Newsdeath

by Ray Connolly

  He never knew how long it was before he came to again. This time there was a difference. Instead of being aware of lying on a hard floor he felt himself warm and free, almost floating from the ability to move his limbs. Even before he awoke properly he wondered if the first experience of consciousness had been a nightmare. Then suddenly he was afraid to open his eyes: he wondered if he would be able. His hands crept up to his eyelids. The feeling had returned to his fingers, but as he touched his eyes he realized that they were sore. Slowly he opened them, feeling the lids as he did, and with surprise realized that the soreness was because he had lost his eyelashes. They must have been torn out when sticking tape building them had been removed. He was in darkness, but he was comfortable. He was in a large bed. And his body was no longer a prisoner.

  As he moved about the bed, pulling himself up to see, he realized with some surprise that he was naked between the sheets. The movement of sitting made his head go dizzy, and he quickly lay down again, too quickly, causing a sharp pain to shoot across the back of his head. He lifted his hands further to examine himself and discovered a large swelling, and the crusty formation of a scab over the place where he must have been bleeding.

  Lying in the darkness he felt afraid again; everything was confused, but in his mind’s eye he began to see the woman’s face mocking him. A beautiful face full of arrogance and awareness, a face that was somehow frightening. In his delirium he heard himself speaking again and calling out ‘Don’t hurt me’. The words had come as though out of a dream, but they were real enough, and the sound of his own voice forced him into full awareness of himself. Again he drew himself up, but this time slowly and carefully. For the first time he saw that the room was not entirely black, although it was very dark. Now that his eyes were becoming accustomed to this light he could see more, and could make out a source of light fully twenty feet away, a slowly burning log fire, which cast a glowing canopy around it. As he saw more, he realized that he was in an old-fashioned timbered bedroom, but it was the fireplace which gripped his eyes and his mind. There, sitting serenely and thoughtfully, her head bowed so that he could make out her profile against the red of the fire, was the woman from the bombed car the girl from the restaurant. He remembered that her name was Eyna.

  He lay there for some moments, his elbows holding him up like two props, before she saw him. Everything was now becoming clearer in his mind. He was no longer afraid. There seemed to be no reason for fear. Whoever Eyna was, whoever PUMA were, at the moment they were no threat to him. Indeed it seemed that he was being kept alive and taken good care of for some reason.

  A spark from the log fire spat a tiny cinder on to the wooden floor next to where the woman was sitting. Turning, she stamped the sole of her shoe on it. Only then did she notice that Huckle was watching her. Getting up she walked across to the bed. In the half light Huckle could make out her outline. She leant over him, and he sank back into the pillows. Her eyes were smiling at him. ‘How do you feel?’ she asked, her voice low, almost sympathetic.

  ‘Where am I?’ A question for a question.

  ‘I can’t tell you. But you’re safe in here.’

  Huckle wasn’t quite sure whether there was supposed to be any emphasis on the words ‘in here’ or not. But he was in no position to be going out of there anyway at that moment.

  ‘What happened to me?’ he asked. ‘I mean, how did I get here?’

  ‘You banged your head. We brought you hear.’

  ‘You kidnapped me.’

  ‘We brought you here to take care of you.’

  ‘I can remember being tied up and blindfolded, and I was gagged, too.’

  ‘You were delirious.’

  ‘What are you going to do to me?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing … you’ll just stay here for a little while.’

  ‘Where are my clothes?’

  ’You made a mess of them … we’ll have to get you some more.’

  ‘And my wallet and all those things …?’

  ‘We have them. They’re safe.’

  Huckle went silent and looked at the woman. His every question seemed to end in a cul de sac. He tried to examine her as she sat on the side of the bed staring at him. She was wearing jeans and a shirt, with a row of beads fastened in choker fashion around her neck. Never for a moment did she allow her eyes to leave his face, and he felt himself a prisoner of her gaze. He noticed she was wearing a tiny gold watch on her wrist.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked.

  She glanced down. ‘Seven-thirty.’

  ‘Seven-thirty! At night?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You mean I’ve been out all that time?’

  She smiled, an enigmatic, mocking gesture. Suddenly he was afraid again.

  ‘What day is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Saturday.’

  He stared at her. It couldn’t be true. He had gone into the restaurant on Thursday. He couldn’t have been unconscious all that time. And yet he knew that she wasn’t lying. She nodded her head slowly as he tried to take in the fact that somewhere he had lost nearly two days of his life.

  ‘We gave you something to help you sleep,’ she said. But he wasn’t listening. Suddenly he was wondering what Susan and his children would be thinking. And worrying about Kirsten. What had happened in the two days of his life which had been stolen from him? Suddenly he heaved himself forward and grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her back across the bed. But as he did so he realized that his head was swimming with nausea again, and the room was going into a spin. Slowly but steadily she put her strength against his and, forcing herself back to a sitting position, pushed him down into the pillows, gripping his left arm at the elbow which was now excruciatingly painful. When he was still again she relaxed her grip, and he allowed his fingers to explore the sensitive area on the inside of his elbow. He discovered a large piece of sticking plaster. She noticed his confusion. ‘I said we gave you something to make you sleep,’ she said. ‘Don’t try to get up again. You haven’t eaten for days, and you’re in no state to take on any of us. Even if you did manage to overpower me … what would you do then? Where would you go? You can’t get out of here. If you got past me, you’d never manage to get past the others. Just wait and be patient.’

  Huckle lay back again and stared at her: ‘I’m hungry,’ he said at last.

  She stood up, easing herself off the bed: ‘Stay where you are and I’ll get you something. I won’t be long.’ She moved away from him. Picking up a heavy woollen jacket from where it had been lying on an armchair she moved across the room towards a door, unlocked it, and let herself out.

  Lying under the sheets he listened carefully as he heard the door being bolted from outside, then the sound of her steps on wooden stairs as she retreated away from him. In the distance he could hear rock music being played somewhere beneath him. Taking infinite care not to encourage another fit of nausea or dizziness he pulled back the covers and climbed out of bed. He paused for a moment before standing up, then raising himself while still holding on to the large copper bedstead, he began to move across the room towards the heat of the fire. At first he shivered in his nakedness. He felt self-conscious and wished he had something to tie around his waist. But he could see nothing.

  The room was large, but was dominated by a huge old stone fireplace. Standing in front of it he turned and began an uncertain path across the bare, stained floorboards to where he could see his own reflection on the glass of the window. It was strange, he thought, that although there were no curtains he was still unable to see through. On reaching it he discovered the reason. The whole window area had been boarded up from the outside. He was allowed no view of his surroundings. Moving back across the room he discovered another door on the far side of the one by which Eyna had left the room. He opened it slowly; afraid now of what he might discover. It was a tiny bathroom. Just a shower, a lavatory and a wash-basin. Again the window had been boarded up from the outside.

  By the time
Eyna returned he was back in bed, sitting with the five pillows forming an arbour in which he could recline against the bedstead. He heard her slow calculated steps before she opened the door, and guessed correctly that she must be carrying a tray. Locking the door again she put the tray down on the blankets in front of him. In the dim light he could make out a bowl of soup, a jug of orange juice, some cheese, a bowl of salad, some meat, thick chunks of bread and a bottle of red wine. He picked up a spoon and pulled the tray closer to him. She was sitting in the line of the fire and blocking the glow. He could hardly see his food now. ‘Could we have some light in here? I can’t see properly,’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. You’ll get used to it.’

  She moved off the bed and sat on a chair at the bedside.

  ‘Go on. Eat something before it gets cold,’ she said.

  He watched her; suddenly suspicious. Then realizing the depth of his hunger he attacked his food vigorously. She poured out two glasses of wine, and taking one sat down again and watched him eat. They didn’t speak for some minutes. When you’re that hungry you don’t speak. He went through the soup and steak and salad and was on to the wine and cheese before he found the energy to take his mind away from eating.

  ‘How long is it since I had anything?’

  ‘It was Thursday night.’

  ‘Christ!’

  ‘We fed you soup now and again. But you won’t remember.’ He paused and studied her face: ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why everything?’ he said. ‘Why me? Why am I still alive? Why am I here, wherever here may be? Why are the windows boarded up, why were my clothes taken? I mean - “Why”?’

  ‘I can’t tell you yet.’

  ‘But you will?’ He had to have some answers.

  ‘We’ll see …’ She was deliberately vague. He had finished eating and she took the tray off the bed and put the wine on the bedside table.

  ‘Tell me about PUMA,’ he said, trying again.

  She poured them both some more wine: ‘I tell you what. We’ll tell you about PUMA, if you tell me about you.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I want to know all about John Huckleston.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I want to know. And because I like you.’

  ‘You like me? That’s a funny thing to say. Is that why I’m still alive?’

  She smiled: ‘No. But as you are, it helps.’

  It was hard for him not to appreciate her presence. There was something beguiling about her. He was a prisoner, but he knew that he was safe, at least for the time being. She was caring for him, and she was feeding him. He realized that while he had been unconscious someone had been shaving him. His face was smooth and clean to touch. He wondered if it was this woman, this woman who seemed so deeply involved in a terrorist organization but who was behaving like a nurse towards him. Then he realized that, despite everything he knew about her, he found himself attracted towards her, and flattered by the fact that she had told him she liked him. He knew it was lunacy, but everything seemed so cosy and intimate in this dark and silent room. He put his glass to his lips and spilled some wine down his chin and into his wind-pipe causing himself to cough and splutter. He sat forward, and she put a warm hand on his bare shoulder.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  He coughed again. ‘Yes … it’s okay now.’ He lay back again. ‘You’ll really tell me about PUMA if I tell you about me?’

  She nodded.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Everything you can tell me.’

  ‘What do you already know?’

  ‘A little bit. That you’re married and separated and have two children, and that you like the ladies …’

  A sudden shot of alarm surged through Huckle. ‘The children … my children. You haven’t touched them …’ She was already shaking her head … ‘I mean, you wouldn’t touch them, would you?’ Again she shook her head. He looked her straight in the eyes. ‘If anything happens to them I’ll rip your skull off your neck. D’you understand?’

  She looked at him again for a long time before speaking again. ‘Nothing will happen to your children - if you help us.’

  He stared at her: ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘Don’t talk about that. They’re safe.’

  ‘For your sake, they’d better be.’

  The atmosphere, which had been growing strangely convivial a few moments ago, was now tense and angry. She poured him some more wine. He turned away from her and stared into the darkness of the wall. What madhouse was he in? What was she trying to do to him?

  As though respecting his mood she got up. Carrying her wine back to the fire she sat down again in the place where he had seen her when he first became conscious. He saw her shadow move away across the wall and turning looked again at her. She was sitting staring unseeing into the glowing fire. She was waiting. He lay back on his pillows, and thought about Jane and Charles. As a father he had never been much more than an absentee disaster - never there when he was needed; bored by the constant moaning and crying of small children. But they were his children. Although he was sure they cared little for him, he had always worried about them. PUMA had already demonstrated that they were invincible so long as they were free. No doubt a police watch had been put on his home in Fulham, but the police couldn’t watch two children for ever. Whatever happened he could never risk his children’s safety. He would protect them, no matter what the cost.

  Before long he felt himself passing dreamily into a half-sleep, brought on by the wine and the remains of the sleeping drug still in his veins. And in his sleep, which this time was fitful and full of startling falls and fears, the woman he knew as Eyna appeared naked alongside him. And he felt himself, his body, and his whole existence, being sucked inside her as she lay beside him, her arms open to embrace him.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was Winston who finally gave Howlett the breakthrough he had been praying for. Winston was like a dog with a bone; nothing would convince him that there wasn’t some way of prising scraps of information out of the numerous contacts he had made throughout the London police and semi-underworld into which his job had recently led him. Finally his persistence paid off with a surreptitious phone call slipped in his direction by one of the friendlier CID men at Notting Hill. His cultivation of new friends had not been in vain.

  Her name was Miss Kathleen, and she was a whore, he was told. She didn’t have a record, and she was a bit dotty, but she knew something. The Notting Hill CID had had her in a couple of times for questioning, but her natural disinclination to talk to the police had been strengthened when one of their less bright members had produced a scrapbook of Joe Chambers’s, which had been found filed away in Westbourne Grove Close in the middle of some bogus accounts. From the positions adopted by Miss Kathleen in the pictures it was obvious that she was quite an intimate of Chambers, but even though threatened with all manner of vice charges the lady had remained cool under pressure. On advice from a higher authority charges were not brought against her.

  Five days after Huckle had disappeared, and a day after the bomb at the paper, Winston paid Miss Kathleen a visit, parking his car around the corner from where she lived in Leinster Square, Bayswater. He didn’t want his visit advertised in any way.

  Miss Kathleen’s name was on a bell, stuck with Sellotape to an Entryphone system. To Winston’s surprise a well-spoken, educated voice answered his buzzing. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Winston Collins.’ He felt anxious. Was he getting involved beyond his depth again?

  ‘Who?’ The voice came back at him, loud and barking down the Entryphone.

  He repeated his name. There was a pause, during which he wondered if the lady had taken fright, but then, just as he was about to ring again, the door swung open and the electronic voice at his ear barked again: ‘Third floor.’

  It was a large, dingy, terraced Victorian house, stucco on the outside, da
mp on the inside. He went into the hallway: there was a child’s red bicycle propped against one wall and from the back of the building he could hear a Southern Irish voice scolding unmercifully. The place smelled of stewing cabbage. An old and threadbare runner of carpet, colourless with age and dirt, pointed his way up the stairs. He felt both frightened and excited at being a foot-in-the-door reporter/detective once again.

  Each landing of the house contained three doors: most with varying degrees of external decoration. He hazarded that the place was peopled by an unhomogeneous mixture of science students, West Indian families and single ladies. On the third floor he stopped by the first of two doors; pinned to it was a picture of what looked like this year’s Mr Universe, a fair-haired man with olive-oil-primed muscles which rose like mountain ranges from all kinds of peculiar parts of his body. His eyes lingered on the man’s self-induced deformities for no more than a moment, because even as he was wondering what kind of person would thus advertise himself the next door along opened.

  ‘Yes?’ She was a tall blonde wearing a long full cotton dress and an ornamental pinafore. She was, he thought, about forty; mutton masquerading as something more succulent. Her dress was voluminous, and he noticed that her stomach was a slightly swollen disfigurement. Apart from that, however, she was handsome, though her top front teeth were prominent, and her streaked hair in need of a rinse. He decided to take her straight on.

  ‘My name is Winston Collins. I’d like to talk to you about a friend of yours called Joe Chambers.’

  Her eyebrows went up into arches of surprise at the mention of Chambers. ‘Are you the police again?’

  ‘No. I’m a reporter. And my friend, John Huckleston, has been kidnapped. Can I come in, please?’

  She looked at him without speaking for a couple of seconds then allowed him into her room. It was an extraordinary place. What had once been a large square Victorian bedroom, with a flowered moulding around the ceiling, had been converted into what Miss Kathleen evidently regarded as a Southern-style sitting-room. Before he could enter he was forced to wait until she opened a further inner door, covered in tight screen netting. Once properly inside he saw that he was in a place of white shuttered windows which led out on to the bleak Bayswater balcony, quaintly referred to by Miss Kathleen as the veranda. The walls were white and bare apart from half a dozen or so mahogany framed portraits of anonymous nineteenth-century ladies, and there was a sparseness of fittings which suggested to Winston that Miss Kathleen might well be in straitened circumstances. She had come to the door bearing a white rolled parasol, which she fiddled with and spun in her fingers while he looked around the room.