My Brother's Keeper (11 page)

He looked sheepish. "I did it myself, from listening to records an' all that."

"I'd like to see a copy."

"Aw, I don't bother to write much stuff down." He sniffed. "If it's any good you remember it anyway."

"Could you improvise on part of that?"

He shrugged noncommittally, and began again. This time he took only the first subject and began to carry it through a series of variations and modulations. He was soon so far away from C Major that I wondered how he was proposing ever to get back. Finally he set up a mock
fugato
, in which successive voices began to move him elegantly through the different keys. When he finally landed back in the tonic he grinned at me in triumph, ran through a flashing display of double octaves, and added a jaunty little coda. I noticed that his left hand, in spite of its less smooth movement, was perfectly agile and made the wildest jumps accurately.

"You're damned good," I said when he paused. For a few minutes I had forgotten that I was tied to an uncomfortable chair, a prisoner in a strange house with an unknown tomorrow. No denying it: Pudd'n was a better improviser than I ever was or ever would be.

He was flushed with pleasure. "Bit of all right, that, eh? It had me really goin' for a while with that fugue, but it came out not bad."

"Better than not bad. Look, if you want to try and earn an honest living, come and see me." (As I said that, it occurred to me that I wasn't going any place. See me where?) "You need some advanced training on use of the pedals, and that left hand could use some special exercises. But if you want to work at it, you could be doing this professionally in six months."

"Nah." He closed the piano lid. "I'm better off this way. Twelve years of do-re-mi practice was enough. I'm goin' to try an' learn to play that thing you did, though—just to prove I can."

He stood up. "I'll have to be off. Dixie will be up here in a minute. Take my advice, try an' act polite to 'im, even if he does come in 'ere an' start dancin' about like a bleedin' pet monkey. He gets nasty if you rub him up the wrong way—too fond of that bleedin' knife, it's goin' to finish him off one of these days."

He scratched his head. "Well, see you tomorrer. Don't get into no trouble."

I was left tied solidly in the chair, contemplating the pleasures of the evening ahead with Dancing Dixie as my companion. It was hard to work up any enthusiasm, even if I followed Pudd'n's advice and didn't get into no trouble. And I was getting awfully itchy to leave that chair.

Dixie had his own ideas of a pleasant evening. First he left me with the door locked for about two hours, sitting in the dark. I had plenty of time to try straightening in my chair and testing the strength of the wood. I could get about an inch of play there, far too little to do me any good, and after a while my legs and wrists were giving me hell and no amount of bending could bring my head close to them. All the knots were tied on the underside.

When Dixie finally rolled in and switched on the light, he was carrying a loaded tray of food, a flat half bottle of whiskey, and one glass.

"Still here, are you?" he said. "It's amazing how you don't get bored."

He poured himself a sizable Scotch, added water from a little jug, and sat down on the piano stool with the tray on his knee.

"What about me?" I said. "I'm absolutely starving."

Dixie stopped with the fork halfway to his mouth. "What yer talking about? Pudd'n fed you."

"No he didn't. He took me downstairs, but when we got there I was too sick to eat. I felt bad."

"Well, that's your bloody funeral, in'it?" Dixie ate the forkful of potato. "If you think you're getting any of this you'd better have another think."

I leaned back in the chair and let my head loll over to the left. "You saw the operations I've had," I said, my voice all weak and throaty. "I can't eat much at a time, but if I don't eat anything at all I get really bad. I'm not supposed to go more than three or four hours without food."

"That's your problem, then," said Dixie. "You had your chance with Pudd'n." He went on eating and drinking, but every half minute he would give me a worried and annoyed glance. I lay back, eyes half closed. I let my breathing become slowly more hoarse and labored. When he was finished he sat and fidgeted for a moment, then at last drained his glass and stood up. He left the room without speaking. I heard him going downstairs, while I strained at the chair again with the usual negative results.

He was back in five minutes with a glass of milk and a plate that held a big lump of cheddar and a thick slice of buttered fruitcake.

"Here." He put it down on my lap. "Now you can stop yer bloody grumbling."

I nodded my head towards my bound hands. "You'll have to feed me. I can't move."

"Like hell." His face turned red with anger. "I'm not your bloody wet nurse. Hold still." He took out his knife and held it carefully in his teeth, while he worked the knots on my right arm loose enough to move freely. "Now, you can work that the rest of the way for yourself. Don't try anything, though, or you'll wish you hadn't."

He stood about two feet away from the chair, holding the knife lightly. I could sense from the look in his eye that he wished I would give him a reason to use it on me. I carefully worked at the loosened bonds until I had my hand free, then forced down the milk and the food. It was an effort—Pudd'n had fed me more than I really needed—but at last I was done.

"Right," Dixie said. "Sit still. I'm going to tie you up again."

"Wait a minute." I fished in my shirt pocket and took out the pillbox. "I have to take two of these."

"Well, get on an' do it."

"I have to have water," I said. He had used the last of the little jug of water in his whiskey.

"Yer bloody moron." I thought for a moment he was going to hit me, then he pulled back. "Why didn't you tell me that before I went downstairs? I'm not your bloody slave."

He stood furious for a moment, then turned and walked out. I estimated that I had thirty clear seconds. I took three capsules out of the box and tugged them apart with my teeth, holding each one in my right hand. My plan had been to drop the powder from them into his drink, but his glass was way out of reach, over on the piano. All I could do was tip the contents of each capsule into the open bottle of whiskey, then stuff the empty containers in my pocket and give the bottle a quick shake with my thumb over the open top.

I was just finished when Dixie came back with a cup of water. He didn't even watch me take my pills, which was just as well—I'm not the world's expert on palming things. He seemed much more interested in his drink, and as I watched he poured about another inch into the glass.

"How about a drop of that for me?" I asked. I didn't want him looking too closely at what he was drinking.

"You must be kidding." He sat down in front of me and deliberately drank from the glass. "I wouldn't have given you any of that bloody lot if it wasn't for Scouse tellin' us to look after yer. He doesn't want you dead tomorrow—he has his own games to play."

As he spoke he was looking at my free right arm and touching the knife on the piano stool next to him. I realized he had deliberately left me untied, hoping I would give him an excuse to cut me. It was a bad few minutes. His face was flushed with drink but his eye still had a glassy, calculating look.

What did the drug do when it was combined with alcohol? I hoped it would be strongly sedative. Alcohol is a depressant, and the drug was supposed to damp brain activity. But what would I do if the mixture turned Dixie into a raving madman?

He finished the drink in his glass and glared at me with a fixed, cunning expression as he poured a refill. "Just you wait, you bleeder," he said suddenly. "Des was one of my best mates. I'll get you for 'im. You'll wish you'd never been born. Just you wait."

He stood up unsteadily and did a shuffling dance step over to the piano and back again. His coordination was badly off. He realized it and stood there frowning, staring at me again.

" 'Sgetting late. Better get you tied up again, an' relax." He picked up the knife and came closer. "Move wrong now, an' that'll be it. Put yer arm flat on the chair."

His eyes were blurry and blinking, but the knife was at my throat. He was still being cautious. He wound the rope one-handed around my wrist until it was too tight for me to move more than a couple of inches, and only then laid the knife aside to finish tying me.

"Not so tight," I said. "That's hurting."

He pulled viciously on the cord and made a final knot. Then he picked up the knife again and leaned close towards me. His eyes were only inches from mine, and his warm, whiskey-laden breath blew into my face.

"You'll know what hurtin' is soon." He brought the knife slowly up along my neck, drawing the tip steadily over my chin and cheek. I flinched as the point came higher, and squeezed my right eye tight shut. The sharp point was on my eyelid. I could feel the tremble in Dixie's hand transmitted through the steel to my eyeball. I sat motionless, my pulse throbbing in my throat.

Dixie moved the point horizontally along my eye, then at last drew back. "Just wait 'til Scouse has done with you. Then it'll be my turn." He straightened, and I took what felt like my first breath in minutes.

He lurched backwards to the stool, looked confusedly around him, and set off unsteadily for the door. He did not speak again as he went through, but I heard the key turn in the lock. Far gone as he might be, he remembered his orders. I waited a couple of minutes, then moved my head forward. If anything was to be done, now was the time for it. I couldn't wait too long—Pudd'n might come back. When Dixie was tying me again he must have already been feeling unsteady, and instead of tying the knots on the underside of the chair arm, as Pudd'n had been careful to do, he had taken the easier path of tying them on top, on the upper side of my wrist. And this time he had left the light on. I could get my teeth to work on them.

It seemed to take forever, gnawing and tugging at spit-covered, slippery rope until the knots began to loosen and slide open. My right hand took about ten minutes to free. Then I could work on the unseen knots below the left arm of the chair. I was impatient, and that slowed me down. It was another twenty minutes before I was able to stand up, free of the chair.

I took two slow steps towards the door, then stood shaking. For the first time in my life I had real sympathy for Hans Andersen's mermaid, the one who felt as though she was walking on sharp knives. My circulation was coming back, and at first I couldn't bear to walk. Finally I managed to stumble over to look at the door.

It was panelled, heavy oak with an embossed metal facing. The lock was massive, with a big, old-fashioned keyhole. I tried the handle for a moment, as quietly as I could, and confirmed that Dixie had locked it when he left. Unless someone would provide me with a fire axe, that wasn't a possible way out. I went to the window and pulled back the thick drapes.

I had guessed from the trip down to the kitchen that the music room window would be twelve to fifteen feet above the ground. It was more like twenty—I didn't know how the ground sloped near the house. The window opened easily enough, to leave me staring down into a dimly-seen patch of bushes and flowers.

Too far to drop? I poised myself on the sill, inched forward slowly, and wondered if my injured leg could take the strain. I leaned out farther, holding the wooden window frame tightly in my left hand.

Too high!
 

I had just decided that when the traitorous fingers of my left hand relaxed and I was falling outward into the darkness, to land heavily on a rose bush and a bed of spiky flowers.

Then it was up on my feet as fast as I could, hobble around to the front of the house, and pause there to decide how to manage the next step. A Fiat stood out by the front entrance. My wishful thinking of keys in the ignition vanished quickly—I couldn't even open a car door. But standing by the front of the house in a metal rack was an old bicycle. I was on it in a second and off down the long drive, my knees coming up almost to my chin. The bike was meant for somebody a foot shorter, but I wasn't going to wait to raise the saddle. The house stood midway on a long hill, and I went swooping down dangerously fast, hugging the curb.

A police station was the logical place to go, but I was past logic. All I wanted to do was find a safe place to hide. That was the instinct to keep me going until I found my way to the Underground (Osterley Station, out near the end of the Piccadilly Line), heading back to my flat. Then I realized that wasn't a safe place any more. Instead I checked into a hotel in Knightsbridge, signed my name as Jan Dussek, went up to my room, and unravelled.

Some might call it shock—delayed terror sounds more accurate. But when I woke up it was nearly ten-thirty in the morning, and there were energetic sounds of cleaning coming from the corridor. I sat up groggily and took stock.

One jacket covering a cut and tattered shirt. One pair of trousers, smeared with mud and oil from the bicycle chain. Muddy shoes. A wallet containing about a hundred and twenty pounds. And a box of pills. With those assets I carried a strong desire to stay away from my flat. So what next? Only one hope left.

The call to Tess didn't start out well. I hadn't called her last night, as she had suggested in her note. Why not? She had stayed in and waited. . . . Her voice didn't have the warmth in it that I wanted to hear.

Well, I said . . .

I talked for at least five minutes, with an increasingly perplexed silence at the other end of the line.

"But where's the house?" she asked, when I ran out of steam. I could hear the unspoken comment that went with it:
Can you prove what you're saying?
 

"Near Osterley Tube Station."

"You could find it again?"

"I think so. But I'm damned if I'm going to try. Tess, those lot are dangerous. If I go back there, I'll want a police escort. And I'm not sure they'll believe me—you know what Sir Westcott will say."