Gordon Williams (10 page)

Karen shook her head.

“Don’t cry, Karen! Daddy’s here. He won’t hurt you.”

“What do you mean? What’s up with you, George?’

He turned on Louise.

“Can’t you stop being hysterical for a moment?”

“I’m not hysterical! Why did you run down the stairs? Who’s going to hurt Karen?”

Their little girl began to cry out loud. If ever he had fought any impulse in his life it was nothing compared to the effort of not smacking Louise across the face.

“I want you to phone the doctor,” he said, his hand on Karen’s shoulder, his face grimly composed, as though he was trying to will Louise to calm down.

“Why are you crying, Karen?” Louise asked.

“She doesn’t like all this bickering,” he said. “Louise, I want you to phone the doctor – now. Tell him we ran this guy down in the road, he may be injured internally. I’ll take Karen upstairs.”

He could not be sure that Karen wouldn’t have heard Niles’ name at the school. It was important she shouldn’t know who he was. He put his hand on Louise’s upper arm, pressing tight, speaking deliberately, hoping the seriousness would communicate itself.

“It’s urgent, Louise. That man may be bleeding to death inside. I don’t want any arguments. Come on, Karen.”

He took his daughter’s hand as they climbed the stairs.

“Now then, honey, you wash your face and brush your teeth, you’ll need plenty of sleep, we’ll be up late all through Christmas. I’ll go and plug in your electric blanket.”

When she turned on the water, too occupied with her unhappiness to argue with him, he slipped the big key out of the lock on the bathroom door. He closed the door and turned the key. Maybe she wouldn’t hear. If she did he could say he’d been playing a game. He went quickly and quietly down the stairs, avoiding the third step from the top, the one that cracked loudly when stepped on.

Niles was still. He went into the little hall, where the telephone stood on the window ledge. Louise was looking in the telephone directory for the Allsopps’ number.

“I’ve got to tell you something, Louise,” he began. Her face was hostile. “Please try to think of Karen before you indulge in any hysterics. It doesn’t matter what’s eating us, think of her.”

“What is it?”

“For God’s sake keep a grip on yourself. You know who that man is? I’m going to tell you, Louise. And if you even start to make a noise I’m going to slap you hard. Do you understand?”

She stared, a mixture of resentment and disbelief.

“That man is Henry Niles, the maniac. His name’s written inside his coat.”

“Niles? I don’t believe –”

“I meant it, I’ll give you such a smack, Louise! It’s Niles, all right. Now, listen, I’ve locked Karen in the bathroom, I don’t want her to know that. I’m going back up there. I don’t think he’ll move. You phone the doctor first and then phone the police. Tell Allsopp it’s Niles, the police are probably coming to look for Janice Hedden. If not – well, you phone them after you’ve spoken to the doctor. I’m going to put Karen in her room, I’ll lock her in. Everything will be all right as long as we keep control.”

She couldn’t believe it. For a moment she stared after him, then she picked up the directory. Her hands were trembling. She found the right page and began to dial. Twice she had to put the receiver down and start again.

“Hullo, Dando two-one-four.”

“Is that Mrs Allsopp? It’s Louise Magruder. Is your husband in?”

“Who’s calling – the line’s very bad, you’re very faint.”

“It’s Louise Magruder, from Trencher’s Farm. I must speak to Gregory.”

“Oh, hullo, Louise. Awful weather, isn’t it? I’m afraid Gregory’s
not here, he had to go to the Hedden place with Mrs Hedden, you heard what happened?”

“I was there. Look, Alice, I don’t know –”

“You’ll have to speak up, dear, you’ve gone very faint again.”

She couldn’t shout,
he
would hear. She made a speaking trumpet with her hands.

“Alice, we ran into a man on the road, with the car. It’s Niles.”

“What was that? You hit somebody?”

“Yes. Henry Niles. Do you understand? Niles, the murderer?”

“What, Henry Niles! Are you sure?”

“George says it’s him. Oh my God, I don’t know what to do. He’s lying on our couch. George says he might be hurt.”

“You poor dear! That’s terrible. You must phone the police at Compton Wakley. Gosh, they’re looking for him on the moor, it’s been on the wireless. Oh –”

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh God! I’ve just remembered, they can’t get through from Compton Wakley. Somebody phoned them about Janice Hedden. They phoned Gregory and said their cars couldn’t even get as far as Fourways Cross. You’re not alone, are you?”

“George is here. We don’t know what to do with him. Should we give him something – we’ve only got whisky and gin?”

“Now for goodness sake don’t worry. Listen, I’ll phone the Inn, Harry Ware can send somebody to the Heddens. They’re not on the phone, worse luck. I should phone the police anyway, if I were you, they may try to get through again, they’ve got snowploughs.”

“But what’ll we do about
him
? He’s just lying there on the couch, he may be dying or
anything.”

“Keep him warm and don’t let him move. I wouldn’t give him
anything to drink, he may have a haemorrhage or something. Look, we’d better ring off. I’ll phone the Inn and you phone the police. Gregory will try to get over as soon as he can.’

Louise dialled the operator.

“I want the police at Compton Wakley,” she said. “I can’t find the number. It’s very urgent.”

“Their line’s been busy,” said the male operator. “I’ll try them.”

She stood by the window-ledge, the receiver pressed hard against her ear, faint voices and crackling on the line. She heard footsteps in the sitting-room.

“George?”

There was no answer.

“George?”

“Connecting you now,” said the operator.

“GEORGE!”

“Just a minute, you’re not through yet.”

“GEORGE!”

The door handle turned. She seemed paralysed. Then George came into the hall.

“I thought it was
him
!”

“You’re through now,” said the operator. “Go ahead.”

“It’s the police.”

“I’ll take it,” he said. “You go up and get Karen into bed, here’s the key. Try not to let her know you’re locking the door. Hullo, is this the police? My name is Magruder, I live at Trencher’s Farm near Dando Monachorum – I know the line’s bad. Listen, I think we’ve got Henry Niles here. Henry Niles! Yes, that’s right. I’ll hold on. The number is Dando six nine four. Yeah, I heard you, I’ll hold on.”

He nodded for Louise to go upstairs.

“Hullo? Yes, that’s right, I’m sure it’s Niles, his name’s stitched inside his coat. My name is Magruder. Look, is it important? All right, M-A-G-R-U-D-E-R. George. We were driving home from Dando Monachorum – that’s right, Dando Monachorum – and we hit this guy on the road, I could hardly see for snow. So we brought him back to the house. Yes, that’s right, white shirt, brown coat, all right, jacket, grey trousers. Small sort of guy. No, I didn’t look that close at his eyes... We’ve phoned for the doctor, I think he’s in a state of shock or something. He was nearly frozen to death when we got him back here... so what do we do with him? Can’t you get over here? I’ve got a small daughter in the house. Don’t you have snowploughs or such things?”

He listened impatiently. You could never tell if the police believed you or not. It was very cold in the hall. Then the inspector spoke again.

“Well, I suppose so. He doesn’t
look
very dangerous.”

The inspector told him that the road from Compton Wakley to Fourways Cross was blocked and a snowplough might take all night to clear it.

“I’ll send some men walking,” the inspector said. “It’s eight miles or thereabouts, I don’t know how long it’ll take them in this kind of weather. Can you make sure he stays there with you?”

“Yeah, I suppose so. Look, Inspector, I’ve got a small daughter here, do you think I’m going to push off for a moonlight stroll or something... yeah, I know all about him. You may think this is funny, but when you people were thinking of hanging him back there I was one of twelve professors who signed a letter to
The London Times.
My wife’s English. I know all about him.”

“We’ll try to get through as quick as we can,” said the inspector.
“If anything happens – give me a ring.”

“Well, yeah, I can do that. What would you do, ask him to come to the phone? All right.”

He put down the phone and went into the sitting-room. Niles had not moved. His eyes seemed fixed on one spot on the ceiling. He had a pale, insignificant face and wispy hair. So that was Henry Niles – the monster! A small lump of nothing. Was that the creature whose very name had made parents tremble?

Ten years ago it was, when Niles had become a sort of symbolic figure of his time. He had been caught after he’d murdered two children in Salford, up North, and would have been no more than just another addition to the long list of grisly English murderers (whom, George always noted with surprise, the English regarded almost with affection, provided they were dead) had he not escaped after less than a year. The escape made him truly famous, or infamous – the distinction seemed to have lost importance – for he had been out of the asylum only three hours, during which time he had raped, strangled and mutilated a girl of six.

Brought to trial for this murder, Niles became less a man than a battleground over which the forces of ‘progress’ and ‘retribution’ fought another of their grimly impersonal campaigns. The public wanted him put to death. Psychiatrists were found who would say that Niles was, in fact, sane enough to be hung. Those who maintained that he was
still
a mental defective were unpopular. The way George had seen it, the English classed Niles with all the other ogres of the time. To them he was like the Nazis, a malignant excrescence to be quickly destroyed. For a time it had seemed that the counter-argument – that Niles would have been obliterated
by
the Nazis – was too sophisticated an exercise in abstract legalism.
But an English jury had once again found him not responsible for his actions.

To George this had been one of the most civilised public actions he had ever known. What had his own country to show in the way of parallels? The refined medieval horror of the Chessman case? The British had not hung Niles, for whom nobody could say a good word except that he was an incurable freak. He had loved Britain for that – it had even influenced his attitude to Louise, perhaps creating something of an inferiority complex on his part.

To look at the man now added nothing nor subtracted anything from those arguments fought so bitterly ten years before. On the couch he was just a funny little man with some kind of nose blockage that made him breathe noisily through his mouth.

How could you think of him as a symbol – or a monster – when you had taken a towel and dried his chilled feet with their curiously misshapen toes?

He sat in an armchair and looked at Niles. The sensation was a kind of electrifying anti-climax. Here he was, Henry Niles, a human agent of all the blind forces of evil that surrounded mankind. Words seemed to mean nothing. What you looked for was some sign.

Bafflingly, there was no sign.

So excited by Mrs. Allsopp’s phone call that he didn’t stop to think, Harry Ware hurried into the bar and spoke to the nearest men. The bar was crowded.

“Here, Niles is at Trencher’s Farm,” Harry Ware blurted out. “That American ran into him on the road, knocked him down. They want somebody to get over to the Heddens and fetch the doctor.”

Men who had been out in the cold and snow in search parties
looking for Janice Hedden pushed towards Harry Ware. Other villagers and farmers were still out searching. In that weather men needed a drink and a warm after an hour tramping through the snow.

“Henry Niles – in Dando?”

Men looked at each other in horror. Janice Hedden was missing and Henry Niles was in Dando.

“What about the girl?” somebody asked.

“They didn’t say.” Harry Ware looked from face to face. It was as if this was a night when anything could happen. Not since the war had so many Dando men left their homes at the same time. When they’d heard that the road was blocked and the police could not help, they’d formed into parties to comb the village and its surrounds for the missing girl. Something had happened in Dando and nobody would come from the outside to put it right.

“Chris Cawsey’s got his Land-Rover, he could get through to the Heddens,” said one of the farmers. “Somebody’ll need to take the doctor up there.”

“Doctor? It ain’t a doctor they’m need, not for that devil.”

Harry Ware looked round for Chris Cawsey. As far as he could remember Chris had been out most of the evening, with one search party or the other. He’d only recently come back to the Inn.

“Can you get up there in the Land-Rover, Chris?” he asked.

“Can always have a try,” said Cawsey. Harry Ware thought at the time there was something strange about Chris. He seemed to be trying to keep a straight face – as though he wanted to giggle. Still, there was no accounting for what happened to people in circumstances like this. Some men bought pints and talked excitedly. Some went out, to pass the news round the search parties.

When he got behind the wheel of the Land-Rover, Chris Cawsey was making little chirping noises to himself. He’d had some real fun that night, not half he hadn’t. And maybe there would be more.

As he drove off through the village other men began walking up the long, dark road to Trencher’s Farm.

Dando was on its own. The outside world couldn’t help. And it couldn’t interfere.

“I don’t like sitting here – with him,” Louise said. “Couldn’t we move somewhere else?”

George looked at Niles. With the
Esse
stove turned up the sittingroom had become very warm. He thought Niles’ eyelids were beginning to drop.

“I think he’s going to sleep,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of moving him, we don’t know what might have been injured –”