by P. D. James
She was too clear-sighted to expect this mood of exaltation to last long, but it depressed her how quickly it drained away. A wind was blustering around Notting Hill Gate, shaking out the sodden litter from the raised flower beds and swirling it damply against her ankles. On the parapet an old man corded in rags and surrounded by bulging plastic bags lifted his querulous voice and ranted feebly against the world. She hadn’t brought the car. It was hopeless to try to park near Notting Hill. But the two bags were heavier than she had expected and their weight began to drag on her spirits as well as her shoulder muscles. It was all very well to indulge in self-congratulation, to muse on the imperatives of duty, but now the reality of the situation struck her like a physical blow, filling her with a misery close to despair. She and her grandmother would be locked together now until the old lady died. She was getting too old to cope with independence and soon she would compensate for its loss by persuading herself that she didn’t really want it. And who now would give her priority for a single-person flat or a place in an old people’s home, even if she would accept it, with so many more urgent cases on the waiting list? And when she was too old to be left during the day, what then? How could she, Kate, carry on her job and at the same time nurse a geriatric patient? She knew what officialdom would say. “Can’t you ask for three months’ compassionate leave, or find a part-time job?” And the three months would become a year, the year might be two or three, her career would be finished. No hope now of a place on the Bramshill course, of planning for a senior command. What hope even of staying on in the special squad with its long unpredictable hours, its demand for total commitment?
The storm was over now, but the great plane trees in Holland Park Avenue still shook down heavy drops of rain which seeped, disagreeably cold, under the collar of her coat. The evening rush hour was in full spate, and her ears were battered by the grind and roar of traffic, a noise which normally she hardly noticed. As she waited to cross Ladbroke Grove, a van hissing too fast through the running gutters splashed her ankles with dirt. She shouted her protest, unheard above the thunder of the road. The storm had brought down the first autumn fall of leaves. They drifted sluggishly against the barks of the plane trees and lay, delicately veined skeletons, on the tacky pavement. As she trudged past Campden Hill Square she gazed up towards the Berowne house. It was hidden by the trees of the square garden, but she could picture its secret life and had to resist the temptation to cross the road and walk up to it to see if the police Rover was parked outside. She seemed to have been away from the squad for weeks rather than a single day.
She was glad to turn from the roar of the avenue into the comparative quiet of her own road. Her grandmother didn’t speak when she rang the bell and called her own name into the entry phone. But there was a burr and the door was released with surprising speed. The old lady must have been near the door. She humped her carrier bags into the lift and was borne upwards past floor after floor of empty and silent corridors.
She let herself into the flat and, as she always did, turned her key in the security lock. Then she hauled the bags of groceries onto the kitchen table and turned to walk the three yards across the hall to the sitting room door. The flat was silent, unnaturally so. Surely her grandmother would have turned on the television? Small facts unregarded in her self-obsessed mood of resentment and misery suddenly came together: the sitting room door tight closed when she had left it open, the swift but voiceless response to her ring at the street door, the unnatural silence. Even as her hand touched the knob and she pushed open the sitting room door, she knew with absolute certainty that something was wrong. But by then it was too late.
He had gagged her grandmother and tied her to one of the dining chairs with strips of white cloth—probably, she thought, a ripped sheet. He himself stood behind her, eyes blazing above the smiling mouth like a bizarre tableau of triumphant youth and age. He was holding the gun with both hands, steadying the barrel, his arms stretched rigid. She wondered if he was used to firearms or whether this was how he had seen a gun held in TV crime series. Her mind was curiously detached. She had often wondered how she would feel if faced with this kind of emergency, and it interested her that her reactions were so predictable. Disbelief, shock, fear. And then the surge of adrenaline, the gears of the mind taking hold.
As their eyes met he slowly lowered his arms, then placed the muzzle of the gun against her grandmother’s head. The old lady’s eyes above the mouth gag were immense, great black pools of terror. It was extraordinary that those restless eyes could be filled with such an intensity of pleading. Kate was seized with such pity and such anger that, for a moment, she dared not speak. Then she said:
“Take off that gag. Her mouth’s bleeding. She’s had one shock already. D’you want to kill her with pain and fright?”
“Oh, she won’t die. They don’t, these old bitches. They live forever.”
“She isn’t strong, and a dead hostage isn’t much use to you.”
“Ah, but I’ll still have you. A policewoman, rather more valuable.”
“Will you? D’you think I care a damn except for her? Look, if you want any cooperation from me, take off that gag.”
“And have her hollering like a stuck pig? Not that I know what a stuck pig sounds like, but I know the kind of noise she’d make. I’m in a particularly sensitive mood, and I never could stand noise.”
“If she does, then you can gag her again, can’t you? But she won’t. I’ll see to that.”
“All right. Come and take it off yourself. But be careful. Remember, I’ve got this gun against her head.”
She moved across, knelt and put her hand against her grandmother’s cheek.
“I’m going to take off the gag. Now, you mustn’t make a noise. Not a sound. If you do, he’ll put it on again. Promise?” There was no response, nothing but terror in the glazed eyes. But then her head jerked twice.
Kate said:
“Don’t worry, Gran. I’m here. It’s going to be all right.”
The stiff hands with their parched swollen knuckles clasped the chair ends as if fastened to the wood. She put her own hands over them. They felt like dry crêpe, cold and lifeless. She pressed down her warm palms and felt the physical transfer of life, of hope. Gently she put her right hand against her grandmother’s cheek and wondered how she could ever have found this crumpled flesh repulsive. She thought: We haven’t touched each other for fifteen years. And now I am touching her, and with love.
When the gag dropped off, he waved her back and said:
“Stand over there against the wall. Now.” She did as she was ordered. His eyes followed her.
Bound in her chair, her grandmother was rhythmically opening and shutting her mouth like a fish gasping for air. A thin dribble of bloodstained mucus dripped over her chin. Kate waited until she could control her voice. Then she said coolly:
“Why this panic? We’ve got no real evidence. You must know that.”
“Ah, but now you have.”
Without moving the gun, he turned up the corner of his jacket with his left hand.
“My spare button. Your people at the lab won’t have missed this broken twist of thread. Pity the buttons are so distinctive. This comes of having expensive taste in clothes. Papa always said it would be my undoing.”
His voice was high, brittle, the eyes large and bright as if he were on drugs. She thought: He’s not really as calm as he wants to sound. And he’s been drinking. Probably got at my whisky while he was waiting. But that made him more dangerous, not less. She said:
“That’s not enough, a single button. Look, don’t be a fool. Stop playacting. Hand over the gun. Go home and call your lawyer.”
“Ah, but I don’t think I can do that, not now. You see, there’s this damned officious priest. Or rather, there was this damned officious priest. He had a taste for martyrdom, poor sod. I hope he’s enjoying it.”
“You’ve killed him? Father Barnes?”
“Shot him. So you see
I haven’t anything to lose. If I’m aiming for Broadmoor rather than a high security jail, you could say the more the merrier.”
There was, she remembered, a mass murderer who had said just that. Who was it? Haigh?
She said:
“How did you find me?”
“The telephone directory, how else? Rather a coy and uncommunicative entry, but I guessed it was you. No difficulty in getting the old woman to open the door, incidentally. I just said I was Chief Inspector Massingham.”
“All right, so what’s the plan?”
“I’m getting out. Spain. There’s a boat at Chichester harbour which I can handle. The Mayflower. I’ve sailed on her. She belongs to my sister’s lover, in case you’re interested. You’re going to drive me there.”
“Not now I’m not. Not till the roads are clear. Look, I’m as anxious to live as you are. I’m not Father Barnes, I’m no martyr. The police pay me well, but not that well. I’ll get you to Chichester, but we have to wait until the A3 is clear if we’re going to get through. For God’s sake, it’s the rush hour. You know what the traffic’s like getting out of London. I don’t fancy getting stuck in a traffic jam with a gun at my back and every other motorist peering in the car.”
“Why should they? The police will be looking for a single man, not a man, wife and his dear old grandma.”
She said:
“They won’t be looking for anyone yet, button or no button. Not unless they’ve found the priest or know that you’ve got the gun. As far as the police know, there’s no hurry. They don’t even know that you’ve found out about the button. If we’re to get well away fast and unnoticed, we have to have a clear drive to Chichester. And there’s no point in carting along my grandmother. She’ll only be a hindrance.”
“Possibly, but she’s coming. I need her.”
Of course he needed her. His plan was plain enough. She would be expected to drive, he would sit at the back, the gun against the old lady’s head. And when they reached the harbour she would be expected to help with the boat, at least until they got out to sea. And what then? Two gunshots, two bodies bundled over the side. He seemed to be considering, then he said:
“All right, we’ll wait. Just for an hour. How much food is there?”
“Are you hungry?”
“I shall be, and we’ll need provisions. Everything portable that you’ve got.”
This she knew could be important. Hunger, shared need, shared food, a natural human want satisfied. It was one way of establishing that empathy on which their survival might depend. She remembered what she had been taught about sieges. The prisoners identified with their captors. It was those sinister watching eyes outside, those unseen intelligences, their guns, their listening devices leeched to the walls, their false insinuating voices which became the enemy. She wouldn’t identify with him or with his kind if they were together until they starved, but there were things she could do. Use “we” not “you.” Try not to provoke him. Try to ease tension and, if necessary, cook for him. She said:
“I could go and see what we’ve got. I don’t keep much fresh food, but there’ll be eggs, tins, pasta, and I could cook what I had planned for tonight: spaghetti bolognese.”
He said:
“No knives.”
“You can’t do much cooking without a knife of some sort. I’ll need to chop onions and the liver. My recipe uses chopped liver.”
“Then do without them.”
Spaghetti bolognese. Strong tasting. Was there anything that she could put into the sauce which would incapacitate him? Her thoughts ranged over the contents of her medicine chest. But she rejected the idea as nonsensical. There would be no opportunity. He wasn’t a fool. He’d see to that. And he wouldn’t eat anything which she didn’t share. Her grandmother began muttering. Kate said:
“I’ve got to speak to her.”
“All right. But keep your hands behind your back and be careful.”
She had to get hold of the gun, but now wasn’t the time. It was pressed hard against her grandmother’s skull. One suspicious move on her part and he would press the trigger. She went up again to the chair and bent her head. Her grandmother whispered. Kate said:
“She wants to go to the lavatory.”
“That’s too bad. She’s staying where she is.”
Kate said angrily:
“Look, d’you want a stink in the room for the next hour? And in the car, come to that. I’m fastidious, if you’re not. Let me take her. What possible danger can she be?”
Again there was a moment’s silence while he thought.
“All right. Untie her. But leave the door open. And remember I’ll be watching you.”
It took her a full minute to undo the clumsy knots, but at last the linen dropped away and her grandmother fell forward into her arms. She drew her up, marvelling at the lightness of her body, brittle as a bird’s. Holding her gently and murmuring encouragement as she might to a child, Kate half-carried her into the lavatory. Supporting her with one arm, she pulled down her knickers and lowered her onto the seat, aware of him standing braced against the passage wall less than two yards away, the gun pointed at her head. Her grandmother whispered:
“He’s going to kill us.”
“Nonsense, Gran. Of course he won’t kill us.”
The old lady directed a look of venomous hatred across Kate’s shoulder. She hissed:
“He’s been at your whisky. Bloody cheek.”
“I know, Gran. It doesn’t matter. Better not talk, not now.”
“He’s going to shoot us. I know.” Then she said, “Your dad was a copper.”
A policeman! Kate could have laughed aloud. It was extraordinary to learn that now, in this place, at this moment, astonishing to learn it at all. Still shielding her grandmother’s body with her own, she said:
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You never asked. No point in telling, anyway. He was killed before you were born, in a car smash, chasing a villain. And he had a wife and two kids. Little enough for them on a police pension without letting on about you.”
“So he never knew?”
“That’s right. And no point in telling his wife either. Nothing she could do about it. More grief, more trouble.”
“So you were landed with me. Poor Gran. I haven’t been much use.”
“You’ve been all right. No worse than any other kid. I never felt right about you. I always felt guilty.”
“Guilty! You! Why on earth?”
“When she died, your ma, I wished it had been you.”
So that had been at the root of all the estrangement. She felt a spring of joy. Here crouching by a lavatory seat, a gun at her head, with death perhaps seconds away, she could have laughed. She put her arm round the old lady, helping her to her feet, then let her rest against her while she drew up her knickers. She said:
“But of course you did. It was natural. It was right. She was your daughter. You loved her. Of course you wished it had been me who died if one of us had to go.” But she couldn’t make herself say, It would have been better if it had been me. Her grandmother muttered:
“I’ve felt bad about it all these years.”
“Well, stop feeling bad about it. We’ve got a lot of years ahead.”
And then she heard his step as he moved into the doorway, felt his breath on the back of her neck. He said:
“Get her out of here and start cooking that meal.”
But there was something she needed to ask. For over twenty years she hadn’t asked, hadn’t even cared. But now, amazingly, it had become important. Ignoring him, she said to her grandmother:
“Was she glad about me? My mother?”
“Seemingly. Before she died she said ‘my sweet Kate.’ So that’s what I called you.”
So it had been as simple as that, as wonderful as that.
His voice rasped with impatience:
“I said, get her out of here. Take her into the kitchen. Tie her to one of the chairs,
against the wall, by the door. I want my gun against her head while you’re cooking.”
She did as she was told, fetching the strips of sheeting from the sitting room, drawing her grandmother’s wrists gently behind her back, tying them as loosely as she dared, careful not to hurt her. Keeping her eyes on the knots, she said:
“Look, there’s something I must do. I’ve got to ring my boyfriend. He’s coming to supper at eight.”
“It doesn’t matter. Let him come. We’ll be gone by then.”
“It does matter. If he finds the flat empty he’ll know something is wrong. He’ll check the car. Then he’ll ring the Yard. We’ve got to put him off.”
“How do I know he’s expected?”
“You’ll find his initials on that wall diary behind you on the clipboard.” She was grateful now that, absorbed with the business of settling in her grandmother, she had telephoned Alan to cancel their date but hadn’t rubbed out those faint pencilled initials and the time. She said:
“Look, we’ve got to get to Chichester before anyone knows we’ve gone. He won’t be altogether surprised to be chucked. We had one hell of a row last time he was here.”
He was silent; considering. Then he said:
“All right. What’s his name and the number?”
“Alan Scully, and he works at the Hoskyns Theological Library. He won’t have left yet. He stays late on Thursday.”
He said:
“I’ll ring from the sitting room. You stand back against the wall. Don’t come to the telephone till I tell you. What’s the number?”
She followed him into the sitting room. He motioned her back against the wall to the left of the door, then moved over to where the telephone stood on the shelf of the wall unit, the answering machine beside it, the directories neatly stacked beneath. She wondered if he would remember the risk of leaving his palm print. As if the thought had communicated itself to him, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and draped it over the receiver. He said: