall in either, for the present. He left it by the side of the road and walked up to the house. There were lights showing both downstairs and upstairs, and when he tried the front door he discovered that it was not locked. He opened it and went into the hall. He made a rapid inspection of the ground floor rooms and found no one in them; and then he went to the staircase which led up from the hall. There was a light on at the top of the stairs and he began to climb them, taking care to make no noise.
He had just reached the landing when he heard a murmur of voices apparently coming from Jean’s bedroom; and then there was a kind of scuffling sound and a woman’s cry and a laugh that was unmistakably male.
Benton’s immediate impulse was to burst open the door and rush into the bedroom; but he restrained himself. He could not be certain how many men he would have to deal with, and he had sense enough to realise that to tackle more than one single-handed and unarmed would be all too likely to lead to disaster.
Therefore, he went first to his own room and took the Beretta from the suitcase where he had left it. He loaded it, worked a round into the breech and went quickly to the door of the other bedroom. As he reached it he heard more of the scuffling sounds and again the woman cried out.
He hesitated no longer but pushed open the door and stepped into the room.
There were two of them; young men in jeans and black leather jackets, hair cropped short. They had the woman on the bed and they had already stripped the clothes off her, but she was still struggling like mad and they were having difficulty in holding her down. They were so engrossed in what they were doing that they failed to hear Benton come into the room. They heard him clearly enough when he spoke, however, because there was a rasp in his voice that made it audible above their own animal-like grunting.
‘Let her go!’
They turned their heads and saw the gun. It was pointing at them and it appeared to give them quite a shock. For a moment they seemed to forget the woman and she wriggled free and pulled a quilt off the bed and wrapped it round herself to hide her nakedness.
Benton made a gesture with the pistol. ‘Get away from the bed. Both of you.’
They stood up and stared at him, but stayed where they were. They were no beauties and they could have done with a shave. Benton had the impression that they had been drinking or were maybe high on drugs. After the initial shock they seemed not to be too worried about the gun.
‘What you got there, mister?’ one of them said. He had a brass ring the size of a fifty-pence piece dangling from the lobe of one ear and there was a gap in his front teeth. ‘A water-pistol?’
‘You like playing with toys, man?’ the other one asked. His jacket was open and the shirt under it, and there was an obscene tattoo on his chest. ‘Ain’t you a mite too old for them sorta things?’
Benton kept the Beretta pointing at them. ‘You think this is a toy, you scum? It’s a toy could kill you.’
They laughed. The gap-toothed one hauled a knife from a leather sheath and showed it to Benton. It had a six-inch blade, sharp and pointed.
‘This toy could kill you, mister.’
The tattooed one dipped a hand inside his jacket and came up with what looked like a length of bicycle spoke, filed to a point at one end and bound with insulating tape to make a grip for the hand.
‘And this could poke your eyes out, man.’
Jean Mace was backed up against the wall at the head of the bed, holding the quilt and staring wide-eyed at the weapons in the men’s
hands. She was not making a sound and not moving either.
‘Well,’ Benton said, ‘I can see you two punks need a lesson; because if you think this gun is a toy you’d better think again.’
He took careful aim and pressed the trigger of the Beretta.
The young men were wearing thick-soled black boots and the bullet from the pistol made a hole in the side of one of them; it clipped the leather and went through the sole and through the carpet into the floor. In its passage it took a shaving off the small toe of the gap-toothed man who was wearing the boot. He gave a howl of pain, dropped his knife and began hopping around on the other foot.
Before the tattooed man could recover from the shock of seeing what had happened to his partner Benton took three quick steps and hit him on the side of the head with the gun. It stunned him and he went down and Benton took the sharpened spoke from him. He also picked up the knife and threw them both into a corner of the room.
Blood was beginning to seep from the gap-toothed man’s boot and he seemed to be in some pain. Benton was happy to see that he was.
‘Beat it,’ he said. ‘You’re making a mess on the carpet.’
The man hobbled to the door. The other one was getting to his feet; he was still dazed and a trifle wobbly on his legs, but he followed his pal quickly enough when Benton gave him a jab with the Beretta and told him to move it.
He followed them down the stairs and out of the house and watched them from the doorway as they walked towards the gate. He could just see them as a couple of shadowy figures when they reached it and he waited for the sound of the Sierra starting up. He saw the lights come on and then they were moving away down the lane, and he closed the door and locked it and took the pistol back to his room.
Jean was wearing a dressing-gown and sitting on the bed when he knocked and went into her room. She looked shaken but otherwise all right.
‘Have they gone?’ she asked.
‘Yes, they’ve gone, and I’m pretty damn sure they won’t be coming back.’
He walked to the bed and sat down beside her and put an arm round her, holding her close. He could feel her shaking. It was the reaction, he thought; she had been through a nasty ordeal and it would take a little time to get over it. But it could have been so much worse. He hated the thought of how much worse it could have been.
‘It’s over now,’ he said. ‘It’s all over now.’
She clung to him, still shaking; but after a while she became calmer and he was able to persuade her to go down to the kitchen with him and drink some hot coffee, which he made. Only then did she give an account of what had happened.
‘I was in here and I heard a sound in the hall. I went to see what it was and there they were. They had just walked in without ringing the bell or anything.’
‘So the door wasn’t locked?’
‘No. I was expecting you back and I hadn’t bothered. I didn’t think anyone would just walk in like that.’
‘They do,’ Benton said. ‘Even in remote places like this. What did they say?’
‘Not much. I asked them what they wanted and they just laughed. Then they began looking into the rooms, hunting for anything valuable to steal, I suppose. They didn’t seem to be at all pleased with what they found.’
‘I can imagine they wouldn’t be. No video recorders, no hi-fi stuff, no Jap cameras, no home computers, no good old-fashioned silver even. So then what?’
‘Then one of them said: “Let’s take a look upstairs. Maybe there’ll be some jewellery”. I told them there was nothing of any value but they took no notice; they made me go up to the bedroom with them and then they started doing things to me. Well, you saw – ’ She stopped and a slow flush suffused her cheeks, as though the recollection of what he had seen embarrassed her.
‘It’s a pity,’ Benton said, ‘that Joe wasn’t in the house. He might have stopped them.’
He was surprised by her reaction to this suggestion. ‘Oh, no,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m glad he wasn’t there.’
‘But why?’
‘Because he might have killed them.’
‘You think he would have done that?’
‘I do. I think he would go quite mad if he found anyone attacking me. And he’s so strong, you know.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Benton said. He wondered whether she was right about Joe killing anyone who attacked her. She seemed very certain about it, and there was no doubt that the young man would have been physically capable of doing so.
‘Will you report this to the police?’ she asked.
‘Do you think I should?’
‘It wouldn’t do any good, would it? I mean they’ve got away now.’
Benton could have told her that it might have been fairly easy for the police to pick the men up; he could have told them about the black Sierra and given them a good description of the intruders, including the fact that one of them had a bullet wound in his foot. But he had no intention of doing so; the last thing he wanted was to get himself involved with the officers of the law. He was glad that Jean showed no eagerness to bring them in either, though he did think it seemed a trifle strange. But lots of people were nervous about having any traffic with the constabulary, even when they had nothing to hide; so perhaps it was not so very strange at that.
Suddenly she said: ‘I didn’t know you had a gun.’
‘Well, no,’ Benton said. ‘I didn’t tell you because I thought you might be uneasy about it. Some people are scared of firearms.’
‘Why do you have one?’
‘I needed it for the job I was doing in London.’
‘I see,’ she said; and he thought she was going to ask what the job was, but she did not.
‘Security,’ he said. It was a nice vague term that might have meant almost anything.
‘Did you intend to shoot that man in the foot?’
‘Yes. It seemed the best way of convincing them I really meant business.’
‘You’re a very good shot,’ she said.
And then she suddenly went into a fit of uncontrollable giggling and he wondered whether it was a hysterical reaction to the strain she had been under and whether he ought to slap her cheek to bring her out of it. But he thought of a better way of stopping the giggles; he took her in his arms and kissed her on the mouth. It was just as effective as slapping and one hell of a lot more enjoyable.
That night he moved into her bedroom. In fact it was she who suggested it, rather shyly and hesitantly, as though uncertain of what his response might be.
‘I should feel so much safer,’ she said. ‘And there’s another thing. I think I am in love with you.’
‘You mean you’re not sure?’
‘Yes, Tom, I am sure.’
‘That’s fine then, because I’ve been in love with you since day one.’
‘You have, Tom? Oh, I’m so glad.’
Benton was glad too. And yet he had qualms of conscience. For was he not deceiving her? He had told her nothing of his history except that he had been brought up on a farm and had until recently been living in London. He had not touched on the army service, the escapade with the tank and the dishonourable discharge. Most important of all, he had said nothing of his criminal activities and his involvement in the murder of the security guards. Would she have welcomed him so eagerly as her lover if she had known about all that? He could not be sure.
One thing was certain; conscience or no conscience, he had no intention of putting the matter to the test.
There was something about the house that struck him as being rather curious: there was not a single photograph of the late Mr Mace to be seen anywhere. Nor were there any of his clothes in the wardrobes or drawers. It seemed that Jean had got rid of everything that might have served to remind her of her former husband. He wondered why. But he did not ask, and she made no mention of the man. It was as though she had banished him from her mind.
Benton took pleasure in the hard manual labour of the farm; he put the ancient tractor into working o
rder and soon had things generally in better shape than they had been before his arrival. There were cash crops like lettuces and cabbages and turnips and other vegetables which Jean took in the pick-up truck to sell in the small market-towns in the district. Sometimes Benton went with her, but more often she went alone, leaving him on the farm with Joe.
There was hoeing to do and there were nettles to mow with a scythe; there were pigs and chickens to feed, eggs to collect and the goats to milk; and there was Joe always ready to lend a hand, happy to follow him round like a faithful dog, grinning from ear to ear and delighting in a friendly word or a slap on the shoulder. Life was simple for Joe. He had no worries, no skeletons in the cupboard.
And thus it all might have gone on if Benton had not chanced to get into conversation with Reggie Annis.
Annis was the landlord of the Red Lion, where Benton had once spent the night; a rosy beery man with a swelling paunch and a mat of black hair on the chest. Benton had driven into the village in the Vauxhall to pick up an order at the general stores and save Joe a journey on the carrier bicycle. It was a warm morning and he decided to drop in at the Red Lion for a glass of beer.
At that hour in the morning the saloon bar was empty of any other customers and Annis had time to talk.
‘Nice to see you again, Mr Lain. Couldn’t drag yourself away from the place once you got here, I reckon.’
‘You could say that.’
‘They tell me as how you’re working for Mrs Mace up at that there Pear Tree Farm.’
‘That’s so.’
‘Reckon she can use some help besides that Joe. He ain’t like a real man, is he?’
‘He’s a good worker.’
‘Ah, but not quite twelve to the dozen, hey?’ Annis gave a laborious wink and touched his forehead with a stubby finger. ‘A bit missing up here.’
‘We can’t all be perfect,’ Benton said.
‘You like it there?’
‘I’m not complaining.’
‘Only temp’ry though, I suppose? I mean you’ll be leaving when Fred comes back?’
‘Fred?’ Barton said; and suddenly it was as if a warning bell had started ringing in his head.
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