In the Frame (24 page)

There was also the problem of not struggling too visibly. If Wexford or Greene saw me threshing about, all my histrionics would have been in vain.

As much by luck as trying I found the sea shoving me into a wedge-shaped crevice between the rocks, from where I was unable to see the shore. I clutched for a hand-hold, and then with bent knees found a good foothold, and clung there precariously while the sea tried to drag me out again. Every time the wave rolled in it tended to float my foot out of the niche it was lodged in, and every time it receded it tried to suck me with it, with a syphonic action. I clung, and see-sawed in the chest-high water, and clung, and see-sawed, and grew progressively more exhausted.

I could hear nothing except the waves on the rocks. I wondered forlornly how long Wexford and Greene would stay there, staring out to sea for signs of life. I didn’t dare to look, in case they spotted my moving head.

The water was cold, and the grazes gradually stopped bleeding, including the useful gash on my forearm. Absolutely nothing, I thought, like having a young strong healthy body. Absolutely nothing like having a young strong healthy body on dry land with a paintbrush in one hand and a beer in the other, with the nice friendly airliners thundering overhead and no money to pay the gas.

Fatigue, in the end, made me look. It was either that
or cling like a limpet until I literally fell off nervelessly, too weak to struggle back to life.

To look, I had to leave go. I tried to find other holds, but they weren’t as good. The first out-going wave took me with it in no uncertain terms; and its incoming fellow threw me back.

In the tumbling interval I caught a glimpse of the shore.

The road, the cliffs, the quarry, as before. Also the car. Also people.

Bloody damn, I thought.

My hand scrambled for its former hold. My fingers were cramped, bleeding again, and cold. Oh Christ, I thought. How much longer.

It was a measure of my tiredness that it took the space of three in and out waves for me to realise that it wasn’t Wexford’s car, and it wasn’t Wexford standing on the road.

If it wasn’t Wexford, it didn’t matter who it was.

I let go again of the hand-hold and tried to ride the wave as far out of the crevice as possible, and to swim away from the return force flinging me back. All the other rocks were still there under the surface. A few yards was a heck of a long way.

I stood up gingerly, feeling for my footing more carefully than on the outward flight, and took a longer look at the road.

A grey-white car. A couple beside it, standing close, the man with his arms round the girl.

A nice quiet spot for it, I thought sardonically. I hoped they would drive me somewhere dry.

They moved apart and stared out to sea.

I stared back.

For an instant it seemed impossible. Then they started waving their arms furiously and ran towards the water; and it was Sarah and Jik.

Throwing off his jacket, Jik ploughed into the waves with enthusiasm, and came to a smart halt as the realities of the situation scraped his legs. All the same, he came on after a pause towards me, taking care.

I made my slow way back. Even without haste driving like a fury, any passage through those wave-swept rocks was ruin to the epidermis. By the time we met we were both streaked with red.

We looked at each other’s blood. Jik said ‘Jesus’ and I said ‘Christ’, and it occurred to me that maybe the Almighty would think we had been calling for His help a bit too often.

Jik put his arm round my waist and I held on to his shoulders, and together we stumbled slowly to land. We fell now and then. Got up gasping. Reclutched, and went on.

He let go when we reached the road. I sat down on the edge of it with my feet pointing out to sea, and positively drooped.

‘Todd,’ Sarah said anxiously. She came nearer. ‘
Todd
.’ Her voice was incredulous. ‘Are you
laughing
?’

‘Sure.’ I looked up at her, grinning. ‘Whyever not?’

Jik’s shirt was torn, and mine was in tatters. We took them off and used them to mop up the grazes which were still persistently oozing. From the expression on Sarah’s face, we must have looked crazy.

‘What a damn silly place to bathe,’ Jik said.

‘Free back-scratchers,’ I said.

He glanced round behind me. ‘Your Alice Springs dressing has come off.’

‘How’re the stitches?’

‘Intact.’

‘Bully for them.’

‘You’ll both get pneumonia, sitting there,’ Sarah said.

I took off the remnants of sling. All in all, I thought, it had served me pretty well. The adhesive rib-supporting cummerbund was still more or less in place, but had mostly come unstuck through too much immersion. I pulled that off also. That only left the plasters on my leg, and they too, I found, had floated off in the mêtée. The trousers I’d worn over them had windows everywhere.

‘Quite a dust-up,’ Jik observed, pouring water out of his shoes and shivering.

‘We need a telephone,’ I said, doing the same.

‘Give me strength,’ Sarah said. ‘What you need is hot baths, warm clothes, and half a dozen psychiatrists.’

‘How did you get here?’ I asked.

‘How come you aren’t dead?’ Jik said.

‘You first.’

‘I came out of the shop where I’d bought the shampoo,’ Sarah said, ‘and I saw Greene drive past. I nearly died on the spot. I just stood still, hoping he wouldn’t look my way, and he didn’t… The car turned to the left just past where I was… and I could see there were two other people in the back… and I went back to our car and told Jik.’

‘We thought it damn lucky he hadn’t spotted her,’ Jik said, dabbing at persistent scarlet trickles. ‘We went back to the hotel, and you weren’t there, so we asked the girl at the desk if you’d left a message, and she said you’d gone off in a car with some friends… With a man with a droopy moustache.’

‘Friends!’ Sarah said.

‘Anyway,’ Jik continued, ‘Choking down our rage, sorrow, indignation and what not, we thought we’d better look for your body.’

‘Jik!’ Sarah protested.

He grinned. ‘And who was crying?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Sarah hadn’t seen any sign of you in Greene’s car but we thought you might be imitating a sack of potatoes in the boot or something, so we got out the road map, applied our feet to the accelerator, and set off in pursuit. Turned left where Greene had gone, and found ourselves climbing a ruddy mountain.’

I surveyed our extensive grazes and scratches. ‘I think we’d better get some disinfectant,’ I said.

‘We could bath in it.’

‘Good idea.’

I could hear his teeth chattering even above the din of my own.

‘Let’s get out of this wind,’ I said. ‘And bleed in the car.’

We crawled stiffly into the seats. Sarah said it was lucky the upholstery was plastic. Jik automatically took his place behind the wheel.

‘We drove for miles,’ he said. ‘Growing, I may say, a little frantic. Over the top of the mountain and down this side. At the bottom of the hill the road swings round to the left and we could see from the map that it follows the coastline round a whole lot of bays and eventually ends up right back in Wellington.’

He started the car, turned it, and rolled gently ahead. Naked to the waist, wet from there down, and still with beads of blood forming and overflowing, he looked an unorthodox chauffeur. The beard, above, was undaunted.

‘We went that way,’ Sarah said. ‘There was nothing but miles of craggy rocks and sea.’

‘I’ll paint those rocks,’ Jik said.

Sarah glanced at his face, and then at me. She’d heard the fervour in that statement of intent. The golden time was almost over.

‘After a bit we turned back,’ Jik said. ‘There was this bit of road saying “no through road”, so we came down it. No you, of course. We stopped here on this spot and
Sarah got out of the car and started bawling her eyes out.’

‘You weren’t exactly cheering yourself,’ she said.

‘Huh,’ he smiled. ‘Anyway, I kicked a few stones about, wondering what to do next, and there were those cartridges.’

‘Those what?’

‘On the edge of the road. All close together. Maybe dropped out of one of those spider-ejection revolvers, or something like that.’

‘When we saw them,’ Sarah said, ‘we thought…’

‘It could have been anyone popping off at seabirds,’ I said. ‘And I think we might go back and pick them up.’

‘Are you serious?’ Jik said.

‘Yeah.’

We stopped, turned again, and retraced our tyre-treads.

‘No one shoots sea-birds with a revolver,’ he said. ‘But bloody awful painters of slow horses, that’s different.’

The quarry came in sight again. Jik drew up and stopped, and Sarah, hopping out quickly, told us to stay where we were, she would fetch the bullet cases.

‘They really did shoot at you?’ Jik said.

‘Greene. He missed.’

‘Inefficient.’ He shifted in his seat, wincing. ‘They must have gone back over the hill while we were looking for you round the bays.’ He glanced at Sarah as she searched along the side of the road. ‘Did they take the list?’

‘I threw it in the sea.’ I smiled lopsidedly. ‘It seemed too tame just to hand it over… and it made a handy diversion. They salvaged enough to see that they’d got what they wanted.’

‘It must all have been a bugger.’

‘Hilarious.’

Sarah found the cases, picked them up, and came running back. ‘Here they are… I’ll put them in my
handbag.’ She slid into the passenger seat. ‘What now?’

‘Telephone,’ I said.

‘Like that?’ She looked me over. ‘Have you any idea…’ She stopped. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I’ll buy you each a shirt at the first shop we come to.’ She swallowed. ‘And don’t say what if it’s a grocery.’

‘What if it’s a grocery?’ Jik said.

We set off again, and at the intersection turned left to go back over the hill, because it was about a quarter of the distance.

Near the top there was a large village with the sort of store which sold everything from hammers to hairpins. Also groceries. Also, upon enquiry, shirts. Sarah made a face at Jik and vanished inside.

I pulled on the resulting navy tee-shirt and made wobbly tracks for the telephone, clutching Sarah’s purse.

‘Operator… which hotels have a telex?’

She told me three. One was the Townhouse. I thanked her and rang off.

I called the Townhouse. Remembered, with an effort, that my name was Peel.

‘But, Mr Peel…’ said the girl, sounding bewildered. ‘Your friend… the one with the moustache, not the one with the beard… He paid your account not half an hour ago and collected all your things… Yes, I suppose it is irregular, but he brought your note, asking us to let him have your room key… I’m sorry but I didn’t know you hadn’t written it… Yes, he took all your things, the room’s being cleaned at this minute…’

‘Look,’ I said, ‘Can you send a telex for me? Put it on my friend Mr… er… Andrew’s bill.’

She said she would. I dictated the message. She repeated it, and said she would send it at once.

‘I’ll call again soon for the reply,’ I said.

Sarah had bought jeans for us, and dry socks. Jik drove
out of the village to a more modest spot, and we put them on: hardly the world’s best fit, but they hid the damage.

‘Where now?’ he said. ‘Intensive Care Unit?’

‘Back to the telephone.’

‘Jesus God Almighty.’

He drove back and I called the Townhouse. The girl said she’d received an answer, and read it out. ‘Telephone at once, reverse charges,’ she said, ‘And there’s a number…’ She read it out, twice. I repeated it. ‘That’s right.’

I thanked her.

‘No sweat,’ she said. ‘Sorry about your things.’

I called the international exchange and gave them the number. It had a priority rating, they said. The call would be through in ten minutes. They would ring back.

The telephone was on the wall of a booth inside the general store. There was nothing to sit on. I wished to God there was.

The ten minutes dragged slowly by. Nine and a half, to be exact.

The bell rang, and I picked up the receiver.

‘Your call to England…’

The modern miracle. Half-way round the world, and I was talking to Inspector Frost as if he were in the next room. Eleven-thirty in the morning at Wellington: eleven-thirty at night in Shropshire.

‘Your letter arrived today, sir,’ he said. ‘And action has already been started.’

‘Stop calling me sir. I’m used to Todd.’

‘All right. Well, we telexed Melbourne to alert them and we’ve started checking on all the people on the England list. The results are already incredible. All the crossed-out names we’ve checked so far have been the victims of break-ins. We’re alerting the police in all the other countries concerned. The only thing is, we see the list you sent us is a photo-copy. Do you have the original?’

‘No… Most of it got destroyed. Does it matter?’

‘Not really. Can you tell us how it came into your possession?’

‘Er… I think we’d better say it just did.’

A dry laugh travelled twelve thousand miles.

‘All right. Now what’s so urgent that you’re keeping me from my bed?’

‘Are you at home?’ I said contritely.

‘On duty, as it happens. Fire away.’

‘Two things… One is, I can save you time with the stock list numbers. But first…’ I told him about Wexford and Greene being in Wellington, and about them stealing my things. ‘They’ve got my passport and travellers’ cheques, and also my suitcase which contains painting equipment.’

‘I saw it at your cousin’s,’ he said.

‘That’s right. I think they may also have a page or two of the list…’

‘Say that again.’

I said it again. ‘Most of it got thrown into the sea, but I know Wexford regained at least one page. Well… I thought… they’d be going back to Melbourne, probably today, any minute really, and when they land there, there’s a good chance they’ll have at least some of those things with them…’

‘I can fix a Customs search,’ he said. ‘But why should they risk stealing . . ?’

‘They don’t know I know,’ I said. ‘I think they think I’m dead.’

‘Good God. Why?’