Comes the Dark Stranger (5 page)

‘Even if it should turn out to be yourself?’ Graham said.

Shane nodded, the skin stretched tightly across his cheek bones. ‘Even if it should turn out to be myself.’

‘And when you know, what then?’ Charles Graham said softly.

For a moment they stood looking into each other’s eyes, and then Shane turned without replying and, descending the steps, walked along the drive towards the gates.

5

W
HEN
he alighted from a bus in front of the university the rain had almost stopped, but fog crouched at the ends of the streets and the outlines of the houses seemed to blur and become indistinct.

He crossed the road to the porter’s lodge at the main entrance and inquired for Adam Crowther. A small, red-faced man in a blue uniform with gold facings, directed him to the Archaeology Department in a side street across the road.

The area behind the university had obviously been a high-class residential quarter some forty or fifty years before. Many of the houses had circular carriage drives and stood in spacious gardens. Most of them seemed to be occupied by one university department or another.

Shane found the Archaeology Department with no trouble and mounted the steps to the entrance. It was dark and gloomy inside with walls painted green and beige. There was no carpet in the hall and as he moved forward, the polished floorboards creaked ominously.

He passed a large notice board and came to the office. He noticed another door a little further along the corridor and saw that Crowther’s name was neatly painted in white on a small wooden plaque. He knocked softly and went in.

Crowther was sitting at a desk by the long window, his back half turned to the door as he held a piece of flint up to the light. ‘Yes, what is it?’ he said and there was impatience in his voice. ‘I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed this afternoon.’

Shane walked forward slowly until he was standing on the opposite side of the desk. ‘Hallo, Crowther,’ he said. ‘It’s been a long time.’

Crowther swivelled sharply in his chair and a look of incredulity appeared on his face. ‘By all that’s wonderful - Martin Shane. But this is impossible. You’re dead, man. You died seven years ago.’

Shane shook his head. ‘That’s what everybody keeps telling me. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m really here.’

Crowther sat gaping at him, the piece of flint still held between finger and thumb. ‘What have you got there?’ Shane asked.

‘An arrowhead one of my students found on a site we’re excavating, Neolithic, I think,’ Crowther replied automatically and then he laughed. ‘But what am I burbling about? Sit down, man! Sit down and tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself since the worst years of our lives? The last I saw of you, you were lying on a stretcher with your head split open. They told me you were dying.’

Shane pulled a chair forward and unbuttoned his coat and grinned. ‘They told you wrong. It was pretty bad, but I managed to pull through. It took years in hospital though.’ He reached for a cigarette. ‘What happened to you? I thought you were dead until I checked at the War Office a few days ago.’

Crowther took out a pipe and started to fill it from a leather pouch. ‘When they dug me out after the bombing I was pretty well unharmed. Wilby and Steele were both injured and the Chinese took them away in a field ambulance. I never saw them again.’

‘And what did they do with you?’ Shane asked.

Crowther shrugged. ‘Oh, the usual thing. I joined a column of prisoners and they sent us north. It was rather a long walk. With winter coming on, I can assure you it was anything but pleasant.’

Shane looked around the room and smiled faintly, ‘You seem to have done all right for yourself since. The porter told me you were Doctor Crowther now. When did that happen?’

Crowther shrugged. ‘A couple of years back. I did some research and it happened to come out right, that’s all.’ He grinned. ‘I’m married now, you know. Got a little girl. You must come out to dinner one night and meet my wife.’

‘I’d like that,’ Shane said. He got to his feet and walked to a glass case containing specimens. As he examined them he said, ‘Do you ever see any of the old bunch?’

Crowther shook his head. ‘I visited Charles Graham when I first came home. It was such a harrowing experience, I’ve never cared to repeat it.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Shane told him. ‘I called on him this morning. What about the other two? Do you ever see anything of them?’

‘Not socially, if that’s what you mean,’ Crowther said. ‘I met Reggie Steele in town one day and he asked me to have a drink with him, but I was in a hurry,’ He laughed. ‘To tell you the truth, I wasn’t particularly keen.’

‘Why not?’ Shane asked, suddenly alert.

Crowther shrugged. ‘It’s the old story. The man one knew in the army seems a different person out of it.’

Shane looked across at him strangely. ‘Doesn’t what happened out there mean anything to you at all?’

Crowther looked surprised. ‘Korea?’ he said. ‘It’s a fading memory, thank God.’

‘And what about the temple and Colonel Li?’

Crowther held another match to the bowl of his pipe. ‘It gave me some troubled nights at first, but not for long. It’s amazing how quickly nature helps us to forget the really unpleasant things.’

Shane shook his head and said with conviction, ‘I can never forget. At nights I think of Li and that damned club foot of his and of Simon Faulkner and what they did to him.’ He walked back to his chair and when he sat down, his eyes burned straight into Crowther’s. ‘Most of all I can’t forget that somebody told Li what he wanted to know.’ He smiled strangely. ‘We never did find out who that person was.’

For a moment Crowther stared at him, his face expressionless and then he laughed lightly. ‘No, we never did, did we?’

There was a further moment of silence, pregnant with meaning and Shane said, ‘I know it wasn’t me and it couldn’t have been Graham because he was lying unconscious in my cell at the time.’

Crowther laid his pipe carefully on the desk and leaned back in his chair. He said calmly, ‘Are you suggesting it was me, Shane? Is that what you’ve come to find out after all these years?’

Shane’s eyes bored into him. ‘Was it?’ he said.

There was a sudden, vibrant stillness in the room as the two men sat there, poised on the brink of something terrible and then Crowther laughed shortly and leaned down and unlaced his right shoe. He pulled off the sock and raised his foot so that Shane could see it clearly. There were no toes, just a puckered line of scar tissue. Crowther said, ‘Take a good look.’

Shane leaned across, his face expressionless. ‘How did it happen?’

Crowther started to pull on his sock. ‘On the march north in that prison column. I omitted to tell you they made us walk to China. It took us almost five months. It was a hard winter that year. Most of the men died. I was lucky. All I got was frostbitten toes. When gangrene set in, there was only one thing to do. I sliced them off with a jack-knife.’

He finished lacing his shoe and stood up. He was limping slightly as he came round the desk. ‘If it was me, it didn’t do me much good, did it?’ he said.

Shane stood up and held out his hand. ‘No, I don’t suppose it did - if it
was
you.’

He walked to the door and as he opened it, Crowther said, ‘For God’s sake, leave it alone, man. It’s dead and buried now. What good can it possibly do anybody to know now?’

Shane turned slowly, a peculiar smile on his face.

‘You’re the third person today who’s said that,’ he said. ‘I’m beginning to wonder why everybody’s so worried.’

Crowther’s shoulders sagged and something like despair seemed to appear in his eyes. For a moment longer they looked at each other and then Shane gently closed the door on that haggard face and went away.

6

J
OE
W
ILBY
lived in Gower Street, a row of crumbling terrace houses near the centre of town in a slum area that was due for demolition. Number fifteen looked as if it might fall down at any minute and the front door was boarded up.

Shane followed a side passage that brought him into a backyard littered with empty tins and refuse of every description. There was a light in the back window and he mounted four stone steps and knocked.

Footsteps approached and the door opened a few inches. A woman’s voice said, ‘Who is it?’

‘I’m looking for Joe Wilby,’ Shane said. ‘I’m an old friend of his.’

There was the rattle of a chain and the door opened. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said and walked back along the gloomy corridor.

Shane closed the door and followed. He wrinkled his nose at the stale smell compounded of cooking odours and urine and shivered in distaste. The woman opened a door, clicked on a light and led the way into a room at the far end of the corridor. It was reasonably clean and comfortable with a carpet on the floor and a double bed against the far wall.

She turned to face him, a large, heavily built woman, nearer forty than thirty and running dangerously to seed. She was still handsome in a bold, coarse sort of way and a sudden smile of interest appeared on her face.

‘I’m Joe’s wife - Bella,’ she said. ‘He’s not in at the moment. Is there anything
I
can do for you?’

There was an unmistakable invitation in her voice and he grinned. ‘My name’s Shane,’ he said. ‘Martin Shane. I was in Korea with your husband. I was just passing through town and I thought I’d look him up.’

‘Well, that’s nice,’ she said. ‘Joe never says much about his war service.’ She sat on the edge of the bed and smiled. ‘Give me a cigarette and come and sit down and tell me all about it.’

She patted the bed beside her and Shane obliged. The gaudy house-coat she was wearing, fell open when she crossed her knees revealing black stockings with white flesh bulging over their tops.

‘So you and my Joe were in Korea together?’ she said when her cigarette was lit. ‘That was a long time ago.’

Shane nodded. ‘I’ve been abroad for a good few years. Just got back to England last week.’

She reached over and squeezed his hand. ‘That’s a good enough excuse for a little drink, isn’t it?’ She crossed the room to a cupboard, took out a bottle of gin and two glasses and filled them. She came back to the bed, gave Shane one of the glasses and sat down. ‘Here’s how,’ she said and swallowed the gin.

Shane sipped a little of his and grinned. ‘Where is Joe this afternoon - working?’

She shook her head. ‘He works evenings as a barman at one of the clubs in town. He’s where he is every afternoon at this time. Swilling beer in the local boozer.’

Shane tried to sound sympathetic. ‘That must get pretty boring for you.’

She swayed towards him, her mouth slightly parted and placed a hand on his thigh. ‘You’ve no idea how boring it can be,’ she said softly.

The outside door crashed open and she moved away quickly as steps sounded in the corridor. As she stood up, the door opened and Wilby lurched into the room.

He was an ox of a man with arms that almost hung down to his knees. His face was sullen and bloated with whisky and he stood there swaying, a nasty gleam in his eye as he looked at them.

‘So this is what goes on when I’m out of the way.’

Bella moved towards him and said smoothly, ‘This is an old friend of yours, Joe. I’ve been entertaining him till you got back.’

He grabbed hold of her hair, wrenching back her head. ‘That’s a likely tale,’ he said and then Shane got to his feet and turned so that Wilby could see his face.

There was a moment of utter silence as Wilby’s jaw dropped and his face turned a sickly green colour. ‘Shane!’ he said stupidly. ‘Martin Shane!’

‘Yes, Joe, it’s me,’ Shane said.

For a moment longer Wilby stared at him and then he flung his wife through the open door and closed it. ‘I thought you were dead,’ he said slowly.

Shane shook his head gently. ‘You must have been thinking of someone else, Joe. Simon Faulkner maybe. Now he
is
dead, isn’t he?’

For a moment Wilby glared at him and then he lurched across to the bed, picked up the gin bottle and held it to his lips. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and said aggressively. ‘Yes, Faulkner’s dead. They shot him underneath my window. So what?’

Shane smiled gently. ‘I mean that Faulkner’s dead and you’re not,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t that suggest a certain possibility?’

Wilby’s eyes widened and he threw the bottle with a crash against the wall. ‘What the hell are you getting at?’ he roared. ‘What have you come here for? You always were a queer bastard.’ He turned and reached for the door handle. ‘Go on, get to hell out of here.’

Shane moved quickly. His hand fastened on to Wilby’s collar and he pulled the big man backwards and sent him crashing across the room.

Wilby came up from the floor with a rush, his great hands reaching out. Shane waited until he was close and then stepped to one side and hit him in the stomach with all his force. Wilby gave a great sigh and, slowly crumpling at the knees, fell across the bed.

Shane leaned against the mantelpiece and waited. It was several minutes before Wilby sat up, groaning and rubbing his belly and when he looked up there was fear and hatred in his eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded. ‘What have you come back for?’

Shane hauled him to his feet. His face was grim and there was iron in his voice. ‘I’m looking for the rat who spilled his guts to Colonel Li.’

Sudden fear clouded Wilby’s eyes and his jaw went slack. He twisted his head desperately from side to side.

‘It wasn’t me, Shane,’ he said eagerly. ‘I kept my mouth shut.’

Shane pulled him close, his eyes boring into the beer-sodden face and Wilby seemed to go completely to pieces. ‘You’ve got to believe me,’ he screamed. ‘It wasn’t me.’

For a moment longer Shane held him and then he sent him staggering across the room so that he fell across the bed. Wilby lay there sobbing and Shane walked to the door. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet,’ he said ominously. ‘I’ve got someone else to see and then maybe I’ll be back.’

He closed the door behind him and turned to find Bella Wilby standing in the darkness of the corridor. ‘What the hell’s been going on in there?’ she demanded. ‘I thought you said you and Joe were friends?’

He grinned. ‘Why ask me? You were listening at the door, weren’t you?’ She started to move out of his way with an outraged gasp and he caught hold of her arm and pulled her close. ‘Tell him I’m at the Embassy Hotel if he’s got anything to say to me.’ He left her standing there in the darkness and walked along the corridor and let himself out.

It was still raining and the fog was thicker than ever. He walked quickly towards the centre of the town, thinking about the events of the day. The girl, Graham and Adam Crowther - no link between them and yet they all wanted him to give this thing up. And Wilby was frightened. Really frightened. Was it guilt or was he afraid of something else?

He tried hard, but the dull ache was beginning again, just behind his forehead and he started to walk towards his hotel as the pain began to get worse. The fog swirled around him and somehow he was completely alone and fear moved inside him. The world was a spinning, nebulous illusion with nothing real in it and he lurched across the street in a panic.

As he was about to step on to the opposite pavement, Laura Faulkner walked past him, the Dobermann at her heels. The sight of her was so totally unexpected that he drew back in alarm and she disappeared into the fog. For a moment he remained there and then a car swirled past him, dangerously close, bringing him back to reality. He stepped on to the pavement and hurried after her.

He turned the corner at the end of the street in time to see her climb some steps and enter a door. A lighted glass sign said
Hotel
and he stood at the bottom of the steps, hesitating for a moment, before slowly mounting them and following her inside.

There was a tiny entrance hall and a small reception desk behind which an old man in horn-rimmed spectacles sat reading a newspaper. On the other side of the hall was a door leading to the bar and he walked towards it.

The old man coughed gently. ‘Sorry, sir, I’m afraid the bar isn’t open until six.’

Shane moved over to the desk. ‘I was looking for the young lady who just came in,’ he said.

There was a puzzled frown on the old man’s face. ‘Young lady, sir?’

‘Yes, the young lady with the dog,’ Shane said impatiently. ‘I just saw her come in here.’

The old man put down his newspaper and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, sir. There must be some mistake. I’ve been sitting here for the past half-hour and you’re the first person to come through that door.’

Something cold seemed to touch Shane on the back of the neck and he said slowly, ‘But I saw her come in here. I was only a few seconds behind her.’

The old man shook his head and said stubbornly. ‘I’m sorry sir. You must be mistaken.’

As he started to pick up his newspaper again, Shane reached across the desk and grabbed hold of his coat, pulling him forward. ‘You’re lying!’ he snarled. ‘Laura Faulkner just came through that door. You must have seen her.’

There was fear in the old man’s eyes and he pulled himself free and backed away. ‘You’re crazy,’ he said. ‘If you don’t get out of here I’ll send for the police.’

Shane took a deep breath to steady himself and said evenly. ‘Look, we can soon prove this one way or the other. Have you got a telephone directory?’ The old man produced one from a shelf and pushed it across the desk. Shane quickly flipped through the pages until he found the address. ‘Can I use this?’ he said, pointing to the telephone on the desk.

‘I’ll have to get the number for you through the switchboard,’ the old man told him, still wary.

Shane gave him the number and waited impatiently while the old man pushed a line into one of the plugs on the switchboard and dialled the number. A moment later he turned and said, ‘You’re through now, sir.’

Shane lifted the receiver to his ear and listened to the ringing at the other end. Sweat trickled down his brow and he brushed it away in an agony of impatience and then there was a click and Laura Faulkner’s voice sounded, remote and cool. ‘Hallo, who is that?’

There was a moment of terrible silence as he struggled to speak and then he said, ‘Martin Shane here.’

He heard a sudden intake of breath and then her voice sounded in his ear, cool and impersonal again. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Shane?’

‘It was nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing important. I thought I saw you in town a moment ago and I was just ringing to check.’

She sounded puzzled. ‘But I haven’t been out of the house all day.’

When he answered her, the words almost choked him. ‘Sorry I bothered you. It was just a silly mistake.’ He dropped the receiver into its cradle and stumbling across the hall, lurched down the steps into the fog.

Something was happening to him that he couldn’t understand - something that caused the fear to rise inside him like a black tide that threatened to choke him. He was sure he had seen Laura Faulkner and yet at that moment she was four miles away in another part of the city. There had to be an explanation.

He started to walk rapidly through narrow back streets in the direction of his hotel. The pain in his head was becoming worse and as he turned from one street into another, he paused for a moment and leaned against a lamp-post feeling suddenly faint.

He heard a movement in the fog. He raised his head and listened and then the hair lifted on the back of his neck and he turned cold with fear. Slowly someone was coming towards him. Someone who dragged a club foot behind him that slithered horribly over the wet pavements as he advanced.

Shane started forward into the fog. ‘Who’s there?’ he shouted. The footsteps stopped and there was silence. For a moment he stood there, straining his eyes into the fog and then he turned and ran along the pavement as fast as his legs would carry him.

When he reached the corner at the end of the street, he paused and leaned against the wall sobbing for breath and then, quite close by and hidden by the fog, he heard the sound of the club foot again, sliding over the pavement towards him.

Complete panic took possession of him and he ran along the next street as though the hounds of hell were breathing down his neck. As he turned into the narrow side street leading to his hotel, the pain blossomed inside his head and he gave a cry of agony and staggered on.

He was aware of a figure looming out of the fog on his left and an outstretched foot that sent him crashing headlong to the pavement. He rolled, avoiding a kick aimed at his head and scrambled to his feet, a killing rage erupting inside him. This was something tangible, something he could fight.

He caught a glimpse of a hard, cruel face and cold eyes above the flattened nose of a prize-fighter and ducked as a fist grazed his cheek. He lifted his foot into his assailant’s stomach, and the man cried out in agony and doubled over.

He fell back against the wall and Shane grabbed hold of the front of his coat and smashed him against the brickwork. ‘Who sent you?’ he cried savagely.

The man was struggling for breath, eyes rolling horribly. ‘It was Wilby,’ he croaked. ‘Joe Wilby. He promised me a fiver if I worked you over.’

Shane gave him a push that sent him staggering headlong into the fog, and turned towards the hotel. Wilby could wait. There was something more important to attend to at the moment.

The stairs up to his room seemed to go on for ever, and for a moment he thought he wasn’t going to make it. As he opened the door, the pain was so bad that he thought his head was going to burst, and he rushed into the bathroom and grabbed for the bottle of pills. He crammed four into his mouth and swallowed some water.

He moved back into the room towards the bed. As he reached it, coloured lights started to explode in his head and a great pool of inky darkness moved in on him and he plunged into it.